Will there be aircraft carriers in a future update?

[monicaida25]

I know the game is more dedicated to ballistic firepower, but I think it would be interesting to see aircraft carriers at some point

[Wingnut]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oQz2tkFhFGk

[monicaida25]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oQz2tkFhFGk

Yes I know... aircraft carriers marked the end of the battleship era :P

In any case, it is something that I suppose would have to be dealt with to give more realism.

[bgp_spook]

Welcome to the community. For most people, the appeal of the game is the bashing of large fleets together with big guns. Airpower would ruin that. I believe the Devs are on record that UAD exists in a world where planes were never invented.

[monicaida25]

could be optional, Before starting the campaign, an option that says: "enable air force" ^-^

[Nitemares]

This game, in form and function is not suited to air craft, or air craft carriers.

They are not, and never will be added.

[monicaida25]

Originally posted by Nitemares:

This game, in form and function is not suited to air craft, or air craft carriers.

They are not, and never will be added.

I wouldn't say that precisely, I don't see why aircraft carriers that direct squadrons of aircraft automatically couldn't be implemented.

It's just an idea, like I said, I understand that this bothers everyone, so a simple option that says "enable aircraft carrier" or something like that would be nice, you just disable it if you don't want this and everything is the same as always, but I would consider it an interesting mechanic, even seaplanes on some cruise ships that serve as explorers

[Mobzonk]

The game would need a whole new UI to cope with the ranges involved. Plus all the work to include aircraft and ship design, the changes to battle setups because the battles would need to start much further apart. Probably lots more changes too. Too much of distraction from finishing the current game.

[Nitemares]

Originally posted by monicaida25:

Originally posted by Nitemares:

This game, in form and function is not suited to air craft, or air craft carriers.

They are not, and never will be added.

I wouldn't say that precisely, I don't see why aircraft carriers that direct squadrons of aircraft automatically couldn't be implemented.

It's just an idea, like I said, I understand that this bothers everyone, so a simple option that says "enable aircraft carrier" or something like that would be nice, you just disable it if you don't want this and everything is the same as always, but I would consider it an interesting mechanic, even seaplanes on some cruise ships that serve as explorers

Air carriers would require a total rework on the fundamental code. AS it stands the engine only tracks things along the X-Y axis. For planes you need a Z axis. Without that Z axis the ships won't respond to the planes, and planes couldn't attack ships. (the game doesn't understand dept, only length).

This is part of the reason Submarines a quicktime event. To get them to submerge and surface to fire would require a Z axis.

There are NO AA mounts or guns in the game (no Z axis remember?) So if you are going to put PLANES in the game, you need AA guns. Which would require a reworking of hulls, and towers.
Not to mention, GUNS!!! New Guns, reworking old guns..

And then there is the tech tree reworks.
Guns would need an update
Hull forms would need an update
Crew training would need an update

******
But really, its not about air carriers like everyone whines about.... its about PLANES!!!
A block of under armored, under gunned pixels could easily be added that resembled an air carrier... but you guys would just whine: "WAAAA!!! Why is my air carrier worthless?!?!!? I should have planes on my air carrier!! After all, air carriers are worthless without planes!!!!"

SO then they would have to give and model you planes.... And give you kitty hawks... to which... "WAAAAAAAA Why do I have kitty hawk type planes!?!?!?! I should have super-duper-uber harrier planes!!! WAAAAAAA!!!!"


So now, They need to include a NEW tech tree for Planes, and find some way to balance THAT in to the rest of the game, and makes sure players are not chugging about on coal fired boilers with running Stealth bombers off 12,000 ton carriers...


And that is even BEFORE we talk about the game turn mechanics!!!!

Currently the game is balanced round the idea of 1 fleet action PER fleet, 1 diplomatic action, PER turn, with a turn being a Month long.
Given the way the game is currently structured, any air events would be a an event pop=up just like how submarines are done.

And Given the logic we have sen with the Submarine event pop-ups. (Ships with 0 (ZERO) asw SINK subs while flotillas of destroyers each equiped with maxed out ASW tech.... Gets SUNK!) It would be something ELSE that the community just demand they remove. (Like the community is demanding they remove Subs!)





TL/DR

NEVER WILL AIR CARRIERS BE IN THE GAME!!!! THE DEVS HAVE SAID SO FROM DAY ONE!!!

THIS GAME IS NOT MADE FOR, NOR CAN HANDLE THE AIR COMBAT THAT MANY PEOPLE ARE REQUESTING. ACCEPT THAT AND MOVE ON!!!




(And I am right again... EXACTLY 5 weeks since the last air carrier whine)

[Seeigel]

You could add carriers if they could only do auto-resolve battles (like subs) but take part in normal battles with just their few secondary guns. (like fast transports). AA could be managed just with a new stat. (because only taking part in auto resolve)

But I just can´t find a way to balance BB vs CV with both being fun. You dont want a CV task force to kill everything nor do you want them to do nothing. And anything in between... well, CV´s would be just there to be there.

As much as I would love to have CV´s because I love them, I just dont see a place for them in the game.

[Nitemares]

Originally posted by Seeigel:

You could add carriers if they could only do auto-resolve battles (like subs) but take part in normal battles with just their few secondary guns. (like fast transports). AA could be managed just with a new stat. (because only taking part in auto resolve)

But I just can´t find a way to balance BB vs CV with both being fun. You dont want a CV task force to kill everything nor do you want them to do nothing. And anything in between... well, CV´s would be just there to be there.

As much as I would love to have CV´s because I love them, I just dont see a place for them in the game.

You Can't, because there isn't a way to bring them in.

The Carrier was the death of the battleship.... and that's just the way it is. Trying to bring in carriers just makes Battleships, and even Gun cruisers totally useless.

Battles ships are needed to be the "meat shields" or "tanks" of your fleet, while dealing punishment with their large caliber guns. BUT this limits engagement ranges to the ranges of the guns. And since a battleship can be over whelmed by smaller craft, you need your own small craft to stop that from happening... and now you have fleets slugging it out.


But Carriers. Well, the Carrier is just a bus for what actually does the fighting - the planes! And Planes can travel hundreds of miles and still launch an attack and fly hundreds of miles back! A Carrier operating proper CAPs should never, EVER see an enemy task force within 100 miles of the carrier.... Well out range of the guns of the task force, but it quick strike range of the carriers Air groups.

And because a proper carrier task force should NEVER engage a fleet directly, they don't need gun ships... They need AA ships that can keep them safe from the only thing that threatens a carrier task force..... Other planes.




By trying to add Carriers to the game. You change the game from Ultimate Admiral:dreadnoughts to Ultimate Admiral: Carriers.

THAT is how powerful Carriers are.

There is a reason we still build carriers to this day while being a symbol of a navy's strength, and NOT battle ships.

[Ziggurt]

Originally posted by Seeigel:

You could add carriers if they could only do auto-resolve battles (like subs) but take part in normal battles with just their few secondary guns. (like fast transports). AA could be managed just with a new stat. (because only taking part in auto resolve)

But I just can´t find a way to balance BB vs CV with both being fun. You dont want a CV task force to kill everything nor do you want them to do nothing. And anything in between... well, CV´s would be just there to be there.

As much as I would love to have CV´s because I love them, I just dont see a place for them in the game.

It took two decades before battleship lost their primacy. It takes you 20+ years in Rule the Waves 3 to go from AVs (simple seaplane tenders) to dominating with carriers (sure you can make carrier early by converting a BC to CVL but the early airplanes suck big time).
I would say if RTW2 and RTW3 managed to pull it off, so could have UAD (after all, plenty of game loop in this game is directly derived from RTW game serie).

Anyway, they will not add carriers, despite people asking for them since day one (I have linked to polls regarding this on official forum before in these discussions), since their chosen target audience is world of warships players and not wargamers.
These players have now moved on and with under 1000 concurrent players on steam there is even less motivation to add new things in form of DLCs and what not because the market is simply not there.
And that is before I even address the ocean of bad game design this game has and that needs to be fixed.

As I said before many times, they could have solved entire debate by moving the timeline earlier, from 1860-1925 (or something). You would have covered much more interesting history in battleship design (google HMS Captiain from 1869 or the ironclad Petr Veliky) where people experimented wildly and it would be gun only type of gameplay and nobody would have asked about carriers or anything like it. But that demands certain level of... competent game design?

[monicaida25]

actually I didn't know that the game didn't have a Z axis

[Wingnut]

It was and still is a see-saw of the struggle for supremacy between surface ships and air power.

Pre ww2 naval air power was experimental and so battleships still ruled.

First few years of ww2 changed all that, Taranto, Bismarck, Pearl Harbour, Force Z etc. Showed air power as dominant. However air power at sea at that time had 2 crippling handicaps. 1, it was useless at night (yes Taranto occured at night but they were stationary ships in a port not dark shapes moving around on a dark ocean). It was the inventions of FLIR vision system and precision guided munitions that finally allowed aircraft to target ships underway at night and that happened in the 1970s. 2, bad weather. All weather aircraft only appeared during the early 1970s (Vietnam war).
So for a lot of 'battle time' aircraft carriers are just decorations, which most people dont realise because they only remember the few stunning successes.
eg. At the Pearl Harbour attack the Japanese hit rate was less the 60%, against stationary ships! HMS Repulse (Force Z) dodged 19 torpedoes fired at her!).
Air power only worked at that time when it overwhelmed the defences.

The reaction by the surface ships occurred during the later years of the war. That was to strap more and more and more AAA guns on their ships. Check out the AAA suites from battleships during 1941/2 to what they had in 1944/45. They also started adding more and more advance high angle fire control systems/radars. They developed better AAA fire drills, layered defensive barrages. Watch some of the period film clips of the Japanese air attacks on the allied fleets at Leyte Gulf and Okinawa.
The radio proximity fuse made medium and heavy AAA murderously effective.
These improvements swung the pendulum back in the favour of surface ships.

The next reaction was by air power upping its game with high performance jet engines and airborne radars/computers/navigation systems etc. This really started post ww2 and is still ongoing.

Next development was missile technology. Originally this was for surface ships only. SAMS swung the pendulum back again.

Then came airborne missiles and the pendulum swung again.

TLDR. Its the age old rule of military development, weapon vs armour, swinging back and forth as technology improves.

Sorry for going off topic.

[vanDyck]

Yes, carrier bases planes got a real threat around 1940, when aircraft engines good strong enough to carry bigger payloads. Land bases planes are a threat earlier... There we have in 1943 planes equipped with radar, and guided bombs. In 1944 we have bombs of a size that you cant armor a warship against, Tallboys. And 1945 then we get nuclear bombs...

In this game i can with focus research get techs way earlier, sometimes 20 years. It would depend a bit on how much fields we got for airplane tech, but should work.

And then, if i focus myself on air war (a total new strategic layer), why should i build any ships? I just go for some 1000s of long range bombers and escort fighters, and eradicate your harbors, shipyards and other infrastucture, maybe with nuclear bombs. Thats even possible at night. I dont need to hit one ship to take out your navy, or your whole country, out of the game.

There are statistics how much AA-shots you need to down a plane. Some thousands... On a TF level against nearly untrained pilots, they can be succsessfull, otherwise...

And just imagine you are fiedling a 25kts BB against an 32kts carrier, 200km distance, 5x time compression max., waiting for air attack after air attack, nothing elso to do.... fun?

[SievertChaser]

I open the forums at random, and... oh, look, it's this question for the thertieth time.

Perhaps the heretech of air machines should be a bannable offense.