Akkula wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2025 7:03 pm
I will leave major rebalancing of the naval warfare for the near future.
If you have the idea to rethink and rebalance naval warfare, I remembered something that could interest you.
There was a sub-mod by Rimski-One that tried some experimentations with the Modern Conflicts mod. (Link here:
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=115133).
Among his work, he touched on the naval system and found (in my opinion) an excellent idea that could interest you for the main mod.
In MC: surface ships (excluding aircraft carriers) can perform either anti-surface or anti-submarine missions, reflecting their real-life capabilities. If they can do both, the player can change their role by simply clicking on the green role button. This is a clever system that allows our warships to conduct two different missions, something they can do in real life. However, some vessels have another role that is not represented in MC: air defense missions.
In Rimski-One's sub-mod, another role is added. Some ships have three modes: anti-surface, anti-submarine (the two as in your mod), and anti-air. In anti-air mode, the ship acts like any other ground AA unit and automatically fires at any aircraft trying to attack friendly units. This encourages the player to organize their fleet formation wisely, ensuring it is protected against any potential enemy threat, and avoid leaving any ship isolated in hostile waters or too far the crucial carrier. It could also be interesting to add more NA to strike aircraft equipped with anti-ship missiles, as a real naval deterrent would exist.
In my humble opinion, the interaction between air and naval (minus the helicopters able to hunt sumbmarine, long range recon of AWACS and the mobile airfield that is a carrier) is currently pretty limited. Having strong anti-ship strike aircraft and powerful anti-air frigates as deterrent could create a new interesting dynamic between those two fields.
I take an example from the French Marine Nationale carrier group (since it's the equipment I know best): while the Horizon class can indeed conduct anti-surface and anti-submarine missions (as represented in the mod), its most important mission is to protect the fleet against any aircraft or missiles that could approach other ships; while the Aquitaine class is more specialized in the two roles that exist in MC, and the lightly armed Lafayette class primarily acts as a "support" vessel with anti-ship weapons. Like in any fleet, each ship have a specific role, even if some can complement each other.
These changes would force the player to choose the right vessel for the right mission and give more value to versatile ships. For example, "Sure, my Aquitaine class is perfect for hunting submarines and can also attack enemy ships, but to protect my carrier against all threats, including those from above, I need to use a Horizon class ship to escort it."
Rimski-One also implemented a naval mine system, with minesweepers having the same trait as engineers and minefields representing naval mines on the water. This adds another strategic element to naval warfare.
Maybe I have a bias since naval equipment is my favorite, but I think this could give more importance to the MC naval system on a whole.
I believe these improvements could give more importance to the MC naval system and make naval warfare more engaging and strategic. I had a lot of fun with the naval part of Rimski-One's sub-mod and thought it might interest you to consider using his system. It was really excellent.
