hey Zoomie, as I am on this forum from time to time, I am more than amused about your posts. not only in this thread but the entire 3 months would have been sooooooooooo boring here without your posts.
not only you have achived to insult the entire beta testers for nothing that you could have done better, you managed even that the whole readers here are mainly against your kind how you critzie the whole game.
if the game would be as bad as you describe, why dont you just leave and let us alone.
in another thread, you posted that rarly any games will last longer than 3 months on your HDD. WHEN IS THIS FREAKING DATE PLEASE.
go over and play arcade games. [&o]
[8|]
LOL Oliver.
You missed out that the also has taken various shots at the developers as well, the betas, and especially Mogami, at the moment seem to be his latest targets. Something wrong with the Zoomie DL/targeting algorithms perhaps? [:D]
I would like to point something out if its not already been mentioned. A TF with any mission other than Combat TF should not be chasing merchants all over the ocean. If a Bombardment TF enters a hex with a Transport TF, it should use opportunity fire but still proceed with its primary mission. How many of you use the tactic of sending in a TF on a bombardment mission with the hope of catching a transport TF? I do all the time because I want the TF to sprint in and out at night.
Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.
I would like to point something out if its not already been mentioned. A TF with any mission other than Combat TF should not be chasing merchants all over the ocean. If a Bombardment TF enters a hex with a Transport TF, it should use opportunity fire but still proceed with its primary mission. How many of you use the tactic of sending in a TF on a bombardment mission with the hope of catching a transport TF? I do all the time because I want the TF to sprint in and out at night.
Sorry to say that little rules twist never occurred to me. I've always used bombardment
when I want to bombard something, and surface action when I was chasing ships. Have
to keep this in mind for the future.
Hi, A TF set to retire (only enter target hex at night) will never engage in daylight surface combat in the target hex. The only way a retire TF can fight a day battle is if it and enemy TF exist in same hex other then target hex during daylight. However in this case the retire order would result in after the combat the TF would be heading to it's homeport and not the assigned target hex. (It is now retiring after combat.
None of the above has anything to do with the issue of this thread. It is provided simply to help players understand the effect of retire orders on surface combat or bombardment TF.
If you were already aware of all of this then.........never mind.
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
Hi, In the end. I consider all wargamers to be a band of brothers. If your not having fun doing what interests you and helps you understand a subject you love you are wasting your time. The games keep score the forum boards should not. Matrix/2by3 are gamers doing games for gamers. Every idea or opinion has merit and should be allowed freedom to be expressed without fear of starting a personal flame war or witch hunt.
The ultimate objective of the developers and testers is a game that makes as many people happy as can be.
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
But it really does look like we have some sort "Capital ship leash" mechanism going on here. You get good scatter with JUST DD's but you get the "pummel one ship into Atomic Dust sydrome" when there is a CA or couple of CLs along with the DD's...... Maybe that could help the developers zero in better on seems to be a very narrowly scoped problem. Specifically, the problem seems to be only in DAYLIGHT action, and in addition seems to be limited to situations where the Surface Combat is a mix of Capital ships and DD's. DD's only seem to do as expected, even in daylight.
What a great thread. I love the fireworks.
Before the thread wanders off into oblivion: Could the foregoing be an issue? Personally, I'm doubting that leashing is designed in, but no one has really commented definitively. If there is any leashing, it may be part of the problem.
Before the thread wanders off into oblivion: Could the foregoing be an issue? Personally, I'm doubting that leashing is designed in, but no one has really commented definitively. If there is any leashing, it may be part of the problem.
It's not a designed in trait ... it's just the way the model works.
In the real world, the Admiral running the TF would detach some ships to go run down the transports. In our game, we don't have sub-TF's that were quite normal in the real world.
It's part of being at the operational level. You can't command individual ships so the code must do it for you.
Lets say I'm steaming around with a 15 ship surface fleet ... One of my dd's spots a ship, I'd detach a CL & a couple of DD's to investigate. The whole TF is not going to go charging off without better information. One does not commit to battle lightly. It could very well be a trap. The CL's there because the DD commanders are a little to green to make fleet impacting calls [;)]
But does the model really work this way? I agree all of your real-world examples made sense, but I'm not convinced that there is some algorithm in the code that really makes the game work this way. The one example where the DDs went wild could have been an anomolous.
But if the game really does have some kind of logic statement of "if capital ships are part of the TF, then TF stays together and concentrates on few ships; otherwise TF scatters and has a turkey shoot," this would probably be the function that is irking the irked. (I know you say it's not a designed in trait, but if the model works this way, there is some designed in formula that makes it work this way) I'm not saying this is how it works, but the suggestion has been made that there is some evidence of this type of thing happening in the game.
In a daylight situation with good visibility, the heavy TF commander would have fewer qualms about releasing his ships for melee because, with good visibility, (i) he could see he has found an unescorted convoy and (ii) he would have sufficient notice of an approaching combat TF to recall his ships into formation.
I obviously don't have the answer since I know nothing about how the game is coded or how deep the layering. But it was an interesting query (as was the point that there should be no breaking off) that I wanted to make sure wasn't lost whilst you all investigating the issue.
Hi, Unless I missed something (would not be the first time) I think it is daylight scatter providing nighttime scatter protection to ships that are actually spotted. (They are spotted but immune from being fired on)
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
You seemed pretty sure of that earlier on, and I accept that. You know more about the game mechanics than I do, and I've learned a lot just by reading this thread. While that may be the most likely "problem," I don't think anyone knows for sure. Again, I thought this was a good query that I didn't want to have lost until its validity was determined.
It's pretty safe it doesn't work that way and *thats* part of the problem. Surface combat is geared towards combat ships fighting each other. When the TF size limits were increased from UV to WitP, no one expected mass convoys of unescorted ships running around the map. Yet that seems to be the very situation that is driving most of the complaints.
It wasn't a problem at UV scale because the number of ships was not that high.
Thats pretty much the logic as I see it. I could be completely off base, but when you think it through, it makes sense.
OK, it's about two game weeks later and every surface battle remains the same...
1) Lots of unescorted, damaged, and SLOW AKs, APs, TKs intercepted by much faster DDs, CLs, CAs, BBs.
2) In daylight, at night, in clear weather, in cloudy weather.
3) Way outside of LBA range for the cargo guy.
4) Way inside of LBA range for the interceptor guy.
5) Numerous sightings and intel reports about the cargo TFs.
6) Only two to four cargo ships being targeted each time.
7) Only two to four cargo ships being damaged each time.
8) Only zero to two cargo ships sinking during the battle, even after being hit by torps AND 40+ 5" and above shells.
9) Numerous leaders, from Spruance to lieutenants...
The Song Remains the Same...this needs attention...it don't take a rocket scientist to understand there is at least a slight problem that needs quick attention...
Core issue: Ships are programmed to fire on targets with the highest Detection Level.
This can be read in the manual page 170. "The higher a ship's DL during surface combat, the more likely it is to become the target of an enemy ships weapons". It can again be confirmed by simply watching surface combat replays. The only time a ship will not fire at the highest DL target is when it returns one burst of defensive fire at any ship which fires at it.
It leads to: Massive over-concentration on the most visible target.
Any ship which is ablaze has a higher DL during day or night, and therefore attracts more and more shell fire until the AI declares it as sunk. When combat ends, very few of the enemy ships have been seriously damaged, and the unlucky few have often been overkilled many times over.
It is wrong because: 1) Detection Levels are not the right criteria for target selection. 2) The results make no sense.
Detection levels should do just that, enable ships to be detected. Deciding which ship to fire at would never be done on the basis of which was the most visible. Ship commanders were not ordered to empty their magazines into the most visible wreck afloat and ignore everything else. Target threat, mission, firer capability etc. were what mattered in RL. For some other madness, I put forward an example of the Iowa v's Yamato and burning minesweeper. If the Iowa was faced with both in WitP, it would ignore the Yamato and fire everything it had against the burning minesweeper.
For those that try to argue that surface ships were rubbish even against slow harmless transports, and that somehow this bizarre targetting is an abstract way of representing that, IMHO you are dead wrong. If warships really were this useless against all other ships, why would all major powers persist in building them at great expense. I would also say that I have a hard time believing anyone who says they do not see these kinds of results, because they are the norm in the umpteen dozen surface actions I have seen. This isn't suprising because it is programmed to be like this.
It could be solved by: 1) Dropping DLs as a targetting determinant. Or 2) Checking for sunk ships more often.
Ideally other criteria could be programmed in to give a realistic targetting routine. Target threat, mission, firer capabilities, and probably much more could be included. However, that would be a major (impossible?) effort, so in the end just anything other than Detection Levels will be a massive improvement. Random targetting from amongst visible ships would be fine.
An alternative is for the AI to check for sunk ships more often in surface combat, which will force the targetting routine to move on to another target rather than continually atomising the debris of whichever unfortunate has been picked upon.
As other have said, we all like this game, don't want to kick up a fuss, but as we'll be stuck for anything like WitP for the forseeable future, let's get this flawed aspect working properly. Also please note that this is not specifically a transport problem, not specifically a TF or a convoy problem, it is specifically a targetting problem. From that error of judgement does all the other silliness flow. It is the targetting routine specifically which needs to be fixed, and tinkering with transports or anything else is completely the wrong direction to take.
I spend my time building castles in the air, but in the end all of them, and I, blow away in the wind.
Have i mentioned lately that this item is not only a wish list item....but one that is now being seriously looked at.... Could have sworn i mentioned it two....three....four times now.... [:'(]
