You can still use hedge hogs. Also it's where the "escort" part comes into play.

Smaller guns were used by battleships to tackle the closest targets... Bigger caliber wouldn't be able to fire accurately close. Smaller would. Also, if you would've read RIGHT you would've noticed this snippet:

"Ofc we'd have to make sure smaller sized guns barely make a dent in a BBs armor too." So no, 3" inch guns would score zero over and over and over. Doing no damage at all.

As for having to drop support sailors for gunners/etc. Well that's the whole point, make BB more specialised and less uber in some roles. Want only big guns? Sacrifice close range defense vs subs or smaller ships. Want close range defense? Sacrifice some speed, armor or repair.

As for the subs. Anybody finds ludicrous that they can take a full salvo from 16 13" inch shells at point blank range and still be afloat? And that if you look for stuff in wikipedia about sub armor you find zilch? It doesn't make any sense. One idea would be to make them have a natural bulge value to defend against torps from other subs/HH/depth charges but DRASTICALLY reduce their DP, and by drastically I mean by a factor of 3 or more. That way the little guns you're carrying for close range defense could still sink em, they could still take a good pounding from torps/HH/depth, but surfaced near a ship with close range guns they'd be dead meat quick.

No more "can have it all" for SS and BB = more room for CA and below to shine = more variety in gameplay = people playing l.onger = more people joining GB and leaving Blitz before 60lvl cap = more people in the same rooms = more games and faster starts for every.one = more longevity to the game. Heck eventually, if pulled right we could even get rid entirely of the Blitz/Skirmish "crutches".

Benser, as for negative elevation, I don't think that can be programmed into the game. If it can, great. But you could always program a minimum angle into each guns mount right? Seeing as right now 0 is pretty much negative angle for them to hit right beside the ship? Maybe balance some nations that way too. Have italy for example with their high muzzle velocity have the option to fire at a lower angle to match the minimum range of the other nations. Or we could add another differentiation factor to the nations that way. Some nations could fire their big guns closer to the ship, with some drawbacks, some a bit farther.

But in all cases, accuracy at close range needs to drop to almost zero with big guns, and have a minimum range too, otherwise it doesn't make any sense and we'll keep seeing games as they are without any roles for the smaller ships and that Blitz/Skirmish crutches/scattering of the playerbase business that can be fixed.

Maybe it's possible to program the accuracy change in the FCS? With the smallest FCS classes having deadly accuracy at close range, average at medium and totally unaccurate at long range. Medium FCS classes having average accuracy all around and the biggest FCS having deadly accuracy at long range, average at medium and being totally unaccurate at minimum angle. Ofc this modifier would be applied after FCS bonus, gun bonus and sailor skill has been taken into account.

Kinda like this:

FCS Angle Accuracy%
FF min 100
FF half 50
FF full 0

DD min 80
DD half 50
DD full 20

CL min 60
CL half 50
CL full 40

CA min 40
CA half 50
CA full 60

BC min 20
BC half 50
BC full 80

BB min 0
BB half 50
BB full 100

With ofc linear or logarithmic scalling along the other angles. And yes, these are hypothetical numbers. They're arbitrary and to demonstrate the idea only.

As for minimum range, we can either give each gun a minimum angle OR keep the zero angle business but instead of making all guns fire from sea level, give them an elevation based on the altitude of the gun relative to sea level for each ships deck + average mount height or each gun mount individually. That way, the shell speed when fired would dictate where the shells would land at zero angle, naturally, without having to impose a minimum to guns angle. Also since not all gun mounts are at the same elevation in the second option, it would add, at minimum range, that much more randomness to the shots spread needed to make the idea work.

Also note, you could still hit at almost point blank range with the big guns if what you're firing at is much higher than sea level. Another BB bridge for example, tho it's extremely unlikely to happen.

I have no idea if the current developpers can p

Ofc they don't, :P. But you didn't used to be able to rotate BIG turrets, or angle them up or down that quickly either, but it's still in the game no? Because otherwise it wouldn't be fun? Yes? Well, same thing. That turret move time was the reason why smaller calibers/faster moving turrets were more accurate than big ones up close. Read a bit on it. Well, this system would be an attempt to replicate that behavior, using other means to achieve the same results. IOWs, as far as I remember, there wasnt only BBs, SSs and CVs in fleets back then. In fact they were in the minority, not the majority. With most of the fleets comprised of Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers and the odd BB, SS and CV here and there.

And TBH, GB BB gameplay can get boring very fast, with no alternatives in GB, since you can't play any other gaming modes right now, no op convoy going on or anything else for that matter for high level crews. Well you're stuck in no-variety to gameplay land. With this proposition, you'd have mostly endless gameplay variations even at high level.

To calrify the turret accuracy thing, cause it seems you didn't read and/or get everything in the last post.

0% accuracy at minimum angle RAMPING UP TO 50% at mid angle, then ramping up to 100% at full angle. In this case, linear progression. It doesn't jump from 0% from minimum to half less one, to 50% at half to full less one, then jump again to 100%. And it was explained in the post mate. ;)

Not everybody's got PCLs or PCAs and they're still pretty much useless otherwise you'd see a lot more of em. PCAs are mostly AAW and PCLs, well, I saw one in more than a hundred games. So you don't convince me here. As for the intend to add thing. It's more, intend to make usefull so that you don't need Blitz or Skirmish, you could just jump into GB right away, be usefull and have fun earning your EXP instead of having to leech, being useless and drop back to Blitz.

So it's all advantages as I see it. More varied gameplay, more players in the same game mode, more fun in the long run cause you can change gameplay at will instead of being stuck with BB/SS/CV or be useless in any other ship except dedicated AAW or ASW.

As for the escort ships, I don't mean the "ESCORT" ships controlled by AI. I mean PLAYER CONTROLLED SHIPS in the FF/DD/CL/CA range.

In other words, AI escorts would become obsolete, pretty much unless for dedicated AAW or ASW.

Easy on him, mate.

He's new in NF world of bad old program that can't be fixed/modify.

 

@OP

This acc/spread idea u suggesting need to add at least 1 logarithm in the existing gun acc formula, that simply can't be done. In fact SDE can't even modify the existing program. 

What can be done is to change numbers on existing program/formula to get different output, like; range, dmg, hang-time, spread etc. But not to reverse the current how acc spread works.