Flags research actively makes ships worse

[RenegadeLeader]

So this is something that I thought I would actively look into during my new save as the 1.1 beta has come out and forced us all to restart (c’est la vie), and it's been something that's always bothered me a little bit in that it never really made sense and it's this little bugger right here ...

"-95%? Well ain't that a little bugger?"  I'd always say to myself. "But if the first researchable technology in this category has a penalty that bad, then it had to be worse penalty before, so let's just carry on."

Even so it continued to not really make any sense, so I decided to gather some empirical evidence to support a theory either one way or the other, so here we go.

Communication range on my battleship before researching Flags...

Those are some nice numbers right there, so afterwards it got to be better right...?

Holy Potatoes Batman! Same ship but a significantly worse rating.  Why, after 2-3 years of research, have my communications officers suddenly gotten so much worse at communicating.  Either that or I completely misunderstand how these values interact with game play.

So if I am understanding the values here correctly I propose one of three thing might happen. 

1) Remove Flags Communication from the research list entirely. (The extreme approach, probably not good for balancing research progression)

2) Give Flags Communication research to all nations as a starting tech (Does take a very long research out of the list so there's that balance, but at least the first research doesn't actively makes your ships worse.)

3) Reduce the penalty for Flags Communication (or even make it a bonus)  and then add a default starting penalty to Communications Range. (This way the first research actually helps ships to be better.  Downside is I don't know how difficult it is to add base penalties to the game and/or change the values awarded by research)

 

Of course I could be entirely wrong on how this all works, and Flags Communications is in fact a benefit to Communications Range over whatever happens to be the default value.  If that is true, then can we fix the UI to make it look like that is what is happening?

[Suribachi]

I guess if we are starting with flags for communication, the replacement tech could be something like signal lights?  Can be seen from a bit further away, maybe with a bonus during night?

[Cryadis]

By going by this wiki article, one could assume that Flag communication should be available to all nations at earliest start 1890.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_flag_signalling

Signaling lights, as suggested by Suribachi would likely more appopiate, but that is just the naming.

one could argue that a new technology should offer an improvement in one area (even if might have a disadvantage in another, tower weight on rangefinders an example).

and as suggested by RenegadeLeader Signaling Light should be a slight bonus instead of a malus.

 

[neph]

I'm guessing this was either meant to be a starting tech or it was meant to have a like -200% communications range bonus to start with

[Suribachi]

Being that we need to research flags first, my head canon is that the captains are just screaming at each other to coordinate at first, like yelling at other drivers on a highway haha.