Ship Squadrons & Flagship Capability

[smrfisher]

A couple of suggestions inspired by my campaigns.

Firstly an add on 'Flagship' capability for ships in the same way as ships equipped for colonial purposes - a buff to signalling/-ve chance of errors - more likely to be at the head of squadrons in battle.

And secondly (although this I think would be more complicated to implement) the ability to assign ships to a squadron for organisation. A squadron would need a 'flagship' (or in mixed class groups scout cruiser leading a destroyer flotilla). These squadrons could be assigned to a role (destroyer squadron to fleet screen, cruiser squadron as scouts, coastal defence, etc.). These different deployments would be a chance multiplier to normal game mechanics in calling ships into battle types, and would allow some control over which ships are grouped together in larger engagements. However, it would not be guaranteed that a whole squadron would be drawn into a fight (using the distance from port/ship in repair mechanic). I think is would allow greater structure in fleet building and also improve some battles in allowing greater over all strategy - BC/Fast BB squadrons in fleet battles and more structured destroyer engagements.

[edit] in addition you could assign groups to certain harbours in a region - again to add flavour and fleet distribution.

Many thanks for an excellent game, and please keep up the continual improvement, it is very much appreciated.

[corsair1]

Sorry if I have misinterpreted, but giving bonuses and buffs like this feels a bit to arcade to me. Feels a bit strange to give one ship better signaling equipment than the rest instead of giving all ships the best equipment avaliable.

And what I think the devs are trying to simulate whith the random battlegenerator is that when you make contact whith the enemy, your best ships are not always close enough to join the action, like IRL
So giving some squadrons higher chance of joining a battle would defeat this purpose
Just my humble opinion

[wlbjork]

This was historically accurate - even as late as WW2 some DDs were built as "leaders".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flotilla_leader

The bigger ships aren't going to notice the extra tonnage as much, but smaller ships may well have their armament compromised. For that matter, players could emulate the (fictional) Royal Manticoran Navy, in which their Prince Consort class omitted flagship fittings for additional armament and lower costs per unit.

[oldpop2000]

Dec 29, 2019 11:21:27 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

This was historically accurate - even as late as WW2 some DDs were built as "leaders".

There were actually two classes of flotilla leaders as the US Navy termed them. The Porter and Somers class. Other nations had their own classes of these kinds of ships. However, due to the London Naval Treaty, these and other nations classes were restricted. For the US Navy the classes were about 1850 Tons, but the Fletchers were over 2050 tons so it really was irrelevant. Light cruisers were the favorite leaders of destroyer flotillas, the Japanese had their class of leaders that were their destroyers leaders. 

I guess without a treaty in the game, the class would be important but I would go for light cruisers instead.

[dorn]

I think that idea that light cruiser as leader of destroyers flotilla is good idea and it could be probably not difficult to implement if there are fast small light cruisers.

AI certainly builds them in 10s.

[oldpop2000]

Dec 29, 2019 12:22:19 GMT -6 dorn said:

I think that idea that light cruiser as leader of destroyers flotilla is good idea and it could be probably not difficult to implement if there are fast small light cruisers.

AI certainly builds them in 10s.

The best example of a light cruiser build which was a destroyer leader would be the Atlanta Class for the US and the Nagara for the Japanese.  The Atlanta's were actually built to perform that mission and that of scouting but that never materialized. They were configured as AA Cruisers and that was their specific purpose.

[oldpop2000]

The main reason that I use light cruisers for flotilla leaders is that they are better suited for command and control. They have more room for communications and the staff for the flotilla commander. They had a higher mast which gave them more range for the Tx/Rx of the radio communications. Actually by the 1940's, that need actually disappeared.