Development Diary #18 - 25th of February 2009

[unmerged(75409)]

However, I do have one question: Will it be possible to rescue elements of a CAG? If a CAG loses its CV, surely elements at least would try to land on another CV to attempt to escape. This keeps some of the experience of the CAG while still guaranteeing serious losses. Losing a CV should hurt - but at the same time, a CAG can be re-assigned, and sending your best CAGs across the Pacific while you get greener units experience against the RM and the Kriegsmarine (or, for you Japanese players, the RN in the Indian Ocean) seems like a sensible and realistic manoeuvr, and having a CAG wait on the beach while rebuilding itself also seems sensible.

Maybe the CAG is not simply destroyed if the carrier is sunk - instead it can be "shattered" like land units?

 

[Braedonnal]

We may have forgot to mention that each ship class has a hull size value which reflects how much damage it can take.

That's a fantastic change as well.

 

[TheLand]

We may have forgot to mention that each ship class has a hull size value which reflects how much damage it can take.

So Johan left the most significant fact out of the dev diary?

Bang goes the superiority of the "Great War Heavy Cruiser"

 

[unmerged(15623)]

So Johan left the most significant fact out of the dev diary?

Bang goes the superiority of the "Great War Heavy Cruiser"

We already knew that something like that was coming though.

 

[Fortium]

Looks great so far.

 

[Quivis]

Great !!! Now give us some information about subs in next DevDiary… please o

 

[Kikaider]

Great !!! Now give us some information about subs in next DevDiary… please o

No, not just subs, but convoy raiding in general

And a pic of the Land Theory screen!!!!

 

[MontanaPrussian]

We may have forgot to mention that each ship class has a hull size value which reflects how much damage it can take.

Excellent! I was hoping that something along this line would be implemented!

 

[Alex_brunius]

I like what Paradox is doing with the whole thing of fleets losing each other depending on weather and radar techs. This is a great improvement, I just think that they should take it one more step and temporarily hide fleet composition from humans and AI as well.

The Italian Navy's lack of radar made them extremely vulnerable - essentially worthless and blind.

Hmm no. The reason weather and nighttime influensed detection chance was not only how far you could se from the ships, but if you could operate its floatplanes or not.

I hope doctrines and techs for this is important aswell. USA had a much more defensive approach to scouting then Japan had, something that cost Japan in Midway for example going head first into unknown territory with the Carriers "assuming" it was safe instead of checking. The Midway plan also positioned all Jap floatplane ships to far back to be of much help.

Even after the war Floatplane scouts had much longer range then Radars, and could view over the horizon. Something else to remember is that floatplanes are dedicated scouts as oppsoed to CAGs that need to acomplish loads of different tasks.

The primary thing that influences a fleets total detection would be number of floatplanes and how many Cruisers or larger ships they have that can carry them. If normal fleets don't have the possibility to scout outside their own province in HoI3 I will be dissapointed.

In good weather floatplane tech/doctrines should be able to give a fleet a sizable scouting advantage over other fleets that don't have them.

 

[subnormalized]

Well, it seems most of the discussion has been concerned with CAGs and CVs. However, without more info on the air-naval combat model, much of the discussion is running in circles. However, there are a few points to be concerned with, going with the total knowledge we do have.

1. Leadership points, CAGs, and the devastation of a Carrier Fleet
Carrier-trained pilots were a precious resource. They'd probably be prioritized for evacuation if a CV got hit with sinking damage, and so long as the fleet wins the battle and forces an enemy retreat, many downed pilots can be recovered with seaplanes and such. But if all CVs are sunk, seaplanes can't linger in the face of enemy air superiority, and any pilots in the air must down their planes in the ocean and hope to be recovered by surface vessels.

Thus, if a fleet loses a Midway-type battle, it should cost more Leadership points, ultimately, than losing the same number of carriers in four separate battles. But how to model this? I suppose I need to read more on Leadership to get an idea of what mechanic they *could* use...

2. Naval Fog of War
With full knowledge of the types and numbers of ships in a combat encounter, there is no way to fool a human player into withdrawing from inferior forces with a lucky encounter, like Admiral Kurita did in the Battle of Samar. No combination of lucky naval events, radar/intelligence technology gaps, or advantageous positioning rolls could simulate this battle as things stand, since the critical factor was the perception that a major fleet was encountered. A human player would look at the battle window, see that he held the overall advantage despite initial bad luck, and stick it out.

For that matter, even the post-battle 'sunk ships' display from HOI2 gives too much info. We should have 'confirmed' and 'suspected' sunk ships, or else we can't simulate Yamamoto's misperception that the Yorktown was sunk pre-Midway, and knowing how many Carriers you might face *is* a grand-strategic/operational consideration, not just a tactical loophole like with the battle window.


That's all I can think of for now...
Jonathan Fisher

 

[Asymmetric]

Very impressive.

What with this and the previous 17 diarys, it appears a great deal of thought has gone into the mechanics of this game. I truly hope it sets a new bench mark.

 

[Alex_brunius]

1. Leadership points, CAGs, and the devastation of a Carrier Fleet
Carrier-trained pilots were a precious resource...
...Thus, if a fleet loses a Midway-type battle, it should cost more Leadership points, ultimately, than losing the same number of carriers in four separate battles. But how to model this? I suppose I need to read more on Leadership to get an idea of what mechanic they *could* use...

So far however leadership doesnt seem to cover combat specialists, only civilian or administrative leaders. I fully agree with you that this is a part of the game thats missing though.

2. Naval Fog of War
With full knowledge of the types and numbers of ships in a combat encounter, there is no way to fool a human player into withdrawing from inferior forces with a lucky encounter, like Admiral Kurita did in the Battle of Samar. No combination of lucky naval events, radar/intelligence technology gaps, or advantageous positioning rolls could simulate this battle as things stand, since the critical factor was the perception that a major fleet was encountered. A human player would look at the battle window, see that he held the overall advantage despite initial bad luck, and stick it out.

For that matter, even the post-battle 'sunk ships' display from HOI2 gives too much info. We should have 'confirmed' and 'suspected' sunk ships, or else we can't simulate Yamamoto's misperception that the Yorktown was sunk pre-Midway, and knowing how many Carriers you might face *is* a grand-strategic/operational consideration, not just a tactical loophole like with the battle window.

In that case the same thing should be true for the Land and air battles where Intel of enemy strenght and composition never were solid either.

Personally Im hoping for events so random and powerful in naval combat that they can re-enact battles such as that one off samar. And an AI for leaders so that a defensive leader could choose to withdraw in similair situations from mostly fear of the enemy Fleet Carriers that sunk one of Japans most prestiegeous two ships yesterday. A retreat order should not only be based on what ships lost in the current battle but how many ships lost since the fleet left port.

 

[208]

The link between the CV's and the CAG's is now broken, and they are no longer just a "brigade" of the CV, they are a truly independent unit.

Which raises the question, what about non-CAG air units landing on carriers? Will it be a CAG-specific capability, or will we be able to add equipment (like ship "brigades" in HoI2) to an air unit to allow carrier landings? That way, those who really want to adjust the compositions of their CAGs could in theory just build carrier-capable fighter units or CAS units, instead of the mixed-plane CAGs.

I wrote that question much earlier today... Paradox silence regarding the issue might mean that we will see the entire enemy fleet composition as soon as the fleet engages, which is neither a best case scenario nor a catastropic fault

Or their silence might just be that they're working on the game instead of reading and replying to everything on the forums....

 

[unmerged(108755)]

Good stuff, always thought the naval side needed a bit of love compared to air and land.

Also, would it be possible to include naval flags for nations?
For example the White Ensign for the UK as apposed to the Union flag shown in the battle window and above the ships in the screenshot?

 

[unmerged(37697)]

Also, would it be possible to include naval flags for nations?
For example the White Ensign for the UK as apposed to the Union flag shown in the battle window and above the ships in the screenshot?

That would be hella' cool, and AFAIK not too difficult to implement.

You'd just have to change the source flag for those parts of the interface.

Would look awesome.

 

[Razor]

Nice!

 

[Cardus]

I suppose we should end with a note about carriers. Yes carriers not longer fight in Naval combat (well ok they do just very very badly), instead the CAG is now a separate air unit that can be used as an air unit. Thus you can bomb enemy air bases and support naval landings with it. However the actual effectiveness of the CAG unit is modified by a carrier tech value called hangar. This is essentially the amount of physical space on the carrier for air units. We also have a separate tech for armour. A rather neat consequence of this is we can model the differences between the design philosophies of the British carriers as compared to the American and Japanese ones quite neatly inside the tech system.

Dear Johan, could you please give us the possibility to choose with which airplaines we want to fill out the hangar?

 

[Biges]

OK, I'll be childish... just one time...
ASSMANn :rofl:

 

[unmerged(54763)]

HANGARS!

I have dillema,realy big one,this hangar information.
Dillema is becouse we( I for certain) dont know how air units in general will be composed in HOI III?
Will air units have brigades,just like ground divisions?
How different in way of composition(creation) will be CAG-s compared to ground based air units?
We can see now that CAG-s will operate like any air unit.So carrier is now actualy an airfileld on sea.Excellent.
So we could land our CAG on some ground airbase to,or not?
But ,again if CAG-s are doing job just like any air unit in game,does their composition have something common with ground based air units composition?
Will air units have brigades?
Does size of the hangar means number of slots for brigades for CAG?Or just this means that hangar will be printing matrics for casting of different sizes of anbreakable CAG units?
If this CAG is not made of elements but made by casting in hangar, than how is ground based wing made in game?
I mean we(I ) dont know anything yet about composition of air units in HOI III.
Does anyone know?


EDIT-damn its all described by King allready.
Monolite air units,100 planes.again.

 

[RELee]

Does anyone know?

Those that might will be under an NDA. No sense in even asking.