Torpedo attack on Wooden CA

[Daedalus]

I had a battle last night that I have not had before.
My CA's where hunting shipping and ran across a older Japanese Wooden CA.
My ships closed in for the attack and one of them fired a torpedo at the ship.

WOW , One hit and BOOM , parts and fire was flying all over the place. I have never seen a ship go up like this one did. I wish I could have got a screen shot but I was not thinking that something like this would happen.

The ship went from almost perfect to sinking and the crew jumping ship in an instant. When the torpedo hit the ship went to the ( sinking in 30 Seconds and the Crew leaving the ship) .

If you ever come up on an older warship of the Wooden type then get ready for a screen shot, because it will be a great one to have.
Also on the ship, it went down so fast that I did not get the name. And I am not sure that the whole ship was wooden , but I think it was, kinda like the Russian gunboats. I have seen them before but never went after them. And the times I saw them was when I was on the North west coast of Japan.

Also has anyone sent ships around to the East side of Japan? I have not and I am wondering if there is much shipping on that side?

[Bullethead]

Also on the ship, it went down so fast that I did not get the name. And I am not sure that the whole ship was wooden , but I think it was, kinda like the Russian gunboats.

Hmmm..... Are you sure it said the IJN ship was an "armored cruiser"? I don't think they've got any old enough to be wood.

A possible candidate might be Fuso, which is the oldest cruiser the IJN has IIRC, built in 1878. However, this ship isn't wood but iron. In fact, she was built originally as a battleship very similar to the contemporary Brit Iron Duke, with muzzle-loading guns and all. However, she'd been rearmed with modern cruiser-type guns by the RJW.

Another possibility is the armored corvette Hiei, but she was iron-built also.

There are also some unarmored corvettes: Tsukuba, Tenryu, and Kaimon. Of these, the 1st was definitely wooden but I'm not sure about the other 2.

Also has anyone sent ships around to the East side of Japan? I have not and I am wondering if there is much shipping on that side?

Oh yeah, this is a pretty standard strategy for many folks :). The east coast of Japan is crawling with neutrals (although marus are rare) and there is little or no opposition. The only problem is that it's a long trip.

As a result of these considerations, this is where I send Angara and Lyena. They have the range to get there and then cruise from end to end of the coast. These ships are also only really effective against neutrals and are too slow and weak to fight off anything except an auxiliarly cruiser, so this is a nice place where they can be very effective and relatively safe. I base them both at Vlad and use the La Perouse Strait always, giving the area between Honshu and Hokkaido a very wide berth going and coming. In the course of a cruise, each of these ships can usually bag 10-15 neutrals here. Of course, you need a strong presence in the Sea of Japan to keep the strong IJN forces away from them, and you need to be off Korea to get the marus. So using the east coast of Japan is part of an overall strategy. It doesn't work well by itself.

[Daedalus]

Hmmm..... Are you sure it said the IJN ship was an "armored cruiser"? I don't think they've got any old enough to be wood.

A possible candidate might be Fuso, which is the oldest cruiser the IJN has IIRC, built in 1878. However, this ship isn't wood but iron. In fact, she was built originally as a battleship very similar to the contemporary Brit Iron Duke, with muzzle-loading guns and all. However, she'd been rearmed with modern cruiser-type guns by the RJW.

Another possibility is the armored corvette Hiei, but she was iron-built also.

There are also some unarmored corvettes: Tsukuba, Tenryu, and Kaimon. Of these, the 1st was definitely wooden but I'm not sure about the other 2.

I will have to look at the ships to see what one if was. I am most likely wrong on the Class of ship it was. But I did think it was wooden. It was larger than the small coastal patrol ships. Man I should have been watching better when it happened.



Oh yeah, this is a pretty standard strategy for many folks :). The east coast of Japan is crawling with neutrals (although marus are rare) and there is little or no opposition. The only problem is that it's a long trip.

As a result of these considerations, this is where I send Angara and Lyena. They have the range to get there and then cruise from end to end of the coast. These ships are also only really effective against neutrals and are too slow and weak to fight off anything except an auxiliarly cruiser, so this is a nice place where they can be very effective and relatively safe. I base them both at Vlad and use the La Perouse Strait always, giving the area between Honshu and Hokkaido a very wide berth going and coming. In the course of a cruise, each of these ships can usually bag 10-15 neutrals here. Of course, you need a strong presence in the Sea of Japan to keep the strong IJN forces away from them, and you need to be off Korea to get the marus. So using the east coast of Japan is part of an overall strategy. It doesn't work well by itself.

I can think of a few things using this tactic to help me with the battles on the Western side of Japan. Thanks for getting back to me on this.

[Shanghai Slim]

Torpedo a wooden ship? How about the new Japanese ground-burrowing fish?

By coincidence just yesterday I was playing DG and watched in some surprise as Japanese protected cruisers tried to torpedo Port Arther shore batteries!

When the torpedos reached the shore, they burrowed right into the sand and continued on their course toward the artillery!. Unfortunately, none scored a hit, so I didn't get to see a howitzer develop a list and sink.

[Daedalus]

Torpedo a wooden ship? How about the new Japanese ground-burrowing fish?

By coincidence just yesterday I was playing DG and watched in some surprise as Japanese protected cruisers tried to torpedo Port Arther shore batteries!

When the torpedos reached the shore, they burrowed right into the sand and continued on their course toward the artillery!. Unfortunately, none scored a hit, so I didn't get to see a howitzer develop a list and sink.

Yea , I have had that happen to me also, We thought that we had that fixed. It is the first I have heard of this in a long time. Thanks for letting me know and i will let Norm know that he needs to look into this.

If you see something like this in the game please email support and let them know what you saw, that way Norm can take a look at what happened and get it fixed.

[Bullethead]

Yea , I have had that happen to me also, We thought that we had that fixed. It is the first I have heard of this in a long time. Thanks for letting me know and i will let Norm know that he needs to look into this.

If you see something like this in the game please email support and let them know what you saw, that way Norm can take a look at what happened and get it fixed.

I second what Daedalus said, but then there's this...

While reading about the Zeebrugge Raid recently, I came across a real instance of a ship firing torps at shore batteries. A Brit DD had gotten lost and was running along the coast looking for the target area. She was under heavy fire the whole time, including from a shore-based torp battery. So the DD shot a torp back in the direction from which the torp came at her. And I can't say I blame the crew :).

[Shanghai Slim]

Actually, I didn't think of the "sand-fish" as the real problem. I was a lot more concerned about a Japanese division materializing right in the mouth of Port Arthur in broad daylight, a stone's throw from multiple shore batteries. All four Japanese ships were annhiliated in moments. While a welcome development in my campaign, it seemed rather unrealistic.

I didn't report something like this, because, frankly, I would rather have the developers focused on more pressing concerns, most notably:

#1) a pre-dreadnought era game where "crossing the T" isn't effective - ??

#2) a MAJOR (as in order of magnitude) increase in the time compession speeds (I'm soooo weary of doing the ironing while waiting for 20-minute stern chases to unfold - but at least my shirts are all ironed!)

#3) crack-shot sniper destroyers

I'll happily accept underground torpedos if any of the above can be remedied.

Oh, those demanding customers! Never satisfied! ;-)

[Bullethead]

Actually, I didn't think of the "sand-fish" as the real problem. I was a lot more concerned about a Japanese division materializing right in the mouth of Port Arthur in broad daylight, a stone's throw from multiple shore batteries. All four Japanese ships were annhiliated in moments. While a welcome development in my campaign, it seemed rather unrealistic.

Damn, look what the cat dragged in! :). Glad to see you back, Slim.

But yeah, the battle generation system could use some more tweaking.

#3) crack-shot sniper destroyers

As you know, I can't say much about what will or will not be in the game, so I'm not touching your other issues. But it's no secret that a) the whole DD thing was one of my pet peeves in the RJW, and b) I now have some control over ship stats in Jutland. So I figure you'll notice at least some improvement here, although I can't tell you how much :).

[Shanghai Slim]

Hey Bullethead!

I haven't been around for a while. I don't have much time for gaming, but when I do it's always good ol' DG. In fact, I just recently started playing the campaign game for the first time (:-0), which really makes me appreciate all the more that DG is such a nicely crafted piece of work.

Knowing you were now on the team, I almost didn't mention the sniper DD's - I now see I needn't have. :)

Closet of freshly-ironed shirts aside, I do really hope the compression speeds could top out at higher rates. I've done some application development, I'm wondering if this could be as simple as altering menu options? Isn't this just a parameter being passed to the application? I would think the game engine wouldn't work differently, just report events/updating the screen more quickly. Then again, I also know that programs of even modest complexity can be bogglingly intricate, and that a gentle twist of a knob over here can cause a subroutine to implode over there.

Anyway, greatly looking forward to the development team's next effort! Just don't let first-born DG become a neglected orphan. ;)

[Bullethead]

I just recently started playing the campaign game for the first time (:-0), which really makes me appreciate all the more that DG is such a nicely crafted piece of work.

Damn, you've been missing out on what IMHO is about 80% of the game's value :). I'm sure you'll find yourself unable to stop playing it and will lose a lot of sleep and productive time to it.

Closet of freshly-ironed shirts aside, I do really hope the compression speeds could top out at higher rates. I've done some application development, I'm wondering if this could be as simple as altering menu options?

Tactical time compression (which I assume is what you're talking about here) in DG is a tricky subject. While I don't know much about it, it's something I asked Norm about in the RJW, and I remember some of what he told me. So here's what I recall....

You've probably noticed that time compression doesn't run at a constant rate. IOW, while you might have it set at 20x, and the game will always say that's what it's using, you'll notice that periodically the effective passage of time is much less, say down to 2x or 3x, before jumping back to 20x. IIRC, this has to do with letting the AI think as much as it wants to, which usually happens when ships turn for whatever reason (orders or avoiding action). When DG 1st came out, this didn't happen, and the AI went nuts: lots of collisions, groundings, and tail-chasing. The higher the compression, the worse these problems. Apparently the time compression cut some corners on how often and how much it let the AI think, and this wasn't enough. So to solve that problem, the passage of time now slows down when the AI needs it.

So, the more complex the situation (more ships going in more directions, the presence of land masses, torpedoes in the water, etc.), the more often time slows down during a battle. For my part, to avoid the annoyance of time jerking around, I usually only use 2x or 3x while the battle is still in progress. OTOH, when you just have 1 ship chasing another (as happens a lot in the campaign), time never slows down once the ships settle down on their courses for the long run.

[Shanghai Slim]

Bullethead, thanks for that explanation about the time compression. That makes perfect sense. I'll just add a few more processors to my pc instead. :-)


And yes, I'm really loving the campaign game, and yes, I wince at the cost to my productivity. On the other hand, if our nation ever needs some middle-aged armchair skippers to man a fleet of coal-burning protected cruisers, the invested time may yet pay off. :)

[Bullethead]

Bullethead, thanks for that explanation about the time compression. That makes perfect sense. I'll just add a few more processors to my pc instead. :-)

I don't think that would make a difference to the rate of time passage. As I understand it, it's not a question of additional AI calculations bogging down the system. Instead, it's the system giving the AI more points in time to take a look at the situation. IOW, the higher the effective compression rate, the less often the AI gets to look at the situation, and in situations where the AI needs to monitor something closely, this can cause problems. So even with the fastest computer in the world, I figure you'd still see the effective time compression rate fluctuating from time to time, whenever the AI has to keep a close eye on something.

But like I said, this is what I remember from a question I asked long ago, before I was with SES. I might not have understood the answer in the 1st place, and I might have forgotten important parts of it since then.