Naval MIO choice - Armor or Visibility/Speed, HA or Piercing?

[blahmaster6k]

If I barely lose a ship on single player, without focusing on visibility, and while using death stacks, do you think survivability will matter in this case? I do not. Which is the point (why give even more survivability to something that is already resilient on single player?).

Also you aren't taking in consideration that the enemy ships can retreat, and in this case, higher DPS is better.

If I'm already killing enemy fleets fast enough while focusing on visibility, why do I need extra heavy attack? Your logic works both ways. At the end of the day it's a pure optimization problem with one right answer, and IC based fleet tests done over the years have shown that visibility is better.

 

[Parsimonia]

destroyer leader

Do destroyers really affect the visibility of the fleet that much? They are so small...

 

[William9113]

Do destroyers really affect the visibility of the fleet that much? They are so small...

Visibility directly affects hit chance. Destroyers basically exist to protect big ships from getting hit. Reducing destroyer visibility by -10% effectively reduces the number of hits they take by -19%.

It’s very powerful.

 

[BurningEGO]

If I'm already killing enemy fleets fast enough while focusing on visibility, why do I need extra heavy attack? Your logic works both ways. At the end of the day it's a pure optimization problem with one right answer, and IC based fleet tests done over the years have shown that visibility is better.

On 1v1 fight, same fleet composition and using the same templates for each ship type without randomness added in, I have no doubt about that.

For death stacks, and for single player purposes, its largely irrelevant. I wouldn't sacrifice production costs over them as Italy.

- With lvl 0 MIO CRDA we are speaking of a flat +18% bonus (+5% MIO itself at lvl 0, +10% from northern industry, +3% from danielli which also comes from northern industry).
- If you opt to modernize the Mezzogiorno, you will get +10% bonus to CNA (another +5% at lvl 6 if memory serves, but this comes so late its irrelevant). The 10% bonus is pratically half of what you get from Northern Industries. And you will lose ALL bonus to tanks, ALL material equipment (trucks, infantry equipment, anti air, artillery, etc etc, you name it), which is also +10% (actually +13% because you are getting another 3% to factory output from danielli). And I am not even taking the airplanes in consideration, because there are many IFs attached in that field, but you will undoubtly lose the bonus to strategic bombers (+13%), which are pretty good in my book for late game runs and for totally wrecking AI frontlines/supply.

The raw loss to land production makes the "modernize the Mezzogiorno" unviable to take. And this indirectly translates itself in a +15% production difference between CRDA and CNA right at lvl 0 without even needing to mass produce ships for leveling up.

The production difference ALONE, sells me over to CRDA. If we combine the extra combat stats, than I have no doubt about whats better.

You are also speaking about "tests done over the years"... let me tell you something... "over the years" there was no for Blood Alone DLC (released late 2022), that brought us a new revamped Italian tree... Nor could you Modernize Northern Industries or receive its bonus... "over the years".

But again, I will give you reason in what you say - for a generic country, I wouldn't have doubt about which would be better, and you would be ABSOLUTELY correct, specially on a 1v1 fight. For Italy, and for single player purposes, sorry, but its a hard pass.

Also we are speaking about single player in here. Survivability is hardly a good motivation for death stacks for single player purposes - specially if you are using escorts for escorting (and as bait), and placing your fleet on strike force duty (on the same areas these escorts are at). The AI will always decide to fight your crappy escorts - and when your death stack arrives, the AI will run most of the time, but in here DPS (damage per second, capiche?) plays its role - and your survivability is irrelevant (even more so if you already dealt damage directly to the fleet via naval bombers which is what happens a lot of times before you even engage them).

EDITED: I tend to combine all production into CRDA in order to level it faster, but we cannot also forget about Odero Terni Orlando (it has +5% at lvl 0, +10% from northern industries, +3% from danielli and also +5% at lvl 3, for a total of +18%(at lvl 0) or +23% (at lvl 3) production bonus for screens, useful for dd spam)

 

[blahmaster6k]

On 1v1 fight, same fleet composition and using the same templates for each ship type without randomness added in, I have no doubt about that.

For death stacks, and for single player purposes, its largely irrelevant. I wouldn't sacrifice production costs over them as Italy.

- With lvl 0 MIO CRDA we are speaking of a flat +18% bonus (+5% MIO itself at lvl 0, +10% from northern industry, +3% from danielli which also comes from northern industry).
- If you opt to modernize the Mezzogiorno, you will get +10% bonus to CNA (another +5% at lvl 6 if memory serves, but this comes so late its irrelevant). The 10% bonus is pratically half of what you get from Northern Industries. And you will lose ALL bonus to tanks, ALL material equipment (trucks, infantry equipment, anti air, artillery, etc etc, you name it), which is also +10% (actually +13% because you are getting another 3% to factory output from danielli). And I am not even taking the airplanes in consideration, because there are many IFs attached in that field, but you will undoubtly lose the bonus to strategic bombers (+13%), which are pretty good in my book for late game runs and for totally wrecking AI frontlines/supply.

The raw loss to land production makes the "modernize the Mezzogiorno" unviable to take. And this indirectly translates itself in a +15% production difference between CRDA and CNA right at lvl 0 without even needing to mass produce ships for leveling up.

The production difference ALONE, sells me over to CRDA. If we combine the extra combat stats, than I have no doubt about whats better.

You are also speaking about "tests done over the years"... let me tell you something... "over the years" there was no for Blood Alone DLC (released late 2022), that brought us a new revamped Italian tree... Nor could you Modernize Northern Industries or receive its bonus... "over the years".

But again, I will give you reason in what you say - for a generic country, I wouldn't have doubt about which would be better, and you would be ABSOLUTELY correct, specially on a 1v1 fight. For Italy, and for single player purposes, sorry, but its a hard pass.

Also we are speaking about single player in here. Survivability is hardly a good motivation for death stacks for single player purposes - specially if you are using escorts for escorting (and as bait), and placing your fleet on strike force duty (on the same areas these escorts are at). The AI will always decide to fight your crappy escorts - and when your death stack arrives, the AI will run most of the time, but in here DPS (damage per second, capiche?) plays its role - and your survivability is irrelevant (even more so if you already dealt damage directly to the fleet via naval bombers which is what happens a lot of times before you even engage them).

EDITED: I tend to combine all production into CRDA in order to level it faster, but we cannot also forget about Odero Terni Orlando (it has +5% at lvl 0, +10% from northern industries, +3% from danielli and also +5% at lvl 3, for a total of +18%(at lvl 0) or +23% (at lvl 3) production bonus for screens, useful for dd spam)

2022 was three years ago, I can absolutely say over the years.

Also, you can use multiple MIOs. Level one up for the visibility reductions and make the design with that, then assign the other one to the production line to get the production bonuses. But as others have mentioned, a ship with the raiding mio is more combat effective than a ship from any other mio, so the production difference is basically evened out. I care about combat effectiveness and IC efficiency, singleplayer and multiplayer are functionally the same here. It's just that single player allows you to get away with suboptimal designs that multiplayer would not.

 

[BurningEGO]

2022 was three years ago, I can absolutely say over the years.

Also, you can use multiple MIOs. Level one up for the visibility reductions and make the design with that, then assign the other one to the production line to get the production bonuses. But as others have mentioned, a ship with the raiding mio is more combat effective than a ship from any other mio, so the production difference is basically evened out. I care about combat effectiveness and IC efficiency, singleplayer and multiplayer are functionally the same here. It's just that single player allows you to get away with suboptimal designs that multiplayer would not.

September 2022 was 2 years and 7 months ago.

And no, single player and multiplayer are not the same. As Italy you can pratically annex half of europe and add all of the fleets from capitulated enemies into doomstack fleets (taking only the dds and submarines apart), you cannot do this on multiplayer, or at least not on a normal game with many people inside.

When you have doomstacks like these survivability is irrelevant. You are inflicting a size of punishment and have so many vessels to absorb damage that in a worst case scenario you will lose one or 2 obsolete cruisers. And when you have doomstacks, you pratically will want to keep things going that way. Currently 1942 in a game of mine and without bothering much I have already +80 capital ships/cruisers on a big doomstack, which has pratically sunk the entire british fleet. I lost what, 1 cruiser or 2? I am unsure, because its so irrelevant at this point, lol.

This gives you more versability as well - you can you neglect naval research by a good margin - and focus on land / air which will get you the real victory over your opponent. I rarely even bother that much with naval research - except for super heavy battleship tech and one or another techs that can be rushed with naval xp, which is easy to get.

Its funny people want to speak about whats meta but then don't take in consideration whats a meta strategy for single player for a determined country. Italy starts with Yugoslavia right next door, guaranteed by France and a few other balkan countries, and is more than capable of an early rush. You can pratically annex all of these in one move without the UK messing around and without anyone being able to join an alliance. Czechslovakia puppeted or annexed, and its the turn of the german reich to be annexed as well (even easier if they decide to ask for sudetenland as they usually do in historical). Now combine French+Italian+German+Yugoslavian+Romanian+Probably Fascist Spain fleets. Why would you care about survivability at this stage. Its like talking about peanuts. It only makes sense to go for production spam and even more dps. But I guess some meta players love talking about peanuts. Oh yeah did I forget they rarely know how to take their pants off before (or while!) going to the bathroom? lol.

I MEAN... SHIP HAPPENS!!!!

I understand your point fully but you people should understand that there are many ways to play this game. What is good in one situation isn't for another. CRDA provides DPS and production bonus which is applied in ALL SITUATIONS. Your great survivability, is irrelevant in countless situations (like the one presented). A straight showdown to the death between 2 powerful fleets is rarely a thing. The enemy will rarely have the will to fight your doomstacks and will turn tail, so dps is better, not to mention that all those ship production bonus that decrease overall production costs (or that increase production output) really synergize well with this. Why would I want my ships to be even more resilient if they are already more than that, specially at the cost of extra dps? For multiplayer, I would probably care, but for single player, I see no reason.

 

[blahmaster6k]

September 2022 was 2 years and 7 months ago.

And no, single player and multiplayer are not the same. As Italy you can pratically annex half of europe and add all of the fleets from capitulated enemies into doomstack fleets (taking only the dds and submarines apart), you cannot do this on multiplayer, or at least not on a normal game with many people inside.

When you have doomstacks like these survivability is irrelevant. You are inflicting a size of punishment and have so many vessels to absorb damage that in a worst case scenario you will lose one or 2 obsolete cruisers. And when you have doomstacks, you pratically will want to keep things going that way. Currently 1942 in a game of mine and without bothering much I have already +80 capital ships/cruisers on a big doomstack, which has pratically sunk the entire british fleet. I lost what, 1 cruiser or 2? I am unsure, because its so irrelevant at this point, lol.

This gives you more versability as well - you can you neglect naval research by a good margin - and focus on land / air which will get you the real victory over your opponent. I rarely even bother that much with naval research - except for super heavy battleship tech and one or another techs that can be rushed with naval xp, which is easy to get.

Its funny people want to speak about whats meta but then don't take in consideration whats a meta strategy for single player for a determined country. Italy starts with Yugoslavia right next door, guaranteed by France and a few other balkan countries, and is more than capable of an early rush. You can pratically annex all of these in one move without the UK messing around and without anyone being able to join an alliance. Czechslovakia puppeted or annexed, and its the turn of the german reich to be annexed as well (even easier if they decide to ask for sudetenland as they usually do in historical). Now combine French+Italian+German+Yugoslavian+Romanian+Probably Fascist Spain fleets. Why would you care about survivability at this stage. Its like talking about peanuts. It only makes sense to go for production spam and even more dps. But I guess some meta players love talking about peanuts. Oh yeah did I forget they rarely know how to take their pants off before (or while!) going to the bathroom? lol.

I MEAN... SHIP HAPPENS!!!!

I understand your point fully but you people should understand that there are many ways to play this game. What is good in one situation isn't for another. CRDA provides DPS and production bonus which is applied in ALL SITUATIONS. Your great survivability, is irrelevant in countless situations (like the one presented). A straight showdown to the death between 2 powerful fleets is rarely a thing. The enemy will rarely have the will to fight your doomstacks and will turn tail, so dps is better, not to mention that all those ship production bonus that decrease overall production costs (or that increase production output) really synergize well with this.

Following this logic any optimization at all is irrelevant, just throw a doomstack of anything together and you will win against the AI. Why even comment on what you think the best build is if nothing you do even matters because you'll win anyway? The difference in production/dps doesn't meaningfully matter between designers either when you're wiping the enemy in a few ticks either way.

 

[BurningEGO]

Following this logic any optimization at all is irrelevant, just throw a doomstack of anything together and you will win against the AI. Why even comment on what you think the best build is if nothing you do even matters because you'll win anyway? The difference in production/dps doesn't meaningfully matter between designers either when you're wiping the enemy in a few ticks either way.

Yes. Even without MIOs, doomstacks are already more than powerful. But while survivability is irrelevant in such cases, extra dps is not. It might be miserably better, but still is. One cannot go wrong with extra damage, nor with extra production. Small or big.

The biggest appeal to the Mezzogiorno modernization isn't even the CNA designer, but the submarine one imo. Fleet subs with tiles are OP, or were a while ago (unsure if it got patched already). But all that researching takes time and I prefer to keep my investments on land / air / industry instead. And go for modest naval investments since AI is AI. One can even say no naval investments are possible, but its always better to retain some versatility.

 

[William9113]

Following this logic any optimization at all is irrelevant, just throw a doomstack of anything together and you will win against the AI. Why even comment on what you think the best build is if nothing you do even matters because you'll win anyway? The difference in production/dps doesn't meaningfully matter between designers either when you're wiping the enemy in a few ticks either way.

Yeah, I think it's infinitely more helpful in cases of general advice to suggest things that help in cases of not losing rather than winning harder.

If you have an actual fight where you might lose if you don't optimise, visibility is absolutely going to make a bigger difference in 99% of cases. In terms of general advice, this is what should be given out.

If the "problem" created by focusing on too much visibility is that your ships never die then that's a great problem to have.

 

[Terracos]

I do not want to take sides here as I think both of you are a bit ideologically and the optimal strategy runs deeper. I am currently in the hospital so can not provide the full calculations but in short:

For all ship classes besides BB and SHBB the raider is hands down better as the cruiser guns will always penetrate cruiser armor and never BB armor (besides gun IV and Armor 1 under some circumstances). So there is no need to increase armor through MIO. BB on BB is different. The same level gun penetrates the same armor. So gun 2 pens armor 2 (and 1). As gun IV is too late to matter so armor 3 is a save bet to stay unpenned against AI. Against humans its not. In that regard against AI you can increase the thoretical HP of BBs by 30% by becoming unpennable if you increase armor II through the BB-MIO or go armor III and take the raider mio to go even further due to unpenned and vis reduction/speed increase.

If you know you can go into unpennable territory the increase from the 15% armor is huge as damage is reduced by 30%. So while you get hit more often you also take less damage. With raider you get hit less but with full force.

Therefore even BC you better go raider due to being penned anyway.

With SHBB its a toss because you can get the crit chance against BB1 gun down again <0.5 pen factor but as you have going from 60-70% damage reduction might now be worth it compared to the hit chance reduction. Additional HP and reliability on SHBB (germa refurbishment MIO) is better there.

So for BB the BB-Mio is not per se bad if you can stay unpierced due to the 30% damage reduction.

 

[blahmaster6k]

I do not want to take sides here as I think both of you are a bit ideologically and the optimal strategy runs deeper. I am currently in the hospital so can not provide the full calculations but in short:

For all ship classes besides BB and SHBB the raider is hands down better as the cruiser guns will always penetrate cruiser armor and never BB armor (besides gun IV and Armor 1 under some circumstances). So there is no need to increase armor through MIO. BB on BB is different. The same level gun penetrates the same armor. So gun 2 pens armor 2 (and 1). As gun IV is too late to matter so armor 3 is a save bet to stay unpenned against AI. Against humans its not. In that regard against AI you can increase the thoretical HP of BBs by 30% by becoming unpennable if you increase armor II through the BB-MIO or go armor III and take the raider mio to go even further due to unpenned and vis reduction/speed increase.

If you know you can go into unpennable territory the increase from the 15% armor is huge as damage is reduced by 30%. So while you get hit more often you also take less damage. With raider you get hit less but with full force.

Therefore even BC you better go raider due to being penned anyway.

With SHBB its a toss because you can get the crit chance against BB1 gun down again <0.5 pen factor but as you have going from 60-70% damage reduction might now be worth it compared to the hit chance reduction. Additional HP and reliability on SHBB (germa refurbishment MIO) is better there.

So for BB the BB-Mio is not per se bad if you can stay unpierced due to the 30% damage reduction.

If you do the SHBB project you can also put SHBB armor on regular battleships, so they become unpennable as well. SHBB is generally better to build anyway because the guns are so much better, it's basically the 1944 gun that you get in 1936. You also get a full top row of module slots you can put dual purpose batteries in and a massive HP pool to soak damage from naval bombers and enemy heavy attack.

 

[Terracos]

If you do the SHBB project you can also put SHBB armor on regular battleships, so they become unpennable as well. SHBB is generally better to build anyway because the guns are so much better, it's basically the 1944 gun that you get in 1936. You also get a full top row of module slots you can put dual purpose batteries in and a massive HP pool to soak damage from naval bombers and enemy heavy attack.

Yes but if you do not do the project because you save the points for the fuse you have to use standard BB Armor. So you could rush armor III and be save against AI or go Armor II and use the MIO or use the raider MIO. But the 30% reduction is massive against other BBs.

 

[BurningEGO]

I do not want to take sides here as I think both of you are a bit ideologically and the optimal strategy runs deeper. I am currently in the hospital so can not provide the full calculations but in short:

For all ship classes besides BB and SHBB the raider is hands down better as the cruiser guns will always penetrate cruiser armor and never BB armor (besides gun IV and Armor 1 under some circumstances). So there is no need to increase armor through MIO. BB on BB is different. The same level gun penetrates the same armor. So gun 2 pens armor 2 (and 1). As gun IV is too late to matter so armor 3 is a save bet to stay unpenned against AI. Against humans its not. In that regard against AI you can increase the thoretical HP of BBs by 30% by becoming unpennable if you increase armor II through the BB-MIO or go armor III and take the raider mio to go even further due to unpenned and vis reduction/speed increase.

If you know you can go into unpennable territory the increase from the 15% armor is huge as damage is reduced by 30%. So while you get hit more often you also take less damage. With raider you get hit less but with full force.

Therefore even BC you better go raider due to being penned anyway.

With SHBB its a toss because you can get the crit chance against BB1 gun down again <0.5 pen factor but as you have going from 60-70% damage reduction might now be worth it compared to the hit chance reduction. Additional HP and reliability on SHBB (germa refurbishment MIO) is better there.

So for BB the BB-Mio is not per se bad if you can stay unpierced due to the 30% damage reduction.

You are right but more armor doesn't reduce only damage.

It also allows more attacks. Add the extra piercing / raw dmg bonus from the CRDA mio, and it is by far superior in terms of DPS. This was my point all the time. Raider only has +5% extra torpedo attack (vs CRDA), and when you go for these big ships you rarely/never care about torpedos. CRDA beats the other mios in light-heavy atk/piercing, and in other niche fields like AA dmg / light battery hit chance / less torpedo critical chance / raw hp. The biggest advantages of raider mio (without speaking about survivability-visibility) is the extra range / extra speed.

You also should take in consideration Italian Admirals. Carlo Bergamini starts right at the start with Ironside, +10% extra capital armor. Add Carlo Bergamini to military high command and its another +10% armor. There is no reason not to stack extra armor on top of armor specially for BBs/BCs/SHBBs, unless the production costs are unreasonable.

Raider is good due to survivability, but if survivability is irrelevant, there is no reason to go for it. You will also be losing a very large production bonus if you go for Raider MIO as Italy. Prod bonus on CRDA starts at +5% and becomes +18%, and you will be getting the full bonus in 1 year or so after game start since in most cases Italy will rush down the extra tech slot focus path, making it easily acessible.

And with doomstacks, survivability means 0. Italy can easily take great advantage of going for doomstacks. You can rush countries right after game start after you have enough PP and time to buy one or another claim, getting a lot of fleets for free after capitulation. Doomstacks also free tech slots that would be busy with naval research, since you pratically only need SHBB and one or another tech and its research is right next corner. And the italian army / economy / air forces badly need the extra research. So at the end of the day you have to wonder why are you going after survivability with someone as Italy.

Unless you are gimping yourself and waiting for 1939 to declare war (or playing multiplayer), I don't see the reason. Survivability for a small fleet will obviously be better, but if you are going after a small fleet and survivability, why go for boats at all? Stick with lvl 3 submarines and/or fleet subs with tiles and submarine designer. I have seen ratios of +4000 convoys raided with less than 5 subs being sunk, and entire fleets being sunk by 50 or so properly built submarines.

---------

P.S: At this point I am repeating myself, but yeah, single player is single player, and naval engagments are... very irrelevant. So at the end of the day its very irrelevant what MIO you pick. Most statements on this thread are very generic - and while not wrong, they do not exactly apply to Italy, or are not the best for Italy. My comments were entirely centred on Italy - and I have been playing Italy as main country pratically since HOI4 came out, and its by far the country I played the most, before or after By Blood Alone.

 

[Barron of Gondor]

This is a You decision. Because it all depends on ship design.

If you’re building fast battleships,(over 30 knots) probably want speed and visibility. Because you’re already loosing out on armor.

If you’re building slugger battleships, more armor is always good.

But keep in mind, battleships aren’t good investments. They’re fun RP, but the best fleets to build are going to be Heavy and Light cruisers with Carriers in the back row, and Roach Destroyers making up the chaff.
Then subs in their own squadrons