Nikademus is right, there is something seriously wrong in the
surface combat resolution when you have the kinds of combat
results that have been highlighted here going on. In addition to
many deck hits at short to medium ranges and the penetration
problems pointed out, the issue of the ranges at which combat
is initiated during daylight hours is also important. One would
expect BB's and CA's to want to open up at long range and take
advantage of their ability to penetrate enemy ships at that range,
while being relatively immune to smaller caliber guns. And yet
combat rarely, if ever, seems to start at these long ranges.
Obviously commander skill plays a significant part in this,
but one would expect any decent commander of a TF
with capital ships to make every effort to blast the enemy
at long range rather than get into chaotic close range shootouts.
Obviously I'm speaking of daytime engagements here.
At night one would expect the battles to start at much shorter range.
I don't expect UV or WitP to be like Action Stations (the king of
naval surface combat sims), but I would like to see the
combat resolution of gunfire to be handled in as much detail
and with as much accuracy as can possibly be done. Taking
into account the fact that the player obviously can't control
the steering of each ship and the exact range, bearing
and angle of each ship relative to one another can't be known
on a minute by minute basis. But we do know the ships' layouts,
armor types and locations, the types off guns being fired,
what kind of ammunition they are using and the ranges
that the battle lines are at during each round of combat. And
that's enough solid information to calculate some very realistic
combat results from.
And a big thanks to Paul for keeping up on these problems.
It would be great if you could pass Nikademus' analysis of
the problems onto Gary and see what solutions he can come up with.
