Upgrades to Naval and Air Forces

[james_369]

Is the increase of the "type" of the Naval and Air Forces due to the year or Technology.
If technology can someone explain how it works?
If for instance I want to make sure I build Type III Light Cruisers rather than Type II what technologies should be researched before i start production. (I'm playing as Nat. China)
I am slightly confused as i seem to have just produced Type II Light Cruiser when in was currently possible to produce a Type III so i obviously need to wait for the correct design BEFORE i start production, so it would be useful to know when this was.

 

[browd]

This is really only an issue with ships, since their hulls/armor, engines and armament don't upgrade.

When you are in the production screen, select a proposed ship. The unit detail box (not sure how better to describe that part of the screen) specifies what year's tech that ship will have, and indicate its "level" (Type II vs. Type III in your example). However, you don't need to rely on that alone -- if you go to the tech page for that class of ship (escort vs. capital), check to see if that ship's hull/armor, engine and armament (hanger for carriers) techs are up to date. If those techs are all up to date, you are building a state-of-the-art ship of that type (and you can ignore other ship elements that might be out of date, like anti-air, ship radar, sub torpedoes and sonar, etc., since those upgrade after the unit is produced).

 

[james_369]

OK so for the example of Light Cruisers there are 4 main technologies (Light Cruiser Anti-Aircraft Armament, Light Cruiser Armour, Light Cruiser Engine, Light Cruiser Main Armament). Am I correct in thinking that these all need to be up to date before the type/level increases or is there one overriding technology that decides the type/level?

What i'd really like to know is if a type/level increase increases the base stats of the ship? or if it just represents the modified stats as increased by the research.

 

[KipAllen]

I believe that Anti-Aircraft Armament can be upgraded after the ship is built.Not so with armor, engine or main armament.

 

[Pugmak]

If you're short on leadership points for researching stuffs, focus on getting the hull, main guns and engine up to date then throw it in the build queue. KipAllen and browd are correct. Radar, anti aircraft and whatnot will upgrade after production.

It might also be worth while to have one or two sub standard models in the build queue while you're getting the research done on the model you want. It can be a problem to let the build practicals decay on big builds like ships.

 

[Kovax]

The "model" of ship is not important. Each tech upgrades the base stat of the unit, so it really doesn't matter if it says "Type II" and has some type III techs, or if it says "Type III" and still uses some type II techs. The ship will use whatever the base stats are, plus the tech advances already researched at the time you START construction. If your research unlocks better Engine, Armor, or Gun techs while it's in production, it will not get them. Techs at the time it's placed into production are what it receives, other than AA and the various spotting and targeting equipment, which can upgrade automatically AFTER completion as long as you don't turn off Upgrades.

 

[james_369]

Thank you very much for the information everyone. It was the ship "model" that was particularly confusing me and could find much in the way of help on the wiki. Just to be clear, and sorry to labour the point that i think has already been answered, but we are saying that Light Cruiser III is no better than Light Cruiser IV other than its technology modifiers.

 

[Kovax]

Light Cruiser III and Light Cruiser IV are the same base stats, except that one has more upgrades than the other. The name and picture are for amusement only, and have very little to do with the actual stats.

For example, I can build basic intro-tech INT as Hungary, and it shows an Italian Freccia (?) biplane. If I research all of the 1936 Interceptor techs, it STILL shows the same biplane, but it has the same stats as the 1936 German monoplane fighter. You can ignore the name and image if you like; only the tech levels are important in the game.

Note that many of the names and images are historically WAY off by introduction date. The German AT guns, for example, show mid and late-war AT guns by the time war breaks out in 1939, if you research them "on time". The images do not match the historical dates, and frequently have little or nothing to do with the actual performance of the unit.

 

[james_369]

Great, I did wonder why my Nat. China air force was still fielding bi-planes from the photo in 1941! Everything is crystal clear, thank you for the help!