Some feedback!

[The Land]

Hello! Loving the alpha so far!

A few pieces of feedback:

Is it possible to display the tech year in the ship builder? Currently I'm not very clear on how the tech available is responding to the year.

In the ship builder, it seems possible to build ships that are much too fast. I have just had an engagement using a 36-knot Battlecruiser with 6x12in and 10x6in guns on a 22,000 ton displacement. A 25-knot Pre-dreadnought using Pre-Dreadnought tech was also possible. The idea of a 36kn battlecruiser is unrealistic on 22,000 tons (probably possible with really powerful engines but many other sacrifices) and a 25-knot Pre-Dreadnought is pretty much ludicrous. Both skimped only a little on their armour. Don't forget that for a given hull form, the following ratio holds true: power/displacement = speed squared / length (at high speeds third and fourth power terms can become important as well).  Maybe make the engine horsepower figure visible?

Also in the ship builder, I do not follow the rationale for gun accuracy. In my most recent build I noticed that 12-in main guns appeared to have optimum accuracy compared to  other main guns (both lighter and heavier) and 6-in guns compared to other secondary guns. So they became obvious choices for my battlecruiser to engage an inferior fleet (the defended convoy scenario) I am not aware of any historical evidence for this (after reading extensively on the subject).

The time-limited scenarios are somewhat frustrating. I believe that in part this is because of the nature of long-range spotting, not just the time limits themselves. "Enemy smoke is observed in the South East" - well, fine, but I could have done with that message BEFORE I assumed the remaining transport was headed North on the other side of the one remaining cruiser.  Why did my ship only notice that when the target was further away? 

 

 

[The Land]

Another thought: 

Can we have the chance to rename other ships in our fleet, rather than the second and subsequent ships having automatic names?

[The Land]

Regarding speed, I've looked at this in a bit more detail.

I notice the engine power is actually available on the ship builder, which is great. Even better it seems to scale appropriately in a higher-than-second-power relationship with speed.

However, I wonder if there are other effects that are missing from the model, which explain why it seems to be easy to make ships that are 'too fast'. 

It strikes me that the volume of boilers and engine rooms may not be modelled. A ship with a large engine tonnage will need a lot of space to put the engines in the hull. This in turn extends the length of the armoured belt and competes for underwater space with the ammunition stores and barbettes. The situation is even worse for coal-fired ships where additional horsepower requires additional stokers and accomodation (though their quarters need not be in the armoured citadel). 

To my mind, each hull type should have a maximum displacement limit on engine rooms etc and this limit should be lower for hull forms which are more 'solid' and/or have more centreline guns. 

[coalminer]

On 1/29/2021 at 4:32 AM, The Land said:

To my mind, each hull type should have a maximum displacement limit on engine rooms etc and this limit should be lower for hull forms which are more 'solid' and/or have more centreline guns. 

Another idea similarly requested is for the manual placement of engine/machinery spaces. If i want to use my boilers and gears as torpedo protection and additional belt armour i should be allowed to! (jk, machinery spaces tend to sit lower than the water line). But this opens up so many new possibilities in design and playthroughs (especially campaign).

i would imagine starting with coal and steam engines having efficiencies of 0.xx for both to demonstrate the low tech levels. this would mean higher speeds are much harder to attain on early war designs. then as the game progresses, engine and gearing are part of the tech tree with inherent differences between them such as:

1. turbines being much more efficient but costing more in fitting and maintenance as well as more susceptible to damage
2. diesels offering longer range and efficiency especially in acceleration (making steam is not required).
3. continued research into VTE/steam cylinder techs that marries both benefits (simple efficiency increase)
4. Super late war tech could probably also include nuclear, but thats just if the game time frame goes that far. (probably OP but super BBs are in the game as well...maybe critical hits would instantly rip the ship apart or cause substantial crew losses?)

Gearing would be a little more complex since alot of the naming conventions would have to be made up (most gearing systems would be similar i assume? being just reduction gear boxes). but a few ideas thrown here would be:

1. Baseline gearbox upgrades would simply be efficiency upgrades until a certain point where the size of the gearbox reduces offering weight and size savings in the hull. For greater complexity perhaps a maximum input torque can be added to limit ship sizes so players cant simply ignore gear upgrades for pure HP/KW gains from prime mover upgrades. Exceeding the limits of the gearbox would result in higher chances of failure/damage and maintenance costs.
2. Integrated propulsion units will come as a "sidegrade" to researched engine tech. The below example uses steam turbines (replace the wording with other propulsion units for the other tech trees). An integrated Steam Turbine 1 would perform worst than its direct counter part of a steam turbine 1 paired with gearbox 1, what the integrated unit offers however would be substantial size savings which would be crucial for smaller vessels (DDs, CLs, etc.). The upgraded integrated drives would then offer a slight increase in efficiency and perhaps reduction in size/weight.

But all this would require machinery spaces (and by extension ammo spaces) to become a core mechanic of the game in the first place

Edited February 1, 2021 by coalminer