Improvements to already build ships

[LordOfWar16]

Which may be a good thing because you want nations to build new dockyards to stay competetive on the seas and nations that lack access to oil may be forced to build synthetical plants and avoid spending much oil on other stuff then at the seas. About the starting navies, I think the numbers of starting dockyards will have a pretty substantial correlation with the size of your starting navy.

We will see, they can always add that in an expansion together with the tank aces later on

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

As long as the upgrade-able modules come with the ship, it sounds good. I really don't like having to build ships with attachments.

 

[Sun_Killer]

I genrally would like a system where we can send tanks and ships back into factory/yard and say convert 500 old pzIII into 500 StugIII for lets 40% of full StugIII Buildcost, and for ships to change their AA, ASW and radar/sonar or even convert large warships BC and BB into Carriers. This things than would popup in production screen as new Pruoductionline and you could assagin yards and factories.

 

[Moriartiy]

My Problem would be that of you were for example Germany or the Russians, you could afford to build a medium sized okayish navy (as for Germany) before the war. The navy would have been on a pre 1940 tech but when war began to rage you had to spend all your production or most of it on the Army. While you were maybe still able to get newer techs you just couldn't afford to build enough state of the art ships to fight tommys or yanks and upgrading the old ones atleast their armament didn't work. So you had a small to medium sized fleet against the massive state of the art british fleet with their guns dealing twice or 4 times as much damage as yours. Okay Royal Navy was better than the Kriegsmarine historicaly but the mechanic mot bering able to improve your ships was in my opinion too punishing for any nation without an armada of half a Billion ships^^

I know improving the ships would work for sides then but the one having to care anout theirs benefits more with it

And well this is mostly my own opinion and feeling since i mostly didn't play any naval nation

 

[Miragu]

No upgrades besides your naval doctrine and techs for radar and sonar i think.

There's a tech for sonar?! In all the WWW's I haven't seen any mention of sonar

 

[tommylotto]

The two big things that were upgraded on ships during the period were AA (and for the big ships, this also often involved the introduction of better dual-purpose secondary weapons - the US 5"/38 for example) and radar, and literally every RN or USN ship from CA up built before they were standard received substantial upgrades of both during the war. There were a few other odds and sods (the UK added some cemented belt armour to some of its CAs (I think - might have been CLs), for example, and the Independence class CVLs were built from CLs under construction), but aside from Japan, most ships didn't have substantial changes and the game can get away without having conversions in (although I'd love it if they were ). Japan's the big exception - they changed CLs to CAs, AVs to CVs and did all sorts of things to ships under construction, but given the faster ship-building times in HoI4, it won't be as necessary in-game as it was IRL even if Japan loses Midway again.

Not just Japan. Italy upgraded 4 battleships -- Conte di Cavour and Giulio Cesare between 1933 and 1937 and Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio from 1937 to 1940. These were not minor refits either. The ships were practically rebuilt -- armor, engines, armament. Displacement increased from about 25k tons to 29k tons, speed increased from 21.5 knots to 27 knots, and all armament was replaced. Even the main armament was increased from 305mm to 320mm. I'm not sure how much they saved, and they probably would have been better off with a few more Littorios instead, but that is 4 capital ships and a big part of a major's fleet that was significantly upgraded in the time frame of the game. Now, the CdC and the GC should start mostly build already in the queue, but the AD and CD did not start their rebuilds until after the game begins.

 

[Axe99]

Not just Japan. Italy upgraded 4 battleships -- Conte di Cavour and Giulio Cesare between 1933 and 1937 and Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio from 1937 to 1940. These were not minor refits either. The ships were practically rebuilt -- armor, engines, armament. Displacement increased from about 25k tons to 29k tons, speed increased from 21.5 knots to 27 knots, and all armament was replaced. Even the main armament was increased from 305mm to 320mm. I'm not sure how much they saved, and they probably would have been better off with a few more Littorios instead, but that is 4 capital ships and a big part of a major's fleet that was significantly upgraded in the time frame of the game. Now, the CdC and the GC should start mostly build already in the queue, but the AD and CD did not start their rebuilds until after the game begins.

You're dead right - as soon as I saw the notification (and that it was from you ), I was like "D'oh! I forgot Italy!". Japan and the UK also did some substantial BB/BC rebuilds during the period, although Italy's were the most extensive (I think). I'm very sorry for forgetting the Italians (my dodgy memory rather than prejudice - I forgot the BB rebuilds by the UK and Japan as well), thanks for pointing that out .