Minimum ship naval yard size for shipbuilding?

[Munin]

Maybe an interesting idea is to have a minimum naval dockyard requirement for building & repairing certain ships?

For example the Tirpitz could not be repaired because the Germans didn't have a sizable enough dockyard anymore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid

AGREE THIS post if you like the idea (to see what u fellow hoi4 fans think of the idea)

 

[Munin]

Maybe minimum size of dockyards for unlocking each type of ship? & its production?

LVL 1 convoys

LVL 2 destroyer ship (& escort ships if they still exist in the same way as hoi3)

LVL 4 cruiser ship

LVL 6 battleship

LVL 8 carrier

LVL 10 SH battleship & supercarriers



This would make it more interesting destroying ports

For example Germany will have to defend its well by sea & land fortifying them, this would simulate the the protectionbunkers Germans put on submarine bases (submarine bunkers). This would make it harder for allies to damage the dockyards, more fortifications = less % dmg possible by airraids & naval bombardments. (first the defenses would have to be damaged before the port can be damaged)


Other than that maybe other interesting things can be done with ports: for example the size of naval invasions could be determined by the size of your port, that way it would make sense to use more than 1 port for an invasion if you only have numerous small ports. This would simulate the logistical challenge of a naval invasion

 

[Munin]

I don't understand the current benifit for the port sizes in HOI3, now I understand that in HOI4 it benifits the production of ships (more dockyards = more shipbuildingcapacity). But what other benifits? Does it benifit you capacity to trade overseas?

 

[Dannovick]

I like this idea. Makes complete sense that a country like Estonia should not be able to build aircraft carriers just because they have the tech. It would be cool to have to invest in naval infrastructure to construct such ships. In reference to the Netherlands it would make the port of Rotterdam far more important, making its defence a number 1 priority. I think that could add an interesting strategic asset to the game for players to secure and defend.

 

[Vidkjaer]

I don't understand the current benifit for the port sizes in HOI3, now I understand that in HOI4 it benifits the production of ships (more dockyards = more shipbuildingcapacity). But what other benifits? Does it benifit you capacity to trade overseas?

Port size is different from dockyards.
The only purpose for the size of a port is the amount of supplies coming into the port and amount of ships supplied through that port.

 

[potski]

To add to @Vidkjaer dockyards are a type of factory and are state buildings, which take up industry slots. They build new ships. They don't have levels.

Makes complete sense that a country like Estonia should not be able to build aircraft carriers just because they have the tech. It would be cool to have to invest in naval infrastructure to construct such ships.

Any country that researched the tech has the choice to build carriers. But using one dockyard is going to take you many years to complete the production, beyond the end of the game. You do have to properly invest - by constructing more dockyards. Since you can only construct dockyards in a coastal state, and factory slots might be very limited because of the type of state, then a small country should find it very difficult even to get enough dockyards to make a few DD and CLs.

Ports are also naval bases. They are not factories, and can't produce new ships. They are province buildings, and aren't affected by the factory slots. You can have dockyards in a coastal state, like the state Rotterdam is in, plus have a port in Rotterdam province.

Ports/naval bases do have levels. These affect the throughput of supplies when used to supply your forces overseas. The ports in Dutch East Indies would limit the number of units (army, naval and planes) that can be located there, before they suffer supply penalties. The higher the level of port, the more supplies your convoy ships can bring in.

The level of the port also affects the capacity of it to handle large fleets. The higher the level the more naval ships can be based there.

Ships that are damaged in combat can be repaired at their home naval base (ie. a port) not at dockyards.

The phrase dockyard is slightly confusing. In Britain we generally refer to facilities to build new ships as shipyards. Dry docks, like the one pictured at St Nazaire, aren't used to build ships, but can be used to repair ships. Private companies with those facilities are "ship repair yards", they often exist side by side with "shipyards". However, the government traditionally has had "naval dockyards" which had facilities to both repair and build some naval ships. But most of the Royal Navy was built by private companies in shipyards, and most repairs carried out by private companies in ship repair yards.

Paradox have gone with "dockyards" to mean factories which build new ships. So the dry dock at St Nazaire is not a "dockyard" in the game sense. It is part of the port/naval base facilities that could be used to load/unload convoys, and repair ships.

The raid on St Nazaire by commandoes IRL was to prevent the Tirpitz being based there. The game equivalent of deploying it to a new home base, where it can get repairs. The very big dry dock was the only one on the Atlantic coast big enough to take Tirpitz. It was rammed by an old DD packed full of explosives, which then destroyed the dry dock. It was eight years before it could be fully repaired. The commandoes also blew up cranes, warehouses, and generally caused as much chaos in the port as they could before escaping. Unfortunately such actions are below the level of the game to represent.

The port capacity of St Nazaire can probably be reduced by bombing. But it won't really matter if Tirpitz operates alone.

However, the port facilities at St Nazaire also included the nearby massive concrete structures built to support the U-boat campaign in the North Atlantic.

These weren't attacked in the commando raid IIRC. Building these (which with similar facilities at Brest and Lorient was a huge construction project IRL, one of the biggest undertaken by Germany during the war) would be simulated in the game by increasing the port/naval base level. Although that would have the effect of allowing greater supply throughput (which is not realistic), it would simulate the increased capacity of the naval base to hold large numbers of subs, so they can operate efficiently in the North Atlantic.

The commandoes didn't attack the sub base, but the RAF did. Attempting to destroy it with some of the biggest bombs dropped in the war. But the double layer of reinforced concrete on the roof managed to withstand even this.

They gave up once it was found easier to just bomb the subs as they left or returned through the Bay of Biscay, once Enigma was revealing their general positions and bombers had radar fitted in them.

Tirpitz never entered the Atlantic because of the raid, remained in Norway, where eventually those massive bombs dropped by the RAF found their target.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Each dockyard uses up one factory slot in a state and has nothing to do with what ships can be build there. There are no "level" for dockyards. While the idea at its core is not bad, the execution simply doesnt work at all.

That what limits you in your ability to build ships is their cost and the time it takes to build them. Lets say you are finland for example and only had 1 dockyard. If you wanted to build a battleship or a carrier you would work on it for multiple years. If you lack some of the resources for it it will go even slower. In theory every nation that has the technology can build a strong navy, yes. The problem is they simply dont have the dockyards and ressources to build them in a reasonable amount of time.

 

[Nicolas I]

To add to @Vidkjaer dockyards are a type of factory and are state buildings, which take up industry slots. They build new ships. They don't have levels...

You are completely right, they don't have levels, but the more dockyards you have, the more quickly ships are built. So number of dockyards, not level matters.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by LordOfWar16, once again!

 

[Axe99]

Depending on what's moddable, I've thought about the potential value of having two levels of dockyards - one for DDs and down (including convoys and subs), and another for CLs and up, but I'm not sure what it would bring to the gameplay. It would potentially limit nations from building too many big ships before they'd built the large dockyards, but the only nations that are likely to need to build a stack of big ships (Germany, Japan, USSR, France, Italy) are likely to need to build the dockyards anyway (so they'll build large dockyards in anyevent) or already have a lot of large dockyards to begin with (US, UK), so at the end of the day there won't be too many situations where having the two sizes of dockyards could lead to interesting gameplay decisions, beyond some 'at the margins' min-max'ey stuff about whether to build small or large dockyards.

One of the things I have thought about is letting civilian factories somehow build corvettes and smaller. These smaller vessels were specifically designed to be able to be produced by shipbuilders that wouldn't have been able to work on normal naval craft. That said, given that Civilian factories turn into or build other factories, I'd say this would be covered off already, in the abstract.

 

[Kikaider]

You know, given that many ships were being built simultaneously by the major naval players, but each ship took a while to build (like 17-24 month for Essex CVs) I think part of this could be handled by how additional dockyards scale the time to completion with a minimum to get a decent build speed and more than the min just tapering off in effectiveness (ie, to encourage parallel builds when it comes to the navy). For example,
A CV might take 10 years to build with 1 yard, 8yrs with 2, but a respectable 22 months at 10yards assigned (a good avg for a CV during WW2), and docks 11-15 could maybe each shave an extra month off each
While a DD might be fine at 12 months with 1 yard, 7 months with 2 yards and 5months with 4 yards, but yards 5-15 start shaving days off at best.
*numbers totally out of thin air for example purposes

While an obvious simplification, the idea would be this simulates each ship being built taking up a "slot" in a drydock or slipway (and 10 slots to a carrier represents a large slipway that can handle capital ship development, while 1 to a carrier would be like building the capital ship with only the tools and resources available near a sub-pen). You could only be dealing with one hull per slipway IRL anyways, and you could only fit so much men and materiel in each slipway before they start tripping over each other (so over supplying effort just ends up ineffective).

 

[potski]

I think it already represents parallel builds for convoys, subs and DD. Although the time given might be two months for the next ship, and there might be five dockyards in the production line, I don't think it represents that all of those dockyards are working on the same ship. Especially as they don't have to be in the same state. The presumption is that there are 5 ships at various stages of production, with the next one ready in two months.

This is more problematic with capital ships, especially if you are only going to be building one. Nevertheless, even without modern fabrication methods, not all production was done at a single site. Swan Hunter shipyard on the River Tyne near Newcastle, which built hundreds of ships, didn't build the engines. The steam turbines were built by Parsons, in their own factory a few miles away. Parsons also made steam turbines for other shipyards. Plus Vickers Armstrong made the guns for the ships at another factory in Newcastle. So there existed some parallel production - Swan Hunters could be building the hull, while Parsons are building the engines to go in it. And I think they didn't manufacture the steel plates either, these were made by another company in another factory and brought to the shipyard to be welded in place.

Plus once the hull was built and watertight, the ship would be launched, and further fitting out work done with the ship tied up along the river. This would free-up the slipway to be used for another ship. That work would include the turrets and guns, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be on the ship when launched, plus most of the internal work on the ship, pipefitting, electricals, making the cabins, navigation equipment, radios etc.

Using five "dockyards" to build a capital ship in a reasonable time is not a silly abstraction, it doesn't mean that five slipways are being used for one ship.

 

[Axe99]

Aye, if we think of dockyards as 'dockyard elements', and a large slipway might be five dockyards, and a small slipway one, that would work well. I'm hoping I can mod the maximum number of naval dockyards allowed per ship to give somewhat more reasonable ship build times (at least from what we've seen so far, which have been up to 3 times faster than they were built historically*, with resource shortages to boot) to do something about that at least for my game.

* So Potski's number of five dockyards is probably pretty close to reasonable for the number of dockyards that'll give reasonable build times, at least from what we've seen so far.

 

[Nicolas I]

...Plus once the hull was built and watertight, the ship would be launched, and further fitting out work done with the ship tied up along the river. This would free-up the slipway to be used for another ship. That work would include the turrets and guns, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be on the ship when launched, plus most of the internal work on the ship, pipefitting, electricals, making the cabins, navigation equipment, radios etc...

And after that there would be some running-in cruises.

I wonder if there will be something equivalent to on map training for ships (crew and officers) to reach the "trained" or "regular" status ?

 

[Nicolas I]

...One of the things I have thought about is letting civilian factories somehow build corvettes and smaller. These smaller vessels were specifically designed to be able to be produced by shipbuilders that wouldn't have been able to work on normal naval craft. That said, given that Civilian factories turn into or build other factories, I'd say this would be covered off already, in the abstract.

I know Canada's shipyards produced a good number of minesweepers, corvettes, frigates and DDs for the Battle of the Atlantic.

For most of their "ships of the line", they bought some aging UK ones.

For those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Canadian_Navy_ships_of_the_Second_World_War

 

[potski]

Depending on what's moddable, I've thought about the potential value of having two levels of dockyards - one for DDs and down (including convoys and subs), and another for CLs and up, but I'm not sure what it would bring to the gameplay.

Pretty much everything is moddable, including interfaces. Though that is clearly getting into a pretty advanced state - I don't remember anyone doing much with the interfaces in HOI3.

So let's say you can easily create a new building type as dockyard_large, define how much IC it takes to build, give it a different icon, and change equipment types so that carriers must be built in this new factory type for instance. And change the state files so that you say where these large dockyards existed in 1936. So some fair amount of work.

But then you have to redesign the construction UI to allow players to build new large dockyards, or to convert two or more dockyards into large dockyards. That, I think, is possible. But how do you tell the AI that it needs large dockyards?

I personally think their lack of dockyards generally, and their requirements for convoys, means minors won't be able to build capital ships in a reasonable time, and AI minors won't try. But also most countries would be lacking the steel needed.

If it really bothers you that a player of a minor could potentially build capital ships, even though it might take him more than five years, then the solution would be in the research tree.

The fact is that the major shipbuilding countries had a tradition of building large ships going back to Victorian times and the first iron clads. You simply make a large_ship tech, that is a pre-requisite of building BB and CV, that you give only to these ship building nations in the country files when the game starts. And to prevent small countries from researching the tech, just give it a research time of 20 years. Then give a naval focus in the generic tree that substantially reduces that research time by say 75% for any country which has more than 10 dockyards. So it is just about possible for a large minor without the ability to produce capital ships in 1936 to get them later in the game. That should do what you want, without changing any interfaces or causing problems with the AI.

 

[Axe99]

If it really bothers you that a player of a minor could potentially build capital ships, even though it might take him more than five years, then the solution would be in the research tree.

The fact is that the major shipbuilding countries had a tradition of building large ships going back to Victorian times and the first iron clads. You simply make a large_ship tech, that is a pre-requisite of building BB and CV, that you give only to these ship building nations in the country files when the game starts. And to prevent small countries from researching the tech, just give it a research time of 20 years. Then give a naval focus in the generic tree that substantially reduces that research time by say 75% for any country which has more than 10 dockyards. So it is just about possible for a large minor without the ability to produce capital ships in 1936 to get them later in the game. That should do what you want, without changing any interfaces or causing problems with the AI.

It doesn't actually bother me . Although going from what we saw in the WWW, a minor with three dockyards, no oil and just steel could build a Bismarck in five years, but as you say I'm sure we'll be able to give the AI sensible build preferences, so that Greece doesn't build three dockyards and then start a CV program, as long as it could afford the steel.

I agree with everything you say about the large dockyard type, and that's how I'd go about it if I was going to do it (it doesn't actually look like a huge amount of work - the most painful bit would be getting the new building into the UI in all the difference places in the interface it showed up), but I just don't see it adding to gameplay in a meaningful sense. We can (presumably, if past HoIs are any indication) control AI build preferences through the appropriate settings files, so there shouldn't be any trouble at all stopping the AI building capital ships. I'm mainly SP, so I'm not worried about MP issues, so as long as I'm happy not building BBs as Turkey, then I'm all good .

That said, I do quite like your idea of a "large shipbuilding" tech (or national focus) as a way of managing it if we did want to go down that path. Would be very easy to make it a 'tree', so you'd research destroyers, then CLs, then CAs, then a branching tree for either CVs or BBs/BCs. Even building destroyers was quite the effort for some of the smaller nations (Poland had a crack at it and didn't get them finished, IIRC, before hostilities kicked off, but had numerous difficulties building them for lack of experience with that kind of thing). That said, if there's no way to trade ships, this could mean some nations navies are artificially limited, as many navies received numerous vessels from the US and UK.

 

[potski]

It doesn't actually bother me .

Sorry, only meant you are very keen to make sure there are plausibly historic levels of research and production, that the sandbox doesn't go mental. And have rightly pointed out some potential problems.

as you say I'm sure we'll be able to give the AI sensible build preferences, so that Greece doesn't build three dockyards and then start a CV program, as long as it could afford the steel.

The AI production could be controlled in HOI3. This was done in the Lua scripts, and I changed these to include tests whether a country was a major (ic > 100) and was likely to be a naval power (number of ports). There are no Lua scripts in HOI4 as covered in the modding DD. AI scripting is not going to be moddable, we have to trust the devs on this one.

Although going from what we saw in the WWW, a minor with three dockyards, no oil and just steel could build a Bismarck in five years.

Can you point me at the WWW where that happened please. There's quite a few videos now, and I can't remember it.

That said, if there's no way to trade ships, this could mean some nations navies are artificially limited, as many navies received numerous vessels from the US and UK.

Ah, a well-spotted flaw. This wouldn't be possible

Unless you give countries allied to a great naval power access to the capital ship research.

I also think you could mod in some way to trade equipment, including ships. But a simpler way to add some flavour for the Commonwealth to get ships like that (it's HMAS Australia built in Glasgow, but paid for by the Australian government, but you knew that already ) would be a Commonwealth focus tree. In fact, given the size of the four Commonwealth nations plus the Raj, their contribution to the war from start to finish, unique relationship with the UK and overall factories and resources, this is actually a better option for their own NF tree, than some of the European single country focus trees being proposed.

 

[potski]

I wonder if there will be something equivalent to on map training for ships (crew and officers) to reach the "trained" or "regular" status ?

There isn't. Ships always are commissioned as green, and can only gain experience levels by actual naval combat.

 

[gamedude]

I like this idea. Makes complete sense that a country like Estonia should not be able to build aircraft carriers just because they have the tech. It would be cool to have to invest in naval infrastructure to construct such ships. In reference to the Netherlands it would make the port of Rotterdam far more important, making its defence a number 1 priority. I think that could add an interesting strategic asset to the game for players to secure and defend.

Any country can make an Aircraft Carrier, however it is going to take you a fuck ton of time with just one dockyard. So the question is, do you want your naval fleet to have one carrier or multiple destroyers and cruisers and some battleships? Just because Aircraft Carrier is OP does not mean it is the best ship to have. It is not a beast and is easily destroyed with the few aircraft it have.

 

[Axe99]

Sorry, only meant you are very keen to make sure there are plausibly historic levels of research and production, that the sandbox doesn't go mental. And have rightly pointed out some potential problems.

Aye, that's it - anything I do will be looking towards plausibly historic, and I'd be a little upset if any modding I did had Turkey pumping out CTFs .

The AI production could be controlled in HOI3. This was done in the Lua scripts, and I changed these to include tests whether a country was a major (ic > 100) and was likely to be a naval power (number of ports). There are no Lua scripts in HOI4 as covered in the modding DD. AI scripting is not going to be moddable, we have to trust the devs on this one.

Aye - while I didn't use those scripts, I had a look at HoI3's modding files and really liked the way they'd set up the various build options. Would have gotten into it if the operational AI would have made better use of what it built. As for what we can do in HoI4, I'd be surprised if we didn't have some control. Even in HoI1 we could control the emphasis on different types of production (although not to the level of detail we could in HoI3), and that was just bog-standard text files (it wasn't as nuanced as HoI3 mind, just mentioning that if it's been in HoI1 and HoI3 (and I'd bet in HoI2, but haven't looked), we're likely to have some modding control in HoI4).

Can you point me at the WWW where that happened please. There's quite a few videos now, and I can't remember it.

It was one of the later (but not the last, maybe, 2nd-3rd last?) WWWs with Johan vs Da9l, Da9l had four 15-dockyard runs of Bismarck's going on, with full steel and no oil, with production time being (I think - give or take for misfiring neurons) 1.08 years. Assuming a linear relationship of factories to production (which I'm pretty sure is the case, particularly for ships where there's no efficiency bonus over time), that'd mean three dockyards would give us a Bismarck in five years (or so).

I also think you could mod in some way to trade equipment, including ships. But a simpler way to add some flavour for the Commonwealth to get ships like that (it's HMAS Australia built in Glasgow, but paid for by the Australian government, but you knew that already ) would be a Commonwealth focus tree. In fact, given the size of the four Commonwealth nations plus the Raj, their contribution to the war from start to finish, unique relationship with the UK and overall factories and resources, this is actually a better option for their own NF tree, than some of the European single country focus trees being proposed.

I'd be a fan of your post just for the pic . Agreed, and I'm percolating ideas about ships - I don't want to have too firm an idea until we see what possibilities there are with mods, but I'm sure at the very least we'll be able to set up some events (but I'd much prefer something more dynamic, particularly for sandbox mode). As well as the intra-Commonwealth transfers, there were substantial transfers from the US to the UK and Canada, and even a few minor transfers back the other way.

PS - I like your idea of a CW focus tree .