Submarines and Anti-Submarine Warfare

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by sal0x2328, September 4, 2012.

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Should there be submarines?

  1. All mobile naval units should be submarines and there should be strong ASW options

    1 vote(s)
    1.6%
  2. All mobile naval units should be submarines but there should only be weak ASW options

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. There should be submarines and there should be strong ASW options

    53 vote(s)
    85.5%
  4. There should be submarines and there should be only be weak ASW options

    6 vote(s)
    9.7%
  5. There should not be submarines

    2 vote(s)
    3.2%
  1. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    ASW = Anti-Submarine Warfare

    Submarines spam is something that people have been complaining about in some threads, some people have even advocating that there should be no submarines, I think the big issue is that there has not been effective ASW options available to the player, and that if there were strong ASW options (like aircraft with SONAR and torpedoes, or ships with long range rockets that delivered nuclear depth charges) submarines would not dominate naval warfare but instead would be a stealthier, costlier (or however you wish to balance them) alternative to surface ships.

    Thoughts and ideas?
  2. yinwaru

    yinwaru New Member

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    Let all ships fire at submarines. Problem solved. Not the most elegant or interesting solution, but it works.

    Another way of doing it would be like you said, making them more expensive than ships. The price you pay for stealth.
  3. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    If we decide to give all armed ships an anti-submarine weapon, the effectiveness vs submarines can vary form the general anti-ship weapons of the ship, and it can look quite elegant. Torpedoes, Depth Charges, Sonic Weapons, Blue-Green Lasers, Supercavitating Projectiles/Missiles, Depth Charge or Torpedo carrying Missiles are all options.

    Edit:
    Forgot to mention mines and anti-submarine nets.

    There are also non-weapon submarine counters like air dropped or missile delivered sonar buoys.
  4. zachb

    zachb Member

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    The one problem I had with submarines was that at the beginning of the game you always had a race to the water to see who got to build a navy.

    Someone would build naval bases and start spamming subs sending them at your base. And if you didn't get sonar and some torpedo turrets into the water before they got to your base you just weren't using naval units that match.

    Imagine you are on an island surrounded by a bunch of T1 subs swimming around it. If you try to build a torpedo turret it, and the engineer you sent out to build it, get blown up. If you try to build a sonar station it, and the engineer, get blown up. If you want to build a naval yard to make your own subs it, and the engineer, get blown up. If you take some amphibious land units and march them into the sea they just aren't as awesome at shooting naval units as a sub and they get blown up.

    The only real counter to this was the torpedo bomber plane in FA. But the problem was that you needed another unit that could go underwater and see the sub to scout the torpedo bomber to a target.

    Other than letting us build sonar on land, or giving sonar to airplanes (which would be ridiculous) I am not sure what to do.
  5. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    There are aircraft that have sonar in real life (helicopters with dipping sonar) as well as sonar buoys which aircraft can drop. I see no problem with having such units in the game.
  6. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    I think the biggest issues with Subs was insufficient and/or ineffective counters, for example in many cases once you lost your naval factories, it was nearly impossible to gain them back due to subs.

    There has been quite a lot of talk about possible solutions, including a land based Anti-naval turret and land based sonar and changing the role and/or general balance of Subs.

    We have to make sure we fix the actual problem with subs instead of just focusing on just the effects. That said I wouldn't miss Subs if Uber chose to not include them, they would certainly be a tricky thing to get right.

    Mike
  7. thedeserttiger

    thedeserttiger New Member

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    To deal with the subs you could have a anti ship/sub bomber that drops torpedos into the water and make the bomber have a low HP pool so its not a super hard counter in numbers to fleets of ships.
  8. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    A single aircraft is not a good solution to fixing the problems of submarines. The biggest issue is that most games make them hard to detect if you do not have ships, so there would need to be an aircraft with sonar to enable you to take back the seas.

    An alternative option is amphibious ships (they could be large hovercraft) which can be constructed on land, so you do not need to control the sea to build a navy.
  9. thedeserttiger

    thedeserttiger New Member

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    the aircraft i am talking about would have to have sonar like tech but from a plane otherwise it would be useless as a "sub hunter" but yes also hovercraft would be good aswell
    Last edited: September 4, 2012
  10. ooshr32

    ooshr32 Active Member

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    Fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft able to detect submarines exist today.

    They don't use sonar (dipped or buoys), but magnetic anomaly detectors, however in the context of a game abstracting this away to behaving like a limited-range sonar is no great sin.
  11. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    There are aircraft with sonar see http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... ry-asw.htm

    Also submarines can be very hard to detect with a MAD due to the use of titanium (in the Alpha class and others) and non-magnetic steels (like in the Type 206 and others). Active sonar is pretty hard to avoid.
  12. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    And if the enemy has Air Superiority as well? Even if they don't have complete superiority the fact you would have to devote some more of your Air factories to Building the Anti-Sub planes would cut into the rest of your air production. What if his subs are being supported by AA cruisers?

    You need to look at the big picture and think beyond just what CAN counter Subs.

    Mike
  13. ooshr32

    ooshr32 Active Member

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    I only skim-read, but from I see that article is talking about buoys or dips, nothing about simply flying by.

    I appreciate currently deployed MADs have trouble with submarines designed to avoid them, but like any good arms-race there is nearly always a counter under development, e.g. Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID).

    So far as the game is concerned it's largely immaterial, stopping and dipping or dropping bouys would be tedious, just keep their 'sonar' range and speed modest and flying submarine detectors should work just fine.
  14. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    If he has AA cruisers use long range artillery to take out the cruisers. Then send in your ASW aircraft. Then you can retake the seas. As for costing you aircraft production, countering the enemy's units should never be free be it a cost in the lives of general units or the cost of production of specialized units.

    The question is what if there are AA submarines?
  15. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    I just brought it up because someone said that it would be ridiculous to have SONAR aircraft.
  16. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Well that's fine if there are good artillery options for something like, but going off what was available in SupComFA it's not enough, A single cruiser could survive 2-3 direct hits, but because of the large open nature of water the chances of scoring a direct hit were slim, and splash damage rarely caught more than one unit, and there was little to stop the enemy from rushing up to take out the arty.

    It's one thing to say countering strats shouldn't be free, but it's kinda silly when the counters cost several times the cost of what you're countering and still might not be all that effective.

    Mike
  17. sal0x2328

    sal0x2328 Member

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    There was good artillery in TA, and I hear Neutrino likes the big guns, so I would hope that there are some good options for artillery.
  18. erastos

    erastos Member

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    If they have air and sea superiority shouldn't that be kind of bad for you?
  19. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Not necessarily, but even so, as I pointed out even if you're equal the fact you might need to divert some of your Airfacs to building the special Anti-Sub planes could affect the balance in the air war and lead to not only the Anti-sub planes being shot down, but also a goodly portion of the regular air force, putting your farther behind.

    Mike
  20. erastos

    erastos Member

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    Seriously? They control 2 out of 4 layers and you don't think that should be bad for you? That makes air and sea pretty unimportant. I think all 4 layers should be significant, losing control of any one of them should be bad news.

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