ok, lots of questions. lets see...
Podcat in terms of complexity, how much attention does the average (i.e. not DDRJake or Delra) player have to pay to all the various values of the vessels? If I'm not especially interested in this aspect of the game, can I get away with throwing together a rough approximation of a decent fleet, or will that be a fatal oversight (taking into account which country I am etc)?
Depends. The most important is a balanced fleet of ships. Obviously a min-maxed fleet will beat you in an MP game or whatever, or if you are trying to DDRJake the world you need to pay attention to everything. So I guess the answer is it depends on the nation. If you are the US you are already at a big advantage once the industry starts humming and you can be a lot more careless than a resource starved japan for example.
Nice Diary! When will we get weekly DD's?
Later on
seems really interesting. It raised more questions than it answered
. I never really got into the old system it wasnt really me, so hopefully this will help on that
.
One question: how do you keep tabs on a battle? do you get an ongoing battle icon on the map you can click or something? As i do not think you would sit and watch it all pan out.
There are icons on the map as well as 3d graphics of fleets fighting. Chunks of that is under construction and wasnt ready for screenshot time.
Interesting. The concept is a good one, depending on the way that missions are handled. I really like the count of lost planes and shuips showing on-screen. The battlescreen graphic itself is very ... meh. Will it be possible to have a ship take a bunch of torpedo hits and keep coming (like the Musashi, for example)? Will DD's come in squadrons or flotillas of 4-6 ships? Hopefully CL's and above will still be single ships? Thanks in advance.
DDs are single ships. Currently everything is that isnt a transport, although we may change things before release. Strong large vessels can take more than one torpedo hit, but torpedoes are a bit random by nature.
How do the aircraft interact with all of this? Do the fighters get a chance to intercept the torpedo bombers before they attack? Do ships have a specific AA rating? How do the aircraft choose what ship to attack? Do they just spread their attacks randomly, or do they focus on the highest-value target? Can the player prioritize the targets?
yea, thats why you'll want fighters along. They go for the most important target, which will be the ship that can do most damage to you or that is easiest to sink. As a player you cant pick manually.
^^This is good news.^^
Question. The blue lines from the Japanese battleships to the American heavy cruiser, what do they mean? Is it targeting? Is that something that can be controlled by player during the battle or is that something decided by the game?
Its the game showing you who is attacking whom. The lines means its within range of its target. You can see targeting outside range if you hover mouse over ships.
And what do the green and brown bars under the ships mean?
Strength and Organization.
Organization = how much small damage, panic, fire, low ammo situation there is. you'll be forced to retreat without organization
Strength = how many holes and large structural damage is there in your hull (empty bar = sinking)
Awesome this is basically like I had thought it would be, all the ships in the zone have a time modifier to enter battle, so you don't have "death stacks" anymore unless they are all on search and destroy.
I really like it, however I do agree about the naval strength. I was really hoping to have something along what I proposed about breaking ships into "different parts" like Forward guns, Engine, Bridge, Rear guns, etc. That way you could get a "critical hit" only by hitting the gun parts, or you could massive damage the engine room and cause the ship to barely be able to move.
Really massive improvement though, I love it.
Question1: you mention when a Sub gets too close to a destroyer in the fleet? How is this modelled in the screen above? Do you see the sub as like "hidden" still as it moves closer and closer to the fleet? Also it seems like the subs would be all grouped up, does that mean there would be groups of "hidden" and "unhidden" subs?
Question2: Can we set target priorities in the battle? Let's say I want all my planes, and combat ships targetting the destroyers? Is this possible? Is it possible to automate somehow and set priorities for the different ships like:
Carrier planes target carriers and battleships
Battleships/Cruisers target destroyers
Submarines target destroyers
Question3: Lets say in the battle above we have reinforcements coming as submarines for the US, if all the Destroyers were sunk, does this mean the submarines could come in and surprise the enemy as reinforcements since the sub detection would be very low?
1: game splits groups that differ on distance or other major stats etc, we wanted to keep things simple for the screenshot above
2. no manual targets. ships follow hard rules affected by leader skill etc
3. yes
The windows at the bottom denoting what has been sunk. Is whats under say the Japanese side what they have lost or what they have sunk from the opposing side?
1. Another way to ask for clarity. Did Japan shoot down 44 torpedo bombers or did they lose 44 torpedo bombers.
2. How do the air units tie in. Are they actually resolved separately using the air system then the bombers can say make an attack run after escaping the air combat? If land based aircraft attack a fleet is it resolved in this same window?
Also this looks to be a good improvement over HoI3 im pretty excited to see the other Naval Dev diaries. HoI has always lacked in the naval arena.
The sunk ships are shown per side, so the ones below the side are the ship of theirs that have sunk. We'll make sure to make it a bit clearer.
I just want to bring up 2 points. I'm sure Podcat already has these in mind without my ramblings, but that's never stopped me before.
- Have the selectable option to pop up the combat window when fleets first engage -- or not.
- A big part of ASW in WWII was land-based, long-range aircraft. You can take it from there if you choose.
Thanks. Looks really good.
1. it doesnt do that atm, I guess we could make an option
2. yeah I am aware. we havent implemented stuff for that yet
How do aircraft work from CVs that is not currently in the combat but is on the way. Do they enter the fight or do they wait for the CV to enter the fight before they can engage?
Not until they enter into range (Carriers are in range as soon as they get into the battle zone though)
Also will CAG size be fixed and can the composition be customized?
From the screenshot it seems japanese carriers carry less planes than their US counterparts.
Also hope you explain more how subs will work in fleet engagements.
You can tweak CAG composition. as for number of planes on the carriers: its alpha.
They are probably additional planes from Midway island. Meaning land combat aircraft can get probably be on the "incoming" section, and possibly even allied Carrier aircrfat in the sea zone.
No, see above. those are shown differently so you can tell the difference.
What about flag ships? Are you still maintaining the HOI3 concept if you sink a country's flag ship that it affects them in the battle and their will?
We scrapped the flagship concept for now.
Awesome!
I take it the vertical positioning of the ships is purely aesthetic, and the ships are actually positions along a single dimension? But if this is the case, how will you simulate a submarine sneaking past the destroyer group to engage the capital ships?
Random detection chance
This looks amazing.
Question: Would this window come up if I'm bombing a fleet with land based bombers?
Honestly I dont know, I'll have to try it
If you sink a carrier - what happens to the airplanes still in the air? Do they magically disappear or do they keep fighting until out of fuel?
They try to reach a base. if there isnt one they crash and die.
how does a fleet decide to escape from battle or keep fighting?
They evaluate chance of winning, if it looks bad they may retreat. A ship may also try to keep in range to keep the location of the enemy but be outside gun range for example waiting for reinforcement.
