>>>v1.6.0.7+ Feedback<<<(Latest version: v1.6.1.5 Optx4)

[LaughingSam]

9 minutes ago, Warspite96 said:

Its very likely your transport capacity, for some reason the economy was changed so that maintaining a fleet of merchant vessels costs like 10x more than maintaining your entire navy. 

I think the problem is that the transport costs are based on your gdp not your naval budget, so when your economy gets large enough it's impossible to sustain.  The smaller your naval budget % the faster you notice it but it eventually becomes a problem in every campaign that goes longer than 10-20 years.  Not sure if this is a poorly thought out rubberband mechanic to keep the player economy from getting too large or just a case of poor math, but it's a definite pain point in the system.

  Personally I think it would make more sense to have transports take a portion of your shipbuilding capacity instead since that is more of a bottleneck than money anyway, but that would probably necessitate a bunch of other economy changes.  A simpler fix might be to cap the transport costs at 50% of naval budget or something like that, but either way it is quite silly that fleet maintenance is always the smallest expense in the naval budget.

[HMS Implosive]

10 minutes ago, LaughingSam said:

Personally I think it would make more sense to have transports take a portion of your shipbuilding capacity instead since that is more of a bottleneck than money anyway, but that would probably necessitate a bunch of other economy changes.  A simpler fix might be to cap the transport costs at 50% of naval budget or something like that, but either way it is quite silly that fleet maintenance is always the smallest expense in the naval budget.

This would make a lot of sense. I usually just set the transport slider to max and never touch it again. Just resisting temptation to reduce that slider for one or two turns usually results increase in GTP and naval budget that offsets whatever money I would have needed a couple of months ago. At the same time I have a lot of unused shipyard capacity.

[Nick Thomadis]

Uploaded optimizedx5 version including the following:
- Optimizations on the new damage/armor model of ships, fine tuning how partial penetrations or full penetrations occur, based on the angle of hit. More detailed calculations are added.
- Ricochet/Blocked floating info is now visible when hitting ships (as it was a long time ago). This indication should help understand when every hit happens and what is the outcome.
- Minor fix in Colombia borders. Thanks modder "the Baron" (o Barão) for the help. Others issues in borders will be fixed too.
You have to restart Steam to get this update fast

[Nick Thomadis]

6 hours ago, Aldaris said:

I'm not building anything. There is no war. No repairs. GDP is bloody 2.777.978.000.000.

My tech and training sliders are at 50%. Transport at about 2/3. All ships in port and set to limited.

And yet, I'm at -1.4 billion per month, and that monthly deficit is rising.

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING? I've never seen anything like this. Budget says I'm 5 billion a month down from transport losses. What losses? We're at peace! Seriously, I'm steaming. That transport loss figure is more than 5 times as high as my entire fleet upkeep.

Man, this is stupid. I'm losing a successful campaign because of this crap.

The transport losses effect, after war should dissipate. I do not remember now, but it should take about 10-12 turns to be reduced to 0. We will check it.

[justMike247]

14 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

I do not remember now, but it should take about 10-12 turns to be reduced to 0. We will check it.

Clearly a huge disconnect between what should be, and what is... 3 months... just 3 months to go from 100% merc strength down to just 5% with current rev

[Aldaris]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

The transport losses effect, after war should dissipate. I do not remember now, but it should take about 10-12 turns to be reduced to 0. We will check it.

Thank you. Transport loss costs make no sense in the current iteration, even if it worked as you write. I was already a good few turns into the peace, and I was still down 5 billion a month from transport losses. That number is insane. I could have built a fleet of battleships for far less running costs. That was several times the upkeep of a 100+ ship fleet, with 12 BBs and 8 BCs in it. Unless those transports are gold plated, that value seems to be off by an order of magnitude at least.

Quite apart from the fact - why are "transport losses" costs the navy has to bear? Note, I'm not talking building costs for new transports here, that's the slider I can influence. I'm somehow billed for an item called "transport losses". What is that supposed to represent? Overall economic effect? But if that is the case, why is the GDP of the nation healthy and growing by 7-8%? Perhaps I'm being dense, but I have no idea what that cost item is even supposed to mean.

[LaughingSam]

The economic death spiral is still very much present.  I am currently playing the USA, it is now 1937 having started in 1930.  Out of $19,108,690,000 total expenses and with transport capacity set to 0% (that is no increase whatsoever, strictly to maintain my current transport pool) my transport costs are $9,507,110,000.  My tech budget at 100% funding is only $7,249,611,000.  Over a single turn that transport cost increases to 9,606,605,000.  That is an increase of $100 million in one month just to avoid a decline.  This isn't a minor issue, it has rendered my campaign unplayable in less than 10 years.

 

Edited November 14, 2024 by LaughingSam

[Zuikaku]

The economy in latest versions just make campaigns unplayable. Even maintaining minimal fleet becomes mission impossible. And I'm talking of normal difficulty.

Crew training costs are excessive for no gains at all.

Transport fleet upkeep is excessive.

Research also tend to spiral out of control. 

[Nick Thomadis]

10 hours ago, justMike247 said:

Clearly a huge disconnect between what should be, and what is... 3 months... just 3 months to go from 100% merc strength down to just 5% with current rev

"Clearly" you misunderstood what we talked about. We discuss the loss of funds per turn, when transport capacity is below 100%. As I have checked these losses dissipate at about 5% rate so they will need 20 turns to dissipate entirely during peace. We will check to balance out what can be an excessive impact.

You talk about the number of transports capacity lost according to transports lost in each turn. 

Now, what happens is that  a lot of players who were accustomed to make a few mega fleets of battleships and roflstomp the AI, they now realize that this does not work, as it cannot work in reality, because they have to divide their fleet to protect their sea zones, including zones that their allies have their ports. It can be rather easy to distribute fleets to all zones where there are either friendly ports or there are enemy fleets amassing, but no, players want to make these mega fleets and zerg the globe with naval invasions...

In reality, fleets lost a great number of transports during war, and in the game, it has to be reflected in their impact in logistics and in the general economics. Players who neglect their sea zones have to pay the price (funds loss, less ammo, fuel, lost battles due to supply shortage etc.) or else we do not need a campaign map, we can have a battle generator only.
 

[Aldaris]

Not to interrupt your rant or anything, but I do station ships at (almost) every port as a matter of course. At least a couple of destroyers. I still got the death spiral. So please, refrain from "players just want to make these mega fleets" BS. I find it rather unhelpful for finding and analyzing problems your game clearly still has.

[Nick Thomadis]

25 minutes ago, Aldaris said:

Not to interrupt your rant or anything, but I do station ships at (almost) every port as a matter of course. At least a couple of destroyers. I still got the death spiral. So please, refrain from "players just want to make these mega fleets" BS. I find it rather unhelpful for finding and analyzing problems your game clearly still has.

A couple of destroyers, stationed in port, cannot stop a raiding fleet of the AI or if the AI has many ships stationed in nearby ports. Try to place more ships according to the power projection rating in sea zones (tool tip shows this number for all major nations that have a fleet), or send a few cruisers on defend role. Cruisers are more effective in transport attack/defend warfare.

If the AI has a major fleet in the area, you must defeat it to stop the transport losses, your destroyers in the port, will not do anything significant.

[Nick Thomadis]

10 hours ago, Aldaris said:

Thank you. Transport loss costs make no sense in the current iteration, even if it worked as you write. I was already a good few turns into the peace, and I was still down 5 billion a month from transport losses. That number is insane. I could have built a fleet of battleships for far less running costs. That was several times the upkeep of a 100+ ship fleet, with 12 BBs and 8 BCs in it. Unless those transports are gold plated, that value seems to be off by an order of magnitude at least.

Quite apart from the fact - why are "transport losses" costs the navy has to bear? Note, I'm not talking building costs for new transports here, that's the slider I can influence. I'm somehow billed for an item called "transport losses". What is that supposed to represent? Overall economic effect? But if that is the case, why is the GDP of the nation healthy and growing by 7-8%? Perhaps I'm being dense, but I have no idea what that cost item is even supposed to mean.

I checked a report you sent, thank you for this. Transport losses in your save are gradually dissipating, needs some time, but they gradually dissipate. Your finances can be balanced out, you need to adjust the sliders accordingly. Yes, it needs time, after a major war, it needs time to settle your finances, it can be frustrating, but it is part of the war simulation.

You are doing well in the campaign, I cannot understand why all this negativity and frustration expressed in the forum. Maybe you wanted to be even richer, more powerful, the most amazing admiral in the world of the game? You can do it, it seems, keep playing.

[Aldaris]

33 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

A couple of destroyers, stationed in port, cannot stop a raiding fleet of the AI or if the AI has many ships stationed in nearby ports. Try to place more ships according to the power projection rating in sea zones (tool tip shows this number for all major nations that have a fleet), or send a few cruisers on defend role. Cruisers are more effective in transport attack/defend warfare.

If the AI has a major fleet in the area, you must defeat it to stop the transport losses, your destroyers in the port, will not do anything significant.

All right, but to adress this, two things would be very helpful:

1) allow us to manually upgrade ports so we can establish meaningful fleet bases in theatres were we only have minor ports incapable of holding anything more than a couple of destroyers. If I am supposed to protect a sea region, I need to be able to establish the infrastructure to do it.

2) allow us to more reliably force battles with task forces at sea. It can be very frustrating at times trying to force an engagement, sometimes major fleets dancing around each other in close proximity for months at a time without the game triggering a meeting engagement.

As for the frustration, look at it this way: many of us here giving feedback have way more than 1000 hours in the game. If we didn't love it, we wouldn't give a damn and simply stop playing. We do give a damn though. Because this game is a gem. And that's precisely why the rough edges of that game piss us off so much. You guys try things, play with settings, introduce new mechanics, and as often as not, it'll break the game for a while. That's all well and good in the long term, but in the short term, our fun evening playing with pretty ships is screwed. Combine that with the fact that there are some long term problems that have been reported since forever and aren't being adressed, and you get frustrations. Perhaps some of those things aren't as easy to fix as they appear, perhaps you do not perceive them as problematic. I don't know. Just trying to explain where some of the rancor comes from.

[Peksern]

1 hour ago, Aldaris said:

1) allow us to manually upgrade ports so we can establish meaningful fleet bases in theatres were we only have minor ports incapable of holding anything more than a couple of destroyers. If I am supposed to protect a sea region, I need to be able to establish the infrastructure to do it.

Manual port size management would be a great improvement indeed. It even could give a nice use of money in the later game, when the economics are snowballing as hell. 

[justMike247]

6 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

"Clearly" you misunderstood what we talked about. We discuss the loss of funds per turn, when transport capacity is below 100%. As I have checked these losses dissipate at about 5% rate so they will need 20 turns to dissipate entirely during peace. We will check to balance out what can be an excessive impact.

You talk about the number of transports capacity lost according to transports lost in each turn. 

Now, what happens is that  a lot of players who were accustomed to make a few mega fleets of battleships and roflstomp the AI, they now realize that this does not work, as it cannot work in reality, because they have to divide their fleet to protect their sea zones, including zones that their allies have their ports. It can be rather easy to distribute fleets to all zones where there are either friendly ports or there are enemy fleets amassing, but no, players want to make these mega fleets and zerg the globe with naval invasions...

In reality, fleets lost a great number of transports during war, and in the game, it has to be reflected in their impact in logistics and in the general economics. Players who neglect their sea zones have to pay the price (funds loss, less ammo, fuel, lost battles due to supply shortage etc.) or else we do not need a campaign map, we can have a battle generator only.

You... don't play the game huh? The glaring disconnect between the outline you've described and how the game actually is is... blindingly stark. I suggest you try playing sometime... It'd be... enlightening... maybe humbling, ought to be vividly revealing to understand the full scope of just how utterly and thoroughly wrong you've been with every "update".

 

In its current state, the game is totally unplayable... I honestly can't think of a single aspect of the game that isn't comprehensively, totally, thoroughly and utterly fuq'd. But don't take our word for it... See for yourself.

[Nick Thomadis]

16 minutes ago, justMike247 said:

You... don't play the game huh? The glaring disconnect between the outline you've described and how the game actually is is... blindingly stark. I suggest you try playing sometime... It'd be... enlightening... maybe humbling, ought to be vividly revealing to understand the full scope of just how utterly and thoroughly wrong you've been with every "update".

 

In its current state, the game is totally unplayable... I honestly can't think of a single aspect of the game that isn't comprehensively, totally, thoroughly and utterly fuq'd. But don't take our word for it... See for yourself.

You made your *personal* point clear here, and on steam, countless times. Now it is time to go play something else, or elsewhere.

[DieselPower]

I would like to thank @Nick Thomadis for the constant updates and trying to fix issues.

I have also noticed the transport losses becoming almost crippling, even after a war. The only way I can seem to fix them is by staying out of war for a long time while putting as much money into transports as possible. I also seek to end wars very quickly now if possible, as the negative GDP and TR losses are unsustainible. I had to do this for almost 2 years, so perhaps a look into seeing how fast TR losses recover after a war is needed?

I see most of the AI nations constantly at war, with negative GDPs near 10%, is there a reason they are not financially broken?

[LaughingSam]

  Naval invasions are not calculating the fleets present correctly.

  Casualties from army actions and naval invasions are grossly inflated in some instances leading to depopulation in longer campaigns.

  Runaway transport costs make larger economies and later campaigns unplayable.

  Although minor nations are now a more active part of the game the players ability to interact with them is still too limited to make this an engaging part of the game.  Minor nation fleets continue to ignore task force limits.

  The damage model continues to change without improving the experience.  Armour is largely useless and fire and partial penetration mechanics are much too effective.

  Towers are still massively bloated, especially in later periods.  This is true both of weights which reach comical proportions and sheer size in the design phase, often resulting in hulls which cannot be used except at their maximum displacement or with large increases to beam for no better reason than to actually allow the superstructure to be placed.

  Ammunition loadouts are much too small, sometimes resulting in battles in which both fleets run out of ammunition before a battle is resolved conclusively.

  So long and thanks for all the fish.

[Северная]

One thing I tend to agree with Nick on is his insistence on actually making things challenging for the player.  There are things that are very frustrating in UAD at the moment, but it is generally not because they’re difficult, it’s because they’re frustrating or tedious.  On the other hand, the amount of times someone shares the end of their campaign and they’ve only lost a dozen ships in 75 years confirms to me that generally this game is still too easy for the player, but it is easy mostly because the AI ships are inferior and humans are superior in battle.  The frustration comes I think with game mechanics intending to limit the player economy that we have no explanation or documentation about that don’t work intuitively either.  Like I still have no idea how research priorities work given Nick’s previous comments about you need to use them to get ahead, when I thought this whole time they were a net negative to use them.

[Peksern]

Game isn't perfect. Sure. It has some issues that should be solved. But it's far from unplayable. Proof is very easy, I can and like to play it. And I am no god, I follow the rules of nature science. So it's well playable and it is fun. 

2 minutes ago, Северная said:

On the other hand, the amount of times someone shares the end of their campaign and they’ve only lost a dozen ships in 75 years confirms to me that generally this game is still too easy for the player, but it is easy mostly because the AI ships are inferior and humans are superior in battle.

Yeah, on normal difficulty it's rather easy (if you aren't playing with NAR, where the baron cripples the "creativity" of the AI for the sake of useful designs. It works and it makes the game harder). But play on hard ore legendary, and the AI will challenge you. Of course, that works by financial quantity instead of quality.

But to be fair, that problem has every Strategy game. Everything, from Stronghold to Paradox or Civilization, they all compensate the issues with AI smartness by "cheat" advantages in money or units. Don't see why there is a reason to blame this game so much because of it. 

[Dave P.]

Found an interesting bug in shipbuilding.

Playing as Japan, the first BC "Large Cruiser" hull lists an optimal speed of 21kn, but the minimum speed I can give it in the shipbuilder is 23kn, the cost per knot and engine mass doesn't start to spike until 27kn.

[Captain Vlad]

The inability to force enemy task forces to fight is extremely frustrating when coupled with the newly aggressive invasions; overall I feel like a more proactive enemy is a very positive change, but at the moment forces the AI has sitting in their invasion zones can be extremely difficult to bring to battle if you have other ports in the immediate vicinity.

For example, playing as Italy, the Soviets invaded Eastern Sicily and I had more than sufficient forces to repel them had I been able to engage.  But what occurred was that the bulk of the Soviet force would perform a port strike each turn, while the task force I sent to sink them or run them off would end up fighting very small outlying forces, often a single torpedo boat.  Similar occurrences kept happening defending other possessions as well.

Another invasion related issue is defeating the enemy task force not resulting in a halt to the invasion.  In the same war, I was defending Italian Somaliland against the Chinese and sank the entire force they sent to invade the territory.  But this resulted in no change to the invasion's progress and the next turn they gained control despite having no fleet in the invasion zone or even in the immediate area.

If they're invading, they're more or less in a fixed position and should be fairly easy to bring to battle, IMO.  Not sure how to resolve the port strike issue, but it seems as if they successfully withdraw their ships should be placed outside the engagement zone and any invasion progress should be hindered.

[LaughingSam]

A new issue has been occurring today in battles causing some damaged ships, heavy cruisers in this case, to stop dead in the water.  I am unsure if it is because of the damage or because I detached them and ordered them to retreat, but in the most recent instance both of the affected cruisers should have been capable of more than 20 knots, but instead just sat still until the end of the battle.  I'm assuming it's down to recent acceleration changes but that is just a guess.

Also it is still virtually impossible to hold any land which borders China, since they will happily dump 5 million men into their constant offensives.  In my present game as Japan I have lost approximately 6 million population in a war that has only lasted two years.

Edited November 14, 2024 by LaughingSam

[Dave P.]

I may be coming late to the game here, but do conquered territories not actually add to GDP?

Like if I have a $100B GDP and Russia has $100B GDP, and I conquer 90% of Russia's population/territory, shouldn't I have $190B GDP? Because it doesn't seem to work that way at ALL.

If anything, conquered territories don't seem to add anything to GDP, but they do add to the number of transports you have to fund waaay out of proportion.

I may be hallucinating but this mechanic might need some tweaking. And it would be nice, as with a lot of the math being done, if the specifics were published.

[Warspite96]

As I highlighted over a year ago, please get rid of the "Destroyer Attack" Ambush missions, or edit the Withdraw button so that it actually lets you withdraw. They are not historically accurate for a start, but no sane naval commander would intentionally use destroyers to attack a battleship in broad daylight, especially in later time periods when battleships can obliterate your destroyers well before they even get in torp range. All these missions are is the AI's chance to get some free kills on very expensive late game destroyers. 

The worse thing about them is that they seem scripted to not let you withdraw, so you are forced to fight the enemy battleship. Sometimes if you are extremely unlucky, the game will put 4-5 of your DDs against a battleship PLUS escorts, making it practically impossible for you to win these missions unless you have some super destroyers.