My standard designs don't seem to work anymore? Feedback pls

[rhetoric]

Just had a "warm up" game (Germany, 1900 start) that finished around 1915 (IIRC) due to a bug, and I have to say my "go-to" rules of ship design didn't seem to work as well as normal, so I thought I'd float the ideas here and see if any suggestions abound. I mean it's a healthy thing that I'm being forced to change out of cookie-cutter habits, but I can't quite pin down the exact reason these don't hang together as well as they used to.

I'm unsure if this is me being crap out of practice, the fact my first game was on Medium fleet size when I'm normally on Large or Very Large, or a change in game balance.

Firstly, my standard ~14K tonnes "bully" CA designs felt far less like the queen of the seas she used to be (4x10 inch guns, 21 knots speed in 1900 - increasing as technology improves - and enough armour to keep her proof from her own guns.) The thing I liked about this design was that with a little rebuilding, it was quite a "future proof" design that meant even the 1900 vintage designs were useful in second-line roles for a long time - this family of designs normally causes the extinction of CAs in my RTW1 games, with everyone resorting to battlecruisers in response).

Secondly, I generally stick to the 8K max displacement for light cruisers, but struggled to get enough of these into the water; I can't help but wonder if a small "light CA" design might be better (eg how the game would classify the Town Class) might be more efficient, but I'm a little worried that that might mean the game would try and misuse these designs, and/or not spawn them in applicable situations.

How many varieties of classes do other players build in each generation, incidentally? I'm wondering if perhaps I'm trying to be too "jack of all trades."

[gillinic]

I find a solid CL design to start the game with is a 7k protected cruiser with 3 inches of belt, 2 of deck (extended can be made whatever thickness under this) and a speed of 21/22 knots with medium range. Turrets have 3 inches main and 2 top and this is for a gun layout of 2 twin turrets for the forward and aft positions with six other main guns. 3 inch secondaries start on the low side, maybe 2 or 4 but this number can be upgraded as you go on. It's an fairly expensive design but you can continuously build these can upgrade them for a fair while until you can get superimposed turrets for proper light cruisers - in a US game I'm playing, they've remained competitive all the way up until the 1920s with only 1 or 2 refits as they tend to dominate most early game light cruisers other nations employ and can even 2v1 cruisers that are light enough.

[skyblazer]

Rtw1 i always had 2 types of light cruisers. 1 at 2100tons, protected cruiser hull design with 3 to 4 5in guns and min armor specs doing 24knots at 1900 specs. They're my large escorts for anti dd work and can be raiders.

The large cl is normally stated like above being 8k tons, 6in guns in 2 twin turrets and then multiple singles around the ship. Always have 3in belt on this design. This is the anti cl ship that still works so far into rtw2.

My 1900 ca is normally 12 to 14k tons and armed with the biggest guns i can get. Currently i have 3 of these ships going in my 1900 AH game and its 1911 and they're killing pre dreads when used in packs. This is basically the same design you are using. Please note i use these ships to kill the enemy cruiser/escort forces before being able to single out predreads. By 1920 these ships will be replaced with multi center line gun ships with 8 to 9in guns because by this time AP is normally good enough to deal with most ships and its more about rate of fire plus hit chances.

[ramjb]

My RTW standard pre-dreadnought times AC had 4x8 (sometimes 4x9, depended a bit on gun quality and the nation I was playing) mains, 6'' secondaries, minimum speed of 23 knots (I always aimed for 24, doesn't mean I always achieved it) and armor good enough to make main belts and decks proof against guns up to 11'' (which isn't too much at all in 1900). You'd get a very fast (for the time) ship, quite expensive (That machinery ain't cheap), and with far less hitting power than a "traditional" AC....

but its worth it.

If you want a 21knot "Cruiser eater" AC you can get it but it's going to be dead scrap as soon as the first dreadnoughts and ,specially, BCs go online. Dreadnoughts are almost as fast and do horrible things to ACs. BCs are even faster. And from a design starting point of 21 knots machinery upgrades are just not worthwhile to keep them relevant (usually hull form also puts a hard cap to it). The plus side is that during the first years of the game - while AP tech is not that great and guns are kept at 12'', you can armor them enough to make their presence in the battleline not only possible, but advantageous. The problem is that the second 20 knot BBs happen, not to mention 25knot BCs, they're white elephants forever.

A fast AC that begins it's life as a 24 knotter however is the perfect earlygame raider/Raider hunter/CL killer. And with proper armor at the beginning they CAN take on battleline roles. They won't be hurting enemies as much as the heavy-hitter ACs, but still, they can take a mauling and still shoot back. Norwithstanding -their best use is as fast speed flankers, bullying CLs, running away from "proper" ACs, raiding, hunting raiders,etc, as long as the predreadnought era is still going. As the game progresses and BCs come online refurbishing them with new machinery can easily keep them ahead of the speed curve of BCs by a knot or two (if not more) while retaining enough armor and weapons to be a CL's worst nightmare.

Those ships stop having an use in main battle encounters as soon as the dreadnought times come and their armor stops being able to reasonably hold against big gun fire. But they always kept being useful in raider and raider hunter roles until the end of RTW1.

...and now you can convert them into CVLs. wink wink.


Again, it's all in the speed for the pre-1905 or so cruiser designs. Ships designed for 21 knots are simply far too handicapped to remain relevant for too long even after machinery upgrades. Ships designed for 23-24 are expensive as hell to build (they are indeed) and need compromises in weapon size, but have a far longer career in front of them.




as CLs go I never ,ever, bothered with the 8k CL until I could put proper turreted 6'' guns on them. Simply stated, for me 4x6000 ton CLs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 3x8000 ton CLs. Cruisers are for scouting roles, for giving the worst news possible to enemy DDs, but not to kill other "modern" CLs. 6'' guns are far too limited at the beginning to properly deal damage to their equals, and a 6000 ton CL with proper armor is more than enough to deal with protected cruisers and destroyers. So better to have more of them than less, at least until tech advances allow for proper "modern" CLs with turrets, etc. Then things kinda change.

[dougphresh]

I've been building really over the top 8k ton CLs as France just for the heck of it and because I have not really figured out efficient deigns.

Now that I've hit the 30's I was thinking of putting in double mounts.

[ramjb]

May 19, 2019 7:33:11 GMT -6 dougphresh said:

I've been building really over the top 8k ton CLs as France just for the heck of it and because I have not really figured out efficient deigns.

The second one...I don't know very well what it is (I'd be a quite powerful AA CL, if it wasn't for the fact that it has a pitiful light AAA and no medium AAA)...

But your 1920 ship looks quite good. Not my style with those  wing turrets amidships, and as mentioned, too big for what I like to build by that time...


but 30 knots out of a ship with that weaponry by that time is nothing to sneeze at.


My own 1928 CL design:

[snwh]

I'm still working through my first game, But yeah, my starting fleet wasn't that great to be sure. I used to use 4x8" protected cruisers a lot, 24knts, and low armor, but this time around they were just too expensive to really even consider mass producing like I used to. They costed nearly as much as my armored cruiser lol. So I swapped to much, much lighter 6inch cruisers. They worked quite a bit better. I mean, sure they couldn't just unilaterally ruin an enemy CL's day, but they could take one on, and I could actually afford more than two of them.

I'm still groping around for good designs for other ships. Particularly I've never made a B that I was happy with. So hard to make, because you know you need them, but you also know they're gonna be completely obsolete in four years. CA's I used to use a large 4x10", but I've been experimenting with a 4x8" with mixed results

May 19, 2019 7:43:52 GMT -6 ramjb said:

My own 1928 CL design:

Do you happen to know when you got the tech to change dual turrets into Dual Purpose? I swapped over my entire battleship fleet to twin turrets, and then belatedly realized I couldn't use them as dual purpose lol

[aeson]

May 19, 2019 12:46:38 GMT -6 snwh said:

Do you happen to know when you got the tech to change dual turrets into Dual Purpose? I swapped over my entire battleship fleet to twin turrets, and then belatedly realized I couldn't use them as dual purpose lol

3" and 4" twin DP mounts seems to be a c.1926 technology under Anti-Aircraft Artillery. I don't know what you need for 5" and 6" twin DP mounts as I haven't gotten that far yet and there's nothing obvious in ResearchAreas2.dat, though it might just be having the 5" DP (c.1933) and 6" DP (c.1934) techs and twin DP mounts for 3" and 4" guns.

[ramjb]

May 19, 2019 12:55:09 GMT -6 aeson said:

May 19, 2019 12:46:38 GMT -6 snwh said:

Do you happen to know when you got the tech to change dual turrets into Dual Purpose? I swapped over my entire battleship fleet to twin turrets, and then belatedly realized I couldn't use them as dual purpose lol

3" and 4" twin DP mounts seems to be a c.1926 technology under Anti-Aircraft Artillery. I don't know what you need for 5" and 6" twin DP mounts as I haven't gotten that far yet and there's nothing obvious in ResearchAreas2.dat, though it might just be having the 5" DP (c.1933) and 6" DP (c.1934) techs and twin DP mounts for 3" and 4" guns.

I dont' recall the exact date I got 3'' and 4'' DPs but yeah, was around that time.

5'' twin DP mounts again I don't remember when I precisely got them ,but I do remember that I got them at least one year AFTER getting 5'' dual mounts for Destroyers. Well into the 30s in fact.

[snwh]

Thanks ^^ That wouldn't surprise me at all. Unfortunately that means I either swap back to single turrets, or my fleet is going without heavy AA for a few years xD

[dorn]

I am playing UK and I design several light cruisers up to this day - 1/1928.

Attachment Deleted

Class - costs - maintenance costs

Apollo            - 20.839 - 112

Leander         - 31.983 - 176

Amphion         - 32.579 - 179

Arethusa        - 24.852 - 135

Apollo class - Is quite effective on foreign station however this class have no advantage over modern foreign designs

Leander - Is not much effective as quite expensive for foreign stations as is over 6000 tons

Amphion - has 2 float planes with catapult for 2 torpedo tubes and a little less turret protection. Efficiency even worse to Leander class

Arethusa - I have not tried this class in battle yet, but it seems quite effective. They have increased protection of turrets

Foreign stations are main issue as 177,000 tons is needed with very large fleet. Arethusa class has efficiency 18k maintenance costs for 1000 tons on FS, so it is total 3.2M per month and 600M construction costs.

Large cruisers could be good but not for FS.

Another thing is protection. As 3" belt is limit, but it is difficult to have some immunity zone against 6" guns. So it seems to me that either going to 3" belt or have just only minimal armour is giving sence.

[rhetoric]

Thanks for the ideas, had a pretty successful game going on, but I've now been led to another question: Is it just me or is armour less effective now? I got to 1920 before having another crash and being sent back to 1909, but I was having a LOT of difficulty building ships that had *any* resistance to 15 inch guns.

I was at the stage where building "battlecruisers" that could outgun the enemy battleline was becoming a pretty tempting option.

[abclark]

May 20, 2019 11:57:30 GMT -6 rhetoric said:

Thanks for the ideas, had a pretty successful game going on, but I've now been led to another question: Is it just me or is armour less effective now? I got to 1920 before having another crash and being sent back to 1909, but I was having a LOT of difficulty building ships that had *any* resistance to 15 inch guns.

I was at the stage where building "battlecruisers" that could outgun the enemy battleline was becoming a pretty tempting option.

Well there definitely comes a point where the inside of your immunity zone has to be outside 15k and eventually (for me) outside 20k. For a given thickness armor should be MORE effective though as time goes on.

[kidcharlemagne]

I've found the best CL strategy for me so far is to just slap as many 6 inch guns as possible. I don't have a pic right now but my very successful legacy CL in my Germany game was about 10 6 inch guns, 24 knots, and about 2 inch belt armor and 1 inch deck (iirc, there was also obviously conning tower armor). The tonnage was about 7500 making them sort of expensive but they destroyed other CL's during duels and could fight off 2 at a time easily.

[warlock]

I have to agree that early CA's don't feel quite a tough as they did in RTW1 though I can't put my finger on why. As far as light cruisers, I tend to try to make them relatively small while keeping them well rounded as they tend to show up in every engagement and also tend to get sunk quite often even if I try to make them well armored. With that in mind tend to try to keep them under 6000 tons early and have had designs as small as around 4500 tons. Late game when they get alot of bells and whistles they tend to get into the 7500-8000 ton range to as high as 9800 tons though but at that point, their toys make up for the extra cost and so far have had them put up a good showing against even CAs with the right equipment (6 inch autoloaders hehe).

Also for me at least, BCs seem more important in RTW2 as they seem to be the 2nd most common ship the AI selects for me for battle. Don't get me wrong, they were important in RTW1 but just seem to be even more so in RTW2.

Biggest issue I seem to have is with trade protection. The new rules that won't allow you to build them outside of wartime really seems to be harsh so I tend to build a ton of really tiny DDs to get around the rules.