dch96
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Post by dch96 on Feb 8, 2019 16:12:35 GMT -6
Hello all;
I’ve been enjoying this game quite a lot, and am eagerly awaiting RTW2, but I’ve got a couple questions related to ship design.
1: How much is too much when it comes to secondary armor?
On the Bs and BBs I’ve designed, I’ve had it as equal to turrets and belt armor, is this overkill?
2: Are there any reasons not to use the ABXY primary turret scheme for ships, assuming you have the weight and tech to do so? It doesn’t seem to have any downsides, so I’ve been defaulting to it for my BBs and BCs. Is there something I’m not seeing?
3: Assuming you have all the relevant techs, what difference is there between 2 four-gun turrets and four two-gun turrets? It seems like the two four-guns would be better, as they would save weight, but are there other factors?
4: Besides weight savings, what are the benefits of secondary turrets as opposed to casemates?
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Post by ieshima on Feb 8, 2019 16:55:32 GMT -6
Hello all; I’ve been enjoying this game quite a lot, and am eagerly awaiting RTW2, but I’ve got a couple questions related to ship design. 1: How much is too much when it comes to secondary armor? On the Bs and BBs I’ve designed, I’ve had it as equal to turrets and belt armor, is this overkill? 2: Are there any reasons not to use the ABXY primary turret scheme for ships, assuming you have the weight and tech to do so? It doesn’t seem to have any downsides, so I’ve been defaulting to it for my BBs and BCs. Is there something I’m not seeing? 3: Assuming you have all the relevant techs, what difference is there between 2 four-gun turrets and four two-gun turrets? It seems like the two four-guns would be better, as they would save weight, but are there other factors? 4: Besides weight savings, what are the benefits of secondary turrets as opposed to casemates?
1. You probably are over armoring your secondary battery if it is the same as your bet/turret. Unless your gallery is heavier than 6" guns a 2" armor value should be good. After that add armor until you feel safe. Word of warning, a heavy gallery will affect your main battery gunnery and can result in a flash fire that detonates your ship.
2. History used that layout for a reason, so if you want to use it as default, go for it. Another layout would be ALQ or ABL, which puts your main battery all foreword. This shortens your belt and saves weight, but means you can't shoot directly astern. The all foreword is actually preferred by several members on the forum. Go look at the Director's Byzantium AAR for a good playthrough with the ABL/ALQ layout.
3. Four gun turrets are more prone to jamming or getting disabled compared to a 3 or 2 gun turret. Beyond that, if you lose one turret you lose half your fire power instead of one/fourth.
4. You can have 2, 3 or 4 gun secondary turrets, so that's a plus. They also are more accurate late game and are not going to be affected by high sea's while a casemate battery might be.
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Post by generalvikus on Feb 8, 2019 20:16:19 GMT -6
I think ieshima has pretty much covered it, but I'd like to add:
1. There are two relevant considerations here. The first is that turrets larger than 6 inches are vulnerable to catastrophic explosions if hit, whereas turrets of 6 inches or lower are not. The second consideration is that two inches of armour is an important value, because it is enough to protect against splinters, whereas less than 2 inches is not enough and more than 2 inches does not give any improvement in splinter protection. It is therefore a good rule of thumb to either put at least 2 inches of armour on a surface or none at all; this is why 2 inches is often recommended as a good amount of armour for a 6 inch secondary battery. Any serious hit will disable the turret, but it is usually impractical to invest enough armour into your secondary battery to protect it against medium or heavy hits; after all, with the weight you save from cutting down the armour, you can have more turrets which lessens the relative impact of each individual hit on your total battery. However, if any turret - no matter which battery it's in - is heavier than 6 inches, there is a chance that it will catastrophically explode in a flash fire if hit. Therefore, 6 inches is an important threshold; at that size or smaller, you usually want to stick to either 2 inches or no armour at all; if larger, you need to armour the turret to protect against any shellfire that's likely to come its way.
3. Three and four gun turrets become possible before they are very practical. First you will unlock three gun turrets, and then another technology which reduces their chance of mechanical failure around 1914 (depending of course on your level of technology investment in turrets and gun mountings.) Then you unlock four gun turrets, and then a technology which once again reduces their chance of failure. Once the reliability tech is researched, it is applied to all ships in your fleet, no matter when they were built. There is, therefore, a trade-off; a ship with only two gun turrets will be less efficient before the relevant technology unlocks but more efficient afterwards. So, for example, if I was laying down a ship in 1912, I might design to give it three gun turrets, working on the assumption that by the time the ship is complete after the 27 month construction time it shouldn't have to wait very long - if at all - for the reliability tech. However, if you use three and four gun turrets too early, you will suffer severely, because each turret will be very prone to break-downs, and since you will have a smaller number of turrets, all else being equal, each breakdown will be more impactful.
4. Note that while secondary turrets have the benefit of being usable in all conditions whereas casemates may become unavailable in rough conditions, the turrets suffer a rate of fire penalty until the relevant technology is unlocked. You can see the penalty by clicking the tick icon on the ship designer window, in the 'Notes' section.
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dch96
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Posts: 13
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Post by dch96 on Feb 8, 2019 22:37:05 GMT -6
Thanks for the quick replies.
I knew there were techs to reduce the problems with secondary turrets, but I didn’t know they were applied retroactively.
I usually stick to 6” guns for my secondaries, so that is good to know. I was under the impression that any hit could cause a flash fire, so its a relief to know that isn’t the case.
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Post by aeson on Feb 8, 2019 23:23:22 GMT -6
I usually stick to 6” guns for my secondaries, so that is good to know. I was under the impression that any hit could cause a flash fire, so its a relief to know that isn’t the case. Note that it is specifically secondary battery 6" and lighter guns that are immune to flashfires; you can still have flashfires in turrets with light guns if they're part of the main battery, as on a light cruiser. |
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dch96
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Posts: 13
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Post by dch96 on Feb 8, 2019 23:50:34 GMT -6
I usually stick to 6” guns for my secondaries, so that is good to know. I was under the impression that any hit could cause a flash fire, so its a relief to know that isn’t the case. Note that it is specifically secondary battery 6" and lighter guns that are immune to flashfires; you can still have flashfires in turrets with light guns if they're part of the main battery, as on a light cruiser. That would explain some CL flash fires I've seen in the past. Speaking of CLs, I can't figure out how to give them 8" primaries. Even with just two centerline turrets on a protected cruiser armor scheme, the program still sees the ship as a CA. |
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Post by oaktree on Feb 9, 2019 0:33:02 GMT -6
Note that it is specifically secondary battery 6" and lighter guns that are immune to flashfires; you can still have flashfires in turrets with light guns if they're part of the main battery, as on a light cruiser. That would explain some CL flash fires I've seen in the past. Speaking of CLs, I can't figure out how to give them 8" primaries. Even with just two centerline turrets on a protected cruiser armor scheme, the program still sees the ship as a CA. You can only do it very very early in the game. It becomes illegal once you have a few techs in the appropriate research areas. So it usually pops up as a legacy fleet design, if at all. |
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dch96
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Posts: 13
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Post by dch96 on Feb 9, 2019 0:40:50 GMT -6
That would explain some CL flash fires I've seen in the past. Speaking of CLs, I can't figure out how to give them 8" primaries. Even with just two centerline turrets on a protected cruiser armor scheme, the program still sees the ship as a CA. You can only do it very very early in the game. It becomes illegal once you have a few techs in the appropriate research areas. So it usually pops up as a legacy fleet design, if at all. Good to know. I was trying near endgame, so I would have long passed that. |
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Post by generalvikus on Feb 9, 2019 0:57:59 GMT -6
That would explain some CL flash fires I've seen in the past. Speaking of CLs, I can't figure out how to give them 8" primaries. Even with just two centerline turrets on a protected cruiser armor scheme, the program still sees the ship as a CA. You can only do it very very early in the game. It becomes illegal once you have a few techs in the appropriate research areas. So it usually pops up as a legacy fleet design, if at all. I never knew that - what are the techs in question? |
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Post by aeson on Feb 9, 2019 1:08:26 GMT -6
That would explain some CL flash fires I've seen in the past. Speaking of CLs, I can't figure out how to give them 8" primaries. Even with just two centerline turrets on a protected cruiser armor scheme, the program still sees the ship as a CA. You can only do it very very early in the game. It becomes illegal once you have a few techs in the appropriate research areas. So it usually pops up as a legacy fleet design, if at all. Actually, it doesn't become illegal later in the game; it's just restricted to the protected cruiser armor scheme. Brand new 8" CL design created in a 1923 France savestate with research levels as shown.
You can also make 8" CLs using the sloped deck or flat deck schemes if you have a 6" design with triple or twin turrets in service, as you can replace triple 6" turrets with twin 8" turrets and twin 6" turrets with single 8" turrets in a rebuild design. Once you have the design, you can either rebuild existing 6" cruisers of the class upon which the rebuild design was based as 8" cruisers, or you can leave the 6" cruisers in service and just build new 8" cruisers to the rebuild design.
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dch96
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Posts: 13
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Post by dch96 on Feb 9, 2019 1:19:36 GMT -6
You can only do it very very early in the game. It becomes illegal once you have a few techs in the appropriate research areas. So it usually pops up as a legacy fleet design, if at all. Actually, it doesn't become illegal later in the game; it's just restricted to the protected cruiser armor scheme. I figured out what the problem was: I had put the armored belt at 3 inches, and that plus the 8" guns had the effect of being read as a CA. |
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 9, 2019 1:40:08 GMT -6
I think ieshima has pretty much covered it, but I'd like to add: 3. Three and four gun turrets become possible before they are very practical. First you will unlock three gun turrets, and then another technology which reduces their chance of mechanical failure around 1914 (depending of course on your level of technology investment in turrets and gun mountings.) Then you unlock four gun turrets, and then a technology which once again reduces their chance of failure. Once the reliability tech is researched, it is applied to all ships in your fleet, no matter when they were built. There is, therefore, a trade-off; a ship with only two gun turrets will be less efficient before the relevant technology unlocks but more efficient afterwards. So, for example, if I was laying down a ship in 1912, I might design to give it three gun turrets, working on the assumption that by the time the ship is complete after the 27 month construction time it shouldn't have to wait very long - if at all - for the reliability tech. However, if you use three and four gun turrets too early, you will suffer severely, because each turret will be very prone to break-downs, and since you will have a smaller number of turrets, all else being equal, each breakdown will be more impactful. 4. Note that while secondary turrets have the benefit of being usable in all conditions whereas casemates may become unavailable in rough conditions, the turrets suffer a rate of fire penalty until the relevant technology is unlocked. You can see the penalty by clicking the tick icon on the ship designer window, in the 'Notes' section. Just to clarify, the improved reliability for triple and quad turrets and the improved rate of fire for secondary guns in turrets don't automatically upgrade in already commissioned ships or ships that began construction before that tech was researched. You have to perform a refit of some kind (even a blank refit that doesn't change anything else) for the reliability or rate of fire penalty to go away. Even if you start a new construction of an old ship design that precedes the tech being researched that ship will have the reliability or RoF penalty because the penalty is recorded in the actual ship files (in the gamesave# folder). Performing a refit or saving a new ship design creates a new ship file that has the penalty removed. I'm reasonably certain that if you take the option to install an improved fire control at the end of initial construction that would satisfy the refit requirements for any reliability or RoF improvements since doing so creates a new ship file but I've never gone into the files to verify that. There are some techs that automatically upgrade the whole fleet. Primarily shell techs and torpedoes. |
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dch96
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Posts: 13
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Post by dch96 on Feb 9, 2019 1:56:29 GMT -6
Once the reliability tech is researched, it is applied to all ships in your fleet, no matter when they were built. You have to perform a refit of some kind (even a blank refit that doesn't change anything else) for the reliability or rate of fire penalty to go away. Thanks for the clarification. It did seem a little odd that it would be overhauled immediately. |
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Post by generalvikus on Feb 9, 2019 3:48:51 GMT -6
I didn't know that myself bcoopactual - thanks for the clarification, I always assumed it was just like torpedoes and shells. |
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dch96
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Posts: 13
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Post by dch96 on Feb 9, 2019 13:41:38 GMT -6
Another question;
Are tertiary guns worth using if I am going with 6” secondaries? I haven’t really been using tertiaries thus far.
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