ai Division captains should have more discretion

[Tycondero]

Why do division captains not take evasive action on their own discretion when they come under a torpedo attack?

I have seen countless times that subordinate (division) captains mindlessly continue their path even if torpedoes are sighted. I can understand that they have to follow the orders set by the division's lead ship, but some sort of own discretion would be great if they come under torpedo attack. 

It is for example quite annoying that I manage to dodge some torpedoes with the lead ship only to see that the ship following gets torped.

Imo, in this game you are the admiral, not a captain. The priority of the captain is the well being of the ship, whereas the admiral's priority is to set out and complete tactical or strategic orders. Therefore the captains of all the ships in the game should always be able to temporarily act on their own discretion if an immediate danger to ship is detected. 

We already have collision avoidance, which is done on a ship to ship basis. Here the captain (AI) does take action. Also, if the lead ship of a division is hit severely it will also automatically swap places the ship next in line of the division. 

Would it be possible for the devs to perhaps add a bit more freedom to operate when a subordinate ship (maybe even lead/flag ship) comes under direct threat, such as during a torpedo attack. Just like with swapping places when the lead ship is too severely damaged, the ship that would conduct evasive manouvres would at the end fall back to the line formation. 

Just like in the Ultimate General series I feel that this micromanage avoidance fits the idea of a more tactical/strategic game well. At least I rather praise the Ultimate General series for offering a more tactical/strategic battle rather than a micromanage one as found in too many games anyway. I hope Ultimate Admiral can inherit these aspects as well.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Tycondero

[Shaftoe]

I completely agree. Ships attached to divisions should prioritize evasion over following the lead ship. It is only sensible.

[madham82]

Agreed! The AI has torpedo evasion (both enemy and friendly AI controlled). It should be enabled by default for all ships under player command. Also this could tie in with crew experience (when implemented) to give veteran crews higher chance to avoid versus a novice crew. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by madham82

[Tycondero]

33 minutes ago, madham82 said:

Agreed! The AI has torpedo evasion (both enemy and friendly AI controlled). It should be enabled by default for all ships under player command. Also this could tie in with crew experience (when implemented) to give veteran crews higher chance to avoid versus a novice crew. 

Agreed. Crew experience could tie in with the torpedo spotting distance (also impacted greatly by tech) and reaction time.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Tycondero

[Nick Thomadis]

Division ships a;ready evade torpedoes automatically. They should often evade successfully. Sometimes they will fail, according to their speed, direction etc.

Can you please recheck this more thoroughly?

[madham82]

56 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Division ships a;ready evade torpedoes automatically. They should often evade successfully. Sometimes they will fail, according to their speed, direction etc.

Can you please recheck this more thoroughly?

Nick are you saying it has been present in the game for a long time or was it recently added? I've not had a chance to play the last two updates yet. So can only comment on my previous experience

I know for a fact that in Alpha 5 I had player controlled DD divisions which spotted incoming torpedoes and failed to evade (at least in time to have any chance at all of avoiding them). The issue is worse when you manually order an evasion to the div. As the lead DD you order to turn, but the rest of the formation only turns when they reach the point the leader turned..smack right into the torpedo spread. 

When I brought up the issue, others mentioned if I put the div in AI control they would evade on their own. But then that defeats the purpose of commanding the div by the player in the first place. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by madham82

[o Barão]

Just now, madham82 said:

Nick are you saying it has been present in the game for a long time or was it recently added?

I know for a fact that in Alpha 5 I had player controlled DD divisions which spotted incoming torpedoes and failed to evade (at least in time to have any chance at all of avoiding them). The issue is worse when you manually order an evasion to the div. As the lead DD you order to turn, but the rest of the formation only turns when they reach the point the leader turned..smack right into the torpedo spread. 

When I brought up the issue, others mentioned if I put the div in AI control they would evade on their own. But then that defeats the purpose of commanding the div by the player in the first place. 

You are correct. Only AI divisions try to evade torpedoes and is not guarantee that will work all the time.

[Nick Thomadis]

Player divisions (all ships except division leader, which you control) should attempt to evade torpedoes. It is a feature for long time. So when it does not work, we need to know the reason.

[Shaftoe]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Division ships a;ready evade torpedoes automatically. They should often evade successfully. Sometimes they will fail, according to their speed, direction etc.

Can you please recheck this more thoroughly?

They keep running straight into detected torpedoes.

[o Barão]

13 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Player divisions (all ships except division leader, which you control) should attempt to evade torpedoes. It is a feature for long time. So when it does not work, we need to know the reason.

No that doens't happen in game.

https://imgur.com/UOxBNor

https://imgur.com/AJhN5Tq

[Cptbarney]

9 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

They keep running straight into detected torpedoes.

Yeah, i've noticed this as well. Ill try and replicate it myself. But it happened in custom battles.

[o Barão]

1 minute ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah, i've noticed this as well. Ill try and replicate it myself. But it happened in custom battles.

Also in academy missions. In fact it was been this situation all the time since i started to play the game. I really hope this could be fixed @Nick Thomadis

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, o Barão said:

Also in academy missions. In fact it was been this situation all the time since i started to play the game. I really hope this could be fixed @Nick Thomadis

Seems like its been here since alpha 1, or an old bug thats resurfaced somehow.

[madham82]

24 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Player divisions (all ships except division leader, which you control) should attempt to evade torpedoes. It is a feature for long time. So when it does not work, we need to know the reason.

Ok so definitely not working as designed. 

Also would it be possible to extend the logic to div leader? Otherwise players will have to keep a constant eye on div leaders to plot avoidance. Something that doesn't really jive with the mindset of admiral of the fleet player responsibility. If the player wants to override it, let any directional command (rudder or click on map) force the auto avoidance off. 

[Nick Thomadis]

Their evasion is less sharp. They try to reduce speed. But it is not enough, we will see to improve.

[Shaftoe]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Their evasion is less sharp. They try to reduce speed. But it is not enough, we will see to improve.

In this case, "less sharp" practically means no evasion at all. So if you do improve it, make sure to improve it considerably.

And even better - allow players to quickly give directions to individual ships within a division in order to properly manage their evasion.

[Tycondero]

13 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Player divisions (all ships except division leader, which you control) should attempt to evade torpedoes. It is a feature for long time. So when it does not work, we need to know the reason.

To be honest. I have never seen (also not in alpha 7) non AI controlled divisions even attempting to evade torpedoes. The enemy AI surely does, but lead and the division's subordinate ships do not do this at all. I am rather surprised this was even a feature that was supposed to be appearantly functional. Thus far I have seen no evidence that this feature works properly in contrast to for example collision avoidance, which is at least clearly attempted by individual ships.

Also about the reason why it doesn't work. The short answer would be that the feature is bugged as I see no functionality there that even resembles active evasion (unlike player intervention). However, if it works to some extent could it be that active player intervention for the lead ship does override any evasion attempts by the division's subordinate ships??

Edited June 16, 2020 by Tycondero

[Tycondero]

12 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Their evasion is less sharp. They try to reduce speed. But it is not enough, we will see to improve.

Reducing speed is not enough. High displacement ships will not stop fast enough to avoid getting hit. Ships should turn towards of away from torpedoes. Lowering speed is very very often not enough, we need active manouvre by the ships to evade a salvo of torpedoes. They can still be hit imo, but right now they do not even try to avoid or minimize damage if not under full AI control.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Tycondero

[Latur Husky]

Problem with divisions that I see at this moment is that there should be factor that determines how well ships in it will execute orders and maneuvuers. The way they work right now is ok, and they often make mistakes that happened in history (ships crashing into each other, loose formation, or execute wrong turn), but there should be some progression that let's player to have at least small impact on how coordinated your fleet will be so that player can rely more on larger groups later in the game. Right now, I personally don't use groups unles I have over 9 ships to control. 

[Tycondero]

1 hour ago, Latur Husky said:

Problem with divisions that I see at this moment is that there should be factor that determines how well ships in it will execute orders and maneuvuers. The way they work right now is ok, and they often make mistakes that happened in history (ships crashing into each other, loose formation, or execute wrong turn), but there should be some progression that let's player to have at least small impact on how coordinated your fleet will be so that player can rely more on larger groups later in the game. Right now, I personally don't use groups unles I have over 9 ships to control. 

Though I understand your point. The game is called Ultimate Admiral and not Ultimate Captain/Commander. I am not 100% versed in naval history on a tactical level, but I am pretty sure commanding admirals would not be micromanaging individual captains all the time, as in demanding a captain to go full port, flank speed etc, especially not if they were not on the same ship. That said, I understand your point about crew experience/skill completely and I fully agree we should have crew experience impact their skills to detect and react to torpedo attacks.

However I do not agree with the suggestion that it is fine now as is. There isn't any evasion happening at all when not under AI control even though the developers claim it should be a feature. If evasion does somewhat happen, it certainly doesn't help to avoid torpedoes at all right now. 

[madham82]

I got a feeling there are two or three bugs with the evasion logic.

1) Adjusting speed is the tactic being used which as stated isn't very effective.

2) Players manually steering the Div leader is preventing the rest of the div from evading

3) Ships aren't evading torpedoes they haven't actually spotted (i.e. another ship not in the Div spots a torpedo). This one might not be an issue. I have seen some examples that make question it, but the first two could be the real drivers. 

[Latur Husky]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:45 PM, Tycondero said:

Though I understand your point. The game is called Ultimate Admiral and not Ultimate Captain/Commander. I am not 100% versed in naval history on a tactical level, but I am pretty sure commanding admirals would not be micromanaging individual captains all the time, as in demanding a captain to go full port, flank speed etc, especially not if they were not on the same ship. That said, I understand your point about crew experience/skill completely and I fully agree we should have crew experience impact their skills to detect and react to torpedo attacks.

However I do not agree with the suggestion that it is fine now as is. There isn't any evasion happening at all when not under AI control even though the developers claim it should be a feature. If evasion does somewhat happen, it certainly doesn't help to avoid torpedoes at all right now. 

So why you complain if they make mistake? If you want to get job done right do it yourself xD Leave it to someone else and you might get unexpected results (like two 100k t battleships crashing with each other), or your ships getting killed by torpedoes.

I noticed that ships do evade torpedoes but don't expect Battleship to be able to evade anything unles torpedo is really poorly aimed. AI works pretty well with light cruisers and destroyers, heavy cruisers got some issues at times and battleships? forget about it, almost never happens on time xD