Should the naval tech years be adjusted?

[Corpse Fool]

So... later engines were lighter (for the same output), and more fuel efficient.

Which is the opposite of what we are seeing in game currently. And even under the proposed changes, BB base speed doesnt seem to change so you cant go up in hull with a lower tier engine to save fuel/IC for the same speed.

 

[Caeric]

I believe that the AI is bad enough that you could rush bb3 and still beat them.

When it comes to MP, the meta is something that is going to suit the environment, either the ruleset, or whatever gentleman's agreements are being made. As an example, I like to look at the battletech universe, where giant expensive mechs are the main weapons of war not because they are particular good weapons, but because the mechs had a single pilot. They were treated as an extension of the pilot, an individual. The mechs became more about status and personal glory, they became the 'meta' choice because there was an environment that supported their use, even in the face of superior weapons like tanks.

Which is a long way to say that if you're doing MP, you could have some sort of ruleset or agreement to just... RP, like you intended.


I think this is more or less the crux of my concerns here. Did things get 'better' through the generations of pre/post treaty/war, or did they simply get bigger. Getting bigger isn't really what I would consider to be an advancement in hull design, it seems more like brute forcing like the yamato. If anything, I would say that restrictions like the treaty limits on size/guns would specifically motivate designers to find ways to get more out of what they're allowed to have and come up with, a 'better' design.

I'd say we're still well within the realm of the topic, that topic being more of the specifics of the designs of the battleships.

Of the 6 naval powers (USA, JAP, ENG, FRA, GER, ITA), only 4 of them even planned for a battleship outside of the mid 30's (ENG, USA, FRA, GER), only 3 of them would be a '39 design (USA, ENG, GER), and one of those wasn't really a 'complete' '39 design because the guns weren't ready and the plan got kicked along and slowly morphed into a '41 design (ENG). So that is 2 navies (USA, GER) out of 6 that seemed to actually have a workable design in '39. Which is more than the 1 navy that had a '40 design (FRA) or the other 1 navy that had a '41 design (ENG), but most ways you cut it that's only half the navies that this 3 year cycle seems to match, and I wouldn't call that most. Trying to take the average of 39/39/40/41, we get 39.75, which is closer to 40 than it is 39. That counts on discounting the lion though, which you disagree with.

Then you're fundamentally asking for something impossible since examples simply do not exist that aren't treaty-bound.

Secondly Vanguard is still not initially a 41 design. It's literally a bloody Lion clone modfied for a different turret. Until 42 after Prince of Wales sunk and some experience from the King George's engagements with Bismarck do they start to further alter Vanguard from the Lion-basis, at the same time they are also completely revising the Lion-class as well.

And you can moan about the gun all you want and it's still as irrelevant to the design of the hull itself. 5 prototypes of the 16" gun were even made. At best like I said although you keep ignoring it, it caused a production delay

Guns are generally ordered when the ship itself is ordered. They are designed in response to a demand to put onto a ship. Delays or not has no bearing on the ship itself. A delay of a year isn't even that big of a deal if you aren't at war.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Then you're fundamentally asking for something impossible since examples simply do not exist that aren't treaty-bound.

When you just quote the whole thing it makes it more difficult to figure out what you're talking about. Before you remade the post, you had quoted just the part about wondering if getting rid of the treaty actually made ships better, or if they just got bigger, so I'm going to assume you're still referring to that.

And my response is that I'm not really sure what you're saying we don't have an example of.

It's literally a bloody Lion clone modfied for a different turret.

Not just a different turret, a different amount of turrets as well.

Some of your word choices and sentence structure seems pretty... animate. Are you doing alright?

 

[Caeric]

When you just quote the whole thing it makes it more difficult to figure out what you're talking about. Before you remade the post, you had quoted just the part about wondering if getting rid of the treaty actually made ships better, or if they just got bigger, so I'm going to assume you're still referring to that.

And my response is that I'm not really sure what you're saying we don't have an example of.

Not just a different turret, a different amount of turrets as well.

Some of your word choices and sentence structure seems pretty... animate. Are you doing alright?

Dude, you literally take a design.. and add an additional barbette and magazine. Maybe rescale them a bit. Not that difficult. That is precisely the reason they approved Vanguard in the first place, it would save time. They had spare BL 15" Mk I turrets they had removed from ships converted to carriers that they could reuse to speed up the design and production process.

Vanguard was authorised because they wanted a new battleship before '43, a redesign, pauses in construction and an overall changing war situation meant she got delayed just like Lion, and delayed to a predicted date of '44 before being pushed back yet again. The only reason she was finished in the first place was because they felt she was so far along at that point that scrapping her was a waste

As for why I keep hammering this point is that it is literally in one of the opening paragraphs on any article on Vanguard, the fact that her basis is a modified Lion-class.

As for the last, I'm getting very very tired of having to repeat myself over and over.

Edit: I'll add an example of how big isn't always better; Bismarck. 50k tonnes yet has the same combat capability and protection approximately as Richelieu at a far smaller displacement. And Richelieu is actually faster with far better protected turrets and deck too. Oh, and Richelieu also wins in cruising range.

 

[Corpse Fool]

As for why I keep hammering this point is that it is literally in one of the opening paragraphs on any article on Vanguard, the fact that her basis is a modified Lion-class.

Which is what I meant when I said the lion class was delayed, and kicked along before morphing into vanguard. Vanguard design wasn't handed over until the end of april in '41. Even if we cut out all of the times design work was halted, there was at least a year of extra design work that went into the vanguard... which seems like a lot for literally just shuffling stuff around and adding a new barbette.

As for the last, I'm getting very very tired of having to repeat myself over and over.

Perhaps you should try saying something else?

Edit: I'll add an example of how big isn't always better; Bismarck. 50k tonnes yet has the same combat capability and protection approximately as Richelieu at a far smaller displacement. And Richelieu is actually faster with far better protected turrets and deck too. Oh, and Richelieu also wins in cruising range.

I think you're stretching how big the difference in weight was, to call it a 'far' smaller displacement. Full load richy was about 45k, which is only 5k short of bismarck. And sure, 5000 tons is a lot, but it's only about 10% less. I wouldn't say that 9 is 'far' smaller than 10.

I'm also not really sure why you what this example is meant to prove. A ship bound by the treaty came up with innovative ways (dual quad gun superfiring turrets placed forward, better engines) to pack more bang into the limitations imposed by the treaty, rather than just scaling everything up to 11? Shocking.

 

[Caeric]

Which is what I meant when I said the lion class was delayed, and kicked along before morphing into vanguard. Vanguard design wasn't handed over until the end of april in '41. Even if we cut out all of the times design work was halted, there was at least a year of extra design work that went into the vanguard... which seems like a lot for literally just shuffling stuff around and adding a new barbette.

Perhaps you should try saying something else?

I think you're stretching how big the difference in weight was, to call it a 'far' smaller displacement. Full load richy was about 45k, which is only 5k short of bismarck. And sure, 5000 tons is a lot, but it's only about 10% less. I wouldn't say that 9 is 'far' smaller than 10.

I'm also not really sure why you what this example is meant to prove. A ship bound by the treaty came up with innovative ways (dual quad gun superfiring turrets placed forward, better engines) to pack more bang into the limitations imposed by the treaty, rather than just scaling everything up to 11? Shocking.

I already told you that Vanguard wasn't substantianlly changed until 42 after the sinking of Price of Wales which caused an overhaul into the whole underwater protection scheme and bulksheads in addition to wanting more range (aka better boilers and turbines..) as King George was starting to run dry during her chase after Bismarck, but I'm not sure it's worth my time to keep repeating this to you. The reason it took so long for Vanguard to get laid down in the first place was that it took approval from First Sealord Churchill to get the project kicked off properly in 1940.

 

[zjmna]

Trying to take the average of 39/39/40/41, we get 39.75, which is closer to 40 than it is 39.

This is a deeply flawed argument, and honestly frustrating to read. The research date in game punishes ahead-of-time research, and is generally the date when people begin to research a tech. The in-game research date should come BEFORE whatever historical date we settle on. It's not a "round up to the nearest whole number" kind of situation.

And the Lion class didn't have a insurmountable flaw any more than the Iowas, it's just the US decided to spend the time and money to correct the (very bad!) Iowa turret flaws and the British decided not to spend that time or money. The Lion class was a viable design that started construction, but ultimately got de-prioritized and finally cancelled in favor of more pressing needs. The game currently doesn't have any way of representing the complex relationship between gun/hull design. In my opinion, within the context of a sandbox game, the player should have the option to begin construction of a Lion class battleship around the time they were historically laid down. Fundamentally, shifting these hull research dates a bit earlier opens up more player options during the war's timeframe, which seems in itself a positive result. As it currently stands the 1944 hulls are a kind of "future tech" like jet fighter II, and undoubtedly see less use.

While we're talking about rebalancing, the resource costs on higher tier hulls mounting higher tier modules is astronomical. Playing as the US I regularly consume literally all the world's steel in order to keep my dockyards working in 44/45. It makes a ton of sense that these upgraded hulls and modules should use more resources, but in practice the cost is unreasonably steep.

 

[Corpse Fool]

In my opinion, within the context of a sandbox game, the player should have the option to begin construction of a Lion class battleship around the time they were historically laid down.

You can. Like I had shown earlier, if you really wanted to you can get 'competitive' 1940 battleships hulls on the water in 1940. Its just that people dont want to actually do that, and for some valid reasons. The question changes to how we address the reasons we dont rush these ships.

But I guess this also begs the question of, what constitutes a lion class battleship? With the abstractions in game, how do we translate the real lion into game lion? How does this compare to other designs of the time? Does it actually need '40 tier modules/hull?

 

[GrandVezir]

Is it worth considering what techs are competing with navy in each year?

Off the top of my head, 1939 and 1940 both are crowded with techs that are considerably more impactful than any naval tech: industry, artillery, aircraft, medium/heavy tanks, computing machines. Meanwhile, 1937 and 1938 usually have long stretches where you need to decide what techs to research ahead of time.

 

[LordWahu]

You can. Like I had shown earlier, if you really wanted to you can get 'competitive' 1940 battleships hulls on the water in 1940. Its just that people dont want to actually do that, and for some valid reasons. The question changes to how we address the reasons we dont rush these ships.

I think manages to encapsulate the problem, though not in the way you intended

The problem is that '40 hulls can't be reasonably produced by '40

Whether or not you actually want to make capital ships is immaterial to the question. The question is "can there be a reasonable way to see it done"

Picking the tech first, or just hoping your focus tree gives you the right ahead of time bonus isn't a viable option 90% of the time. Not because it's not a smart option (It's true that it isn't, but that's a different problem), but because it's not a fun option.

 

[Corpse Fool]

The problem is that '40 hulls can't be reasonably produced by '40

Whether or not you actually want to make capital ships is immaterial to the question. The question is "can there be a reasonable way to see it done"

I think it should also be noted that getting '40 hulls out by '40 isn't really the historical target, I chose '40 because it was basically the limit of how early we could get them and I wanted to leave as much room as possible for the ships to have impact before the game was decided, which is often 1942. More historically though, sodak wasn't commissioned until '42, iowa till '43 (though they were launched in 41 and 42), concerns about lion was that it wouldn't be ready until passed '43, This gives us around 2 more years to get everything prepared, which puts a lot less stress on hard researching/production.

Picking the tech first, or just hoping your focus tree gives you the right ahead of time bonus isn't a viable option 90% of the time. Not because it's not a smart option (It's true that it isn't, but that's a different problem), but because it's not a fun option.

Fun being as subjective as it is, I personally would be extremely hesitant to try to claim that something is or is not fun. I remember building 4(iirc) SHBB2+5gun pre-MTG and having loads of 'fun' stomping on navies (and doing nothing else). Maybe I just didn't see it, but I don't think there was all that much concern about rushing fighter 2/3, or heavy 2/3 (in the Before Times, at least), or your industry techs, as not being fun. But rushing the battleships would be for whatever reason, not fun. It probably is the immense lead up time for what is ultimately a very small amount of difference. So, I think the problem is more about the impact that having 'next gen' (or even just more?) battleships has, compared to doing most other things. Making next gen easier to get doesn't really change that.

As previously mentioned, the only positives are +500 range which gets heavily diluted by the fleet, +2 speed which is nice but doesn't really really do anything noticable, +30 HP which after armour is more like +33 and I don't think that actually shifts damage brackets, reliability goes up a little bit which is nice to avoid crits which are generally more of the problem with giant HP pools like we see on these battleships. And we get an extra module slot, which means we could mount an extra heavy gun, secondary battery, some AA or a catapult. I'm not really sure what you would even do with that. I doubt that very many people just max out the heavy guns (3gun seems pretty popular), so generally you're going to have enough room to +1 gun already if that is something you wanted to do. AA is almost useless outside of the dedicated AA barges, and catapults should really only go on the scouts. Which leaves us with a secondary battery and thanks I guess, but... not much impact. Especially in the grand scheme of whatever handful of this generation getting mixed in with everything else, not much of a difference at all.

 

[Caeric]

I think manages to encapsulate the problem, though not in the way you intended

The problem is that '40 hulls can't be reasonably produced by '40

Whether or not you actually want to make capital ships is immaterial to the question. The question is "can there be a reasonable way to see it done"

Picking the tech first, or just hoping your focus tree gives you the right ahead of time bonus isn't a viable option 90% of the time. Not because it's not a smart option (It's true that it isn't, but that's a different problem), but because it's not a fun option.

By produced do you mean in service or under construction? I'm guessing the latter but guess it might be worth clarifying to avoid misunderstandings.

But yes, if the latter I agree.

 

[LordWahu]

Fun being as subjective as it is, I personally would be extremely hesitant to try to claim that something is or is not fun.

Fair enough. But that being said, I think my claim of "not fun" would apply to enough people where it's a legitimate statement

Wanting to make capital ships is definitely extremely debatable when it comes to fun. But making them by sacrificing so much in the process (nation choice, a full tech slot, etc.) I think very few people would appreciate more than once

I think it should also be noted that getting '40 hulls out by '40 isn't really the historical target, I chose '40 because it was basically the limit of how early we could get them and I wanted to leave as much room as possible for the ships to have impact before the game was decided, which is often 1942. More historically though, sodak wasn't commissioned until '42, iowa till '43 (though they were launched in 41 and 42), concerns about lion was that it wouldn't be ready until passed '43, This gives us around 2 more years to get everything prepared, which puts a lot less stress on hard researching/production.

By produced do you mean in service or under construction? I'm guessing the latter but guess it might be worth clarifying to avoid misunderstandings.

But yes, if the latter I agree.

Once again, fair enough. I was simply using the numbers quoted to push the point. Namely that ships can't be produced in a reasonable timeframe without some sort of trick

 

[dratheos]

In addition to more or sooner tech milestones: capital ships should be built in stages, similar to megastructures in stellaris.

First the "keel" is laid down, then the engine is installed, then the main armament, and lastly the modules/secondaries/fire control.

Then we could add more modern tech so all ships aren't inherently several years out of date as soon as they are launched.

(yes, you can sort of do this already by just making a "roach" battleship and then refitting it, but it's very inefficient)

 

[Caeric]

Fair enough. But that being said, I think my claim of "not fun" would apply to enough people where it's a legitimate statement

Wanting to make capital ships is definitely extremely debatable when it comes to fun. But making them by sacrificing so much in the process (nation choice, a full tech slot, etc.) I think very few people would appreciate more than once



Once again, fair enough. I was simply using the numbers quoted to push the point. Namely that ships can't be produced in a reasonable timeframe without some sort of trick

I mean, I was just curious what you meant? Unless you get a very good research boost having a finished 1940 hull in 1940 would be rare. So I was just curious if you meant have them under construction (partially done or at worst recently started) by this time or entirely finished as I didn't quite understand which of the two you meant?

And what I meant is I think ideally you should be able to have your 2nd/escalator-clause generation battleship at least partway in construction at this point even if it isn't finished yet even without having to rely on research boosts.

 

[Aeroclub]

Is it worth considering what techs are competing with navy in each year?

Off the top of my head, 1939 and 1940 both are crowded with techs that are considerably more impactful than any naval tech: industry, artillery, aircraft, medium/heavy tanks, computing machines. Meanwhile, 1937 and 1938 usually have long stretches where you need to decide what techs to research ahead of time.

1940 is one of the worst ones with all of: the planes, infantry weapons, electronics, AA/AT and tanks all coming at the same time - all of which would probably take a priority over ships...and also don't forget how many 1940 techs you would need:

1. Hull
2.Armor
3. Gun
4. Secondary gun
5. Radar (with a lot of prerequisites)
6. Fire control (with long computer tech a a prerequisite)
7. AA (with a lot of prerequisites)

That's SEVEN techs you have to research on top of all the other 1940 essentials that I've mentioned before! I mean, unless you base your whole game around the navy, it would be extremely difficult to even lay a ship down before the end of 1940.

 

[Aeroclub]

In addition to more or sooner tech milestones: capital ships should be built in stages, similar to megastructures in stellaris.

First the "keel" is laid down, then the engine is installed, then the main armament, and lastly the modules/secondaries/fire control.

Then we could add more modern tech so all ships aren't inherently several years out of date as soon as they are launched.

(yes, you can sort of do this already by just making a "roach" battleship and then refitting it, but it's very inefficient)

I agree that it would actually help if you could, say, upgrade the AA, radar or fire control on a ship while it's being built...which would be both realistic and help with the problem that we are discussing here. However, I think that would be a much more difficult rework that just move the techs up by a year.

 

[Caeric]

1940 is one of the worst ones with all of: the planes, infantry weapons, electronics, AA/AT and tanks all coming at the same time - all of which would probably take a priority of ships...and also don't forget how many 1940 techs you would need:

1. Hull
2.Armor
3. Gun
4. Secondary gun
5. Radar (with a lot of prerequisites)
6. Fire control (with long computer tech a a prerequisite)
7. AA (with a lot of prerequisites)

I mean, unless you base your whole game around the navy, it would be extremely difficult to even lay a ship down before the end of 1940.

At least 4-7 you can change later on at a relatively reasonable refit cost even if they aren't researched at the point you start construction. But otherwise yes. And again all this is competing with all other techs you'd realistically need for this time-period for your army and airforce of which only Radar and AA overlap.

 

[Aeroclub]

At least 4-7 you can change later on at a relatively reasonable refit cost even if they aren't researched at the point you start construction. But otherwise yes. And again all this is competing with all other techs you'd realistically need for this time-period for your army and airforce of which only Radar and AA overlap.

Yes, but it's extremely cost-ineffective. Adding a new module costs the price of the components plus a flat cost of around 800 for BB iirc.

 

[Caeric]

Yes, but it's extremely cost-ineffective. Adding a new module costs the price of the components plus a flat cost of around 800 for BB iirc.

It's not too bad imo, the component costs of secondaries, AA and radar & firecontrol are relatively low compared to guns, engines or armour. You can replace them relatively quickly despite this. Although I think the flat cost is probably too high for what is relatively minor alterations/additions.