Some questions about Base Capacity and Force Requirement

[jwsmith26]

First let me say that this game is superb. I've played through Germany, Italy and Russia. Each experience was very different but all were  entertaining. It is utterly amazing that you can make a game this good using less than 25 mb. (I'm also currently playing Fallout 4, which comes in at just over 1,000 times bigger at around 28 gb!) Bravo, Mr. Wallin.



As you might have noticed above, none of the nations I've played have extensive colonial possessions and I must admit I'm confused by the information provided by the game regarding colonial possessions and "overseas" deployments in general. Here are a few questions I'm wrestling with. Any help will be greatly appreciated.



1. Can someone explain how to determine which ships will satisfy "Force requirements" for map areas? Currently, the only way I have to determine if I've satisfied the force requirement is to move ships into the area and see what results. This is obviously time consuming and potentially wasteful. For instance, in one starting Japanese setup, there is a Force Requirement for Southeast Asia of 5000 and a single CA in the area resulting in a "Force in area (adjusted)" value of 5,320. Here's the specs on the ship (also note that accommodations were cramped): My question is, what specific ship characteristics result in a "Force" score of 5,320 for this ship?




2. What are the consequences of meeting or not meeting a Force requirement?



3. Along the same lines I don't understand the relationship between Base Capacity and how many ships of various classes can be based in an area. Is there a formula somewhere that I've missed? How is the Basing cost calculated; is it affected by ship tonnage, fuel needs, crew size, the colonial service setting, damage to ship, etc?



4. I also am not clear on how the Base Capacity affects the game. I've consistently exceeded the capacity in areas such as the Med, but other than an occasional downgrading of ship crew quality on cramped destroyers, I've not encountered any negative effects.



5. How does exceeding the Base Capacity affect damaged ships? If you have a fleet that exceeds the Base Capacity of a region and a ship in that fleet is damaged, what happens to the ship? Is it interned, sent home, left in a damaged state in the region; or will the damaged ship be repaired in an over-capacity region?



6. Assuming your fleet does not exceed the regional base capacity, how does the size of Base Capacity affect ship repairs in general. For instance, can a Capacity 10 region repair a BB with 4 months of damage?

[director]

1) Go to the map tab and look at what the area requires. You can also put a ship on FS (Foreign Station) instead of AF (Active Fleet) and the ship will give you credit towards your FS requirement while it steams to the area where it is needed.

2) If you don't have enough ships on foreign stations your leader will reduce your prestige. Especially early in the game that can be ugly.

3) I'm not sure how that's calculated. Try moving some ships to the area and see. As far as I know, base Improvement costs are fixed and roughly double the size each time.

4) Being over your Base Cap means ships that get an * don't recover - in other words they don't have enough support to keep the crew healthy and happy.

5) Not sure if damaged ships get repaired if you are over your Base Cap - I think not.

6) As far as I know, ships repair 1 point of damage per month if they repair anything.

[JagdFlanker]

if you click your mouse on a seazone on the map you will see some very revealing info that will answer a lot of your questions. for example if you click on your home seazone you will see how big your entire fleet is compared to your base capacity. in general your entire fleet will be 200 points big, so build up all your bases that are in the home port of a possible enemy until it has over 200 base capacity you will be able to base your entire fleet on it and blockade them. if you build up all your seazones to be at least 200 base capacity at the start of the game you will never have the problems mentioned in your questions

you will also be able to notice how many points each ship is worth. might be slightly wrong, but:
DD = 1pt
CL = 3pts
CA = 5pts
BB = 8pts

[bcoopactual]

1) Force requirements are satisfied by a ships tonnage. In general, a 6000 ton ship will provide 6000 points towards fullfilling the force requirement. The only two things that I know that modify the number of points provided by the ship's tonnage is cramped accommodations and/or colonial service. The amounts that those two characteristics change the effective tonnage is listed in the manual. I don't have access to it at the moment since I'm at work but I think cramped multiplies the tonnage by 0.7, like in your example for the Asama, and I believe colonial multiplies tonnage by 1.25.

[Edit - I was off on the colonial service multiplier and short range also hurts foreign service points for a ship.  Here is the text from the RTW 1.23 Manual on p. 6: 

    Ships equipped for colonial service count as 1.5
    times their tonnage on foreign stations.

    Ships with cramped accommodation and ships
    with short range are less useful on foreign
    stations and will count as 70% of their actual
    displacement for the purpose of fulfilling this
    requirement.

Also to answer question #2.  This is from the same page in the manual.

    If the required number is not met, player
    prestige may suffer and it might even lead to
    revolts in the affected areas.]

[swang]

The multiple is 1.25, not 1.5, as checked in game. I believe that the manual is incorrect. For foreign stations, I typically have a gaggle of 1600 ton Colonial Service MSs that are mostly empty (and which goes kaboom pretty easily if sneezed at) and in each zone, I have a minimal BC. (Colonail Service, 8000 ton, 3 11in guns.) Note that they have to BCs, not BBs, because BCs will get added as CA/CLs when raiding combat occurs. When a CL/CA comes up against those CAs, they just die.

[hschuster44]

Feb 11, 2016 19:14:54 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

1. Can someone explain how to determine which ships will satisfy "Force requirements" for map areas? Currently, the only way I have to determine if I've satisfied the force requirement is to move ships into the area and see what results. This is obviously time consuming and potentially wasteful. For instance, in one starting Japanese setup, there is a Force Requirement for Southeast Asia of 5000 and a single CA in the area resulting in a "Force in area (adjusted)" value of 5,320. Here's the specs on the ship (also note that accommodations were cramped): My question is, what specific ship characteristics result in a "Force" score of 5,320 for this ship?  ....

From my point of view the micromanagement of home waters and foreign stations could be a bit easier if we had two different lists: one for home fleet ships in service and the other one for ships on foreign stations. The German Flottengesetz 1900 distinguished in that way (Schlachtflotte and Auslandsflotte).

[jwsmith26]

I'm still seeing things about foreign stations that don't make sense.  For instance the following situation occurred.

Playing as the CSA I acquired the Baltic states from Russia, which has a base capacity of 60. I've based ships totaling 43 points in Northern Europe yet I get this message: 



Here's what the Map Details screen look like.



There should be plenty of basing capacity for the fleet I have in Northern Europe. What am I missing here?

[swang]

I believe base capacity is in 1000 ton increments, not points.

[bcoopactual]

Mar 13, 2016 13:06:58 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

I'm still seeing things about foreign stations that don't make sense.  For instance the following situation occurred.

Playing as the CSA I acquired the Baltic states from Russia, which has a base capacity of 60. I've based ships totaling 43 points in Northern Europe yet I get this message: 



Here's what the Map Details screen look like.



There should be plenty of basing capacity for the fleet I have in Northern Europe. What am I missing here?

I agree with you jwsmith26.  I thought base capacity and the number in parenthesis by your fleet in that territory were related.  As I understand how the game works, you should be okay.  Unless I'm not understanding the base capacity mechanic, it looks like a bug that should be reported.

[jwsmith26]

Is there anyone from NWS that could let us know which is correct? Is base capacity measured in 1000 ton increments or in "points".

If it is measured in points then it appears there is a bug.

And if it's measured in points can anyone provide a definitive description of what "points" represent? JagdFlanker provides a guess in a message above:

you will also be able to notice how many points each ship is worth. might be slightly wrong, but:
DD = 1pt
CL = 3pts
CA = 5pts
BB = 8pts

Is he correct?

[Roumba]

I know those points are "Fleet Force" values for use in Blockades and Invasion likelihood calculations.

[swang]

Mar 16, 2016 11:15:00 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

Is there anyone from NWS that could let us know which is correct? Is base capacity measured in 1000 ton increments or in "points".

If it is measured in points then it appears there is a bug.

And if it's measured in points can anyone provide a definitive description of what "points" represent? JagdFlanker provides a guess in a message above:

you will also be able to notice how many points each ship is worth. might be slightly wrong, but:
DD = 1pt
CL = 3pts
CA = 5pts
BB = 8pts

Is he correct?

B = 8
BC = 11
BB = 13

This is for fleet points.  

[jwsmith26]

Is there anyone from NWS that could let us know which is correct? Is base capacity measured in 1000 ton increments or in "points".



If it is measured in points then it appears there is a bug.

I looked at this closely in my last game and it does appear that base capacity is measured in 1000 ton increments, so a base capacity of 24 means that the base can support 24,000 tons of ships in that region.

The interface for this is quite confusing because on the same screen the game uses two different methods to present this information.  The screen below lists the "Force Requirement" and "Force in Area" at their actual values of 7,00 and 34,200 respectively (this screen is for Germany). The same screen displays Base Capacity in something that looks like fleet points but actually each "point" represents 1000 tons.  So the German Base Capacity, listed as 85, is actually 85,000 tons.  

A simple interface change would make this screen much less confusing.  Just change the way the base capacity is represented so that it reads 85,000 rather than 85.

[jwsmith26]

I'm still trying to figure out "Fleet Points".

Here is the formula that has been suggested for how to derive these points.

DD = 1
CL = 3
CA = 5
B   = 8
BC = 11
BB = 13

However, when I look at the game, these numbers do not seem to in any way conform to what I am seeing.

Here's a screen shot of the map detail screen for Northern Europe.



Using the formula above here is what I find when examining this screen:

Germany
2BB = 26
1BC = 11
7CL = 21
14DD = 14
Total = 72 (Fleet Points listed in the game = 47)

Great Britain
9BB = 117
4BC = 44
9CL = 27
14DD = 14
Total = 202 (Fleet Points listed in the game = 89)

France
12BB = 156
4BC = 44
2CA = 10
2CL = 6
18DD = 18
Total = 234 (Fleet Points listed in the game = 68)

AS you can see there is a total disconnect between what has been suggested as values for these ships and what the game is showing. Note that I was playing Germany here so I know that there were no ships equipped for Colonial Service in the German list.

What is especially confusing is that Great Britain has a weaker total (at 202 points) than France (at 234 points) yet the game has Britain (89) having more points than the French (68).

I have no idea what the numbers in parenthesis (i.e. (47)) presented by the game are supposed to represent. Does anyone here?

[tbr]

In this screen all ships in the area are displayed but if they are in maintenance/repair or tasked CP or R, in reserve or mothballed, they do not produce "fleet points".