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Post by TheOtherPoster on Jan 20, 2023 7:39:13 GMT -6
All standing navies in 1890 had still many ships that used wrought iron armour. After 1890s there was a huge advance on armour strength in a few years: in 1890 the best types of armour available were steel and compound. Then came nickel steel, then Harvey and before the end of the 1890s Krupp and Cemented Krupp. The issue here is that the difference in strength is huge: For example, 10in of Harvey have the same strength as 20in of wrought iron, and 10in of Krupp the same as 20in of Compound armour. In a few years the strength of armour had doubled! So knowing our ship has 10in of armour does not mean anything unless we know what type of armour it is. Maybe you would prefer to ignore wrought iron in RTW3 for sake of simplification but we would still need a way to find out if a given ship has compound or KC armour or whatever, because the difference in armour strength is huge. Is there anything already set up so we can find out the armour type (=strength) of the ships in our fleet?
For example, armour type could be shown just below the ship’s "armour scheme" box in the building screen.
Also, guns penetration values would need to specify on what type of armour. I guess this could be symplified in the game to show always KC?
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Post by abclark on Jan 20, 2023 8:57:17 GMT -6
IIRC the numbers for armor in RTW and RTW2 do not directly correspond to armor thickness, but instead are closer to effective armor in inches of a standard level. That's why armor techs make armor lighter, not more effective per inch. Using the same system might be confusing, but making early (wrought iron, etc.) armor types very, very, heavy would accomplish that by older ships having what appears to be very thin armor.
That system has other flaws, like not being able to see how effective the armor of your older ships really is, so a change might be in order anyway.
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 20, 2023 9:57:26 GMT -6
I'll be curious to see how they handle this in the new game.
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Post by TheOtherPoster on Jan 20, 2023 12:23:01 GMT -6
As I see it, fully fledged battleships in 1890 had a narrow belt armour between 18 to 22in thick, so heavy it precluded to be used extensively. Most battleships built in the 1880s even didn't have any armour protecting the secondary battery (Marceau or Admiral classes). To take the Royal Navy as reference, they started in 1889 building the Royal Sovereign class with 18in of compound armour but 9 years later by 1898 they were building the Formidable class with 9in Krupp belt and better protected all around. From 18in to 9in in 10 years! This is the reason why those earlier ships were so badly protected, because the armour thickness they needed to be effective was too big and hence too heavy. That's why you cannot replicate those ships in RTW2. The only way I know I can build a royal sovereign in RTW2 is disregarding their real displacement: I design it as 14,000tm, give it a 18in narrow belt (or maybe a bit less) and then halve it to 8in or so to make it it's real strength compared to 1900 Krupp. Then of course I have to reduce its displacement several thousand ton to adjust. Hardly satisfying.
I wonder if RTW3 will be set up in a way that we will be forced to start 1890 designing ships with thick narrow belts but we will evolve during the 1890s to stronger thinner armour with more extensive protection.
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 20, 2023 14:54:35 GMT -6
As I see it, fully fledged battleships in 1890 had a narrow belt armour between 18 to 22in thick, so heavy it precluded to be used extensively. Most battleships built in the 1880s even didn't have any armour protecting the secondary battery (Marceau or Admiral classes). To take the Royal Navy as reference, they started in 1889 building the Royal Sovereign class with 18in of compound armour but 9 years later by 1898 they were building the Formidable class with 9in Krupp belt and better protected all around. From 18in to 9in in 10 years! This is the reason why those earlier ships were so badly protected, because the armour thickness they needed to be effective was too big and hence too heavy. That's why you cannot replicate those ships in RTW2. The only way I know I can build a royal sovereign in RTW2 is disregarding their real displacement: I design it as 14,000tm, give it a 18in narrow belt (or maybe a bit less) and then halve it to 8in or so to make it it's real strength compared to 1900 Krupp. Then of course I have to reduce its displacement several thousand ton to adjust. Hardly satisfying. I wonder if RTW3 will be set up in a way that we will be forced to start 1890 designing ships with thick narrow belts but we will evolve during the 1890s to stronger thinner armour with more extensive protection. I'd rather have a setting for the type of armor used, with good explanation of the differences in strength.
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Post by abclark on Jan 20, 2023 16:08:28 GMT -6
As I see it, fully fledged battleships in 1890 had a narrow belt armour between 18 to 22in thick, so heavy it precluded to be used extensively. Most battleships built in the 1880s even didn't have any armour protecting the secondary battery (Marceau or Admiral classes). To take the Royal Navy as reference, they started in 1889 building the Royal Sovereign class with 18in of compound armour but 9 years later by 1898 they were building the Formidable class with 9in Krupp belt and better protected all around. From 18in to 9in in 10 years! This is the reason why those earlier ships were so badly protected, because the armour thickness they needed to be effective was too big and hence too heavy. That's why you cannot replicate those ships in RTW2. The only way I know I can build a royal sovereign in RTW2 is disregarding their real displacement: I design it as 14,000tm, give it a 18in narrow belt (or maybe a bit less) and then halve it to 8in or so to make it it's real strength compared to 1900 Krupp. Then of course I have to reduce its displacement several thousand ton to adjust. Hardly satisfying. I wonder if RTW3 will be set up in a way that we will be forced to start 1890 designing ships with thick narrow belts but we will evolve during the 1890s to stronger thinner armour with more extensive protection. I'd rather have a setting for the type of armor used, with good explanation of the differences in strength. While I would rather see that as well, and I think it could be done fairly simply*, I expect we're too close to release for something that major to be changed now. Whatever has been done already is almost certainly final. *A simple modifier for different armor types, then further modified by the misc. small armor techs would probably suffice.
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 20, 2023 20:02:47 GMT -6
That should work fine. I wonder when we will get some news on the game, as January is 2/3 done, and I haven't seen anything here or on Matrix yet.
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Post by williammiller on Jan 20, 2023 22:09:46 GMT -6
Right now we are pushing out a new beta every 2-3 days, so we are in the midst of a slew of work and fixes on the beta. There are certainly plans for more detailed info before game release time, we should know more within a couple/few weeks at most I believe.
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Post by Adseria on Jan 21, 2023 4:02:43 GMT -6
IIRC the numbers for armor in RTW and RTW2 do not directly correspond to armor thickness, but instead are closer to effective armor in inches of a standard level. That's why armor techs make armor lighter, not more effective per inch. Using the same system might be confusing, but making early (wrought iron, etc.) armor types very, very, heavy would accomplish that by older ships having what appears to be very thin armor. That system has other flaws, like not being able to see how effective the armor of your older ships really is, so a change might be in order anyway. This was true in RTW1, but was corrected in RTW2.
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Post by aeson on Jan 21, 2023 15:20:57 GMT -6
IIRC the numbers for armor in RTW and RTW2 do not directly correspond to armor thickness, but instead are closer to effective armor in inches of a standard level. That's why armor techs make armor lighter, not more effective per inch. Using the same system might be confusing, but making early (wrought iron, etc.) armor types very, very, heavy would accomplish that by older ships having what appears to be very thin armor. That system has other flaws, like not being able to see how effective the armor of your older ships really is, so a change might be in order anyway. I am curious as to what your reasoning for this is, because it seems that you're saying that an equivalent-thickness system makes it difficult to compare armor across older and newer ships, yet it would appear to me that "Ship A's armor is equivalent to 10 inches of standardized test plate while Ship B's armor is equivalent to 12 inches of standardized test plate" is a significantly easier comparison than "Ship A has 18 inches of composite armor while Ship B has 9 inches of Class A."
Also, as adseria has already mentioned, RTW2 doesn't use the equivalent-thickness armor system seen in RTW1, it uses an 'actual' thickness with hidden resistance multiplier.
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 21, 2023 17:28:30 GMT -6
IIRC the numbers for armor in RTW and RTW2 do not directly correspond to armor thickness, but instead are closer to effective armor in inches of a standard level. That's why armor techs make armor lighter, not more effective per inch. Using the same system might be confusing, but making early (wrought iron, etc.) armor types very, very, heavy would accomplish that by older ships having what appears to be very thin armor. That system has other flaws, like not being able to see how effective the armor of your older ships really is, so a change might be in order anyway. I am curious as to what your reasoning for this is, because it seems that you're saying that an equivalent-thickness system makes it difficult to compare armor across older and newer ships, yet it would appear to me that "Ship A's armor is equivalent to 10 inches of standardized test plate while Ship B's armor is equivalent to 12 inches of standardized test plate" is a significantly easier comparison than "Ship A has 18 inches of composite armor while Ship B has 9 inches of Class A."
Also, as adseria has already mentioned, RTW2 doesn't use the equivalent-thickness armor system seen in RTW1, it uses an 'actual' thickness with hidden resistance multiplier.
Are there any plans to allow players to see the resistance multiplier? Right now, there is no way of accurately telling how much better the armor on a 1923 LD battleship might be compared a legacy ship with equal thickness.
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Post by Adseria on Jan 22, 2023 3:28:07 GMT -6
I am curious as to what your reasoning for this is, because it seems that you're saying that an equivalent-thickness system makes it difficult to compare armor across older and newer ships, yet it would appear to me that "Ship A's armor is equivalent to 10 inches of standardized test plate while Ship B's armor is equivalent to 12 inches of standardized test plate" is a significantly easier comparison than "Ship A has 18 inches of composite armor while Ship B has 9 inches of Class A."
Also, as adseria has already mentioned, RTW2 doesn't use the equivalent-thickness armor system seen in RTW1, it uses an 'actual' thickness with hidden resistance multiplier.
Are there any plans to allow players to see the resistance multiplier? Right now, there is no way of accurately telling how much better the armor on a 1923 LD battleship might be compared a legacy ship with equal thickness. I asked a similar question back when RTW2 came out, and was told that they want to keep the actual effectiveness of different armour types somewhat hidden from the players, for realism. Basically, it comes down to a question of which player-base the devs value more; the players who want historical realism, or the players who want to min-max. Given some of the threads I've seen since I joined the forums, I think I could probably call the former a relatively safe bet.
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Post by TheOtherPoster on Jan 22, 2023 4:07:30 GMT -6
I think our friend William may be sworn to secrecy until the big release announcement in the next few weeks or months? But I hope they've found a way to make clear to us the equivalent strength of the ship's armour. Of course it's far too late now to do any further changes but this issue of armour type/strength/weight has been risen several times in the past. I guess a way to show the armour's equivalent strength would be to have, next to where we write the armour values, a little box that would automatically show the equivalent standard strength. For example if early KC is standard throughout the game and we are building a ship in 1890 and give it a 13.5in belt, it would automatically show in the little box next to it 6.75in. Or if building in late 1890s and give her 8in (Harvey) then the little box would show 6in and so on. That way we wouldn't have to calculate ourselves anything out of the particular armour modifier to every ship. But anyway, all this may not be too relevant anymore as RTW3 seems to be all set and done and ready to go. Well, maybe they've found a better way to do this, I'm sure the new game will be full of new and exciting features
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Post by JagdFlanker on Jan 22, 2023 4:35:24 GMT -6
a rough non-precise way to see how much tech has lightened your ship is to base your new ship from the current in-service class (right-click, 'open design') and seeing how much more weight you have to work with
the problem with RtW1/2 is you have to keep the original visual layout if you design a new ship from the design of an older in-service ship, but that is supposed to change in RtW3
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Post by zederfflinger on Jan 23, 2023 6:48:04 GMT -6
Are there any plans to allow players to see the resistance multiplier? Right now, there is no way of accurately telling how much better the armor on a 1923 LD battleship might be compared a legacy ship with equal thickness. I asked a similar question back when RTW2 came out, and was told that they want to keep the actual effectiveness of different armour types somewhat hidden from the players, for realism. Basically, it comes down to a question of which player-base the devs value more; the players who want historical realism, or the players who want to min-max. Given some of the threads I've seen since I joined the forums, I think I could probably call the former a relatively safe bet. I don't think that having some sort of box showing the equivalent standard thickness would be too min maxy. Seems like a fairly realistic thing for a nation to know.
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