BICE Naval Rebalance | Small & Medium Fleets

Naval rebalance for Black ICE / BICE: more life for small and medium fleets, less efficiency for oversized ship concentrations.

This submod changes naval combat balance and makes battles less dependent on massive ship concentrations in a single engagement.

Main idea: large fleets can still be used, but excessive ship concentration now causes serious problems with positioning, coordination and combat efficiency.

Oversized fleets should no longer win automatically through raw mass alone.

What has been changed:

• Increased positioning penalties for excessively large fleets.
• The more overloaded a fleet becomes, the more combat efficiency it loses.
• Poor positioning now reduces fleet attack more strongly.
• Poor positioning now reduces screening efficiency more strongly.
• Poor positioning now reduces AA efficiency more strongly.
• Huge fleets become noticeably more vulnerable to submarines.
• Ships joining an already ongoing naval battle receive a stronger positioning penalty.
• Full screening protection for capital ships now requires more screening ships.
• The AI is nudged toward more reasonable combat groups.
• AI carrier groups are adjusted more carefully.

In other words, the submod does not directly forbid large fleets, but makes them less efficient in actual combat.

Now it is more important not just to gather as many ships as possible in one place, but to choose the right:

• fleet composition;
• mission;
• screening;
• reconnaissance;
• air support;
• admirals;
• doctrines;
• timing of entry into battle.

This is a beta / prototype version of the submod.
Balance may still change after further testing.

Possible issues:

• penalties may be too strong or too weak;
• AI behaviour may need further tuning;
• unusual naval battle situations may occur;
• conflicts may happen with other submods that change defines or naval balance.

• Requires the main Black ICE / BICE mod.
• This submod should be placed below/after Black ICE in your playset.
• For multiplayer, all players must use the same version of the submod.
• This submod changes game defines, so it affects the checksum.
• Compatibility with other submods is not guaranteed if they also change naval defines.

The submod works through naval positioning and related defines.

If you are interested in playing Black ICE multiplayer, we regularly host games in our community: slower speed, more thoughtful gameplay and a calmer atmosphere.

Everyone is welcome. New players can get help with the mod, its mechanics and the basic logic of Black ICE.

Discord: https://discord.gg/xQK5rZK9ZF

If you find a problem, please leave a comment or report it in Discord with a screenshot.

Especially useful feedback:

• penalties that feel too strong;
• penalties that feel too weak;
• strange AI behaviour;
• carrier battles;
• submarine battles;
• cases where huge fleets are still too efficient;
• cases where a normal task force receives too much penalty.

Please mention the country, date, fleet size, sea region and Black ICE version if possible.

Submod: v0.5 prototype

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