Developer Diary | Summer Open Beta

[Sourlol]

The concern is that generally the game's mechanics favor defending over attacking. Attacking a properly defended position in multiplayer requires a proper concentrated attack. This is the case across the entire front on Barbarossa, and you have the entire Axis micro'ing vs multiple Soviet players. This is all well and good, and I think people feel the game balance overall is generally in a good state, but this change is effectively a huge nerf to attacks in Forests/Jungles, and the concern is the huge number of Forests across Barbarossa front become a stalemate due to tanks not being able to push through them.

…so like real life?

attacking is harder in war…we’re playing a war game. I’m not sure I see the conceptual problem

 

[Vril266]

Ok, I found a problem: There are a lot of new techs now but the duration of the research time has not been reduced, or there is no option to use air craft expierence points to make the research faster

It should be reduced somebit, or adding the option to use your aircraft expierence points to make the research faster, because there is already a problem to keep your army up to date. Specially, the nations with the outdated focus trees have a big issue to keep up with their historically techs. Italy got an massive research boost with his focus tree, even in 35 days they get more as other majors in 70.. but not all have this option.

So reducing the research duration or giving a option to use the expierence points would be a good idea. (For all nations)

 

[Vril266]

I don't know if all that's needed, but I see here and there some good ideas so I trust your best judgment!

The "new" modules are needed, for sure. About some other stuff, ya.. we will see. A lot of good ideas.

 

[FLUX2226]

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Air
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- Armor piercing bomb rack

Armor piercing bomb locks are a good idea for making dive bombers viable anti-ship planes, and it seems like the new module is somewhat similar to the new torpedos in stats. I assume the intended balancing is that dive bombers can additionally perform close air support and logistics strike, while torpedo bombers have the ability to port strike.
But I see a few problems: As it looks to me right now, dive bombers are always the superior anti-ship plane. While torpedo mountings and armor piercing bombs can compete on paper, dive bombers have access to the powerful dive brakes module: 4 defense and 6 naval targeting for only 1 weight and 1 production. Since naval targeting cannot be obtained otherwise, this gives them about twice as much naval targeting as torpedo bombers without negatively affecting the rest of their stats. I didn't test it, but I assume this has a big impact on combat performance. See attached images for two 1944 long range naval bombers, one with bomb locks and one with a torpedo.
The other problem is that outside of the "AP bombs for naval strike" scenario, bomb locks give severe agility penalties. When running close air support/logistics strike missions with any combination of three bomb locks on a 1940 small airframe, you'll end up with 1.2 agility. Essentially a strategic bomber but without the respective air defense, a death sentence against any enemy fighter. Proper close air support planes will have two small bomb bays instead of additional bomb locks (or any bomb locks a all), since they give more ground attack per weight compared to bomb locks and give no agility penalty (Edit: That has just been hotfixed, small bomb bays now give -15 agility, although still less than the locks' -20). Armor piercing bombs also have a very poor ground attack stat, barely dealing any damage. Realistically, a plane should be able to equip either type of bomb depending on the intended target, instead of being limited by the bomb locks.

As a result, dive bombers are still unable to perform both anti-ground and anti-ship roles, instead being the better naval bombers in every situation unless you want to port strike. So I suggest two things:
1) Rebalance dive brakes so they no longer give dive bombers such a big advantage over torpedo bombers for naval strikes, or change bomb locks accordingly so that dive brakes are necessary on naval dive bombers to bring them in line with torpedo bombers.
2) Change armor piercing bomb locks from a module to a passive tech that increases the naval attack of bomb locks and heavy bomb locks without negatively impacting ground attack, and reduce the agility penalty of the remaining bomb locks from -20 to -5 for all situations (Edit: Since the missing agility penalty of small bomb bays has just been hotfixed, -15 might be a better value than -5). This gives planes with bomb locks the same level of mission flexibility as planes with torpedo mountings.

With these changes, both plane types would be comparable in anti-ship performance, but dive bombers can actually be used as close air support planes (still less effective than "purebred" CAS due to small bomb bays being more efficient), while torpedo bombers can perform port strikes. It is then up to the player's preference or game plan which type of plane to build.

 

[MrMcQue]

…so like real life?

attacking is harder in war…we’re playing a war game. I’m not sure I see the conceptual problem

Because for the average """hardcore""" player being like real life seems to be a drawback actually, and not something to aspire to.

 

[Death_Hussar]

Are they going to fix the bug about Carrier bombers not shooting back in combat?

 

[C0RAX]

Minor Hotfix for some problems found on day 0.

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HOTFIX
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-hotfix for legacy damage reduction for ships was conflicting with new system (they will now add to each other) set legacy value to 0
-hotfix for missing agility mods for bomb bays

 

[Hadar]

- Super Heavy tanks are now support units. Super Heavy tanks are no longer line battalions

Noooo... my anti-fort unit(s)*

*when you are a maniac who regularly plays into 60s and 70s super heavy tanks are usually the only way to breakthrough a 10 lvl fort filled with dozens divisions with good supply. Unless you want to use nukes, but I never build them because they are taking away my factory slots.

 

[GrandVezir]

Unless you want to use nukes, but I never build them because they are taking away my factory slots.

Build them in occupied territory. That way, if they get sabotaged by local resistance, the saboteurs get to die irradiated. (Insert devil horns emoji.)

 

[bitmode]

@C0RAX I'm 99% sure NAVY_PIERCING_THRESHOLD_DAMAGE_VALUES does not work in two ways. It uses the piercing value before it is initialized, i.e. it acts as if the ship has zero piercing. Secondly, the value from the array should be a multiplier as is, but 1 gets added to it. This makes the factor scale from 1.3 to 2, instead of the intended 0.3 to 1.
(I have not looked at the hotfix yet, so apologies if it addresses this too)

 

[C0RAX]

@C0RAX I'm 99% sure NAVY_PIERCING_THRESHOLD_DAMAGE_VALUES does not work in two ways. It uses the piercing value before it is initialized, i.e. it acts as if the ship has zero piercing. Secondly, the value from the array should be a multiplier as is, but 1 gets added to it. This makes the factor scale from 1.3 to 2, instead of the intended 0.3 to 1.
(I have not looked at the hotfix yet, so apologies if it addresses this too)

Just had a look and seems you are correct. Well guess there will be hotfix next week since everyone has gone home for the weekend, but I've done the fix internally so its ready to push out on monday. Well that's the life of pushing development code earlier than normal.

 

[Alexander 'The Grape']

Minor Hotfix for some problems found on day 0.

##########
HOTFIX
##########
-hotfix for legacy damage reduction for ships was conflicting with new system (they will now add to each other) set legacy value to 0
-hotfix for missing agility mods for bomb bays

This has completely borked naval armor? The legacy system for armor was fine. Now armor is worthless and barely reduces damage.

Previously, if you had say a 60 armor Superheavy vs a 20 piercing Heavy Cruiser, the armored ship would take around 60% less damage. This was balanced because heavy armor means you get hit a lot more, is much more expensive, and doesn't help you vs air attack.

Now in this patch, these 46 attack Cruisers are dealing around 40 damage per hit. This means that the massive IC investment in armor does nothing but make you an easier target.

In the last version, the only Counter to the new low-visibility Heavy Cruisers was SuperHeavies. Now thanks to worthless armor, they get completely destroyed.

Side note, the visibility change means that stacking Medium battery on Heavy Cruiser is way too strong due to the HP bonus. Even without this hotfix, 330 HP Cruisers were just better for the cost than Battleships, only losing to Superheavies.

In addition, Navs are still too weak, ships shoot them down too much. It takes about 6-8k modern navs to kill a basic AA refit UK fleet. The damage numbers are fine, but the AA losses are just too favoured to surface ships.

 

[C0RAX]

This has completely borked naval armor? The legacy system for armor was fine. Now armor is worthless and barely reduces damage.

Previously, if you had say a 60 armor Superheavy vs a 20 piercing Heavy Cruiser, the armored ship would take around 60% less damage. This was balanced because heavy armor means you get hit a lot more, is much more expensive, and doesn't help you vs air attack.

Now in this patch, these 46 attack Cruisers are dealing around 40 damage per hit. This means that the massive IC investment in armor does nothing but make you an easier target.

In the last version, the only Counter to the new low-visibility Heavy Cruisers was SuperHeavies. Now thanks to worthless armor, they get completely destroyed.

Side note, the visibility change means that stacking Medium battery on Heavy Cruiser is way too strong due to the HP bonus. Even without this hotfix, 330 HP Cruisers were just better for the cost than Battleships, only losing to Superheavies.

In addition, Navs are still too weak, ships shoot them down too much. It takes about 6-8k modern navs to kill a basic AA refit UK fleet. The damage numbers are fine, but the AA losses are just too favoured to surface ships.

as mentioned just above there is a bug that's been found that causing the reduction to be 0 right now, welcome to betas stuff breaks we will get it fixed as soon as possible.

 

[Balesir]

I generally very much like the air changes, since they bring vanilla closer to what I have been wrangling out for the Waltzing Matilda mod , despite the fact that I'll ahve to rework some stuff to fit in due course... I do have a couple of questions and suggestions, though:

1) Excess thrust is moving to add AGL rather than speed - excellent, and much closer to reality. I assume the limitation of Thrust>Weight to get airborne will remain? The old version did, however, permit mission-specific speed changes, and no other mechanism allowed this; will max_speed multiplier be something we can add to mission stats, now (please)?

2) Turrets in vanilla don't seem to have a defence effect; splitting the effects of turrets to add both defence and attack is both realistic (it's why they were called "defensive weapons") and acts to make turret fighters a bit less attractive - fighters tend to need attack more than defence.

3) Are the effects of speed mission-affected? Bombers outpacing fighters was a huge thing (becuase if you can run faster than the fighters, then agility and firepower are pretty academic), but fighters against fighters the speed was less of a factor because both sides usually wanted a fight.

4) Any chance of specific anti-submarine values for aircraft weapons?

 

[Alexander 'The Grape']

as mentioned just above there is a bug that's been found that causing the reduction to be 0 right now, welcome to betas stuff breaks we will get it fixed as soon as possible.

That makes more sense, I was worried it was an intentional change! Phasing out legacy armor completely would be a bit of a problem

On a more positive note, the feedback I've seen from testing on the new air changes seem positive from a Multiplayer perspective. The new Torpedo and Cas techs give a nice progression for naval bombers and "Casnavs", and the reduced thrust and rebalanced weapons/turrets means there's more viable weapon choices on Fighters. The buffed Extra Fuel also means that the option for greater range on Fighter 3s is a nice side-grade. Maybe a bit too restrictive on Fighter 2s with their 3x utility slots though, as drop tank/armor or self sealing/extra fuel seems essentially mandatory to have decent range and not immediately turn into a fireball on contact with an enemy

BTW, are Advanced Carrier Airframes meant to be missing the 4x utility slots of their land-based cousins?

 

[C0RAX]

I generally very much like the air changes, since they bring vanilla closer to what I have been wrangling out for the Waltzing Matilda mod , despite the fact that I'll ahve to rework some stuff to fit in due course... I do have a couple of questions and suggestions, though:

1) Excess thrust is moving to add AGL rather than speed - excellent, and much closer to reality. I assume the limitation of Thrust>Weight to get airborne will remain? The old version did, however, permit mission-specific speed changes, and no other mechanism allowed this; will max_speed multiplier be something we can add to mission stats, now (please)?

2) Turrets in vanilla don't seem to have a defence effect; splitting the effects of turrets to add both defence and attack is both realistic (it's why they were called "defensive weapons") and acts to make turret fighters a bit less attractive - fighters tend to need attack more than defence.

3) Are the effects of speed mission-affected? Bombers outpacing fighters was a huge thing (becuase if you can run faster than the fighters, then agility and firepower are pretty academic), but fighters against fighters the speed was less of a factor because both sides usually wanted a fight.

4) Any chance of specific anti-submarine values for aircraft weapons?

1. yes thrust must still be >= weight
2. turret now provide both air attack and defence and agility on bombing missions to represent it being harder to attack from optimal directions.
3. kind off
4. not without significant amounts of code work no

 

[C0RAX]

BTW, are Advanced Carrier Airframes meant to be missing the 4x utility slots of their land-based cousins?

Yes, but if it's causing issues you can provide that feedback.

 

[WSnova]

Did the rage for medium Airframe get nerfed?

So 800 km range for the basic model. the improved small airframe has a range of 550 + drop tanks=850 km. So now there is no reason to use the medium airframes if you rush lvl 3 smoll airframes.

I liked using the basic TACs for reaching spaces the smoll ones couldn´t. I mean to cover the airzones around Guam I need the advanced Large airframe.

On Strategic Bombers, their range got wrecked too. To Bomb Japan you need the improved airframe(well the basic one can reach, barely) from iwo Jima. To bomb Germany from airports on South England you need at least the basic airframe, To teach the alps you need the improved, To reach eastern Germany you need toe advanced model. It previousl was that the basic one could reach all Germany, Italy and most Balkans.

I don´t want to talk about you not being able to reach the mid atlantic gap from newfoundland. Previously you needed lvl 3 large airframes to get coverage.

it also doesn´t help that there is no way to see(that I know) how far(in kms) a province/airzone is, so its trial and error.

I mean, sure extra fuel tanks and everything. But it was a huge nerf for airframes that weren´t used too much.

SHBB should just be removed and make it so that Japan can get ahead of time on BB Hull 3 and Guns.

Will have to take a look at the naval changes later, Armor was already pretty good so I guess it will be better? Cruiser armor for CVs is a change? I mean, if a CV gets in range of a BB it will still get shredded. I don´t think I will bother with that.

Man, the Range nerfs bother me more than I expected tbh. I mean, in the end my opinion hardly matters and I haven´t done testing with this changes, but I guess I was comfortable with the 1936 hull being good enough for my needs in range.

Changing survibility studies to 1939 tech is a change I guess? People will still rush it I think, 1939 is not that far off.
Making 2 more levels for torpedoes is a fine change, you will see your NAVs get better overtime.
I can´t see many people bothering with large cannons. They come too late and seem too heavy

Will have to test stuff when I am free.

 

[CanterburyITA]

1) Rebalance dive brakes so they no longer give dive bombers such a big advantage over torpedo bombers for naval strikes, or change bomb locks accordingly so that dive brakes are necessary on naval dive bombers to bring them in line with torpedo bombers.
2) Change armor piercing bomb locks from a module to a passive tech that increases the naval attack of bomb locks and heavy bomb locks without negatively impacting ground attack, and reduce the agility penalty of the remaining bomb locks from -20 to -5 for all situations (Edit: Since the missing agility penalty of small bomb bays has just been hotfixed, -15 might be a better value than -5). This gives planes with bomb locks the same level of mission flexibility as planes with torpedo mountings.

These are great ideas.

 

[Alexander 'The Grape']

1) Rebalance dive brakes so they no longer give dive bombers such a big advantage over torpedo bombers for naval strikes, or change bomb locks accordingly so that dive brakes are necessary on naval dive bombers to bring them in line with torpedo bombers.

This is unnecessary. Armor Piercing Bombs are much heavier than torpedos, meaning you cant afford them on long range planes.

Torpedo bombers are long range but lower damage, dive bombers are short range but higher damage and can't port strike - seems balanced to me!