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Post by dizzy on Sept 13, 2019 22:14:19 GMT -6
My current campaign with Ship Design:
Heavy secondary battery - Enables secondary guns heavier than 7 inches in casemates or single turrets
Medium wing turrets - Enables secondary wing double turrets up to 10 inches calibre
Main battery Wing turrets - Enables main battery wing turrets on ships
Cross deck fire - Enables cross deck fire for staggered wing turrets (positions D & F or E & G)
Superimposed X turret - Enables superimposed X turret on ships
Superimposed B turret - Enables superimposed B turret on ships
Anyone tell me what else I need to put an X or B on a Battleship?
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Post by dizzy on Sept 13, 2019 22:15:46 GMT -6
Ahh, nevermind. i just got Centerline turret tech. That allowed X and B. I don't think Centerline turret tech should be a prerequisite for X and B, but I dont really know...
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Post by rimbecano on Sept 13, 2019 22:50:10 GMT -6
Well, the only superimposed configurations you could do without the tech for 3 (or more centerline turrets) would be AB, XY, or one of those two with some wing turrets. Of these, only AB was ever historically built, and that didn't happen before the 30s. All of the early superimposed designs had 4 or 5 centerline turrets, and the British designs had open sighting hoods, so they couldn't actually fire the upper turret over the bow/stern without knocking the crew of the lower turret silly.
As much as I love AB configurations and would really like to be able to get B turret in 1904 and not have to have 3x centerline before building superimposed configurations (neither of which are possible in game), there's ample historical justification for the way things are.
Keep in mind that many of the techs in the game are meant more to reflect changes in doctrine than actual technological development. Militaries tend to be of two minds about changes to design doctrine: on the one hand, yes, they want to stay ahead of their opponents and have the most efficient designs possible. On the other, they don't want to try too many revolutionary changes at once, lest something that looked like a good idea turn out not to be and they lose a war because of it. Consequently, lots of techs in RTW aren't so much "we figured out how to do this cool new thing" as "we dragged the design board, kicking and screaming, a few feet closer to the 20th century".
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Post by dizzy on Sept 13, 2019 23:37:07 GMT -6
Oh yeah, ok... I get it. I must've walked into a bulkhead. Of course you need at least 3 centerline before you can fire superimposed... Really don't know what I was thinking, lol. Thanks for that... explanation. I got the dumb.
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Post by charliezulu on Sept 15, 2019 11:56:36 GMT -6
Well, the only superimposed configurations you could do without the tech for 3 (or more centerline turrets) would be AB, XY, or one of those two with some wing turrets. Of these, only AB was ever historically built, and that didn't happen before the 30s. All of the early superimposed designs had 4 or 5 centerline turrets, and the British designs had open sighting hoods, so they couldn't actually fire the upper turret over the bow/stern without knocking the crew of the lower turret silly. As much as I love AB configurations and would really like to be able to get B turret in 1904 and not have to have 3x centerline before building superimposed configurations (neither of which are possible in game), there's ample historical justification for the way things are. Keep in mind that many of the techs in the game are meant more to reflect changes in doctrine than actual technological development. Militaries tend to be of two minds about changes to design doctrine: on the one hand, yes, they want to stay ahead of their opponents and have the most efficient designs possible. On the other, they don't want to try too many revolutionary changes at once, lest something that looked like a good idea turn out not to be and they lose a war because of it. Consequently, lots of techs in RTW aren't so much "we figured out how to do this cool new thing" as "we dragged the design board, kicking and screaming, a few feet closer to the 20th century". This ends up kinda being an odd argument given that the IRL design boards of the period were usually pushing for weird **** like this. Narbeth, for instance, originally proposed an Atlanta-like 6-turret layout for Dreadnought after Wilson's comments about broadside firepower, but it was rejected for various tactical reasons (a single hit could knock out all 3 turrets, and since the guns couldn't superfire, it was weaker when it came to end-on fire than a hexagonal layout). Those are concerns which are replicated in-game to some extent, and could be fully reproduced if some features like turret arcs worked differently (i.e, your turret arcs are based on the "length" of your hull - presumably some function of speed, tech, and displacement - and the relative location of the turrets and the "imaginary" superstructure) . In that context, the techs you're talking about are not because the design boards were conservative IRL, but instead a way to prevent the player from designing ships that don't match the "historical" designs (ignoring the huge number of weird designs that were put to paper IRL but never built) because the mechanics only work to represent the pros of cons of existing designs and weren't made to cover things like the aforementioned preliminary designs. (As an aside, to really emphasize how willing the design boards were to break with the orthodoxy, one of the NC prelims was this:) |
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Post by rimbecano on Sept 15, 2019 12:23:51 GMT -6
In that context, the techs you're talking about are not because the design boards were conservative IRL, but instead a way to prevent the player from designing ships that don't match the "historical" designs (ignoring the huge number of weird designs that were put to paper IRL but never built) because the mechanics only work to represent the pros of cons of existing designs and weren't made to cover things like the aforementioned preliminary designs. The thing is, the designs weren't built *because the design boards were conservative*. Yeah, during the preliminary greenlighting phase they put together all kinds of weird and/or forward-looking designs, but as they worked towards a final design to actually be built the designs that were considered to be riskier tended to be dropped. |
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Post by charliezulu on Sept 15, 2019 14:14:16 GMT -6
In that context, the techs you're talking about are not because the design boards were conservative IRL, but instead a way to prevent the player from designing ships that don't match the "historical" designs (ignoring the huge number of weird designs that were put to paper IRL but never built) because the mechanics only work to represent the pros of cons of existing designs and weren't made to cover things like the aforementioned preliminary designs. The thing is, the designs weren't built *because the design boards were conservative*. Yeah, during the preliminary greenlighting phase they put together all kinds of weird and/or forward-looking designs, but as they worked towards a final design to actually be built the designs that were considered to be riskier tended to be dropped. So, in that case, the person who'd be doing that dropping was the admiral that the players are supposed to be representing, and they'd be dropped for the same reasons that we choose various design features. You can extend the logic behind not having A/Bs/Css on a 1905 battleship to, say, only ever building either 2-gun hexagonal or A/Bs/Q/Xs/Y layouts depending on if you can superfire or not, but the game gives that freedom because that wouldn't let you make the "popular" designs that existed historically. It's odd that the game will let you make an early warship that is unable to give effective (i.e, more than 2 guns) end-on fire if you make some specific design choices, but if you try to make designs that were rejected for the same reason IRL, it says no. If the rejection of certain designs due to tactical concerns is enough to build the tech system off of, then it should apply universally (and would make for a very boring game if you could only make the most orthodox designs instead of being able to act out various fantasies of being the "driving force" behind a new type of warship a la Fisher. |
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Post by tbr on Sept 15, 2019 15:56:41 GMT -6
RTW and RTW2 do simulate how navies develop over time. Even as one of the "great" naval leaders like Fisher or Tirpitz there are always limits to what you can do. Fisher for instance did not get everything he wanted when he wanted it. These navies of the modern age are extensive organistations with many actors and are in turn interconnected and dependant on the wider political stakeholder community. The tech tree in RTW and RTW2 does represent part of this. Ideas need to mature and prove themselves to gain acceptance in "naval society".
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Post by charliezulu on Sept 16, 2019 5:13:48 GMT -6
RTW and RTW2 do simulate how navies develop over time. Even as one of the "great" naval leaders like Fisher or Tirpitz there are always limits to what you can do. Fisher for instance did not get everything he wanted when he wanted it. These navies of the modern age are extensive organistations with many actors and are in turn interconnected and dependant on the wider political stakeholder community. The tech tree in RTW and RTW2 does represent part of this. Ideas need to mature and prove themselves to gain acceptance in "naval society". That may be the case in general, but it's not the reason for this. "Superfiring" turrets were not rejected because Fisher faced resistance, they were rejected because of practical concerns about tactical suitability. If your rationale were to hold, then either we should be allowed to do anything that was not blocked by either technical limitations or political resistance (which would not include this layout, at least for Britain) or we should be restricted by making tactically "sub-optimal" choices in every case (which would include anything with closely-grouped turrets and less than 4 guns firing on the ends - a restriction I imagine would end up being frustrating). |
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Post by tbr on Sept 16, 2019 7:45:26 GMT -6
RTW and RTW2 do simulate how navies develop over time. Even as one of the "great" naval leaders like Fisher or Tirpitz there are always limits to what you can do. Fisher for instance did not get everything he wanted when he wanted it. These navies of the modern age are extensive organistations with many actors and are in turn interconnected and dependant on the wider political stakeholder community. The tech tree in RTW and RTW2 does represent part of this. Ideas need to mature and prove themselves to gain acceptance in "naval society". That may be the case in general, but it's not the reason for this. "Superfiring" turrets were not rejected because Fisher faced resistance, they were rejected because of practical concerns about tactical suitability. If your rationale were to hold, then either we should be allowed to do anything that was not blocked by either technical limitations or political resistance (which would not include this layout, at least for Britain) or we should be restricted by making tactically "sub-optimal" choices in every case (which would include anything with closely-grouped turrets and less than 4 guns firing on the ends - a restriction I imagine would end up being frustrating). Those "practical concerns" are how what I wrote can be expressed. From the hindsight viewpoint of "progress" some concerns were valid in themselves but were maintained for too long, some concerns were overhyped to begin with and others were without substance. Only few are efficiently and rationally incorporated in the progressing "march of technology". The "tech tree" in RTW/RTW2 is not "pure tech" but represents social constraints and bureaucratic inertia as well. That does not mean that the "resistance" against "progress" was always without rational basis. A big element in retarding employment of A/B superfiring for instance was the difficulty in reliable calculating metacentric height in designs, especially for Atlantic designs with a higher forecastle. |
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