| jammiebrown1978 brown | Friday, January 22, 2016 - 11:20 pm 
Could someone please explain what the function of the attack boats are.They are not apart of any naval unit that you can build????? |
| Aries | Friday, January 22, 2016 - 11:42 pm
None. Completely useless. You can build a corp to make them and buy them from the market and I even believe they may use military personnel and consume maintenance, when you have them, but they have no current game function. |
| jammiebrown1978 brown | Saturday, January 23, 2016 - 01:36 am
Thanks Aries |
| Jonni | Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 01:48 pm
Attack boats are a resource used in the production of SEAL units  |
| Aries | Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 05:01 pm
Ah, I see that. I guess that almost brings them up to the usefulness of an attack submarine or a SEAL unit then, as in you need them at some point to make the useful fleets, like the Strategic Carrier Fleet. On their own, the attack submarine and the SEAL unit, like the attack boat, have little other function.
Anyone else try to use an Attack Submarine Group before? It is a unit of 12 attack submarines and 60 SEAL units that has no ability to defend itself at all, a very short attack range, and completely losses against any other fleet type unless it attacks another Attack Submarine Group. |
| jdlech | Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 10:48 pm
Never tried it, but from what I've read, it's kinda useless.
First - is it true that any player can see your submarines? If true, then it pretty much negates the whole purpose of submarines.
Second - if an attack submarine group does not target the most valuable ship in the opposing fleet, then what are they doing? There should be a list of priority targets subs will sink first. And the element of surprise should give them double chances to hit. That's what makes subs so dangerous in the first place.
Third - From what I've read, too many things can attack submarines. IRL, accidents have sunk more submarines than bombers. And I've never heard of any case where an amphibious team (any nationality) has ever destroyed a submerged submarine. The idea that Seals are 100% effective against subs is ludicrous. |
| Aries | Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 11:45 pm
Careful with suggestions until you have more experience with these weapons. Because of the overall balance of the war system, I am content with how things work now. However, the issues you mentioned are not the biggest problem submarines face. The biggest problem is that fleets are equipped with effective anti-torpedo missiles. |
| Al Sadius | Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 11:47 pm
This is actually making me start thinking about game design theory. (I'll acknowledge right up front that this is probably never going to happen, but it's fun)
So, right now, there's seven types of ships in use(Attack Destroyer, Defence Destroyer, Missile Cruiser, Aircraft Carrier, Helicopter Carrier, Attack Sub, Nuclear Sub) and six things they can carry(Seals, Interceptors, Fighters, Helicopters, Missiles, and Missile Interceptors) to form naval groups.
What I'm thinking is treating ships like limited bases, with the ability to carry units within them. Those units can then fight if they wish, or the ships can fight directly. For purposes of simplicity, and allowing realistic numbers while still working with the SC combat model, carrying capacity is aggregated - if a fleet has four carriers that can each carry 100 planes, it can field a single 400-plane attack wing if desired.
Aircraft Carrier - Carries 100 planes and 100 helicopters, provides air cover to the fleet.
Helicopter Carrier - Carries 100 helicopters and 10 Seals, used mostly for land attack.
Nuclear Submarine - Nukes cities, hard to detect/destroy. Should have a fairly short range, to allow detection by defenders without searching all the oceans of the world.
Attack Submarine - Carries 10 Seals. Very effective against non-destroyer ships, hard to detect/destroy.
Missile Cruiser - Carries 100 missile units. Used for long-range bombardment and naval surface warfare.
Destroyer - Merge the two types into Defensive. Primary anti-submarine screen, but also okay against surface ships.
(Renamed from "attack boats") Assault Ship - Carries 100 land units and 10 Seals.
Of the carried units, all but Seals stay as-is. Seals are no longer ship-to-ship commandos(which is redundant and unrealistic), but instead work much like Special Forces. Also, add ASW helicopters(used for detecting and hunting submarines, can get the 3-wing federation air defence thing going on) and Naval Bombers(like Precision Bombers). Naval aircraft and missile units should generally be slightly weaker than land-based equivalents, and should be usable on land(this is particularly important in the case of ASW helicopters).
When I say subs should be "hard to detect", I mean that they shouldn't be visible or attackable at all without some kind of ASW assets in the area(ASW Helicopters, Attack Subs, or Destroyers should be the only things that can damage a submarine). Nuclear subs should be the scariest of the strategic weapons, much like they are IRL, because they're hardest to counter, and they'll be one of the primary impetuses for having a navy at all. The other big one will be Assault Ships, of course.
An interesting note. Under this design, all surface ships are defensive. Their carried units can attack, but they cannot. (This is fairly realistic, actually - meaningful direct fire from surface ships is pretty rare in the modern era)
These ships can now be combined into the following fleets(default compositions listed):
Wolfpack: 60 Attack Submarine (Used for attacking fleets)
Nuclear Submarine Group: 5 Nuclear Submarine, 25 Attack Submarine (Used for bombarding cities)
Carrier Battle Group: 10 Aircraft Carrier, 20 Missile Cruiser, 70 Destroyer (Used for naval air superiority)
Surface Warfare Group: 40 Missile Cruiser, 60 Destroyer (Used for attacking fleets)
Invasion Group: 10 Helicopter Carrier, 20 Missile Cruiser, 30 Assault Ship, 40 Destroyer (Used for putting land units onto hostile shores and aiding them when they're there)
This is all spitballing, of course, but it seems to make a fair bit of sense to me. |
| jdlech | Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 11:59 pm
"equipped with effective anti torpedo missiles"
Which do not exist in the real world.
I also kinda get a kick out of that designation "attack submarine".
As oppose to what? a defensive submarine?
Subs are subs whether used to attack or defend.
In your case of the nuclear sub group - those 25 subs would (should) be used to defend the nuke subs.
Subs are also used to defend surface battle groups. But in all cases, their primary defensive job is to detect enemy subs.
An undetected sub should have a near 100% chance of hitting its target.
You could add another group in there - the hunter/killer fleet. 1 helicopter carrier, 10 destroyers, 40 navy helicopters and 20 subs. Give them double chance to find enemy subs and the navy helicopters have a 50% chance of hitting them (dropping depth charges).
Meh, Aries is right. They spent a lot of time on game balance - it's somewhat balanced, even though some of it is a bit wonky. |
| Al Sadius | Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - 04:10 am
Yeah, I know the balance is good, and I know my suggestion would probably mess with it. Still, I'd at least love to see assault ships become a thing, because that just sounds cool. |
| tajikee | Thursday, February 4, 2016 - 02:09 am
I wish the seal units could be used on land |
| tajikee | Thursday, February 4, 2016 - 02:13 am
I wish we could use seal units on the ground |
| WildStallion | Thursday, February 4, 2016 - 09:58 pm
If you want to kind of keep it realistic re submarines, as an example America has as far as records show 62 Los Angeles Class submarines.
48 Virginia Class submarines are planned so far.
The UK has 7 Astute class submarines planned so far
Project 955A submarines for Russia - unconfirmed number to be built. |
| Aries | Friday, February 5, 2016 - 02:54 am
Simcountry realism has a times 10 factor. If you want to compare most things to real life, take the number of weapons or your population and divide by 10.
Earth has a population of about 7 billion. If you take Simcountry's pop and divide by 10, the average world would then have 6.7 billion. Weapons are the same way. 600 aircraft is a force in the real world but 6000 are needed to do a similar job in Simcountry. |
