Rebuild and Designing new ships

[tybs]

Im pretty new at the game, so im struggling a bit in knowing when i shud redesign my old ships and when i shud make new ones. Are there particular techs is shud look for. 

Do you guys also have good strategy for cycling old ships out whit new ships? 


I tend to end up whit lots of old ships that end up being outclassed. 

Btw is there an easy way to see the design rules for the different classes? 

[gornik]

Welcome aboard!

Ship type definitions may be found in game manual on p.23 (Appendix 1), though they may be outdated a bit. Note that AI has less hard borders there than player.

Rebuilding is absolute MUST when new type of firing system invented, mine rails appear, or when ship got (O)bsolete mark. Even weakest country may find money for it, and result worth it.

Other rebuilding should be ordered carefully, as often they cost half of new ship and sometimes-more than new ship! Only clear advantage is time: rebuilding of dreadnought is 3-4times faster than building completely new one. Some of my rules about upgrade and recycling are:

-Better rebuild ship created for this from start. (BB with triple 12 in turrets and thick skin may be rebuilded into quite modern one by replacing both guns and machinery)
-Gun replacement to same calibre worth it if you upgrade them from -2/-1 to +1
-DD with side and single torpedo mounts worth rebuilding to centreline double ones.
-All big ships worth bulging (with machinery replacement to save speed) if they don't have inner torpedo protection-late game torps are nasty.
-Generally BC are my main priority to upgrade, CL and old B are the last in list.
-If you have treaty limiting ships to "weak CA" (8K ton), better rebuild old fleet before laying "treaty ships".
-If you don't want to upgrade old weak ship, mothball her. If after 2-3 years you don't change your mind, scrap her to save money.
-B are first candidates to scrap, most light ships may serve you more than half of game (DD may serve you whole game!)

After some parties you will find which rules are useful for you, and invent your own

[tybs]

Tanks that really helps. I think maybe i have bitten over a little bit much trying to learn the game playing the UK. But its a lot of fun.

Looks like Cruisers are the main ships, so far i have not had any Battleship engagements.

[JagdFlanker]

all your ships will become (o)bsolete 10 years after they are built, so what i do right after a war is rebuild any ship that is 7 years into their life so that they are ready for the next war


i very rarely replace machinery since it's expensive, but if i do it i save it for older cruisers at about midgame if you have access to oil and oil-firing engines. these cruisers are great for colony guarding and chasing down raiders, and i don't build anymore cruisers after the first couple years of the game so it's just easier and cheaper for me to rebuild the older ones


B/BB/BC i only upgrade their gun quality and fire control between wars since old capital ships are only good for colony guarding or loading up ship points in a seazone with enemy colonies to bump up your chance of invading it. i don't retire my first B's until almost 1920 when i have enough newer Bx's to compete with the newer enemy ships


DD i never upgrade anything on them, i just do a blank rebuild (open up the ship design for rebuild and saving without changing anything) so they don't become obsolete in the middle of the next war i get dragged into. DDs are cheap to build and their tech is the fastest to advance so i'm never afraid to build a pile of new bigger and better DDs and throw the old ones out in the trash


MS i build 40 at the very beginning of the game and i keep the same ones until the end of the game. i do a blank rebuild on them between every war so they never go obsolete, and they are dirt cheap to rebuild. since i use them all for coastal patrol and you will never use them in battle what's important is the amount that you have, not their capability so just build the cheapest 200t MS you can


and lastly, it's not possible to see the design rules in the game, you need to look at the RtW manual to get them. i figured out the rules by guessing and eventually catching on, i wish the design screen was a little more intuitive in that regard

[fredsanford]

Watch for the main fire control techs for cues when to upgrade. Most of the fire control tech upgrades are gradual improvements that don't require any player action, but there's a few to watch for and jump on upgrading ships when you get them. They are:
1. Central firing (shows up usually around 1903 or so, depending on who you're playing)
2. Director (around 1911-12)
3. Improved Director (1918 or so)
4. Advanced Director (mid to late '20s)

Refitting or changing guns is really expensive- it wasn't done often IRL, and for a reason. Machinery upgrading is also expensive, but coal->oil is worth it, especially for cruisers you may want to keep for a long time. Ships get more unreliable with age.

[tortugapower]

Dec 4, 2015 17:39:07 GMT -6 fredsanford said:

...<snip>

Refitting or changing guns is really expensive- it wasn't done often IRL, and for a reason. Machinery upgrading is also expensive, but coal->oil is worth it, especially for cruisers you may want to keep for a long time. Ships get more unreliable with age.

Can someone explain more about the advantages of having oil vs. coal burning?  From what I can tell, the advantages are two-fold and (usually) minor: 1) reduced smoke, 2) reduces weight -- but this is heavily offset by cost.

From my testing, if you don't have to worry about a max size restriction (which makes oil the right choice), and holding all other factors equal, the minimum-sized coal burning ship will have displacement about 5% higher, while the oil-burning ship costs about 5% more. From what I have seen, it appears that displacement size is related to the flotation hitpoints, so having a larger displacement is better if you're not paying for it. So the only persistent disadvantage I see is the smoke. One advantage to coal is the thicker engine bunker, too.

Which means that I must be missing something!

edit:
Here's an example the ship design tradeoff between the two fuel types:
youtu.be/E_ex0MHl9Q0?t=9m35s

[fredsanford]

Smoke interference is less, and ships can maintain max speed longer without grate fouling and stokers getting exhausted. Both occur with coal ships in the game.

[JagdFlanker]

a coal burning ship needs men to shovel the coal, so after a length of time at high speed they tire out and the ship starts slowing down

[tortugapower]

Dec 9, 2015 20:02:01 GMT -6 JagdFlanker said:

a coal burning ship needs men to shovel the coal, so after a length of time at high speed they tire out and the ship starts slowing down

I know this is real, but it still provokes very comic images in my head.

So do you guys think Oil-burning ships are a necessity as soon as Oil Firing is researched then? Or do you ever leave some coal-burners?

edit: for me, the maintenance difference is severe enough that I keep using a lot of coal

[bcoopactual]

In addition to what was written above. on page 17 of the manual it also mentions that the oil burning engines have less of a weight penalty for long range so the tonnage savings vs. coal is even greater if you need to design a ship with long range capability. Also, I believe but am not sure because I can't remember where I read it but coal burning ships can be spotted at longer ranges, at least during daylight, because of the additional smoke they produce.

I'm no expert at the game so this is just personal preference but I always design new ships with oil after I develop the tech. The weight savings for armor and weapons is more important to me than the cost. But I don't play with the historical budgets selected so I have more money to work with and I could certainly see sticking with coal if you are playing with historical budgets.

[tmp]

Weight savings can mean considerable difference in how much armour/armament you can pack on the ship and/or how fast it'll be able to move, all of these translating to much better survivability on the battle field. In this context the little bit extra you might pay is a prudent investment, if it results in your ships staying afloat at the end of the day while your opponent's don't.

[Fredrik W]

Oil fuel increases engine cost by 40% when new, but the increase in cost will go down gradually to 10% with increasing engine development.

Similarly, oil fuel will reduce engine weight more with increasing engine development.

So, as with many new technologies, it will become cheaper and more effective when it has matured.

[tortugapower]

Dec 10, 2015 11:25:03 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

Oil fuel increases engine cost by 40% when new, but the increase in cost will go down gradually to 10% with increasing engine development.

Similarly, oil fuel will reduce engine weight more with increasing engine development.

So, as with many new technologies, it will become cheaper and more effective when it has matured.

Okay, awesome, this is really good to know (I'm sure to add it to the tutorial stuff). When I did this comparison, it was the first turn I had oil firing. Thanks for all the comments, and sorry to the OP I hope I didn't hijack the thread.

[kyle]

If I'm playing Japan and have no access to my own oil, can I still build Oil fired ships and assume that I have fuel purchased from someone?  It would be fun to the RTW track oil stocks but adding another layer of complexity isn't necessarily something needed.  Talk about going after tankers though!

[hmssophia]

Dec 10, 2015 17:54:32 GMT -6 kyle said:

If I'm playing Japan and have no access to my own oil, can I still build Oil fired ships and assume that I have fuel purchased from someone?  It would be fun to the RTW track oil stocks but adding another layer of complexity isn't necessarily something needed.  Talk about going after tankers though!

I believe you have to have your own oil stocks to be able to build them.
However, if that's true, I wonder what happens if you have oil fired ships in the fleet and, say, lost the oil producing colony.