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Post by archelaos on Sept 15, 2016 4:56:47 GMT -6
Yesterday, while I was trying to produce realistic French legacy fleet, I ran into a problem - those earliest B have insane belt, turret thickness, up to 18in at times. At the same time the resistance of that early armor would be way less than later armored plates. Is there any way to recalculate or just put as much as can be fitted* after displacement, speed and guns are in place?
*Taking into account they should have narrow belt+short range
Other thing - is there a way to copy already made designs to new save, for use in legacy fleet construction? I know you can just copy-paste between save folders while during game, but I mean specifically during legacy fleet building, as that is generally only place I'd like to do it, to not be forced to make historical ships again and again for every game I want to use them (it is time consuming...).
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Post by bcoopactual on Sept 15, 2016 6:23:44 GMT -6
Make a separate folder in the Save folder for your legacy designs and copy them into there. When you start a new game you can use the open design button, the one with the manila folder on it, next to the enemy class name field (in the design ship screen) to go to that folder and grab the design(s) you want. Save the design and it will create a copy in the current game1-5 folder with the proper extension so you can build the ship in your current game.
As far as armor, for the most part you aren't going to be able to match historical armor thickness to in-game armor thicknesses. For in-game purposes, 1 in of protection is the same regardless of the type of steel. Harvey, Krupp cemented, etc. My understanding is this is done because makes it far easier for the game to calculate penetration and damage by shells because you don't have to have completely different penetration tables for each type of material. So the developers assigned a reference material that provides 1in of protection for so much weight for a given belt size. Weaker steels like Harvey armor will require more weight of material to achieve that same 1in of reference protection and stronger materials will require less weight of material.
So the armor thickness you see in-game doesn't indicate what would be the real physical thickness of material like you would see listed in Jane's or Conway's so you are not going to get the numbers to match.
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Post by Bullethead on Sept 15, 2016 6:45:58 GMT -6
The old French (and other) ships with very thick belts did indeed have narrow belts. They had to, due to the weight that thickness required.
In all naval games that deal with the period where different armor technologies were in use simultaneously, the different types of armor all have to be converted to work on the same scale, so that the same shell penetration and damage mechanics will work for all of them. Most games use the historical thicknesses and then apply a factor that reduces the early types of armor to a smaller effective number. But these games usually use historical ships where weight isn't really a factor---it was taken care of by the real-life designers. In RTW, where you have to design your own ships, you have to deal with the weight issue, so RTW does things differently. The inches you specify in the ship designer is the actual effective thickness for combat purposes. But the older types of armor weigh more per inch than later types.
That said, RTW has a much more incremental change in armor technology than real life. Each tech upgrade seems to give you a 1% weight reduction instead of 20-40% as really happened. I think it does this for gameplay reasons, because it gives older ships a potentially longer life and keeps a country that develops Krupp armor first from suddenly having an overwhelming superiority over everybody else still using Harvey or even nickel steel. Thus, exactly replicating the historical thicknesses of armor in very old ships is rather hard to do.
Also, there's the question of displacement. RTW appears to work in terms of full load displacement with all fuel, ammo, and other stores aboard. But real ship designers mostly used other measures of displacement with less than full stores aboard, and it's these numbers that you usually see in reference books, especially for very early ships. This is epitomized by the "standard displacement" used for all post-Treaty ships, which was a political creation not at all useful to the actual designers and users of the ships in question. However, the references usually list the reported (and often deliberately wrong) standard displacement. Sometimes you'll find a full load figure as well for such ships, but usually not for older ships.
And then there's the issue of reported maximum speeds in references. In those days, trial were usually run with hand-picked expert stokers using hand-picked, top-quality coal, and only enough of either to do the speed run. The ship itself was often lacking much important (and heavy) equipment (like guns, let alone ammo). Thus, trial speeds in the early days usually had nothing to do with what the ship could really do in service, but it took well into the 1900s before this practice changed.
As to saving your legacy designs, put them in a separate, non-save folder where they're safe. Start your new game, exit the game, copy the designs to the chosen save folder, and there you go.
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Post by thatzenoguy on Sept 15, 2016 9:10:57 GMT -6
It should be noted that the plates ingame are in 'how much inches it protects against' not 'how many inches thick'.
An 18 inch 1900 plate is as durable as a 1950 plate, but it will weigh a LOT more.
Because of this, and that early 1900-1908 have minimal penetration, you can spare with REALLY thin armour belts.
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Post by ccip on Sept 15, 2016 9:20:00 GMT -6
Yeah, simply put, I think it's best to treat that number as "Krupp equivalent" rather than actual thickness. The mechanics for how the game models it might seem a little odd, but the net result you get as far as protection is very realistic. It's kind of a necessary generalization that keeps a level playing field.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2016 2:26:06 GMT -6
I have that problem too, when trying to build my historical US Navy fleet. The best advice I can give is to just do the best you can with the toys you're given, and approximate wherever possible. Does it really matter whether or not the USS Maine doesn't have cross-deck fire in 1899 as was historically accurate? Not really:   Mostly I focus on getting the armament right first, then I go for the closest displacement, then I mess around with things like speed and armor. Mysterious explosions in Havana harbor not included. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Texas_(1892) |
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Post by ccip on Sept 21, 2016 3:02:10 GMT -6
I have that problem too, when trying to build my historical US Navy fleet. The best advice I can give is to just do the best you can with the toys you're given, and approximate wherever possible. Does it really matter whether or not the USS Maine doesn't have cross-deck fire in 1899 as was historically accurate? Not really: Mostly I focus on getting the armament right first, then I go for the closest displacement, then I mess around with things like speed and armor. Mysterious explosions in Havana harbor not included. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Texas_(1892)A couple of things come to mind with those. Taking the Maine as an example - first you have to consider that while the Maine had 12" belts, those were nickel steel. That would work out to about 7", at best 8", in Krupp equivalent, as used in the game. Secondly, you could also make the argument that the game should treat the historical Maine as having a narrow belt, which would free up weight you could then put into its thickness. But more importantly, 21kt speed? The design speed for the Maine was 17kt (which she failed to meet). I think even just dialing down the speed (especially if it's to the actual 16kt that the Maine managed) would alone be enough to buff up the armor to 7-8", which would be in line with the historical main belt's protection level. So actually, I think RTW is doing a pretty good job there on it. Otherwise, if you look at what was historically state of the art at the turn of the century - basically if your starter Bs have 17kt and a 7-8" main belt, you're doing pretty good! Actually what I see of AI-generated ships at the start of the game is already better than that |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2016 8:25:48 GMT -6
A couple of things come to mind with those. Taking the Maine as an example - first you have to consider that while the Maine had 12" belts, those were nickel steel. That would work out to about 7", at best 8", in Krupp equivalent, as used in the game. Secondly, you could also make the argument that the game should treat the historical Maine as having a narrow belt, which would free up weight you could then put into its thickness. But more importantly, 21kt speed? The design speed for the Maine was 17kt (which she failed to meet). I think even just dialing down the speed (especially if it's to the actual 16kt that the Maine managed) would alone be enough to buff up the armor to 7-8", which would be in line with the historical main belt's protection level. So actually, I think RTW is doing a pretty good job there on it. Otherwise, if you look at what was historically state of the art at the turn of the century - basically if your starter Bs have 17kt and a 7-8" main belt, you're doing pretty good! Actually what I see of AI-generated ships at the start of the game is already better than that Well, the Maine and Texas were later reclassified as Armored Cruisers, so fitting them out to that specification seemed okay to me. The speed was purely for game reasons, clearly ahistorical, but a CA with less than 21 knots in the game isn't going to fight well. Regardless of how much I wanted to stick to realism, there's no reason to purposely build ships that can't fight properly against the AI's ships. A 7000 ton Battleship that can only go 16 knots will get sunk in it's first battle, so I made some sacrifices to realism in order to preserve gameplay, which was my whole point. Building historically accurate designs is fun, but if they can't fight properly, they'll just get destroyed to no purpose. To simulate the peculiar challenges faced by Maine and Texas, I used a combination of Low Freeboard (Maine), Narrow Belts, and Protected Cruiser armor scheme, which is why I could get away with such high speeds, and heavy weapons with such low displacement. As opposed to my Maine and Texas being built as Armored Cruisers in my legacy fleet, I did build some actual Battleships:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indiana_(BB-1) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_(BB-4)Which while not one hundred percent accurate, you can clearly see the historical ship's influence. The Iowa not having an armored deck was one sacrifice I had to make to get a thicker belt armor. It's not so much a disadvantage when you fight like I do, like two knife fighters in a phone booth.  Granted, I was unable to mount heavier guns than 12 inch because of game limitations, but the armor, firepower, and layout of the ship is as good an approximation as I could make. One thing to note, this was my very first game in Rule the Waves, I've gotten much better at ship design since then. |
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Post by thatzenoguy on Sept 21, 2016 8:40:47 GMT -6
Why do people use tertiary guns!?
They suck! D:
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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 21, 2016 8:57:28 GMT -6
Why do people use tertiary guns!? They suck! D: I understand their usage against small torpedo boats and the like, but they are just weight that I would like my cruisers and capital ships to use for armor and speed. I remove them, along with torpedo tubes which, IMHO, on ships bigger than light cruisers are superfluous. I guess my disdain for fleet engagements probably colors my opinion of such weapons. I believe that in RTW-2, with carriers and aircraft, tertiary weapons in the form of light and medium AA guns will become very important, but not in the time frame of RTW. The secondary weapons will be dual purpose, with light guns for close-in AA defense. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2016 9:29:13 GMT -6
Why do people use tertiary guns!? They suck! D: The historical ships these are based on all had massive tertiary batteries, even more than can be represented in the game, so there's that. Also, tertiary guns have a few advantages: - Tertiary guns are always considered to be mounted on the centerline, so they can fire in all directions.
- 24 - 3 inch guns basically make your Battleships immune to Destroyer attacks.
- 3 inch tertiaries really don't weigh a lot, and the use you get out of them will outweigh the few small tons they take up in weight.
I roll with massive tertiary batteries until I get quality 1 - 5 or 6 inch guns, then I just mount a secondary battery, and remove the tertiaries. Not to mention you can laugh maniacally as enemy DD's get lit up like Christmas trees after trying to torpedo you. I once sank 5 DD's with a single B in about 12 minutes, she just left flaming chunks of wreckage in her wake, not a single enemy torpedo was fired. The only thing my own Destroyers had to do was rescue survivors.  I agree with the Torpedo Tube sentiment, those submerged tubes are just a waste of space. I'd rather have a horde of small guns available than some useless torpedoes. |
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Post by thatzenoguy on Sept 21, 2016 9:42:54 GMT -6
IIRC, wasn't it said that tertiary guns fire at secondary gun targets?...
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Post by trenton59 on Sept 21, 2016 11:47:32 GMT -6
I tend to use large batteries of 3-4 inch tertiary guns, they are actually surprisingly useful, in my last campaign they accounted for about a third of all my enemies destroyer losses, and about a tenth of the light cruiser losses. So for their tonnage they are rather good, inaccurate, yes, but rapid firing enough to compensate it seems.
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Post by director on Sept 21, 2016 15:39:18 GMT -6
As far as I know, tertiaries are split - half to one side and half to the other, just like casemated secondaries. And tertiaries always fire at the same target as the secondaries.
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Post by galagagalaxian on Sept 21, 2016 16:31:41 GMT -6
- Tertiary guns are always considered to be mounted on the centerline, so they can fire in all directions.
Wait, where was this said? I've never seen that mentioned before. The manual implies they work like secondaries (Which are split across broadsides). |
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