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Post by Adseria on Jul 30, 2019 6:02:10 GMT -6
Just a quick update while the fine gentlemen above are ramming stuff in exquisite Lissa-style: in the next maybe two days, I am planning to print like an animal, so as to possibly start the campaign sometime next week. Until that - let's fly!
EDIT: You know, on a second thought - let's maybe not. I guess the "pilot experience bug" isn't making this the absolute best time to practice.
Well, you know what they say: Any landing you can swim away from...
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Post by akosjaccik on Aug 5, 2019 10:11:23 GMT -6
Preferably the last "update" before the beginning of the campaign - this is how the legacy fleet stands as of now! You are already familiar with the Erzherzog-, and Zenta class ships. You might notice the absence of the Lussin-class destroyer, however, whose model in ~1:667 scale is already done as well as you can recall (or check on the webpage), and yet not present (also not present the Tiger's 1:667 semi-finished "main model"). The reason for that is that on these pictures you can actually see the new, unfinished models of said destroyers made after "popular demand" in the same exact 1:1000 scale as is every other ship! I shrinked the original models to the "unified" scale, and the result came out actually better than I expected, so I rolled with it. While I really would like, hell, priorize the original 1:667 idea for the destroyers for greater details, whenever possible I will try to produce them in 1:1000 as well for a better sense of scale!
Do note that most ships on the pictures are "currently being constructed" to a lesser or larger degree.
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Post by akosjaccik on Aug 6, 2019 12:18:45 GMT -6
"Preferably the last "update" before the beginning of the campaign" - as so many times, I was wrong again! ...so, there I was, knee deep in paint (working on the legacy models) and I thought to myself - I did a "paint my ship" for Budapest Naval Arsenal, however I "required" people to actually paint the outline in one way or another. Admittedly, this scared away people for probably a good reason. So, this time I am trying it again, however, not with a blank outline but instead fixed choices: you can vote on any pf these schemes (even multiple ones), and I'll try to paint my model according to the winning scheme!
(apologies, I don't think I am able to create or allowed to embed a poll for a specific post instead of the whole topic on these boards)
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 6, 2019 17:54:13 GMT -6
How's about option A, but with the funnels in a red-white-red scheme. (Nailing your colors to the mast, so to speak).
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Post by janxol on Aug 7, 2019 13:29:50 GMT -6
My gripe with option A is that you cant really see hull details, like the midship casemate on the example above.
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Post by Adseria on Aug 10, 2019 5:04:33 GMT -6
I personally like option C. Nothing wrong with a good, solid light grey.
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Post by rensome on Aug 10, 2019 18:49:44 GMT -6
I personally like option C. Nothing wrong with a good, solid light grey. I totally agree, but it does seem more of a post 1910 wartime scheme rather than a 'just coming out of 1890's' scheme. All of the options will look great either way.
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Post by akosjaccik on Aug 14, 2019 6:52:22 GMT -6
Apologies for my lack of presence here and in the other (both AAR and other kind) threads, I had to divert my attention to (less important ) stuff as well. Regardless, I'd like to thank all of you for your participation in the poll, the results are:
As such, the Donau-class cruisers will be represented (at least initially?) by the 'C'-type scheme! It was very fun to check upon the poll from time to time, and for a long timeit was either a draw or 'A' was leading, in fact I was fully prepared to go with that scheme! It was my personal pick as well. I did get to work on the other ships in the meantime, and while the final touches are still up in the air, they are almost ready (I have to apologize for the image quality as well, in my defence, todays' smartphones probably have as good or better sensors as this poor thing; it was a gloomy day [feels like the entirety of summer '19 is washed away in rain where I live]: and finally I suck at taking photograps. ...at taking photographs too, to be precise):
The destroyers' 1:667 scale models are not shown, all ships on the picture are represented in 1:1000, so in theory they can be compared to each other. Just to be precise, from left to right: Lussin, Tiger, Zenta, Erzherzog, Wien and Budapest - the latter class is in fact still under construction in-game.
I did learn that it's unwise to set deadlines especially for hobbies, but I believe I will be able to begin the game sometime mid-next week.
rimbecano: I might try to draw a side view with that idea, I'm curious about it!
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Post by mycophobia on Aug 14, 2019 9:47:44 GMT -6
The fleet is certainly look more impressive now with three big guys entering the scene As always take as much time as you need and no rush at all, I can totally understand the feeling of “I gotta finish painting these models for sunday’s game” and it does sometime take some Fun out of what’s otherwise a very enjoyable process.(it does help you get stuff done tho ) On taking pictures, I find getting better lightning or just a overall brighter environment will help a lot, but I guess the rain didn’t help That said, I eagerly await the next update.
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Post by Adseria on Aug 16, 2019 9:29:42 GMT -6
You know, I only just realised that there was actually a poll linked in your previous post. I assumed we were supposed to just put our votes here in the thread. But, meh, I would have voted for C anyway, so, hey, it's a win-win, right?
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Post by akosjaccik on Aug 19, 2019 12:58:18 GMT -6
Adseria : Originally, my first idea was to embed a poll into the post itself, but the forum engine apparently - and very wisely - prevented me to tamper with it, so it had to be a link. Regardless, 'C' still won, and I went trough with my promise of painting the ship to the people's choice of scheme. I have to admit, at first I thought this is going to be an utter disaster, as I did not own at the time the right color (all of my greys were of a notably darker shade) - so I though I'm simply going to mix the paint. Well, the same exact manufacturer's acrylic paints did not want to mix together, no matter the amount of stirring; the surface got spotty, diluting the mixed paint was a nightmare, overall I thought "fantastic, here's one for the trash, and of course it had to be the one my readers picked!" In the end however, she came out salvageable, and while I am not extremely happy with the model (or rather my work to be exact), I deemed it ultimately presentable and acceptable.
Now, while there is still a lot of small stuff to be done (proofreading texts, updating and cleaning up several pages at least somewhat, addig naval jacks to the models, repairing small or not so small screw-ups etc.), the framework is for all intents and purposes done, and as strictly speaking I statisfied my own rules (every capital ship and also the destroyers have by all means "combat ready" models), I decided that this is a good opportunity to have a "do it now, correct it later"-moment. In short, I am proud to announce that...
I&I has officially (sort of) launched! Read about the first year (where nothing really happens anyway) here:
As you can tell, from now on the proect will (most likely - and hopefully) won't show off much more extra fluff and will continue as a fairly standard AAR - and not the best at that, for multiple reasons. To counteract this fact, I'll still try to make the road as interesting and digestable as possible with the tools I can work with. ...well, if you find graphs and pointless data digestable for example!
I have to thank you for all your encouragements so far, and I hope the fire will not be significantly smaller as the smoke as they say! For now, take this as some kind of "beta" if you fancy, and I do apologize for any glaring error or inconsistency beforehand.
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Post by mycophobia on Aug 19, 2019 14:22:56 GMT -6
I have to say my eyes are a bit watery as I read that I&I is finally launched , not quite as much as rtw 2 release but maybe about as much as when rtw 2 release date we’re set I’ve spent the lunch break reading over the AAR and I have to say it is very well done. In particulate I’m surprised to find that the data from your exercise may even have helped my understanding of the game with a recording of # of hits on locational and penetrations. The hit suffered by individual ships is also an excellent addition and something I think I will attempt to do from time to time as well. Regarding the model themselves, I’d say Donau came out quite okay and the paint didn’t feel particularly thick or chalky based on the pictures. I guess the number one rule of miniature making is that the finished product always looks better than when you were working on it, so don’t give up so soon As usual, I look forward to your next update I’ll have to prepare some celebration for your aar on my side as I return from work today XD Edit: Maybe a bit cherry picky, but in the last picture of the 1900 AAR showing the gunnery exercise, the foremost funnel on Wien is not emitting smoke xD
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Post by Adseria on Aug 19, 2019 15:29:26 GMT -6
It's August 1900. The heck is a dreadnaught?
Also, in this picture:
You show a 9" AP penetration in the bow of the ship. It seems to be outside the areas representing the belt or extended belt, so I'm guessing it's either a superstructure hit or a hit on an unarmoured hull section?
One more thing; based on my limited experience in RTW2, for the first few years, gun calibre makes no real difference. Whether you're using 9" or 12" guns, they don't have enough penetration to deal with the belt of any equivalent ship. In my game, I had a fleet battle (playing Germany, fighting Britain), and the grand total of losses by both sides was 1 battleship, 2 armoured cruisers and a few destroyers. This is despite several hours spent with the 2 lines of battle, blazing away at one another, broadside on, and often at point-blank range (ie <5000 yds). All battleships in the battle, on both sides, had 12" guns, and no more than 10" of belt (mostly 9"). In other words, from a gameplay POV, I wouldn't worry too much about having relatively small guns; you probably won't achieve much anyway. From an RP POV, of course, I say go nuts; nothing wrong with a RPing a good bit of stupidity every now and then!
EDIT: Forgot to mention, you also used the wrong model for the Tiger-class. You used this screenshot:
It should look like this:
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Post by akosjaccik on Aug 19, 2019 17:24:22 GMT -6
I have to say my eyes are a bit watery as I read that I&I is finally launched , not quite as much as rtw 2 release but maybe about as much as when rtw 2 release date we’re set I’ve spent the lunch break reading over the AAR and I have to say it is very well done. In particulate I’m surprised to find that the data from your exercise may even have helped my understanding of the game with a recording of # of hits on locational and penetrations. The hit suffered by individual ships is also an excellent addition and something I think I will attempt to do from time to time as well. Regarding the model themselves, I’d say Donau came out quite okay and the paint didn’t feel particularly thick or chalky based on the pictures. I guess the number one rule of miniature making is that the finished product always looks better than when you were working on it, so don’t give up so soon As usual, I look forward to your next update I’ll have to prepare some celebration for your aar on my side as I return from work today XD Edit: Maybe a bit cherry picky, but in the last picture of the 1900 AAR showing the gunnery exercise, the foremost funnel on Wien is not emitting smoke xD Much obliged! I have found exercises a bit under-utilized maybe, and thought they might serve as a good "filler" and also an interesting point of experience, considering I always "wanted" to conduct some half-decent tests but never actually got myself around doing them ("casual" campaigns never validated this amount of bean-counting); so even if the results won't be conclusive, I still have something to base decisions on. Well... someting to point at rather. Which is actually kind of fun and engaging in itself, working with something seemingly exact, yet something so clearly lacking in the full picture. Experience is also something I gained with the Donau, that's for sure. I might revisit her in some way of form in the near future. Do not run with FtN, I still have to catch up with a post or two!
For the Wien's funnels, it's kind of hilarious in a way that it was originally fully intended this way - but thinking about it, it's probably still very much an error. The idea was to show the ship not utilizing all of her boilers, for example because traveling at cruising speed while the Zenta towing the target at full speed. What I did not thought about is "If this exercise is aimed at reproducing the best possible match for a ""real world"" scenario, why would the ship care about fuel efficiency or engine overworking while under fire?" So while the idea itself isn't necessarily bad that "ships aren't always melting their engines at flank ahead", but then "when, if not in combat situations?" Of course, there is always the prudent path, which is to come up with some ridiculous bullcr*p for why that section isn't functioning at the time being. Let's say that this was needed to achieve the speed difference required in this examination aimed at potential foreign high-speed cruisers.
Oof, good catch, thank you! I'll have to correct this asap or it will bug me all night.
...now that you say, it would be an excellent idea to keep the background data backed up somewhere, so I could answer this by digging up the exact hit that point is representing. Out of my memory however it should either be a "Hull hit*" or "Fore/aft hull hit *", superstructure hits should be marked fairly distinctly on this abstract layout. I did struggle with registering some hits on proper-ish positions however, so a screw-up is also and always a very real possibility (for example I botched up and double-marked the HE fore/aft hit).
While it is a very good point, I am in a bit of a precarious situation because I do wish to play with relatively "blank pages", at the same time I naturally can not get rid of hindsight. To somewhat mitigate this problem, I try to "explain" my decisions with in-game reasoning, so I try to act upon what I do have in-game. Even with the incomplete data and potential screw-ups, that much is clear with the exercise that defeating armor is problematic to say the least, so rather than tell the government that "honestly, just let us mine the bays and pray", let's "we need bigger guns and also money" instead. It is probably no big spoiler that I plan to redo the exercise with HE-focus as well, and it is also very possible (purely from a modeling standpoint) that I doubt I'll see any new kind of pre-dreadnought type even if bigger calibers will arrive in time, but I try my best (and in some cases will probably fail) to avoid the classic "Oh look, I just built a 16000-ton AV or CA for some reeeeason"-effects, and in this situation betting on more powerful guns is both a matter of prestige and a potential answer since seemingly there is no point in simply building bigger ships but with comparable armament.
To complicate matters even more, in some cases my treading will simply be based on "I want to model this ship", so for example immediately in 1901 you'll see far more inexplicable decisions than this. This is the main reason why I did not go with the Jeune École either which could otherwise also be (or sell itself to be) a potential answer. Frankly, I could maybe just say "for RP reasons", but I do not want to degrade this attributive considering I find my skills severely lacking to do a good RP campaign (and I consider some of these kinds the best AARs on these boards), so let's say the supposed experience in this campaign seems to point at this. "I can't go trough armor, but I want to. Bigger guns are not the answer? Yet the british and the french and the russians and - horrible dictu! - Italy have them, huh?"
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Post by aeson on Aug 19, 2019 18:20:13 GMT -6
With regards to gun caliber, while it's true that very early on the difference in penetrative power is more or less irrelevant, that usually ceases to be the case by the mid-1900s. While the main battery gun caliber might not have a big immediate impact at the time of commissioning, it can be quite important for the longevity of the design - 9" and 12" battleships might be similarly effective in 1900 or 1901, but around 1905 the 12" battleship is becoming decidedly superior and by 1910 there's hardly any contest. Unless you're scrapping ships very aggressively, your legacy battleships are probably going to remain in service to at least 1910 - especially as an economically-weak power like Austria-Hungary, which is likely to have budgetary problems pursuing a fleet construction plan that involves rapid turnover of warships to keep everything as close to the cutting edge as possible.
For example, the penetration tables for my Britain AAR game in mid-1904: My own legacy battleships have 8" belts and according to the Almanac a number of foreign battleships have 7" or 7.5" belts, and fire control isn't really good enough to support engaging at much over 5kyd yet. There's fairly clearly a nontrivial performance gap opening up between the 10" and lighter guns, which can nominally penetrate a ~5.6" belt at 5kyd, and the 11" and heaver guns, which can all nominally penetrate the lighter battleship belts at the same range.
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