New Naval warfare suggestion

[Bluestreak2k5]

As SwordOfJustice pointed out there is really no reason for Naval organization http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?773385-What-is-organisation-for-naval-units. A naval unit simply shouldn't stop fighting when it hasn't been hit or damaged.

I'd like to take this further into an idea to help make Naval warfare more realistic.

If we take the same concept we are doing for Land units and do it with Naval units we end up with something like this:

Battleship Division Unit (which is what we control and see on the screen)
Front Gun battalion
Rear gun battalion
AA battalion
Bridge battalion
Engine/Steering battalion
Hull battalion

NOTE: These aren't editable, you can't create your own ships, building a Battleship just automatically has these battalion "parts". The parts are simply there to reflect real world battle conditions.

Now that everything is broken out we can have things simulated better.

A hit would damage 1 or more battalions of the ship, for example the bridge. A 100% destroyed bridge will not sink a ship, however with no way to spot or see if your missing or hitting targets and no command, so Front, Rear, and AA guns should have significant decreases in accuracy.

If your in a battle with a submarine, the ship only takes Hull damage or Engine/Steering damage. A submarine cannot damage turrets or other parts. And if a ship's hull is completely destroyed the ship sinks. As hull is damaged, the ship's speed and ability to dodge go down drastically, as a ship that can only move 1mph is a sitting duck. (realistically a ship with about 50% hull damage would sink, but ignoring this)

You can now also simulate other real world issues.

100% destroyed Engine/Steering means the ship is not sunk, but cannot steer or move. It has to be towed back to port or scuttled.
A hit on front or rear turrets has a 5% chance to sink the ship instantly (by going through the armor and hitting the gunpowder/magazine storage).
Damaging a carrier "flight deck" battalion part should render the carrier incapable of launching planes, or planes in the air landing.
Engine damage should make the ship move slower, and thus the fleet move slower.

Each battalion would repair the same way it did in HOI3 2% a day, so you could put a ship out to see with slightly damaged turrets or hull, but have nearly full combat capabilities still.

 

[RisingSun]

I mention this earlier and not sure if they will add any flavors to Naval Engangements as well Air Engagements. What we need is based on Commander Decisions and having War Cards, War Cards are like Battle Events compare to ground battles. The problems is that time goes by too fast, it wouldnt make much sense for naval/air combats, ground combats are fine. I know what you mean when warships take damage, there a chance main armaments can be destroyed or knocked out. Having War Cards like "Crossing the T", "Advancing", "Fleeing", etcs. Also destroyers have torpedoes and that ususally take once (twice for Japaneses) then they have to report for rearm. For the torpedoes in the water, both sides would have to be close and Japaneses have long-lance that can travel up to 40,000 yards at average speed.

I doubt if they will add this ideas, have been discuss few times. But i really like to see this kick in.

 

[Big Nev]

For me:-

Decent representation of torpedoes.
An armour penetration mechanic so that old BBs/BCs can destroy cruisers. A Queen Elizabeth, New Mexico or Repulse with up-to-date radar & fire control would obliterate even a Baltimore.

Easily.

A proper convoy system that actually has convoys of ships that travel together.

Distinctions between CVEs, CVLs, CVs and CVs with significant armour (Brit’ designs)

EDIT: OK, so none of those are actually new


As for Org' for naval units. To me, it makes perfect sense.

Perhaps a little abstract but consider...

Just look at what happened to Vittorio or Deutschland. A single torpedo hit did no significant damage but stopped the battleship dead in the water while a single 8” hit on the pocket battleship killed her fuel. A more general way of looking at it is to say that repeated hits do little significant damage but do actually reduce the fighting efficiency (by killing crew, jamming turrets, destroying Radar/fire-control etc.) without actually threatening the ship until a point is reached when damage control measures get overwhelmed and the ship starts to take “permanent” damage and, unless it's repaired, eventually sinks.

When do ships stop fighting if they haven't been hit?

 

[RisingSun]

Guess they can put complex compartments on those ships, firecontrols, floatations, each weapon platforms, bridges, ammo stores, fuel stores, engine rooms, etcs. I doubt if they will.

 

[Big Nev]

I doubt if they will too.

What percentage of players do you think know enough about WWII warship design (or are even interested) to actually come-up with workable ships?

Now teach the AI to design its fleet components in response to what the player is building.

Then there would always be those who would complain that the Italian 15” gun isn’t properly represented compared to the British, German etc. 15”. It would have to be generic.

I’d love to be able to do this, to define all of the major components, I really would, but I just can’t see it

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

I doubt if they will too.

What percentage of players do you think know enough about WWII warship design (or are even interested) to actually come-up with workable ships?

Now teach the AI to design its fleet components in response to what the player is building.

Then there would always be those who would complain that the Italian 15” gun isn’t properly represented compared to the British, German etc. 15”. It would have to be generic.

I’d love to be able to do this, to define all of the major components, I really would, but I just can’t see it

Sorry let me explain a little clearer...

I'm not trying to say that you could pick and select which components to build a ship. I'm simply attempting to break things out to make naval battles more realistic.

This would work exactly like HOI3 where if you order a Battleship, It builds a Battleship, except this battleship would have preselected, unchangable battalion parts that it is made up of.

The battalions "parts" are simply there to make things more realistic in battle, for example destroying a Battleships Rear turrets, the firepower should drop in combat by 50%. Or if you score a direct hit on a carrier "flight deck" the carrier can no longer launch planes, and any planes that are in the air can no longer land. If there are no other carriers nearby, the planes must crash land and lose them.

I wasn't trying to say that you select up to 5 battalions and build your custom ship. The 100% strength bar doesn't mean anything though, it doesn't affect firepower or speed, or anything, it's simply a number that when reaches 0 the ship is sunk. At least by breaking the ship into components you can simulate damage and how it affects the ship.

 

[RisingSun]

I am surprised not many want this ideas, the more demand that the players want is more likely they will add them (if they can figure it out and depend on how creative they are). Its more than six months before this will go live, so let wait and see what happen with the players and devs.

 

[Mamluke]

yeah, this might make naval warfare far more interesting and easier to understand then before.

I just fear that the devs will look at this Idea and think: "ho hell no! just think of the "balance" issues....

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

yeah, this might make naval warfare far more interesting and easier to understand then before.

I just fear that the devs will look at this Idea and think: "ho hell no! just think of the "balance" issues....

There should be no "balance issues" you aren't customizing the ships at all. You build a Battleship, it already has there prebuilt parts that can't ever be changed. It's broken up to reflect more accurate battle damage from battle. There is no putting 5 AA gun battalions on a battleship or any customization, The ships can still all have the same values as they had before, just simply making the ships more realistic.

 

[Big Nev]

I really do like this idea.

To be implemented properly, you’d need to plot fall of shot. Just a random “what’s hit?” system that gets checked against armour to see if, for example, a hit on turret-A does knock it out.

Most shell hits would be on hull & superstructure or deck at long range rather than turrets (or other interesting stuff) with effects ranging from scratching the paint through cripple & beyond repair at sea to destroyed.

Too complex? No, I don’t think so. Just how many ships do you build in a game compared to divisions? And a ship with a couple of destroyed turrets may not be worth repairing.

And I’d like to see the damage shown on the animations in the combat screen too along with individual health bars.

And can I please tell individual ships in combat who I want them to shoot at and/or GTFO?

Something else I’d like to see, that I think would work well with this, is the timeframe altered for naval battles from an hour to rounds of 5 minutes.

I’d actually love to see the animated combat screen as an aerial view with the ships positions represented in 2D with full range of movement showing target, primary, secondary & AA ranges for each ship. I want to see Kurita chasing Taffy-3.

 

[Jazumir]

Yeah, i do like the OP´s idea as well. If you think about space games, it´s a tried and proven system, too.

The OP has conceded customization of ships, and i do not quite see why - it would be really nice, if you could choose lighter turrets or less armor for a bit extra speed and/or less fuel consumption, say. If you could focus your destroyers on torpedoes or guns or ASW.

Any overhauling of the naval-battle-engine will require a new balance to come with it, anyways.

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

Yeah, i do like the OP´s idea as well. If you think about space games, it´s a tried and proven system, too.

The OP has conceded customization of ships, and i do not quite see why - it would be really nice, if you could choose lighter turrets or less armor for a bit extra speed and/or less fuel consumption, say. If you could focus your destroyers on torpedoes or guns or ASW.

Any overhauling of the naval-battle-engine will require a new balance to come with it, anyways.

I conceded customization because it leads to problems of having to build a complete AI system to build and customize ships based on the enemy's forces. It also requires further development of GUI to allow people to customize. Then humans would also need to customize and build their own ships, something which most people would probably not know how to do, or would not do.

All in All customization of ships using this would lead to more problems, but could be added in mod's or expansions once the idea is in the game.

Once you have them broken out, you can also have "ammo" associated with each turret section, and a ship can no longer fight once all the ammo has been spent.

 

[Mannstien]

Customization is really dealt with at the research level though so I don't see why you would need to do it prior to production. If you wanted a lighter ship than why would you waste all that leadership researching armor instead of engines or something else.

 

[Big Nev]

Customization is really dealt with at the research level though so I don't see why you would need to do it prior to production. If you wanted a lighter ship than why would you waste all that leadership researching armor instead of engines or something else.

In truth, I don't see that researching armour would necessarily increase the weight of a ship anyway. If anything, better systems of distribution & better armour, metallurgicaly, should actually make a ship lighter. Or better protected for the same weight.

And a "better" ship gun (weapon system) doesn't have to mean a heavier mount or larger calibre either. I know I keep using Vanguard as an example but... 1920s guns on a late 1940s warship.

Then there's all that Washington & London treaty rubbish that made most of the majors struggle with what they could fit in to a very limited displacement.

I really hope they include that.

PDS has a chance to make the naval aspect so much better. Forumites have been asking for improvements for years.

Come on Paradox. Give us this please.

 

[Mannstien]

In truth, I don't see that researching armour would necessarily increase the weight of a ship anyway. If anything, better systems of distribution & better armour, metallurgicaly, should actually make a ship lighter. Or better protected for the same weight.

And a "better" ship gun (weapon system) doesn't have to mean a heavier mount or larger calibre either. I know I keep using Vanguard as an example but... 1920s guns on a late 1940s warship.

Then there's all that Washington & London treaty rubbish that made most of the majors struggle with what they could fit in to a very limited displacement.

I really hope they include that.

PDS has a chance to make the naval aspect so much better. Forumites have been asking for improvements for years.

Come on Paradox. Give us this please.

I agree, suppose I was thinking of the HOI3 research effects.

 

[Alex_brunius]

In truth, I don't see that researching armour would necessarily increase the weight of a ship anyway. If anything, better systems of distribution & better armour, metallurgicaly, should actually make a ship lighter. Or better protected for the same weight.

And a "better" ship gun (weapon system) doesn't have to mean a heavier mount or larger calibre either. I know I keep using Vanguard as an example but... 1920s guns on a late 1940s warship.

Apparently this is a bad example since only the actual gun barrels were from 1920s, the turrets/barbettes and all supporting systems were heavily modernized:


"Captain William Gladstone Agnew assumed command on 15 October 1945. The end of hostilities following Japan's surrender reduced the need for new warships and consequently the ship was not commissioned until 12 May 1946. By this time, a total of £11,530,503, including £3,186,868 for the modernisation of the main armament, had been spent on producing Vanguard"


So actually it seems roughly a quarter of the total cost for the ship was spent on modernizing the main armaments, everything from their armor protection, habitability, protection of ammuniation, maximum elevation to the fire control and range finders was improved.

 

[Beagá]

yeah, this might make naval warfare far more interesting and easier to understand then before.

I just fear that the devs will look at this Idea and think: "ho hell no! just think of the "balance" issues....

The problem is the AI, not the feature itself. A human player will readily detach a damaged ship from a fleet to save the fleet. Na AI fleet might not do the same and the result is the player dogpiling the slowed fleet with everything he got. If the price for improved realism is an AI that can´t use the feature, it shouldn´t be included. But if the AI can handle it, sure, why not?

 

[Big Nev]

Apparently this is a bad example since only the actual gun barrels were from 1920s, the turrets/barbettes and all supporting systems were heavily modernized:


"Captain William Gladstone Agnew assumed command on 15 October 1945. The end of hostilities following Japan's surrender reduced the need for new warships and consequently the ship was not commissioned until 12 May 1946. By this time, a total of £11,530,503, including £3,186,868 for the modernisation of the main armament, had been spent on producing Vanguard"


So actually it seems roughly a quarter of the total cost for the ship was spent on modernizing the main armaments, everything from their armor protection, habitability, protection of ammuniation, maximum elevation to the fire control and range finders was improved.

Ah... yeah. The guns were 30 years old but everything else was either modern or modernised. I’ve got to stop thinking about the gun so much as the entire weapon system.

So... would an upgrade in fire control from say... 30 foot rangefinders & different coloured paint in your shells to direction by a mechanical analogue computer justify an increase in Sea Attack without the need to change the armament?

Because you've got that much better chances of hitting.

Followed by further upgrades in fire control to electro-mechanical computers with RADAR

 

[Sky_WKing]

They already had naval customization in EvW, there's no reason they can't have it in HOI4.

 

[Beagá]

They already had naval customization in EvW, there's no reason they can't have it in HOI4.

The customization is the easy part. The hard part is making na AI that will handle it. Specially specific kinds of battle damage.

And the point of the OP change is EXACTLY having specific damage. Else, it´s pointless from a gameplay POV.