Surveillance Radar, Interface improvement, Flooding

[MrConway]

Please note that the information in the Development Blog is preliminary.

 

Surveillance Radar changes

A delay to the effect of the Surveillance Radar for allies has been added. So, whilst an outline of the Radar'd vessel will show on the minimap, it won't be rendered for allies until 6 seconds have passed, provided the target has been in the radar zone the whole time. All detected targets will immediately appear on the minimap. The interaction of the ship using the Surveillance Radar and the detected target remains unchanged with no delay being added.

 

This change offers some counter-play for DDs and CL with smoke screens, enabling them to maneuver to evade some of the enemy fire.

 

Due to the change in the mechanics, some ships will receive an increase of the Radar duration:

- Black from 20 to 22 seconds;
- Hsienyang from 15 to 20 seconds;
- Chung Mu from 17 to 22 seconds;
- Yueyang from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Dmitri Donskoi from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Kronshtadt from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Moskva from 25 to 30 seconds;
- Stalingrad from 25 to 30 seconds.

 

As a result, these ships will increase their individual effectiveness against destroyers.

 

Radar range has been standardized for cruisers:

- The Radar range of the Soviet cruisers Chapayev, Dmitri Donskoi, Kronshtadt, Moskva, Stalingrad has been increased from 11.7 to 12 km;
- The Radar range of the American light cruisers Cleveland, Seattle, Worcester will remain the same 9 km, and 8.5 km for Atlanta;
- The Radar range of the American heavy cruisers:

-  - Baltimore's goes up from 9 to 10 km;
-  - Buffalo 's goes up from 9,4 to 10 km;
-  - Des Moines's goes up from 9,9 to 10 km;
-  - Indianalopis's goes up from 9,9 to 10 km;
-  - Alaska's goes up from 9,4 to 10 km;
-  - Salem's remains the same 8,5 km;
-  - Wichita remains the same 9 km.

 

For British cruisers:

- - Edinburgh's goes up from 9 to 10 km;

- - Neptune goes up from 9.4 to 10 km;

- - Minotaur goes up from 9.9 to 10 km;

- - Belfast remains the same 8.5 km.

 

Now it will be easier to remember at what distance from you should stay to be undetected.

 

 

Interface improvement

Different indicators for Radar, Hydroacoustic Search and guaranteed detection have been added.

• As a result, it will be easier to understand how the ship has been detected.

When an ally uses a radar or Hydroacoustic Search, there will be a special icon over the ship, and an automatic message about the consumable usage will be shown in the team chat.

A visual effect of the initiating radar has been added.

• This will allow you to cooperate more effectively with your allies using the radar.

 

Flooding changes

The new flooding mechanics will be implemented similarly to those of fire mechanics:

- The ship can suffer two floodings: on the stern and on the bow.
- Flooding cannot be inflicted on a part of the ship that is already flooding.

 

The flooding duration without modifiers has been reduced:

- 30 seconds remain for CVs;
- from 90 to 40 seconds for other classes.

 

The rate of hit points loss with one flooding has been reduced:

- from 0.667% to 0.25% per second for CVs;
- from 0.667% to 0.5% per second for battleships and Kronshtadt, Stalingrad, Azuma and Alaska cruisers;
- from 0.667% to 0.25% per second for cruisers and destroyers;
- from 0.667% to 0.375% per second for Admiral Graf Spee and HSF Admiral Graf Spee.

 

Flooding will reduce the power of the engine of any ships, when moving forward by 30% and when moving back by 60%.

 

For example, British Conqueror BB gets flooding in the bow because it's hit by torpedo:

- Pre-rework flooding would cause ~49 800 damage if it is not stopped;

- New flooding would cause much less damage ~ 16600;

- Two simultaneous floodings would still cause less damage ~33 200.

 

As for cruisers and DDs, flooding damage goes down even further for them. Let's see Kagero for example:

- Pre-rework flooding would cause up to ~9 000 damage, probably killing partially damaged ship:

- New flooding takes around ~1500 damage.

 

These changes will make flooding less painful for new players and will allow experienced players more efficient usage of the ship's combat capability. Flooding will cause less damage to cruisers and destroyers. However, it will still be extremely dangerous for them, as the reduced power of the engine will greatly affect the survival of these classes of ships.

[Allied_Winter]

5 minutes ago, MrConway said:

Different indicators for Radar, Hydroacoustic Search and guaranteed detection have been added.

Well that is indeed SPICY in a friggin good way!

 

@MrConway With the rework of flooding, is there also a rework for the achievements needing flooding planned?

[ColonelPete]

Why not use 4 flooding areas like fires and change flooding damage accordingly?

[wilkatis_LV]

13 minutes ago, MrConway said:

6 seconds

sounds a bit long, but I guess that's why it's WiP

 

13 minutes ago, MrConway said:

-Black from 20 to 22 seconds;
- Hsienyang from 15 to 20 seconds;
- Chung Mu from 17 to 22 seconds;
- Yueyang from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Dmitri Donskoi from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Kronshtadt from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Moskva from 25 to 30 seconds;
- Stalingrad from 25 to 30 seconds.

With radar mod that will be:

-Black 26.4s
- Chung Mu 26.4s
- Yueyang 30s
- Dmitri Donskoi 30s
- Kronshtadt 30s
- Moskva 36s
- Stalingrad 36s

 

13 minutes ago, MrConway said:

Different indicators for Radar, Hydroacoustic Search and guaranteed detection have been added.

13 minutes ago, MrConway said:

When an ally uses a radar or Hydroacoustic Search, there will be a special icon over the ship, and an automatic message about the consumable usage will be shown in the team chat. 

A visual effect of the initiating radar has been added.

• This will allow you to cooperate more effectively with your allies using the radar.

This is great

 

13 minutes ago, MrConway said:

- The ship can suffer two floodings: on the stern and on the bow.
- Flooding cannot be inflicted on a part of the ship that is already flooding.

- from 90 to 40 seconds for other classes.

- from 0.667% to 0.5% per second for battleships and Kronshtadt, Stalingrad, Azuma and Alaska cruisers;

1) Anti-Flooding signal will actually be useful PogChamp

2) Flooding's probably not an insta-repair anymore?

 

Also 40s at max reduction would be... 23.12s

[LemonadeWarrior]

Why can't we flood the midsection? It is already protected by the torpedo belt? Is this mechanic being removed?

[Verdius]

24 minutes ago, MrConway said:

Flooding changes

The new flooding mechanics will be implemented similarly to those of fire mechanics:

- The ship can suffer two floodings: on the stern and on the bow.
- Flooding cannot be inflicted on a part of the ship that is already flooding.

 

The flooding duration without modifiers has been reduced:

- 30 seconds remain for CVs;
- from 90 to 40 seconds for other classes.

 

The rate of hit points loss with one flooding has been reduced:

- from 0.667% to 0.25% per second for CVs;
- from 0.667% to 0.5% per second for battleships and Kronshtadt, Stalingrad, Azuma and Alaska cruisers;
- from 0.667% to 0.25% per second for cruisers and destroyers;
- from 0.667% to 0.375% per second for Admiral Graf Spee and HSF Admiral Graf Spee.

 

Flooding will reduce the power of the engine of any ships, when moving forward by 30% and when moving back by 60%.

 

For example, British Conqueror BB gets flooding in the bow because it's hit by torpedo:

- Pre-rework flooding would cause ~49 800 damage if it is not stopped;

- New flooding would cause much less damage ~ 16600;

- Two simultaneous floodings would still cause less damage ~33 200.

 

As for cruisers and DDs, flooding damage goes down even further for them. Let's see Kagero for example:

- Pre-rework flooding would cause up to ~9 000 damage, probably killing partially damaged ship:

- New flooding takes around ~1500 damage.

 

These changes will make flooding less painful for new players and will allow experienced players more efficient usage of the ship's combat capability. Flooding will cause less damage to cruisers and destroyers. However, it will still be extremely dangerous for them, as the reduced power of the engine will greatly affect the survival of these classes of ships.

 

Can I get a refund on all my IJN torp DDs now? Will there be some sort of compensation for a major loss of damage on their primary armament?

[FallenOrchid]

19 minutes ago, MrConway said:

Interface improvement

[...]

Thank you! Very, very much!

[MrConway]

16 minutes ago, Allied_Winter said:

Well that is indeed SPICY in a friggin good way!

 

@MrConway With the rework of flooding, is there also a rework for the achievements needing flooding planned?

 

I haven't heard specifics, but this is something we will definitely take into consideration!

[Rhodanos213]

This is the year of the destroyer, I knew it. Now only the battleships need a 15 km radar for over 60 seconds.

[wilkatis_LV]

9 minutes ago, LemonadeWarrior said:

Why can't we flood the midsection? It is already protected by the torpedo belt? Is this mechanic being removed?

I believe "bow / stern" refers to the direction from the midpoint. Similarly to how fires have 4 equal-ish zones covering the whole ship

 

1 minute ago, Rhodanos213 said:

This is the year of the destroyer, I knew it. Now only the battleships need a 15 km radar for over 60 seconds.

Because reading that it spots only BBs and CVs is hard

[Tyrendian89]

not sure I like either the radar or flooding changes... both just feel like even more DD hate, and DDs are going to be forked enough as is with the CV rework making the skies chock full of planes in every match for the foreseeable future...

for the interface improvements tho for sure!

[Aotearas]

Going to quote myself from the discussion thread regarding the flooding changes:

12 minutes ago, Aotearas said:

Flooding mechanic rework looks like it's geared to diminish the impact of reworked CVs sticking flooding DoT and just flooding out everything.

 

All fine and dandy, but what about DDs?

Compared to a reworked CV that can cycle multiple TB runs in the time it takes for a DD to reload its torpedoes once (and hit the target much more consistently when compared to statistical average torpedo hitrates from surface ships, which also means they have an easier time aiming to get the second flooding stick), I wouldn't be surprised to see flooding damage inflincted from surface ships to take a nosedive (nevermind DD efficacy in general now that CVs can just rape them with rocket squadrons unless the DD sticks close to a blob of AA ships, which means easy to anticipate and dodge torpedoes and thus even lower hitrates).

Worst part is I don't even know how that could be properly counterbalanced. Increasing flooding chances on surface torps means little with reduced torpedo duration and halfway competent DCP management. Increasing torpedo alpha would bring its own slew of balancing problems along so that's a no.

 

Imho the best way would be give shiplaunched torpedoes a longer flooding duration (fluff logic would be bigger torps, making bigger holes being harder to fix), but I'm doubtful the game can distinguish between airdropped and shiplaunched torpedoes.

 

Any comments/clarifications on this by @Sub_Octavian, @MrConway, @Crysantos?

 

 

The other way of balancing this would be a complete overhaul of the DCP mechanic. Say one DCP charge can only extinguish two fires and/or one flooding instead of everything. No complete immunity from all DoT once the magic button is pressed, but only partial recovery so they can't fix everything at once. Could also make the Damage Control Party modification more viable if it improves upon the DCP efficacy rather than just extend the current immunity action time.

[Strefs]

41 minutes ago, Tyrendian89 said:

not sure I like either the radar or flooding changes... both just feel like even more DD hate, and DDs are going to be forked enough as is with the CV rework making the skies chock full of planes in every match for the foreseeable future...

for the interface improvements tho for sure!

 

I don't feel too comfortable with these changes either. How is a player going to learn if you baby him along the way? Everyone knows that a flood is dangerous at this stage. This is why people need to be careful with their damacon. While this change is allegedly supposed to cater to the new players, that need to get grips with the mechanics, all it does is mitigate the learning curve.

I agree that floods could work similarly to fires, have them be stackable, if this means they do less damage, that's fine by me. But I really don't like the changes to the duration. If you have absolutely no discipline when it comes to using consumables, then naturally you should be punished for it.

[Hugh_Ruka]

I see RIP DDs all over the changes ...

 

Flooding on DDs was never an issue since the direct torp hit would kill you with high probability before the flood would. Will flooding remain 100% recoverable like fires do ? Because that will inflate the damage done by DDs as there will be less urge to DCP a flood but will not actually contribute to anything. Landing torps is not easy and flooding was a nice reward for it. Now it will be much more viable to concentrate on fires as the are easier to land repeatedly.

 

Radar changes, nope that is not the solution, it's not even a band aid on the current system, it's just repainting the same thing a different color.

 

The only good change is the UI changes, however we are still missing the all effective spotting mechanics display at the same time, not only the highest up the priority list.

 

EDIT: torps and flooding were one of the tools to dislodge bow-on BBs (he and a Yamato were another). now you removed one option.

[DariusJacek]

Time to sell all DDs, or at least to turn them into port queens. I like interface changes and standardisation of radars - it will help new players. At least CVs will not spot our torps. That is only if somehow we live long enough to launch them

[Panocek]

1 hour ago, MrConway said:

Please note that the information in the Development Blog is preliminary.

 

Surveillance Radar changes

A delay to the effect of the Surveillance Radar for allies has been added. So, whilst an outline of the Radar'd vessel will show on the minimap, it won't be rendered for allies until 6 seconds have passed, provided the target has been in the radar zone the whole time. All detected targets will immediately appear on the minimap. The interaction of the ship using the Surveillance Radar and the detected target remains unchanged with no delay being added.

 

This change offers some counter-play for DDs and CL with smoke screens, enabling them to maneuver to evade some of the enemy fire.

Alternate solution to this delay I can think of would be removal/reduction of lock on dispersion bonus when firing at radar (and hydro?) detected ship. It would be instantly visible as its now, but landing enough hits to sink DD should be on difficult end of the spectrum, while few stray shells should be enough to reset base capture.

[MrConway]

2 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Alternate solution to this delay I can think of would be removal/reduction of lock on dispersion bonus when firing at radar (and hydro?) detected ship. It would be instantly visible as its now, but landing enough hits to sink DD should be on difficult end of the spectrum, while few stray shells should be enough to reset base capture.

 

We prefer to have a more consistent and less RNG-dependent solution, that was one of the main reasons we made the BB-AP on DD changes.

 

We will see how this change does in testing and then see how/if we proceed from there.

[Hugh_Ruka]

5 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Alternate solution to this delay I can think of would be removal/reduction of lock on dispersion bonus when firing at radar (and hydro?) detected ship. It would be instantly visible as its now, but landing enough hits to sink DD should be on difficult end of the spectrum, while few stray shells should be enough to reset base capture.

Since we have 'O marks the spot" nothing prevents you from shooting at a DD in smoke that's not moving very fast yet with the help of the minimap marker.

 

So the 6 seconds are just a cosmetic thing ....

[wilkatis_LV]

10 minutes ago, Hugh_Ruka said:

Will flooding remain 100% recoverable like fires do ? Because that will inflate the damage done by DDs as there will be less urge to DCP a flood but will not actually contribute to anything. Landing torps is not easy and flooding was a nice reward for it.

Flooding should be a better reward after the change as it should actually last instead of being insta-dmgcon'd

 

At the same time, assuming it stays at 100% repair (why wouldn't it), single flooding time reduction thingy + healing signal (speaking of BBs here) would approximately equal dmg with heal. So yeah, not much of an insta repair there, I don't see that as a bad thing

[wilkatis_LV]

1 minute ago, Hugh_Ruka said:

Since we have 'O marks the spot" nothing prevents you from shooting at a DD in smoke that's not moving very fast yet with the help of the minimap marker.

 

So the 6 seconds are just a cosmetic thing ....

What "prevents" you from doing it is the 2x dispersion penalty, good luck hitting a target as small as a DD with that when it's not even reliable for shooting at cruisers

[Hugh_Ruka]

Just now, wilkatis_LV said:

What "prevents" you from doing it is the 2x dispersion penalty, good luck hitting a target as small as a DD with that when it's not even reliable for shooting at cruisers

That was an already existing alternative to Panoceks proposal ...  Also there are still plenty of people shooting into smokes blind and hitting and sinking ships just based on the shell tracers (I have been killed many times in my smoke while moving around and firing), so it will be done over and over again.

 

As for the dispersion penalty, it's one of the stupid mechanics in the game that exists for no logical reason. You are still shooting at the same distance, there is no reason what so ever to be less accurate without a target lock.

 

@MrConway how about a shortcut to radar ? At the moment radar ships are using the "I need intelligence data" call to signal they are going to radar. It would be nice to have a specific short for that ... Seeing the icon AFTER radar was activated is too late, guns don't turn instantly you know ...

[ledgeri]

2 hours ago, MrConway said:

Interface improvement

Different indicators for Radar, Hydroacoustic Search and guaranteed detection have been added.

• As a result, it will be easier to understand how the ship has been detected.

When an ally uses a radar or Hydroacoustic Search, there will be a special icon over the ship, and an automatic message about the consumable usage will be shown in the team chat.

A visual effect of the initiating radar has been added.

• his will allow you to cooperate more effectively with your allies using the radar.

Please do it in a way, when there is no developer prefered hierarchy:

In the the current meta the LOS detection is the only shown, even if planes above us and we are in active radar or/and hydroacoustic ranges, what is kinda stupid if we can differentiate all of the previously mentioned, if those spotting us individually...
There should be an improvement made on this system as well what tells us exactly what can spotting us besides the other ones what are actually do, even if you do not want to seperate the radar icon from the hydro's...

[wilkatis_LV]

4 minutes ago, Hugh_Ruka said:

Also there are still plenty of people shooting into smokes blind and hitting and sinking ships just based on the shell tracers (I have been killed many times in my smoke while moving around and firing), so it will be done over and over again.

Throw enough at the wall and some of it will stick

 

Do you even realize how low the hit % is for these blindshots? Sure, some hit every now and then, but nearly all of them miss without getting even close to hitting. Especially when the player shooting isn't a unicum so his aim isn't even perfectly on point making it that much worse

 

Will it be done? Sure. A rare case of lol. But, unless I'm going to lose the ability to fire at that DD before I see & lock on him or unless my reload is quick enough for that - why would I? Wait a couple seconds and then get that accurate shot

 

8 minutes ago, Hugh_Ruka said:

As for the dispersion penalty, it's one of the stupid mechanics in the game that exists for no logical reason. You are still shooting at the same distance, there is no reason what so ever to be less accurate without a target lock.

It's there to force you to use target lock which comes with a built-in aim-assist. Without that at longer ranges even slightest "mistakes" in vertical aiming (in this case anything that isn't on waterline would be a mistake) would lead to you never hitting your target as the shells pass harmlessly over it

[Reaper_JackGBR]

2 hours ago, MrConway said:

Due to the change in the mechanics, some ships will receive an increase of the Radar duration:

- Black from 20 to 22 seconds;
- Hsienyang from 15 to 20 seconds;
- Chung Mu from 17 to 22 seconds;
- Yueyang from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Dmitri Donskoi from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Kronshtadt from 20 to 25 seconds;
- Moskva from 25 to 30 seconds;
- Stalingrad from 25 to 30 seconds.

 

How long is the delay between the radar ship spotting and that being provided to everyone else? Going by these numbers, if the delay is only 20% (6 seconds) then this is a straight up buff combined with increasing the radar range on these ships as well. If it's more than 20% then it's more of just a tweak but I'm still of the opinion that this is a big buff for the Russian ships. (300m extra range + 6 seconds extra spotting guaranteed for at least the ship itself is quite nasty, and like I said, if the delay is only 20% then it's essentially the same radar as now, but with a bonus 6 seconds for the radar ship and the 300m extra range, that's a heavy buff.) 

[___V_E_N_O_M___]

finally dd nerfs