secondary guns overhaul

[Navalpride33]

Im waiting on news on secondaries no longer being AI controlled... Yup that's right.. Player controlled/aimed secondaries...

How do I know its coming?

According to WG, we have alot of command inputs not being used.. They're looking at ways of filling them. Player aimed secondaries would fill in the gap nicely.

[Pugilistic]

17 hours ago, Unlooky said:

Lets buff the most absolutely braindead armament in the game that requires 0 input from the player whatsoever. What a fantastic idea. 

Secondaries are very strong on the ships they are designed to be built for. These ship typically sacrifice their primary armament's capabilities or ship survivability in order to have good secondaries. 

There isn't really a reason to buff secondaries on ships which already have a myriad of other strengths except as a nerf to destroyers, who would suffer the most from such a change. 

Outside of specifically designed secondary ships, everyone else's secondaries being bad is totally fine because 

1) It gives the secondary ships more flavor and distinction from the non secondary ships. 

2) Secondaries require no skill whatsoever to use, just having sufficient resources (credits for equipment, CXP for commander skills) to make them potent. 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Unlooky said:

I never said secondary ships require 0 skill. I said that the act of employing them to deal damage requires no skill. 

However, a great deal of secondary ships have a skill ceiling about two inches above the skill floor. 

[Bold added] Thanks for covering this, I dont have to spew invective about automated mechanics. 

[Wolfswetpaws]

18 hours ago, pepe_trueno said:

outside operations, secondary guns performance has been mediocre at best and  limited to a handful of ships. This is why i wanted to suggest a rework, Lets start with the problems:

*accuracy: secondary guns standar accuracy sucks and even abominations like the flandre that vomit secondary guns wont be hitting much past 10km

*penetration: outside german ships and few special ships the 1/6 rule makes most secondary guns deal no damage to anything more armored than a CL, IFHE does help in some cases but not even IFHE can save 90mm guns and the likes.

*range:  at high tiers range is fine the problem are the lower tiers, at t5 ships without enhaced range can increase secondary guns range up to 6.5km wich is not good when anything less stealthy than a DD has over 9km detection range.

*skills: over the years a lot has changed and not for the benefit of secondary guns. from secondary related skills no longer also increasing AA effectiveness to manual secondaries having a ramp up time. WG nerfing secondary skills and then releasing the german BC line with super buffed secondary guns did not help in creating variety.

 

solution to increase variety without overbuffing the existing choices:

Accuracy:

what we have now:

proposal:

On BBs: accuracy baseline should be "german BB" (do not confuse with german BC line accuracy which is "accurate")

On cruisers: accuracy baseline should be "accurate"

 

instead of applying a general  buff let's give each nation a  perk that apply to secondary guns say:

america: option to switch between secondary and AA mode, While in AA mode modifiers that increase secondary accuracy and ROF instead apply to AA accuracy and cont. damage 

japan: option to switch between HE and AP

france: +1km base range to ships 

russia: reduce base range but greatly increase DPM

italy: sap secondary guns   

british: increase fire chance

 dutch: buff accuracy, BBs will use the "accurate" dispersion and cruisers the "pensacola" dispersion. 

 

skills: go back to the original concept that Skills and modules that increase secondary range also increase AA range.

 

   

Hmm.

Well.  What if we tested all the guns with their correct ammunition and aiming systems?
Then record the results (muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficient, projectile design and bursting charge characteristics, maximum range, dispersion averages, and etc. & etc.).
Then model the in-game guns and turrets to behave as their real-life counterparts do.

For guns and ammunition that cannot be tested, then calculations would have to be done.
Though, it would be more fun to construct new prototypes of the guns and ammuntion for testing purposes, I feel.  😉 

Again, whatever the make & model of the gun (and its ammunition) was in real-life should be properly modeled/simulated in-game, in my opinion.

Then, let the proverbial "chips fall where they may".

One of the problems that I see in-game is that the same gun/ammo will perform differently when placed on a ship of a higher or lower tier, because of the "balanz" decisions made by the developers.

[Wolfswetpaws]

18 hours ago, Unlooky said:

Lets buff the most absolutely braindead armament in the game that requires 0 input from the player whatsoever. What a fantastic idea. 

Secondaries are very strong on the ships they are designed to be built for. These ship typically sacrifice their primary armament's capabilities or ship survivability in order to have good secondaries. 

There isn't really a reason to buff secondaries on ships which already have a myriad of other strengths except as a nerf to destroyers, who would suffer the most from such a change. 

Outside of specifically designed secondary ships, everyone else's secondaries being bad is totally fine because 

1) It gives the secondary ships more flavor and distinction from the non secondary ships. 

2) Secondaries require no skill whatsoever to use, just having sufficient resources (credits for equipment, CXP for commander skills) to make them potent. 

 

 

The Captain of the ship gives orders and the crew of the ship handles the tasks.
So, the Captain expects the secondary-battery gun crews to do their jobs, as directed by the fire control personnel.
Thus, the Captain doesn't need to micro-manage the secondary battery guns.  Therefore, the player shouldn't have to micromanage them.  🙂 

[Wolfswetpaws]

15 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

I remember when German BB secondaries were actually useful against DDs.

Not sure it was good for the game though.

A few years ago, there was a "1 versus 1" brawl event going on, and I sailed my Graf Zeppelin into battle.

I was paired-up with a French DD as an opponent.

They were fast, of course.  
After some maneuvering on the map by the DD and me trying to find them with my planes, we eventually spotted each other with nothing but open water between us.
They were directly "west" of my position.

I turned my G.Z. broadside so that my port-side guns were firing upon it, once it got within range (approximately 9 km).
It wasn't long before the French DD was taking hits, and the DD was sunk in less than a minute.
*Poof*.

Granted, I had spec'd my G.Z. into secondary-guns, like the meme-ship that she is.  🙂 

For me, it was amusing and memorable because I didn't expect that result to happen so fast. 
I was flying planes that I had just launched and anticipated a longer and more difficult fight.
Instead, I was in mid-air and my view wasn't even looking directly at the DD when I was notified that they'd been sunk.

[Wolfswetpaws]

8 hours ago, Itwastuesday said:

Dunno what could be done with them. Letting the player actually aim them would break the game horribly, buffing them as they are would also just be kind of silly. Some kind of vector targeting mechanic perhaps, draw a zone to which they'll start firing? Can't have realism with them the way the game is. Tricky to implement skill based interactions. 

At this time it's quite fine to do nothing about them. 

The I-56 lets a player manually aim the deck-gun.
Finishing-off a low HP ship is hilarious.  😉 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

12 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

A few years ago, there was a "1 versus 1" brawl event going on, and I sailed my Graf Zeppelin into battle.

I was paired-up with a French DD as an opponent.

They were fast, of course.  
After some maneuvering on the map by the DD and me trying to find them with my planes, we eventually spotted each other with nothing but open water between us.
They were directly "west" of my position.

I turned my G.Z. broadside so that my port-side guns were firing upon it, once it got within range (approximately 9 km).
It wasn't long before the French DD was taking hits, and the DD was sunk in less than a minute.
*Poof*.

Granted, I had spec'd my G.Z. into secondary-guns, like the meme-ship that she is.  🙂 

For me, it was amusing and memorable because I didn't expect that result to happen so fast. 
I was flying planes that I had just launched and anticipated a longer and more difficult fight.
Instead, I was in mid-air and my view wasn't even looking directly at the DD when I was notified that they'd been sunk.

Graf Zeppelin has the most accurate secondary guns in the game (much better than even the German BC line). Plus, it doesn't suffer from the ramping mechanism to get to full accuracy.

[MashedPotatoSalad]

Letting players finally control secondaries ourselves like Blitz or Steel Ocean would be great and possibly opens up an avenue for more mixed armament ships to be added.

Wouldn't it be fun to fire those Mikasa secondaries manually, or have ships like the Averoff, Sverige class and others added without worrying about only having 4 guns on the main battery?

[ArIskandir]

19 hours ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

It just occurred to me, what was the reason WG implemented the secondaries in the game in the first place. Anyone have any idea?

Aura damage. It's a Standard damage mechanic for games, also a simple solution about what to do with secondary batteries on ship... KISS design. 

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 hour ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Graf Zeppelin has the most accurate secondary guns in the game (much better than even the German BC line). Plus, it doesn't suffer from the ramping mechanism to get to full accuracy.

Yeah.  Now that you mention it, it was far enough back in time to have preceded at least one of the Captain's Skills re-works.
Which explains some of the performance.

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 hour ago, MashedPotatoSalad said:

Letting players finally control secondaries ourselves like Blitz or Steel Ocean would be great and possibly opens up an avenue for more mixed armament ships to be added.

Wouldn't it be fun to fire those Mikasa secondaries manually, or have ships like the Averoff, Sverige class and others added without worrying about only having 4 guns on the main battery?

Might be fun for some.  
Might be tedious for others.
Might be frustrating for those who decide to use manual secondaries and discover that their dispersion provides a hit/miss ratio that mimics the current performance of Mikasa's secondaries?

 
 

[GandalfTehGray]

13 hours ago, WES_HoundDog said:

In 20 seconds i did 4.5k to this kleber. (edit- and not even all my secondaries were fireing on him.)

 

IN 20 seconds i did 6k this this Kleber. 

 

50% hit chance on first salvo or not, the damage totals are spot on.

And don't Klebers saturate after like 1k damage?

And that's from a Bismarck.

Who didn't have the secondary Signal applied.

And without any adrenaline rush applied.

 

Is that a stationary broadside Kleber? 

9 hours ago, Wrath_of_Deadguy said:

I'd settle for having the danged things load themselves at the start of the match, instead of waiting until there's a target in range, so that they're actually ready to fire when they're supposed to be instead of 3-10s after they recognize a valid target and line up on it. Every other weapon system on every ship starts loading as soon as the countdown ends; why are secondaries the exception?

AA also unless they changed it. 

43 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Might be fun for some.  
Might be tedious for others.
Might be frustrating for those who decide to use manual secondaries and discover that their dispersion provides a hit/miss ratio that mimics the current performance of Mikasa's secondaries?

 
 

I'd hope they'd not mimic BB dispersion on the secondaries, it's cruiser/dd armament and I'd hope for similar dispersion. 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

1 hour ago, GandalfTehGray said:

I'd hope they'd not mimic BB dispersion on the secondaries, it's cruiser/dd armament and I'd hope for similar dispersion. 

BB dispersion right now is an order of magnitude better than secondary dispersion right now.

Going to BB dispersion would be a MASSIVE buff to secondary guns.

[Admiral_Karasu]

47 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

BB dispersion right now is an order of magnitude better than secondary dispersion right now.

Going to BB dispersion would be a MASSIVE buff to secondary guns.

Would that be a good thing? A bad thing?

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

23 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Would that be a good thing? A bad thing?

Just a thing.

Good or bad depends on your vision for the game.

[Admiral_Karasu]

13 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Just a thing.

Good or bad depends on your vision for the game.

Good if I'm playing the BB, and bad if I'm playing the DD, I suppose then.

[Andrewbassg]

On 7/7/2024 at 9:08 PM, pepe_trueno said:

On BBs: accuracy baseline should be "german BB" (do not confuse with german BC line accuracy which is "accurate")

 

The rewards for Bb' sec hits were massively buffed during the ec rework. While...

On 7/7/2024 at 9:08 PM, pepe_trueno said:

On cruisers:

 ...got massively shafted both by said rework, as by the camo rework. I'm not keen to reward even more  the casual kruppstahl drivers, at the expense of cruisers, coz "reasons".

Like at all.

 

 

Edited July 8 by Andrewbassg

[Nevermore135]

7 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

Aura damage. It's a Standard damage mechanic for games, also a simple solution about what to do with secondary batteries on ship... KISS design. 

Having all of those smaller caliber guns (at least the ones that aren’t DP) do absolutely nothing would be a bit silly.

Edited July 8 by Nevermore135

[Admiral_Karasu]

17 hours ago, Andrewbassg said:

The rewards for Bb' sec hits were massively buffed during the ec rework. While...

 ...got massively shafted both by said rework, as by the camo rework. I'm not keen to reward even more  the casual kruppstahl drivers, at the expense of cruisers, coz "reasons".

Like at all.

 

 

EC rework?

[Andrewbassg]

55 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

EC rework?

Economic "rework"

[pepe_trueno]

30 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

EC rework?

i guess he refers to the economic rework. secondary guns use to have a penalty to earnings and WG remove it so they now give the same as the rest of armament.

 

i think many are missing the point of this post, most BBs and many cruisers have secondary guns but becouse they have terrible stats they are simply not worth  even considering buiding around them.  the whole point of this is opening more options!! 

which brings the next point whats up with all this DDs doomsday going on? DDs main defence are concealment and mobility,  if a BB decide to sacrifice main gun modules as well as 7 commander points (at the bare minimum) to buff those secondary guns the least they could get in exchange are secondary guns that can hit a stationary DD 8 km away... i am open to discussion but if we are going to make a benchmark of secondary guns letality at least use some more realistic situation like 10km while moving and changing course.

[Admiral_Karasu]

8 minutes ago, pepe_trueno said:

i guess he refers to the economic rework. secondary guns use to have a penalty to earnings and WG remove it so they now give the same as the rest of armament.

 

i think many are missing the point of this post, most BBs and many cruisers have secondary guns but becouse they have terrible stats they are simply not worth  even considering buiding around them.  the whole point of this is opening more options!! 

which brings the next point whats up with all this DDs doomsday going on? DDs main defence are concealment and mobility,  if a BB decide to sacrifice main gun modules as well as 7 commander points (at the bare minimum) to buff those secondary guns the least they could get in exchange are secondary guns that can hit a stationary DD 8 km away... i am open to discussion but if we are going to make a benchmark of secondary guns letality at least use some more realistic situation like 10km while moving and changing course.

I think part of the problem is that the secondaries are one of those things that WG wants to use to 'differentiate' BB's of different nations. Maybe that strategy has some pros, but I think the cons outweigh the benefits in terms of game balance.

[Itwastuesday]

If you spec almost any random battleship for secondary battery, they will create problems for destroyers who venture too close, not even only stationary ones.

[ArIskandir]

7 minutes ago, pepe_trueno said:

the whole point of this is opening more options!! 

Yes and no. If all ships become viable for Sec-spec, then they all become able to be played in a similar way. There's no need to try different builds because sec-spec works.  

12 minutes ago, pepe_trueno said:

whats up with all this DDs doomsday going on?

Nonsense? Pair Secondaries to Radar and then there may be an issue.

[pepe_trueno]

5 minutes ago, ArIskandir said:

Yes and no. If all ships become viable for Sec-spec, then they all become able to be played in a similar way. There's no need to try different builds because sec-spec works.

secondary builds demand a lot of points and in current randoms is in a bad spot because people avoid close range combat at all cost so there is no way this will replace standard builds. as said before is just a buff to secondary guns with piss poor performance so the rest of BBs and cruisers have the option to build something around them. Also the important part was not the accuracy buff but the national perks so a russian secondary ship wont play the same than a french one.

11 minutes ago, ArIskandir said:

Nonsense? Pair Secondaries to Radar and then there may be an issue.

how is radar + secondary guns any worse than radar + main guns?  this game is full of mechanics that counters othe mechanics. no one bats an eye with torpedo lookout + vigilance  making every torpedo have a 2.25km detection range but its the end of the world if a ships sacrifice main guns modules as well as many commander points to have a defence vs a yolo DD that got too close for comfort?