Ooyodo and reconnaissance planes [Suggestion]

[Takeda92]

I started a similar thread on the NA forum after a discussion I had there and I thought I share it here as well.

 

Well I think this is my first thread on the NA forum so here it goes. At least one person told me it was ok.

 

This is my idea of how Ooyodo can work as a premium tier 6 (or 7 but it might be pushing it). This thread has no ahistorical buffs suggested, just a new mechanic for her based on a recent Q&A from the devs, translated by EU community Contributer Carnotzet, which suggests that the devs are planning for spotting rewards, possibly similar to what World of Tanks has.

Carnotzet, on 17 May 2016 - 04:56 AM, said:

 

4. Do you plan to rework CV's economy, for example, by giving them credits/xp for spotting DD's, providing air cover, etc? In other words, do you plan to make CV's focus more on helping the team than doing damage?

A. We plan to add several new elements to our economy system and reward teamplay actions such as spotting and tanking (though I cannot say when this will be available).

 

 

First let's talk about the ship itself. There are some stats I can't place for sure like gun range because it depends on the height of the range finder. If someone can guess based on what it was like in real life then please, but for now I will assume it will be around 15km for this to be ideal.

 

She has 2 triple 155mm guns you find on Mogami mounted on the front with 6 RPM. The range and ballistics, good HE and AP stats as well as being forward mounted will be the highlights while the low DPM due to low number of guns will be downside. This is why my idea for Ooyodo is not a regular cruiser that does a lot of damage, but a support "scout cruiser" like it was in real life.

 

Her AA will be really strong. I don't know if they will nerf the 10cm AA DPS like they said they will but either way it's very strong for its tier (regardless of tier 6 or 7). I assume her hitpoints, stealth and maneuverability would be adequate for her tier.

 

With Ooyodo comes a new consumable, Reconnaissance plane which replaces entirely the scout/fighter plane. When you first press T button, the plane will launch and circle your ship. The plane has no timer after it is launched and acts like a carrier plane in this regard. Pressing T again will take you to a simplified topdown overview (like carriers) where you can click on the map and send the recon plane there. You can only have one plane up at a time and pressing T again will bring you back to your ship.

 

Now for the recon plane, they fly a bit higher than carrier planes do. As the plane moves to its target location, it cannot spot very far but itself cannot be easily spotted. Once it reaches its target and starts circling, it acts again as a normal plane with normal detection. Another trait is that it can only be shot by surface AA at a range of 5km. This way, destroyers can still be safe since their air detection is lower than 5km and AA range is usually around 5km, but the super long +5km AA of cruisers and BBs can't hurt it.

Because the recon plane can only spot when it circles an area, following DDs is a bit harder than spotting cruisers and BBs, at the same time, it makes it a bit easier for the recon to avoid fighter planes. The recon plane is slower though so you have to be careful. You will have to micro your plane if you want it to survive the fighters, and the carrier has to micro his fighters if he wants to kill your recon.

 

When the plane is destroyed, you get a 2 minutes cooldown for the next plane and you can do it as long as you have spare scouts (she carried 6 irl, Tone had 8).

 

Since there is going to be rewards for scouting (and hopefully scouting damage from WoT, in which you get a percentage of the XP of the damage done by allied tanks to the enemies spotted by you), Ooyodo can easily earn he xp by spotting the damage (or just spotting the enemy) rather than dealing the damage by herself. 

 

Now, in case this new mechanic never comes, Ooyodo can still be a decent cruiser without having to deal massive damage. She can get 1 charge of smoke if they really wanted. Her AA is very good and suitable for escorting and while her DPS is terrible, the guns and damage are good. Her turret arrangement allows her to hide her broadside. Compared to Aoba, she has weaker firepower (both guns and torpedoes) but she has much more utility and can act from the safety of your team thanks to her range.

If you think about it, it's not that different from Atlanta, both will be specialized cruisers with weaknesses to their main armament but strengths in other areas. Ooyodo will be better than Atlanta in range with her ballistics while Atlanta is better at close range with her massive DPM. Keep in mind that Ooyodo can be tier 6 as well. While it is too weak against tier 8 ships, it's way too strong against tier 4 ships.

 

edit: I also thought of this:

Another idea just came up to me, even w/o spotting damage: any ship that is spotted by the recon plane and tracked by your teammates will raise their accuracy slightly (about 5% I guess) 

 

 

[Fiery_Kathy]

I'm not a fan for adding spotting damage, this will buff DD exp and damage even more (and in my opinion that's already to high)

[VC381]

I've made similar suggestions in the past and I like yours. The top down view might be a bit much but any simple mechanic where you can send a recon plane out to somewhere rather than just circling your ship would be great. I really want something like that to make IJN aviation cruisers unique and viable.

[RamirezKurita]

I agree on giving slightly more control over spotters, although I don't think this should be relegated to an Ooyodo special as the IJN had several cruisers (plus the Ise class battleships) that were optimised for scouting rather than combat. I don't see why this ability to redirect them can't be given to regular floatplane spotter aircraft. The current automatic circling also creates the odd situation in that fighters are better scouts than the actual spotter aircraft because of their longer operational durations. The suggestion I have made before is for spotter aircraft being reactivateable to send them 10km or so in the currently selected direction after which they will either circle above that point or possibly simply return to circle above their owner.

 

I'd quite like to eventually see a full line of scout cruisers for the IJN, as they had enough to fill out most of the tiers quite easily. This would both give options to the players, make good use of whatever gameplay mechanics they add for them as well as actually letting them balance the scout cruisers (as many of them would be either too weak or fish out of temporal water). The same set of mechanics could also be used to create seaplane carrier lines for some nations (albeit partial lines likely dying around T5 for some nations, although I know the IJN can go into the middle tiers), as the IJN scout cruisers were basically just combination cruisers/seaplane carriers and some seaplane carriers were actually pretty heavily armed as the later IJN ones had 3x2 14cm guns. The greater quantity of aircraft in the very early tiers would also help people prepare for when they meet actual carriers, with the greater quantity of seaplanes presenting an increased visibility but without the significant threat associated with carrier aircraft.

 

Floatplanes in general I feel are an underutilised mechanic in the game though. Even simple things like letting players reactivate floatplane fighters to direct them to attack particular squadrons would help greatly. Some floatplanes also doubled up as light bombers, which is another floatplane type that could be added, in which case it would simply be a small squadron of DBs (often single) that would autodrop on the current target then return to their owner (which would be useful for supporting against destroyers, but likely ineffective against most other ships). Floatplane cooldowns and capacities are also pretty odd, as there's no penalty to losing them and the consumable is still gone even if the plane returns; a better system would be to significantly reduce the cooldown but increase the cooldown for every plane that was lost, effectively making them more like carrier reserves than normal consumables. Ships with twin catapults should also be given two planes per squadron to increase their utility.