Imraphel

I don't really play subs, but I play against them a lot. and I tend to drive medium tier BBs as it's the era I like. I don't pretend to be a great player; about average, I think (hope). But, having just been pinged 5 times by a single sub (and of course torped by said sub) in an Iron Duke, all I can say is - give us a break WG. I'm under fire from other ships and thus distracted. The sub can sneak up and get me, if he's a decent player. He really doesn't need the homing too. (Not that it had been invented when Iron Duke was launched in 1911, or even when she was scrapped in 1936) And I really don't want to have to use my damage control to break lock when I'm in a firefight with more than one ship, at least one of which is HE spamming me. It puts me in an impossible position; either burn to death, or eat 3 or 4 torpedoes. So, I broke lock twice, accepting an almost immediate full burn fire, and dodged (not quite sure how) one set of those torpedoes. But before my damage control had reloaded, I'm pinged again and the torps are on their way again. And this time they hit, 4 torps right amidships. Boom, that's all she wrote. And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. Iron Duke turns like a brick, has top speed of 23 (including flag). I can't outrun them and I can't dodge under fire for long when they come from DDs and go dead straight. When they actually turn and home in, what chance do I have? That the sub can reload both ping & torps before my damage control can reload is just wrong. End of story. As they currently are in the game, subs are utterly overpowered if the sub player has a clue. It's easy to tell; how many subs get nailed early game? Sod all, and that's despite most players eagerly picking on a sub if they get a chance. Which means they can already cope with being hunted. Maybe the top players can cope against subs. But average joes like me can't. It's not fun with that bloody torpedo lock, so WG need to either give us a different key to break lock, or scrap homing entirely. Because having my ship burn down because I've had to break a torpedo lock, or being unable to break lock because I've put out a couple of fires or floods, is unfair and frankly, just stupid.

I love these. Can we keep them please? Gives me a good reason to play some of the ships I despise, like the Kirov. Could we maybe have them in future for different tiers of ships? Say, 3-5. 6-8, 9-10? That would allow me to not play the horrible T10 fantasy superships and still be rewarded for playing actual ships that really existed. p.s. Can I get an Agincourt without the icebreaker bow? She didn't have one, so I'd be more comfortable using the actual vessel.

Hmm. In regard to the guns not hitting hard; that's actually fairly accurate. The High Seas fleet's BCs (which the first three all are) had 11 or 12 inch guns only, with a relatively limited range due to poor maximum elevation. Both Tiger & Princess Royal took about 40 heavy shell hits each at Jutland from these ships and their fighting capacity, speed and manouverability was unimpaired. Beyond the Mackensen (which IIRC was never finished) these are all fantasy ships so I won't get them and frankly couldn't care less what they make them do. I would though point out that the actual real ships all took massive damage from British BCs & BBs at Jutland, but although all of them were basically reduced to floating scrap metal, only Lutzow sunk. (Well Seydlitz did too but she actually made dock first and sank at her moorings). While that was to a large degree a result of poor British shell design (AP shells exploding against the armour rather than penetrating and then exploding) it does show how tough they were. Which brings me on to another matter. None of those ships caught fire. In fact none of the British and German capital ships at Jutland suffered major fire damage from shells. Lion did catch fire, but that was after a destroyed turret had a live charge fall out of a gun onto the red hot deck, and in that case it was swiftly contained and the magazine flooded. SO WHY DO BBs CATCH FIRE IN EVERY SINGLE GAME? IT DID NOT HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE. IT SHOULD THEREFORE NOT HAPPEN IN A WARGAME. And don't waffle about play balance; DDs did not get torpedo reloads in real life. Being able to fire multiple batches of torpedoes WHILE NOT BEING SPOTTED is therefore quite enough tweaking of play balance without allowing HE spam to utterly ruin the gaming experience for anyone with a capital ship. Seriously, are you trying to tell me that a DD moving at full speed doesn't give off a plume of funnel smoke that can be seen beyond 5-6 km? Really??? But let's accept that for play balance we allow this so that DDs can get in and torpedo capital ships. Let's even accept that they might manage to damage a say Iron Duke class BB with their 4 inch popguns. Why do they get to set it on fire as well?? Especially multiple fires that can actually (say if he's had to use his repair to prevent flood damage) burn him down completely. IT NEVER HAPPENED. NOT EVER. Can we also do something about the utter garbage of not having a penalty for firing out of a smokescreen, or from behind an island. You're firing blind; how can you aim and fire at a target ten klicks away? Even if we assume you are being informed of approx enemy position by another vessel, how are they spotting your shots and differentiating them from their own and other ships? How do you actually get the range? Unless you have radar you are utterly screwed. Seriously, I do want to know the answers to these because after 9 months playing the game I am at the end of my rope. It's not fun and it's not clever. Dunno about other players, but I'd rather more realism than less. And non-stop HE spam from behind an island setting multiple fires is not realistic. In the slightest.

Yup. Bring it back.

Thanks. I rather needed that answer.

Uhm, newbie here. Stupid question, but why have IFHE at all? If a cruiser picks a long range fight with a BB it's superior rudder shift and general manouverabilty should let it either escape, or close. If it closes and takes a solid shot, and dies, that's tough - play better. If it closes and gets off torps and kills the BB, well done.. But burning down BBs with HE spam never, to my knowledge, ever actually happened (i am prepared to be proved wrong here btw). It seems to me to be purely for play balance, It should be bloody dangerous taking on a BB in a cruiser, but as it stands, the cruiser can simply spam HE three or four times as fast as the BB can fire, and barring bad luck, will win 70% of the time. That can't be right. Or no-one would ever have built BBs in the first place.

I've not been playing this for very long and I appreciate that others might have a different view, but if this is a simulation, then shouldn't carriers have an absolute limit on the number of aircraft they carry? In a couple of games I've shot down more than 45 aircraft; that's pretty much the entire compliment of a real aircraft carrier. And, counting up the aircraft kills, I've seen more than 120 more than once. Even with two carriers in the game, they should be running out of planes pretty damned fast. But they don't - they have endless supplies of full squadrons. This may be nice for the carrier players, but it's extremely unfair for everyone else. This should be a game of skill, but it's not if a carrier player can endlessly recycle full squadrons instead of taking care with his planes and taking the time and effort to get the best attack runs which will minimise aircraft casualties. The game should reward the better players, not make it dead easy for any muppet to play God as a carrier captain.