Fleet imbalance in 2.0.2

[Eswahrt]

I’ve run a couple of fleet combat tests to see how 2.0.2 changes affected balance. The methodology was quite simple – ensure that costs of participating fleets are equal, end-game tier 5 tech, mixed weapons/defenses (in most cases, when testing Torp CVs test were run with mostly armor for counterbalance e.g., etc.).

I used different loadouts for each case (different CLs vs. different CVs e.g.). Tested both mono and different types of mixed fleets. Fleets were fitted to counter each other (M/S slots on a CL against a CV, etc., L slots on DD vs different BBs, etc.), otherwise it may lead to wrong conclusions.

Conclusions below are somewhat generalized for simplicity with focus on imbalanced outcomes (in my opinion). I won’t show actual numbers as there are just too many of those. Your test results can be different ofc, so I will not claim that my conclusions represent a supreme truth in any way:

1. DDs win over CVs. However:

• PD DDs against Torp CVs is more or less a draw (against Missile CVs PD DDs will win). The results of PD destroyers against Torp CVs are similar to their results against Whirlwind CVs. DDs will have more chances to win against Torp CVs only if equipped with Flak and line computer (the reason is that Flak has high tracking and can deal damage to CVs while those are recharging their Torps)

• In my opinion PD DD victory against Torp CVs should be obvious, however, this is not the case at all

• PD DD should not demonstrate similar results against both Torp CVs and Whirlwind CVs. Now the outcomes are very much the same, while imo Torp CVs should lose to PD DDs, otherwise what’s the point of Whirlwind CVs?

• Whirlwind CVs actually managed as I expected – a draw against PD DDs is ok by me given that CVs lose to DDs in most cases

• Overall, I think PD lacks a punch against Torps (due to PD vs Torp corvs results above + same issue with PD/Flak heavy mixed fleet below). Flak is ok, but is Flak designed to fight Torps? And even with Flak you will still have troubles as a MF fighting against Torp CVs.

2. CLs win over DDs and non-Missile/non-Torpedo CVs – this seems quite balanced to me. However:

• CLs lose heavily to BBs making them die too quickly in a mixed fleet engagement (they should obviously lose to BBs but currently they are just annihilated in many cases)

• This leads to a situation when having CLs in your mixed fleet leaves you with no chance against pure BB fleet (they should be a burden in such engagement, but imo they should not just die during the first few days against BBs while dealing absolutely no damage)

• CLs mostly loose to DDs with L weapons. This is quite strange given that CLs should be a counter to DDs imo

• CLs with M weapons and line comps loose against DDs with L weapons. This may be fine, but makes end game medium weapons effective against CVs only (actually even M/S slots BBs are quite competent against non-tor/non-missile CVs e.g.). This only proofs the point below that balance is shifted towards L weapons with all the rest only effective against CVs (end game at least)

3. Battleships with Neutron Launchers (especially) and even Kinetic Artillery + Xl slots equipped with line computers may win over everything, except for Torpedo/Missile CVs:

• The results are getting more even when using Gauss cannons/Lasers in L slots but it still seems that XL and L weapons in general are dealing too much damage to smaller ships, especially DDs.

• This leads to BBs being the most effective fleet overall imo which can only be countered by Torp/Missile CVs. Artillery BBs are more balanced here as they don’t have accuracy bonus which more than doubles BBs damage against 90% evasion CV e.g.

4. All PD (I mean 3 PD on destroyers, 1 PD on CV, 2 on BB and 2 on CL) mixed fleet losses to Torpedo CVs in many engagements. Sometimes it may result in equal losses. Anyway, the result seems strange (same issue as with PD DDs) as when you are so heavy on PD you should expect to win against Torp CVs.

• This leads to Torp CVs being second best really countered only by specifically fitted DD fleet (smth you can’t expect from an AI e.g.)

5. Mixed (40/40/40/40 by capacity) anti-Battleship fleet (tested a lot of compositions – finally stopped at arty BB and CL, line DD with L weapons, Torpedo corvs) always loses to line BBs (see p.2, 3 above)

To me summarize my view on disbalancing issues:

1. Torps are OP against PD. Torp CVs may suffer a definite defeat only to Flak line DDs. In other circumstances it’s either a clear win a draw or mixed results (even against PD/Flak heavy mixed fleet):

• I think Torp efficiency against PD/Flak may need some reduction (decrease HP?).

• This will not make Torps ineffective, but will make you think more when to use such a fleet and consider PD more carefully.

2. Line BBs (especially with neutron launchers) are OP against smaller targets, except for missile/torp corvs. They will sometimes win over non-Torp corvs even. DDs with L weapons also tend to loose.

• May be L and XL weapons base accuracy/tracking/damage must be lowered or BB tracking generally adjusted through sensors

• The problem is that such change will affect CV efficiency much more than destroyers – some tweak to destroyers to become more effective against CVs may be necessary to counterbalance this, but without affecting DDs general tracking ability…another S weapon slot? Didn’t test this.

3. Cruisers are being annihilated by both Line and Artillery BBs. Even can’t effectively fight DDs with L slot:

• They definitely should loose, but now it’s just a disaster. A recent buff did help, but still..

• A tweak to XL/L weapons may help them a bit as well as increasing CLs evasion (it will buff CLs against S and M weapons as well but to a much lesser extent).

In my opinion a mixed fleet should be some kind of a jack of all trades (currently it is not and you end up with mostly BBs by end game):

• When fitted to counter a specific monofleet a mixed fleet should win.

• It will and should take heavier losses than e.g. compared with Torp CVs against BBs, but it should win.

• The tradeoff over heavier losses when using mixed fleets should be mixed fleet’s flexibility (it’s ability to refit when answering to a specific threat – CV or BB monofleets doe not have such luxury and can always be countered, does not matter how you fit them).

Currently, due to BBs annihilating CLs and winning over DDs, as well as Torps being OP compared to PD this is not the case.

Other issues that must be fixed (some were mentioned already):

1. Strikecraft does no damage (it’s worse than small weapons)
2. Aux comps do not work at all
3. Artillery computer – devs said that they fixed that – they did. But the issue imo lies in fleet engagement/targeting system overall - when two fleets engage ships with line/picket/swarm computer simply overwhelm artillery ships very fast even if you have a large screen of CVs to shield your artillery ships e.g.:

• In theory you should get more Alpha strike with artillery comp – but it usually result in just one additional shot (given that we do not have combat speed anymore) – this is nothing compared to 20% line comp accuracy bonus

• I actually tested the MF (with arty BBs and CLs) adjusted based on my thoughts above against a BB fleet (with line comps):

• BB fleet destroys most of the MFs heavy ship on there approach with them having just one extra shot due to range

• It’s perfectly fine that BB fleet prioritizes larger targets, but at current rate it makes it OP

• I separated CVs from the MF and send these two fleets against BBs (CVs first, the rest after a short delay) – the results were much better for MF

• That’s why I think some tweak to targeting priorities may help to make this a more balanced engagement (aren’t smaller ships supposed to provide a screening force to larger ships?)

In case such or similar changes are implemented some attention should also be paid to things like admiral traits., enigmatic components modules etc., especially those affecting evasion – didn’t test those much

Overall it is all very strange – we are getting the ability to rename your ruler, piracy risk %% window, binary systems, but the key part of the game is still not balanced/no direct feedback on that (apart from PD buff). Recent cruiser buff was not even mentioned in the patch notes. It’s even more weird given that fleet revamp and war mechanics overall are target areas of the 2.0 update. The devs even mentioned that they were not going to revert to this part of the game for quite a long time afterwards focusing on other areas instead.

So shouldn’t we have fleet balance/bugs fixed in the first place?

With Torp/Missile CVs and BBs wining the day and strike craft being broken (plus other issues) a significant part of the game needs additional attention.

 

[Slynx]

some screenshots would be great addition to this thread.

 

[Xaos]

First thing, thank you for this.

Secondly, how do disruptor/lightning/arcs do against torpedo corvettes. Since I think lightning don't miss I kinda thought that they would be good opponents to them.

 

[Groupoid]

Great result here! Have you tested which type of BB is better?
taylor lance+KA+neutron or Giga+neutron?

 

[Omnipax]

WTF is a CL?

4. All PD (I mean 3 PD on destroyers, 1 PD on CV, 2 on BB and 2 on CL) mixed fleet losses to Torpedo CVs in many engagements. Sometimes it may result in equal losses. Anyway, the result seems strange (same issue as with PD DDs) as when you are so heavy on PD you should expect to win against Torp CVs.

• This leads to Torp CVs being second best really countered only by specifically fitted DD fleet (smth you can’t expect from an AI e.g.)

This is probably because there is a flaw in the Picket Bow in which it is missing the equivalent of a Small slot weapon compared to the other Destroyer Bow sections.

 

[Taritu]

Evasion is very powerful, and now that armor doesn't reduce damage, it's really the only way to do so. Thus corvettes are very strong. I've seen this in some battles where everything else got dead, and the corvettes survived and even won the battle.

 

[Geriander]

With a mixed fleet, destroyers seem to be first to withdraw or die. Even if deployed to the line alongside cruisers they die in greater numbers than cv’s. Cruisers have armour/shields and cv’s have evasion but destroyers are stuck in an unhappy middle.

 

[Acidpunk]

And yet when I do mixed fleets I get results like the following, Which is less upkeep and total cost than CV fleet.

 

[Geriander]

And yet when I do mixed fleets I get results like the following, Which is less upkeep and total cost than CV fleet.

You went for all corvette? I have the same experience since large weapons can kill them with one hit. With mixed fleets, large weapons seem to ignore cv’s and focus on destroyers.

 

[Acidpunk]

I was referring specifically to mixed vs mono CV.

As with Mixed vs BB I'll do some tests this week to confirm the issue but mixed fleets vs BB's are the CL's just are iffy I gotta experiment with some CL designs.

 

[Cordane]

WTF is a CL?

Most likely it's meant to be Cruiser - folks on the boards don't necessarily follow traditional hull classifications from any of the historical ocean navies. US Navy would call a Cruiser any of about 15 or so different designations, mostly starting with "C" (e.g., CA for Heavy Cruiser, CL for Light Cruiser, CG for Guided-Missile Cruiser). More often you might see CC used, as Destroyers are typically called DD's and Battleships BB's, and the double-C makes sense (although CC is technically either a command ship or briefly a battlecruiser).

CV for Corvette is slightly odd if you're trying to follow traditional hull classifications, as CV is (for USN) a "Cruiser, Aviation" aka Aircraft Carrier. As just a simple abbreviation, it works OK, and considering Corvettes have had some odd USN classifications, including DDC (as a destroyer-corvette), K, and FS, none used for very long, it'll do for this.

It would probably make sense for authors to define their abbreviations/classifications before getting too far into a post/thread, but you can usually pick it up based on context.

 

[Eswahrt]

With mixed fleets, large weapons seem to ignore cv’s and focus on destroyers.

Yes, that's one of the problems with mixed fleets that I've mentioned - e.g. in a pure BB fleet (with L and XL guns) vs mixed fleet enagement BB fleet's first volleys kill half of the destroyers before the fleets come close to each other. The destroyers are leading the charge and are not CVs - may be that's why they are targeted among the first. And when they are targeted L and XL weapons have quite an easy time hitting them (that's why I think they are too effective against DDs).

Same fate awaits cruisers and BBs in a mixed fleet as there are fewer of them compared to a pure BB fleet. Many casulaties of a pure BB fleet come from CVs but that happens long after most of the larger ships in a mixed fleet are destroyed (as CVs are targeted last).

Frankly, a pure BB fleet can simply kill large ships minimising own losses and than retreat to avoid that long fight with CVs. I think target priorities/ship positions/distance should be adjusted to prevent such focus fire. Otherwise it's all in favor of a pure BB fleet.

The problem with ships positioning within the mixed fleet also comes from arty comps. These are most effective in a mixed fleet (on BBs and CLs) when fighting a pure BB fleet (better than using line) but still result in just one or two additonal shots before pure line BB fleet overwhelms them. This is due to line BBs charging at artillery ships ignoring CVs and destroyers. Second factor is a lack of combat speed that makes ships move too fast at arty ships giving arty ships no chance.

 

[Eswahrt]

CV for Corvette is slightly odd

It would probably make sense for authors to define their abbreviations/classifications before getting too far into a post/thread, but you can usually pick it up based on context.

CV is for carrier. But most people use it for CorVette here.

Just to make it clear:

• CV - corvette
• DD - destroyer
• CL - cruiser
• BB - battleship

 

[Eswahrt]

Great result here! Have you tested which type of BB is better?
taylor lance+KA+neutron or Giga+neutron?

Depends on what you are facing. Generally speaking, tachyon lance (TL) and neutron launchers (NL) are better vs smaller ships due to higher accuracy. GC and KA with line computer are better against bigger ships (CLs and BBs) - lower accuracy, more effect from line computer. It will somewhat depend on defences ofc (shield/armor).

Vs a pure CV fleet using S and M slots on BB is much better than using L slots (with line computer and such loadout you will destroy non-missile CVs). But when only L and XL slots are considered NL and TL are better than other similar options (with line computer ofc) as NL and TL will hit much more often.

 

[Eswahrt]

some screenshots would be great addition to this thread.

I will try to add some when I have time.

 

[Eswahrt]

First thing, thank you for this.

Secondly, how do disruptor/lightning/arcs do against torpedo corvettes. Since I think lightning don't miss I kinda thought that they would be good opponents to them.

Didn't test much of those. But I beleive they will not be effective as only flak DDs are good against torp CVs. More so, CVs don't have great share of shileds/armor compared to hull and these penetratiing weapons need some good ratio favoring shields/armor to be effective.

Did some tests with arc emitters and they didn't look great either - CVs have low health and arc emitters have a very wide damage range. If they roll max damage - it doesn't matter as a CV will die anyway. If they roll minimum - CV will stay alive. Tachyon lances are much more reliable and still one shot CVs.

 

[Zabik]

Concerning the "weak cruisers" I suppose you were testing cruisers with normal weapons. The thing is, they get op with torps/missiles. Making them op against DDs with PD/FLAK. Ofcourse BBs will still destroy them, but at the rate it is suposed. Also you can get CVs with missiles, so that BBs are distracted. So cruisers are at the niche they are suposed to.
What should be reconsidered is the balance between Corvs and Battleships. You said that corvs may beat BBs but this is not exactly the truth. While they win engagements, they loose more in mineral cost. This should be reworked.

 

[Acidpunk]

Concerning the "weak cruisers" I suppose you were testing cruisers with normal weapons. The thing is, they get op with torps/missiles. Making them op against DDs with PD/FLAK. Ofcourse BBs will still destroy them, but at the rate it is suposed. Also you can get CVs with missiles, so that BBs are distracted. So cruisers are at the niche they are suposed to.
What should be reconsidered is the balance between Corvs and Battleships. You said that corvs may beat BBs but this is not exactly the truth. While they win engagements, they loose more in mineral cost. This should be reworked.

I mean just going Mono corvette fleets by default costs more anyway in Mineral cost per naval cap as well as upkeep, which is why I don't believe in them in MP games.

 

[PanzerMan7]

Do ships up front get prioritized over ships in the back? That could a difference. An all BB fleet would suffer if it wasted it's first few salvos on the screens.

In HoI this is how it works and frankly how it should work. The screens should be overwhelming the tracking systems and blocking lines of sight to the big ships which are firing through the gaps (gaps that can be predicted because the fleet maneuvers in concert).

Plus point defense. It just needs to be buffed. I only use flak artillery and it helps but the results remain disappointing

So OP, what if I screen my battleships with small gun battleships? Half XL/L arty ships, half pre-dreadnoughts loaded with small for corvette hunting. Is this efficient?

 

[Valaska]

Uhmm... Anyone have a glossary for some of these acronyms? I can get a few but others like "BB" means... Battleship? Battle Bus? Buncha acronyms here I don't really catch :x. DD too. Distruptor Destroyer?