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In CORE, small, very fast SAG fleets of a composition of BC+CL+DD, CA+CL+DD or CA+DD+DD when engaged by larger very slow SAG fleets ([4, 5]xBB+screens) typically start the battle at point-blank range, being instantly obliterated within the first two hours of combat.
This is undesirable.
At the second hour of combat, engagement distance increases, so the smaller fleet actively tries to disengage as it should (and as can be seen with more survivable submarine fleets).
While the unit values between CORE and vanilla do not have much in common, there is no obvious cause for this issue.
Mission type for the small fleet does not seem to play any role.
The small fleet is considerably faster in both least and average speed than the large fleet.
These are the questions:
How do asymmetrical naval engagements typically start in vanilla?
Is it here possible for a small fleet to outrun the larger one?
Note that the notification for a naval engagement only appears after the first hour of combat.
Which of the ship values do truly participate in calculating the spawn distance?
Are there known interactions between values, which could produce issues similar to the one observed?
In CORE, small, very fast SAG fleets of a composition of BC+CL+DD, CA+CL+DD or CA+DD+DD when engaged by larger very slow SAG fleets ([4, 5]xBB+screens) typically start the battle at point-blank range, being instantly obliterated within the first two hours of combat.
This is undesirable.
Is it? The ratio between the detection of fleet A and visibility of fleet B determines the chances that Fleet A will detect fleet B and visa vice. If both fleets seek battle (detection(A) x visibility(B))/(detection(B) x visibility(A)) = (detection(A)/visibility(A))/(detection(B)/visibility(B)) determines the chances to detect the enemy first and thus start the battle at hopefully favourable conditions.
If however only one fleet seeks battle things are a bit different. If the faster but inferior fleets detects the slower but superior fleet, than it will not engage in battle. As soon as the slower fleet however detects the inferior but faster fleet it may engage the enemy and destroy it if possible. Starting the battle at below optimal range serves this purpose because the faster fleet could else escape before being sunk.
There is no such thing as "Doctrine" in terms of game mechanics (actually, "abandonable tech" fits, but is hardly relevant here) - do you mean Positioning? That you mention not and surely it has (Or has it not?) some kind of impact (as there is no other purpose to these two values).
I do find this behaviour highly undesirable, as it makes every encounter deadly. When fleets start below either side's minimal firing range, the different ranges of unit types also become obsolete.
... With a pure transport fleet on one side of the battle, combatants actually spawn far away and the armed fleet has to race towards the transports which it may catch before they retreat or not.
This deterministic behaviour: Armed inferior fleet spawns always at point-blank, transport-only inferior fleet spawns always at high distance; is thoroughly irritating.
The chance to actually engage, incidentally, seems to be fine enough. That is not an issue and should ideally be preserved as it currently is.
To me this formula seems to over value the Detection values of the large fleet. Realistically a large fleet will have many units that are "internal" to the formation and provide limited additional search capability. OTOH, the large formation required by these internal units still increases Visibility substantially. All in all this seems to favor a large fleet composition. To me there should be some sort of stacking penalty applied.
There is a naval doctrine tree, which in vanilla has 3 separate doctrine paths: Fleet-in-Being; Sealane Interdiction; and Base Strike Doctrine. I have no idea if CORE has removed/tweaked this.
While relevant to the general forum, I suggest also or alternatively raise this matter in the CORE forum.
I played a limited amount of CORE some time ago, and came to the conclusion that even small naval errors are severely punished by the CORE mod. So I concur with your experience. A major change of approach is required for the switch from vanilla AoD naval to CORE AoD naval, otherwise there will not be success in the CORE mod.
It's been raised here by the core Dev's because it pertains to hardcoded mechanics. Obviously units are going to have different stats, doctrines will be different, etc but the way detection, visibility, speed etc all work is hardcoded.
There is a naval doctrine tree, which in vanilla has 3 separate doctrine paths: Fleet-in-Being; Sealane Interdiction; and Base Strike Doctrine. I have no idea if CORE has removed/tweaked this.
The ratio between the detection of fleet A and visibility of fleet B determines the chances that Fleet A will detect fleet B and visa vice. If both fleets seek battle (detection(A) x visibility(B))/(detection(B) x visibility(A)) = (detection(A)/visibility(A))/(detection(B)/visibility(B)) determines the chances to detect the enemy first and thus start the battle at hopefully favourable conditions.
Good question. Being awfully inferior will likely prevent it. There also is the issue that subs, that could win the battle if staying undetected, will not seek battle because advantages of low visibility are not counted in. And there is the issue of forced engagement.
Good question. Being awfully inferior will likely prevent it. There also is the issue that subs, that could win the battle if staying undetected, will not seek battle because advantages of low visibility are not counted in. And there is the issue of forced engagement.
I was able to isolate two very nice naval battles, one of which shows the behaviour described, while the other one works much more desirable. Main difference is that the "good" one starts at day (at a distance of 26.6 km) while the "bad" one starts at night (and at a distance of 4.3 km).
As may be expected, in the "bad" example, the small fleet disintegrates in the first hour of daylight, whereas in the "good" example, the large slow fleet sometimes manages to close during nighttime, sometimes does not. It may still poach one or two of the smaller fleet's ships, but as well may it lose a ship itself.
"good" example
Start distance: 26.6 km (within firing range of defender's BC, out of range of all others)
Time until disengagement seems to be arbitrary; the small fleet can survive the "bad" example, when disengagement happens before sunrise.
Both battles happen almost completely during night time and I see that the distance between fleets seems to jump around randomly while no side can detect the other.
Interestingly, the "bad" battle starts with all ships of both sides invisible - it should not, I think, under such circumstances.
I find that one of two constraints should be relaxed to solve the issue: Either the small distance, at which the encounter starts, must be relaxed; or the arbitrariness of distance changes (no correlation to speed or detection visible; the behaviour does not change even when both sides see at least one unit of the other) must be reduced.
- Can this actually be done?
