Post by JagdFlanker on Aug 20, 2017 6:34:36 GMT -6
since it's been a while since i seen this around so thought i'd post it for the benefit of new players - it's all tiny bits of info Fredrick has posted since releasing the game
big thanks to galagagalaxian for compiling!
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There are a couple of shortcuts to change course:
Shift + left click on the map will change course for the selected division to the clicked location.
Ctrl + left click on the map will change course for the selected division to the clicked location and run the game until the division reaches that point (or something else pauses the game).
Also useful is the > key which will run the game 5 minutes if in contact with enemy or 60 minutes if not.
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Every ship leaves smoke tracks and when computing accuracy all smoke between the firing ship and the target are taken into account. So smoke from other ships might vary well come into it.
Smoke will move with the wind, but the ships are moving too, which means that smoke from the ship will generally appear to spread as combined vector of ship movement and wind movement.
Try to have the target not downwind, that will help.
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You can send any ship larger than a destroyer as a raider, provided they don't have short range or cramped accommodation, but as you have found out, the life as a raider is risky and there is a not insignificant risk that they will end up interned or even scuttled. A CL will raid just as well as a B, or actually somewhat better, so battleships make very expensive raiders.
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[Gun Data] can be used for calculating immunity zones and similar during construction. . . Note that this is nominal values that assume 90% [Degree?] hit angle. Penetration in actual battle conditions will often be less. And the data is for your guns and with your current tech. The enemy might very well have been evil enough to develop better guns or AP shells.
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Ships equipped with mine rails are assumed to carry out offensive mining in enemy waters. These are abstracted and cause enemy losses during the strategic turns, much like subs do. Minesweepers in active fleet or coastal patrol in the same area will reduce the effectiveness of these.
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[An asterisk next to a region name means] An enemy raider was active in the area last turn.
To clear this up:
Ships with long range will:
* Have better chances to escape interception as raiders.
* Better chances of sinking merchants if raiders.
* Better chance of intercepting raiders.
* Less risk of being interned or scuttled from lack of fuel.
* More fuel when a scenario starts (rarely of importance).
Ships with reliable engines will have:
* Less chance of engine problems in scenarios.
* Less chance of needing to return to base area when at sea (getting a *).
* Less risk of being interned or scuttled from engine problems.
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Thre is a small chance that raiders will take part in regular battles, especially in the colonies. This is to simulate that they have been recalled to take part in an important operation. However, when interned, they should not be present of course.
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You can move [Short Range Ships] between adjacent home areas. The manual should have been more specific
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Each battery firing at a target counts as a separate ship firing, adding to the cumulative penalty for more than one ship firing at the same target.
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Casemates add some slight protection to the hull compared to secondary turrets. The number of secondary guns do not affect flooding, but their magazines can explode.
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When to use [SAP shells] is really a matter of taste. The Germans were firing quite a lot of SAP from 12 in guns at Jutland, the famous hit on the Lions Q turret was from an SAP shell. I suggest using it in heavy guns against CA and CL and in medium guns against CL. The real conundrum of course is what proportion to load up with. That I leave to you. Real navies had different philosophies. The German KM in WW2 usually had 1/3 each of AP, SAP and HE. The British carried almost exclusively AP and some HE but no SAP in WW2.
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More hits than you have guns is possible at short range, as light guns can fire several times per minute.
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Night or bad weather engagements should be about 1/5 of battles in RTW. The real life sample isn't enormous, but quite a few WW1 engagements were fought in low visibility, Jutland (partly), Otranto (partly), Helgoland Bight, several Austrian destroyer raids on the barrage, Cape Sarych, Coronel, 1st and 2d Dover Straits, Östergarn... that is probably more than 1/5 of WW1 surface engagements listed already
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All nations are affected by raiders in Europe regardless of location, as it is assumed that all nations are trading heavily with Europe.
Similarly, coastal submarines are assumed to operate only in the home area of the owning nation.
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Secondaries of 6 in or less will tend to prefer DDs as targets, while larger guns will tend to prefer larger targets. This is not absolute however, range is a factor, and there is as mentioned above some fuzziness built in to simulate general confusion, visibility, targeting errors etc.
This is of course because larger guns are comparatively more effective vs larger targets. I guess the lesson for ship designers is, if you go in for heavy secondary batteries, make sure you have a decent tertiary battery to keep enemy destroyers at bay.
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As William says, the armour values are not absolute. Penetration in the game is modified for hit angle if it is belt armour, then randomized a bit for variations and for the fact that no belt was maximum thickness for its whole extent. There is also a modifier for the armour scheme of the target ship. Ships with WW1 standard protection, belt and sloping deck behind, get a hefty armour bonus to reflect the fact that it was vary hard for a shell to penetrate both belt and deck slope.
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Raiders do contribute [to mine warfare]. It is assumed raiders with mines will lay them in suitable sea-lanes etc.
It was a raider (in RTW terms) that laid the mines that sunk the Audacious for example.
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The damage of all kinds of projectiles actually benefits to a smaller or larger degree from HE shells research.
The penetration values are for AP shells.
Hidden flaws can affect other stuff as well, like AP shells being worse than expected or high dud rate.
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Magazine explosions are governed by the traits of the owning nation.
reaching its design speed etc is governed by the traits of the building nation.
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The templates used by the AI in designs are based on real ships, and the French did have some unusual cruisers at the turn of the century. Then when the AI modifies these designs, it can get even more strange.
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[Flat Deck on top of Belt] saves weight but at the expense of less protection. For battleships at least I would personally definitely prefer "sloped deck behind belt" before AON is developed. I depends a little on which type of ammo you can expect to face. Against HE I would say "flat deck on belt" is probably more weight effective, so it might be an alternative for CL, but it is a matter of taste.
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Barbette and turret armour are considered to be the same. It usually was very similar in ships. "Turret hits" in the game include barbette hits.
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there will only be one battle per month. However, the battle "offers" do not come in any particular order. If you refuse the first, there might be another one, and possibly a third. However, there is no function that smaller battles come before larger or anything like that, it's totally randomized.
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Real sustained rate of fire was in practice seldom more than one round per gun per minute for heavy guns, and often less. This is in marked contrast to the theoretical technical ROF given in various gun data tables, which many people take as gospel.
A lot of factors influence the real ROF like visibility, need to observe and correct fire, sea state etc. Then there are rather frequent mechanical failures where one gun will miss a couple of salvos before fixing the problem.
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AI SHIP TEMPLATES
The format is ShipType + aNumber for the time period (one digit 0-4) + X = Generic, can be beginning letter for specific nation + a number (one digit 0-7). The files should be in Data/Ides.
For example CA0X1 is an early generic CA.
DD2G0 Would be a later German DD.
You can add those that are not already used and experiment and see what happens. No guarantees. Note that the ships in the templates should use roughly the tech that would be available at the time. The AI will adjust, but if the difference is too big it might not manage very well.
Do not change the templates with higher numbers than 7, as they are used in special cases.
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The only effect [ships built over weight have] is that they have slightly less flotation than they would usually have.
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There will be 200 minutes of damage control after the battle is over, to let ships sink or burn or whatever. Torpedoes in the water are not handled though. The occasions where combat is actually going on after double the nominal scenario length are very few in my experience.
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Torpedo hits on enemy ships are indeed somewhat over-reported, just as they were historically.
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Guns of the same calibre weigh the same regardless of quality. The quality values can represent a lot of things, either short barrelled or simply inferior designs. Like for example the British 9.2 in that was considered a poor gun and apparently never got better, or the German 11 in of WW1 that was considered almost equivalent to British 12 in. Note though that quality affects only range and penetration, not damage done by hits. So if a 9 in -1 gun hits and penetrates, it will do more damage than an 8 in +1.
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The quality differences in the game will not go outside -1 to +1. except for the initial -2 guns that represent older designs.
Gun quality has a slight indirect effect of accuracy, in that the range as a proportion of maximum range is a factor in determining base accuracy. However, there are a host of other research based factors in RTW that affect both ROF, accuracy, penetration, range and damage, so gun quality is only one among many factors.
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AI targeting is first at division level, then at ship level. The AI will tend to prioritize formations over single ships when targeting. Sometimes, when the enemy has a single BB and a B squadron, that might be sub-optimal, but if the BB is closer, they should eventually target that.
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Sinking ships are vulnerable to magazine explosions, though often most turrets have been destroyed and the magazines are assumed to be flooded, so the overall risk is smaller than for a non-sinking ship.
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Mines tended to be more of a deterrent on coastal attacks than gun batteries, and both in combination tended to make things very uncomfortable for an attacker, as shown at the Dardanelles. You may not have noticed, but in RTW each coastal battery will generate its own minefields in the vicinity, just like bases, to simulate the effects of integrated coastal defenses.
Shore batteries also help generate more defensive minefields in the vicinity, so you might actually see them as part of an integrated coastal defense.
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Deck mounted [torpedo] tubes have no reloads. Submerged tubes have two reloads per tube. Reloading takes between 30 and 50 minutes.
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The type of battle is randomized. It is to some extent affected by your force disposition, if you have cruisers all over the World for example, you can expect more cruiser battles in distant areas. Normally, about 20% of battles should be Fleet Battles, so the prevalence of fleet battles in your game is probably up to chance.
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[“Baffled By” and “Stumped by” messages] means that they are working on the mentioned area, but that a substantial amount of the accumulated research points has been lost. You can expect them to complete the research of whatever they are researching but with a delay.
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Oil fuel increases engine cost by 40% when new, but the increase in cost will go down gradually to 10% with increasing engine development.
Similarly, oil fuel will reduce engine weight more with increasing engine development.
So, as with many new technologies, it will become cheaper and more effective when it has matured.
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Any division can be put on Patrol orders. It will then just cruise about it's current location until given a different role. Useful if you want to put a vidette* somewhere to watch a likely approach route. But it assumes you have plentiful light forces and can afford to shed some of them.
*a mounted sentinel stationed in advance of pickets
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You can have any number of raiders in an area, it dies not affect the risk, but all raiders have a risk of getting interned or scuttled.
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Many techs are such that once it is invented by someone, it will be easier for other nations to invent them. And tech diffusion is considerable.
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you can set your own ammo use policy in the training screen. All ammo types have their advantages and disadvantages, and will have slightly different effects. HE shells that don't penetrate will do more superstructure damage than a non-penetrating AP shell for example. So what to use is largely a matter of taste and "feeling".
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Range and penetration is the same for secondary guns as for main guns of the same calibre and quality. Secondaries are penalized in hit chance compared to main guns, but no additional effect for casemates. You can study the detailed hit chances for secondary guns in the ship screen, just as for main guns.
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The museum ship offer [when scrapping] is random, and it can only happen to a ship with a considerable combat record.
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Single mounts with 2 inches or less for guns 6 in and below are assumed to be shielded mounts. Such a mount is lighter than a single turret would be, but gives less protection against splinters. That is why they are dis-proportionally light. And this is intentional. In the period of RTW, twin turrets for light cruisers were not used very much, because shielded mounts were lighter and cheaper
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There is a damage result from superstructure hits or near misses that can include crews cut down of unarmored or shielded guns. It will be reported as "Gun crews cut down by splinters". One can debate whether it should be more frequent, but the effect is there.
For main guns, the mount is disabled. It may come online again, but it will take some time to whisk up replacements for the gun crew. For secondaries and tertiaries, the mount is knocked out (they don't have a disabled status).
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The AI will have roughly the same information you get from the almanac for its decision-making. Though espionage is also simulated.
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setting all research areas to high makes absolutely no difference compared to setting all to low. It is only a relative distribution of the research budget.
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Crew quality affects hitting, spotting, damage control and ROF as well as night mishaps and misunderstanding of signals.
It is not necessarily so that a better crew will fire faster. In some situations with low hit chances a good crew might conserve ammo while a poor one will fire away indiscriminately.
Crew quality will also affect ROF indirectly in that a better crew will have a better chance of clearing turret jams.
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ROF interacts with hitting in the game in that once a ship has a straddle or hit, it will go to rapid fire with both higher ROF and hit chances until it fails to straddle. And in rapid fire, crew quality has an additional effect, so a better crew will fire faster in rapid fire.
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Every cruiser type ship (including BC) get an interception roll against raiders in their area. The chance to intercept is modified by a number of factors. For example, if there are enemy battlecruisers in the area, your battlecruisers get a lower intercept chance against non-BC raiders as it is assumed they will be occupied with keeping an eye on their opposite numbers.
Range and speed of both the raider and the intercepting ship will affect it. Also AMC raiders are harder to find as they can to try to slip by looking as merchants.
Reliability does not affect interception but has other effects.
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You might experiment with high HE research and instructing your ships to fire HE at battleships at long and medium range early in the game. AP shells don't have very reliable penetration and don't do much damage early in the game whereas HE have a good chance of starting fires which are the Achilles heel of pre-dreadnoughts.
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Coastal subs have shorter endurance so will only appear reasonably close to your bases. They also sink fewer merchants for the same reason.
Minelaying subs do actually lay mines, not tactically but they contribute to the mine level in an area and thus to enemy-ship-striking-mine events in the strategic game. Otherwise they work as medium subs but with fewer torpedoes.
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Battleships are less likely to target DD with main batteries, and will only do so if they have plenty of ammo.
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[Conning Tower Hits are] actually quite harmful. If it penetrates it can cause some or all of:
Reduce Fire control one level
Reduce crew quality by one for the rest of the battle (to simulate general loss of efficiency and senior officer casualties).
Lock the course of the ship for up to 8 minutes (simulating temporary confusion and loss of control).
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There is a much lower chance of flash fires for light and medium guns, and for CL, but it can happen.
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[Penetration Values] do not stop changing at 20000 yards, it was just an arbitrary cutoff for the display.
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Yes, if the player (or another nation, but lets face it, it is most often the player doing outside the box stuff) has a large tonnage of CL, the AI will decide it has to do something about them, and that will be larger numbers of CA or BC, more likely BC after their appearance has made CA obsolescent.
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There is such a "Learning function" in the game.
It is specific to flash fires. After a couple of bangs they will begin to suspect something could be improved.
[Translation, having ships explode from flash fires reduces the chances of that nation’s ships exploding in the future]
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If you put research into something that is maxed out or not available yet, the points are redistributed to the other areas so the research is never wasted.
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The chances of engine malfunctions increase if running at high speeds for long time, but there is some randomness involved so it could happen anytime but it is unlikely. Of course it also depends on engine reliability. Ships built with speed priority for engines are more likely to have malfunctions.
It does not have to be dependent on ship age, new ships often had troubles during their working up period or early service life. For example the Lützow spent several months correcting engine defects when new.
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The advantages of improved and advanced director are primarily at longer ranges.
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Crossing the T is normally advantageous for a number of reasons, but not as devastating as one might think or as in the age of sail.
Crossing the T of an enemy ship will actually somewhat counter intuitively reduce your hit chances because the hit area of the target will be much smaller when end on and the longer depth of the target will not be enough to compensate. So in RTW there is a modifier for target aspect that will be shown in the to hit details (-10 or -20 depending on the angle) .
Another thing that will usually affect hit rates if a formation crosses the T of another formation is that the leading enemy ships will likely be targeted by several of your ships, which will further reduce the hit chance.
On the other hand the enemy ships will only be able to reply with their forward guns and at progressively higher ranges.
Crossing the T in a fleet battle is in my experience usually good. I have not been out-shot like you describe, what happens is often that the enemy fleet will turn and there will be a general bunching in the enemy formation that will most often work out to your advantage.
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There is such an effect for destroyers and submarines. You sometimes gets an event that speeds up the construction when many similar units have been built.
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There are two occurrences that can make a ship go bang in RTW:
1. Penetrating turret hits, can cause flash fires through flash propagation into the magazine.
2. Outright magazine hit that sets off the magazine directly.
The chance/risk of them happening is modified by research, learning, time and nationality.
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ROF in RTW is considerably toned down from the theoretical numbers given by gun manufacturers (or used by some other games)
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[Ships] will fire slower when they are running low on ammo, especially on low priority targets.
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It is possible to mod or add events to the events file, there is room for up to 99 events and only 75 are used as of now. The trick, as bcoopactual points out is knowing what the conditions and effect codes do, and conditions and effects would be limited to those that are in the game mechanisms. I could write up an explanation when I have the time but please realize that I have to split my available time between coding and doing documentation to facilitate modding.
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Uptakes are protected by BE armour.
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There are two kinds of hits, bridge hits and conning tower (CT) hits. CT armour protects against the latter but not the former. The reasoning is that only a small part of the command staff would be in the rather cramped CT, ad a bridge hit might incapacitate a lot of other command or signalling personnel, or even have splinters entering the CT through the vision slits (yes it happened). A penetrating CT hit is more damaging than a bridge hit.
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Some of the early engine techs will adjust the speed/hp/engine weight calculations for some ship classes. This was done to enable the construction of historical designs. For example the evolution of protected cruisers to light cruisers was much dependent on advances in engine technology. However, this a series of gradual shifts and not easy to write up in a complete list.
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Ships on coastal patrol have a chance to show up as patrolling ships in battles in the area where they patrol. If too few are available, some generic patrol boats of very limited value except reporting the enemy will be thrown in.
The type of ship will also influence how effective they are against submarines, with MS and DD being best. Obsolete ships will perform be less effective. Q-ships (AMC) can be effective against subs if you have invented q-ships.
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The program assumes that turret top armor is slightly sloped, at least for part of the turret, so shell penetration is somewhat better against turret tops that against decks. For heavy guns I would recommend a little more armor for TT than D, just as was common in historical ships.
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The AI is not geared to using light cruisers as [Kitakami style] torpedo platforms.
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Overweight ships will have an increased risk of not reaching their design speed, underweight will make no difference.
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New oil finds are completely randomized
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Generally the following are the limits for change before it becomes an entirely new design with no discount.
* Displacement can increase by a maximum of 10% or 1000 tons.
* Main guns over 6 in cannot be changed.
* Secondary guns over 6 in can be changed to a limited extent.
* Speed can be changed by one knot.
* Vertical armor can be changed by one in and horizontal armor by half an in.
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The battle system is not rigged. It is based on setting up relatively equal forces, but there is an element of randomization to get the possibility to come up against something stronger or weaker. In most cases, you will meet a more or less equal force, but it wouldn't be very fun if you knew that you are always meeting an evenly matched enemy force, thus some randomization. However, the randomization is not skewed to benefit the enemy!
In some battles, notably fleet battles, total force in the area will have an influence on the number of ships fielded in battles.
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At present, development of sigint influences intercepts and the frequency of catching the enemy with no option to decline the battle. Other than that, there is no effects of research on the areas you mention, but it is an interesting thought.
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There is however a difference between the effectiveness of submarines when a nation is blockading the enemy. Enemy shipping is assumed to be much reduced by the blockade, so the submarines of the blockading nation will find fewer targets.
Ships on ASW patrol will reduce merchant sinkings by submarines, but not warship sinkings by submarines.
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Fire control positions are for artillery only. They do not affect torpedoes. A ship will not fire torpedoes at more than one target in a turn.
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big thanks to galagagalaxian for compiling!
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There are a couple of shortcuts to change course:
Shift + left click on the map will change course for the selected division to the clicked location.
Ctrl + left click on the map will change course for the selected division to the clicked location and run the game until the division reaches that point (or something else pauses the game).
Also useful is the > key which will run the game 5 minutes if in contact with enemy or 60 minutes if not.
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Every ship leaves smoke tracks and when computing accuracy all smoke between the firing ship and the target are taken into account. So smoke from other ships might vary well come into it.
Smoke will move with the wind, but the ships are moving too, which means that smoke from the ship will generally appear to spread as combined vector of ship movement and wind movement.
Try to have the target not downwind, that will help.
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You can send any ship larger than a destroyer as a raider, provided they don't have short range or cramped accommodation, but as you have found out, the life as a raider is risky and there is a not insignificant risk that they will end up interned or even scuttled. A CL will raid just as well as a B, or actually somewhat better, so battleships make very expensive raiders.
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[Gun Data] can be used for calculating immunity zones and similar during construction. . . Note that this is nominal values that assume 90% [Degree?] hit angle. Penetration in actual battle conditions will often be less. And the data is for your guns and with your current tech. The enemy might very well have been evil enough to develop better guns or AP shells.
-----------------
Ships equipped with mine rails are assumed to carry out offensive mining in enemy waters. These are abstracted and cause enemy losses during the strategic turns, much like subs do. Minesweepers in active fleet or coastal patrol in the same area will reduce the effectiveness of these.
-----------------
[An asterisk next to a region name means] An enemy raider was active in the area last turn.
To clear this up:
Ships with long range will:
* Have better chances to escape interception as raiders.
* Better chances of sinking merchants if raiders.
* Better chance of intercepting raiders.
* Less risk of being interned or scuttled from lack of fuel.
* More fuel when a scenario starts (rarely of importance).
Ships with reliable engines will have:
* Less chance of engine problems in scenarios.
* Less chance of needing to return to base area when at sea (getting a *).
* Less risk of being interned or scuttled from engine problems.
-----------------
Thre is a small chance that raiders will take part in regular battles, especially in the colonies. This is to simulate that they have been recalled to take part in an important operation. However, when interned, they should not be present of course.
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You can move [Short Range Ships] between adjacent home areas. The manual should have been more specific
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Each battery firing at a target counts as a separate ship firing, adding to the cumulative penalty for more than one ship firing at the same target.
-----------------
Casemates add some slight protection to the hull compared to secondary turrets. The number of secondary guns do not affect flooding, but their magazines can explode.
-----------------
When to use [SAP shells] is really a matter of taste. The Germans were firing quite a lot of SAP from 12 in guns at Jutland, the famous hit on the Lions Q turret was from an SAP shell. I suggest using it in heavy guns against CA and CL and in medium guns against CL. The real conundrum of course is what proportion to load up with. That I leave to you. Real navies had different philosophies. The German KM in WW2 usually had 1/3 each of AP, SAP and HE. The British carried almost exclusively AP and some HE but no SAP in WW2.
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More hits than you have guns is possible at short range, as light guns can fire several times per minute.
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Night or bad weather engagements should be about 1/5 of battles in RTW. The real life sample isn't enormous, but quite a few WW1 engagements were fought in low visibility, Jutland (partly), Otranto (partly), Helgoland Bight, several Austrian destroyer raids on the barrage, Cape Sarych, Coronel, 1st and 2d Dover Straits, Östergarn... that is probably more than 1/5 of WW1 surface engagements listed already
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All nations are affected by raiders in Europe regardless of location, as it is assumed that all nations are trading heavily with Europe.
Similarly, coastal submarines are assumed to operate only in the home area of the owning nation.
-----------------
Secondaries of 6 in or less will tend to prefer DDs as targets, while larger guns will tend to prefer larger targets. This is not absolute however, range is a factor, and there is as mentioned above some fuzziness built in to simulate general confusion, visibility, targeting errors etc.
This is of course because larger guns are comparatively more effective vs larger targets. I guess the lesson for ship designers is, if you go in for heavy secondary batteries, make sure you have a decent tertiary battery to keep enemy destroyers at bay.
-----------------
As William says, the armour values are not absolute. Penetration in the game is modified for hit angle if it is belt armour, then randomized a bit for variations and for the fact that no belt was maximum thickness for its whole extent. There is also a modifier for the armour scheme of the target ship. Ships with WW1 standard protection, belt and sloping deck behind, get a hefty armour bonus to reflect the fact that it was vary hard for a shell to penetrate both belt and deck slope.
-----------------
Raiders do contribute [to mine warfare]. It is assumed raiders with mines will lay them in suitable sea-lanes etc.
It was a raider (in RTW terms) that laid the mines that sunk the Audacious for example.
-----------------
The damage of all kinds of projectiles actually benefits to a smaller or larger degree from HE shells research.
The penetration values are for AP shells.
Hidden flaws can affect other stuff as well, like AP shells being worse than expected or high dud rate.
-----------------
Magazine explosions are governed by the traits of the owning nation.
reaching its design speed etc is governed by the traits of the building nation.
-----------------
The templates used by the AI in designs are based on real ships, and the French did have some unusual cruisers at the turn of the century. Then when the AI modifies these designs, it can get even more strange.
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[Flat Deck on top of Belt] saves weight but at the expense of less protection. For battleships at least I would personally definitely prefer "sloped deck behind belt" before AON is developed. I depends a little on which type of ammo you can expect to face. Against HE I would say "flat deck on belt" is probably more weight effective, so it might be an alternative for CL, but it is a matter of taste.
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Barbette and turret armour are considered to be the same. It usually was very similar in ships. "Turret hits" in the game include barbette hits.
-----------------
there will only be one battle per month. However, the battle "offers" do not come in any particular order. If you refuse the first, there might be another one, and possibly a third. However, there is no function that smaller battles come before larger or anything like that, it's totally randomized.
-----------------
Real sustained rate of fire was in practice seldom more than one round per gun per minute for heavy guns, and often less. This is in marked contrast to the theoretical technical ROF given in various gun data tables, which many people take as gospel.
A lot of factors influence the real ROF like visibility, need to observe and correct fire, sea state etc. Then there are rather frequent mechanical failures where one gun will miss a couple of salvos before fixing the problem.
-----------------
AI SHIP TEMPLATES
The format is ShipType + aNumber for the time period (one digit 0-4) + X = Generic, can be beginning letter for specific nation + a number (one digit 0-7). The files should be in Data/Ides.
For example CA0X1 is an early generic CA.
DD2G0 Would be a later German DD.
You can add those that are not already used and experiment and see what happens. No guarantees. Note that the ships in the templates should use roughly the tech that would be available at the time. The AI will adjust, but if the difference is too big it might not manage very well.
Do not change the templates with higher numbers than 7, as they are used in special cases.
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The only effect [ships built over weight have] is that they have slightly less flotation than they would usually have.
-----------------
There will be 200 minutes of damage control after the battle is over, to let ships sink or burn or whatever. Torpedoes in the water are not handled though. The occasions where combat is actually going on after double the nominal scenario length are very few in my experience.
-----------------
Torpedo hits on enemy ships are indeed somewhat over-reported, just as they were historically.
-----------------
Guns of the same calibre weigh the same regardless of quality. The quality values can represent a lot of things, either short barrelled or simply inferior designs. Like for example the British 9.2 in that was considered a poor gun and apparently never got better, or the German 11 in of WW1 that was considered almost equivalent to British 12 in. Note though that quality affects only range and penetration, not damage done by hits. So if a 9 in -1 gun hits and penetrates, it will do more damage than an 8 in +1.
-----------------
The quality differences in the game will not go outside -1 to +1. except for the initial -2 guns that represent older designs.
Gun quality has a slight indirect effect of accuracy, in that the range as a proportion of maximum range is a factor in determining base accuracy. However, there are a host of other research based factors in RTW that affect both ROF, accuracy, penetration, range and damage, so gun quality is only one among many factors.
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AI targeting is first at division level, then at ship level. The AI will tend to prioritize formations over single ships when targeting. Sometimes, when the enemy has a single BB and a B squadron, that might be sub-optimal, but if the BB is closer, they should eventually target that.
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Sinking ships are vulnerable to magazine explosions, though often most turrets have been destroyed and the magazines are assumed to be flooded, so the overall risk is smaller than for a non-sinking ship.
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Mines tended to be more of a deterrent on coastal attacks than gun batteries, and both in combination tended to make things very uncomfortable for an attacker, as shown at the Dardanelles. You may not have noticed, but in RTW each coastal battery will generate its own minefields in the vicinity, just like bases, to simulate the effects of integrated coastal defenses.
Shore batteries also help generate more defensive minefields in the vicinity, so you might actually see them as part of an integrated coastal defense.
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Deck mounted [torpedo] tubes have no reloads. Submerged tubes have two reloads per tube. Reloading takes between 30 and 50 minutes.
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The type of battle is randomized. It is to some extent affected by your force disposition, if you have cruisers all over the World for example, you can expect more cruiser battles in distant areas. Normally, about 20% of battles should be Fleet Battles, so the prevalence of fleet battles in your game is probably up to chance.
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[“Baffled By” and “Stumped by” messages] means that they are working on the mentioned area, but that a substantial amount of the accumulated research points has been lost. You can expect them to complete the research of whatever they are researching but with a delay.
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Oil fuel increases engine cost by 40% when new, but the increase in cost will go down gradually to 10% with increasing engine development.
Similarly, oil fuel will reduce engine weight more with increasing engine development.
So, as with many new technologies, it will become cheaper and more effective when it has matured.
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Any division can be put on Patrol orders. It will then just cruise about it's current location until given a different role. Useful if you want to put a vidette* somewhere to watch a likely approach route. But it assumes you have plentiful light forces and can afford to shed some of them.
*a mounted sentinel stationed in advance of pickets
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You can have any number of raiders in an area, it dies not affect the risk, but all raiders have a risk of getting interned or scuttled.
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Many techs are such that once it is invented by someone, it will be easier for other nations to invent them. And tech diffusion is considerable.
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you can set your own ammo use policy in the training screen. All ammo types have their advantages and disadvantages, and will have slightly different effects. HE shells that don't penetrate will do more superstructure damage than a non-penetrating AP shell for example. So what to use is largely a matter of taste and "feeling".
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Range and penetration is the same for secondary guns as for main guns of the same calibre and quality. Secondaries are penalized in hit chance compared to main guns, but no additional effect for casemates. You can study the detailed hit chances for secondary guns in the ship screen, just as for main guns.
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The museum ship offer [when scrapping] is random, and it can only happen to a ship with a considerable combat record.
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Single mounts with 2 inches or less for guns 6 in and below are assumed to be shielded mounts. Such a mount is lighter than a single turret would be, but gives less protection against splinters. That is why they are dis-proportionally light. And this is intentional. In the period of RTW, twin turrets for light cruisers were not used very much, because shielded mounts were lighter and cheaper
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There is a damage result from superstructure hits or near misses that can include crews cut down of unarmored or shielded guns. It will be reported as "Gun crews cut down by splinters". One can debate whether it should be more frequent, but the effect is there.
For main guns, the mount is disabled. It may come online again, but it will take some time to whisk up replacements for the gun crew. For secondaries and tertiaries, the mount is knocked out (they don't have a disabled status).
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The AI will have roughly the same information you get from the almanac for its decision-making. Though espionage is also simulated.
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setting all research areas to high makes absolutely no difference compared to setting all to low. It is only a relative distribution of the research budget.
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Crew quality affects hitting, spotting, damage control and ROF as well as night mishaps and misunderstanding of signals.
It is not necessarily so that a better crew will fire faster. In some situations with low hit chances a good crew might conserve ammo while a poor one will fire away indiscriminately.
Crew quality will also affect ROF indirectly in that a better crew will have a better chance of clearing turret jams.
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ROF interacts with hitting in the game in that once a ship has a straddle or hit, it will go to rapid fire with both higher ROF and hit chances until it fails to straddle. And in rapid fire, crew quality has an additional effect, so a better crew will fire faster in rapid fire.
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Every cruiser type ship (including BC) get an interception roll against raiders in their area. The chance to intercept is modified by a number of factors. For example, if there are enemy battlecruisers in the area, your battlecruisers get a lower intercept chance against non-BC raiders as it is assumed they will be occupied with keeping an eye on their opposite numbers.
Range and speed of both the raider and the intercepting ship will affect it. Also AMC raiders are harder to find as they can to try to slip by looking as merchants.
Reliability does not affect interception but has other effects.
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You might experiment with high HE research and instructing your ships to fire HE at battleships at long and medium range early in the game. AP shells don't have very reliable penetration and don't do much damage early in the game whereas HE have a good chance of starting fires which are the Achilles heel of pre-dreadnoughts.
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Coastal subs have shorter endurance so will only appear reasonably close to your bases. They also sink fewer merchants for the same reason.
Minelaying subs do actually lay mines, not tactically but they contribute to the mine level in an area and thus to enemy-ship-striking-mine events in the strategic game. Otherwise they work as medium subs but with fewer torpedoes.
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Battleships are less likely to target DD with main batteries, and will only do so if they have plenty of ammo.
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[Conning Tower Hits are] actually quite harmful. If it penetrates it can cause some or all of:
Reduce Fire control one level
Reduce crew quality by one for the rest of the battle (to simulate general loss of efficiency and senior officer casualties).
Lock the course of the ship for up to 8 minutes (simulating temporary confusion and loss of control).
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There is a much lower chance of flash fires for light and medium guns, and for CL, but it can happen.
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[Penetration Values] do not stop changing at 20000 yards, it was just an arbitrary cutoff for the display.
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Yes, if the player (or another nation, but lets face it, it is most often the player doing outside the box stuff) has a large tonnage of CL, the AI will decide it has to do something about them, and that will be larger numbers of CA or BC, more likely BC after their appearance has made CA obsolescent.
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There is such a "Learning function" in the game.
It is specific to flash fires. After a couple of bangs they will begin to suspect something could be improved.
[Translation, having ships explode from flash fires reduces the chances of that nation’s ships exploding in the future]
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If you put research into something that is maxed out or not available yet, the points are redistributed to the other areas so the research is never wasted.
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The chances of engine malfunctions increase if running at high speeds for long time, but there is some randomness involved so it could happen anytime but it is unlikely. Of course it also depends on engine reliability. Ships built with speed priority for engines are more likely to have malfunctions.
It does not have to be dependent on ship age, new ships often had troubles during their working up period or early service life. For example the Lützow spent several months correcting engine defects when new.
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The advantages of improved and advanced director are primarily at longer ranges.
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Crossing the T is normally advantageous for a number of reasons, but not as devastating as one might think or as in the age of sail.
Crossing the T of an enemy ship will actually somewhat counter intuitively reduce your hit chances because the hit area of the target will be much smaller when end on and the longer depth of the target will not be enough to compensate. So in RTW there is a modifier for target aspect that will be shown in the to hit details (-10 or -20 depending on the angle) .
Another thing that will usually affect hit rates if a formation crosses the T of another formation is that the leading enemy ships will likely be targeted by several of your ships, which will further reduce the hit chance.
On the other hand the enemy ships will only be able to reply with their forward guns and at progressively higher ranges.
Crossing the T in a fleet battle is in my experience usually good. I have not been out-shot like you describe, what happens is often that the enemy fleet will turn and there will be a general bunching in the enemy formation that will most often work out to your advantage.
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There is such an effect for destroyers and submarines. You sometimes gets an event that speeds up the construction when many similar units have been built.
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There are two occurrences that can make a ship go bang in RTW:
1. Penetrating turret hits, can cause flash fires through flash propagation into the magazine.
2. Outright magazine hit that sets off the magazine directly.
The chance/risk of them happening is modified by research, learning, time and nationality.
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ROF in RTW is considerably toned down from the theoretical numbers given by gun manufacturers (or used by some other games)
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[Ships] will fire slower when they are running low on ammo, especially on low priority targets.
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It is possible to mod or add events to the events file, there is room for up to 99 events and only 75 are used as of now. The trick, as bcoopactual points out is knowing what the conditions and effect codes do, and conditions and effects would be limited to those that are in the game mechanisms. I could write up an explanation when I have the time but please realize that I have to split my available time between coding and doing documentation to facilitate modding.
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Uptakes are protected by BE armour.
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There are two kinds of hits, bridge hits and conning tower (CT) hits. CT armour protects against the latter but not the former. The reasoning is that only a small part of the command staff would be in the rather cramped CT, ad a bridge hit might incapacitate a lot of other command or signalling personnel, or even have splinters entering the CT through the vision slits (yes it happened). A penetrating CT hit is more damaging than a bridge hit.
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Some of the early engine techs will adjust the speed/hp/engine weight calculations for some ship classes. This was done to enable the construction of historical designs. For example the evolution of protected cruisers to light cruisers was much dependent on advances in engine technology. However, this a series of gradual shifts and not easy to write up in a complete list.
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Ships on coastal patrol have a chance to show up as patrolling ships in battles in the area where they patrol. If too few are available, some generic patrol boats of very limited value except reporting the enemy will be thrown in.
The type of ship will also influence how effective they are against submarines, with MS and DD being best. Obsolete ships will perform be less effective. Q-ships (AMC) can be effective against subs if you have invented q-ships.
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The program assumes that turret top armor is slightly sloped, at least for part of the turret, so shell penetration is somewhat better against turret tops that against decks. For heavy guns I would recommend a little more armor for TT than D, just as was common in historical ships.
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The AI is not geared to using light cruisers as [Kitakami style] torpedo platforms.
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Overweight ships will have an increased risk of not reaching their design speed, underweight will make no difference.
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New oil finds are completely randomized
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Generally the following are the limits for change before it becomes an entirely new design with no discount.
* Displacement can increase by a maximum of 10% or 1000 tons.
* Main guns over 6 in cannot be changed.
* Secondary guns over 6 in can be changed to a limited extent.
* Speed can be changed by one knot.
* Vertical armor can be changed by one in and horizontal armor by half an in.
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The battle system is not rigged. It is based on setting up relatively equal forces, but there is an element of randomization to get the possibility to come up against something stronger or weaker. In most cases, you will meet a more or less equal force, but it wouldn't be very fun if you knew that you are always meeting an evenly matched enemy force, thus some randomization. However, the randomization is not skewed to benefit the enemy!
In some battles, notably fleet battles, total force in the area will have an influence on the number of ships fielded in battles.
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At present, development of sigint influences intercepts and the frequency of catching the enemy with no option to decline the battle. Other than that, there is no effects of research on the areas you mention, but it is an interesting thought.
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There is however a difference between the effectiveness of submarines when a nation is blockading the enemy. Enemy shipping is assumed to be much reduced by the blockade, so the submarines of the blockading nation will find fewer targets.
Ships on ASW patrol will reduce merchant sinkings by submarines, but not warship sinkings by submarines.
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Fire control positions are for artillery only. They do not affect torpedoes. A ship will not fire torpedoes at more than one target in a turn.
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