Please Answer! Ship Ranges?!?!?!?

[Heruure]

Okay, let me ask our dear devs what they were thinking or let them explain that this is a typo?
This is what range the game said a Kongo class battleship aswell as a Fubuki class destroyer had.

4000km and 1500km????
To show on a map what kind of ranges we are talking of, here they are if they were based out of Hawaii.
The small circle is the Fubuki range and large is Kongo.

A Fubuki cant get away from Hawaai anywhere and a Kongo can just barely reach the US west coast from there.
Please tell me this is a typo!
Or is this just for missions and that they can rebase and actually transport further away, going one direction only?
In real life i just checked Kongo could reach from Tokyo to Miami without refuel using Panama.

 

[RMS Gigantic]

The more glaring issue here, as the person who wants to play as a US allied with Heruure's Japan, is that this range of 4,000 km isn't even enough to reach the Panama Canal from San Diego, the southernmost port on the west coast of the contiguous US.

If, as the United States, I can't even reach my own canal on my own continent without getting naval port permissions, simply for the sake of refueling my warships, from a country that might turn against me if I enact War Plan Red, this seems like a major problem to me.

If we're missing something here, please correct us.

 

[Axe99]

At first glance, that range is definitely far too small for the Kongo - once converted to oil burners (which for some in this class wasn't completed until after 1/1/1936, but I'm assuming they've run with the post-conversion stats, given there's no propulsion conversion in the game as far as we know) was 10,000 nautical miles at 18 knots, and the Fubuki's 4700 miles at 15 knots (from Navypedia, but those are reasonable ranges for those types of ships regardless).

That said, it all depends what those figures mean in-game. Unlike ships IRL, which burn fuel at different rates in different circumstances and at different speeds, I expect the range in-game is more a 'radius of operation' from a fixed point that wouldn't vary by speed or sea condition, so it may be some kind of compromise based on that. The distances across the Pacific did create substantial challenges for all the navies that operated there - from memory, the Japanese carrier force was pretty much at the limit of its range for the Pearl Harbour raid (although I don't know off the top of my head what the lowest range of the ships in that force was, and (in the no-way guaranteed case) IIRC there was a limited amount of replenishment of fuel at sea).

Just going from what we had in HoI3, that inner radius for a Fubuki looks smaller than an early-class destroyers HoI3 range (going from memory again), so maybe while the numbers look a bit off, when applied to the structure of the game they work out closer to how we'd expect?

 

[RMS Gigantic]

At first glance, that range is definitely far too small for the Kongo - once converted to oil burners (which for some in this class wasn't completed until after 1/1/1936, but I'm assuming they've run with the post-conversion stats, given there's no propulsion conversion in the game as far as we know) was 10,000 nautical miles at 18 knots, and the Fubuki's 4700 miles at 15 knots (from Navypedia, but those are reasonable ranges for those types of ships regardless).

That said, it all depends what those figures mean in-game. Unlike ships IRL, which burn fuel at different rates in different circumstances and at different speeds, I expect the range in-game is more a 'radius of operation' from a fixed point that wouldn't vary by speed or sea condition, so it may be some kind of compromise based on that. The distances across the Pacific did create substantial challenges for all the navies that operated there - from memory, the Japanese carrier force was pretty much at the limit of its range for the Pearl Harbour raid (although I don't know off the top of my head what the lowest range of the ships in that force was, and (in the no-way guaranteed case) IIRC there was a limited amount of replenishment of fuel at sea).

Just going from what we had in HoI3, that inner radius for a Fubuki looks smaller than an early-class destroyers HoI3 range (going from memory again), so maybe while the numbers look a bit off, when applied to the structure of the game they work out closer to how we'd expect?

I can understand a ship being at its maximum range when going from Japan to Hawaii without refueling for a two-way trip, but we are asking about how to transport a ship when its presumably one-way range ("maximum" is the word used in the information) can't even get from Guam to Hawaii, as the case is with the Fubuki, when the entire reason that the United States even acquired Guam to begin with, three and a half decades before HoI4 takes place, was so that ships could refuel between Hawaii and the Philippines.

 

[ringhloth]

A ship that can travel for 10,000 miles without refueling doesn't have a range of 10,000 miles. It's probably closer to 3,000, allowing enough fuel for getting there, back, as well as burning at a much higher rate in battle.

 

[Heruure]

The thing is, it specifically states MAX RANGE, max range means the range a ship can travel without needing to refuel.
You didnt read it through, did you?

 

[ringhloth]

The thing is, it specifically states MAX RANGE, max range means the range a ship can travel without needing to refuel.
You didnt read it through, did you?

It's the maximum range you can undertake combat missions. I'm certain that you can rebase a unit without worrying about range.

 

[RMS Gigantic]

It's the maximum range you can undertake combat missions. I'm certain that you can rebase a unit without worrying about range.

Alright, that's what we were kind of figuring internally after a while. Nice to hear it come from other people. Thank you!

 

[Heruure]

It's the maximum range you can undertake combat missions. I'm certain that you can rebase a unit without worrying about range.

That may very well be the case, but if its like that i would prefer they call it Combat Range and then have a seperate Max Range which is the rebase one.

 

[ringhloth]

That may very well be the case, but if its like that i would prefer they call it Combat Range and then have a seperate Max Range which is the rebase one.

There's really no reason to worry about the distance you can rebase at, though. Most ships could sail far enough that being able to rebase to a distant base isn't an issue, even if you're in the middle of enemy controlled waters.

 

[Daddl]

There will certainly not be a maximum range for rebasing. Players would get mad if they can't get their ships where they want them to because the target is two kilometers too far away.

For combat range however these figures are about right. Naval zones are huge and if you only barely reach one you will presumely get a hefty combat penalty in that one, just like planes do as well. And it means that Island hopping in the Pacific is absolutely necessary and even then you only barely have the range to reach Japan and the US West Coast with the earliest ships you have, which is good. Might guarantee that the Pacific war isn't over within 6 months, because war really needs to take longer compared to HoI3, and thats overall achieved so far.

 

[Wyrm]

I wish we could have fleet-oilers that extended the range of our fleets.

 

[Zaku]

I find this thread quite ironic, because some time ago we had a discussion about this. The arguement was about the same topic except with the opposite reasoning: a ship's maximum range shouldn't be the sortie range for it because combat and patrolling uses a lot of fuel.
Now it turns out that PDS actually made the system like that, and yet people still complain about it.

 

[Axe99]

I can understand a ship being at its maximum range when going from Japan to Hawaii without refueling for a two-way trip, but we are asking about how to transport a ship when its presumably one-way range ("maximum" is the word used in the information) can't even get from Guam to Hawaii, as the case is with the Fubuki, when the entire reason that the United States even acquired Guam to begin with, three and a half decades before HoI4 takes place, was so that ships could refuel between Hawaii and the Philippines.

While it's listed as "Maximum range", it looks like ships (as per HoI3/2/1) will operate 'out' from bases, rather than dynamically calculate how much fuel they have left and how far they can still travel, so I'd expect the 4000 for the Kongo and 1500 for the Fubuki to be how far out they can go from their base (their operation radius) rather than their base endurance (how far they can travel before the tanks run dry). I could be wrong though, am just going on past HoIs for this.

A ship that can travel for 10,000 miles without refueling doesn't have a range of 10,000 miles. It's probably closer to 3,000, allowing enough fuel for getting there, back, as well as burning at a much higher rate in battle.

Aye, agreed it's nowhere near as simple as the base range in perfect conditions at a set speed. Even so, 4,000km is only around 2,500 miles. That said, as per my post above, I agree it's a complex thing and we shouldn't get carried away before we see things working in-game.

There will certainly not be a maximum range for rebasing. Players would get mad if they can't get their ships where they want them to because the target is two kilometers too far away.

For combat range however these figures are about right. Naval zones are huge and if you only barely reach one you will presumely get a hefty combat penalty in that one, just like planes do as well. And it means that Island hopping in the Pacific is absolutely necessary and even then you only barely have the range to reach Japan and the US West Coast with the earliest ships you have, which is good. Might guarantee that the Pacific war isn't over within 6 months, because war really needs to take longer compared to HoI3, and thats overall achieved so far.

I can't comment on the Kongo, but that range for the Fubuki wouldn't allow it to get a quarter of the way across the Atlantic - the Wickes and Clemson classes had similar ranges and did plenty of Atlantic convoy duty, ranging a good deal further into the Atlantic than that radius would allow (and this is before their later DE conversions, boilers removed and fuel increased and the like).

 

[Zaku]

I wish we could have fleet-oilers that extended the range of our fleets.

While it would be historically accurate I think it would be bad for the gameplay. I think fleet tankers should be handled by naval doctrines.

 

[Ksyr]

1. Do we know if there are any Navy Chiefs or other political advisor giving a fleet range bonus?
2. I belive balance will be more important than historical accuracy.
3. Is the HOI4 world the same size as the real world?

 

[Diwtop]

This range only deceide wich sea zones you can join for sea missions!

Range is perfect now!

I think later ships get more max range!

 

[potski]

The more glaring issue here, as the person who wants to play as a US allied with Heruure's Japan, is that this range of 4,000 km isn't even enough to reach the Panama Canal from San Diego, the southernmost port on the west coast of the contiguous US.

As already mentioned, the distance is the operational range, the area you can patrol. The map shows you which regions, and even sea zones within regions, that you can patrol.

It does not affect rebasing.

IIRC there is a port in the Panama Canal province. Plus subs have much larger operational ranges, and they can patrol from San Diego over the regions close to the canal.

Anyway, convoys you can sink won't be going through the canal