Duplicating technologies

[tornado1555]

This is both a modding question and a proto-suggestion regarding both armour technology and technology modding in general.

I know that changing the *effects* of technology at this time is impossible, as it is hardcoded. But is it possible to copy incremental technologies that already exist in the game?

Reasoning: In a planned group game I'm making, I'd like to return to the old system of handling armour technology as it allowed for more flexibility and variety in refit design (chiefly, in weight savings in a large and costly refit). The old system of handling armour advances through reduction of armour weight to give equivalent protection, was realistic in that way because protection was relative and not thought to be literal. It was also easier to understand because armour weight was a value easily seen, whereas armour quality is rather nebulous as a metric.

Having played it, the new system is bit less functional. I know armour refits were rare IRL (certainly the cost is prohibitive in-game), but on occasion I'd love to correct design problems in a ship's armour scheme, or free up some displacement, by increasing the protection through a costly alloy improvement for refittable components (turrets, secondary battery), which again was possible in RTW 1.

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So that brings me back to the technology duplication question. Copying the "Improved Armour Bracing" 2% weight saving technologies a couple of times and replacing the armour quality improvement techs would work in theory. But would it?

Talk about an alloy of a question!

[wlbjork]

It sounds interesting, but I think you should test how much of an effect the armour quality has before proceeding.

I'd guess the simplest way would be to start a new game, then edit the save to give you all guns at Q1 with all the AP and range extending technologies, which if I understand correctly would mean the penetration values when designing ships are for the top notch guns against your basic Harvey Armour.

I have a suspicion that you will have to move your designs up a class, that is a CL will actually use the CA template (unless you want sub-6" guns, say a 5" CLAA at which point forget about any useful armour) and the CA will use the BC template simply due to how thick you will need the armour to be to resist even relatively light guns.

Edit: It does indeed. The results are...not pleasant.

Calibre	Normal techs	No Armour techs
4"	2.847	3.9
5"	4.307	5.9
6"	5.694	7.8
7"	7.081	9.7
8"	9.198	12.6
9"	10.001	13.7
10"	10.074	13.8
11"	13.505	18.5
12"	14.892	20.4
13"	17.082	23.4
14"	18.469	25.3
15"	19.929	27.3
16"	21.389	29.3
17"	22.776	31.2
18"	20.659 (Q0)	31.2
19"	21.389 (Q0)	32.1
20"	19.783 (Q-1)	33

Note 1: Penetration is listed against belt armour at 5,000 yards. Unless otherwise stated, all guns are Q1.

Note 2: The values for "normal techs" are from a completed (1970) game, which have longer ranges than those of the 1900 start, indicating either I missed some range increasing techs or there are range increases tied to the date. As such the penetration values in the second column should be considered minimum values.

Additionally, the improvements in armour quality are probably more effective at reducing armour weight. Consider 3" of belt armour on a 10,000t ship in 1970 costs 932 displacement, whilst a 4" belt on the same ship costs 1,371t - about a 40-45% increase in weight for a 33% increase in thickness presumably due to the extra bracing required..

[seawolf]

Each armor tech is a 1% improvement in effectiveness

[tornado1555]

Thanks for the response so far. While the information is interesting, my question is not about armour design philosophy itself and more about the modding potential of replacing all of the technologies in the tech tree that improve armour quality 1% at at time, with the technologies that decrease armour weight 2% at a time (mimicing the system used in RTW1).

It wouldn't be balanced initially but I just wonder whether it is possible to copy and paste techs in the first place, to get around the fact that one can't add techs of their own into the game. No errors occur when I do so far, but I haven't yet had the time to test out whether the intended changes that I want occur, and so I wonder whether anyone else who could weigh in has more experience in this area.