When HoI-games will have really correct ship stats and ship classes?

[Midden]

I am thinking the opening posters stats maybe has forgotten about torpedoes from light cruisers and destroyers is there preferred method of attack vs a capital ship, and a deadly threat at night and / or under cover with smoke screens. The sea attack of 1 / 2 for a destroyer flotilla in the table above seems laughably low to me. Real world example is the results Taffy 3 achieved at Leyte.

Plus main gun with effective radar plotting is a major multiplier of effectiveness than just considering gun caliber. Shots on target from an Iowa 25 to a Queen Elizabeth 20 in the table above - would be more like attack value of 25 to 10, in my non-expert view. Is this worth considering?

 

[Mjarr]

I am thinking the opening posters stats maybe has forgotten about torpedoes from light cruisers and destroyers is there preferred method of attack vs a capital ship, and a deadly threat at night and / or under cover with smoke screens. The sea attack of 1 / 2 for a destroyer flotilla in the table above seems laughably low to me. Real world example is the results Taffy 3 achieved at Leyte.

There is just the inevitable problem raising small ship sea attack value to more realistic easily results in wildly hilarious and ahistorical situations where there is no need to favour anything but hordes of destroyers because (video) game logic.

Unless they introduce separate torpedo attack stat and firing range for it but then it still might get rather problematic unless they have something up their sleeve for naval battles.

 

[String]

I think the OP has neglected to include both armour layout, quality of the armour, gun/torpedo layout and fire control measures in his stat calculations. For example most allied warships had radar fire control by late war whereas the axis ships did not. Worked wonders for accuracy especially in night battles.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I shure 100% that devs did not use tables with real ship's stats when they made Navvy simulation.
I see very very very much evidentiary for it.

All ships in HoI-2-3 made by prinsiple “more modern ship = more damage power, more firing range, more armor, more speed, more ALL!”

Generally speaking it was true that more modern ships were better then older models. Otherwise why were so much resources and time spent on developing new ships if they were worse?

For example, I know that very often ships 41-45 years was supplied by guns/towers-1920 year.
So 380mm cannons/towers made in 1920 year had equal fire speed on 1920-year ship and on 1941-year ship.

Really?

North Carolina Class: Mk 6 main guns ( designed 1936 )
Iowa Class: Mk 7 main guns ( designed 1939 and vastly lighter then previous designs)
Yamato Class: Type 94 Naval main guns ( design started 1934-36 during their design studies )
Bismarck Class: SK C/34 Naval main guns ( developed "mid-late" 1930s )
King George V-class: BL14 inch Mk VII ( designed in the late 1930s )

Given that battleships did take roughly 4 years from design to active service it would not have been possible to build Battleships with these guns earlier then they historically were built. The new guns were developed for these ships, to be better then previous models.

Exactly what 380mm cannon/tower made in 1920 were you referring too?

If information about the fire speed would be really important, it would be written in total 2WW ship's guides, but there are no this info!

What is in the guides is what people want to read about and think is interesting. How accurate a gun and how fast it can fire is not as interesting as it's size

 

[Big Nev]

Whilst I agree with just about everything the OP has said, and considering that the naming convention has already been pointed out...

I’ll add to his suggestion that the firepower of Hood & Bismarck should be almost identical with...

Vanguard. Her guns were actually of 1916 vintage having been removed from Courageous & Glorious when they were converted into CVs. These guns were 30 years old by the time they were fitted to Vanguard and yet, despite carrying the same calibre & number of big guns as Bismarck, a 1945 Vanguard would have had considerably greater effective power than either a 1339 Bismarck or a (as refitted) 1941 Hood.

Also consider the Hood (1920) was actually longer than Yammato (completed in 1942) Where does this fit in to a progressive year-by-year sequence of displacement increments?

EDIT: If Britain had wanted to build a lard-arse, I'm 100% certain they could have. It was, after all, Britain that tought Japan how to build modern battleships.


One thing I don’t like is the repeated use of the word “mistake”. The game was designed in such a way that does not allow for anything like an accurate representation of real warships. It’s unfortunate for those (like myself) who are fans of naval warfare but to declare these things as mistakes is inappropriate.

There is just the inevitable problem raising small ship sea attack value to more realistic easily results in wildly hilarious and ahistorical situations where there is no need to favour anything but hordes of destroyers because (video) game logic.

Unless they introduce separate torpedo attack stat and firing range for it but then it still might get rather problematic unless they have something up their sleeve for naval battles.

On the subject of destroyers & torpedoes.

It must be remembered that surface torpedoes were one shot weapons. Ships did not carry re-loads (apart from Japanese destroyers & cruisers of course) so... a high naval attack value is appropriate but the need to return to base to re-supply before being able to fire them again would be a representative (if difficult to implement) mechanic.

And not to forget that US cruisers didn’t carry any torpedoes at all. (one exception, the Atlantas but they were over-sized destroyer leaders anyway)

 

[Stygs]

Well, couldnt most of that be simulated by simple changes to the HoI3 system?

1. Add some disadvantages to ship techs. If you build a ship with all techs a the same level, it will be similiar to HoI3.
But if you use weaker armor/guns, you would get a ship that is weaker but faster than current ships.

2. Add some new (unbuildable) shipclasses for the early war szenarios. So the Hood could be a level 3 dreadnought instead of a level 1 battleship.
That way these ships could be balanced indepedently from normal battleships and have different values. Of course, some of the battleship upgrades (AA, Radar) could also apply to them to keep them usefull later in the game.

3. Add some kind of armor mechanic similar to TFH tanks. Not much, just a bit to make battleships more usefull against cruiser/destroyer spam.

 

[mattyh1995]

I think that naval techs should be completely separated from other techs. The naval game in my opinion has great potential and the ability to order a new ship class with defined specifications and have a set of proposals offered up would be much better than the current HoI 3 system of all techs having the same stats.

For example, if in 1936 the British ordered the development of a new class of Battleship a window would appear asking you to fill in specifications allowing you to choose a required top speed, calibre of main cannons, aa armaments, sensor equipment.etc or you could use an automated system which would present a list of the battleships that are in commision with other major powers or other battleships that have been discovered to be in development. From this list you could select a ship and the game will generate a "rival" to this ship. IIRC, this is what the French did with the Strasbourg.

If you wanted you could choose from existing equipment or order the development of new equipment to use on the new ship with the obvious time pentalties and production penalties that would come from new equipment.

After you have filled your requirements in or set the new classes "rival", the game will take a set amount of time to research this new class of ship based on several factors such as your nations ship building capacity and your existing fleet and doctrines. Once this is done you will get the ability to compare this new ship to the other ships of the great powers and decide whether it should be constructed or further improved.

 

[Nick3210]

The problem as Always are the battlecruisers. Schanhorst class had battleship level of armor. Hood had battleship level of gun. Yet... not "battleships".

The bottom line was that battlecruiser was anything that was crappier than a battleship in one area.

Yes, Schanhorst was really ugly bastard , it was not true battleship and not true battle cruiser. But by my mind it must be in one "game-level" with Dunkerque/ Scharnhorst/ Renown(upgr)/ Kongo(upgr). Weaker than true battle cruiser Hood and stronger than Giulio Cesare (after upgr).

(And it is interesting - "Giulio Cesare" class was battleships "1-lvl", but after upgrade these 4 ships became true battle cruisers of "2-lvl" with big cannons, not slow speed and low armor

Ok so you want historical ships, but then you should also want historical build times, because even in the real world a carrier does not take 1 year to 2 years to build... it was more like 4 years, with 2 years being at full build speed (100% practical). All ships would need to doubled at least in build time to make them historical

Historicity in HoI should not kill gameplay!
Historicity in ship's stats is good, it make a more complete immersion in the atmosphere of 2WW, and good for gameplay.
But if ships will have too long time of construction it will be not good for gameplay. So it will be good if we will take ship's construction time not average, but minimal as possible in real history.

For example heavy Essex-class carriers builded very fast - in 1 year and 3 month. Ok, It's normal time for carrier construction in game.

It is important to understand why any ships sometimes were under construction a very long time. Because the construction has been idle! No money - stop construction! No supplies - stop construction! No parts and mechanisms - stop construction! New ideas and conceptions - new blueprints - stop construction! It is like do not give full IC for construction in HoI and give only 50% or 30% of IC
So we do not need make construction time in game as 3-5 years or 20(!) years, as it often was in reality. Gameplay is more important.

I am thinking the opening posters stats maybe has forgotten about torpedoes from light cruisers and destroyers is there preferred method of attack vs a capital ship, and a deadly threat at night and / or under cover with smoke screens. The sea attack of 1 / 2 for a destroyer flotilla in the table above seems laughably low to me. Real world example is the results Taffy 3 achieved at Leyte.

Plus main gun with effective radar plotting is a major multiplier of effectiveness than just considering gun caliber. Shots on target from an Iowa 25 to a Queen Elizabeth 20 in the table above - would be more like attack value of 25 to 10, in my non-expert view. Is this worth considering?

I do not tell how ship's stats must be implemented in HOI-4 and I dont know what sea battle mechanic will be in HoI-4
In my third table I showed only an example, how I implemented real ship's characteristics in HoI-2 model. May be it can implemented better! But most important - this implementing based on real ship's characteristics and not based on not correct princip "New ship-unit is better in ALL stats!"

All I want to tell, HoI-2 and HoI-3 ships stats did not based on real historical characteristics! Stats was taken from sky!
And I wish HoI-4 ship's stats and classes will be based on historical characteristics of real ships!

P/S/ 1-2 sea attack of destroyers in my table is anti-Zerg ban. Of course this is not historically implementing. But gameplay is more important Especially in multiplayer games which I play. In HoI-2 sea battle mechanic low sea attack of destroyer is standart way to ban destroyer's Zerg-fleets.

I think the OP has neglected to include both armour layout, quality of the armour, gun/torpedo layout and fire control measures in his stat calculations. For example most allied warships had radar fire control by late war whereas the axis ships did not. Worked wonders for accuracy especially in night battles.

Our game named HoI, not "World Of Battleships"
So, depreciation of cannons, type of shells, the quality of shells, the quality of the explosives, the quality of the targeting system, artillery not main caliber, speed of fire, quality of the armour, qualification of ship's team and much other we can not take into account.

So it will be good if we will use only 4 key factors for correct realistic implementing of ships - main calibre, number of main calibre, thickness of Main armour and ship speed. Unfortunately, even these 4 key factors were not implementing correctly in previous HoI!

Torpedoes, Radars, AA and targeting systems can be attached "brigades", no problem!

 

[RisingSun]

I would recommend to add ship classes for specific nations, not all ship classes are equal. For example, during the war in the pacific, british had a bad habit adding deck armour on carriers and believe it reduce the airgroup. Remember reading an paragraphs from American point of views, thats why Essex Class carriers are so easy to built with light protection on the flightdeck. Either you add ship classes for specific countries or use your simple template units like you have in previous HoISeries and add improvement stats like "Improved Hull", "Advance Torpedoes" , etcs. During the War in the Pacific, Japanese had the best long lance ship-bourne torpedoes!

Like Nick said above, time to build units seem off on some units. Some ships can take awhile to build, depending on classes, techs, manpowers and well resources. And one more thing, you cant build a warship without a port! So please when building a warship, besure its sign to that port from day one and each port size have it capacities as well. If that port is under attack, it can disrupt or destroy the ships that are under constructions.

 

[Fulmen]

Ok so you want historical ships, but then you should also want historical build times, because even in the real world a carrier does not take 1 year to 2 years to build... it was more like 4 years, with 2 years being at full build speed (100% practical). All ships would need to doubled at least in build time to make them historical

I'd very much like to see historical build times in the game, and not just for ships. Ideally you could pay more IC to speed up production a bit, similar to how AoD did it.

 

[Big Nev]

I would recommend to add ship classes for specific nations, not all ship classes are equal. For example, during the war in the pacific, british had a bad habit adding deck armour on carriers and believe it reduce the airgroup. Remember reading an paragraphs from American point of views, thats why Essex Class carriers are so easy to built with light protection on the flightdeck.

I agree with your first sentiment but would argue that heavily armouring a flight deck was a bad habit.

One famouse quote from an american was to the effect that a single bomb would put a US CV in dock for months of repairs while a kamikazi hit on a Brit' carrier was cause to get the brooms out & sweep it off the side.

I think this only helps to demonstrate that different nations had very different equipment.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Our game named HoI, not "World Of Battleships"
So, depreciation of cannons, type of shells, the quality of shells, the quality of the explosives, the quality of the targeting system, artillery not main caliber, speed of fire, quality of the armour, qualification of ship's team and much other we can not take not to take into account.

So it will be good if we will use only 4 key factors for correct realistic implementing of ships - main calibre, number of main calibre, thickness of Main armour and ship speed. Unfortunately, even these 4 key factors were not implementing in previous HoI!

Why do you insist on claiming that we should ignore factors like if it's possible to hit the target at all using the guns?
It doesn't matter if my enemy has 300 x 20 inch guns if he can't hit anything at all with them...

Japanese older battleships did on several occasions lose badly to US forces primary because they lacked radar firecontrol and the visibility was obscured by either smoke or the darkness of night.

They were not able score decisive hits on the US capital ships while the US forces thanks to modern firecontrol and radar were able to land hit after hit and sink or knock out the Yamashiro and Fuso, and the Hiei and Kirishima.

A majority of the surface action during the Pacific did take place during the night due to either side ( mostly Japan ) being afraid of the other sides aircraft... The same is true in the Atlantic where German ships often used the cover of night for their critical movements.

Not taking radar or firecontrols into account in the majority of the surface engagements that happened during night would be a very bad model, actually worse then the one HoI3 has were warship radar is a tech possible to research!

 

[SFSLovenought]

I would recommend to add ship classes for specific nations, not all ship classes are equal. For example, during the war in the pacific, british had a bad habit adding deck armour on carriers and believe it reduce the airgroup. Remember reading an paragraphs from American point of views, thats why Essex Class carriers are so easy to built with light protection on the flightdeck.

It wasn't really a "bad habit". The British suffered far fewer deaths from Kamikazes because of their decision to give their carriers proper deck armour, and since their carriers suffered less damage they could be repaired more quickly and stay in the fight.

 

[Nick3210]

Generally speaking it was true that more modern ships were better then older models. Otherwise why were so much resources and time spent on developing new ships if they were worse?

Ahahah! No!

1. "Washington's treaty" and "london's treaty" broke the normal way of evolution ships!
2. Before and in war the speed and low cost of construction often become more important than modern improvements! It is the reason why old cannons/towers was instalated on new ships.

Really?

Yes, Really!

I looked for information about speed of fire of main calibre cannons.
And I have convinced that this factor can be ignored in HoI simulatoin

Main calibres 1920-1945 had equal speed of fire - about 2 shots in a minute.

Bismarck 380mm cannons - 25 sek for one shot
UK 380mm cannons (BL 15"/42 Mark I) - 2 shots in a minute. (1916-1946, Queen Elizabeth-class, Revenge class, Renown-class, Hood, Vanguard)
USA 406mm cannons (16"/45 Mark 1) - 2 shots in a minute. (Colorado-class)
USA 406mm cannons (16"/45 Mark 6) - 2 shots in a minute. (North Carolina-class, South Dakota-class)
USA 406mm cannons (16"/50 Mark 7) - 2 shots in a minute. (Iova-class)
Yamato 460mm cannons: 1.5-2 shots in a minute.

I am lazy to find info about cruisers 203 mm cannons, because I think they also not have big difference in speed of fire

What about are we arguing?

I say - using 2 key factors: main calibre and numder of main calibre is much better than take ship's stats from sky (as in HoI-2-3).
You say - no no, speed of fire is important too!
I say - yes, if devs want, they can use speed of fire and many other factors. But it is very difficult and HoI is not World Of Battleships game!
I say - for good historical simulation in HoI it is enough only 4 key factors: main calibre, numder of main calibre, main armour and ship's speed, other factors are not so important.

What about are we arguing??

Do you really think that in real history (1920-1945) new ships always was bigger, faster, more armoured, more expensive and had more fire power (as in HoI-2-3)??
If it is so, you are wrong! Characteristics of the real ships 1920-1945 have not line-direct growing as in HoI-2-3. Becauce "Washington's treaty", "london's treaty" and 2WW broke the "normal" way of ship's evolution.
And my first table in this post, with real main ship's characteristics shows it.

 

[Chromos]

I say, techs can improve the ships main stats.
So you use old WW1 guns. This will be way worse as a gun of mit '30 ies.
But you have up to date optics, and RADAR? Well an enemy without it would then dish out more damage if he hits you, but you would be very likely hit him first.
The gun quality can be incorporated into positioning as it simulated the time to get the enemy layered with your shots.
Guns that spead much take longer and have less SA because need more "luck" to hit. A more accurate gun can lead to better results and gets a bit more SA(chances to inflict damage in game terms).

Rate of fire was most times only noted for theorectical possibilities or battle drill situations. But in a real battle, these numbers couldn't often be achieved due to the problems of gettin the ammo in time into the turret, or aiming was not rdy because of adjustments, hvy sea, or damage taken from enemy hits..
That way even 2 shots on average is a too good assumption imo. It would fit maybe in the same mechanic as speed is now. So you have cruise speed and battle speed.
Max rof and average rof(rate of fire)? For BB main guns it wouldn't make that mihc of difference though..

What I would also like to see is the difficulties of ship design.
So having more speed means more room/weight is needed for the engine and the ship can have less armour or guns, or it gets those stuff but needs to be larger wich leads..
So a malus assigned to some techs like for tank design in HoI3.

 

[RisingSun]

Like in ground battles, troops on both sides get some kinda events like breakthrough, delay, ambush, etcs. It would be nice to have those for air and naval engagements as well. I mention this in another thread...

Well ground engagements seem to have more action cards than air/naval engagements. For example ground forces can encicle, delay, breakthrough, etcs. For Air Combats wouldnt hurt to have barrel rolls or any other dogfights, but that for fighters vs. fighters til reach the bombers if any. The Naval Combats would be crossing the "T" fleeing, advancing, etcs. Since the ships can fire from different angle, like crossing the "T" would fire full broadside. If both fleets or groups are close to each others and align, chances there will be torpedoes in the water and this ususally happen at once per engagement, twice for Japanese because they have extra torps. And Japanese Torpedoes were far superior than any other countries at that time.

The problems is that ground engagements can last many hours from few hours to three days, depending on terrains, weather and size of forces. The air/naval combat lasted for 15 to 60+ minutes. Since the time frame going pretty fast, wont be able to til what happen, if you want to see what happen in that engagements.

Wouldnt hurt to have locked units and techs for specific countries.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?772324-positioning

 

[dizzle3]

The problem with any ship classification is that there will always be some misfits, people already mentioned HMS Hood, but here are some others that just won't fit into the OPs classification system

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_auxiliary_cruiser_Pinguin

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverige-class_coastal_defence_ship

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Erebus_(I02)

Basically I think that
1) I like the idea of ship stats based on real life stats, so that firing distance, speed, sea attack, hull etc. are based on real life values. It makes the game more immersive to see a somewhat reality-based system
2) it simply won't be possible to give every ship in the world the correct stats within such a system, so for example the intricacies of the (sometimes wildly different) displacement of each class will need some smoothing to fit nicely into the tech tree
3) it is not possible for Paradox to get every ship to fit nicely into any categorization system, there will always be outliers. That's not a big deal, since modders can add new units to add these distinctions in should they so desire
4) far more important is getting combat mechanics right, so that for example subs can sink unescorted capital ships. This isn't something that can be refined by modders

 

[Nick3210]

Why do you insist on claiming that we should ignore factors like if it's possible to hit the target at all using the guns?
It doesn't matter if my enemy has 300 x 20 inch guns if he can't hit anything at all with them...

...Not taking radar or firecontrols into account in the majority of the surface engagements that happened during night would be a very bad model, actually worse then the one HoI3 has were warship radar is a tech possible to research!

You speak about battle mechanic. I dont know what it will be in HOI-4!

Of cource I know about importance of radars and targeting systems! After I have read book (http://www.kamikazeimages.net/books/related/hara/index.htm) I understood that Radars in HoI-2 was too weaк, and I boosted radar brigades and radar tech-effects very much in my mod!

So, I dont know about radar's brigades in HoI-4 but I hope they will be very strong!!

But radar's brigades, AA brigades, torpedo brigades, targeting system brigades is not matter for correct simulation of base ship's classes and base ship's stats.

For example - base Deutschland-class must have much more sea attack than Hipper-class and than all other cruisers in the world in 1920-1945! Not as in HoI-2-3!
If I will want, I will add Radar brigade, Torpedo brigade, AA brigade or modern targeting system to Deutschland.

But base classes and stats of ships must be historically and it is enough to use only: main caliber, number of main caliber, main Armour and speed for it.
If you want dig deeper - no problem! It will better thah in HoI-2-3 where was unrealistic ship's stats.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Ahahah! No!

1. "Washington's treaty" and "london's treaty" broke the normal way of evolution ships!

Do you really think that in real history (1920-1945) new ships always was bigger, faster, more armoured, more expensive and had more fire power (as in HoI-2-3)??
If it is so, you are wrong! Characteristics of the real ships 1920-1945 have not line-direct growing as in HoI-2-3! Becauce "Washington's treaty", "london's treaty" and 2WW broke the normal way of ship's evolution!

When the game starts ( 1936 ) the 2:nd London treaty was being negotiated by France, UK and USA, so only the allies. All axis powers had withdrawn by then.

Thus the treaties posed no limits to any Axis shipbuilding or design historically or in the game.

As an allied player you are however free to roleplay the treaties by not researching any heavier ship technology if you want to... or you can take the historical route and design heavier ships...

The treaties did not influence ship design or construction after 1936 to a large extent. If the Game would start 1930 or 33 you would have a good point however.

What about are we arguing??

You are claiming that the only factor worth worrying about regarding how much damage Battleships can inflict is caliber and amount of Guns. I am claiming it is a bit more complex then that and that everything from reloading speed, to aiming speed to training to radar & firecontrol can impact the effectiveness.

I advice you check up how well the Italian and Japanese Battleships and cruisers performed in actual surface battle.
( hint: they were not impressive at all despite many and heavy guns ).

Yes, Really!

So only one out of all the Battleships built leading up too and during WW2 ( HMS Vanguard ) used an old WW1 design for the maingun turrets, A ship that was not even completed before the war ended anyways... and therefore "yes really"?

All the guns on all the Battleships built leading up to and during WW2 that did take part of the action were using a new design.

Main calibres 1920-1945 had equal speed of fire - about 2 shots in a minute.

Bismarck 380mm cannons - 25 sek for one shot

How convenient that you forgot one:

Italian 380mm main gun - 45 sek for one shot.

That is almost double the time of the Bismarck or equivalent to 45% less firepower/amount of guns. Do you really consider twice the firepower to be a factor that "can be ignored in HoI simulation"?

 

[Ex Mudder]

Don't forget the USS Ranger being better than the Saratoga and Yorktown. I know why it was done that way, but I don't have to like it.

Can this be done with Naval doctrines or Techs by any chance? US carriers +speed -hull, UK carriers the opposite? US BBs +speed +IC cost +fuel consumption, Ger BBs +speed -hull?