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Post by trifler on Nov 14, 2019 18:01:47 GMT -6
Just run a quick check with all techs researched, UK building. Raw cost for a 20 knot 600t KE, medium range, not colonial, no f-con or gun mods, no AA, mounting 2x4", 4x3" and maximum ASW equipment is 1,519 (9 months at 169). Upping to 900t and adding the extra K-gun increases cost to 1,883 (11 months at 171). That's (just) under a 25% increase in price and build time for a 25% increase in ASW capability. Haven't checked, but I anticipate a similar (or lower - there's only a 16% increase in crew) increase in maintenance. As a bonus, the 900t can mount some AA (10), whereas the 600t cannot (1). Could you please list the maintenance cost of the 600t vs. 900t? That's what I would be interested in, not the build cost.
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Post by wlbjork on Nov 15, 2019 0:53:03 GMT -6
Forgot to come back to that. 600t maintenance is 14, 900t is 15. That's just over 7% more expensive to maintain, for a 25% increase in capability.
Just to be clear, apart from one being 50% larger and mounting an extra K-gun, they are identical.
So, quick thought experiment. To provide 40 ASW capability would take 5x 600t or 4x 900t vessels.
5x 600t would cost 845/month to construct (total 7,955), then 70 in maintenance. 4x 900t would cost 684/month to construct (total 7,532), then 60 in maintenance.
The only downside would be - assuming you built them simultaneously - having to wait an extra couple of months for the 900t ships compared to the 600t ships.
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Post by secondcomingofzeno on Nov 15, 2019 7:05:13 GMT -6
Make sure it doesn't have mines or minesweeping (IIRC), give it as many depth charges, racks, and ASW mortars as you can. A minor correction - carrying mines does not impact a ship's ASW rating. Being equipped as a minesweeper does reduce the ship's ASW rating. Got it, so mine away! Yey.
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Post by trifler on Nov 17, 2019 17:50:43 GMT -6
If I'm not mistaken, size-dependent ASW score caps at 5:
I was also under the impression that the max size for ASW increase was 900 tons. It actually caps out at 800 tons.
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Post by aeson on Nov 17, 2019 21:41:02 GMT -6
I was also under the impression that the max size for ASW increase was 900 tons. It actually caps out at 800 tons. DD/KE ASW rating caps at 900 tons, because a ship needs to be 900 tons to get all ASW equipment.
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Post by cabalamat on Nov 18, 2019 7:55:09 GMT -6
Minesweeping halves the ASW rating,as it is assumed the ships duties will be split between minesweeping and ASW patrol/escort. Speed has no effect on rating, you dont need fast ships to hunt submarines, they are incredibly slow underwater. Carrier ASW is constant and depending on technology level. A 12000 ton CVL will have the same ASW as 100-plane CV. The best dedicated ASW ships are corvettes. They can bring a lot of ASW for very low maintenance and costs. Personally I have found 600 ton KE's to be the best for their value, though if you want to cram in all the possible ASW equipment you need 900 ton KE's. Repurposing older destroyers is also a good tactic, though they tend to have higher maintenance costs. How do you tell a ship to be on minesweeping duties? Does putting it in TP work?
With TP, does it matter what sea zone it is in? For example, if your TP ship is in Northern Europe, will it protect your convoys going to North America?
Is there any way of telling a ship to do offensive/defensive minelaying other than putting it on AF?
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Post by aeson on Nov 18, 2019 10:12:44 GMT -6
How do you tell a ship to be on minesweeping duties? Ships equipped for minesweeping which are not mothballed (MB) or in reserve (RF) are assumed to be on minesweeping duties automatically, based on how numbers in the Area Overview tab's minesweeping column are affected by shifting ship stances between MB, RF, AF, FS, and TP. Be aware that I only checked with KEs; while I do not see any particular reason for DD minesweepers to behave differently, it's not completely impossible that they do.
Minesweeping appears to be done on a per-seazone basis - minesweepers in a given sea zone only contribute to that sea zone's minesweeping score in the Area Overview tab regardless of what stance they're on.
Against mines in the commerce raiding phase? I have no idea; conventional commerce warfare and regular mine warfare appear to be handled at the level of individual sea zones, submarine commerce raiding is handled in aggregate, and small ships (DDs and KEs) assigned to Trade Protection seem to be able to be drawn as the integral convoy escort (the two small warships which are usually in the convoy force) regardless of where in the world a Convoy Defense mission spawns. On top of that, the only time I've seen messages indicating that merchant ships were sunk or damaged by mines was during one rather ill-fated Convoy Defense mission in the Baltic where one merchant ship ran into a mine mid-battle and another got sunk by a mine as an end-of-battle event, so I don't know how you'd tell if mine warfare was having an impact on commerce warfare without collecting a lot of data to see if there's a statistically-significant difference in the number of merchant ships sunk by raiders which are/are not equipped for mine warfare by sea zone and overall.
The manual states that ships assigned as raiders are assumed to lay mines on trade lanes, so that'd be a way to tell a ship to lay mines offensively. Other than that, I'm pretty sure that the game assumes that any mine-equipped ship is used for offensive minelaying because the only unambiguously-defensive minefields that you can see in the game are the ones around ports and coastal batteries, and neither of those types of minefields seem to me to be affected in density or rate of growth by the number or type of mine-equipped warships in the sea zone even when those ships are assigned to Trade Protection; meanwhile, the more or less randomly-placed 'friendly' minefields that occasionally show up far from any friendly port or coastal installation seem likely to represent offensive minelaying and appear to me as though they're strongly affected by the number of mine-equipped warships in the sea zone, and the same for "[ship] has been damaged/sunk by a mine" interturn events. Possibly mine-equipped ships assigned to trade protection would be assumed to lay anti-submarine or other defensive minefields, but that'd be about it.
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Post by trifler on Nov 18, 2019 21:47:08 GMT -6
It actually caps out at 800 tons. DD/KE ASW rating caps at 900 tons, because a ship needs to be 900 tons to get all ASW equipment. That may be, but it's not relevant to the ASW formula itself that we were discussing. We had already said that after the formula stops, any additional ASW comes from equipment.
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Post by aeson on Nov 19, 2019 10:25:29 GMT -6
That may be, but it's not relevant to the ASW formula itself that we were discussing. We had already said that after the formula stops, any additional ASW comes from equipment. It is not clear to me that tortugapower was specifically speaking about the size-dependent aspect even though we were, and if you include ASW equipment then 900 tons is where DD/KE ASW scores stop increasing.
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Post by trifler on Nov 20, 2019 0:28:11 GMT -6
That may be, but it's not relevant to the ASW formula itself that we were discussing. We had already said that after the formula stops, any additional ASW comes from equipment. It is not clear to me that tortugapower was specifically speaking about the size-dependent aspect even though we were, and if you include ASW equipment then 900 tons is where DD/KE ASW scores stop increasing. Well, I just want to make sure he and others know that the ASW formula stops at 800, because I've run into players before who thought it was every odd number (300, 500, 700, 900) when in fact it's the even numbers (200, 400, 600, 800).
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Post by tordenskjold on May 16, 2020 5:16:34 GMT -6
I have currently have two classes of KEs. Both have increased DC storage and a forward ASW mortar. They differ however in that the Teiko Maru-class is larger, features four instead of two K-guns plus two additional SSM positions and minesweeping gear. Now, the Teiko Maru-class has an ASW rating of 5, while the Dairen Maru-class has a rating of 8. What's the reason behin this? Is this related to the minesweeping gear - despite the additional K-guns? Is this some kind of measure to prohibit such all-in-one designs (i.e. the minesweeping ASW patrol gunboat)?
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Post by wlbjork on May 16, 2020 7:31:21 GMT -6
If fitted with minesweeping gear, a KE will spend roughly half it's time sweeping mines and the rest on ASW patrols, so the effective ASW value is halved.
Therefore, the advice is to have separate and dedicated ASW and MSW corvettes. Don't combine the two, as you will end up spending more money on construction and maintenance for less effect.
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Post by aeson on May 16, 2020 11:20:56 GMT -6
Therefore, the advice is to have separate and dedicated ASW and MSW corvettes. Don't combine the two, as you will end up spending more money on construction and maintenance for less effect. Dedicated ASW I agree with; dedicated minesweeper not so much. Minesweepers are going to engage in ASW-related activity regardless of whether you fit them for it or not since both corvettes and destroyers have innate ASW scores, and whereas including minesweeping equipment on an ASW ship will halve its ASW score including ASW equipment on a minesweeper does not appear to affect its minesweeping score, so you may as well fit minesweepers out for ASW. You may argue cost, but fitting ASW equipment doesn't actually cost that much except possibly if you're right at the edge of what you can fit on your chosen displacement, and last I checked the minesweeping score as reported in the Area Overview was pretty close to being directly proportional to the displacement of the minesweeper between 200 and 1,000 tons, so even if adding ASW gear means you need to build a bigger minesweeper, it isn't necessarily an inefficient use of funds.
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geroj
Junior Member
Posts: 76
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Post by geroj on May 17, 2020 2:43:04 GMT -6
Most important question. Why to bother with mines at all? I tried it several times, no matter how many minesweepers I had I always lost several small ships (rarely a cruiser) per war, even if enemy had just one or two mine carrying ship in the area sometimes in a first turn of war. on other hand I had 1000-2000 mines on ships in area and my usual kill was KE or DD if I was lucky. Complete waste of resources and time. Only thing that helps is prayer to the dice roll gods
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Post by skoggatt on May 17, 2020 6:36:05 GMT -6
I always go with 900 ton corvettes from the beginning of the game and add ASW equipment as it becomes available. I also choose a really low speed like 12 knots since it keeps cost and maintenance down. The maintenance on such a slow corvette is something like 5 or 8 a month in AF, but 1 or 2 MB between wars. Makes it cost effective to have a whole trade protection fleet of corvettes and save the much more expensive destroyers for fleet actions.
As for minesweeping, I only build one or two per sea zone, but I have no idea how effective that is because the game doesn't tell you if you have enough minesweepers. No matter what I always lose some ships to mines whether or not I build a bunch of sweepers and there isn't a clear indication of how many mines you are facing or how effective your current level of minesweeping is.
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