Battle UI improvements for RtW 3

[EwaldvonKleist]

UI improvements in RtW 3
All criticism below comes from the POV of wanting something I enjoy greatly to be even better. RtW is a great concept of a game. The only part often leading to frustration is commanding battles due to the GUI and the micromanagement induced by the absence of useful tools. In this thread, I will explain why and what could be done to make this part of the game smoother and more enjoyable.

Part 1: Controlling ship behaviour.
RtW comes with a chain of command and role settings for AI controlled divisions, and manual course and speed settings in captain’s mode. Overall, this is a good system. But the role settings often don’t lead to functional behaviour.

1. Core: What I seek from this functionality is to
i) Merge two units of the same or similar ship classes to act as one for manoeuvre purposes, prioritizing line abreast or ahead whenever possible.
ii) Attract lighter forces to their lead division so they operate in close proximity.
While the core function in the game promises to do this, the AI often struggles to create and maintain formations in the core setting, even with good weather and little enemy interference. It is also generally unwilling to create lines ahead for multiple DDdivs or for combinations of close but unequal shiptypes, that is, BB(C)s and CAs or CAs and CLs or CLs and DDs.
Sometimes, divisions automatically change their core setting to independent. I have had this happening both immediately after setting them to core and after following a behaviour resembling core setting for a short while before switching to independent again.
Core should also have a strong, overriding attracting function if used on light forces so it can be used to call your forces together after they have been scattered. Re-grouping light force scattered over the map currently is a lot of work.

2. Screen: DD divisions on screen often allow themselves to be distracted and leave their superior divisions unguarded. I have repeatedly seen DDdivs use their entire storage of torpedoes on crippled TRs/CLs while their lead BBs move through bad weather in areas with known enemy concentrations.
During reduced visibility, divs on screen should have proximity to and to screen formation around their superiors as their all overriding priority.
When their screened formation is surprised by enemy forces, they should attack them with guns&torps until their superior divs have turned/moved away, then resume their screen formation in front of them.

3. Support: Again, DD/CL divs often leave their superiors to do their own thing on this setting. I often see BBs fighting Jutland 2.0 and being charged by enemy DDs, all while their own destroyers have completely abandoned them to harass some doomed wrecks. What I would like to obtain with this setting is 1) Focus on acting together with superior forces, maintain proximity 2) Light forces on support tactfully counterattack enemy light forces attempting torpedo runs while staying on the far side of the battle line otherwise and 3) For light forces, engage targets targeted by or targeting the superiors with torpedo runs if distance is low enough. For heavy forces, try to act in concert with the lead formation in firing.

4. Independent: This is fine imho. Except that units on “support” or “screen” should be more disciplined and leave the autonomous operations away from their superior to the independent setting.

In addition to this, the game needs a new tickbox:
5. Focus on Damage Control: AI controlled ships often commit suicide by flooding by maintaining high speeds. Therefore, you have to control dozens of ships manually during fleet battles. A ship with the tickbox “Focus on damage control” should in this order order of priority 1) Limit speed to maximum level that doesn’t cause flooding damage 2) Keep distance to the enemy 3) Otherwise follow its general orders (e.g. core) unless they conflict with 1) and 2)

…and a new division order
5. Return to port: Ship or division moves to closest friendly port, avoiding the enemy as much as possible. While the detach to port feature already exists, the player has limited control over it and it is unclear if a ship is under this order.

Note that I am aware of the chaos of naval battles. We all know the videos of Drachinifel narrating the exploits of the Kamchatka. I like that divisions occasionally misunderstand orders or the surprises coming up in heavy weather, and the admiral modes are fine too. What I don’t like is dealing with even well trained squadrons not following the most obvious and simple doctrine, like light forces simply abandon the heavy ships, something you could forbid them explicitly in a pre-battle briefing. The manual could also do a bit more explaining on the different role settings and how their effect may differ for different ship classes.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Part 2: Doing things quickly, and many at once
1. The game needs many more shortcuts to switch between AI and manual control, set the division role and adjust the speed or detach a ship.
2. Allow setting speed, course, role and superior to multiple divs at the same time.
3. Add a function that allows to lock an enemy ship for fire, so your ships don’t waste torpedoes or ammunition on it. You can do this manually with the holding fire functionality, but not without a lot of micromanagement.
4. Create a time forward setting that does not interrupt or pause for any reason except an explicit decision required by the player. One often wastes time running down battles where nothing happens anymore.
5. Allow setting of paths with multiple waypoints.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Part 3: Join information and action in the user interface
An important principle for GUIs is joint information and action, finding information and using the information should happen in the same place. The battle GUI of RtW is based around the map. But for actions or detailed information, we must often leave the map for a new window. Want to rearrange the OOB or launch an air strike? Let’s hope you can remember the names of all the divisions and targets so you will find them in the dropdown menu.
Want to know if a ship has flooding or is out of ammunition? Several clicks are needed to find out.

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East gives inspiration for improvements:

WitE.jpg (109.41 KiB) Viewed 1541 times

The counters have little markers in the corners, giving information about the state of the unit without opening the detail window. In addition, the OOB hierarchy is shown by little lines drawn on the map and some units have coloured borders depending on their state. RtW3 would benefit a lot of such features. Even more: Why not allow many actions from the map as well? The OOB could be changed from the map, and selecting enemy ships or areas for artillery, torpedo and aircraft strikes could happen via the map as well. Doing such things via drop down menus is bothersome and unintuitive.

[WilliamMiller]

Lots of good suggestions - thanks EwaldvonKleist.

[CLReed]

In addition to this, the game needs a new tickbox:
5. Focus on Damage Control: AI controlled ships often commit suicide by flooding by maintaining high speeds. Therefore, you have to control dozens of ships manually during fleet battles. A ship with the tickbox “Focus on damage control” should in this order order of priority 1) Limit speed to maximum level that doesn’t cause flooding damage 2) Keep distance to the enemy 3) Otherwise follow its general orders (e.g. core) unless they conflict with 1) and 2)

…and a new division order
5. Return to port: Ship or division moves to closest friendly port, avoiding the enemy as much as possible. While the detach to port feature already exists, the player has limited control over it and it is unclear if a ship is under this order.

I would find both of these features very useful. Captain's mode does offer a work around but given the unfair/unrealistic advantages of that mode having these features for either Admiral's mode would be very beneficial. It's frustrating to see the AI mishandle ships and sink them when they could otherwise be saved with minor changes to the approach taken.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Part 4: Raise quality of life with QOL features
This list could be long, but my three favourites are:
1. Make the speed-quicksettings adjustable. Cruise speed, 20kn, 25kn, Max-2, Max are too unflexible and except for the latter two useless most of the game, since ship speeds are so variable. Make them (easily and quickly!) adjustable, basically three default settings and Max-n (n determined by player) and Max. This would make the quick settings much more useful.
2. Recall home button for all ships. Recalls all ships home so you can set them on mothballed/reserve status without collecting all the stragglers in every sea region or doing it division by division.
3. Highlight in the "launch torpedo" list which target ships have a solution so you don't have to click through them one by one. (AI torpedo logic is suboptimal or even broken, so I like to torpedo manually a lot).

[WLRoo]

I sort of agree about the 20kn and 25kn speeds but lets consider the others:

Cruise is necessary to enable you to travel at economical speed whilst unengaged. It's also necessary to travel at this speed to clear issues with coal-fired boilers (Stokers Exhausted and Grates Fouled).

Max-2 is the best speed you can travel at without excessive vibrations interfering with your gunnery

Max is there to allow you to flee from battle.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Cruise speed setting is the same, no matter if I move with my 23kN battleline or my new 32kn BCs. This does not make sense.

I am not suggesting that Max-2 and Cruise speed are wrong, merely that I want to set the -n myself, same for cruise speed.

[thedoctorking]

Thanks, EVK, these are all great suggestions and I endorse them 100%.

Especially your comment about torpedoes. Torpedo logic in the game is very strange. I don't want to be in the position of controlling the angles torpedoes are shot at, but the AI has to use some more competent logic to decide where to shoot the things.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Thanks, EVK, these are all great suggestions and I endorse them 100%.

Especially your comment about torpedoes. Torpedo logic in the game is very strange. I don't want to be in the position of controlling the angles torpedoes are shot at, but the AI has to use some more competent logic to decide where to shoot the things.

Thanks, good to hear that those posts make sense to others too

Agreed, better AI logic re torpedos would be great, and a better manual torpedo firing UI too