Hi
I need to look up the thread where I saw it but issue of making stealth destroyers attack is kind of wrapped up in bigger issues with the way naval combat is decided.
From what the post seems to say combat is worked out like this.
Ship attacks at this point game goes through thses steps to pick defenders
1) Game first eliminates any ships in stack that ship cant sea (at this point it means stealth destroyers and subs wont defend if say a battle ship is attacking)
2)after that game picks the strongest empty vessels to attack (meaning if an unloaded missle cruiser in stack it will defend first, if no unloaded mc but unloaded aircraft carrier then it will defend, if no unloaded ac but unloaded taransports then unloaded transports will defend)
3)If no empty vessels in stack THEN just strongest units in stack will defend.
Meaning not only would a unloaded transport defend ahead of stealth destroyer it would defend ahead of a battleship too. Making stealth destroyers defend when attacked in mixed stack would get it to defend if it is strongest defender available at point 3 but it still will just watch empty transports get whomped at point 2.
This brings up lots of annoying problems that dont make sense. Even without transports.
Like for example say you have a stack of 3 loaded missle cruisers. In one turn the stack sees a enemy ship. One MC goes after it, if first launches its missles to wound it and then attacks and sinks it. It won battle but is wounded and it goes back into stack to heal and turn ends. Next turn another destroyer attacks the stack of 3 MC's. The two fully healthy MC's would win easily, however even though it is wounded the wounded MC from the turn before now falls into category of "strongest empty vessel" since it had launched all its missles. So it would defend ahead of the fully loaded fully healthy missle cruisers. Now if there is some logic to this I cant see it :/
So it seems like maybe this should be looked into first maybe and then once that is gotten more logical say "strongest defender period that can be seen defends" seems it might be simplest solution. Then after that solution is implemented successfully a decision can be made as to whether or not stealths should fall into "can be seen category" when in a mixed stack.
Part of some of the issues to think about would be.
How hard would it be for game to know when a stealth destroyer is in a mixed stack and therefore should defend and when it is not and therefore shouldnt defend. Like if game decides okay when on same square as different types of ships it can now defend--what if a ally or neutral ship or something just happens to be on sqaure with stealth would that trigger it too?
Also it doesnt seem that game makes distinciton of being "invisible" due to stealth tech and being invisible for other reasons like subs are visible just cuz it is assumed they will be submerged. Kind of like units just fall into "visible" or not. So would subs end up being including in the mixed stacks defend solution or not? or would their be a way to make it so only stealths would do that and not subs?
To me the very simplest solution would be to not make stealth destroyers obsolete normal destroyers. Just let em be built even after stealths can be built then it would be up to the player to make sure they use "escort" destoyers for escorting and stealth destoryers for other things.
As for the "stringest empty" vessles defending first I can see why if it is JUST a stack of transports empty ones defend first so you wouldnt risk ones loaded with units if it could be avoided. But gving empty vessels priority over battleships and loaded cruisers and what not doesnt make much sense.
It also kind of leaves open an "exploit" of instead of escorting transports with battleships and missle cruiser and stuff like that just making sure all naval stacks come with a "decoy fleet" of empty transports to keep your main ships a safe as possible.
I dont know :/. Honestly I am not huge fan of big naval campaigns so I am getting all thise pretty much from other posts I have seen talking about how messed up naval combat can be in BtS. But from what I have seen the issues seem to be a buit bigger than JUST whether or not stealth destroyers can or should defend and whether or not they can or should see subs.
I still think just allowing normal destroyers to be around along with stealth is best. Lets assume that stealths operate like they do on purpose for whatever reason. Not obsoleting normal destroyers means stealth will still function as game intended and normal destroyers will still function as game intended and player can choose whichever ever they think is right type for the job. And with normal destroyers not being disabled then it wont be as bad because then it wont be like a player didnt have an option other than putting stealths with a stack.
It would also mean that making game decide when and if stealths should defend in mixed stacks unecessary and not having to deal with that in messing with naval battle calculations might make solving the "empty vessels defend first" issue simpler since now it means ONLY that part has to be addressed instead of that part AND figuring out whether a stealth destroyer should defend.
And yeah I say that part has to be addressed on assumption that maybe others might agree its an issue. But if I assume wrong it wouldnt be the first time hehe
Kaytie