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Post by Fredrik W on Aug 20, 2016 23:53:40 GMT -6
Varied technologies were introduced as a way to recreate historical uncertainty about which way technology development is moving. We as players have full hindsight and we know what naval developments were ultimately the most successful. Ship designers and admirals in the early 20th century had no idea. Is a big gun battleship really a good idea or not? Are torpedoes really the threat they are made out to be? Nobody knew! That is the situation that varied technologies is intended to recreate.
The effects of playing with varied technologies are varied and will change from game to game. Technologies might arrive later or be harder to invent. Some technologies may be easier to invent. Some technologies may not live up to their promises. Long range gunnery could suck, multiple gun mounts turn out to be a bad idea, torpedoes are not as good as expected etc etc.
So remember that when playing with varied technologies you are really in a parallel universe where things did not turn out the way they did in our regular naval history.
And when playing with varied tech please think twice before writing write bug reports that directors don't seem to work or my torps never hit, and certainly not without mentioning that you are playing with varied tech, otherwise you may send the dev team on wild goose chases.
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Post by director on Aug 21, 2016 1:29:56 GMT -6
Some people may not care for it, but I think it is both bold and compelling - not just a good idea but a great one.
Of course, I haven't played with it yet - LOL.
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Post by thatzenoguy on Aug 21, 2016 2:22:58 GMT -6
I want to try it so bad! HAHA!
Bit busy downloading some Naval games thougH!
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Post by JagdFlanker on Aug 21, 2016 5:59:43 GMT -6
looking forward to it!
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Post by axe99 on Aug 21, 2016 16:58:16 GMT -6
I can't believe I missed this! Been a bit crook of late, and didn't realise this was in yet - sounds really awesome as, as you say, when they built the ships they weren't entirely sure how they turned out. Some were white elephants, others unexpected successes. Will give it a bash soon  . |
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Post by Bullethead on Aug 25, 2016 21:34:39 GMT -6
The effects of playing with varied technologies are varied and will change from game to game. Technologies might arrive later or be harder to invent. Some technologies may be easier to invent. Some technologies may not live up to their promises. Long range gunnery could suck, multiple gun mounts turn out to be a bad idea, torpedoes are not as good as expected etc etc.
Wow, that's pretty nifty. If you change not only the timing but also the effects, then some very interesting things might result. I like this |
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Post by bcoopactual on Aug 25, 2016 22:06:55 GMT -6
Can you imagine a game without effective long range gunnery? One possible outcome: The dreadnought style battleship is never built or is quickly determined to be a flop and dooms the concept of the battlecruiser. Even the pre-dreadnought battleships and armored cruisers become obsolete as torpedo speed and range increase. Battleships and armored cruisers become too vulnerable and therefore too expensive because they can't kill torpedo boats and destroyers before they are in torpedo range. The new capital ships would be torpedo armed light cruisers.
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Post by thatzenoguy on Aug 26, 2016 0:03:44 GMT -6
Oh god...Without long range gunnery, I guess capital ships are armed with as many small guns for setting fires.
Then cruisers/dd's have torps.
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Post by Bullethead on Aug 26, 2016 10:04:54 GMT -6
Can you imagine a game without effective long range gunnery? One possible outcome: The dreadnought style battleship is never built or is quickly determined to be a flop and dooms the concept of the battlecruiser. Even the pre-dreadnought battleships and armored cruisers become obsolete as torpedo speed and range increase. Battleships and armored cruisers become too vulnerable and therefore too expensive because they can't kill torpedo boats and destroyers before they are in torpedo range. The new capital ships would be torpedo armed light cruisers. The real world actually went through several brief periods like this. The first happened on land in the 1850s, when infantry got rifled muskets before the artillery got rifled cannon, thus giving smallarms fire greater range than artillery. But on the naval side of things, things were more complex with the interaction of engines, guns, armor, torpedoes, and fire control developing at different speeds, so there were a number of times when the mix of the moment favored solutions that look strange with our hindsight. There was a time when protected cruisers with medium-caliber QF guns were considered battleship killers because battleships had narrow, immensely thick belts of primitive armor and not much else, and couldn't shoot fast enough to kill the cruisers before being wrecked by HE on their vast unarmored areas. There was a time when armored cruisers were considered superior to battleships because ranges were so short that 8-10" guns would deal with battleship armor and the smaller guns fired faster. There was a time when effective torpedo range exceeded effective gun range so the "torpedo cruiser" appeared. |
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Post by marcorossolini on Aug 31, 2016 1:24:10 GMT -6
Still happens today in a certain WW1-WW2 online naval game...  |
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Post by thatzenoguy on Aug 31, 2016 5:46:42 GMT -6
Still happens today in a certain WW1-WW2 online naval game...  *Wargaming logic* Lets make the largest, most deadly, most heavily armoured and expensive warmachines ever made, one of the worst classes! ;D PERFECT LOGIC! |
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Post by klavohunter on Sept 11, 2016 20:38:02 GMT -6
I'm still playing through my Varied Tech USA game that gave me the hilariously early 'BBs'. I think I have gotten most every Bad Tech event possible - Multi-gun turrets are inefficient, torpedoes suck, and now my scientists declare Long-Range Gunnery is really hard, as they invent the Improved Director.
I'm at a bit of a loss as to what is effective, then. I just started a bunch of large 6"/Torpedo CLs, figuring that closer-range actions would be more decisive. This is quite annoying, since I built all my recent capital ships for long-range engagement with heavy deck armor.
I figure I should just ignore the scientists and tough it out with long-range gunnery with my 4-gunned BCs and 6-gunned BBs. I get to afford lots of ships while the AI ploughs along with making typical triple-turret ships...
Does Improved Triple Turret tech remove all the maluses, or only some of them?
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Post by jwsmith26 on Sept 11, 2016 22:14:29 GMT -6
In a normal game improved triple turrets will remove all of the inefficiencies of early triple turrets. But you need to rebuild any triple turret armed ships after you get the improved turret tech before the turrets will be improved (any kind of rebuild works). However that's in a normal game. I have no idea if a varied tech game works the same.
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Post by ccip on Sept 21, 2016 2:27:39 GMT -6
Sorry to dig this up for a very tangentially related question, but this made me think of something:
Has anyone had much luck with torpedo cruisers in the game? I haven't tried since last year, but my results then were spectacularly... disappointing, actually. I waited until DDs proved my long-range torpedo tech effective in late game, then built whole classes of medium-sized CLs with 8 tubes per side. On paper they looked great and I thought I could have them firing all 16 in quick succession. In practice though, they ended up almost never firing at anywhere near max range, and when they did, it was usually just one or two torpedoes at a time, but never salvo shooting. The time in between shots would also be longer than the tubes' reload time, after which I concluded that any more than 2 tubes per side on a CL is a waste, and never bothered with them again.
I assumed this just had to do with AI routines for CLs, which were inherited from WWI SAI, where torpedo cruisers were not actually a thing, and all ships except DDs used torpedoes defensively and sparingly.
Anyone had better luck with this than me?
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Post by thatzenoguy on Sept 21, 2016 2:36:01 GMT -6
Honestly, lategame I ALWAYS slap on as many torps onto my cruisers as possible.
Without them, I could never have DOMINATED the night battles, where torpedo cruisers fired countless torpedoes, even hitting UNSIGHTED targets.
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