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Post by yemo on Feb 25, 2019 11:47:52 GMT -6
Ship classification is a major issue in RTW 1, and with RTW 2s longer timeframe, it will become even more pronounced.
The BC classification in particular does not fit in RTW 1, since the historical Naval Treaty deduced 12inch armor max does not work with RTW 1s treatment of "armor-inch equivalents" and alternate history approach. Though the armor inch equivalents problem is rectified in RTW 2.
For example, a great BC design in 1915 could simply not be built in 1917 due to an arbitrary (from an ahistorical in game point of view) change in BC classification in 1916. Especially problematic when playing with lowered tech research rates or minor navies with small production runs.
Another example would be a legacy B from 1899 with 10 inch guns, which has to stay a B forever. Although a very similar design could be built a few years later under the CA classification.
Suggestion:
1. Do not base ship classifications on the results of historical treaties which will likely not appear in the game in this form or time.
2. Make ship classifications independent of the year. Instead, base them upon the technological progress or the relation between numbers.
For example, a BC could simply be a BB with at least 8% of the displacement going to the machinery. This would allow british style BCs (heavy guns, low armour) as well as german style BCs (weaker/fewer guns, good armour) and would avoid drastic classification jumps. CAs could be allowed heavier guns dependent on the worldwide max gun caliber instead of the year.
3. Allow for the reclassification of ships. For example a 1899 B with 10 inch guns and a speed of 19knots could be later reclassified as a CA. Especially after an expensive possible refit, which could retain the 10 inch guns but boosts the speed to eg 23 knots. That would drastically increase the choices for poor navies, whether to keep updating their old hulls for new roles or build expensive new ships.
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Post by yemo on Feb 25, 2019 14:28:48 GMT -6
Addendum to suggestion 3: The reclassification could also be used to convert existing hulls to aircraft carriers in RTW2. Expensive and inefficient, but a stop-gap measure with historical precedent and another great choice for poorer navies.
Suggestion 4: Provide an additional column in the ship roster, which contains a player designated string variable. So that players can make up their own alphanumerical ordering structure. Players could use it to denote fleet/region memberships for a ship or further distinguish between roles (eg very light raider CL classes from heavy CL warship classes from late game CL torpedo classes). Or players could come up with other uses for that field, eg designations which do not correspond to the broad classes (CA, CL, etc) but also transcend subclasses.
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Post by aeson on Feb 25, 2019 15:12:22 GMT -6
Addendum to suggestion 3: The reclassification could also be used to convert existing hulls to aircraft carriers in RTW2. Expensive and inefficient, but a stop-gap measure with historical precedent and another great choice for poorer navies. There is already a mechanic in place for converting existing ships into aircraft carriers. The Developers' Journal thread has several examples of ships which were converted into aircraft carriers.
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Post by noshurviverse on Feb 25, 2019 19:08:32 GMT -6
It has been mentioned that both "Heavy Cruiser" and "Fast Battleship" will emerge as the game progresses.
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Post by rimbecano on Feb 25, 2019 21:05:08 GMT -6
What I'd really like to see, though probably not in RTW2 at this point, is a de-emphasis of ship classifications as a game mechanic thing, and instead having the player be able to assign one or more missions to a ship. What missions it would qualify for would be determined by what percentile it fit into among existing ships at the time of building (with an option, perhaps, to re-mission old ships according to what they currently qualify for). The missions that an enemy nation had signed to a ship would not be known to the player, except for the roles a ship was actually seen used in, and that something built like a battleship is likely to be intended for a battle line role (for example). Classifications like "BB", "BC", "CL" would then be player defined labels that could be attached to friendly or enemy ships for the purposes of fleet comparison.
Part of the reason I'd like to see something like this is that in the mid game I might have older, heavier CAs built for a BC-type role, and newer, lighter CAs built as heavy cruisers, and for the purposes of comparing my fleet strength to the enemy's, I might want to group the first type with BCs, and the second type with CLs.
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Post by desdinova on Feb 25, 2019 21:27:07 GMT -6
Don't forget small ship classifications. Since minesweepers/ASW destroyers are now distinct roles it'd be nice to see destroyer minelayers (DMS) as well as destroyer escorts as new prefixes.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Feb 28, 2019 11:55:24 GMT -6
In the latest beta after a certain point on a refit the game will ask you if you would like to re-classify a BC as a BB, if it gets too slow for a "modern" BC. This allows you, if retaining the BC is presumably still desired given you elected to refit it, to "stash" an older ship in the battleship squadrons, reducing its likelihood to be drawn for a Cruiser engagement.
I don't recall offhand if a refitted Armored Cruiser remains an AC or if it is automatically re-classified as a Heavy Cruiser. I have not been asked that question by the game.
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Post by dorn on Feb 28, 2019 12:58:49 GMT -6
In the latest beta after a certain point on a refit the game will ask you if you would like to re-classify a BC as a BB, if it gets too slow for a "modern" BC. This allows you, if retaining the BC is presumably still desired given you elected to refit it, to "stash" an older ship in the battleship squadrons, reducing its likelihood to be drawn for a Cruiser engagement. I don't recall offhand if a refitted Armored Cruiser remains an AC or if it is automatically re-classified as a Heavy Cruiser. I have not been asked that question by the game. Question is if the difference between battleship and battlecruiser really matter in 30s and especially in 40s. As we can see on design from early 20s which was not build because of Washington conference, we can see that the difference between battleships and battlecruisers were still obvious but at early of 30s it start to change dramatically mergin battlecruiser and battleship into fast battleship. These "fast battleships" except Iowa class were all faster around battlecruisers from WW1 but slower than most modern British battlecruisers and have armor superior to anything earlier.
So in history battlecruiser merged with battleship. How is your experience in RTW2? Does have battlecruiser still sence in time of fast battleships? Do these fast battleship are able to perform all misions as battlecruisers as they are practically superior almost in every way. And nobody builds modern fast battlecruiser with heavy guns, may be we can think about Alaska as rebirth of battlecruiser as they were fast, lightly armored and they firepower was weaker than battleship but they tried to fill role that was common for battlecruisers.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Feb 28, 2019 13:30:23 GMT -6
It was & is on our list of issues to have Fast Battleships be available to appear in the classic Cruiser missions for which BCs are so valuable, however at this stage I cannot say for certain that this feature will make the final release. If it does not, almost assuredly (but not definitively) it will be included in a post-release upgrade.
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Post by Adseria on Feb 28, 2019 17:45:14 GMT -6
I agree with this wholeheartedly; having designs limited by the class has always felt stupid to me. For example, why shouldn't I be able to make a cruiser with a single large-calibre gun, or a destroyer with no torpedoes? Sure, it wouldn't be historically accurate, but that's the point; historically, nations built plenty of experimental ships (for example, the Russian "Novgorod." Come to think of it, another example is HMS Dreadnought; the only difference is that the experiment was a success). Why shouldn't I be able to build experimental designs, just to see how well they work?
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 28, 2019 17:57:58 GMT -6
I agree with this wholeheartedly; having designs limited by the class has always felt stupid to me. For example, why shouldn't I be able to make a cruiser with a single large-calibre gun, or a destroyer with no torpedoes? Sure, it wouldn't be historically accurate, but that's the point; historically, nations built plenty of experimental ships (for example, the Russian "Novgorod." Come to think of it, another example is HMS Dreadnought; the only difference is that the experiment was a success). Why shouldn't I be able to build experimental designs, just to see how well they work? The classifications exist so the AI can use the ships properly. A 40,000 ton 21-knot "destroyer" armed with 16 inch guns would be run straight at the enemy fleet and into the teeth of a torpedo barrage by the AI when you ordered Flotilla Attack because that is what the code tells the AI to do with destroyers. [Edit - that's obviously an extreme example but it serves the point. The AI has to be coded for each ship class to perform a certain way for it to make any sense and look like a reasonably realistic response when we observe it during game play. And part of that is the ships need to fall within certain parameters of speed, weapons, etc for that to work. Destroyer programming would be uselessly fatal for a ship that is too slow or does not carry torpedoes and conversely, a similarly sized but slower gunboat or peace cruiser's (both could fall under the MS class catch-all) programming probably doesn't involve making torpedo runs so allowing them on the ship is wasted tonnage. Plus, there is still room for experimentation, particularly in the early game. This for example is a legal design in RTW1. Although I might question the sanity. I can only imagine this ship rolling like a kayak if that gun fired along the broadside.]
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Post by noshurviverse on Feb 28, 2019 21:36:36 GMT -6
This for example is a legal design in RTW1. Although I might question the sanity. I can only imagine this ship rolling like a kayak if that gun fired along the broadside.] The devs stated that they allow that design so the Japanese Matsushima-class cruiser could be properly represented. I actually attempted a playthrough with my starting force consisting primarily of them, to rather poor results. However, due to the way that RtW refits work, I could swap out the single 13" gun with a pair of 10" guns. Those worked quite a bit better.
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Post by MateDow on Feb 28, 2019 22:29:10 GMT -6
I agree with this wholeheartedly; having designs limited by the class has always felt stupid to me. For example, why shouldn't I be able to make a cruiser with a single large-calibre gun, or a destroyer with no torpedoes? Sure, it wouldn't be historically accurate, but that's the point; historically, nations built plenty of experimental ships (for example, the Russian "Novgorod." Come to think of it, another example is HMS Dreadnought; the only difference is that the experiment was a success). Why shouldn't I be able to build experimental designs, just to see how well they work? The classifications exist so the AI can use the ships properly. A 40,000 ton 21-knot "destroyer" armed with 16 inch guns would be run straight at the enemy fleet and into the teeth of a torpedo barrage by the AI when you ordered Flotilla Attack because that is what the code tells the AI to do with destroyers. [Edit - that's obviously an extreme example but it serves the point. The AI has to be coded for each ship class to perform a certain way for it to make any sense and look like a reasonably realistic response when we observe it during game play. And part of that is the ships need to fall within certain parameters of speed, weapons, etc for that to work. Destroyer programming would be uselessly fatal for a ship that is too slow or does not carry torpedoes and conversely, a similarly sized but slower gunboat or peace cruiser's (both could fall under the MS class catch-all) programming probably doesn't involve making torpedo runs so allowing them on the ship is wasted tonnage. Plus, there is still room for experimentation, particularly in the early game. This for example is a legal design in RTW1. Although I might question the sanity. I can only imagine this ship rolling like a kayak if that gun fired along the broadside.] Looks similar to a design that I made...
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Post by dorn on Mar 1, 2019 1:11:28 GMT -6
Did the ship hit something? I sometimes built 2x1x(8-10") but I hit something very rarely outside point blank range so I almost use this designs nomore.
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Post by MateDow on Mar 1, 2019 2:01:57 GMT -6
Did the ship hit something? I sometimes built 2x1x(8-10") but I hit something very rarely outside point blank range so I almost use this designs nomore.
Looking at one battle in 1902. they had a hit rate of 1.57% (2/127) and had shot off 71% of their ammo. Fortunately, they had a traditional light cruiser with them.
I did get a shore bombardment mission with a pair of them, and they did very good with that. Of course, with a night time bombardment they were at point blank range.
Originally, I had wanted them for commerce raiding and coastal patrol, but I haven't used them for that.
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