Battleships secondary guns

[Astalano]

Now, I understand why AA guns are on auto-aim, that makes sense, but why are secondaries on auto-aim and have poor range to boot?

 

Since we have something like a 30 sec reload, wouldn't it make sense to be able to switch between primary and secondary weapons? I'm not saying that secondaries should have the same accuracy as cruiser secondaries, but they would give a lot more control to battleships in dealing with smaller ships, like cruisers or especially destroyers, while letting the big guns focus on the larger ships. Something like a 12km range would be ideal.

 

That way battleships get turned from an artillery piece into a bristling fortress of guns and would encourage battleships to get into close range. Being at just above secondary range cruisers can pummel battleships with accurate fire and they can use their speed to keep distance and avoid the primary guns and of course destroyers have their stealth advantage.

 

I don't know, would this make battleships overpowered?

[Tyrendian89]

manual secondary control was tried very early in development and was apparently horrendously overpowered - it's not like BBs really needed any more power than they've got right now...

[Vaderan]

Your topic has been brought up several times over the past months. Just take a look around and you will find plenty of heated discussions.

 

With a look at the chinese compeditor, i am convinced that a manually controlled secondary armament withint he limits already set to this weapon type would be absolutely fine.

However, you will find plenty of forum users who disagree with this opinion. Some of them just for the fact, that manually controlled secondaries would turn some of the BBs played by more competent players would not be anymore just easy prey for their yolo-torpedo runs in DDs, but targets which should be shown at least a little respect...

[ShockPirat]

Your topic has been brought up several times over the past months. Just take a look around and you will find plenty of heated discussions.

 

With a look at the chinese compeditor, i am convinced that a manually controlled secondary armament withint he limits already set to this weapon type would be absolutely fine.

However, you will find plenty of forum users who disagree with this opinion. Some of them just for the fact, that manually controlled secondaries would turn some of the BBs played by more competent players would not be anymore just easy prey for their yolo-torpedo runs in DDs, but targets which should be shown at least a little respect...

 

A smart BB already is capable of killing yolo DDs on his own, as long as he's not caught dead in the water at a bad angle (and smart ones won't be if they know a DD is around).

Why some battleship players think that destroyers are not "worthy" of their main battery attention and should be dealt with only by secondaries is beyond me. Perhaps it's those battleship players that need to show respect to destroyers?

 

Anyway. "Manual" (as manual as ctrl click is) secondary skill is being added next patch and from the few videos I saw it seems quite powerful. And as Tyrendian said above... it's not like BBs lack power at the moment.

[Astalano]

manual secondary control was tried very early in development and was apparently horrendously overpowered - it's not like BBs really needed any more power than they've got right now...

 

Yeah but there's a lot of RNG involved with that 'power'. 

 

There should be a clear idea of what each class is mostly about. Right now it seems to me that destroyers are there for spotting, capping, hunting other destroyers and damaged ships, blocking off certain approaches with torpedoes and dealing with ships that aren't maneuverable with torpedoes. 

 

Then you have cruisers, which are kind of a jack of all trades approach, where you generally get high rate of fire, great accuracy, good speed, decent armour against destroyer or other cruiser guns for heavy cruisers or no armour at all for light cruisers. Idea is to annoy battleships over time with HE, chase away and bring down destroyers and try to get citadels on other cruisers. Do some spotting when appropriate, your main strength is your lack of major weaknesses. Then you get some diversity in that some are gunboats, some are faster, some have torpedoes, etc. 

 

Then you get battleships. Now, what is a battleship's role? In my view you seem to gravitate towards two different classes of battleship, with three fundamental styles of play, that being battlecruisers and battleships: pure tanking ships, medium jack of all trades battleships and pure long range support battlecruisers. 

 

Generally the battleship should be a master of zone control around himself. That means that it's the job of the battleship to make it painful for all ships to be in his area, either with withering ACCURATE fire from longer range forcing enemies to retreat to more favourable positions, tanking ability to get in close to deliver powerful closer range bombardment or a mix of both styles. The secondary armament deals with smaller threats, being medium, light cruisers and destroyers and the primary armament deals with the primary threats, being heavy cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships, who are less maneuverable and who you won't overpenetrate. 

 

So being a battleship driver should be about delivering a lot of firepower effectively and shifting the battle lines. 

 

Now, the counter to the battleship is not necessarily ship-to-ship torpedoes in open waters, but carriers. 

 

The carrier has the capability to cripple the battleship with torpedo and dive bombers and disrupt his attack, making him maneuver or punishing him if he doesn't. 

 

Right now though, it seems to me that battleships have taken on the role of sniper or artillery piece. They don't have the firepower to put consistent damage on their targets but they also don't have the armour to withstand being focused down long enough to make their existing armament lethal, because they're just not accurate.

 

So you end up with a situation where battleships generally hang back and try to conserve health, sniping enemies where possible and playing extremely conservatively to allow room for RNG to give them good results. 

 

I would give battleships secondary armament capability at relatively close range (10-15km depending on tier), so that it becomes a real challenge and fun to push the lines forward. You have to juggle main guns, secondaries, armour angling, maneuvering and prioritising targets as well as looking out for torpedos and air attack. 

 

I would increase accuracy for battleships that should be at longer range (battlecruisers), those that have weaker armour but good damage and give them a longer reload (or smaller guns and a faster reload, depending on the ship), make accuracy for tanky battleships more of an issue to encourage them to get in close but give them a short reload and less damage (depending on number of guns and caliber) and give less tanky battleships a medium reload with good reasonable damage with more of an emphasis on secondaries. 

[anonym_EFwxJOPWzlER]

I think people ask too much with AA, we cannot forget the carriers are players too, without planes they are useless, and that's what a lot of players want. Increase the AA guns accuracy and shoot down any plane that comes near them. I use DD's (never carriers), it is not often DD's shoot down planes, maybe 1 or 2 here and there, but i'm happy with that, what is the point in having carriers if all their planes are shot down, i think it's difficult for WG to find the right balance on this one, but at the moment i think it's fine. Let the carriers fight carriers for survival

 

Secondary guns need more accuracy, at the moment they are close to useless

[Krogort]

I think people ask too much with AA, we cannot forget the carriers are players too, without planes they are useless, and that's what a lot of players want. 

They are still traumatised by the ludicrously overpowered carriers from late beta/early release.

[anonym_EFwxJOPWzlER]

They are still traumatised by the ludicrously overpowered carriers from late beta/early release.

 

Yes, probably are

[Pastaiolo]

Astalano, at least for the efficiency of secondaries there was a new skill on Public Test server, did you try it?

[WarJagger]

I wouldnt mind manually targeted secondaries, but that same mechanic should be available for every ship with secondary guns. They shouldnt get manual aiming AND better accuracy AND better range... 

 

Id grant BB drivers either manual aiming with bad accuracy and the current range

or 

auto fire with better accuracy and the current range.

 

just my 2 cents

[Astalano]

Astalano, at least for the efficiency of secondaries there was a new skill on Public Test server, did you try it?

 

How do I get onto the public test server? I only recently got back into the game. 

[Crooq_Lionfang]

They are still traumatised by the ludicrously overpowered carriers from late beta/early release.

 

At the same time they complain about Shimas after the CVs disappeared...

[Astalano]

I wouldnt mind manually targeted secondaries, but that same mechanic should be available for every ship with secondary guns. They shouldnt get manual aiming AND better accuracy AND better range... 

 

Id grant BB drivers either manual aiming with bad accuracy and the current range

or 

auto fire with better accuracy and the current range.

 

just my 2 cents

 

I think the current range of something like 4km for my Kongo is completely worthless. It should be at least something like 8km. I don't think there should be so much of an emphasis on the primary guns for all targets. Primary weapons are great against slower moving targets, but fighting fast moving destroyers and cruisers with them is a nightmare. If it was an issue of skill, I wouldn't bother asking for a change to secondaries, but because primary guns are so RNG dependent, secondaries should be more of a factor. 

[bloomoon11]

 

I think the current range of something like 4km for my Kongo is completely worthless. It should be at least something like 8km. I don't think there should be so much of an emphasis on the primary guns for all targets. Primary weapons are great against slower moving targets, but fighting fast moving destroyers and cruisers with them is a nightmare. If it was an issue of skill, I wouldn't bother asking for a change to secondaries, but because primary guns are so RNG dependent, secondaries should be more of a factor. 

 

Every class isn't supposed to be great at dealing with every other class. 

 

Having said that I'm generally fairly confident of dealing with a DD one on one while playing in a BB unless taken by surprise (doesn't happen often), I won't win them all but I'll win more than I'll lose.  Could be because I'm fairly experienced playing DDs though.

[Astalano]

 

Every class isn't supposed to be great at dealing with every other class. 

 

I disagree. Every class should be able to take out every other class. That's one of the major strength of WG's games. That doesn't mean every class should be equally good at it, but you should be competently engage enemies.

 

Battling destroyers is a matter of keeping them in view and getting them on your tail from what I've seen, and predicting when they will have launched torpedos and making course adjustments to avoid most of them. 

 

I personally wouldn't mind a drop off in primary weapon damage if it meant being able to be effective at medium range with secondaries.

[N00b32]

Now, I understand why AA guns are on auto-aim, that makes sense, but why are secondaries on auto-aim and have poor range to boot?

 

Actually AA is not on autoaim. AA is a damage over time effect in a certain radius around the ship.

[bloomoon11]

 

I disagree. Every class should be able to take out every other class. That's one of the major strength of WG's games. That doesn't mean every class should be equally good at it, but you should be competently engage enemies.

 

Battling destroyers is a matter of keeping them in view and getting them on your tail from what I've seen, and predicting when they will have launched torpedos and making course adjustments to avoid most of them. 

 

I personally wouldn't mind a drop off in primary weapon damage if it meant being able to be effective at medium range with secondaries.

 

Well it seems the devs prefer strong class diversity (with exceptions, russian DDs being the obvious ones), though not so strong as to stop all classes being somewhat capable of engaging each other, I tend to agree with them. 

 

Also if BBs can happily deal with DDs and cruisers, then why would anybody bother playing any other class but BBs?

[WarJagger]

 

I think the current range of something like 4km for my Kongo is completely worthless. It should be at least something like 8km. I don't think there should be so much of an emphasis on the primary guns for all targets. Primary weapons are great against slower moving targets, but fighting fast moving destroyers and cruisers with them is a nightmare. If it was an issue of skill, I wouldn't bother asking for a change to secondaries, but because primary guns are so RNG dependent, secondaries should be more of a factor. 

Making the range 8KM would make destroyers completely helpless on those tiers (except maybe some good IJN drivers) so that's a no-no... Maybe make it 5... but you can also do that with upgrades or commander skills if im correct. 

[Comrad_StaIin]

Making the range 8KM would make destroyers completely helpless on those tiers (except maybe some good IJN drivers) so that's a no-no... Maybe make it 5... but you can also do that with upgrades or commander skills if im correct. 

 

then I think you dont want to engage my Yamato with 10km secondaries 

[Astalano]

 

Also if BBs can happily deal with DDs and cruisers, then why would anybody bother playing any other class but BBs?

 

That's like asking why anyone would bother playing anything but heavies when heavies can engage lights and mediums. Destroyers and cruisers can move around the map more easily and switch flanks easily, they're smaller targets, they're more maneuverable, they're more accurate, they fire faster and typically concentrated cruiser fire can beat out burst battleship fire over time. 

 

Battleships should be counter by well played cruisers, torpedos and especially carriers. 

[Astalano]

Making the range 8KM would make destroyers completely helpless on those tiers (except maybe some good IJN drivers) so that's a no-no... Maybe make it 5... but you can also do that with upgrades or commander skills if im correct. 

 

I don't see how buffing the range would make DD's helpless. It's not like DD's sit around visible in 8km range of battleship broadsides as the game is now.

[EsaTuunanen]

Primary weapons are great against slower moving targets, but fighting fast moving destroyers and cruisers with them is a nightmare

Actually regardless of turret traverse speed during that time basically hitting anything not at point blank range took really lots of shells because gun shells aren't homing missiles.

But that would make for really long matches so ease of hitting with every single main gun is vastly buffed from what it was.

 

And neither did secondaries shred anything detected to pieces in seconds unlike you want them to do.

Heck, in Battle off Samar US destroyers and (even more flimsier) destroyer escorts caused major head ache to on paper absolutely crushing IJN surface force.

 

If you want secondaries to get similar buff to main guns how about then unnerfing torpedo damage to what it was requiring dry dock visit to repair all drag increasing hull damage and empty all flooded compartments?

Not that real Kongo made it that far... after taking just two torps:

 

...One minute after the first salvo was launched, two of the torpedoes were seen to hit Kongō on the port side, while a third sank the destroyer Urakaze with all hands. The torpedoes flooded two of Kongō's boiler rooms, but she was still able to make 16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph). By 05:00, she had slowed to 11 kn (20 km/h; 13 mph) and was given permission to break off from the fleet and head to the port of Keelung in Formosa along with the destroyers Hamakaze and Isokaze as escort.

Within fifteen minutes of detaching from the main force, Kongō was listing 45 degrees and flooding uncontrollably. At 5:18 the ship lost all power and the order was given to abandon ship. At 5:24, while the evacuation was underway, the forward 14-inch magazine exploded and the broken ship sank quickly...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Kongō

[bloomoon11]

 

That's like asking why anyone would bother playing anything but heavies when heavies can engage lights and mediums. Destroyers and cruisers can move around the map more easily and switch flanks easily, they're smaller targets, they're more maneuverable, they're more accurate, they fire faster and typically concentrated cruiser fire can beat out burst battleship fire over time. 

 

Battleships should be counter by well played cruisers, torpedos and especially carriers. 

 

The 'heavies' reference, I presume its a WOT thing, I tried the game early on, didn't grab me so I have no experience of it.  I do know in this game they've gone for roughly RPS style balance, no hard counters though so each class can indeed engage every other class, though each is better at engaging one other.

 

You make one class easily able to kill every other class then it just wrecks the game, this was the case when carriers were ridiclously strong -  you think there are complaints on here about DDs now, you should have seen the CV hate back then! 

[ghostbuster_]

Wait the patch for the complaints about DDs.

[Astalano]

 

 

Actually regardless of turret traverse speed during that time basically hitting anything not at point blank range took really lots of shells because gun shells aren't homing missiles.

But that would make for really long matches so ease of hitting with every single main gun is vastly buffed from what it was.

 

And neither did secondaries shred anything detected to pieces in seconds unlike you want them to do.

Heck, in Battle off Samar US destroyers and (even more flimsier) destroyer escorts caused major head ache to on paper absolutely crushing IJN surface force.

 

If you want secondaries to get similar buff to main guns how about then unnerfing torpedo damage to what it was requiring dry dock visit to repair all drag increasing hull damage and empty all flooded compartments?

Not that real Kongo made it that far... after taking just two torps:

 

I think historical accuracy regarding historical accuracy is fairly pointless to this game. 

 

Accuracy should be at a point where it reinforces the concept of each class and the concept of the game, that is, a brutal slogging match between giant hunks of digital steel. So it should be fun but not pinpoint. 

 

I don't want secondaries to shred anything to pieces, all I want is to make battleships a bit more fun and playable and to reinforce their role as a class. Battleships aren't just about the big guns. There is no WoT-like situation regarding armour, since HE is flung around so much and fires are a real issue, so the role of the heavy class isn't to block everything, but to project a kill zone around itself. Battleships should be able to push lines back or deliver accurate long range fire, they shouldn't be an artillery class that provides fire support and shotguns enemies at medium and close range range. 

 

I wouldn't have a problem with slightly more deadly torpedos provided battleships have the weaponry to deal with smaller and agile targets effectively and reliably.