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Though at first I was reluctant to alter any naval equipment for my Expanded scenario I am finding myself doing so. What I'm hoping to obtain is community knowledge on equipment attributes and how they impact naval combat. Some of these seem self-evident (what we think they should do) but not really how they work as coded in TOAW. Some are coded for land units only(?). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated:

- Volume (cubic meters) - you would think a ship's size would determine detection and hit probability. Does it?
- All Weather - this may have already been addressed. Any additional feedback appreciated.
- Precision Guided Weapon - my units have ship-to-ship missiles, would this help them?
- Optics - this is for land units only (?)
- Agile - how is this used, and does it affect Agility in .nqp file?
- Standoff Weapons - I think it affects if a ship will receive counter-battery fire during combat

Also, the original .nqp for Durability was factored up by 1,000,000, does anyone know why?

I am about to create a .nqp line for each of my 30 ship classes (Durability/Armor/Agility/Accuracy/Speed), so I need to determine how these will be affected by the above attributes. Thanks for any help in advance!

ORIGINAL: mussey
- Volume (cubic meters) - you would think a ship's size would determine detection and hit probability. Does it?

I dont have access to the game code, but as far as I know, this only affects armored equipment.

ORIGINAL: mussey
- All Weather - this may have already been addressed. Any additional feedback appreciated.

This affects the observation range. This means that the ship have a radar, any ship with the All Weather flag set will see out to 50km, day or night (by default the daytime observation range is 25km and the nighttime observation range is 10km).

ORIGINAL: mussey
- Precision Guided Weapon - my units have ship-to-ship missiles, would this help them?

I made some tests time ago and dont get any conclusion, so I think that this only is for air units.

ORIGINAL: mussey
- Optics - this is for land units only (?)

Yes this only applies for anti armor combat.

ORIGINAL: mussey
- Agile - how is this used, and does it affect Agility in .nqp file?

The target agility is use for determine hit chances, you can see 19.4 section of the manual (page 161)

ORIGINAL: mussey
- Standoff Weapons - I think it affects if a ship will receive counter-battery fire during combat

This is only used for air units.

ORIGINAL: mussey
Also, the original .nqp for Durability was factored up by 1,000,000, does anyone know why?

This is explain in page 168 of the manual. The default ships values of the database are scaled by a factor of 1,000,000 (default ship are those that have assigned the value 0 in their weight parameter)
If you made a ship you dont need to scale his values, for example, the ship data is on line 11 of the .nqp file, so its “Weight” parameter must be set to 11

Josant, thanks for the feedback. It appears that there is little in the Equip Editor to tweak (unlike with Land or Air units) beyond Durability/Armor/Agility/Accuracy/Speed.

Many thanks for the clarification.

Too bad ships can't receive critical hits like the Hood.

Several observations, and correct me if I'm incorrect. When I use the formula to determine a 'hit' I see that changes in Accuracy have little to no impact on the odds. Not sure why this is? Also, as range increases beyond 6o km's there is a very low probability of a hit. I can understand this for gun powder weapons. But in modern naval combat with the advent of anti-ship missiles the formula fails. The SS-N-3 Soviet missile has a plausible range of 450 km yet will fail with the formula as is. I've been trying to find flags around this, but found nothing that can override the points above.

ORIGINAL: Lobster

Too bad ships can't receive critical hits like the Hood.

I think there may be? From the "What's New" document --

Force Naval Critical Hit Scalar: A default value of 10 will make critical hits occur
about 5% of the times that a ship’s armor is penetrated. See Appendix I.

Cheers

ORIGINAL: mussey

Several observations, and correct me if I'm incorrect. When I use the formula to determine a 'hit' I see that changes in Accuracy have little to no impact on the odds. Not sure why this is?

Did you see your own figure for 50 Accuracy? As you lower it further, the accuracy will drop even more. Your starting point was at the high end - like a battleship. Battleships are steady gun platforms. Cruisers & destroyers less so.

Also, as range increases beyond 6o km's there is a very low probability of a hit. I can understand this for gun powder weapons. But in modern naval combat with the advent of anti-ship missiles the formula fails. The SS-N-3 Soviet missile has a plausible range of 450 km yet will fail with the formula as is. I've been trying to find flags around this, but found nothing that can override the points above.

Anti-ship missiles shouldn't be using the gunnery formula. But, it may have gotten overlooked. I don't know.




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Anti-ship missiles shouldn't be using the gunnery formula. But, it may have gotten overlooked. I don't know.

I'm OK with the limitations since I knew ahead of time that the main focus was on land/air warfare. For my purposes on Expanded, I took the naval editing as far as I reasonably could. I think the scenario will play out well, with naval engagement used to quickly support or quickly deny amphibious assault/reinforcement. Though it is tempting, there should not be a Jutland moment...

Anti-ship missiles shouldn't be using the gunnery formula. --Curtis Lemay

Bob,

Do you have suggestions as to how model SSMs fired from ships? Is there a way to tell the game that the shipboard weaponry is missiles vice guns?

Cheers

Dual purpose missile. Is this what you want?

Thanks. That will be interesting to test.

Cheers

ORIGINAL: Lobster

Dual purpose missile. Is this what you want?

Thanks for the feedback Lobster. The manual says it’s for use against land or sea targets and does not mention any accuracy changes for longer ranges. When I play tested it, I noticed no effect that improved accuracy. It appears that missile attacks beyond 8 hexes (15 km/hex) are worthless. [:(]

I’ll keep tinkering and see if any combination of flags will address this.

I wonder if you added one of the better optics flags and/or the precision guided weapon flag? I've never used them myself so I don't know what they would add. Maybe we need some things for modern weapons capabilities?

ORIGINAL: Lobster

I wonder if you added one of the better optics flags and/or the precision guided weapon flag? I've never used them myself so I don't know what they would add. Maybe we need some things for modern weapons capabilities?

I think the optics flags are for armored combat (on land) and the PGW flag is for use by aircraft. I will at some point look at this with a lab scenario. I also think you are likely correct about modern weapons.

Cheers

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

ORIGINAL: Lobster

I wonder if you added one of the better optics flags and/or the precision guided weapon flag? I've never used them myself so I don't know what they would add. Maybe we need some things for modern weapons capabilities?

I think the optics flags are for armored combat (on land) and the PGW flag is for use by aircraft. I will at some point look at this with a lab scenario. I also think you are likely correct about modern weapons.

Cheers

For my modern navy, I have all these flags checked hoping in the face of reality that somehow these will modify combat performance...

My suggestion is that ships be modeled same as land combat units. Start with a ship, then add ranged weapons/capabilities just like land division. Make a sea unit then, as desired, add in guns, ASW weapons, CWIS weapons, SSM missiles, SAM missiles, armor, communications, cargo capability, air operations and survivability. Use you imagination to fill in the blanks I left.

End result is that naval units would have designer capabilities. Realize this is a big change for TOAW IV, but the coding already exists for land units. Seems to be a natural progression from TOAW IV.

Regards, RhinoBones

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

My suggestion is that ships be modeled same as land combat units. Start with a ship, then add ranged weapons/capabilities just like land division. Make a sea unit then, as desired, add in guns, ASW weapons, CWIS weapons, SSM missiles, SAM missiles, armor, communications, cargo capability, air operations and survivability. Use you imagination to fill in the blanks I left.

End result is that naval units would have designer capabilities. Realize this is a big change for TOAW IV, but the coding already exists for land units. Seems to be a natural progression from TOAW IV.

Regards, RhinoBones

Maybe in a TOAW 4.5 ......