Ocean Hexes or Ocean areas similar to HoI

[baloo7777]

Well I voted for sea areas, but I really don't know how it will work with Island hopping in the Pacific. I'll have to play HOI to see how it works.
I finally started a couple PBEM games as the Allies and got to witness my poor opponents German UBoats go down (ie actually sunk 1 and did 3 pts of damage to the other) like mine do when they encounter the 10 escort convoy zone in 1939. I know there is much luck involved in the BOA, but it seems that 1939 and 1940 escorts (if using 10 at least) are outclassing 1940/41 UBoats and doing damage in most of the 7 PBEM games I am in at the moment. This is why I voted for the sea areas, as the BOA in the very early war does not seem very realistic to me in WarPlan.

[AlvaroSousa]

Funny my uboats never get sunk till 1943.
Even with the new rules.

[stjeand]

Any screen shots that we can see around the thoughts?

Just worried that the sea areas will be to large for my taste.

[AlvaroSousa]

The idea I have is in groups of 6-9 hexes.

BTW the secret to the uboat was is that as soon as your sub is 3 strength or below return it to base. In the early years it will be very difficult to sink them.

Late in the war yes you can lose a full sub easier but even so usually they will be crippled to 1-2.

Another thing is that as the Germans you should be spreading around the uboat love forcing the UK to make guesses of where the concentration of uboats are. Different zones forces them to concentrate on one zone or spread the escorts out along with the fleet.

[stjeand]

6 to 9 hexes sounds good to me.

The Pacific is huge and radar pretty weak. Not sure of hex sizes but with radar at about 100 miles...you should not see all that much.

[ClaudeJ]

Since the Atlantic basically is there to play with or against the submarines, what about using quadrant such as the Kriegsmarine's?

Subdivided in third, it's about 300 km large. It looks to me a decent patrol zone for a 2-week turn.

https://uboat.net/maps/grid.html
http://www.navalgrid.com/find/square/bf

[ncc1701e]

I still have the quadrant map of Silent Hunter III. Fun and wonderful game. [:)]

[abchambe]

For naval action, I prefer sea areas. Groups of 6 to 9 hexes, or even perhaps a bit bigger.

[AlvaroSousa]

I was thinking of something like this for sea zones. Light blue higher detection levels. dark blue lower. You can intercept two sea zones out from port.... So if you are in Scapa Flow that light blue zone, the 2 next to it and the dark blue but not the Norwegian Coast. Planes in Norway the light blue zones in range and the dark blue sea but not Scapa Flow without a direct attack if they have range.

[ncc1701e]

Superb map, I like your sea zones. Is it the scale of the final WP2 map?

[PHalen]

Definitely sea zones/naval areas for me!!!
That concept map looks both GREAT and thought through.
Just do it!
Please…

[sveint]

I'm not voting on this one, I have no idea what is better. Alvaro knows best I think.

[AlvaroSousa]

So this is an update to this idea while I am working on my next game which will use WP2 engine.

After much consideration I decided to stick with hex movement and not make sea zones.
#1 The coding for it is much more complex than I had thought.
#2 It will take a lot of testing to validate basically starting over.
#3 The UI to handle it would be overly complex

But I am expanding the idea to the current system. So these are now my considerations.
#1 Fleets will have specific missions.
#2 Fleets will have specific interception rules and yes it will be along a path.
#3 Fleets will have a lot of operation points, 1 per hex move, and X amount for an action.
#4 Fleets will have a dynamic sea zone around them. Meaning you won't have to walk up to the coast to disembark. You can do bombardment, invasions, air striks from a radius near your destination hex.
#5 maybe I will have coastal sea hexes and deep sea hexes simplifying the spotting to 2 different checks in stead of pure distance.
#6 I am seriously considering a separate naval phase before land phase. Due to some of the issues in WPE and WPP for invasions. Basically the general rule will be you can only perform a mission in an area with no enemy fleets. Naval battles during the naval phase will end up with one side staying, one side being destroyed, or one side retreating back to base. Naval phase would be broken into MOVE, COMBAT, MISSION, RETURN TO BASE MOVE optional.
#7 Other considerations are back to large stacks BUT you can only assign X number of ships to a mission. Much like a sea zone. So you can only assign say 6 to combat action, 6 to invasion, and 6 to bombardment. But not sure yet here.
#8 This system will also improve the A.I. as the coding for it will be easier. I don't have to be so precise.
#9 Fleets will have a mission radius and an intercept radius. Mission is specific, intercept is patrolling. I was taking a look at how HOI4 does it.
#10 players can toggle showing current dynamic sea zones (where visible enemies are and their radius)

I think it will make the naval system more dynamic and interesting while retaining the basic structure of what is already working with what you all want interception along the way. I think this will make both sides of the poll happy.




Here is a picture

[ncc1701e]

Good news for me that you are keeping hexes. This looks promising.

Will it be possible to assign different air missions for CV planes?
Are you considering splitting CV based planes in fighters, dive bombers, torpedo bombers?
Will it be possible to detach a CV air group from its CV to put it on an island for example?

Will you enhance the interception and sinking of transports or merchant marines doing port supply?
Will you increase transports or merchant marines needs in function of port capacity?

Thanks

[AlvaroSousa]

None of this has been thought out yet. I just want to merge both ideas to make it work.

[michelzzt]

It seems that there are a lot of differences in the pebm games because I am the allied player and my opponent's Uboats are invincible, while my escorts are in advancement 1940

[Nirosi]

Hi Alvaro,

It would be really nice if ships could intercept from port. Ideally with a box we could activate only on the ships that we want to allow to do so.

[AlvaroSousa]

That is one of the reasons I want this model. That way you can flag a group of ships in port to intercept.
Or at the very least you send them out on patrol and they cover an area.

I invented, or more like discovered, how to do it without much CPU impact. I can't imagine other devs not doing it the way I am thinking of but who knows.

Basically I want WP2 naval to be similar in flexibility as HOI naval without all the micromanagement.

[Nirosi]

That way you can flag a group of ships in port to intercept.

That is great! Thanks again![:)]

[AllenK]

This fleet mission concept and a separate naval phase looks good.