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Post by generalvikus on Sept 3, 2018 19:58:38 GMT -6
In the past, I've always followed the rule that new ships are always active, and are slowly phased out through the reserve and mothball fleets as they age. As a result, no ships have been in reserve at the beginning of the game.
However, recently I've been doing a bit more thinking and I'm not sure if this is the correct course. As I understand it, ships in reserve will have their crew qualities reduced to 'fair' and will tick back to 'good' after being mobilized. As a result, it seems to me that there is nothing to gain, and plenty of money to lose, by having ships with a crew quality of good or lower in the active fleet during periods of low tension. It is, however, justifiable to keep ships active all the time in order to preserve a higher crew skill level, and to activate ships in order of importance as tensions rise and the possibility of war increases in order to maintain proper readiness.
Is this a correct assessment?
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Post by aeson on Sept 3, 2018 22:23:20 GMT -6
I personally do not consider it worthwhile to put any significant number of ships into the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs; if you cannot afford to build an adequately-large fleet while maintaining most of the ships in the Active Fleet, then it is not particularly likely that you will be able to afford to reactivate ships when tensions go up after building a much larger fleet on the money saved through significantly-reduced fleet readiness. Placing ships into the Reserve Fleet or into mothballs can be done temporarily to cover budget shortfalls or maybe squeeze an extra ship into a construction program, but if it's being done long-term or to a significant part of the fleet then it's time to ask yourself if the ships that you're reducing to the Reserve Fleet or to mothballs are worth keeping.
Even in peacetime, reactivating a ship for service in home waters from the Reserve Fleet doubles its upkeep and reactivating a ship from mothballs increases its upkeep fivefold, and there is an additional 20% increase in upkeep for overseas service; if you reactivate the ships in wartime instead, then reactivating a ship from the Reserve Fleet triples its upkeep while reactivating a ship from mothballs increases its upkeep 7.5 times (fortunately, there is to the best of my knowledge no penalty for overseas service in wartime). If you have a significant number of warships - especially major warships - in the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs, there is a very real risk that you will not be able to afford to reactivate all of them even with the budget increases from high tensions and war. If you cannot afford to reactivate a ship, have you really saved yourself anything by keeping it in the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs?
Also, my feeling is that the crew quality penalty is fairly significant. Ships reactivated from the reserves may only take a couple months or a battle to improve crew quality from 'fair' to 'good,' but my admittedly-anecdotal experience is that there is a noticeable improvement in gunnery and damage control, and a somewhat lesser improvement in spotting, identification, and signalling, with each improvement in crew quality. Ships reactivated from mothballs take rather longer to improve crew quality, and moreover start at 'poor' crew quality. In my opinion, a ship with a 'poor' quality crew is more of a liability than an asset in battle, and 'fair' crew quality is only minimally acceptable. It is a 'correct' assessment inasmuch as it is a workable strategy for the game. Is it a 'correct' assessment as far as finances go? That's harder to say, because it depends on just how many ships you're putting into the Reserve Fleet and into mothballs, how expensive they are, and whether or not your finances in periods of rising tensions or in time of war allow you to reactivate them without cutting back elsewhere. Is it a 'correct' assessment as far as fleet readiness goes? Again, that's harder to say, because it depends on just how many ships you're putting into the Reserve Fleet and into mothballs and also on whether or not you can reactivate them early enough that their crew quality recovers to an acceptable level before they are involved in an engagement.
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Post by generalvikus on Sept 3, 2018 23:05:01 GMT -6
I personally do not consider it worthwhile to put any significant number of ships into the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs; if you cannot afford to build an adequately-large fleet while maintaining most of the ships in the Active Fleet, then it is not particularly likely that you will be able to afford to reactivate ships when tensions go up after building a much larger fleet on the money saved through significantly-reduced fleet readiness. Placing ships into the Reserve Fleet or into mothballs can be done temporarily to cover budget shortfalls or maybe squeeze an extra ship into a construction program, but if it's being done long-term or to a significant part of the fleet then it's time to ask yourself if the ships that you're reducing to the Reserve Fleet or to mothballs are worth keeping.
Even in peacetime, reactivating a ship for service in home waters from the Reserve Fleet doubles its upkeep and reactivating a ship from mothballs increases its upkeep fivefold, and there is an additional 20% increase in upkeep for overseas service; if you reactivate the ships in wartime instead, then reactivating a ship from the Reserve Fleet triples its upkeep while reactivating a ship from mothballs increases its upkeep 7.5 times (fortunately, there is to the best of my knowledge no penalty for overseas service in wartime). If you have a significant number of warships - especially major warships - in the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs, there is a very real risk that you will not be able to afford to reactivate all of them even with the budget increases from high tensions and war. If you cannot afford to reactivate a ship, have you really saved yourself anything by keeping it in the Reserve Fleet or in mothballs?
Also, my feeling is that the crew quality penalty is fairly significant. Ships reactivated from the reserves may only take a couple months or a battle to improve crew quality from 'fair' to 'good,' but my admittedly-anecdotal experience is that there is a noticeable improvement in gunnery and damage control, and a somewhat lesser improvement in spotting, identification, and signalling, with each improvement in crew quality. Ships reactivated from mothballs take rather longer to improve crew quality, and moreover start at 'poor' crew quality. In my opinion, a ship with a 'poor' quality crew is more of a liability than an asset in battle, and 'fair' crew quality is only minimally acceptable. It is a 'correct' assessment inasmuch as it is a workable strategy for the game. Is it a 'correct' assessment as far as finances go? That's harder to say, because it depends on just how many ships you're putting into the Reserve Fleet and into mothballs, how expensive they are, and whether or not your finances in periods of rising tensions or in time of war allow you to reactivate them without cutting back elsewhere. Is it a 'correct' assessment as far as fleet readiness goes? Again, that's harder to say, because it depends on just how many ships you're putting into the Reserve Fleet and into mothballs and also on whether or not you can reactivate them early enough that their crew quality recovers to an acceptable level before they are involved in an engagement.
The strategy that I am suggesting is that, during periods of low tensions, all ships not needed to provide tonnage on foreign stations and which do not have a crew quality better than 'good' (which is what they will reset to anyway once reactivated) are either placed into reserve or mothballs according to how out of date they are. This will free up a great deal of money for increased construction. As tensions rise, ships will be reactivated in order to maintain an acceptable level of readiness for the situation. Once war is declared, all ships will be active; this will naturally increase maintenance costs, but one will not need to be building as many ships during the war since more will have been built during peacetime, while the budget will also be boosted. The net result should be that more ships will be available to fight than if all of them had been active when they didn't need to be, or if they had simply been scrapped rather than placed into reserves or mothballs. Specifically, I'd like to know more about the mechanics of crew quality. Firstly, how long do crews take to 'work up' from 'Poor' to 'Fair' and 'Fair' to 'Good?' Secondly, if an 'excellent' crew is placed into reserves, reducing their level to 'fair,' will that experience be lost and the crew level tick up to 'good', or would the ship eventually revert back to 'excellent' without having any additional combat experience? Thirdly, is there some other factor involved in the issue of readiness and crew quality that I haven't taken into account here? For example, do crews level up in quality for simply being active over a given period, or do they need to be involved in battles? Can crew quality only rise after a vessel has been active for a given amount of time? In those cases, it would be clear that a strong case could be made for maintaining all the up-to-date ships in active status even during periods of low tension.
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Post by dorn on Sept 3, 2018 23:18:47 GMT -6
I use reserve status and mothball ships.
I usually use it for old ships which I do not expect to be in battle for 2 reasons: - send them on distant areas to increase chance of invading or as defend against ships AI send there. - increase blockade points as the ships will never see battle or if they will they are at the end of row with minimum influence on battle.
In this 2 cases their quality of crew is no relevant so it is possible to save a lot of money by doing this.
Relating to having money to reactivating, you always have it is just a question if it is worth this money or it is better spend them on construction program.
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Post by bcoopactual on Sept 4, 2018 0:33:41 GMT -6
I put all ships CA and larger (with the exception of one smaller CA that I use as flagship for the Asiatic Sqdn) in Reserve anytime I'm at peace. It's just too much money to give up when the ships will go climb back to Good in about 6-9 months after returning to Active status.
I usually leave CL and smaller on Active duty. While it's not too difficult early in a war to be conservative with my heavy units until their crew quality gets back to Good, light forces tend to see abundant use from the get-go and I want them ready from the beginning. MS and old DD I keep for CP/ASW I put in Reserve until tensions get up to about 9. I set them to Active the same time I start Gunnery training back up. I'm not sure how long it takes to go from Fair to Good without combat but I'm pretty sure it takes longer to do in CP/ASW status than it does in Active.
As far as post war when you have ships with greater than Good quality, you have to look forward. If you have a refit coming up that you know you need to do (either to prevent getting the (O) or because a new fire control is going to be developed soon for example) in the next couple of years there's no point in waiting to put a ship you would normally put in reserve in Reserve. The crew quality is going to reset to Fair when you do the refit anyway.
To my knowledge, once crew quality is reset it can only exceed Good again through further combat or events like the shooting competition or using a decommissioning ship for live fire gunnery practice.
This is just the way I play, not a claim that this way is necessarily the best way.
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Post by aeson on Sept 4, 2018 1:32:42 GMT -6
I do not think that this would be fiscally-viable. Reactivating the fleet in peacetime would probably at least double fleet upkeep while reactivating the fleet in wartime would probably at least triple fleet upkeep, and the budget increases you get in periods of high tension or at the outbreak of war are not that significant. In a Britain game I played a while ago, I had difficulties reactivating merely a dozen 16,000t predreadnought battleships from mothballs for blockade and invasion service in a war when I had about twenty 30,000t dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers in active service (in peacetime active service, each predreadnought would cost about 250k/month - about a third as much as any of the dreadnoughts, so by AF upkeep these dozen predreadnoughts represented about one-sixth of my battle line), and if I recall correctly I ended up scrapping eight of the predreadnoughts without reactivating them while the other four were reactivated and used to attempt colonial invasions because reactivating all of them was simply too expensive for the budget without cutting back on construction programs or training.
I just did a set of tests as Austria-Hungary, no wars in the first six years and one month of game, with the tests terminated at the end of that period. Tests:
1a. Two ships mothballed for one month and then transferred to the Active Fleet with no Enhanced Training programs active. 1b. Two ships mothballed for one year and then transferred to the Active Fleet with no Enhanced Training programs active 2a. Two ships in the Reserve Fleet for one month and then transferred to the Active Fleet with no Enhanced Training programs active. 2b. Two ships in the Reserve Fleet for one year and then transferred to the Active Fleet with no Enhanced Training programs active. 3a. Two ships in mothballs for one month and then transferred to the Active Fleet with Enhanced Training (Gunnery and Night Fighting). 3b. Two ships in monthballs for one year and then transferred to the Active Fleet with Enhanced Training (Gunnergy and Night Fighting). 4a. Two ships in the Reserve Fleet for one month and then transferred to the Active Fleet with Enhanced Training (Gunnery and Night Fighting). 4b. Two ships in the Reserve Fleet for one year and then transferred to the Active Fleet with Enhanced Training (Gunnery and Night Fighting). 5. Two ships in mothballs for one year and then transferred to the Reserve Fleet with Enhanced Training (Gunnery and Night Fighting).
Be aware that I am relying on my memory, not on records which I didn't make, for the following:
Neither time spent in MB status nor Enhanced Training appeared to affect time taken to go from 'Poor' to 'Fair' to 'Good' after transfer to the Active Fleet; exact times were variable, but it appears to be about three months to reach 'Fair' and ten months (total) to reach 'Good.' I saw ships reach 'Fair' in one month twice; one of these reached 'Good' within eight months of reactivation while the other reached 'Good' in eleven months, which are also the shortest and longest times I saw for ships reactivated from mothballs take to reach 'Good' after reactivation; the other six ships reached 'Fair' after three to five months and 'Good' after nine or ten months from reactivation.
Neither time spent in RF status nor Enhanced Training appeared to affect time taken to go from 'Fair' to 'Good' after transfer from Reserve to Active Fleet; if I recall correctly, six months was both the mode and maximum time to reach 'Good' that I saw, but two ships reached 'Good' after only four months and a third reached 'Good' in five months, with the two ships which reached 'Good' in four months both being from test 2b while the ship which reached 'Good' in five months was in test 4a.
The two ships in test 5a both took sixteen months to reach 'Fair' crew quality.
Obviously, these are very small samples from which to draw conclusions, and I should probably have kept records rather than relying on my memory for the information, but it's something to go off of as a general idea of the time that would be necessary to recover crew quality after reactivation.
5 13,000t Bs, 2 13,000t CAs, 8 5,000t CLs, 12 500t DDs, and 2 200t MSs made up the legacy fleet; a further 3 13,000t Bs and 2 13,000t CAs made up the legacy construction program. The entire fleet, aside from ships needed for the tests, was placed in RF status for the entire 73-month period of the test, and 5 15,000t Bs were commissioned and 3 19,000t Bs and 1 21,000t BB were laid down in that period. No additional cruisers (CL or CA), destroyers, or minesweepers were laid down or commissioned over that entire period, so while the battle line seems impressive the fleet as a whole is rather unbalanced; if this had been a serious game rather than a test run, some of the battleships would have been cut in favor of CLs and possibly some CAs, DDs, and MSs.
At the end of that period, the difference in fleet upkeep with Enhanced Training (Gunnery and Night Fighting) between keeping the entire fleet in AF and keeping the entire fleet in RF is roughly 2.4M/month while the difference in fleet upkeep without any Enhanced Training between keeping the entire fleet in AF and keeping the entire fleet in RF is roughly 1.6M/month. That's about enough that I can afford an extra battleship or CA (at current costs) in roughly the time it takes to build one, or an extra one to two CLs in roughly the time it takes to build one, which I suppose is nice but isn't incredible, and the cost to the budget of reactivating the fleet pushes the fleet's expenses high enough that I'd be concerned about whether or not I'd actually be able to maintain my construction programs, build ships for ASW/CP to make up for the rather serious lack of such vessels in the current fleet, and keep the entire existing fleet in AF status in wartime.
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Post by generalvikus on Sept 4, 2018 2:01:53 GMT -6
Thanks to everyone for your replies. bcoopactual, excellent point about refits - I had never considered that high quality crews would eventually have to revert in any case, since the benefits of a well-trained crew cannot compensate for a less capable ship; since most major combatants will see at least one refit, and since they will usually progress through the reserves and finally mothballs as they get old, crew quality is necessarily only a passing phase in a ship's life span. Eventually it will have to be refitted, reverting it to fair, or it will make its way down the ladder and finally be scrapped, and the less often it's refit, the sooner that will be. I think it makes the case for keeping most ships in reserve most of the time stronger. aeson, awesome work with the tests, that's really useful and I presume we'll all benefit from the information. I understand what you're saying about sustainability in wartime - if you spend all the money that you save from putting ships in reserve or MB status, you'll be running a deficit once you actually have everything active during wartime. However, this is only a problem if you manage the money sub-optimally. Theoretically, it would be possible to calculate the full maintenance cost of the fleet, the expected length of an upcoming war, and the wartime revenue boost and decide how much of the extra money to save up accordingly, but realistically, one could get by perfectly well by building up a healthy cash reserve and pausing construction during wartime as necessary.
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Post by generalvikus on Sept 4, 2018 2:07:13 GMT -6
Also, hello aeson , bcoopactual and dorn ! It's good to talk to you all again. I'm very busy with my university work at the moment, but I miss our old play by council game and I think it's a shame it died so soon. Do you guys fancy trying to resurrect it some time in the moderately near future?
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Post by aeson on Sept 4, 2018 12:09:36 GMT -6
If you are sure that you have time for it, then sure.
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Post by generalvikus on Sept 4, 2018 21:24:48 GMT -6
Also, one point that I failed to mention is that reducing maintenance costs in peacetime by putting more ships in reserve does not necessarily mean that they will be greater in wartime when all ships are active; if more money is allocated to construction, the player can make the fleet more modern without making it larger, increasing the rate at which old ships are retired.
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Post by aeson on Sept 5, 2018 1:46:27 GMT -6
Also, one point that I failed to mention is that reducing maintenance costs in peacetime by putting more ships in reserve does not necessarily mean that they will be greater in wartime when all ships are active; if more money is allocated to construction, the player can make the fleet more modern without making it larger, increasing the rate at which old ships are retired. The problem with that idea is that the amount of money you save by reducing fleet readiness is directly proportional to the number of ships you put into reduced readiness. Unless you're playing the US, Great Britain, or maybe Germany, for whom even fleets that are "small" relative to the budget tend to be pretty large in an absolute sense, or are already quite far into the game, it's not terribly likely that reduced fleet readiness will save you enough to make much of a difference to your construction programs when your fleet isn't fairly large relative to your budget.
Most CLs, CAs, Bs, BCs, and BBs cost about 7-8 times as much to build as they due to maintain in the peacetime Active Fleet in home waters, or about five times as much to build as they do to maintain in the peacetime Active Fleet in home waters if you factor in two Enhanced Training programs. In order to save enough on upkeep by reducing fleet readiness to build one ship, then, you need about nine comparable ships mothballed (remember, only about half of your total fleet tonnage can be in mothballs) or fifteen comparable ships in the Reserve Fleet (six mothballed or ten in the Reserve Fleet if factoring in two Enhanced Training programs) - and capital ships in particular tend to become significantly more expensive over the first decade or two of the game, so 'modern' vessels may be significantly more expensive than ships which are only comparable to an 'average' ship of the existing fleet. That's already a pretty big fleet for the weaker navies in the early part of the game, especially on lower fleet sizes or historical budget.
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Post by JagdFlanker on Sept 5, 2018 2:48:43 GMT -6
i tried using mothballing a couple times but it takes way too long for crew quality to go back up (seemingly a lot longer compared to the refit crew quality penalty). i think it's a big mistake to start a war with less than 'good' crew quality since it's important to get ahead in VP as quickly as possible to keep your country happy and to help ensure a good war outcome whenever the war gets decided
if i don't have enough cash i prefer to retire older ships, and even though i play on 10% research rate my ships rarely last 10 years in my fleet - having a smaller fleet is fine when all things being equal in a battle you'r likely going to win because of your better quality ships, which translates to more VP gained
another thing to consider is that it looks like the ai makes use of reserve/mothballing, so to enter a war with a higher crew quality than the enemy seems like a pretty big advantage in the first year of the war
lastly crew quality is a big factor in ASW/coastal patrol so to me it seems like a bad idea to reserve/mothball your patrol ships, especially if the enemy has a fair amount of subs and/or mine layers
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2018 2:49:29 GMT -6
Me: BB/BC/B: Reserve. Sans 2 newest BCs on active. CAs: Reserve early game sans 2 newest active; active late game (foreign station) CLs: Reserve. DD/MS: Mothball.
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Post by dorn on Sept 6, 2018 2:24:24 GMT -6
There is a lot of arguments and comparison of using reserve and mothballed status with efficiency by money. However for me this is not the main point to reserve/mothball ships. The main point is I do hate being blockaded and I want enemy power to be blockaded. And for this additional ships help a lot. I would take it by country. A-H - their fleet is the smallest so having some ships in mothball allow them to counter blockade in case of war Italy - it is same as A-H France - same as A-H except now the enemy is UK and Germany mainly Germany - same as A-H if you want to face UK, otherwise it is unwise UK - could be interesting too if your policy is aggressive and you expect to fight 2 enemies at once Russia - same as France especially if you need some ships in Far east USA - could be interesting if you want blockade UK or some reserve against be blockaded by UK but usually different strategies work better Japan - usually not used as large enemy fleets are not expected and UK fleet is just too large In history old ships were used in secondary theatres and this could be useful here too. In history old ships were used to enhance blockades and it could be used here too. It is quite nice as RTW works/could work as reality in century ago.
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Post by hardlec on Sept 10, 2018 13:32:05 GMT -6
Reserve and mothball status have benefits, as do refits. The exact details are sketchy for me.
I hesitate to refit obsolete ships with elite crews. It seems to me that a ship that has an elite crew is spreading elite sailors throughout the fleet and this should increase crew quality in general. An elite crew in an obsolete ship is a waste of good sailors.
I usually mothball my minesweepers right away. They work up very fast and the technology on a minesweeper is not that critical. I will mothball obsolete B and some CA for two reasons. Cost is one. An obsolete B can be refit to circumvent an arms limitation treaty as can some CAs. B's take a while to work up from poor to good. Obsolete CLs and DD are of marginal value. They can be used for Patrol or on foriegn Station, but I've yet to determine if this is cost effective.
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