Subs are busted again

[Bell, Arc Thrower Enjoyer]

I have a USA campaign where I have basically the most advanced destroyers and ASW weapons etc, its 1940 and since the last patch Chinese subs built in the 1920s (like 600 tonne subs) are consistently sinking my destroyers and CLs and escaping unharmed. It is completely ruining my ability to move ships because they have just spammed them across the map.


** Update: Submarines have been adjusted to be less effective against surface ships as of the 7th March

[sandman2575]

Yeah not sure what happened to ASW but it seems close to non-existent now. State of the art DDs and CLs can't seem to do jack against even primitive early class subs. AI spams them and now they seem way OP

[rrobes]

The game is becoming an on-line board game with simulations attached. Subs are overpowered and the resolution of ASW battles by clicking and then seeing a result adds NOTHING to the game. You can go turn after turn and obtain few ship battles and then the majority pit your CL plus a DD against a CA and DD(s). Same with convoys. Repetitious.

The game also pulls ships out of it's hat where there was no trace of them just the turn before. Had a squadron of Japanese subs pop up out of nowhere in the English Channel and sink a battleship. Very frustrating.

Stopped playing yesterday when subs hammered my task force that had 10 DDs in train. They sank multiple DDs and heavies with no loss to them.

[bkrrrrr]

well darn, I just scrapped all my subs a couple days ago because they were just giving away victory points to the enemy.

[sandman2575]

Yep, I'm pausing my campaign until this gets fixed. It's 1929 in my campaign. My DDs and CLs have Sonar II/III, DC III/IV -- i have LOTS of them protecting my capitals -- and last 6-7 sub attacks, they didn't land a single scratch on enemy subs. Nothing. No damage whatsoever.

DEVS FIX THIS

[Wyrm]

Yeah, I had a lone sub take down a heavy cruiser, a light cruiser, heavily damage a battleship, another few cruisers and a two destroyers
One lone sub.
It isn't possible in any situation. At the very least, he should run out of torpedoes. But warships are so much faster than subs, that in a true situation you would get ONE shot as a sub even if the enemy ignores you. Then they will be out of range and you can't catch them.

This in the mid 20's of my campaign

[MishaTX]

Odd. I don't have this issue. I've had subs do damage to task forces, but usually to the tune of 1, maybe 2 months in port to repair. On the other hand, I routinely sink theirs as long as my task forces are properly equipped with escorts.

[PracticeTarget]

Just had this happen to me... 1920 Austro-Hungarian campaign, in 1931.
2 chinese subs (SSC and SC) against an ASW group (CA, CL, 3DDs).
Result: 2 sunk (CL and DD), 3 damaged. no damage to the subs.
CL and DDs are fully ASW specialised and upgraded.

And just happened again: 3 chinese subs camped out in the Adriatic, encountering ships in port.
Fleets: 2 CA, 5 CL, 10 DD vs SC, SM, SSC.
Result: 4 ships lost: 2 CA, CL, DD, no damage at all to subs.

This is no fun, especially since this means that I will likely "lose" the war, and China does not have a surface fleet to speak of in this campaign.

[sandman2575]

Of all the things that are buggy or poorly implemented in the campaign, I think subs might be the worst of them. I wish we could at the very least have an option in the campaign to turn them off.

Either fully implement subs in the game, like other ships. Let us design them in the shipyard. Let us control them in actual combat like other ships. Or get rid of them (or give us the option to turn them off).

By being completely abstracted, there is no fun at all in this. They attack your TF, and all you can do is wait for the outcome -- which right now are completely off the charts unbalanced. When the best ASW tech and ships in the game can't do *anything* against them, sub attacks are now just: Let's see if the capital ships you spent months building and probably haven't even managed to get into combat (based on how the game randomly picks which ships fight, balancing by tonnage -- another *VERY* poorly implemented mechanc, but a topic for another day), let's see if they survive.

This is in no way fun. At all. It's just an exercise in the player suffering. Sub attacks may as well just be random events, like your ship foundering at sea in a storm or hitting an iceberg. Nothing you can do about it.

And given that by later in the campaign, there are several countries whose fleets are 80-90% Subs (right now in my game China has a handful of surface ships and over 100 subs), what's the player supposed to do about this?

TL;DR: (1) subs add nothing enjoyable to the campaign; either implement them fully like other ships or give us the option not to include them (2) right now there is no counter to them, (3) the AI spams them in ridiculous ways such that countries who have fared badly in surface combats then build cheap fleets of 100s of subs, which is not fun for anyone.

[berekhat]

Yes to all this.

Really, the game only generates a limited number of fights per turn, and if all of them are sub battles then I am looking at 60 to 100 victory points per turn, which might be spread out over several enemies. It takes far too long to meaningfully hurt any AI that chooses a 400+ fleet of subs as their only force, because there can never be a convoy mission, or port attack or any other that requires that they have some other ships types to fight with. I have sometimes got a glitched convoy mission, but as it auto resolves....well, it's always been a draw.

At least let me kill all their transports and bombard their ports as subs alone shouldn't be able to prevent this. Well, 400 submarines might, but no nation should be allowed to have that many of any ship type!

And just for an added gripe, japan in my game has so many subs, that I can't select 2 whole task forces! They are just stuck under a mountain of japanese flags. Is there a manual way to do it or do I just need to wait until they take enough damage to return to port on their own?

[Gorg420]

sub's sank more then half of my battleships battlecruisers and sank lots of heavycruisers you got it easy if they just sink your small ships lol Submarines need to go

[G3tEraZED]

In my Austro-Hungarian Campaign 1930 its 1942 now Russia is down to 11 Subs i got Several task forces with a total of 9 BB, 4 BC, 20 CA, 7 CL and 35 DD. CL and DD are fully up to date in terms of ASW equipment and in one round 3 Subs sank 4 BB, 2 BC, 4 CL and 3 DD with several other sips damaged and subs were not detected at all. Made me quit this game now after just Discovering it and learing everything about ship building in the last 2 weeks...

[Lima]

Copy from forum
Submarines are insanely strong post#69

It's been a long time since I've lost ships because of the actions of submarines. For each of my capital ship (BB,BC,CA) there are always at least 4 DDs escorts, wherever possible the maximum ASW equipment and sonars are installed (DD,CL,CA).

At the same time, my ASW TFs are constantly failing the hunt for submarines. I understand if a strike TF with capital ships will not destroy enemy submarines completely. Safety of capital ships is more important, that's understandable.

However, when my specially designated ASW TFs (1-2CLs/10-20DDs) can't destroy a couple of old submarines, it's ridiculous. As a rule, when destroying a submarine, one of the DDs also gets damaged.

A typical situation (70% of cases) looks like this: my ASW TF attacks 2-3 submarines, sinks one, the other two are damaged, my destroyer is also lightly damaged. I'm taking the whole TF for repairs, because if I send a destroyer alone, it will probably get into a battle with submarines and be sunk or severely damaged.

The reason for this is the low damage to submarines. You know, if there are more than 10 ships with equipment from the end of WW2 above you and they have only one goal - to destroy you, you will definitely die. Obviously, there will be situations when survival is possible (bad weather), but in more than 90% of cases, with complete dominance at sea and large allocated resources (see WW2), submarines have no chance. It may be said that the example from WW2 is not entirely correct, because there is no aviation in the game. Well, I'll make up for it with a huge number of hunter ships.

I guess I don't lose ships because I really like to play in Ultimate Admiral: Destroyers, and having about 1,000 destroyers by the end of the campaign is a rule for me, but if you don't use them in such quantities, there will be big problems.