Nation Specific Differences

[Idle Champion]

Cpt Blackthorne, on 24 Jun 2016 - 02:55 AM, said:

Another great idea! The cost and labor hours to build a non-spaced hull would be much greater than spaced ones. And each spacing you choose would have its own relative changes in labor hours. One the second part, I'm curious as to why no other nation built non-spaced hulls...according to the reads in the OP link provided, it had a lot to do with cost, and availability of materials. Would these have been the only reasons? Or did other nations feel that there really was no disadvantage to spaced? I've no idea.

 

Primarily, it's cost, build time, and material availability. The larger of the 'original six' U.S. frigates were frigates by role but capital ships by intent; over on the other side of the Atlantic, 74-gun ships of the line were being churned out in huge numbers and the sort of resources that went into USS Constitution would have been reserved for a second-rate. That's not to say that something like Le Bucentaure or HMS Neptune was built in the same fashion as USS Constitution, but with a similar sort of budget for labour, materials, and shipyard occupancy for the whole project.

 

The second point is that Constitution wasn't built as an 'armoured ship', but was built to be strong enough to support more powerful weapons than existing frigates without the need for additional decking: as a happy byproduct of its prodigiously strong construction it was resilient in combat. Ships of the line had the lateral support of additional enclosed decks, and could support bigger guns without requiring the same structural strength from the hull, while typical frigates weren't carrying the same immense weight of carriage-mounted guns as Constitution. They were built with spaced frames because solid frames weren't required.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

Interesting how the votes are not that far off...

[The Spud]

Interesting how the votes are not that far off...

 

Its interesting, but 65 votes on a total of 1200 - 1400 active players is not realy a fair representation unfortunatly. Idealy, if we could have nation specific ships in a balanced manner, that would be ideal. I would love to have a ton of ships in this game, so you don't automaticaly know what you are up against at the start of a battle. But we would realy need allot of ships, so nations are not limited to 6 ships per nation or something. Would at least need to be more or less the same as the choice we have now for every nation. But one can dream i guess.

[James Cornelius]

Just skimmed through most of this, and while I think there should be national differences, consider that for example the US did build ships of the line in the time period covered - they just never used them. Likewise, just after the time period covered by the game (and to make this assumption I used the time that the "Star Spangled Banner" - the 15 star, 15 stripe flag depicted on US ships in the game was in effect, 1795-1818) the US built even larger ships such as the 140 gun Pennsylvania in 1837.

 

So, I don't think we should cut out all types of ships, but it could be argued that each nation gets a unique ship that the others don't.

Edited July 18, 2016 by James Cornelius

[Cpt Blackthorne]

Yes please. And technically the USS Penn was commissioned in 1816 so it should fall into the time frame. It was never used because war was over and the stupidly burned rather that relocated to keep it from the rebel USA hating south.

My argument for the nation specific ships is simply to have some kind of differences between the nations. Nations would still be able to capture 1 dura of these ships, so it's not like an advantage/disadvantage to anyone.

[Idle Champion]

Yes please. And technically the USS Penn was commissioned in 1816 so it should fall into the time frame.

 

 

The navy was authorised to order ships of the line in 1816 - USS Pennsylvania wasn't even lines on paper then. Technically, she was commissioned in 1837.

[Cpt Blackthorne]

The navy was authorised to order ships of the line in 1816 - USS Pennsylvania wasn't even lines on paper then. Technically, she was commissioned in 1837.

Mere technicalities. hehe

[Prater]

Let's get some other nation ships before we get more US ships.  We already have another light vessel coming, the Prince de Neufchatel.

[Hethwill]

Let's get some other nation ships before we get more US ships.  We already have another light vessel coming, the Prince de Neufchatel.

 

YEEEES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sella]

Still no wild card announced

[Cpt Blackthorne]

Let's get some other nation ships before we get more US ships.  We already have another light vessel coming, the Prince de Neufchatel.

How about no more HMS ships? Way too many as it is. but yes, def other nation ships before more HMS or USS.