After throwing around some ideas about how to improve naval combat, I here present my approach of improving the sub warfare system. It should make the Battle of the Atlantic much more interesting, especially when playing the UK.
(For the preceding discussion look here:)
The central idea is to transform subs into a guerrilla weapon. After they are detected or manage to strike surprisingly, they try to disengage (by diving) and retreat. Now screening ships can shine and have a couple of shots at them.
The way Aod vanilla models submarines, they are just another surface fleet and engage in suicidal surface combat with regular fleets. Retreating from combat is only possible after 8 hours of combat phase time which “glues together” engaging fleets and leads to unrealistic behaviour, ie. DDs attacking Bbs and attacking subs which get wiped out in not time.
By getting rid of this feature, naval combat improves significantly. Inferior fleets not try to flee after combat hour 0 and the pursuing fleet tries to attack until the retreating fleet reaches the next sea zone, but only manages to do so if it is faster. Modern ships and screens can therefore avoid combat, slower fleet can not force combat anymore. Quite annoying, if you play ie. the UK and modern German surface raiders just slip through your finger if you haven't modernized your naval forces as well...
More importantly, the effects on sub warfare are even better. As org stats are massivly reduced, subs will try to disengage after hour 1 of the combat phase. ASW screens now pursue them (they are much faster) and have a couple of hours to get a shot at them. Sometimes subs manage to break contact much earlier, so good sub detection equipment (latest asdic) is essential.
I made the following changes:
\db\misc.csv
- #_CV_NAVAL_MIN_COMBAT_TIME, minimum combat time before retreat possible (prevent bouncing) | DO NOT CHANGE to less then 8 (wyk) – Thanks devs, BUT I WANT BOUNCING ON!
0.0 # instead of 8.0
- # Naval - Naval Combat STR damage (All Naval units attacks against Naval units)
1.0 # instead of 0.5
\db\units\divisions\submarine
default org to 2 (to model immediate retreat after combat hour1)
sea defense multiplied by factor 2 (because str damage was also doubled)
\db\tech\naval_doctrines_tech
modified to keep sub org at 2 (for techs that increase naval org, now only increase for surface ships )
Thats it, so far. Pretty basic, but huge implications. Just unpack using WinRar and extract it to your Aod-folder. Overwrite files. (Make a backup of original files if you want to roll back the changes later)
Anybody who wants to test it? (You have to start a new game for the changes in sub stats to come into effect...) Perhaps I'll make a short AAR on the Battle of the Atlantic later...
Any comments on this?
Could somebody run a hands-off game to see how AI can cope with this? My computer is awfully slow, it would take ages...:wacko:
(The downside of these modifications is that subs can not be used to attack surface ships. It tried to do it, but it didn't work out. As I massively increased sea attack stats for subs to simulate the decisiveness of a torpedo attack ambush, DDs on ASW mission became scared of subs and retreated from combat if they detected one. So there was basically no counter-measure to subs that are sinking your convoys....
A solution for this is in sight. As Lennartos promised, patch 1.04 makes modding critical hit probabilities possible. Then subs can be made into a force that can also be used to ambush capital ships without the screens getting scared of subs.)
EDIT: Naval_doctrines_tech was faulty. Just overwrite with the correct one...
(For the preceding discussion look here:)
The central idea is to transform subs into a guerrilla weapon. After they are detected or manage to strike surprisingly, they try to disengage (by diving) and retreat. Now screening ships can shine and have a couple of shots at them.
The way Aod vanilla models submarines, they are just another surface fleet and engage in suicidal surface combat with regular fleets. Retreating from combat is only possible after 8 hours of combat phase time which “glues together” engaging fleets and leads to unrealistic behaviour, ie. DDs attacking Bbs and attacking subs which get wiped out in not time.
By getting rid of this feature, naval combat improves significantly. Inferior fleets not try to flee after combat hour 0 and the pursuing fleet tries to attack until the retreating fleet reaches the next sea zone, but only manages to do so if it is faster. Modern ships and screens can therefore avoid combat, slower fleet can not force combat anymore. Quite annoying, if you play ie. the UK and modern German surface raiders just slip through your finger if you haven't modernized your naval forces as well...
More importantly, the effects on sub warfare are even better. As org stats are massivly reduced, subs will try to disengage after hour 1 of the combat phase. ASW screens now pursue them (they are much faster) and have a couple of hours to get a shot at them. Sometimes subs manage to break contact much earlier, so good sub detection equipment (latest asdic) is essential.
I made the following changes:
\db\misc.csv
- #_CV_NAVAL_MIN_COMBAT_TIME, minimum combat time before retreat possible (prevent bouncing) | DO NOT CHANGE to less then 8 (wyk) – Thanks devs, BUT I WANT BOUNCING ON!
0.0 # instead of 8.0
- # Naval - Naval Combat STR damage (All Naval units attacks against Naval units)
1.0 # instead of 0.5
\db\units\divisions\submarine
default org to 2 (to model immediate retreat after combat hour1)
sea defense multiplied by factor 2 (because str damage was also doubled)
\db\tech\naval_doctrines_tech
modified to keep sub org at 2 (for techs that increase naval org, now only increase for surface ships )
Thats it, so far. Pretty basic, but huge implications. Just unpack using WinRar and extract it to your Aod-folder. Overwrite files. (Make a backup of original files if you want to roll back the changes later)
Anybody who wants to test it? (You have to start a new game for the changes in sub stats to come into effect...) Perhaps I'll make a short AAR on the Battle of the Atlantic later...
Any comments on this?
Could somebody run a hands-off game to see how AI can cope with this? My computer is awfully slow, it would take ages...:wacko:
(The downside of these modifications is that subs can not be used to attack surface ships. It tried to do it, but it didn't work out. As I massively increased sea attack stats for subs to simulate the decisiveness of a torpedo attack ambush, DDs on ASW mission became scared of subs and retreated from combat if they detected one. So there was basically no counter-measure to subs that are sinking your convoys....
A solution for this is in sight. As Lennartos promised, patch 1.04 makes modding critical hit probabilities possible. Then subs can be made into a force that can also be used to ambush capital ships without the screens getting scared of subs.)
EDIT: Naval_doctrines_tech was faulty. Just overwrite with the correct one...
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