Ship unit pictures

[Pappnase]

From what i've seen so far, in the tech tree for air and tank units, all major powers have their own unit graphics, maybe even the infantry weapons, not sure about that. But what about the ships? The pics here seem to be generic for every nation, so Japan has no Nagato, Yamato etc. The generic pics seem to be modeled after certain british ship types and aren't really that good-looking to be honest. So are these placeholders and will every nation get their specific ships at some point?

 

[Mevennos]

Well, Japan has no Nagato battleship tech, being a better variant of the Fuso class at Tier 1. (which is a whole different gripe in itself, for me at least)

However, the techs themselves are probably going to get proper art and map models. If I had to guess, I'd say that it isn't done yet, sorta like how the jet engine aircraft art isn't done yet along with a couple other techs that have generic art. Still got slightly less than two months to go, so there's plenty of time for them to add that stuff.

Every major nation should have these, but minors will have the same generic list, just as they will for tanks and planes. DLC could change this in the future however.

 

[Pappnase]

Alright just found a screenshot that shows the japanese Navy, so the Nagato is a tier I ship while the Kongo is tier II. I guess this comes down to the usual problem with how to classify the battlecruisers that certain nations had built. But still they should make some unit pictures.

Really strange however that the CV Kaga is from Akagi class, even though there is a separate Kaga class, that can't be right.

http://i.imgur.com/KQjhGAA.jpg

 

[chaostk]

Alright just found a screenshot that shows the japanese Navy, so the Nagato is a tier I ship while the Kongo is tier II. I guess this comes down to the usual problem with how to classify the battlecruisers that certain nations had built. But still they should make some unit pictures.

Really strange however that the CV Kaga is from Akagi class, even though there is a separate Kaga class, that can't be right.

http://i.imgur.com/KQjhGAA.jpg

The logic is:

For the CVs they want to use CV class names for the tech levels, even thought as of now both CVs and bigger CVLs are represented by it (maybe if in the future they add CVLs as separated, they won't have to change the name of the base CV tech?). So before 36 they had two choices for historical CV classes names in Japan, Kaga and Akagi.

Japan had 2 CVs, Kaga and Akagi, and one big CVL, Ryujo on start of 36. Ryujo is clearly smaller than the other two, so they decide to have Ryujo being base CV tech 1, with the other two being a stronger variant of the tech 1 CV.

Following that logic, it would either be Ryujo as Akagi-class, the other two as Kaga-class, or the opposite.

So it does seems intended to me, even if the result is weird.

 

[Wing_008]

to be honest, seeing the BB and BC tech tree for the first time during the stream made me cringe, i understand the reasons, but just seems to downplay the importance of some iconic ships, also seeing the A6M2 as a Naval bomber was very disappointing for me, yes the Hayabusa was primarily a land based fighter, but the Zero served both as a Naval and land based fighter, and it was more widely produced, but oh well

 

[Elouda]

to be honest, seeing the BB and BC tech tree for the first time during the stream made me cringe, i understand the reasons, but just seems to downplay the importance of some iconic ships, also seeing the A6M2 as a Naval bomber was very disappointing for me, yes the Hayabusa was primarily a land based fighter, but the Zero served both as a Naval and land based fighter, and it was more widely produced, but oh well

Actually, its specifically the floatplane fighter version A6M2-N that seems to be the naval bomber for some reason.

Though we haven't seen it yet, its very likely the 'regular' A6M is the carrier variant of the 1940 fighter (Ki-43 being the regular version) which is reasonable enough. The A5M seems to follow this pattern for the Ki-27.

Why on earth they chose the A6M2-N for the naval bomber I have no idea, especially given that the B5N precedes it and the B7A follows it. The B6N would have been a sensible choice progression wise, though the date would be off (its a '43 aircraft). Alternatively the B5N2 or the B5M would have been reasonable choices, or even making the early one the B4Y (introduced 1936), with the 1940 version being the B5N.

Of course, this doesnt even touch the can of worms that these are all carrier aircraft, and thus should probably be the carrier variants of these planes, with something else as the regular ones...

And then we have things like the Ki-49 as a 'heavy bomber' (1940, so analogous to the B-17 or B-24????), when this could easily be filled with the G5N.

As for the ships, just lumping all designs before 1922 into basically one class, variants or not, is a little...simplified. At the very least there could/should have been a distinction between the WW1-era vessels like the Queen Elizabeths, New York, Fusos, etc. and the 'pre-treaty' designs like Nelson, Nagato, Colorado, etc. Likewise for the BCs (again, Renown, Kongo, etc vs Hood, Amagi, etc.). With the current system, are the two pre-dreadnoughts (Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein) Germany starts with going to be the equal of Queen Elizabeths or Fusos?

Suffice to say, much modding will be required.

 

[Wing_008]

With the current system, are the two pre-dreadnoughts (Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein) Germany starts with going to be the equal of Queen Elizabeths or Fusos?

Suffice to say, much modding will be required.

it seems they went to great lengths to have a pseudo-symmetrical start.
also, the Kongo was actually built after the Fuso according to wikipedia, and was built as a BC, the game seems to feature the 1936 heavily modernised version, which can be classified as a BB, yet its placed as tier 2 after the Fuso, which was far more powerful, the Kongo had 8 356mm guns, the Fuso had 12 of them, and a thicker armour, what Kongo had was speed of 30 knots compared to the Fuso's 24.
secondly, and this really annoyed me, was the Amagi, a beautiful ship, extremely powerful, had a bigger 406mm guns and 10 of them, it had the speed of the Kongo and thicker armour too, it was superior in every way, shape and form yet its a tier lower than both the Fuso and Kongo, this is just wrong

 

[Axe99]

As for the ships, just lumping all designs before 1922 into basically one class, variants or not, is a little...simplified. At the very least there could/should have been a distinction between the WW1-era vessels like the Queen Elizabeths, New York, Fusos, etc. and the 'pre-treaty' designs like Nelson, Nagato, Colorado, etc. Likewise for the BCs (again, Renown, Kongo, etc vs Hood, Amagi, etc.). With the current system, are the two pre-dreadnoughts (Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein) Germany starts with going to be the equal of Queen Elizabeths or Fusos?

Suffice to say, much modding will be required.

Totally agree (except about Nelson being a pre-treaty design - the G3/N3 (whichever one was a BB) it was based on was though ) - there's a few of us with plans to mod it, but a lot depends on how the naval stats work. One of the bigger issues is that there was a larger range of performance within the 1922 band than there was in the 1936, 1940 and 1944 bands comibined!

On the ship pics, it looks like these will all be the same for each nation as well (in general, it looks like naval affairs have got less attention than land and air, although the new naval combat model does look good), but I'll be modding these if no-one else does, and one way or another it'll happen .

 

[Atlantians]

If you want to really cringe, look at the Japanese Tank tree.

The final tank in the tree is the 'Type 61', which was developed in the late 1950s and entered service in 1961 (thus the name), this tank was inspired by the American Patton tanks, and was designed to use an American 90mm gun.

Not only was this tank heavily reliant on non-Japanese technology,
not only is it reliant on American technology, of all things,
it was reliant on American technology that didn't even exist until after the war.

@podcat

 

[Mannstien]

If you want to really cringe, look at the Japanese Tank tree.

The final tank in the tree is the 'Type 61', which was developed in the late 1950s and entered service in 1961 (thus the name), this tank was inspired by the American Patton tanks, and was designed to use an American 90mm gun.

Not only was this tank heavily reliant on non-Japanese technology,
not only is it reliant on American technology, of all things,
it was reliant on American technology that didn't even exist until after the war.

@podcat

He already addressed that in a different post, basically they didn't want to just make up some paper non existing tank as that was the only other option which is fine by me either way, I can't see myself ever getting tanks that far as Japan, funny thing is I never did in HOI3 after hundreds of games playing them but the Naval and Air side makes me cringe though.

 

[Atlantians]

He already addressed that in a different post, basically they didn't want to just make up some paper non existing tank as that was the only other option which is fine by me either way, I can't see myself ever getting tanks that far as Japan, funny thing is I never did in HOI3 after hundreds of games playing them but the Naval and Air side makes me cringe though.

At least a paper tank would be indigenous and based on the technology of the day, not the technology of your enemies 15 years later.

I would rather them have simply not had a top tank, or had an unnamed generic tank, rather than a tank that didn't exist for 15 years and was based entirely on the designs of your former enemies after they conquered you and disbanded your military, and technology that they didn't even have until after the game's end date. It is absolutely ludicrous.

 

[Atlantians]

Wow, so many disagrees; so people actually want to see the Japanese rolling around in a Tank from the 1960s that was based on post-war American tank technology.

Amazing.

By disagreeing, you guys are saying that you actually would rather see a tank that makes absolutely no sense in the time of the game, rather than a tank that was designed but never produced, which was actually based on the technology of the time.

Amazing.

 

[Axe99]

I'm just waiting for the topic to get back to talking about ships again . (I didn't disagree with you though - I'm not really up on Japanese tanks - although have you suggested an alternative yet*? If you know better than them, but don't tell them what you know, it's hard for them to fix whatever needs fixing .

* I vaguely recall that Japan had a few prototypes later in the war that didn't get very far, although I've no idea if they had any designs/prototypes were up to that last MBT slot standard.

 

[Imminentstorm]

He already addressed that in a different post, basically they didn't want to just make up some paper non existing tank as that was the only other option which is fine by me either way, I can't see myself ever getting tanks that far as Japan, funny thing is I never did in HOI3 after hundreds of games playing them but the Naval and Air side makes me cringe though.

Why not just make something similar to the World of Tanks Japanese tree? They would need to take the STA-1, STA-2, Type 61, and STB-1 off but most of the others would make sense. Sure a lot of these were concepts and never saw production but why not let the player pursue development of these tanks?

As far as the Japanese naval tree, it definitely looks odd. Nagato should be higher tier than Kongou. She had heavier armor and bigger guns.

Though I do understand the challenges the Japanese ships present on this. Do you base tiers on ship capabilities or Chronology? Kongou was originally built as a British-style battlecruiser in 1911. However she was essentially re-built in the 1930s and brought up to full battleship status. So do you list her as a low tier BC or a mid tier BB?

Also the CVs Kaga and Akagi don't really belong to a ship "class". Both were one-off conversions of BBs to CVs. Kaga was intended to be a Tosa class BB and Akagi was an Amagi class BB. There was no "Akagi class" CV.

A big Naval DLC or mod may be needed to flesh out the ship types, the tier trees, and allow for things like type conversions (BB->CV, CA->CVL, etc..).

 

[Elouda]

Why not just make something similar to the World of Tanks Japanese tree? They would need to take the STA-1, STA-2, Type 61, and STB-1 off but most of the others would make sense. Sure a lot of these were concepts and never saw production but why not let the player pursue development of these tanks?

The main problem seems to stem from the fact that if you omit those, there's nothing to take up the MBT slot. The Type 5 Chi-Ri is already present as the 1943 Medium, and thats as advanced as Japanese armour development got in the time period.

I think the best option would have just been to use the generic name ('1945 MBT' or whatever) for it.

As far as the Japanese naval tree, it definitely looks odd. Nagato should be higher tier than Kongou. She had heavier armor and bigger guns.

Though I do understand the challenges the Japanese ships present on this. Do you base tiers on ship capabilities or Chronology? Kongou was originally built as a British-style battlecruiser in 1911. However she was essentially re-built in the 1930s and brought up to full battleship status. So do you list her as a low tier BC or a mid tier BB?

Also the CVs Kaga and Akagi don't really belong to a ship "class". Both were one-off conversions of BBs to CVs. Kaga was intended to be a Tosa class BB and Akagi was an Amagi class BB. There was no "Akagi class" CV.

A big Naval DLC or mod may be needed to flesh out the ship types, the tier trees, and allow for things like type conversions (BB->CV, CA->CVL, etc..).

Assuming that the ship models improve with date (so the 1936 BB is better than the 1922 BB), I think basing it on capabilities makes most sense. Kongo in this case, despite modifications, was still protected like a BC - she was rated as a BB after the first rebuild in the late 20s, only because her speed fell to just under 26 knots, which the IJN judged insufficient to call her a BC. After the mid 1930s rebuild they retained that rating despite the increase back up to 30 knots. In this case if there was a 'WW1 BC' model to cover vessels like her and Renown/Repulse, Kongo would probably be a variant of that with slightly better speed and armour.

Putting Kongo on the BB tree, as the 1936 model no less, makes her the equivalent of Bismarck, King George V and (probably, though I don't think we've seen the US tree yet) North Carolina. And while all 3 of those can be argued to be atleast somewhat in the same ballpack, Kongo is completely out of place in that lineup. One of the lighter A-140 studies or the Kongo or Fuso replacement studies might make sense as contemporaries to those. Or even the Tosa/Kii classes from before the treaties. Nagato is also a better fit.

Assuming Renown is the 1922 BC model for the UK (tried to look for a UK naval tree but no luck), theres very little reason Kongo should be anywhere else.

Akagi and Kaga are similar enough in terms of performance that you can lump them under one class, despite their origins. Both they and the Lexington's present a problem though, in that the treaty conversion carriers were generally superior to the early 'purpose built' CV's like Ranger, Wasp, Hiryu, etc. Which means if Akagi/Kaga are '1922 Carriers', and these early designs are '1936 Carriers' we have a similar problem to the above.

 

[Katarian]

Is the Bismark the German 1936 model now? Last time I saw it was the Scharnhorst. The UK had the KGV in that slot, presumably because they don't have anything to go into the 1936 slot if the KGV is put in at 1940 rather then it is historically comparable to other ships in that slot.

 

[Elouda]

Is the Bismark the German 1936 model now? Last time I saw it was the Scharnhorst. The UK had the KGV in that slot, presumably because they don't have anything to go into the 1936 slot if the KGV is put in at 1940 rather then it is historically comparable to other ships in that slot.

I was going by the tree in the WWW series, Scharnhorst was 1922 BB and Bismarck was 1936 BB.

 

[Pappnase]

I think the reason why they put the Kongo class one tier above Nagato here is for balancing reasons. This way, Japan starts with four BBs of tier 2 instead of just two with Nagato and Mutsu, so it's navy is a bit stronger compared to other nations.

Wonder how they classify the italian BBs, they also had upgraded their older BBs during the 30s.

 

[Katarian]

I was going by the tree in the WWW series, Scharnhorst was 1922 BB and Bismarck was 1936 BB.

I was probably going off older screenshots. Scharnhorst is one of many odd ships that is really going to struggle to fit into a game that uses standard tech tree for every nation.

 

[Atlantians]

I'm just waiting for the topic to get back to talking about ships again . (I didn't disagree with you though - I'm not really up on Japanese tanks - although have you suggested an alternative yet*? If you know better than them, but don't tell them what you know, it's hard for them to fix whatever needs fixing .

* I vaguely recall that Japan had a few prototypes later in the war that didn't get very far, although I've no idea if they had any designs/prototypes were up to that last MBT slot standard.

The alternatives are all heavy tanks. The real alternative is '1945 Medium' with no name, because that is all there is. Type 61 is just absurd.

The Japanese were on Islands. They didn't invest in tanks. They put all their resources into their ships.