Extended patrol Commerce Raider ships/squadrons
It would be interesting to be able to create a long range commerce raider(CR) vessel and or squadron/wolfpack. These commerce raiders would ideally be suited to carry out long range cruises (Colonial option for warships) and or be serviced by a disguised tender. They can operate in an area without base support due to their mission type.
Remember anything you can do, the A.I. can return in spades
I expand on my idea below the "Overview" paragraph.
Overview
Raiders are despatched to a particular ocean area from a home base.
They are working under radio silence and cannot be utilised until 'recalled' or their cruise duration ends.
Raider Vessels have a cruise duration of "X months". On station time is reduced by travel time to and from home base (Further away the
shorter the on station cruise). On station time increased by having colonial design feature.
Tender vessels can be sent to an ocean area to support raiders (increasing on station time).
Once arriving on their patrol area they are treated much like Coastal patrol forces/Submarines. Commerce is intercepted abstractly with the caveat that sometimes players will be forced to manage engagements should they be interdicted by a naval force or a convoy has a strong naval escort.
Some suggested detail.
A ships firepower and speed will influence its abstract success. Greater raiding success will demand greater action by the enemy nation to find and engage your raider. A raider will attempt to avoid threatening forces.
"Merchantman Overdue in Indian Ocean" or "Last Contact with escort force H was in the Caribbean" could provide clues to where raiders were operating. A suitable delay in receiving the messages due to fog of war effect.
Commerce Raider Vessels will be listed as CR under Status as well as a countdown number of months before it returns to base. So a Status of "CR-5" is 5 months remaining before it returns, this includes back to base travel time. Cancel Cruise option orders the vessel home but the message may be delayed due to radio silence.
A tender depending on its size can either simply be 'available' on station or have a nominal countdown for when its supplies will be depleted. The larger the tender the more supplies it can perhaps provide. The smaller the commerce raider, the shorter its benefit. (I use class as the driver for duration of cruises but tonnage could just as easily be used stepping <5k, <15k, <40k, >40k)
Formula suggestion for total away from base time.
Tender 24 month cruise. (Reduced by 'X' months of supply provided. Too Detailed ?)
Submarine 3 month +1 if Tender present (I'm not overly familiar with submarine use in RTW so perhaps this is not needed for this class)
CL 4 month +2 if Tender present +1 if colonial fit
AC,B, 5 month +3 if Tender present +2 if colonial fit
BC,BB 6 month +4 if Tender present +3 if colonial fit
Tender, AMC, Q-Ship 12 month +3 if Tender Present
Random mechanical or supply failures would reduce a raiders cruise duration. It would be assumed that fresh supplies could be obtained in foreign waters, either from local sources or prizes.
I suggest a Tender, Q-Ship and AMC are automatically equipped for extended voyages due to the nature of them being former merchantmen or liners and have potential to carry a lot of fuel and other supplies. Being specialist ships I suggest between wars they are moth-balled not automatically scrapped.
A Tender present in any ocean location (Stationed not travelling through) could alleviate some or all of a a vessels penalties for being out of a base area.
Colonial or other long distance operating feature would benefit a raider's cruise duration but players could decide to accept lower performance for ships not so equipped.
Player involvement logic (Battles)
No need to manually fight any interdiction against unescorted merchantmen.
An AI resolve option for players to choose when AI opposition is vastly over-matched. (Weak convoy escorts).
Forced Player involvement for threatening interdiction of their raider or strong convoy escorts.
I hope there are a few suggestions here that will trigger some discussion.
My apologies if any suggested before, I haven't made it through all of the post as yet