Let's talk about Officers

[SiWi]

Hi,

 

given that the 2nd core patch, which is suppose to come this year and after it 2 more patches, shall feature "officers and crews" and think it would be nice to have a little chat about what "we" want and don't want and what we are hoping for.

 

I personally hope that we get some RPG elements for our officers. Now now I do see a potential issue, as that if we look at fleets with 100+ DD alone then Management of Officer skills could be very annoying. Now one potential way to avoid some of that would be to say that the numbers of officers is connected with ship "size" (read as "class") aka that a DD only would get "1 officer" (in the sense as skill-able) while a light cruiser gets 2 a heavy cruiser 3 and so on.

Now in the example that still would mean hundreds of officers to control, but it would limit it a bit.

Another way would be that only admirals would get skill trees (thou the announcement somewhat contradicts this since it says "officers" not admirals). Or maybe that Admirals have skill trees and officers have perks, but don't level or only level that one perk.

 

Another topic I would like to discuss is "what kind of "skills"" you want?

Should it be "active" skill? "Faster reload" for 20 seconds? Or do you want passive buffs "reload +5%"? Or a mixed?

I have a feeling that many would object to active skills, because it would feel gameny, but lets see.

I think a classic Approach would be to have 3 skill trees, not to unsimilar how TW does it:

one for firepower, where better reload, faster aiming time, faster identification ect. are in

one for Defence/Speed, with less cooldown for smokescreens, better damage control, less change to detonate ammo ect.

one for campaign issues, less upkeep, better movement (on campaign), maybe better chances for certain mission types or prebattle identification.

Personally I would like to see mostly passive skill with a couple of active skills sprinkle in.

I also would like to see skills which can alter how you use a fleet, depending who commands it. With that I mean things like "better nightvision" or "mine avioder" things that give you different options, because you have that admiral/officer for that fleet.

But enough of me, what do you guys think about "officers"?

 

 

 

[Commander Reed]

If they're lazy, they'll just use the Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail system and port it over to this game, if they're not, they'll do something like this I imagine. Would love to see it.

I'd love to be able to assign the most important people on a ship, such as the Captain (Obviously), the First Officer, maybe a Second Officer, Chief Engineer, ect. I just feel like It'd give ships a lot more character, I'd be able to associate with them a lot more. 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Commander Reed

[madham82]

4 minutes ago, Commander Reed said:

If they're lazy, they'll just use the Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail system and port it over to this game, if they're not, they'll do something like this I imagine. Would love to see it.

I'd love to be able to assign the most important people on a ship, such as the Captain (Obviously), the First Officer, maybe a Second Officer, Chief Engineer, ect. I just feel like It'd give ships a lot more character, I'd be able to associate with them a lot more. 

How is it handled in UA:AoS?

 

Personally, there is no need to simulate officers down to the ship level. You could keep it much simpler and easier to manage by only having a flagship commander. After all, each engagement will be with one fleet vs. another. You could then add more complexity and gameplay dynamics than would likely be feasible at a individual ship level. 

[Commander Reed]

6 minutes ago, madham82 said:

How is it handled in UA:AoS?

 

Personally, there is no need to simulate officers down to the ship level. You could keep it much simpler and easier to manage by only having a flagship commander. After all, each engagement will be with one fleet vs. another. You could then add more complexity and gameplay dynamics than would likely be feasible at a individual ship level. 

Each ship has slots for officers, each of them have stats and are usually better the higher their rank is, on the big ships you have 6 officer slots, on the smaller, 3-2. 
The more officers, the better your ship is going to perform. But you also need a crew of optimum amount, as well.

[AurumCorvus]

Personnel-based active skills in strategy generally feel immersion breaking to me, especially those that edit stats for a short period. What, did the officer just run around personally injecting adrenaline into every single person on the ship?

I'd be really happy with passive effects, but making them actually unique and involving tradeoffs. For example, speed but at high maintenance costs and frequent refits on the campaign level. Or higher RoF at the cost of higher flash fire chance.

Basically, focus on passives, but make it more unique than AoS's generic positive %modifiers (though I wouldn't mind all-positives being lesser, safer choices)

[SiWi]

1 hour ago, AurumCorvus said:

Personnel-based active skills in strategy generally feel immersion breaking to me, especially those that edit stats for a short period. What, did the officer just run around personally injecting adrenaline into every single person on the ship?

I'd be really happy with passive effects, but making them actually unique and involving tradeoffs. For example, speed but at high maintenance costs and frequent refits on the campaign level. Or higher RoF at the cost of higher flash fire chance.

Basically, focus on passives, but make it more unique than AoS's generic positive %modifiers (though I wouldn't mind all-positives being lesser, safer choices)

He pick the radio up and gave them a pepp talk? Or did something himself (like Napoleon supposedly aim the cannon himself in 2 battles)

Anyway.

 

I do like the idea of trade-offs, especially the example fits very well. Thou I would put those in the "higher" skill tree, while the more straightforward aka only positive skills would be the lower ones.

[SiWi]

1 hour ago, Commander Reed said:

If they're lazy, they'll just use the Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail system and port it over to this game, if they're not, they'll do something like this I imagine. Would love to see it.

I'd love to be able to assign the most important people on a ship, such as the Captain (Obviously), the First Officer, maybe a Second Officer, Chief Engineer, ect. I just feel like It'd give ships a lot more character, I'd be able to associate with them a lot more. 

the thing is that I think that they "can't" do that because in Age of Sail those are also the commanding officers if you disembark your crew on land. Which I don't think will be a thing in Dreadnought.

I do think that the officers you named are likely but I do think it could be over kill to do that to every DD or even Torpedoboat...

[Commander Reed]

1 minute ago, SiWi said:

the thing is that I think that they "can't" do that because in Age of Sail those are also the commanding officers if you disembark your crew on land. Which I don't think will be a thing in Dreadnought.

I do think that the officers you named are likely but I do think it could be over kill to do that to every DD or even Torpedoboat...

I wasn't referring to the Land, exclusively the Sea section. Both sections have officers, but I'm only referring to the Ship Officers, not the Land Officers. 

Smaller ships don't need to have many officers, it could be restricted to just the Captain and maybe the XO, but the bigger ships could allow for more slots, such as Chief Engineer, ect. 

[SiWi]

1 hour ago, Commander Reed said:

I wasn't referring to the Land, exclusively the Sea section. Both sections have officers, but I'm only referring to the Ship Officers, not the Land Officers. 

Smaller ships don't need to have many officers, it could be restricted to just the Captain and maybe the XO, but the bigger ships could allow for more slots, such as Chief Engineer, ect. 

I know but what I mean was that the game was that way because it has also the land section/the ability to use ship crews on land.

So as I suggested in the OP? DD 1 CL 2 CA 3 ect?

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Commander Reed]

15 minutes ago, SiWi said:

So as I suggested in the OP? DD 1 CL 2 CA 3 ect?

I guess so, if you're going off that system, BC have 4, and then the Battleships have a whopping 5 total officers able to be assigned.

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

Something I've personally thought about is linking officers with ship divisions or fleets (but not quite like the divisions we have in battles).

For example, let's say you form a task force/division in the campaign that comprises 1 battleship, 2 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers and 5 destroyers (this is of course assuming we will be able to do that).
1 overall commander and 1 XO for the entire task force/division (operates from the flagship, which would be designated by the player or automatically default to the largest ship)
1 commander and 1 XO for all cruisers (operates from a player designated cruiser or the largest cruiser)
1 commander and 1 XO for all destroyers (operates from a player designated destroyer or the largest destroyer)

Now, if something happens to one of said officers during combat:
If the commander dies: all ships under his command suffer a small morale debuff and the XO steps up to assume command (so if the overall commander dies, the entire division/task force suffers a small morale debuff whereas if only the cruiser commander dies, only the cruisers would receive a small morale debuff)
If the commander AND the XO dies: all ships under their command will receive an additional morale debuff (so again, if the overall commander and XO die, the whole fleet gets the debuff to whereas if it was just the destroyer commander and XO, only the destroyers would receive the debuff)

These of course, would have compounding effects (i.e. the debuffs don't multiply, they just add together):
The overall commander's death would result in the largest debuff, followed by the overall XO, followed by the specific ship type commander, followed by the specific ship type XO

Since there will be some sort of reputation system in-game that will effect your standing with the navy, the naval budget, etc...this could also be a good opportunity to tie in a "promotional system" and individual reputations for a given commander/officer (so as to say, as an officer climbs the ranks from...let's just say Lieutenant to Admiral...they can gain ranks, and gain/lose reputation depending on battle performance). For example, a veteran commander with a good reputation will provide a larger morale boost while alive, but cause a larger morale debuff if killed in action...or who knows, maybe the crew will be inspired to avenge their commander's death and not suffer a morale debuff but instead gain a small morale boost since now their veins are running red-hot with adrenaline and determination...a bit of a sorta-kinda-RNG thing there, but hey, it is a possibility I guess. A veteran commander with a bad reputation might provide the same morale boost as a veteran with good rep, but might not cause as big of a morale debuff since they weren't well liked. To keep things simple, they could just use a rendition of the same system they have now when it comes to reputation and skill level of officers/commanders:
Reputation: Terrible, Bad, Neutral, Good, Excellent
Skill: Green, Trained, Experienced, Seasoned, Veteran
(Should go without saying that as rep and skill go up, so does the morale boost and the chance of the crew to enter an "avenge his death" state if an officer was to die)

Of course, there are many other factors that could play into or effect all of what I've suggested here. Such as how much experience a commander has commanding a certain ship type and how moving them from one ship type to another could decrease their effectiveness or if a high-ranking officer or other prominent figure (president, prime minister, king/queen, something like the Sullivan Brothers on USS Juneau) dies and you name a ship/ship class after them would that ship/crew grant a morale boost for all ships it sails with or something of the sorts?

This is all a bunch of speculation and ideas that are bouncing around in my head, but I'd like to hear your guy's feedback/thoughts/opinions on all of this. I personally think that this approach kinda sticks with the loose historical basis of the game (in that while each ship irl would have it's own captain and officers, in the grand scheme of things, every taskforce/division had it's own head honcho that everyone else answered to) while not being to complex or simple.

Edited November 2, 2021 by HistoricalAccuracyMan

[madham82]

All good ideas from everyone, but again I want to go back to thinking about the manageability of having officers on every ship. Example, there were 150 ships in the British Grand Fleet alone at Jutland, not the entire Royal Navy. Even if you take 2 officers per ship, does anyone want to manage 300+ officers during the campaign? Realistically you would 10x that number for large naval powers, not to mention the turnover that would occur. 

29 minutes ago, HistoricalAccuracyMan said:

Something I've personally thought about is linking officers with ship divisions or fleets (but not quite like the divisions we have in battles).

For example, let's say you form a task force/division in the campaign that comprises 1 battleship, 2 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers and 5 destroyers (this is of course assuming we will be able to do that).
1 overall commander and 1 XO for the entire task force/division (operates from the flagship, which would be designated by the player or automatically default to the largest ship)
1 commander and 1 XO for all cruisers (operates from a player designated cruiser or the largest cruiser)
1 commander and 1 XO for all destroyers (operates from a player designated destroyer or the largest destroyer)

This is probably the best way to do it and keep it manageable IMO. 

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

I don’t think we’ll have 150 ships to command per battle, 20-30 max, and max ships won’t be for every battle, max out battles could be 1-10 (?). And then after combat only those captains/officers that have advanced in rank/skills and those who have survived sinking's would need attention.  

Mostly ships would be managed once per ship when it's launched, after combat and with some command changes in-between. You won’t be waring with every nation nor in every region, meaning you’ll be only managing ships in the immediate combat zones.

While vast from a single screenshot, in actuality straightforward per turn. Alot depends on the UI too, or the ease of.

I think it would be more immersing to see and manage captains/officers and their traits on board, per ship, rather than a hindrance.

Yea 150 would be the most extreme battle. Doing it as ships launch makes sense too, assuming you won't be launching dozens of ships a month (believe that was the timeframe of each turn). Start of the campaign would likely be the the point when you would spend the most time managing them. 

[Commander Reed]

42 minutes ago, madham82 said:

Yea 150 would be the most extreme battle. Doing it as ships launch makes sense too, assuming you won't be launching dozens of ships a month (believe that was the timeframe of each turn). Start of the campaign would likely be the the point when you would spend the most time managing them. 

Not only would it be the most extreme battle, it'd also be the most laggy battle in history. 🤣

[Evil4Zerggin]

For comparison, here's Rule the Waves's announced officer plan:

Quote

COMMANDING OFFICERS

Commanding officers for ships. Officers commanding divisions of ships will be introduced later.

Ships from CL and upwards have commanding officers.

A ship must have a commanding officer assigned. If a ship does not have a CO, there is an option to have COs assigned automatically to uncommanded ships.

There are three ranks of officer:

Commander: A commander can command CLs or a division of DD (divisions are coming soon).
Captain: A Captain can command any other type of ship or a division of CL.
Rear Admiral: A Rear Admiral can command a division of capital ships.

After a number of years in rank, an officer may get promoted. Officers with battle experience are more likely to get promoted.

Officers have abilities, the range is: Brilliant, Above average, Average, Below average and Incompetent. Brilliant and Incompetent are very rare. CO ability modifies the actual crew quality the ship will get in battle, as battle crew quality is a synthesis of many factors.

Officers may also have a special ability. These currently are (more abilities will be added later):

Speed enthusiast: This officer will get that extra knot of speed out of his ship, especially if new.
ROF enthusiast: This officer will get his crew to improve ROF, at the cost of a slight increase in the risk of flash fires, as he is prone to overlook safety measures in the quest for higher ROF.
Gunnery expert: This officer will improve the gunnery of his ship.
Torpedo expert: This officer will improve torpedo firing of his ship.
Disciplinarian: This officer goes by the book. His crew will improve relatively fast, but attention to rules and regulations will stop the crew from becoming really good.
Music lover: This officer will put much effort into improving the performance of the ship's band, which can have its advantages and disadvantages.
Sportsman: This officer loves sport, and will put much effort into the physical fitness of his crew.
Lucky: This officer will somehow evade many critical hits to his ship.
Aggressive: This officer will take a more aggresive stance than most of his colleagues.
Timid: This officer will take a more careful stance than most of his colleagues.
Well connected: This officer has connections in high circles. He will be more costly to remove or reassign.
Wily: This officer is a master of evasive tactics. He will reduce the chance of his ship being hit.
Poor Admin: Ships under this officer are more likely to miss signals or get lost in battle.
Poor shiphandler: More likely to get into collisions or other mishaps.
Loose cannon: You never know what this officer will be up to. He may perform brilliantly or poorly, and may get into all kinds of trouble.
Good administrator: Reduces maintenance cost of his ship.
No connections: This officer lacks connections or patrons, and will get promoted more slowly.

Officers can either be assigned to ships or be in the officer pool (unassigned or in posts ashore). New officers will appear in the pool at a rate dependent on fleet size.

You can assign or reassign officers. To remove an officer from a ship and place him in the pool will usually carry a presige cost. If an officer is reassigned to an older or smaller ship, that will also carry a prestige cost.

If officers are left for long periods in the pool, they may leave the service (which can be a good or bad thing depending on their abilities).

If you elect to have officers randomly assigned to uncommanded ships, these officers will be newly created and not taken from the pool. Offers from the pool will only be assigned to ships if done manually by the player. This means that the officer pool can be used as a way to "beach" undesirable officers.

Initially, the ability of an officer will be unknown. With time, his abilities will be apparent. Battle experience will increase the likelihood of abilities becoming known.

Officers will get battle stars, just like ships. Battle stars will combine with ability to determine the effect an officer has on crew quality. Thus, a below average officer with plenty of experience can have a similar effect as an average officer.

Officers might increase or decrease in capability over the time of their career. Eventually, officers will retire.

There are a number of new events involving officers.

IMO a copy-paste of Age of Sail's officer system is unlikely---the surrounding campaign systems are not similar enough for this to really save any work.

[CapnAvont1015]

17 hours ago, madham82 said:

Example, there were 150 ships in the British Grand Fleet alone at Jutland, not the entire Royal Navy.

I highly doubt we would ever have to fight a fleet that size because: a. I'm pretty sure the game can't handle it, b. It would be border line impossible to command all those ships and c. we are not real Admirals. I have a hard time making a sandwich you expect me to command 150 ships?

[madham82]

52 minutes ago, CapnAvont1015 said:

I highly doubt we would ever have to fight a fleet that size because: a. I'm pretty sure the game can't handle it, b. It would be border line impossible to command all those ships and c. we are not real Admirals. I have a hard time making a sandwich you expect me to command 150 ships?

My point wasn't fighting a battle with that many ships, but just that playing a campaign as someone like the Royal Navy you would have hundreds of ships to manage at any one point. You can't even get good control over 10 ships atm, much less 150 lol. 

[CapnAvont1015]

Just now, madham82 said:

You can't even get good control over 10 ships atm, much less 150 lol

Your right we can't. BUT THAT STOP ME FROM WINNING! 

[Commander Reed]

2 hours ago, CapnAvont1015 said:

Your right we can't. BUT THAT STOP ME FROM WINNING! 

Just make those 10 ships super battleships with top tier armor, guns, and whatever else and you don't even have to do anything. Just sit back and watch them tear through the enemy. No strategy or tactics required here. 🤣