AI-created ships

[gornik]

AI and design generator sometimes build really strange, ugly or weird ships, so I decided to post here my collection of them. Feel free to add your spottings here.

Italians always wanted to have fast battleship. FAST LIKE HELL!!!

It would be not trivial problem to catch her, I suspect

She looks like dreadnought, fires like dreadnought, steams like dreadnought... But Russians think differently:

Maybe they love secondary turrets too much?

Cleopatra is light cruiser. Very light.

If you don't think so, she will strafe you with her "light" guns

[gornik]

When I see such ship I always wonder, how all these casemate guns can be contained inside the ship:


She should be armoured cruiser. But then Russians named her "battleship". Maybe the enemies will fear her more!


This forward centreline turret nearly always make ship ugly:

[fogofwar]

I don`t know how you can get a Brit AC doing 28 K on 15,200 tons with 12 11" guns. With a 4" belt, she really should be a BC. Anyone know the top speed of the Beatty`s second generation WW I Brit BC`s ( Lion, Tiger & Princess Royal ? )

PS: What was the build date on those ships ( which I think are great fun and should be left in the Game )

[gornik]

I love strange AI designs too, but I think ones which can't be recreated by player are not intended.

Commission dates of those ships were:
Regina Margerita-1908 (shot made in 1925, so I suspect Italians replaced her machinery, though for player it is impossible as "Hull form will not allow higher speed than 22knots")
Kolokol-1909
Cleopatra-1923

Eurualus-1904
Ne Tron Menya-1907
Eurualus-2 (with 4x3 11 in)-1915

12x11 in CA seem to be British specific - in nearly every game I see such ship in Royal Navy.
Here is another example (1907) :

These ones seem to be designed as "true" BC, as they appeared 3 years before first British BC (1910), and they were the only ones built in series (4 ships total)


Another bunch of ships:
All-medium-guns B (1906)

When I captured such ship after war, I recognised that she has cramped accommodation, but in the same time has nearly 1000 ton free weight! Cargo battleship or troopship for Kaiser's Zeelowe?

And the smallest "CA" I ever see (1912):

For USA British tricks don't work, and 8 in ship is treated as CA

[gornik]

Just started release 1.1 version, and my spy saw the real God of Naval War (1904):

She will rule the waves next 5 years or so, my poor BB can't even compare with her...

[Fredrik W]

The AI does sometimes overdo secondaries I have noticed. It doesn't have to be all that effective though. Secondaries have an accuracy penalty.

[krawa]

IMHO these early "Super Pre-Dreadnoughts" are a disturbing element in a game that put much thought into preventing players from using too much hindsight. These ships are just Dreadnoughts in disguise built to circumvent the rules that prevent the building of proper dreadnoughts. The reason for the heavy secondaries back then was either to save costs or to have a faster firing battery compared to the main guns. So in order to reflect this why not impose a design rule that for secondaries of 8" or more the main battery has to be at least two inches larger (or even 3" for secondaries larger than 10")?

[Fredrik W]

I agree this needs to be watched and possibly tweaked. However, while the game should prevent unrealistic designs and designs much ahead of their time, there must also be room for some innovation and creativity.

Edit: Thinking some more on the subject, I am not sure limiting the designs is the right answer, it might be better to more accurately model the effects of such designs. Having lots of 11 or 12 in secondary guns on a B will necessarily lead to no weight left for decent armour of those mounts. Now what could happen with a ship crammed with poorly armoured heavy gun mounts...?

At present, there is no risk for flash fires in secondary gun mounts, but introducing those would probably make it very clear why this kind of ship configuration has its risks...

[gornik]

I personally love "heavy secondaries" designs and use them too, if I had proper guns invented. Now from some point they are even stronger than early dreadnoughts, as 4x13" + 7x12" seem to be more powerful than 6x13" even with inaccurate fire. And what I love most of all, secondaries may fire full broadsides from both sides at once!!! So I use such ships as rams which break through enemy line in style of Nelson and cut off it's part, while their secondaries prevent rest of enemy fleet from returning to help Not very realistic but very fun! So I hope they wouldn't be limited. And adding secondaries blowing up is exellent idea, I think

[jma286]

Secondary batteries that aren't in turrets just aren't that effective. That powerful British B with oodles of 12" casemates would probably get shot to pieces by an early generation BB with an 8x12" broadside. However, having such large guns in casemates rather than turrets does seem somewhat odd.

[galagagalaxian]

Aug 15, 2015 3:37:55 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

At present, there is no risk for flash fires in secondary gun mounts, but introducing those would probably make it very clear why this kind of ship configuration has its risks...

Yeah, I think this would be a good thing to add. 

[ccip]

Agreed! In fact I'd assumed that it was already there - since I'd always thought secondaries were regarded as a bigger risk for flash fires than the better-protected main batteries.

[gornik]

Greatest number of main guns-per-ship ever seen:

Hmm, this time I love AI design. Maybe build same ship in next game... Looks very powerful!

[krawa]

Aug 15, 2015 3:37:55 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

I agree this needs to be watched and possibly tweaked. However, while the game should prevent unrealistic designs and designs much ahead of their time, there must also be room for some innovation and creativity.

Edit: Thinking some more on the subject, I am not sure limiting the designs is the right answer, it might be better to more accurately model the effects of such designs. Having lots of 11 or 12 in secondary guns on a B will necessarily lead to no weight left for decent armour of those mounts. Now what could happen with a ship crammed with poorly armoured heavy gun mounts...?

At present, there is no risk for flash fires in secondary gun mounts, but introducing those would probably make it very clear why this kind of ship configuration has its risks...

First of all very good proposal for Flash fires for secondaries.

After returning from vacation I checked the ship designer and found that in my current game I can put an arbitrary number of 11" secondaries on my B's in either casemates, single or double turrets, effectively limited only by docksize. At the same time I cannot mount any 11" guns as main guns on the wings as I haven't researched the proper Technology. How does this make sense? I mean either my designers and shipbuilders know to install an 11" gun on a wing mount or not, if it is a primary or secondary mount should be irrelevant.

[jdkbph]

You may want to take into consideration the ammo handling for such large (8"+) "secondaries". It would be a nightmare trying to deliver shot and powder to all those casemate positions and I would think the crew requirements needed to service (eg, hand load) those guns would be enormous.

Note that I'm differentiating between true secondaries and mixed caliber main armaments here.

JD