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Post by cv10 on May 25, 2023 20:56:21 GMT -6
I think it would improve the non-1900 start dates if the player had more options over the legacy fleet. I'll confine my comments to the 1890 start, since that's the one I've been playing the most. I understand why we have the present system of AI-generated legacy fleets, but I think it quickly becomes a bit dull. With the 1890 start, I've done a few different runs and I find that I usually end up with roughly similar designs on each new legacy fleet. As China, I've only had the Dingyuan-style battleships as my starter, with only one out of 6 different starts having a different battleship design (a single ship under construction). I also usually see the same types of CL and CA crop up with limited differences between designs between starts.
I would suggest:
1. Give the player a manual build option for the 1890 start, or
2. Allow the player to choose between a selection of AI-generated designs (maybe 2-3 options per class), so the player would at least have some input without full control.
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Post by cabalamat on May 26, 2023 20:19:06 GMT -6
Maybe there could also be a historically-accurate fleets option, where the user would get the ships the nation actually had historically. These could then be reduced/increased in number to make the fleet the right size.
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Post by cormallen on May 27, 2023 7:57:15 GMT -6
Maybe there could also be a historically-accurate fleets option, where the user would get the ships the nation actually had historically. These could then be reduced/increased in number to make the fleet the right size. If be happy if the various fleets just had the numbers they actually had too! China and Spain mostly start with suitably weak navies and post 1920 Germans are much reduced. It's possible to tune the other powers for the 1900 start fairly well. The elephant(s) in the room are in the 1890 start. Only Britain and France have even vaguely oceanic battle fleets with Russia and Italy being very 2nd line. Spain, Austria and China even have a few Battleships of generally lesser sort but Japan and America are purely cruiser forces! An historical option for the US would give them Texas and Maine building but a very bright future... Maybe this is what William meant about "not upsetting players"? The current 1890 game has masses of 20-22 knot protected cruisers which really belong 2-3 years in the future. |
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Post by cabalamat on May 27, 2023 8:12:26 GMT -6
I quite like starting with small fleets, it gives you a blank piece of paper to start from.
The problem with the computer-generated designs is they are very hard to upgrade as there is usually too little empty space. I normally keep 200-400 tons free in my designs, so they can be upgraded.
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Post by blarglol on May 27, 2023 14:01:26 GMT -6
One thing I do notice regarding the 1890s legacy fleet is Austria-Hungary making a lot of open barbette-mount battleships. In my current playthrough they have some absurd amount like 15+ and more building. I'm talking small ~6000 ton or "battleships" with two, forward-facing, open-mount 11 or 12" guns.
So at the very least they are certainly starting (and making more well into the 1890s) with legacy designs and running with them. Whether this is simply a quirk of their smaller shipbuilding-capacity or something else to do with A-H in particular remains to be seen.
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Post by cormallen on May 27, 2023 17:09:25 GMT -6
One thing I do notice regarding the 1890s legacy fleet is Austria-Hungary making a lot of open barbette-mount battleships. In my current playthrough they have some absurd amount like 15+ and more building. I'm talking small ~6000 ton or "battleships" with two, forward-facing, open-mount 11 or 12" guns. So at the very least they are certainly starting (and making more well into the 1890s) with legacy designs and running with them. Whether this is simply a quirk of their smaller shipbuilding-capacity or something else to do with A-H in particular remains to be seen. Yes, I'd noticed the odd Austrian battleship thing? They build loads more than others with similar budgets... I just wish they'd let us build proper start fleets instead of these masses of super modern/fast cruisers they seem to dish out! Maybe they'll address it in a patch at some point? |
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Post by TheOtherPoster on May 28, 2023 2:10:20 GMT -6
I think the problem with ships designs in the 1890 start is that they've put all the eggs in the same basket. Because the way that start has been conceived, we all can start building modern predreadnoughts straight away, with (no narrow) belts of moderate thickness, no low freeboard, normal range etc. Modern fast cruisers... In short, very similar to the 1900 designs but in 1890. 1890 star is in RTW3 to a certain point a bit like the 1900 start but with the ironclad era legacy fleets. And to me that's a good set up because this way we can play the predreadnought era far longer than in RTW2. But as they seem to use the same set of templates both for the legacy fleet and our first new builds, they had to mix the old and the new. And so we get few different ironclad designs but also some modern fast and powerful ships in our legacy fleets, ships in theory completed some time in the 1880s. It would have made more sense maybe (cormallen first thought this was actually the case) to have not just one set of designs for the legacy fleet and our first 1890 new designs but two different sets: one only for the legacy fleet, could include more old-type designs, increasing variety in the legacy fleets. Plus another set for our new builds from 1890. Because if we're going to start building modern dreadnoughts and cruisers from 1890, it makes sense that all other nations could do the same too.
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Post by cormallen on May 28, 2023 16:30:07 GMT -6
I think it's nice playing more retro stuff but the current 1890 start fleets are an odd mix of some fairly good takes on late 1880s battleships plus masses of mid 1890s style 20+knot cruisers that will be entirely adequate until steam turbines come along in a decade or so! The complete lack of Torpedo boats needs fixing and hopefully the community will come up with a more suitable pool of cruisers for the Legacy forces. I've seen suggestions that the first set of designs cover 1890-1897, which is rather daft given the technical advances over that period! I may end up making two versions of the start IDes files and swapping them after the AI has had it's fun?
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Post by dorn on May 28, 2023 16:39:34 GMT -6
The reasons for lacking torpedo boats at 1890 start is that torpedo boats at that time was for coast defense only. As operational part is more abstracted in RTW3 as there are not dedicated ships for coastal protection, lacking torpedo boats is best solution.
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Post by cormallen on May 28, 2023 17:45:38 GMT -6
The reasons for lacking torpedo boats at 1890 start is that torpedo boats at that time was for coast defense only. As operational part is more abstracted in RTW3 as there are not dedicated ships for coastal protection, lacking torpedo boats is best solution. There's literally already a tech giving "MTB bases", just make a variant of that? Short range, cramped and low freeboard Torpedo boats attacking the enemy are very much a real thing. It was widely practiced (not always successfully) in exercises from the 1880s. Many battleships actually carried Torpedo boats to deploy against enemy coastal targets and they were even building Torpedo Boat Tenders on cruiser hulls to bring more along. The game struggles to build them in the design system, though I can make viable versions in 1890 albeit at 3-4 times IRL tonnages, but there's quite a lot of small "Torpedo Gunboats" and "Torpedo Cruisers" around from pre-1890. The current surprise emergence of "Torpedo Boat Destroyers" in 1892/3 in a world with no TBs is daft. The current 1890 legacy forces have masses of 20+ knot CLs that are already (judging from multiple "let's plays" as well as own experience) being used as Torpedo attack Craft ! |
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