Let's talk Tech

[serger]

Strange to see, that I use tech paradigm, that was not described here so far.

I usually play for weak nations, usually for Spain, with historical resources and admiral mode, "no DD blockade" home rule, with a goal of gaining so much valuable territories for my nation, as it'll be possible (having no goal to collect more prestige, that it'll be necessary to continue my service for prosperity of my nation).

Avoiding wars against UK and US (that will be certainly too hard for my country) and against A-H (that have no colonies to seize), I usually fight againt all other powers: with Spain it must optimally be 1 war against Italy, 1 againt Germany and 2 or more against France).

With this background, my shipbuilding paradigm is to use foreign shipbuilding only.
Correspondingly, my tech priorities always are:

Fire control
AP Projectiles
ASW technology
Explosive shells
Fleet tactics
- high priority

Subdivision and damage control
Turrets and gun mountings
- normal priority (as I don't sure if these techs are used by owning nation or by building nation)

and all other have their low priority (as I'm sure they are used only by building nation or - a Torpedo technology - simply isn't very helpful to win decisive battles and so to crush enemy quickly, avoiding long futile wars).

With this paradigm I usually have strong modern battle line, successfully crash all my enemies by turns, and have enormous colonial empire at the end of every game.

[garrisonchisholm]

Congratulations on your success! You bring up an interesting point though. I had always assumed that when you build a ship in a foreign yard you get advantage of their size, proficiency (speed of building), and equipment (directors, guns, etc.). Perhaps you also get the building state's damage control, though I don't know how this would be revealed by a close scrutiny of the game's data.

[director]

I always raise my research rate to 10%, then focus on Fire Control, Machinery, Light Forces, Torpedoes. Later I add (or switch to) ASW, Turrets and Mountings, Hull Design.

[bcoopactual]

That's actually a good question about damage control techs. My first thought after reading the question was I assumed it was the home nation tech level and not the building nation's tech level with the exception of the TPS techs but if you look at the tech level names, most of those things like improved subdivision, better pumps, triple bottom, etc would be finalized and built/installed prior to delivery and wouldn't be simple or cheap to change if it was even possible. A couple like improved firefighting equipment could be relatively easy to upgrade by the receiving nation.

Having said that though, I don't see anything in the individual Ship files other than Torpedo Protection that is associated with the damage control tech tree. There is an entry for "damage control=0" but it's zero for every ship I checked no matter what nation or year the ship was designed. Doesn't seem to have any relation to damage control research or tech level. Could be those tech level names are just for flavor.

Since there doesn't seem to be any entry in the individual ship files I would guess that the own nation's damage control tech level is the only one that matters regardless of where the ship was built.

[garrisonchisholm]

That's a good breakdown BCoop, & I believe you are right. Despite the fact that 'damage protection schemes' would decidedly be manufactured into the ship by the building yard, it seems that national damage control proficiency is all that matters once the ship is in your navy's hands.