Treaty options to rebuild a ship as a carrier.

[dizzy]

As stevethecat said, treaties are pretty blunt instruments. They scrap your ships under construction with no way to negotiate a rebuild to carrier.

So why not? 

I propose an option DURING construction if a treaty is enacted whereby a certain tonnage may be allocated toward the immediate rebuild of a ship to a carrier. These rebuilds must come in under total tonnage allowance for reclass to a carrier and reclass the ship DURING construction adding whatever necessary time to the ships construction saving it from the scrappers torch. Obviously you'll need CV conversion technology for this to happen.

C'mon, this is RTW2, and these treaties haven't been updated since RTW.

[brygun]

Interesting idea.

I support it though there are some other issues Id prefer to see coded first. As dizzy says the system is a bit basic though it does somewhat work as is.

[dizzy]

I think it’s a workable idea. I mean, you could opt to scrap such a ship, although if it’s only 7 months from completion, for example, wouldnt you rather spend an extra 8 months to see it converted than be scrapped? I mean if it’s a large displacement ship and the treaty disallows you to build large ships, I would opt to convert. I think this would add greatly to the game and offer a softer alternative to drastic treaty implementation.

Edit, I usually avoid treatise like the plague, but I might find this kind of a treatise useful. I’d love to see the AI take advantage of this too. Also it would advance the era of the carrier just as the historical Washington naval treaty did.

[wlbjork]

I think the game is a little over-simplified in terms of treaties and construction. On the other hand, that keeps the code simple (and short) in terms of how to handle such things.

I would like to see treaties that allow ships to be completed if they are say 1-2 months from completion, treaties that allow exemptions to certain navies (for example, Nelson and Rodney were allowed in part because Britain had no 16"-gun warships) and so on.

Additionally, it should be possible to change a few things whilst a ship is being constructed, principally in armament and machinery.

[captainloggy]

Generally, what you want is an option to refit ships while under construction. That would be great.

[brygun]

I could see it possible to have a pop up for each ship the treaty says must be scrapped. In it you can attempt to redesign the ship with some portion of the existing build time saved. This would make it possible to convert to carriers if you have carriers unlocked.

It might be that a certain build underway is totally unable to meet the treaty. This needs to be checked for or the player to select a give up and scrap function.

[captainloggy]

This has an issue, however. Under the terms of the WNT, only two ships per nation were eligible for such a rebuild. Otherwise, the US would have had six Lexingtons instead of the two with Japan having four Amagis (possibly less due to the Earthquake) to convert. Give me a situation in that you wouldn't rebuild a ship.

[dizzy]

Nov 10, 2019 7:41:37 GMT -6 brygun said:

I could see it possible to have a pop up for each ship the treaty says must be scrapped. In it you can attempt to redesign the ship with some portion of the existing build time saved. This would make it possible to convert to carriers if you have carriers unlocked.

It might be that a certain build underway is totally unable to meet the treaty. This needs to be checked for or the player to select a give up and scrap function.

Precisely. Any ship under construction that is to be scrapped by a treaty should prompt a popup that allows continue to scrap or rebuild. If rebuild, the rebuild part of the treaty will either be 'X' number of ships, or 'X' displacement total tonnage. So once either has been met, any other ships are automatically scrapped. 

A rebuild should be available in any circumstance as long as the player has CV conversion tech. It doesn't matter how long the ship has left until completion. The rebuild should add anywhere from 6 months to 12 months of rebuild time depending on options chosen very similar to how ships are already rebuilt. 

by wlbjork: Additionally, it should be possible to change a few things whilst a ship is being constructed, principally in armament and machinery.

Well, yes and no. Generally anything that needs to be changed may be done after the ship is built... In essence, you can just say the ship was never finished as it went from the drydock to final refitting which added 4 months or however long... I think what you're getting at is that while the ship is under construction, you should get a discount on build time for upgrades. I'm not sure I agree with that. The reason this thread exists is because in my OP, ships are forced to be scrapped immediately and offering an option to rebuild while under construction was historically accurate for ships undergoing the class change to carrier.

[brygun]

Even final belt armor can be changed in early stages of construction. Like the conversions to make carriers in some cases did thin the belt armor to save weight.

[dizzy]

Nov 10, 2019 9:40:16 GMT -6 brygun said:

Even final belt armor can be changed in early stages of construction. Like the conversions to make carriers in some cases did thin the belt armor to save weight.

That'd be nice if we could thin the belt armor when converting a ship to a carrier. Currently that cant be done.

[wlbjork]

Nov 10, 2019 9:40:16 GMT -6 brygun said:

Even final belt armor can be changed in early stages of construction. Like the conversions to make carriers in some cases did thin the belt armor to save weight.

Wasn't quite thinking of that, but yes.

Each part of a design should be assigned a time period - in effect, the lead time for the component. Prior to this time, that part of the design can be changed without penalty. Once the lead time starts, then it does cost a penalty to represent resources being invested into the original design.