There is something wrong in DG

[alexsmith]

My last experience - three IJN ships (2BB+Nisshin) againt's my seven BB (Tsesarevich, Poltava, Retvizan, Sevastopol, Pobeda, Peresvet) in a night catch. Distance is about 2km. All my ships can see and fire. Three minutes of battle - Poltava is completely burned down. Five minutes - Pobeda is almost heavy. IJN ships are almost invulnerable - didn't loss a knot of speed.

Dear mr. Bullethead!

You can't say - there is a sun blinding my ships! You can't say - Japanese outnumber Russian guns! You can't also say - Japanese guns "slightly" more powerfull. This is an absurd! I have no pleasure playing game "load/save every 5 seconds" style! Interface sucks, camera jumps to inpredictible direction, ships turn wherever they like! But those aren't a REAL problems! Computer cheats whatever you say - or it looks just like it cheats! Or you just hate Russians - which is even more outrageous!

God knows - I tried hard! I can forgive almost any bug in a hope of future fixes. I just don't accept statements that's everything is OK if it's not. There were not a $50 I spent with a less pleasure! I know you'd probably be happy if I leave and stop disturbing you which is about to happen...

[Task Force]

Ive had similar issues in jutland... I fire at a distroyer with the hevyest BB I have in my fleet and ocationaly i get an un killable distroyer... or something... but my ships get slaughtered...

[alexsmith]

Just to eliminate possible interaction of so called "Dark Gods" I played the same situation for three times - with absolutely the same result! Computer's advantage is obvious! And inexplainable...

I have an idea... Maybe in DG 1.5 computer uses guns from Jutland? :har:

[jdkbph]

There's no doubt in my mind that the the AI has been given... "advantages"... to offset it's tactical weaknesses. But then what game does not have such weaknesses? And how else would you expect a developer to play balance the game?

That of course is the common wisdom. It's obviously intended to thwart those who enjoy exploiting AI weaknesses regardless of historical or technical considerations.

Unfortunately the developer does not seem to realize that most of the folks who play this game (not counting the "competitive" multi-players) are bothered by this type of thing and find no enjoyment in the challenge of developing and implementing ahistorical tactics to defeat an AI with such advantages.

JD

[alexsmith]

Your're absolutely right - nothing is unusuall in AI's "cheating"! But what's wrong about it in DG? First, mr. Bullethead as representative of developers made the statement that "computer does not cheat". This is probably not correct. At least there is a strong feeling that it's not. If SES confess about computer's cheating - we could discuss this futher - how to improve that point of game etc. But SES declines discussion!

Second, IHMO - in DG results depend on random numbers TOO MUCH. It means at the same situation you may achive ABSOLUTELY different results and these results are almost UNAFFECTED by player's actions! This is terrible for game - even if this is historicaly true. Player learns to load each time something goes wrong - and at the end he loads almost every minute and repeat-repeat unlikely situations trying to outrun random generator.

Third, it's very difficult to get a pleasure from naval game if your ships just doesn't hit while enemy is hitting constantly ;) At last it's a game about gunfire! How should I suppose to play if my ships just can't hit no matter what I do??? ;)

There are a lot of possibilities which can be made to reduce computer's disadvantages in logic and strategy. At least there should be wide range of tactical tricks which can greately affect the results of battle! Ok, let computer have more powerfull guns - but give player a way to overrun this advantage! But in DG computer successfully hits regarding of sun, wind, distance and sometimes - even ship's positions! Yesterday I had a duel with Kassuga and Nisshing - which have 8" guns at back only. They go strictly to my ships in position none of back guns could fire - but Tsesarevich got several 203mm shells :) This is just amazing!!!

The most important question is just either SES want's to improve game futher or not. If it does - we may probably propose different ways and indicate some narrow points. Sometimes it helps. If it doen't - I probably spent $50 for nothing...

[alexsmith]

At last there is a statement from game's manual:

In practical terms, assuming equal levels of accuracy, this means guns of 150mm or larger are almost interchangeable. They do operate very differently in the game, but their end effects are similar.

Do you know that in 1.5 armored ships almost completely invulnerable for 6" guns? I made a special research concerning that ;) How should I suppose to play if manual contains false statements?

[alexsmith]

I appologize for the mistake I made in my suggestion according to Nisshin and Kassuga - Nisshin does have 8" front guns, so my example was quite incorrect... Sorry ;)

[feld]

alexsmith - can you tell me what your "gunnery damage" and "gunnery accuracy" sliders are set to?

Thxs
r/
feld

[alexsmith]

I tried different setting and finally decided not to touch them at all: when accuracy set to high - computer hits every time and it's fatal; when to low - your ships doesn't hit at all while computer does :)

[feld]

Thanks. Lemme play with the settings and run some tests of my own. I've got a (foolish, simplistic) theory that I'd like to test.

r/
feld

[alexsmith]

Would you share it to us? ;)

[feld]

That's only fair...as long as everyone understands that this is just a hunch based on my twenty or so hours with the game thus far. I do NOT have enough information to submit a bug report and, frankly, I'm not at all convinced that there is a problem with the DG gunnery/ballistics model as some have claimed.

That said:
My idea was: "what if the gun accuracy settings only affected the player's shooting and did not affect AI's shooting?"

I got this hunch sometime during my tenth battle or so (playing as Japan) when I finally managed to corner VARIAG west of Chemulpo. The Russian ship SEEMED to shoot much better than the contemporary reports of their shooting would indicate for night gunnery at 3000-4000 meters.

I remembered your posts in which you seemed to be arguing that Russian ships were too vulnerable. When you said that you did trials with lots of different gun accuracy settings and it didn't seem to matter I realized that one common element in both of these situations *might* be that the human player (the Russians in your trials I think) kept getting creamed by the AI player (Japanese in your trials?).

I've since learned that I had the "gun accuracy" slider set way too high (100 vice the 20 that Bullethead recommended). So I've reset my "gun accuracy" and am keeping an eye on the performance with the revised values. That may be all that there is too it so I am not at this point saying at all that DG's gunnery model is messed up.

If my week or so of play still leaves me with questions, then I'll pursue using the scenario editor to do gunnery exercises at predetermined ranges.

v/r
feld

[alexsmith]

I didn't actually say "Russians ships are more vulnarable" - the point was: ships behave MUCH better when managed by computer. Now you also feel that, don't you? :)

By the way: was Varyag able to make your ships suffer? I mean - armored cruisers like Asama. According my undestanding of changes in 1.5 6" guns COMPLETELY ineffective against armored targets. So Varyag's shooting you mentioned - did it do any damage to AC?

[feld]

In that engagement-yes I felt that the computer ships were getting more hits at range than they should've. The Variag didn't really engage the Asama in that action much at all. A few rounds hit Asama only. Just some searchlight and secondary mount damage. The PC's got beaten up pretty badly by Variag's 6" though...

But I've got to tell you that, since I changed my gunnery accuracy numbers to 20 the performance has seemed much more realistic to me...and I'll keep an eye out for the 6" thing. The sources I'm reading are saying unkind things about many of the fuses in the shells in the RJW. Maybe that's it...

I'll keep you in the loop if I find anything.

[feld]

I just realized something: I haven't seen any 6" problems on my DG1.5 installation. Took me a minute to recall that 6" = 152 mm. Those Russian 152s were kicking my butt. They're what did most of the damage in a number of my engagements...I'll be on the lookout for their performance against armor though.

[alexsmith]

I don't know what to name "problems". 6" in DG1.5 behave not like in 1.0 - maybe because of fires changed of whatever - it doesn't matter. The point is - armored ships are only vulnerable to 10" or more shells - which (maybe) more realistic (doubt) but leads to less interesting and challenging game. That's my point...

[feld]

I don't know what to name "problems". 6" in DG1.5 behave not like in 1.0 - maybe because of fires changed of whatever - it doesn't matter. The point is - armored ships are only vulnerable to 10" or more shells - which (maybe) more realistic (doubt) but leads to less interesting and challenging game. That's my point...

I apologize. I haven't been clear on at least two points:
1. 6" guns *do* penetrate armor in my DG installation. The VARIAG didn't because it never really engaged the one armored cruiser in the formation that I sank it with. But other Russian ships with 6" (152 mm) guns *have* been damaging my Japanese armored cruisers at 3000-4000 yards. My copy of Janes 1905-1906 predicts that the Russian 6"/45 gun would penetrate 6-7" Krupp steel at 3000 yards and that's roughly consistent with what I'm seeing in my Distant Guns 1.5 installation. Of course, I've read someplace that Jane's old armor penetration formulae were wrong. But I can tell you that, when I let 6"/45 shooters get inside 3000 yards in DG 1.5, they start to punch holes in my ships...

2. 6" guns being "useless" would not be realistic based on what I've read. The only historical source that I can see that even hints at that is from CAPT Pakenham who was the senior Royal Navy observer in theater. He apparently said:

"The 10in guns of the Peresviet and Pobeida were of 45 calibres, and may also be of greater range, but the effect of every gun is so much less than that of the next larger size, that when 12in guns are firing, shots from 10in pass unoticed, while, for all the respect they instill, 8in or 6 in guns might just as well be pea shooters, and the 12 pdr simply does not count. This must be understood to refer entirely to the moral effect."

D.K. Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought, Chatham Publishing, London, England, p.175.

But all this guy is saying is that guys aren't afraid of 6" and 8" rounds when they're under fire from 12" guns. Nothing I've read says that 6" were useless historically.

v/r
feld

[alexsmith]

6" may cause some fire at AC - that's the only effect I could notice. I've made an experiment - about 12 Russian PC (all I could find) with 6" guns only controlled by computer against two Japanese AC.

When I played that in mode "computer vs computer" - none of AC was seriosly damaged untill all of the Russian ships were sunk. When I played that by myself managing AC - the damage was much more sensible but still quite not enough to state that 6" guns do REALLY damage to armored ships...

That's my the only point...

[feld]

6" may cause some fire at AC - that's the only effect I could notice. I've made an experiment - about 12 Russian PC (all I could find) with 6" guns only controlled by computer against two Japanese AC.

When I played that in mode "computer vs computer" - none of AC was seriosly damaged untill all of the Russian ships were sunk. When I played that by myself managing AC - the damage was much more sensible but still quite not enough to state that 6" guns do REALLY damage to armored ships...

That's my the only point...

That's odd. The 6" guns do the damage that I'm expecting to the Japanese AC's in my games (with me as the human player). My secondary guns get all shot up by them, the AC's flood some, but no conning tower or main turret hits get through. Damn. I wish I could read Russian...there's apparently some historical data on losses and damage sources here (http://rjw.narod.ru/library/0081.htm) but I am unable to read it.

I'll try computer vs. computer and see what I can see.

v/r
feld

[alexsmith]

I'll probably try to translate for you - although WHOLE book is too much ;) What exactly data are you interested in?

[alexsmith]

Yes, quite interesting data... I think some time requires for me to make a reasonable compilation of it.

For example, there are interesting numbers of cause of death among Russian sailors during the whole war:
1. KIA - 519
2. Burned or boiled - 28
3. Drowned - 61
4. Uknown reason - 5691
5. After reciving medical assistance - 212

Other damages (stayed alive):
1. Wounded (I think direct wounds meaned) - 2192
2. Shell-shocked - 406
3. Burn - 122
4. Poisoned by gas - 108
5. After shock - 22
6. After heat-stroke - 4

From this numbers we already may see that damages of crew from fire MAY be unrealistic too high in DG. Although most of Russian sailors were dead by unknown reasons, the remaining numbers allow us to conclude that fire didn't really cause much deaths as in the game... I'l keep studing

[alexsmith]

There is also very important conclusion: most of the losses were caused by ships sinking. During the battle despite the heavy fire crew losses were moderate while most of the crew of sinking ships could not survive.

[alexsmith]

During the research there is also a strong conclusion that damage level of crew of ships stayed alive not exceed 30% - no matter how intensive fire was. It means - if ship is not damaged enough to drown - most of it crew is alive and functional. Only when enemy's fire so intensive it leads to ship sinking - it also damages crew much.