Naval Design Companies Question

[grandad1982]

So yet again I've started a new UK game to try and get a prewar build up I like the feel of. Note I don't mean optimal, best, most powerful etc, I mean that I enjoy the most.

Having said that I still want to make sensible choices.

This game round I've decided that I will get CV2 as one of my first techs closely followed by BB2. I decided that as they have a fairly long build time so why not start early.

Anyway after a little fiddling around I have my 3rd set of 150pp and the CV2 is nearly researched and I want to take a naval design company. The BB2 isn't that far behind.

The obvious choices are Pacific designer:

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Carrier Size: +25.0%
• Carrier Armour Value: -15.0%
• Carrier Naval Range: +25.0%
• Capital Ship Naval Range: +25.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Range: +25.0%
• Submarine Naval Range: +25.0%

or the Atlantic designer:

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Armour Value: +50.0%
• Capital Ship Armour Value: +10.0%
• Capital Ship Attack: +10.0%

I am leaning toward the Atlantic designer for the following reasons. The first part of the war will be against the navies of Germany and Italy, neither of which will present a CV threat to my fleets and I'll be operating where my fleets can get good land based cover so while the extra deck space would be nice I think that the improved capital ship attack and armour are more useful. The extra range at this stage doesn't seem that useful as I don't really need it in the home waters or around the Med and by the time Japan joins I can get tier 3 ships with the extra range if needed.

What would other people choose in this situation and why?

I also have some more general questions regarding naval designers.

@Alex_brunius pointed out to me that air attacks have no piercing and therefore there is no interaction with armour stats. How important does this make the changes to CV armour? I would guess not very as they are so rarely engaged by surface vessels.

Does anyone use the coastal defence fleet designer?

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Carrier Carrier Size: -20.0%
• Carrier Naval Range: -50.0%
• Capital Ship Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Capital Ship Armor Value: -20.0%
• Capital Ship Attack: -20.0%
• Capital Ship Naval Range: -50.0%
• Screen Ship Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Range: -50.0%
• Submarine Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Submarine Naval Range: -50.0%

The production reduction just doesn't just seem to justify the negatives. Thoughts?

 

[Keralia]

Well, I would personally prefer the Pacific Fleet designer, as I prefer CV fleets to BB fleets, but its really just which doctrine you want to go down

 

[astec]

As UK, Pacific designer is completely useless if you are not going heavily down Naval dockyard spam + tier 3 carriers. You do not need the range boost, because the commonwealth covers nearly the entire globe and you can base your fleets pretty much anywhere especially with the entrance of the United States. IMO if you are going against a sub focused germany, coastal defence designer is pretty good, or if you think you will face Italian battleships go for atlantic designer

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[grandad1982]

Well at some point I was going to go tier 3 and get a few out but that's quite a few years away so I'll probably be able to change the designer again by then.

Doctrine wise I was probably going to stick with fleet in being since it fits my starting fleet best and that's mostly what I'll be using to take down the Italian fleet.

 

[Le Creep]

Does anyone use the coastal defence fleet designer?

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Carrier Carrier Size: -20.0%
• Carrier Naval Range: -50.0%
• Capital Ship Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Capital Ship Armor Value: -20.0%
• Capital Ship Attack: -20.0%
• Capital Ship Naval Range: -50.0%
• Screen Ship Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Range: -50.0%
• Submarine Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Submarine Naval Range: -50.0%

The production reduction just doesn't just seem to justify the negatives. Thoughts?

I like to use coastal defence fleet designer if I'm going for super heavy battleships. Even with the -20% armor no enemy ship (other than other super heavies) until 1940 tech can pierce it, and even then only BB 3 can. It allows you to build 25% more super heavies while maintaining more armor than enemy piercing. The company might also be useful for, well, coastal defence. Lot's of cheap destroyers to kill any enemy transports and and subs. As the UK you got plenty of ports so range isn't really an issue.

 

[Alex_brunius]

@Alex_brunius pointed out to me that air attacks have no piercing and therefore there is no interaction with armour stats. How important does this make the changes to CV armour? I would guess not very as they are so rarely engaged by surface vessels.

Indeed, if CVs are getting shot up by ships you did something wrong and are probably not in a situation where armor will save them anyways...

It would make more sense if this design choice added extra reliability instead, which actually reduce the chance CVs will be critically hit by air attacks as well ( yes I have tested this ).

 

[Axe99]

With the current naval model, I tend to go with Pacific designer, as carriers are king, even moreso than they were historically (the long battle times and ships spawning 100km from each other mean it's virtually impossible to 'chance' upon a carrier in bad weather, a la Glorious and Scharnhorst/Gneisenau) and it's the aircraft on carriers that count.

That said - I usually go with the Atlantic Fleet designer as the Brits as it 'feels' more appropriate historically .

@Alex_brunius - cheers for testing that reliability affects chance of critical hits on carriers (and that armour is irrelevant to air attacks - although hopefully that'll be changed down the track - no point building the traditional British armoured hangar carriers if the armour only works against surface vessels), that's very handy to know .

 

[Meglok]

So yet again I've started a new UK game to try and get a prewar build up I like the feel of. Note I don't mean optimal, best, most powerful etc, I mean that I enjoy the most.

Having said that I still want to make sensible choices.

This game round I've decided that I will get CV2 as one of my first techs closely followed by BB2. I decided that as they have a fairly long build time so why not start early.

Anyway after a little fiddling around I have my 3rd set of 150pp and the CV2 is nearly researched and I want to take a naval design company. The BB2 isn't that far behind.

The obvious choices are Pacific designer:

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Carrier Size: +25.0%
• Carrier Armour Value: -15.0%
• Carrier Naval Range: +25.0%
• Capital Ship Naval Range: +25.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Range: +25.0%
• Submarine Naval Range: +25.0%

or the Atlantic designer:

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Armour Value: +50.0%
• Capital Ship Armour Value: +10.0%
• Capital Ship Attack: +10.0%

I am leaning toward the Atlantic designer for the following reasons. The first part of the war will be against the navies of Germany and Italy, neither of which will present a CV threat to my fleets and I'll be operating where my fleets can get good land based cover so while the extra deck space would be nice I think that the improved capital ship attack and armour are more useful. The extra range at this stage doesn't seem that useful as I don't really need it in the home waters or around the Med and by the time Japan joins I can get tier 3 ships with the extra range if needed.

What would other people choose in this situation and why?

I also have some more general questions regarding naval designers.

@Alex_brunius pointed out to me that air attacks have no piercing and therefore there is no interaction with armour stats. How important does this make the changes to CV armour? I would guess not very as they are so rarely engaged by surface vessels.

Does anyone use the coastal defence fleet designer?

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Carrier Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Carrier Carrier Size: -20.0%
• Carrier Naval Range: -50.0%
• Capital Ship Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Capital Ship Armor Value: -20.0%
• Capital Ship Attack: -20.0%
• Capital Ship Naval Range: -50.0%
• Screen Ship Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Range: -50.0%
• Submarine Build Cost Ic: -25.0%
• Submarine Naval Range: -50.0%

The production reduction just doesn't just seem to justify the negatives. Thoughts?

The UK has so many ports that extra range is never an issue unless the Japanese are rampaging unopposed (not an issue in SP). So it comes down to deck size for carriers vs boosting CAs, BBs, and SHBBs. For SP the UK is usually fighting in restricted waters well in range of land air that can support and going against the Italians, Vichy, and Germans at least year before the Japanese are an issue. I go with FiB and Atlantic because that is the existing RN. It is capital ships with carriers in support.

@Alex_brunius please suggest that change regarding reliability for carriers to PDS.

Regarding Coastal Defense, only as a minor wanting to spam screens. Portugal comes to mind, plenty of colonies for bases, not much NIC and resources so you need to maximize it. Turkey, Brazil, the RAJ, maybe even Spain. Have wondered if it might be an option for the UK in MP, if there was a balanced War in the Atlantic being contested. Rely on your existing fleet and spam screens to fight subs.

Add Aluminum in Asia

 

[Opanashc]

Correct me if I am wrong, but is not impossible to design CV with Pacific company and BB with Atlantic one? It all comes down to having enough PP...

 

[Beethoven]

Best if PP is not an issue - pacific for carriers and coastal defense for everything else.

But if you can only have 1, coastal defense is definitely the best, especially for UK. This allows you to spam a large number of cheap ships, which you can then put all around the world. Because you have larger numbers of ships, it is also easier to attain and maintain naval superiority, to stop enemy naval invasions and to do your own. Range simply doesn't matter.

Coastal defense is even not that bad for carriers, for the UK in particular. Why? because the main benefit of having carriers as US is for convoy raiding. With coastal defnse, you can have more carriers, and hence can convoy raid well in more different places. And ultimately the more important constraint on carriers is having enough good up-to-date carrier planes, not deck size.

 

[grandad1982]

Hmmmm. Thanks for all the replies guys.

Its interesting that there is a more even split between Pacific and Atlantic than I'd have thought (I was expecting a basically clean sweet for Pacific despite personally preferring Atlantic for this particular choice).

The thing that surprises me even more is all the praise for coastal! A DD3 will only have 1000km range (I think it's km not miles) is that really enough, even with all the ports, to cover the most important parts of the mid Atlantic?

Also conversely since the production cost reduction is clearly more highly rated than I anticipated what do people think of the escort designer?

• Naval Research Time: -10.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Range: +30.0%
• Screen Ship Sub Detection: +10.0%
• Screen Ship Naval Speed: +10.0%
• Screen Ship Build Cost IC: +10.0%

By the time DD3 roles around I can probably dedicate a full 15 NIC to producing them so even with a 10% cost increase I can produce lots in a year, though not enough if I've had very large screen losses. How useful is that extra speed?

Based on people liking coastal I'm going to guess they are less keen on escort. Watch me get it wrong again.....

ps I went Atlantic for now but will use Pacific for CV3. My CV and BB research were only about 5 days apart so no chance of swapping designers between them finishing.

 

[PotatoesOfDoom]

Escort Designer is pretty cool IMO, but all of like six nations have it, most of whom don't really need it, so it's usually a moot point. The only nations with the Escort Designer are the UK, Japan, Canadia, Australia, the British Raj, and New Zealand. The UK and Japan should be getting Pacific/Atlantic/whatever designers to focus on their cars and bats rather than the light ships which are far more expendable and don't gain as much from this designer as cars do from Pacific or bats from Atlantic, and New Zealand is pretty much irrelevant [1] besides research sharing thanks to its six research slots and lack of literally everything else, so the only ones who have the combination of industry and lack of heavy ships to make good use of the Escort Designer are India, Canadia, and Australia. India and Australia have more important things to focus on than their navies, so the Escort Designer is pointless for them [2], leaving Canadia as the only country who can really do anything with it. Even then, the RCN will probably spend most of its time escorting convoys or hunting subs since the game is weird about putting allied fleets into the same battles which means a high risk of being wiped by the Regia Marina or IJN (also PDox add naval expeditionary forces pls), which means that using this designer eats 150 political power for little practical benefit with regards to prosecuting the war against the Axis except for the minor buff to sub hunting.

On the other hand, if you're going for the achievement for taking down Great Britain as one of the Dominions, then go for it. You'll need a navy anyways to bridge the channel, and the only other naval company for CAN, AST, and NZL [3] is a Pacific Designer, which will be totally irrelevant unless you plan on going it alone against the UK (not recommended).

TL;DR: Escort Designer would be cool but nobody who has it has any real strategic need for it.

[1] I managed to be vaguely relevant as New Zealand once in the sole ironman game I played in that country by beelining fighter research and horribly mauling the Regia Aeronautica over Malta and the Luftwaffe over Southern England and Northern France. Still struggled at times though due to lack of factories, which lead to loss rates outstripping production several times until my production efficiency worked itself high enough and I researched far enough down the industry techs.
[2] Mostly so, at least; I still remember fondly grinding my 8-ship squadron of light cruisers as India up to the maximum veterancy level by beating up on isolated Axis fleets, all the while bleeding them dry of convoys.
[3] RAJ has an Atlantic Designer which is far more useful for breaking the Royal Navy, even if it'll take more time to build capships in order to challenge ENG at sea.

 

[Meglok]

@grandad1982
Bermuda, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, plenty of bases. If you need them the Canaries and Azores (really need an Azores Occupation event for historical games). Plus you can easily afford to slap a couple of range levels on DDs as the UK.

Add Aluminum in Asia