RE: Surface Combat Sux

RE: Surface Combat Sux (Full Version)

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mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 4:56:25 AM)
Hi, I wish I had the replay. Sadly number of hits is nothing I can use to judge. The game uses a system where ships have a number that reflects their durabilty and weapons inflict damage compared to that duribilty. Being hit hundereds of times in the super structure will not result in a ship sinking during combat. (The fires might do it in later) And then again this was a night action. At night the circle of escape I used for daylight does cover the entire compass. (with some course changes to keep a low profile) I think we are under rating the amount of damage it takes to sink a ship. Using just the combat report you can't tell a 1.5k AP from a 4.5k AP. AK are from 3.5k to 7k for Japanese a 7k AK is a large ship that is either large open spaces or engineering. Hits in one have almost no effect (other then fires) hits n the other can stop the ship. Gunfire does not sink ships as fast as torpedos. But once a ship is being hit the rate of fire of DD and CL guns can score many hits. If the range is low enough a single DD using AA/MG can make the hit score look silly. I don't know if that is the case. When you check the ship sunk in your intell what weapon does it say sank the Japanese ships? (the weapon that did the most damage will be listed where a ship is hit by more then 1) Also I don't think the firing ship always (night or day) knows the effect of their own fire in time to effectivly aquire a new target make course adjustments fire the spotting rounds and commence firing for effect when on target. And at night I don't think there ever will be any orders to a ship to break formation. No TF with retire orders will ever engage in surface combat during daylight unless the enemy TF moves into their hex or the TF also has reaction orders and enemy TF in daylight triggers the reaction. A TF with do not retire will if it does not reach in the night move move on and fight in daylight. Do I think 8x8in shells will sink a 7k AK?....Sometimes but not if they are hitting the tower and without special damage when other locations are hit. The ship will be in danger but not in the context of the length of a combat phase. Without below the water line damage the ship will remain afloat longer then that. If you watch any air strikes against a ship you will see that once the ship sinks the following aircraft are unable to locate. In surface combat ships that sink after a round sink before the next round (change in range) if a ship is a target for more then one round of fire it means it was still floating at the start of the later phase. Do not place to much into the actual animation. It reflects nothing but who is firing and what ship is the target. It shows no formation or speed or anything. You can not tell a forward ship from a rear ship. And I'm not certain all the hits are genuine.

doomonyou -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 5:49:04 AM)
you are certiainly right that a ship may not just "insta-sink" from gun fire...but for unarmored ships they certainly can do quite well. I would also point out (not to be bitchy mind you, but because if this is the reason this should be modeled) if the convoy response to surface attack is Multi directional super scatter, its a) very annoying that they are instantly reformed the next morning b) travel far enough apart that a large mass of surface warships can't really catch more than a few but that convoy escorts have a good chance at any attacking sub and c) I still think the unarmored damage model is wierd. Where in a cargo ship (aside from a lucky one carrying large loaded of non-flammable inert substances) could an 8" shell land and detonate that would not cause hellish visible damage, meaning I understand overshooting a few shells (smoke, uncertainty, FOW, etc) but not what we have seen. Even a seven K cargo vessel is a thin skinned vessel, unlikely to have significant bulkheading or amror, Even GP shells would be going off half a deck inside the ship. Say just four 8" shells hit a 7K AK. Lets figure no water line hits or engine room direct hits (which would just plain DOA that ship for the purposes of getting away) Maybe a bridge hit wouldn't threaten the keel but it would likely blow much of the tower apart. A second shell detonating even in an empty hold would likely either cave in the deck in that area or at high angle detonate against the keel....I don't know, I can't imagine the six or seven targeted ships getting away. That's what really blows me away is the combat ships letting an AP with four shell hits somehow getting away. Certainly the fall of night or a fortuituous fog bank could do the trick, but cargo ships in this game are the Black Pearls of the Pacific... Once engaged a cargo ship should not really be able to get away in any but the wierdest of circumstances. Just fixing that would likely resolve all the complaints. A cargo ship engaged by surface raider should either a) get away b) get blasted unless the surface raider is a pg or some little boat.

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 5:59:18 AM)
Hi, I think so far in my PBEM I have sunk more transports with gunfire then by air attack. I'll do a count as I do each turn in my PBEM. Be interested in getting totals from other people as well. Also the combat phase is only part of the battle. Ships will sink later from damage inflicted and you can chase the TF by giving your TF orders. A full speed transport only moves 2 hexes. This is where the speed of your warships becomes the important factor.

Joel Billings -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:30:11 AM)
I don't know if Mike Wood has posted in this thread as I haven't been able to keep up with the volume of posts here. I just wanted to give you my take on this discussion. I think that the model is probably lacking in dealing with daylight engagements against totally unprotected convoys. Once you bring in night and/or any escort of more than token size, I think the model works pretty well. There is so much going on under the hood with detection levels of the TFs (pre-combat and post combat) as well as working within the limited abstraction of the naval combat system that for most situations the I feel the game comes out with reasonable results. One thing that seems odd to me is that TFs docked (unloading/loading) don't get hit any harder when attacked. Part of that is based on the assumption that in many of these cases, the ships would have some warning of the approaching enemy TF and would have pulled up anchor. This is even assumed at some level when dealing with airstrikes against docked TFs, although I've forgotten by now exactly how the model deals with these situations. Of course, there is always the chance that the TF would be caught by surprise and should be sitting ducks. So fundamentally I agree with those that think the realism of the combat model could stand to be improved in the situations I mentioned. Having said that, I also don't find the weakness in these areas to be so important to greatly impact the overall game. Of course, that's just my opinion and I can understand those that disagree. From my point of view, this issue is not a bug that requires immediate attention. Mike is still trying to get rid of things like disappearing units (which is a bug), and combat formula changes have to take a back seat unless they are getting in the way of playing the game. Once the important bugs have been fixed, then we can move on to trying to improve things that aren't broken but just aren't quite working as well as we think they should. Now, assuming we agree that a change is desirable (and I do), and we have the time to look at it (after the bugs are fixed), we get to the difficult part of figuring out just how to make that change without making the game worse instead of better. The bad news here is that I'm guessing that it will be very difficult for Mike or Gary to adjust the code to get the desired results without throwing another part of the surface combat system out of whack. I bet that with some investment in time, they could find a few formulas to tweak, but that they will be guessing at the impact of the changes and won't know for sure what other parts of the game they will be affecting. I've been down this path before and can tell you that the combat formulas in this game are multistep formulas that impact many different areas. They are not the simple formulas I was used to dealing with back in the days of the Apple II (anyone remember Warship). During development I was always amazed whenever I asked Gary about a formula, only to find out from Gary that what I expected to be 2 or 3 lines of code was actually more like 20, with the interrelationships of the variables being very hard to figure out. I can't say that this area is going to be like that, but I'd bet good money it is. So when they go to look at this to try to make a change, it's likely that either the simple change will impact more than we want, or a much more complex, case specific change will have to be made. This probably can be done, but will take more time and won't necessarily get the desired effect. At that point testing will have to be done to see if it worked on the test saves, but there's always the risk it will break something else which won't get noticed in test. For me, the first question I ask if I'm trying to decide whether to look into changing something is "just how important is getting this right to my enjoyment of the game" or said another way, "if I get this to work just right, will my enjoyment of the game been taken to a new level". Given the chance of making things worse, the answers usually had better be that it's pretty important and yes, it would make the game much more enjoyable. Does this issue pass the test? On this issue, I'd say that as it is not a bug, it should wait until the bugs are done. Once the important bugs are fixed, it's worth looking at to see if there is a simple fix, or reasonably simple fix in those areas that seem to be the biggest problem (daytime, small/no escort, unloading). If yes, it will get addressed. If the answer is no, than a decision will get made as to whether it's worth the time and risk at that point. The decision won't get made until the programmer makes that initial evaluation, so any comment now would be premature, other than to say that it will get looked at. This is true on many issues that are not really bugs, but things in the game that people understandably would like to see improved. I hope this helps you understand the situation better. Mike and the testers are working through bugs and user posts as quickly as they can. As you all know by now, this game is massive, which means that testing any change is a very difficult undertaking that takes time. Think of WitP as a battleship steaming along at 30 knots. Getting the ship to change direction takes time. It's not a PT boat. UV was a PT boat compared to WitP. But then PT boats is an altogether different surface combat issue, isn't it. [:)]

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:38:22 AM)
Hi, Don't stop posting surface TF versus unescorted transport TF results.

Mike Scholl -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:40:25 AM)
Joel. It would seen that the problems that have everyone so excited revolve around two points. ONE, the "detection levels" don't seem to work right for daytime combats. Teh design seems oriented to night actions, and the modifiers don't seem to adequately reflect the differences when visability is greatly increased. The SECOND is the way the system constantly "breaks off the action". It works alright when both sides have signi- ficant combat forces, but produces ludicrous results when one side is lightly or un-escor- ted merchant shipping. The break-offs may be in intregal and unchangable portion of the combat system; but in these "one-sided" fights the RANGE should NEVER increase from the end of one to the beginning of the next. If the Surface Combat TF was consis- tantly "closing the range" the damage results would increase and most of the problem would dissappear.

Joel Billings -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:46:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl Joel. It would seen that the problems that have everyone so excited revolve around two points. ONE, the "detection levels" don't seem to work right for daytime combats. Teh design seems oriented to night actions, and the modifiers don't seem to adequately reflect the differences when visability is greatly increased. The SECOND is the way the system constantly "breaks off the action". It works alright when both sides have signi- ficant combat forces, but produces ludicrous results when one side is lightly or un-escor- ted merchant shipping. The break-offs may be in intregal and unchangable portion of the combat system; but in these "one-sided" fights the RANGE should NEVER increase from the end of one to the beginning of the next. If the Surface Combat TF was consis- tantly "closing the range" the damage results would increase and most of the problem would dissappear. But the reality is that they are increasing for some ships and decreasing for others (as the convoy scatters). I'm not sure how to handle what you are saying given the abstraction of one range. I do agree with you on the DL issue.

Culiacan Mexico -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:47:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag Here's my question ... do you expect more of those ships to be sunk? Like all of them? I need to know what you expect to happen. I would expect that 'historically' an intercepting task force to react much more aggressively to a non-escorted convoy than one that has proper escort. I would think a non-escorted convoy would show considerably more destruction spread out amongst the merchant ships vs. a properly escorted one.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:48:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag quote: Very nice! That's more along the lines of something I'd expect to see almost every time. Too bad I have yet to see something like this in any game I have played to date! I understand ... the problem is it just did come from the very game you are running. Thats a bunch of DD's eating their way through unprotected transports ... Note the DD's are not leashed to capital ships, but free to pursue ... If you include cap ships, the dd's don't go and play. Not taking a stance on right or wrong, simply stating what I see. So we have "capital ship leashing" algorithms afoot in the game. Is that in the manual?

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:51:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami Hi, And again we return to the beginning. When a surface combat TF engages unescorted transports the transports scatter. But then the player sees his ships in a nice neat line firing at transports in a nice neat line and this is his picture of the battle. The animation does not show the transports scattering. The animation says "range 3k" and the player thinks every enemy ship is 3k from all of his ships. No the ships that are firing are firing at a ship 3k away. If a ship does not fire or is not fired at it could be that they are out of range during this segment of firing but in no case are the 2 opposed neat lines a picture of what is going on. Now I am aware of the "But the TF leader would breakup his formation" Really? and to what end? By the time the firing begins those ships there are taking fire and those ships that are doing the firing are the ones that are in contact. Break formation and go where? More likely the TF commander would have his ships fire at the targets in range. The transports do not remain a bunched up herd or easy to kill ships. They scatter. Even at 10ks they cover ground. (OK take your buddy out on the road. Give him a 10 mile headstart. You chase him doing 30 mph while he evades at 10mph. See how long it takes to catch him. Now take two buddies out. Have one go north at 10mph and the other south at 10mph and see if you can catch them both. Now take 3 but before you chase the first 2 the third starts only 5 miles away and you must catch him before you can chase the other 2. Now do all this and be back at your starting place or 30 miles towards home (retire orders) Well the combat surface force can scatter as well! At least if the is no Frag defined "capital ship leashing" going on! In my example, it certainly seems as though by CL's and 6 DD's can pick one of the four identified targets and each group of two combatants can chase down their target. That indeed seems to be what is modelled in Fraggo's example!

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:53:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tankerace Methinks I see the issue, and its one I have held for a while. The problem is, your capital ships aren't going to go on a wild goose chase. They are too valuable to loose. YOur screening vessels (DDs/CA/CLs) will only go so far, their main duty being to protect the battleship. However, as in my AAR of just cruisers and destroyers, and Mr. Frag's sole destroyer TF, they are allowed to "roam free and play". Basically, using a battleship for this kind of commerce raiding hurts more than it helps. But if you use smaller ships, then you can net some good stuff. Is that basically how the game is programmed? Which makes sense, considering the entire cruiser role (as set by WWI and continued to an extent in WW2) is as a commerce raider. The BB is there to knock off supporting vessels. Can Joel or Mike confirm this "Capital Ship Leashing" model?

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:55:24 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RAM quote: (OK take your buddy out on the road. Give him a 10 mile headstart. You chase him doing 30 mph while he evades at 10mph. See how long it takes to catch him. Now take two buddies out. Have one go north at 10mph and the other south at 10mph and see if you can catch them both. Now take 3 but before you chase the first 2 the third starts only 5 miles away and you must catch him before you can chase the other 2. this isn't appliable. You don't need to catch a ship to sunk it. That's why you've got guns for...since the Medieval eras ships can shoot cannons, you know... A more decent example would be the following: take your buddy out on the street. Give him a 10 yard headstart. You chase him doing 30 feet por second while he evades at 10fps. See how long it takes to catch him. Now take two buddies out. Have one go north at 10fps and the other south at 10fps and see if you can catch them both. Now take 3 but before you chase the first 2 the third starts only 5 yards away and you must catch him before you can chase the other 2. my answer in naval gunfire engagements: with my 15 inch shotgun they won't run too many yards...and I won't need to run them either [:D] of course when one of my buddies receives a shotgun hit and is clearly dead or dying I don't keep on beating the crap out of his body while the other two are getting away. I make sure he's dying ,then I shoot another one. BTW: piece of advice after reading this...never try to be a buddy of mine, at least if I have a shotgun near me [:'(] Ahh.... just Harpoon 'em..... nevermind....Wrong war....

Mike Scholl -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:56:39 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Joel Billings quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl Joel. It would seen that the problems that have everyone so excited revolve around two points. ONE, the "detection levels" don't seem to work right for daytime combats. Teh design seems oriented to night actions, and the modifiers don't seem to adequately reflect the differences when visability is greatly increased. The SECOND is the way the system constantly "breaks off the action". It works alright when both sides have signi- ficant combat forces, but produces ludicrous results when one side is lightly or un-escor- ted merchant shipping. The break-offs may be in intregal and unchangable portion of the combat system; but in these "one-sided" fights the RANGE should NEVER increase from the end of one to the beginning of the next. If the Surface Combat TF was consis- tantly "closing the range" the damage results would increase and most of the problem would dissappear. But the reality is that they are increasing for some ships and decreasing for others (as the convoy scatters). I'm not sure how to handle what you are saying given the abstraction of one range. I do agree with you on the DL issue. No, Joel..., it isn't . Geometric impossibility. One side is closing at 30KTs, the other is scattering at 10 kts. No matter what directional vector the "scattering forces" chose, the relative distance BETWEEN the two continues to close. The best "escape vector" would be directly away from the attacking force..., and it's still going to decrease by 20 knots every hour. Any other vector and the decrease becomes even greater. Now if you carry it out to multiple hours eventually the fleeing units that chose vectors that lead away from the attackers base course WILL start opening the range---but dur- ing the actual period when most combat will take place (30-90 minutes) none of the potential "escapees" is gaining an inch. The range keeps closing rapidly.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:59:05 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami quote: ORIGINAL: RAM quote: (OK take your buddy out on the road. Give him a 10 mile headstart. You chase him doing 30 mph while he evades at 10mph. See how long it takes to catch him. Now take two buddies out. Have one go north at 10mph and the other south at 10mph and see if you can catch them both. Now take 3 but before you chase the first 2 the third starts only 5 miles away and you must catch him before you can chase the other 2. this isn't appliable. You don't need to catch a ship to sunk it. That's why you've got guns for...since the Medieval eras ships can shoot cannons, you know... A more decent example would be the following: take your buddy out on the street. Give him a 10 yard headstart. You chase him doing 30 feet por second while he evades at 10fps. See how long it takes to catch him. Now take two buddies out. Have one go north at 10fps and the other south at 10fps and see if you can catch them both. Now take 3 but before you chase the first 2 the third starts only 5 yards away and you must catch him before you can chase the other 2. my answer in naval gunfire engagements: with my 15 inch shotgun they won't run too many yards...and I won't need to run them either [:D] of course when one of my buddies receives a shotgun hit and is clearly dead or dying I don't keep on beating the crap out of his body while the other two are getting away. I make sure he's dying ,then I shoot another one. BTW: piece of advice after reading this...never try to be a buddy of mine, at least if I have a shotgun near me [:'(] Hi, You have to be in range. You catch a ship when it is in range. You can't quote 15in range and wonder why your DD did not engage. Thye have to catch the enemy. In my example after you catch the first guy at 5 miles you'll never find the other 2 even being 3 times faster. Frags example shows the difference between Allied torpedos and the Long Lance. So we have this excrutiatingly complex inter-hex, range-speed-manuever stuff going on in Naval combat, but two LCU's 59.5 miles apart can engage in a ground combat sequence???? I think you are completely understating the level of abstraction in Naval combat contained in the code. I can't imagine they have mathematically modelled all this crap in the code.

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 6:59:53 AM)
Hi, Also there seems to me to be a very real connection to 1. The early period of the war 2. Japanese surface TF damage more unescorted ships when found then do Allied TF or same size. This points to leadership and skill levels being a player in outcomes. 3. Aircontrol. If the surface TF has aircontrol it does more damage If the transports have aircontrol they get away with less damage. 4. Night TF with retire orders cause the attacking TF to break off from what otherwise would be a good circumstance. 5. There is no such order as "TF scatter to pursue" The TF leader goes after the best targets and he takes his TF with him. He pounds the ships he catches and these are the ones he feels are worth chasing. 6. Transports that are not spotted but part of the TF should not appear in animation or in combatreport.

Culiacan Mexico -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:03:00 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980 There is absolutely nothing you can do to convince anyone on this forum that one AK/AP/TK ship in a 20 ship AK/AP/TK TF taking 95% of the shell hits from a 6-8 ship surface combat TF is in any way a realistic combat result. There is no logic on earth that can justify that. I can see it happening now and again, but it does seem to happen all too frequently.

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:09:18 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl quote: ORIGINAL: Joel Billings quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl Joel. It would seen that the problems that have everyone so excited revolve around two points. ONE, the "detection levels" don't seem to work right for daytime combats. Teh design seems oriented to night actions, and the modifiers don't seem to adequately reflect the differences when visability is greatly increased. The SECOND is the way the system constantly "breaks off the action". It works alright when both sides have signi- ficant combat forces, but produces ludicrous results when one side is lightly or un-escor- ted merchant shipping. The break-offs may be in intregal and unchangable portion of the combat system; but in these "one-sided" fights the RANGE should NEVER increase from the end of one to the beginning of the next. If the Surface Combat TF was consis- tantly "closing the range" the damage results would increase and most of the problem would dissappear. But the reality is that they are increasing for some ships and decreasing for others (as the convoy scatters). I'm not sure how to handle what you are saying given the abstraction of one range. I do agree with you on the DL issue. No, Joel..., it isn't . Geometric impossibility. One side is closing at 30KTs, the other is scattering at 10 kts. No matter what directional vector the "scattering forces" chose, the relative distance BETWEEN the two continues to close. The best "escape vector" would be directly away from the attacking force..., and it's still going to decrease by 20 knots every hour. Any other vector and the decrease becomes even greater. Now if you carry it out to multiple hours eventually the fleeing units that chose vectors that lead away from the attackers base course WILL start opening the range---but dur- ing the actual period when most combat will take place (30-90 minutes) none of the potential "escapees" is gaining an inch. The range keeps closing rapidly. Hi, Your keeping the transports together they are not scattering in the same direction. A 30kt TF that begins 20k from a 10kt ship will close to 6200 yards but all the other ships will have went 6200 yards in other directions. If there are 2 ships at start and they turn 90 degrees from each other. You will be 6200 yards from the one you chase and 6200 yards plus the angle between where you began and where the 2nd ship is when you reach 6200 yards from the target. If there are 20+ targets many of them will be out of sight before you finish with many. Once you deal with the first you choose a new target and pursue. This of course will result in opening of range with majorty of other targets. If you go left 30k chasing ships that turn left you now have to come back 30k before you even start chasing a ship that went right at start. While you traveled 60k (30k out and 30k back) they have traveled 15k on their own. (so when you turn around before starting back that 30k they are long out of sight. ) Now you have to search in ever expanding box and hope you spot a ship to chase. Let me explain it this way. When spotted the center of the transport formation is 20k away. By the time you get to 6200 yards of this location every transport is 6200 yards from the old center. Ships that were 100 yards apart when you spoted them are now 12k apart. All this assumes the surface force commander reacts perfectly.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:16:51 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami quote: ORIGINAL: doomonyou I must say I agree with the overarching point of this threat. The Surface combat is fine vs. combatants, but for "raider" type battles it is insane. To start I have no trouble with "nitpicking" things like this in this game. this is after all a game for nitpickers. Several points, mogami (whose opinion I've respected since UV) please comment. All of these items address daylight combat. I have NO problem with night combat being confusing. 1) I have repeatedly seen this scatter theory (everyone runs in all directions). This is laughable. One half of the compass is unusable since that half of the compass is bring you CLOSER to the attack warships. While certainly in a large convoy (10 ships plus) some would be able to get away but unless that convoy is traveling line astern with four miles between each ship and the attacking ships hit from one end, what convoy geometry would allow more than 30% of the ships to evade clear sighting? 2) What kind of crews are on these ships? An allied AK taking lets say six hits from the main guns of your name sake would be a flaming, ruptured, smoldering death trap. No crew would remain on board. Why are these ships not abandoned? 3) The ships that take "some" damage, how is that possible? Lets say a single undergunned destroyers has set its sights on a single AK and htis its twice. These two hits alone with hurt the ship badly, but how do these ships always get away? Unless the assumption that all naval combat occurs ten minutes prior to nightfall, a DD going 30 could catch a 12 knot AK from a 20K yard lead in less than ONE HOUR. Even a DD with just two 40mm AA guns and a single 5"er would pulverize a cargo ship in a few minutes. 4) Air spotting. If attacking ships are told that there are fifteen cargo ships and no visible escorts according to air spotters (either this ships own complements on CA's or LBA) why the hell would any captain accept the finding and sinking of two ships as a good days work? He knows they are around there somewhere and if they are cargo ships they couldn't have gone very far? I have no overall problem with some combat results being dissapointing (representing random stupidity or genius or bravery on one side). But I almost NEVER see a brutal assbeating like I should when the tranports on the East cost of the PI run for it and some big ass Japanese CA/DD execution squads hits those eight cargo ships and in broad daylight manages to kill two wound one and let five get by. Hi, Before I begin I must say that I don't post to prevent any change to the game. I'm playing the same game everyone else is and I'd like to sink every enemy ship I catch. However even small ships can require multiple hits. it is not the number of hits but how large and where. That matter. There are examples provided by history of a large warship sinking to a few hits and a samll warship taking many and surviving. Since before anyone on the test team can take any point raised on the boards for review he must understand exactly what the problem is and how often it is being seen. (It helps it it also occurs while he is play testing but to set up a test he has to know all the details) Reading over this thread many times I feel there are in fact several complaints. There is a night result complaint and a day result complaint. IN both cases in normal PBEM play I have had results that indicte to me that these results are not the normal result. (Understand they may be the normal result for the people posting the complaint. I have to discover why they get this normal result and other people do not get this normal result) As for scatter. Draw a circle. Now place a dot for the surface TF anywhere on the circle. Now on the opposite side place another dot for the transports. Now draw another circle around the transports. (Ideally the first circle would have the 2 TF at the spotting range and the circle around the transports would be how far they can move.) Using only course that do not directly go toward enemy you will see there is still many directions for each ship. The surface TF has to commit to a target Almost any target they head for will open the range on the others. (doubling back is a common tactic in evasion because when a ship reverse course it can now point in many new directions. The temporary condition of shortening the range can produce more rapid opening if the other ship goes after another ship)Also ships that are scattering are also trying to increase the range between one another as well as the ships they are trying to evade. A ship doing 30kt will cover 20k yards in 20 minutes. The target doing 10kt would move 6751 yards so after a 20 minute pursuit a ship that began 20k yard behind a transport would now be 6751 a stern. However every transport not being chased that was on another course will be 6751 further out. There is a period where this is not turn and some ships might actually be closer. It now just becomes a mathamatical excersie of moving those transports and pursing ships. and checking what a ship can still see after it finishes the ship it is chasing. I do not feel any WW2 officer would ever hoist some kind of "engage in general melee" flag to his TF. He would go after the largest collection of ships or the ships in sight with the highest value. [image]local://upfiles/944/Yw675015241.jpg[/image] Sorry, but just not buying this. The bottom line, the hit spread MUST be significantly better than it is, on average, at least in daylight, to be realistic. You can go on and on and on about tactical minutia, but this is NOT a TACTICAL game. For intent and purposes, things in a hex are CO-LOCATED. It works that way for LCU's, bases air attacks, it essentially should be the same for naval engagements. It is complete design inconsistancy that some parts of a game are highly abstracted (LCU combat) but other would be so meticulously calculate down to the yardage range???? Surface combat between surface combat TF's engaging unescorted transport TF's, especially in daylight, at the general abstraction level the game is designed to, is irrevocably BROKEN. And it is NOT even debatable. The evidence is OVERWHELMING. And the oddity is, this is probably nothing more than a minor forumula tweek to fix.

Mike Scholl -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:29:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami No, Joel..., it isn't . Geometric impossibility. One side is closing at 30KTs, the other is scattering at 10 kts. No matter what directional vector the "scattering forces" chose, the relative distance BETWEEN the two continues to close. The best "escape vector" would be directly away from the attacking force..., and it's still going to decrease by 20 knots every hour. Any other vector and the decrease becomes even greater. Now if you carry it out to multiple hours eventually the fleeing units that chose vectors that lead away from the attackers base course WILL start opening the range---but dur- ing the actual period when most combat will take place (30-90 minutes) none of the potential "escapees" is gaining an inch. The range keeps closing rapidly. Hi, Your keeping the transports together they are not scattering in the same direction. A 30kt TF that begins 20k from a 10kt ship will close to 6200 yards but all the other ships will have went 6200 yards in other directions. If there are 2 ships at start and they turn 90 degrees from each other. You will be 6200 yards from the one you chase and 6200 yards plus the angle between where you began and where the 2nd ship is when you reach 6200 yards from the target. If there are 20+ targets many of them will be out of sight before you finish with many. Once you deal with the first you choose a new target and pursue. This of course will result in opening of range with majorty of other targets. If you go left 30k chasing ships that turn left you now have to come back 30k before you even start chasing a ship that went right at start. While you traveled 60k (30k out and 30k back) they have traveled 15k on their own. (so when you turn around before starting back that 30k they are long out of sight. ) Now you have to search in ever expanding box and hope you spot a ship to chase. Let me explain it this way. When spotted the center of the transport formation is 20k away. By the time you get to 6200 yards of this location every transport is 6200 yards from the old center. Ships that were 100 yards apart when you spoted them are now 12k apart. All this assumes the surface force commander reacts perfectly. WRONG, MOGAMI. Sorry, but look at the facts. IF the attacker spotted the target at 30,000 yards, and can cover that distance in X minutes; while the defender can only cover 10,000 yards in the same amount of time; then no matter what direction the defender flees, he can only be 10,000 yards from where he started when the attacker arrives at that point. That's a minimum closure of 20,000 yards in x minutes before (even in theory) the range can BEGIN to expand. Given realities, when the attacker sees that the defender is "defenseless", the attacking TF will spread out to "cut the corners" on the defenders "scattering vectors" decreasing the range even more.. Your theory holds true over an extended period of time, but not during the critical period of the actual engagement.

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:30:20 AM)
quote: The evidence is OVERWHELMING. Hi, emm I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed at the moment. Go back to page 1 and count only the daylight surface combat versu unescorted transports where only 1 or 2 transports are sunk and post the number in your next post. At the same time count only the day light surface combat versu unescorted transports where more then 2 transports are sunk and post the number in your next post. Next overwhelm me with the leaders in command. And number of ships in the surface TF. There might be a reason to look because players are worried about what they have seen in a few cases. But there is nothing overwhelming. Just like PT. Since we started tracking PT encounters I have seen nothing amazing done by PT. (There is a battle where 5 PT damage a DD in a TF of 2 DD) Since this thread began I have seen no daylight example that was remarkable. So what if 2 out of 4 transports escaped 1 battle.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:32:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami Hi, I wish I had the replay. Sadly number of hits is nothing I can use to judge. The game uses a system where ships have a number that reflects their durabilty and weapons inflict damage compared to that duribilty. Being hit hundereds of times in the super structure will not result in a ship sinking during combat. (The fires might do it in later) Then why is this stat even bothered to be reported. When we see "shell hits", the REASONABLE game player is assuming GUN hits, not AA fire hitting a ship, not 20MM machine gun fire, but 5" MINIMUM shell hits!! If the game is reporting AA gun hits as "shell hits" then that is simply IDIOTIC! quote: Do I think 8x8in shells will sink a 7k AK?....Sometimes but not if they are hitting the tower and without special damage when other locations are hit. The ship will be in danger but not in the context of the length of a combat phase. Without below the water line damage the ship will remain afloat longer then that. If you watch any air strikes against a ship you will see that once the ship sinks the following aircraft are unable to locate. In surface combat ships that sink after a round sink before the next round (change in range) if a ship is a target for more then one round of fire it means it was still floating at the start of the later phase. Ugh!!! So here we have a game where one SNLF unit, in the same hex, but 59.5 miles away can still engage another unit as if they are co-located, but in Naval combat we making distinctions about a single shell hitting a ship's tower vs a more critical area????? And we are treating AA guns used in a surface action the same as 5", 8" and 16" shells???? What's WRONG with THAT picture??? quote: Do not place to much into the actual animation. It reflects nothing but who is firing and what ship is the target. It shows no formation or speed or anything. You can not tell a forward ship from a rear ship. And I'm not certain all the hits are genuine. I have never looked at the animation. I just read the combat reports. I assume all the ships in the list are known, spotted ships. I don't give a damn WHICH ship spotted WHICH ship! At the level of abstraction in a STRATEGIC operational game, it really SHOULD NOT MATTER! As far as I'm concerned two TF's in the same hex are CO-LOCATED just as two LCU's are. All this NONSENSE about this being 5,000 yard from that ship but 20,000 yards fromt he other ship is just that....NONSENSE! If I want a tactical ship to ship combat game, I'll play old Harpoon or such!

Joel Billings -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:32:39 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980 And the oddity is, this is probably nothing more than a minor forumula tweek to fix. Don't be so sure about that. The formula you tweak may impact many other situations you don't want to see changed.

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:33:58 AM)
quote: Given realities, when the attacker sees that the defender is "defenseless", the attacking TF will spread out to "cut the corners" on the defenders "scattering vectors" decreasing the range even more.. Your theory holds true over an extended period of time, but not during the critical period of the actual engagement Hi, Mike that is why the transport TF's have been losing 2 ships sunk and others damaged. If not no ship would be damaged (A 30kt TF would always escape) And you are still assuming the TF commander does every thing perfectly.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:36:14 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami Hi, I think so far in my PBEM I have sunk more transports with gunfire then by air attack. I'll do a count as I do each turn in my PBEM. Be interested in getting totals from other people as well. Also the combat phase is only part of the battle. Ships will sink later from damage inflicted and you can chase the TF by giving your TF orders. A full speed transport only moves 2 hexes. This is where the speed of your warships becomes the important factor. Again, it is NOT the damage spread, but the HIT spread. There should be a fairly high level of abstraction in naval surface combat as there is elsewhere. It is clear the hit spread should be MUCH MORE disperse than it is. Now if they want to engage some random number generator to determine if a particular hit was "lucky" or not, fine. But the hits, themselves, are way too tight.

mogami -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:41:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980 quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami Hi, I wish I had the replay. Sadly number of hits is nothing I can use to judge. The game uses a system where ships have a number that reflects their durabilty and weapons inflict damage compared to that duribilty. Being hit hundereds of times in the super structure will not result in a ship sinking during combat. (The fires might do it in later) Then why is this stat even bothered to be reported. When we see "shell hits", the REASONABLE game player is assuming GUN hits, not AA fire hitting a ship, not 20MM machine gun fire, but 5" MINIMUM shell hits!! If the game is reporting AA gun hits as "shell hits" then that is simply IDIOTIC! quote: Do I think 8x8in shells will sink a 7k AK?....Sometimes but not if they are hitting the tower and without special damage when other locations are hit. The ship will be in danger but not in the context of the length of a combat phase. Without below the water line damage the ship will remain afloat longer then that. If you watch any air strikes against a ship you will see that once the ship sinks the following aircraft are unable to locate. In surface combat ships that sink after a round sink before the next round (change in range) if a ship is a target for more then one round of fire it means it was still floating at the start of the later phase. Ugh!!! So here we have a game where one SNLF unit, in the same hex, but 59.5 miles away can still engage another unit as if they are co-located, but in Naval combat we making distinctions about a single shell hitting a ship's tower vs a more critical area????? And we are treating AA guns used in a surface action the same as 5", 8" and 16" shells???? What's WRONG with THAT picture??? quote: Do not place to much into the actual animation. It reflects nothing but who is firing and what ship is the target. It shows no formation or speed or anything. You can not tell a forward ship from a rear ship. And I'm not certain all the hits are genuine. I have never looked at the animation. I just read the combat reports. I assume all the ships in the list are known, spotted ships. I don't give a damn WHICH ship spotted WHICH ship! At the level of abstraction in a STRATEGIC operational game, it really SHOULD NOT MATTER! As far as I'm concerned two TF's in the same hex are CO-LOCATED just as two LCU's are. All this NONSENSE about this being 5,000 yard from that ship but 20,000 yards fromt he other ship is just that....NONSENSE! If I want a tactical ship to ship combat game, I'll play old Harpoon or such! Hi, Do you read the stuff you write? Why have air to air combat, Why not just make the game resolve the entire war in 1 turn? So you've never watched the combat animation and it is hard for you to grasp that units do not sit in the middle of a hex. One side owns the hex the other side is shown in the hex but the combat is taking place on the hex side. It was just the easy way to show it. But because the hex has both units you think they are all piled on top of each other? Actually you are demanding a more tactical model while claiming the reverse. If you don't care about the tactics why do you care about the result? The result is what impacts operations not how the model arrives at them. Are we giving you too much data?

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:42:22 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Joel Billings I don't know if Mike Wood has posted in this thread as I haven't been able to keep up with the volume of posts here. I just wanted to give you my take on this discussion. I think that the model is probably lacking in dealing with daylight engagements against totally unprotected convoys. Once you bring in night and/or any escort of more than token size, I think the model works pretty well. There is so much going on under the hood with detection levels of the TFs (pre-combat and post combat) as well as working within the limited abstraction of the naval combat system that for most situations the I feel the game comes out with reasonable results. One thing that seems odd to me is that TFs docked (unloading/loading) don't get hit any harder when attacked. Part of that is based on the assumption that in many of these cases, the ships would have some warning of the approaching enemy TF and would have pulled up anchor. This is even assumed at some level when dealing with airstrikes against docked TFs, although I've forgotten by now exactly how the model deals with these situations. Of course, there is always the chance that the TF would be caught by surprise and should be sitting ducks. So fundamentally I agree with those that think the realism of the combat model could stand to be improved in the situations I mentioned. Having said that, I also don't find the weakness in these areas to be so important to greatly impact the overall game. Of course, that's just my opinion and I can understand those that disagree. From my point of view, this issue is not a bug that requires immediate attention. Mike is still trying to get rid of things like disappearing units (which is a bug), and combat formula changes have to take a back seat unless they are getting in the way of playing the game. Once the important bugs have been fixed, then we can move on to trying to improve things that aren't broken but just aren't quite working as well as we think they should. Now, assuming we agree that a change is desirable (and I do), and we have the time to look at it (after the bugs are fixed), we get to the difficult part of figuring out just how to make that change without making the game worse instead of better. The bad news here is that I'm guessing that it will be very difficult for Mike or Gary to adjust the code to get the desired results without throwing another part of the surface combat system out of whack. I bet that with some investment in time, they could find a few formulas to tweak, but that they will be guessing at the impact of the changes and won't know for sure what other parts of the game they will be affecting. I've been down this path before and can tell you that the combat formulas in this game are multistep formulas that impact many different areas. They are not the simple formulas I was used to dealing with back in the days of the Apple II (anyone remember Warship). During development I was always amazed whenever I asked Gary about a formula, only to find out from Gary that what I expected to be 2 or 3 lines of code was actually more like 20, with the interrelationships of the variables being very hard to figure out. I can't say that this area is going to be like that, but I'd bet good money it is. So when they go to look at this to try to make a change, it's likely that either the simple change will impact more than we want, or a much more complex, case specific change will have to be made. This probably can be done, but will take more time and won't necessarily get the desired effect. At that point testing will have to be done to see if it worked on the test saves, but there's always the risk it will break something else which won't get noticed in test. For me, the first question I ask if I'm trying to decide whether to look into changing something is "just how important is getting this right to my enjoyment of the game" or said another way, "if I get this to work just right, will my enjoyment of the game been taken to a new level". Given the chance of making things worse, the answers usually had better be that it's pretty important and yes, it would make the game much more enjoyable. Does this issue pass the test? On this issue, I'd say that as it is not a bug, it should wait until the bugs are done. Once the important bugs are fixed, it's worth looking at to see if there is a simple fix, or reasonably simple fix in those areas that seem to be the biggest problem (daytime, small/no escort, unloading). If yes, it will get addressed. If the answer is no, than a decision will get made as to whether it's worth the time and risk at that point. The decision won't get made until the programmer makes that initial evaluation, so any comment now would be premature, other than to say that it will get looked at. This is true on many issues that are not really bugs, but things in the game that people understandably would like to see improved. I hope this helps you understand the situation better. Mike and the testers are working through bugs and user posts as quickly as they can. As you all know by now, this game is massive, which means that testing any change is a very difficult undertaking that takes time. Think of WitP as a battleship steaming along at 30 knots. Getting the ship to change direction takes time. It's not a PT boat. UV was a PT boat compared to WitP. But then PT boats is an altogether different surface combat issue, isn't it. [:)] I think I can agree with almost everything here. This whole thread is a nitpick. In a properly played game we should see only the tiny handful of these types engagements, anyway. But what gets me is always the logic imposed to make the points for and against. Mogami leads us to believe the code modelling surface combat is ENORMOUSLY complex and not abstracted at all, taking into account specific yardage ranges of shots fired, and down to where a shot is landing on a ship. I can't imaging why you guys would bother with such minutia is a STRATEGIC level game. A broad, generalized, highly abstracted combat resolution would seem to more than suffice. And if found out of whack a bit, such a thing would be much easier to tweek than a complex, tedious implementation would.

Nikademus -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:46:04 AM)
Ya know....you guys can all keep shouting at each other , or just vote. There's a poll now. three things have made themselves felt here. 1.) certain people's opinions are set in stone. (so there's little point continuing to argue) 2.) regardless of opinions, improving surface TF vs transport TF IS a wish list item 3.) Joel just agreed that the model isn't perfect for ALL situations. So vote. In a perfect world it would be great if all of the wish list items could be implemented but its unlikely that that will happen given the realities of running an operation such as this.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:47:57 AM)
quote: 5. There is no such order as "TF scatter to pursue" The TF leader goes after the best targets and he takes his TF with him. He pounds the ships he catches and these are the ones he feels are worth chasing. Hmm.s Frag's example seem to directly refute this one.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:52:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mogami quote: The evidence is OVERWHELMING. Hi, emm I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed at the moment. Go back to page 1 and count only the daylight surface combat versu unescorted transports where only 1 or 2 transports are sunk and post the number in your next post. At the same time count only the day light surface combat versu unescorted transports where more then 2 transports are sunk and post the number in your next post. Next overwhelm me with the leaders in command. And number of ships in the surface TF. There might be a reason to look because players are worried about what they have seen in a few cases. But there is nothing overwhelming. Just like PT. Since we started tracking PT encounters I have seen nothing amazing done by PT. (There is a battle where 5 PT damage a DD in a TF of 2 DD) Since this thread began I have seen no daylight example that was remarkable. So what if 2 out of 4 transports escaped 1 battle. For every posted AAR, it is certainly safe to assume upward 100 or more showing similar result are NOT posted. The OVERWHELMING majority of posters seem to agree, that at least in daytime surface combat against unescorted transport TFs the results are consistantly RIDICULOUS. Even more ridiculous is that you are the ONLY poster in the entire thread that can't seem to get that???? You seem far to logical for that to be the case.

ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: Surface Combat Sux (9/10/2004 7:52:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Joel Billings quote: ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980 And the oddity is, this is probably nothing more than a minor forumula tweek to fix. Don't be so sure about that. The formula you tweak may impact many other situations you don't want to see changed. Sorry, Joel, I speak from complete ignorance of your code. But it seams a good deal more simple than modifying that upgrade/research thing....

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