1.2 (Now 1.3) Naval Combat Complete Guide

[Meglok]

it seems visibility works as a way to reduce enemy detection as the detection of the ship works as a average beetween your detection and the enemy visibility. (So lower is better as it will reduce the enemy detection chance).

I was unaware how to open .Lua files in hoi until recently. So when i update that part in the guide i should be able to actually give a better answer.

That makes sense, (detection + visibilty)/2 for example.

I'm just thinking about how to model a more historic early war sub detection. Right now 1936 DDs seem to be equipped with MFTAs, ASW helos, and acoustic torpedoes. Subs have little to no chance when historically it wasn't until mid war that German subs were being detected and prosecuted successfully in high percentages.

 

[Novacat]

Realistically, submarine detection should probably be seperate from the hull, as, historically, it was very common for old destroyer hulls to be pressed into ASW service, since it was not very difficult to refit them with modern ASW equipment. That is what the destroyers for bases agreement was all about.

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Soviet navy is really trick. I also don´t recommend going offensive with them as you lack dockyards, range and have to split your fleet in 3 points in different parts of the earth. (And going around europe + africa will take a month).

Your best way of projecting power is with submarines + some cheap surface vessel. LC´s likely. You can annoy japan and germany convoys that way and there is where your fleet will see most action. You can squeeze some dockyards each year (Or make all in 36) as get to 15-20 around 40-42 without feeling the lack of those 10-15 MIC you traded for them.

IF you get a player to go communist you get some extra range using their docks. That allows you to go some submarine hunting.
But hard to go for it without being 100% sure a player is going to help you with this.

this is what i can think of right now. Even i don´t care much about navy with USSR in MP games most of the time because it never goes to cold war stage :/.

Yeah but the the thing is - killing convoys won't do shit against enemy. I don't think killing 80% of convlys will do any significant damage against enemies. Maybe sinking occasional naval insasion but nothing more.

 

[sterrius]

Yeah but the the thing is - killing convoys won't do shit against enemy. I don't think killing 80% of convlys will do any significant damage against enemies. Maybe sinking occasional naval insasion but nothing more.

killing convoys reduce the resources and equipment troops receive. It hurts A LOT as you will not receive resources for some time.

Last day playing UK i got a for example i faced a german played that used its subs very well, placing them everywhere thanks to Norway allowing him to hunt the canadian/mid of atlantic much better. I killed tons of it but he could always build more so its a eternal fight.

After 1 year of war.
-> I was lacking 30 steel + 30 aluminum for lack of convoys. (Forcing me to research excavation, reduce trade law and go from 5 to 15 dockyards on convoy to fix this in a short and long term). Also of course this don´t reduced the plea from canada + Raj (also players) for convoys as they where also losing them. (And that because i started producing convoys on day, making close to 200 before war start).

-> 20 divisions trapped in england for 6 months until i was able to get some extra convoys to transport them.
-> some canadian and raj troops dead in the middle of the ocean. (Most at the start of the war, later i placed DD`s there and fixed this).
-> Forced me to keep 40DD´s (i need 15 dockyards for 2 years to build this), doing nothing (Convoy escort) while the japan and italian fleet was still a threat.

I was of course doing the same to him + Japan + Spain. What i was killing surely was more than he could produce with 15 dockyards and was of course reducing his resources. Making a indirect contribution to USSR Defense and Japan/US war.


So i think his investment in subs, that cost only a handful of oil and steel more than paid itself by forcing me to lose tons of time dealing with the problem and spending PP, IC and making canada having to spend MIC.

Oh. He also used Sub III doing some damages or even killing my DD`s. I was only able to track them because i upgraded my radar in the channel to lv3+ and he made a mistake of passing trough the channel sometimes instead of going around north of england. (and that reminds me to also place a radar there in the future).

Once in the ocean my DD II´s had lots of trouble finding the subs. Even with doctrines helping.

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Germany have sub-oriented doctrine, sovits have battleship promacy, that's troubling.

 

[George_L]

Any ideas how to deal with the never ending naval combat bug?

 

[sterrius]

Any ideas how to deal with the never ending naval combat bug?

if its a submarine vs submarine adding another ship should do the trick. (A few capital ships most of the time) .

If its a big fleet vs big fleet don´t know :/.

 

[Meglok]

it seems visibility works as a way to reduce enemy detection as the detection of the ship works as a average beetween your detection and the enemy visibility. (So lower is better as it will reduce the enemy detection chance).

I was unaware how to open .Lua files in hoi until recently. So when i update that part in the guide i should be able to actually give a better answer.

I found a couple of interesting new code lines in the common/defines naval section that were added in 1.2.1 that might explain why subs are now iron coffins.

DETECTION_SUBS_CHANCE_BALANCE = 10.0, -- Same as above, but for sub detection. It should be very hard to detect just the subs.
New - The higher the number the harder it is to detect per the preceding defines code line.

MAX_EVASION_BONUS = 0.1, -- largest evasion penalty to hitting
New - Evasion is now capped

SUBMARINE_HIDE_TIMEOUT = 16, -- Amount of in-game-hours that takes the submarine (with position unrevealed), to hide.
Change - from 2 to 16 hours to "hide", which I guess leaves the sub exposed to detection for this time?

SUBMARINE_REVEALED_TIMEOUT = 12, -- Amount of in-game-hours that makes the submarine visible if it is on the defender side.
New - apparently exposes a sub to attack for 12 hours if it is in a combat?

SUBMARINE_REVEAL_BASE_CHANCE = 0.05, -- Base chance for submarine detection. It's modified by the difference of a spootter's submarines detection vs submarine visibility. Use this variable for game balancing.
New - Detection vs visibility explained. Unknown which math function "modified by" means. Sub detection values increase over time and sub visibility decrease over time, which means the difference increases over time.

Since unit detection and visibility values were not changed on subs or DDs the above defines values are probably why subs are being slaughtered now.

 

[Hopit]

Germany have sub-oriented doctrine, sovits have battleship promacy, that's troubling.

Stalin loved his big battleships.
(To be fair, I think every dictator and tyrant in history does/did)

 

[Miaow]

From the OP it seems like Paradox have well balanced the numbers to make the naval combat system work and favour diverse fleets. That's a step in the right direction

Problems are that 1) carriers still constantly replenish their aircraft even at sea in a battle far from their bases, and 2) you can still gain naval supremacy without a navy at all (or even a single naval bomber).

 

[Alex_brunius]

MAX_EVASION_BONUS = 0.1, -- largest evasion penalty to hitting

If anything this should help submarines since they have lower evasion then the DDs and CLs that hunt them ( which means the change if it works for torpedoes increase the subs hit chance, but do nothing to change the hit chance of DD/CL vs the sub ).

Since unit detection and visibility values were not changed on subs or DDs the above defines values are probably why subs are being slaughtered now.

Subs did get slaughtered before 1.2 too if they fought a fleet with destroyers. It's just that since they didn't get into combat as often they didn't fight as often

 

[Meglok]

If anything this should help submarines since they have lower evasion then the DDs and CLs that hunt them ( which means the change if it works for torpedoes increase the subs hit chance, but do nothing to change the hit chance of DD/CL vs the sub ).



Subs did get slaughtered before 1.2 too if they fought a fleet with destroyers. It's just that since they didn't get into combat as often they didn't fight as often

Except that now a couple of 1936 DDs can auto find and wreck subs, which wasn't happening before and isn't realistic. Subs were able to avoid most fleets early in the game with do not engage before 1.2, now they seems to be shooting up flares saying here I am come sink me.

 

[Meglok]

On a different topic, is anyone else having an issue getting land based air to engage now in 1.2.1? My Nav can't seem to find even death stacks now.

 

[usmcnavigator]

Thanks for taking the time to do these tests. Data-backed analysis > player's gut feelings on what works best.

 

[Dalwin]

Except that now a couple of 1936 DDs can auto find and wreck subs, which wasn't happening before and isn't realistic. Subs were able to avoid most fleets early in the game with do not engage before 1.2, now they seems to be shooting up flares saying here I am come sink me.

I think the sub/DD encounters are a fair bit less deadly for the subs in 1.2.1 than they have been at intitial release. You used to lose the whole stack of subs no matter how large the stack and kill nothing at all in return. Now you only lose most of the subs and kill a few DD in return. It has the illusion of seeming worse now only because subs engage in combat much more often than they used to as @Alex_brunius pointed out. Without keeping actual stats, I'd estimate the frequency of sub encounters to be around 5x what it was before.

The real trick to using subs now is to avoid putting too many eggs in one basket. Lots of little fleets is much preferable. With ports also being safer now, another option is to keep only a few small sub packs on patrol with a substantial reserve of them hanging back in port. The kills to convoys are a big enough threat that the enemy cannot afford to simply ignore your subs. Forcing Britain to spread her fleet as thinly as possible has multiple benefits for the Axis. This increases the chance that the Kriegsmarine or Regia Marina can conduct a successful sortie and it also reduces the intensity of the British blockade against Axis shipping.

It all ties together and the occasional lopsided defeats against destroyer stacks are simply the cost of doing business.

 

[elitesix]

Haven't followed the entire thread, but I tested out carrier plane overcapacity (plane "overcrowding"). The formula in the OP - 4% fewer aircraft in the air per 10 planes over carrier deck capacity seems completely incorrect in the current version (1.2.1).

I repeatedly tested this and found that plane overcrowding penalty is closer to ~3 or 4% per ONE plane over deck capacity. That being said, I did only test deck capacities in the range of 45-65, so maybe the formula changes or is nonlinear, and I also found that while the -3% per One plane seemed to reflect the overcrowding penalty in the tooltip, it did not precisely reflect the number of planes in the air - but there seem to be a variety of bonuses that affect that. It almost seems as if the carriers will put up to 200 planes in the air regardless of overcrowding, but the overcrowding penalty reduces their efficiency to less than 200 planes, and indeed I had 200 naval bombers in the air with -100% overcrowding penalty and they got no kills over repeated combats (due to carriers having 120/55 planes onboard).

Also found a significant technical detail on the 200 planes in air cap - it's a separate cap for fighters and naval bombers in the air - you can definitely have 200 fighters and 200 naval bombers in the same fight. Do note that the -3% overcrowding per plane over deck capacity penalty to planes in the area per plane doesn't care about plane type. Also note that certain subsets of sortie penalties stack with overcrowding penalties to affect planes in the air, so the 8% rule is in ideal circumstances.

EDIT: I don't think there is any benefit to having deck capacity over 50 per plane type for 4 carriers (so a hypothetical 150 deck and 4 carriers if fighters, CAS, naval bombers all share separate 200 plane cap would allow for 200 of each plane type with no malus).

TLDR: My testing indicates a pure trade-off between overcrowding, plane combat efficiency, and on-carrier plane reserves at roughly -3% combat effectiveness for every plane over deck capacity. More testing needed.

 

[sterrius]

Haven't followed the entire thread, but I tested out carrier plane overcapacity (plane "overcrowding"). The formula in the OP - 4% fewer aircraft in the air per 10 planes over carrier deck capacity seems completely incorrect in the current version (1.2.1).

I repeatedly tested this and found that plane overcrowding penalty is closer to ~3 or 4% per ONE plane over deck capacity. That being said, I did only test deck capacities in the range of 45-65, so maybe the formula changes or is nonlinear, and I also found that while the -3% per One plane seemed to reflect the overcrowding penalty in the tooltip, it did not precisely reflect the number of planes in the air - but there seem to be a variety of bonuses that affect that. It almost seems as if the carriers will put up to 200 planes in the air regardless of overcrowding, but the overcrowding penalty reduces their efficiency to less than 200 planes, and indeed I had 200 naval bombers in the air with -100% overcrowding penalty and they got no kills over repeated combats (due to carriers having 120/55 planes onboard).

Also found a significant technical detail on the 200 planes in air cap - it's a separate cap for fighters and naval bombers in the air - you can definitely have 200 fighters and 200 naval bombers in the same fight. Do note that the -3% overcrowding per plane over deck capacity penalty to planes in the area per plane doesn't care about plane type. Also note that certain subsets of sortie penalties stack with overcrowding penalties to affect planes in the air, so the 8% rule is in ideal circumstances.

EDIT: I don't think there is any benefit to having deck capacity over 50 per plane type for 4 carriers (so a hypothetical 150 deck and 4 carriers if fighters, CAS, naval bombers all share separate 200 plane cap would allow for 200 of each plane type with no malus).

TLDR: My testing indicates a pure trade-off between overcrowding, plane combat efficiency, and on-carrier plane reserves at roughly -3% combat effectiveness for every plane over deck capacity. More testing needed.

the % i used was testing with carriers having 96-104 size. Thats becasue it makes little to no sense to research your carriers and not take the pacific manufacturer (+25% deck) and placing 1-2 xp on it. Even more if you're going carrier doctrine.

The overcrow penalty seems to be a % based and not by how many planes it is above the minimum. This force us to get each carrier and place extra planes on them and take notes of how much its going to increase as its impossible to guess the exactly number.

Also don´t believe the tooltip in the battle, like you most likely found yourself. It will tell you how many planes are in that combat but not how many of them are actually fighting. You can only do that by observation and looking how much dmg the carrier is doing. (I hope they improve the battle tooltip to split planes waiting to enter in combat from planes actually going for battle).

as it is now its pretty hard to test some things like overcrowd with replenishment bug happening, reason i did not updated the guide for this yet.

This week im mostly free and should start to work more on the guide again. but im not going to touch carriers again until 1.3.

 

[elitesix]

Interesting, so I reran the overcrowding numbers (some from memory :/), based on the assumption that the overcrowding penalty is based on percentage overcapacity, rather than per plane overcapacity.

I got that the overcrowding penalty is .8 * the percentage the carrier is overloaded. Thus, a 110/55 is 100% overloaded, and would suffer a .8*100 or 80% overcrowding penalty. This would account for why a few of my carriers around 120/55 or 130/55 had basically a -100% overcrowding penalty. And zero plane kills in numerous battles. Thus, a carrier with 100 capacity but loaded to 110 would have a .8*10% a 8% overcrowding penalty, whereas the same carrier loaded to 200 would have a .8*100% or 80% overcrowding penalty.

This doesn't seem to resolve the conflict between our small data sets, but it seems to be closer to the mark. However, I'm still not convinced overcrowding affects actual numbers of planes in the air - the tooltip, which could be wrong, seems to suggest it affects combat effectiveness of all your planes in the air instead.

 

[Alex_brunius]

However, I'm still not convinced overcrowding affects actual numbers of planes in the air - the tooltip, which could be wrong, seems to suggest it affects combat effectiveness of all your planes in the air instead.

Yes that's my understanding of everything that has to do with sortie efficiency/efficiency for Carrier air.

The same amount of planes always take of and fight, but they are less effective with penalties.

In the end it's just a matter of semantics, it doesn't really matter if it's 100 carrier planes fighting at 50% efficiency or 50 planes fighting at 100% efficiency in the code. The damage they deal will be the same.

 

[sterrius]

Yes that's my understanding of everything that has to do with sortie efficiency/efficiency for Carrier air.

The same amount of planes always take of and fight, but they are less effective with penalties.

In the end it's just a matter of semantics, it doesn't really matter if it's 100 carrier planes fighting at 50% efficiency or 50 planes fighting at 100% efficiency in the code. The damage they deal will be the same.

There is a clear difference you're not seeing.

Lets say side A (100) and Side B (50) are fighting. Both have 100% efficiency at 50. Also lets say each plane does 1dmg and kill a plane when they reach 10 dmg.
In the game the penalty will decrease with numbers but i will even make it worse for side A and say they have a 50% penalty untuil they reach the airfield limit.

Only a full number will get the kill. (If plane receive 9dmg it will heal that 9 dmg). Just to make the calculation simple.

Round 1: A kills 5 planes (0.5 x 100 = 50) x Side B kills 5 planes (1x 50 = 50)

Now A have 95 planes and deals 45 dmg. and side B 45 Also deals 45 dmg. Both kills 4 planes.

Round 2: 91 x 41
round 3: 87 x 37
Round 4: 84 x 33 (side A still kills more even with penalty).
Round 5: 81 x 29
round 6: 79 x 26

And we will go on until side B will go 0 while side A still have planes. From now on your side have 0 planes and are getting bombed by something like 60 planes each day.

Without replenish that is what will happen with a carrier having overcrownd bonus vs a carrier that can´t use overcrownd to increase its number.


this does not happen now because both sides will replenish until the stockpile goes empty or the battle ends. So no point going with a carrier having a penalty.