15 docks dont suddenly spit out one battleship after 240 days of course, but 15 docks build 15 ships and one might gets completed every half a year or so. Thats what the system tries to simulate, i guess. Thats why each dock you add increases the cost of the production. If 15 docks would work on 1 ship the cost wouldnt suddenly drasticly increase. Its abstracted with the output per day/week/month/year, since that works best for the game. It would be insane if you built on an battleship production line with 15 docks and after 3 years suddenly have 15 battleships popping up in an game focused around 12 years.
Most nations wont be able to affort to put 15 docks on battleships anyway. People seem to forget that you pay 15 times more if you set it to 15 docks.
I totally get the cost thing, but it doesn't cost more as far as I can see - it costs the same, but you pay it all within a smaller amount of time.
On the by, 15 docks all working on a BB for five years each and popping out 15 ships at once is actually a lot,
lot more historically plausible and appropriate than 15 docks working on a line of BBs and popping the first out in under a year. Take the KGV class - five ships laid down in 1937, five ships are operational between December 1940 and August 1942 (with three coming out in the 12 months between December 1940 and December 1941). The first ship isn't operational until WW2 has been on the go for over 12 months. Under the serial instead of parallel model, you'd have a couple of BBs done before the war started, giving the UK a leg-up navally.
The Essex class CVs is probably the best way of looking at the issues that this holds (and the US is likely to be able to comfortably have 15 dockyards on it - in fact, arguably the US should have the maximum possible build speed on them). Historically, the US laid down 9 in 1941 and 1942, and these 8 were launched between 1942 and 1943, but the shortest break between laying down and launching (still not completing) for any of these ships is 10 months (and still took another 6 months to complete). The first CV, Essex, was laid down in April 1941, launched in July '42 and was operational on 31 December '42. Using the serial rather than parallel model though using these numbers (which I know aren't final), you'd have 2-3 Essex CVs operational before Midway (possibly one before Pearly Harbour!) - completely changing the balance of the Pacific War.
It's not a problem for ships smaller than an LC, because there'll usually be enough of these floating around already that it's not an issue. Even for BBs, Japan's about the only nation that could really benefit from going all-in on mass-building them early, but for CVs, accelerated production times can have a huge impact on the dynamics of the conflict, particularly when the US enters the war. In a historical playthrough, it makes life much, much harder for Japan.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad gameplay decision (and that's assuming these are anywhere near the final numbers, which they may not be, but let's play devil's advocate and say hey were) - not having to make as many long-term decisions makes things more accessible, and this is not a bad thing
. Being able to pump out task forces and having a lot more naval battles can be fun - but there's equally nothing wrong with some of us wanting the timing to be a bit more historically plausible.
