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Post by dorn on Jun 7, 2019 10:25:06 GMT -6
aesonI think you are right in actual situation. But after any imminent threat vanish I think that in long term smaller corvettes pay off.
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Post by alsadius on Jun 7, 2019 10:44:15 GMT -6
I was more thinking about their minesweeping capability a thus replacement could be only corvettes 600 tons which is much cheaper. France does not need too much cruisers against A-H and in 5 years there will be new cruisers to fill fleet role. A cheap 600t minesweeping corvette still takes the best part of a year to build while rebuilding the existing ships takes only three months, and tensions with Austria-Hungary are high enough that war could break out very soon. The 19 corvettes and 21 small destroyers currently in service strike me as a marginally-adequate TP force already; scrapping a quarter to a half of it and taking the best part of a year to build 600t KEs to replace the ships scrapped just to save a few pennies in the long term strikes me as ill-advised.
Beyond that, how much are you really saving? There are 19 corvettes currently in service; after a refit they'll cost about 22k/month to maintain in the Active Fleet at home (~27k/month overseas, ~12k/month in the Reserve Fleet, ~4k/month in Mothballs). Even if every last one of them is sent overseas, that's still only about half a million per month for the entire force, and if you keep them at home in the Reserve Fleet or in Mothballs it'll be a lot less (~420k at home in the Active Fleet, ~210k/month in Reserve, ~80k/month in Mothballs). A cheap 600t minesweeping KE would cost about 6k/month to maintain at home in the Active Fleet, so if you built 20 of them they'd cost you about 144k/month to maintain all of them overseas in the Active Fleet, ~120k/month to maintain at home in the Active Fleet, ~60k to maintain in the Reserve Fleet, or ~24k/month to maintain in Mothballs. You're saving pennies; it's hardly worth considering, especially when each of the new corvettes will cost at least a million of whatever monetary unit the game uses and ten months to build (so a program of 20 would cost at least ~2M/turn during construction, if they're all constructed at once) and the fleet has much more pressing problems than its unnecessarily-expensive corvettes.
Yeah, but how much are you spending on the refit? And at the end of it, you'll still have 1899-pattern gunships in 1921. That's...not ideal.
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Post by aeson on Jun 7, 2019 10:53:18 GMT -6
Yeah, but how much are you spending on the refit? And at the end of it, you'll still have 1899-pattern gunships in 1921. That's...not ideal. 75k over three months, or 25k per month - roughly two-thirds the current upkeep. Blank refits are considerably less expensive than building new ships.
Also, so what about it being an 1899-pattern gunship? It's not a type of ship whose value comes from its combat prowess, and as far as I am aware colonial stations, minesweeping, ASW, and trade protection don't care about when the ship was built.
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Post by yemo on Jun 7, 2019 11:09:31 GMT -6
Just checked in game. 1000ms KE 21c knots rebuild costs 33 maint in war time, 600ms KE 21 knots costs 12 maint, 600ms KE 24 knots costs 14 maint, 500ms DD 31? knots costs 16 maint, 400 DD 31? knots costs 14 maint Something is wrong here. I m a bit tired of stumbling on a new beta feeling issue every time I look closer at some mechanic.
Also in another game I tested peace treaties after tortugapower saw that incredible white peace after sinking half the royal navy. I simply refused every battle. Enemy had 104,000 VP vs my 0 VP. A white peace was the result...
Cant take the game mechanics seriously. Thus I will lean even more towards roleplay during my tenure.
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Post by aeson on Jun 7, 2019 11:30:06 GMT -6
1000ms KE 21c knots rebuild costs 33 maint in war time Wartime upkeep is 50% higher than peacetime home waters upkeep. This is expected. What's the problem we're supposed to be seeing? Because those numbers look fairly normal to me - fast small DDs costing a bit more than middling-speed small KEs is reasonable, and a big old KE which was somewhat fast for its time costing more than either likewise.
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Post by gimlet on Jun 7, 2019 11:36:05 GMT -6
I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong - you're comparing apples and oranges. A 600 ton, slow, half empty KE costing less maint than a 500 ton high speed DD bristling with weapons? How is that wrong? And maint goes up for older ships. None of your examples looks that odd to me.
And some cheap preventive maintenance that hasn't been done in 20 years greatly lowers the monthly cost of running? How is that so unrealistic? I'm not saying it's 100% perfect, it doesn't take everything possible into consideration - like it should be more expensive for ships you only have 1 or 2 of. But for a cheap slow minesweeper that you have dozens of, one of the most numerous class of ships in your navy? Realistically your depots should have a bunch of spare parts and well known maintenance procedures, and especially a mass refit should have efficiencies of scale.
And like I said about tortugapower's result - politicians are weird. And there has to be an RNG involved or it's too deterministic, so there are going to be results on the extreme ends of the scale. Whether the distribution of these results needs to be adjusted, well, that's probably true since it's hard to get right 100% out of the box. But I want to see more than 1 or 2 examples before saying how it needs to change. I've had results from better than I should have to the infamous white peace while dominating, for me the distribution didn't feel all that wild. I was probably fortunate to have the undeservedly positive results first, so I thought "well, OK, this one does suck but I was lucky before so I can't really complain".
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Post by yemo on Jun 7, 2019 12:55:30 GMT -6
Imho the difference between a mostly empty KE and a high speed torpedo equipped DD should be a bit larger. I would prefer KEs for minesweeping duties (also because it is easier to keep them apart from the DDs in the list), but those can only go 24 knots and must be 600 tons or more. The only reason why KEs are chosen for the minesweeping role, is roleplay/UI issues, every game mechanic points to the usage of a DD. The 6 other AI nations have a combined fleet of 9 KEs. (And fewer cruisers (CL + CA) than they have battlecruisers...) Anyway, with the second round of feeback, I ll do a summary of my revised intentions later and then play my tenure tomorrow (or at least start it, fighting battles takes time if it comes to war). I ll then also write a more detailed and roleplay including post in the AAR thread.
Thank you everyone for your feedback!
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Post by yemo on Jun 7, 2019 14:31:53 GMT -6
I infer that the AI fleet building algorithm is bugged. Due to this, it seems like the AI nations will discard practically all cruisers by 1925 or so. With the prospect of war looming (which might greatly increase the time I need to get to 1925 due to the battles), I hope that a patch might appear to fix this issue before all AI cruisers are scrapped. Yet I can not be sure of this and so I ll have to somewhat respond to this bug in terms of fleet composition.
Thus I ll keep Amiral Charner but will have to scrap the unfinished Bruix.
I can draw a quick superstructure for Amiral Charner. Alternatively you could use the 1920 savegame and make a rebuild of her, for which you can draw the superstructure. Then upload the rebuild design file here (should be called something like "Amiral Charner (R 1920).90d" and I ll merge it with the existing Amiral Charner.
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Post by janxol on Jun 7, 2019 14:45:33 GMT -6
Imho the difference between a mostly empty KE and a high speed torpedo equipped DD should be a bit larger. I would prefer KEs for minesweeping duties (also because it is easier to keep them apart from the DDs in the list), but those can only go 24 knots and must be 600 tons or more. The only reason why KEs are chosen for the minesweeping role, is roleplay/UI issues, every game mechanic points to the usage of a DD. The 6 other AI nations have a combined fleet of 9 KEs. (And fewer cruisers (CL + CA) than they have battlecruisers...) Anyway, with the second round of feeback, I ll do a summary of my revised intentions later and then play my tenure tomorrow (or at least start it, fighting battles takes time if it comes to war). I ll then also write a more detailed and roleplay including post in the AAR thread.
Thank you everyone for your feedback!
I have found that KEs are simply better for ms duty, because they cost less maintenance in the long run. They don't need speed. My KEs usually go about 19 knots, which means minimal upkeep. I believe 600 ton 19kt KEs are the way to go. You can still strap 2 in of belt, CT armor, and 2 shielded 4 in guns, should you choose to. I usually go for this kind of setup, seems to be working for me. My DDs are built for fleet actions, not ms/ASW duties.
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Post by yemo on Jun 9, 2019 9:42:17 GMT -6
A decision has been reached and a plan to revive the French navy has been set in motion:
As you will see/read, it is an amalgamation of all the advise given in this thread and my own ideas, and then somewhat altered by role play elements.
Again, thank you all for the feedback!
Oh, and we are now in May 1920, one battle into the war with Austria, after some mess in the Balkans .
Another set of decisions has to be made and I welcome you over in the AAR thread to counsel on them.
Do we really scrap the old ships as planned, now that those refits are done? Is it wise to lay down a battlecruiser, which takes 3 years to complete, now that we are at war?
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Post by fifrein on Jun 9, 2019 11:49:07 GMT -6
I infer that the AI fleet building algorithm is bugged. Due to this, it seems like the AI nations will discard practically all cruisers by 1925 or so. With the prospect of war looming (which might greatly increase the time I need to get to 1925 due to the battles), I hope that a patch might appear to fix this issue before all AI cruisers are scrapped. Yet I can not be sure of this and so I ll have to somewhat respond to this bug in terms of fleet composition.
Thus I ll keep Amiral Charner but will have to scrap the unfinished Bruix.
I can draw a quick superstructure for Amiral Charner. Alternatively you could use the 1920 savegame and make a rebuild of her, for which you can draw the superstructure. Then upload the rebuild design file here (should be called something like "Amiral Charner (R 1920).90d" and I ll merge it with the existing Amiral Charner.
Actually, I rather enjoyed making up the excuse for why she didn't have a superstructure, and I think it'd be fun to leave it that way. You can rebuild it however you wish, you are the new grand admiral. But I was assured by my engineers the reduced air resistance was worth it.
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Post by yemo on Jun 9, 2019 11:54:32 GMT -6
I infer that the AI fleet building algorithm is bugged. Due to this, it seems like the AI nations will discard practically all cruisers by 1925 or so. With the prospect of war looming (which might greatly increase the time I need to get to 1925 due to the battles), I hope that a patch might appear to fix this issue before all AI cruisers are scrapped. Yet I can not be sure of this and so I ll have to somewhat respond to this bug in terms of fleet composition.
Thus I ll keep Amiral Charner but will have to scrap the unfinished Bruix.
I can draw a quick superstructure for Amiral Charner. Alternatively you could use the 1920 savegame and make a rebuild of her, for which you can draw the superstructure. Then upload the rebuild design file here (should be called something like "Amiral Charner (R 1920).90d" and I ll merge it with the existing Amiral Charner.
Actually, I rather enjoyed making up the excuse for why she didn't have a superstructure, and I think it'd be fun to leave it that way. You can rebuild it however you wish, you are the new grand admiral. But I was assured by my engineers the reduced air resistance was worth it.
Ah, after the recent first battle of the Austrian-French war, I needed a picture of her and thus just drew a superstructure. Rumour has it that it is only a propaganda picture ;-)
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Post by gimlet on Jun 9, 2019 16:41:39 GMT -6
Your "BC" should be fine against the Austrian BC, at worst they should get a draw. Their heavy armor will withstand a LOT of 11" hits, while hitting back with 14", I'll take that any day. I'm really sorry you scrapped the old destroyers, you could have used them now to oversatisfy TP and knock his subs out more quickly, now you will barely cover it. They were only 8 a month apiece, false economy. You could use some of the CL I guess, you don't need or even want them in the Med. If not, RF most of the one in Europe, imo, that's another 100-200 savings. And geez you didn't refit the Bourbakis while you had old DD/CL around? That's wasting like 200 a month, and you won't get to fix it anytime soon Anyway yes,definitely scrap the B, definitely use the money to fund a BC as long as you can. (Build more DD first, then you should have AON and ideally a better gun from the Americans or research and can start a better BC, built locally) Scrapping the B is something like 2200 a month! Even MB that's a sizable sum. Use part of the savings to build at least another stick of DD, you will be taking some losses in the war. I kept the Amiral Charner mothballed, I could find no use for it in the AH war and hey that's another 300 a month. Definitely don't want it to show up alone in a fight against BC. Can you put mines on your DD? You have plenty of space left and mines are cheap... Good luck, you should be able to deal handily with the AH vermin!
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Post by yemo on Jun 9, 2019 18:09:26 GMT -6
gimlet I really did not like the cramped accomodations on those old DDs. Especially so shortly before a war. As soon as those cramped DDs were scrapped, my unrest dropped from 4 to 2. I guess the two cramped BCs stop me from reaching 0, but I really want to keep those for the war. Yeah, I was really afraid about stumbling into an Austrian battlecruiser trap with CA Amiral Charner. But then decided to roll the dice and ordered her into the Mediterranean just before war broke out! And rng decided to put her into the first battle as soon as war broke out. Alone, just in range of the Dalmatian coast. The battle report:
With all that buildup going on, I can't decide what I m more afraid of. Stumbling into a proper Austrian battlecruiser trap or having the war end and thus tanking my financial situation...
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