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Post by joebob73 on Jul 10, 2016 12:56:57 GMT -6
Ooooof. If you were going to come back from that you'd have to embrace commerce raiding in a big way - battleships take too long to build and you'd never really be able to catch back up. The one time you can is when the dreadnought revolution hits. Nations will scrap ALL pre-dreads by 1915 usually, and as long as he can avoid a war he might be able to build up enough BB tonnage.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 10, 2016 12:50:00 GMT -6
The manual says max 11" guns for ACR's so it's interesting he was allowed to install 13" guns. For some reason it is possible, while building legacy fleet, if ship is either 10 000 ton or less; or if she has speed 22 knot or less (such design is treated as CA, anything bigger is BC) Ah, that makes sense. I should do that more often then, with an engine refit and director firing they become incredibly nasty to fight. They also make the AI react by massively up-armoring their own cruisers, to the point of having absolutely anemic armament.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 9, 2016 16:27:42 GMT -6
Don't forget to take some of those stacks out when you switch to oil fuel ( ). Heh I just can't be bothered to redo the superstructure. Never liked using it. Any idea how I managed 13" on a CA?
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 9, 2016 16:15:09 GMT -6
The Europa-class cruiser. Launched in 1899, HMS Europa immediately became the most powerfully-armed ship afloat, and had the biggest engineering plant ever put to sea. With a 13" main battery and 7" secondaries, she was better-armed than any other nation's battleships, and rivaled Britain's largest as well. Her 22-knot speed made her almost as fast as contemporary light cruisers, which allowed the class to easily disengage if outmatched. She participated in every major fleet action; the class acting as battlecruisers later would. Armed like a battleship, but with enough speed to run down any other cruiser, the class was instrumental in turning the tide of several early fleet engagements. In a short war with Russia, in 1904, they even destroyed a small battleship division attempting to intercept them while they were away from the main fleet. However, by 1910 they were showing their age. Advancements in propulsion technology rendered their previously world-beating speed third-rate, and improvements in armor-piercing shells meant they could no longer stand in the Line of Battle if necessary. Due to this issue, designs for a massive rebuild were drawn up, and in 1913, the first of the 5 ships of the class was drydocked for a year-long reconstruction. The entire powerplant was replaced by improved boilers and steam turbines rather than reciprocating engines, resulting in a near doubling of output and a speed increase to 27 knots. The obsolete guns were replaced as well, and the 7" secondary battery was replaced with lighter but faster-firing 6" guns. The newly rebuilt ships went on to serve with distinction, all remaining first-line combatants until 1950, albeit not in their original role as proto-"fast battleships". Several more refits were conducted, although none as radical as the first. Attachments:
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 9, 2016 10:37:00 GMT -6
My doctrine is extremely defensive, borne out of playing countries that will near always have a ship deficiency ontop of a quality deficiency (CSA, Italy and A-H are my main countries to play.) Have to start with Strategic Doctrine first because it really effects my tactical doctrine. 1. Allies, get as many as you can. If I have less then two allies I don't have enough. 2. Like yours, never pick a fair fight. Focus on nations that are weaker then you (or at the very least, drastically weaker then your whole alliance.) This usually means France, and for CSA, Spain. 3. Surface fleets are there to avoid blockades, and in rare situations, prove the hammer to other anvils. They are not meant to actually engage the enemy in a high seas battle. 4. Submarines and Coastal Forts are my chisel and anvil respectively. With enough submarines, you can cripple the enemy badly, and coastal forts can have drastic effect on battles once you get used to them. Super forts especially can do alot of damage For Tactical Doctrine: 1. Close the distance, I will always be outranged so get into belt distance where I can at least match up with heavy belt armour.2. Avoid fleet engagement like the plague unless I have a clear superiority in everything. 3. Trigger every enemy attacks a coastal instillation you can. For countries like CSA and A-H, these are almost always near a costal fort. If you've managed to develop a fort to super fort levels, then you can pull a serious hammer and anvil here, with the super fort providing the anvil for the enemy to break their fleet against, while the fleet you actually have swings around behind them and crushes them between the fort and the fleet. I've sunk entire enemy fleets this way with no survivors (especially when the fort has 4 12" turret batteries, and 8+ 9 and 10" and god knows how many 4 to 8" when you reach the late stages of the game. 4. Torpedoes everywhere, and at all times. In a line verse line battle, start the pounding then unleash the DD swarm to torpedo everything. I'm curious, Ranger, why do you think you will always be outranged? If he doesn't have good guns, enemy BB/BC will usually outrange his own.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 8, 2016 22:26:57 GMT -6
Would there be a way to warn you if a ship's engines are getting close to a malfunction? Such as, a warning before you get the dreaded "Bearings Overheated" that loses you your new BC. Had a new 16" gun BC overheat bearings and drop to half speed when my BC squadron was running away from a full battle line that made its way into a cruiser action. Had I realized that was coming, I could have used my destroyers to conduct a torpedo attack in order to make the BBs break off pursuit to dodge torps, and also dropped speed a couple knots. Did you check the logs for the ship? I thought we did get a warning message when bearings or another casualty was going to affect a ship's top speed. They are easy to miss when a lot of ships are shooting at each other because the message gets pushed off screen quickly. I could also be wrong. Perhaps an option to have warning messages like that be popups similar to torpedo hits so a player is less likely to miss them in the heat of battle or if they don't have the 'logs' screen selected. No, I meant some sort of warning before it happens. Something like "Reduce speed or (bad thing) will happen" so you know when a ship is getting close to that point. Because a relatively new ship shouldn't be blowing a shaft bearing with no warning after not even 20 minutes of flank speed.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 8, 2016 19:55:14 GMT -6
Would there be a way to warn you if a ship's engines are getting close to a malfunction? Such as, a warning before you get the dreaded "Bearings Overheated" that loses you your new BC. Had a new 16" gun BC overheat bearings and drop to half speed when my BC squadron was running away from a full battle line that made its way into a cruiser action. Had I realized that was coming, I could have used my destroyers to conduct a torpedo attack in order to make the BBs break off pursuit to dodge torps, and also dropped speed a couple knots.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 8, 2016 15:58:27 GMT -6
One thing I've noticed with ship design is the continued effectiveness of mixed calibers. Both the AI and players can design ships with mixed heavy calibers (12" main guns with 11 or 10 inch secondaries) well past the time such ships were abandoned in reality. Does the game design create the sort of penalties (spotting, ranging, ammo complexity) that made such ships obsolete once ships with more than 2 main gun turrets? I don't really know. In case you were wondering, I asked a similar question in the "suggestions" thread. I wanted there to be a penalty for mixed caliber armaments to reflect the inherent superiority of all-big-gun layouts. There kind of is. 11" guns weigh almost as much as 12", and armoring them to the same degree as a main battery turret, which is necessary to prevent a flash fire, takes up so much weight that you might as well use all 12" guns. That also comes with the bonus of accuracy, as main battery guns are always more accurate than secondaries. And they can also fire to both sides.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 8, 2016 14:45:18 GMT -6
Wait...No secondary flash fires?... I SWEAR I have seen it occur...Maybe I'm misremembering... They happen often, mostly to AI ships. Because of the AI's preference for large secondaries, coupled with weak armor on them, you usually get a few colossal BBs blowing up from a 8-9" secondary battery detonation.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 7, 2016 10:31:26 GMT -6
Make CAs cheaper. A 34,000 ton ship with 4" armor and 10" guns should not cost as much as a 52,000 ton ship with 14" armor and 17" guns. If there's ever been a glaring problem for my RTW experience, it's been this. Theoretically speaking, they should be a weaker, but cheaper alternative to BCs, yet their absurdly high cost means that they never really find a place in the game. In the early game they're awkward pseudo-BCs, and building Bs is simply a better investment because they're not restricted by a 10" gun limit. Then true BCs come onto the scene, which inexplicably have more armor and firepower for less cost. It makes no sense. Now, I know that the natural evolution of warships meant that they were squeezed out by battlecruisers and only came back in force after the Washington Naval Treaty, but that doesn't mean a person can't go ahistorical and choose CAs over BCs. Early game CAs can be funny if the auto-designer screws up. Had a class of legacy fleet CA with 6" belt, 2.5" deck, and 13" guns in dual turrets. And 22 knot speed. Sure, they cost more than a pair of small B each, but with a major rebuild they lasted the entire game.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 7, 2016 9:46:24 GMT -6
You never need much more than 4.5" deck, even if you go to 1950. Only max upgraded 18" guns can go through that much.
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Post by joebob73 on Jul 1, 2016 19:46:15 GMT -6
Any idea how I managed to get 13! inch guns on a cruiser design? And this was the auto-designer even.
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Post by joebob73 on Jun 28, 2016 9:53:17 GMT -6
Is there any way to fix the issue where the auto-designer spits out a B/BB when you ask for a CA, or a BB when you select BC? I have a feeling this might be affecting the AI's apparent build priority, because it might be trying to build BB or CA, but instead gets BCs or BBs.
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Post by joebob73 on Jun 10, 2016 9:52:32 GMT -6
Good thing you never built those. 24! 8" secondaries with only 2" armor? You're just begging for a magazine hit, and boom goes the super-ship. I found myself blowing away the enemy before that magazine explosion. I knew the risk, but I was willing to take it, and it seemed to pay off. I guess I just had great luck blowing up AI ships with secondary hits. One 18k ton cruiser even took out a 50k ton battleship by detonating its 7" secondaries' magazine.
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Post by joebob73 on Jun 9, 2016 13:40:29 GMT -6
Good thing you never built those. 24! 8" secondaries with only 2" armor? You're just begging for a magazine hit, and boom goes the super-ship.
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