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Post by gornik on Jan 13, 2014 9:02:01 GMT -6
After work with editor in RJW version (love it since playing SAI CE some questions appeared (cannot find answers in manual): How does option "freeboard" works? (All ships I saw in game have it "normal") In "torpedo types" window first number seem to be range, and second-speed. If it's true, D type looks strangely - 2 different ranges with same speed (And wonder if so long ranged torpedo was in Russian fleet during RJW - stock Varyag as example). It is also seem bugged - after loading Varyag in editor all other designs loaded with D topedoes, though they didn't really have it. And second question about torpedoes-what are their characteristics, if type is not specified? (Most ships in campaign) (It would be also good to show this data in ship window during scenario) About odd secondary gun: Do I understand manual correctly, that it may fire at any direction, or it is in "Q midships" position? (And my personal dream (do not pay attention, please): "ram" check box in editor, which will allow ship effective and controllable ramming in battle...)
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Post by Fredrik W on Jan 13, 2014 12:06:18 GMT -6
Some options in the ship designer are foreseen but not used (yet). Freeboard is one of them.
Torpedo types, it is the speed and range for the high and low speed settings. BUT those are for WW1 use. In RJW all ships have the same rather short range and unreliable torpedoes, so the torpedo setting is not used in RJW.
There is a default torpedo type for each time period if none is specified.
You can only have even numbers of secondary guns, half of them are assumed to be on each side of the ship.
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Post by gornik on Jan 13, 2014 12:21:28 GMT -6
Thank you for answer!
So if I type manually for example 5 secondary guns, really only 4 of them would work?
ADD: Does "belt coverage" feature works in present version?
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Post by Fredrik W on Jan 13, 2014 14:12:28 GMT -6
Yes, it does.
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Post by gornik on Jan 13, 2014 14:35:26 GMT -6
Thanks again!
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Post by kyle on Jan 5, 2015 16:33:45 GMT -6
Can the game + ship designer reasonably cover ships into the early/mid 1920's? There are some 'neverbuilt' ships like the US South Dakota and Lexington BC or the Japanese Nagato (built) Kaga and Tosa for example.
2nd - I 'built' the Francesco Caracciolo as best I could but it does not show up as an option to actually play with in a scenario.
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Post by randomizer on Jan 5, 2015 17:22:15 GMT -6
DesignShip2 that ships with SAI is not really well suited to building the post-WW1 designed generation of capital ships because the game is intended to model naval warfare from 1900 only to around the Great War. There are aspects of post-war armour schemes and fire control innovations that have not been covered in the released game's ship editor program. However, you can certainly use custom designs in custom-built scenarios (or add them to existing scenarios) so without more information I cannot determine why your version of the Caracciolo failed to show up.
Players have created some of the pre-Treaty ships (and other designs killed at Washington) with varying degrees of success but they really are outside of the designed scope of SAI.
Did the scenario editor point to the Custom Files folder when you tried to add the ship to your custom scenario? The scenario editor generally defaults to pointing at the Designs folder but all user-built designs are saved into the Custom Files folder.
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Post by kyle on Jan 6, 2015 12:07:31 GMT -6
Thanks. It's hazy where WW1 and post WW1 classifications should go. Hood had some novel (if perhaps not very good) torpedo protection and a different armor scheme that was supposed to provide her the same protection as the Queen Elizabeth class, for example. If SAI/DesignShip2 work reasonably well for Hood (sloped armor) I would think they'd be OK to cover Nagato and ships designed roughly up to the 1925. Post Washington treaty is definitely out (Rodney and Nelson). I guess it's a 'design at your own risk' and the further you go past 1918 the less accurate the modelling. I would imagine modelling sloped armor would be a tricky prospect, let alone multiple armor decks.
I'm pushing the envelope, I know. Been fiddling with ships in the Matrix game War Plan Orange. Some cruisers and such built in the early 1920's sort of seem to work reasonably well.
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Post by dickturpin on Jan 6, 2015 17:12:45 GMT -6
Kyle,
If you check the designs file and the "Germany Stronger 1916" campaign, you will find the Hood.
Campbell quotes the main belt armour as 12" as built and 8" as designed; the design in game has a 13" belt so some allowance has been made for the 12 degree incline (the designers tend to use quoted thickness for belt armour and do not increase this for coal and deck slope so I assume this is dealt with within the gunnery model). Burster and splinter decks are fairly standard fare in WW1 and you are unlikely to achieve plunging gunnery effects in the early 1920's.
Nevada introduces all or nothing protection within WW1.
As Randomizer posted, more sophisticated fire control systems such as the US Ford fire control computer is not covered (although this appears in WW1 and was subject of a plagarism case by Pollen who introduced his system in 1912). Try experimenting with the side accuracy modifier rather than using the "Improved DCT" in DesignShip2 (this feature does not work).
The turret arrangement in Nelson is probably your limiting factor for pushing the period forward.
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Post by kyle on Jan 6, 2015 17:38:15 GMT -6
Hi Turpin,
I found the Hood and looked it over. Part of what I do with any game is try to figure out the nuts and bolts as much as I can. I don't think I'm going to attempt to do any ship designs that were not at least ordered by 1922. In theory their designs are earlier. Hood and many ships incorporated lessons learned after Jutland and here is where I think SAI's modeling will start to slowly falter. I may push it with the Furutaka and Nagara (and contemporary) for Japan and the Omaha class for the US - but no further. I can't do too much anyway. It is already stretching a lot to think that Japan could afford the 8-8 ships (Tosa's and Amagi, Owarii, etc). I like fiddling with alternate history but don't want to push the implausibility too much!
Much more along than that and those flying contraptions ruin all the big gun fun anyway!
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paul
New Member
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Post by paul on Jan 10, 2015 23:08:33 GMT -6
kyle, Member jma286 has created quite a few of the later and hypothetical designs which go beyond 1918 - see this thread here: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/152/sai-ships-battle-generator-expansionI've found them to be pretty well put together and the thread contains quite a bit of discussion which covers a similar period to the one you are interested in. By the way, I'd love to see any scenarios which come out of your area of interest. I have a couple of Avalanche Press's Great War at Sea games and have it on my todo list to recreate some of the scenarios in SAI. Certainly the hypothetical possibilities are much broader than number of actual ww1 naval battles which did occur! Paul
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Post by kyle on Jan 11, 2015 17:50:22 GMT -6
Thanks Paul, that saves me quite a bit of work! One (very) alternate history line was the concern the USN had that Japan and the U.K. would be allied in a future war. At least on paper and in the land of 1's and zeros we can have fun with the ships. The Washington treaty kept countries from going broke building battleships but what ships they'd have been!
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Post by kyle on Jan 12, 2015 11:01:02 GMT -6
I'm still unable to get new ships added to appear in battles. I have them in the 'regular' list now rather than custom.
On another note, more amusing than anything else right now - when I try to do a pick ships to make my own scenario the battle starts on the coast of Africa. I'm probably doing something wrong.
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Post by randomizer on Jan 12, 2015 12:00:25 GMT -6
I'm still unable to get new ships added to appear in battles. I have them in the 'regular' list now rather than custom. I do not know what you mean, sorry. Are you using the scenario editor to create battles and your custom designs do not show up when the scenario is run? Or are you trying to use them in battles using either the existing or custom battle generators? The actions off the coast of Africa indicate that the starting positions have been incorrectly entered or are missing as SAI usually defaults to 0* Latitude and Longitude when it has issues with start positions. Start points are defined by Longitude and Latitude and should be placed 35-45 nm from the enemy start points. Start points that are too close together run the risk of starting the scenario with the opposing forces in close proximity or even intermingled. Too far apart and the fleets may never contact each other. For example, *.qbf text entries are shown in bold for clarity: StartPoint1=010810W 583200NHome points are used by the AI to determine the direction of withdrawal and should be located in areas free of islands and with a reasonably land-free path from the start point. Home1=010810W 583200NStartpoint1 is matched to Home1 when the battle is generated so each battle generator may have three Start and Home points for each side. These may be identical if desired. Any ship that is to appear in a generated battle must be added to the correct *.qbf file. Open one of the stock battle generator files using a text editor and note where the ships are defined in paragraphs [Ships0] and [Ships1]For example from North Sea.qbf. Read in four columns: Type;Class;Name;Available date as mmyy [Ships0] BB;Bayern;Bayern;0616 BB;Bayern;Baden;0217 BB;König;König;0215
Any errors in spelling, punctuation and syntax will prevent the ships from appearing when the scenario is run.
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paul
New Member
Posts: 45
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Post by paul on Jan 12, 2015 14:30:34 GMT -6
kyle,
The mechanism for using ships is quite different between the Quick Battle Generators and Scenarios. As Randomizer mentioned, the Quick Battle Generators are described by the files ending with ".qbf". The specific ships have to be listed within that file under each side as appropriate. Its a good little system because you can customise the lists as appropriate for different setups. A good example is the Baltic Sea one which only contains Russian and German vessels which were in that theatre. So it can be used to have two North Sea: UK vs Germany generators, one with only historically accurate vessels and one with hypothetical constructions.
The scenario editor has the ability for you to pick a ship class, but from memory it reads the file "Designs/classes.cfg" so it can populate the list, and I believe that file doesn't contain every design in the Designs folder. You can still point to a design by specifying the file and this is how files in the Custom folder can be used in a scenario. Its been a little while since I've used the editor so I may be wrong on some of the details, but the key is that the mechanisms between the two are quite different (for good reason).
Paul
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