Different qualities of guns.

[Nereng]

I noticed this while trying to make a Scharnhorst copy; Even with superheavy shells and white powder I was unable to give her 11inch guns a range of more than about 20km, but I knew that she had scored hits on HMS Glorious at a range of 25km. A little checking on the internet revealed the reason. Her Krupp-made 11inch guns had a muzzle velocity of 980 m/s while the guns in the game have far less. Basically, different nations made different quality guns, which had real effects. Can we hope that this will be reflected in the game?

[SiWi]

my guess is yes.

We know that technology will improve lower caliber of guns while making bigger ones aviable. And we know that the different nation are suppose to have some differences.

So either the option of producing high quality guns of a certain caliber or techs to boost them, does seem plausible to me.

[akd]

4 hours ago, Nereng said:

I noticed this while trying to make a Scharnhorst copy; Even with superheavy shells and white powder I was unable to give her 11inch guns a range of more than about 20km, but I knew that she had scored hits on HMS Glorious at a range of 25km. A little checking on the internet revealed the reason. Her Krupp-made 11inch guns had a muzzle velocity of 980 m/s while the guns in the game have far less. Basically, different nations made different quality guns, which had real effects. Can we hope that this will be reflected in the game?

Mark 5 guns, super heavy shell and ballistite will get you there, although not with the correct MV.

[Nereng]

It's the same with all kinds of other things as well, I guess. Optical range-finders, reload mechanisms, even the shells you fire can be of higher or lower quality.And training and morale of the crew, of course.

[Cairo1]

instead of quality, why not instead caliber?

As it stands we have X-inch in single double triple turrets as options, what if instead we had X-inch L-X guns in what ever configuration turret.

Ex 8cm 3 year 3 inch guns were L40, while 8cm Type 98 3 inch guns were L60. 

Benefits to lower length guns could be weight, rotation and elevation speed, while longer guns would have better range, and higher pen.

[Cptbarney]

We could have quality, mark and caliber. So highest quality and marks would 6 or 10 and they would improve accuracy, consistency, ease of use, ease of manufacture might cost less or more depending on how much experience the builders have with them and how cheap they can get them down to.

While also increasing their attributes or just make them more expensive than previous marks so a quality 6 mark 2 482mm gun will be far cheaper than a quality 4 mark 5 482mm gun but the latter will have far better stats (the former would have good stats still but just cheaper to produce).

[Illya von Einzbern]

We could allocate points for manufacturing to make this work i suppose?
Research and dedication for gun/ steel production could affect on the marks also effect the construct time.
Good guns needs more care when making and not so easy to mass produce for example the IJN 203mm type 3 gun turrets compared to type 2 and vanilla

[Cairo1]

3 hours ago, Illya von Einzbern said:

We could allocate points for manufacturing to make this work i suppose?
Research and dedication for gun/ steel production could affect on the marks also effect the construct time.
Good guns needs more care when making and not so easy to mass produce for example the IJN 203mm type 3 gun turrets compared to type 2 and vanilla

The Diffrences between the Type 1, 2, and 3 guns In Kancolle are actually not as simple as they sound, but are really interesting. there are actually more variations on Japanese 8 inch heavy cruiser guns then those three, Akagi, and Kaga used the first batch of "Mark 1" 20cm (7.9inch) guns, Furutaka, Aoba, and Myoko classes carried them in casemates, (carriers) single turrets,(Furutaka) and the kancolle Type 1 Turret, this turret. Though in reality the early Kaga and Akagi both had 2 twin 20cm turrets with 70° of elevation, while Myoko had a new turret with only 40° of elevation. With the New Takao class a new "Mark 2" gun was introduced 20.3cm (8inch) a new turret with a somewhat angular design came again with 70° for AA use This i believe is Kancolles type 2 gun. Older barrels were bored out and ammunition stocks replaced, the Furutakas received fresh new turrets as well. This is where things get intresting, after Chokai the Japanese realized that the practically of the 8 inch guns for AA was limited so the elevation was reduced to 55° these new turrets were present on the Mogamis, and Tone i think This is the type 3 gun I believe.

I am also an old Teitoku i started in 2014 and my first event ship was Hatsuzuki, i still love her, But Haruna, and Ushio are my Wifu.

here is a picture of one of these turrets from the HTMS Thonburi of Thailand, build in Japan before WWII

[NickWhittle]

I love playing war games and I remember playing my first Medal of Honor game and since then I try to play more war games. It is really interesting to play these historic battles with historic weapons. The best war game I played was Brothers in Arms. It really has good story and I enjoy getting headshots in that game. Those kind of games have interested me in old historic guns and I started collecting them. I really like to use and old rifle with a really good HD scope from ATN. Their scopes are good on any rifle and mixing them with old ones is really fun.

Edited June 2, 2020 by NickWhittle

[1MajorKoenig]

I am a bit undecided about this one. 

One the one hand it feels like architecting a ship as you simply decide on the inch and it feels like some freedom not to to be tight to national preferences.

On the other hand you can’t reconstruct even similar to historical designs for that reason. Example: I tried to make some kind of König class Dreadnought but the 12” guns in game do basically nothing to enemy Battleships. The German 12” L/50 high velocity gun was superb at that time and more similar to 13” guns in pen but that isn’t modelled so in game such designs fare rather poor. 

 

As a potential solution I would propose the following:

- keep in general these generic pieces 

- replace some slots with “national signature pieces” such as the British 15” L42 or the German 12” L50 for these nations

- maybe even add some special caliber for particular nations such as 35cm - but That is probably more a nice-to-have

 

This would still allow any nation to build whatever they like with no restrictions but would still enable us to use certain well known artillery pieces which were particularly important for certain navies 

 

 

[coalminer]

An option I would like to see is allowing us to choose some of the older gun mounts. This can provide some form of benefits say if I am building a vessel for overseas colonies or convoy duties sort of low intensity operations. Older guns could weigh and cost less as they are less complicated, also the gun models are different and may allow for fitting of more/larger/different guns on the older or smaller hulls.

In the campaign setting this could also translate into an "inventory" system of guns, ala vanguard receiving the older battleship guns than wait for new designs/productions or retrofitting of BB guns to create monitors/coastal defence vessels. A scenario could be that I have just ended a huge conflict with another nation with a bunch of overworked and damaged vessels. I could scrap all of them and retain 10 sets of 12" dual turrets for retrofitting on to another ship or to speed up construction of a current ship by say X months as the gun mounts, turrets and production lines dont have to be setup. Using of older guns could speed up construction of the ship and free up newer guns to go to other capital vessels that require the and generally reduce construction costs as smaller yards and industries can now handle ship building without needing gun manufacturing capabilities. This could also mean that I can not only build my ship in foreign yards, but acquire different guns (maybe newer, better or cheaper, older) from foreign arsenals to fit on my vessels although this might be rather complicated to show up in the ship design screen. Maybe researched guns have an infinite quantity labeled next to them and imported guns show up as say 5 pieces remaining and I cannot put more than 5 on the design or commission more than that amount of guns on multiple hulls.

If coastal defence and forts are also included, older and obsolete guns could go to land mounts and reduce construction time and cost as well.

 

[Xenospartan653]

I don't think we should have "national" or unique pieces, so much as the ability to determine the caliber of the gun, in addition to the barrel width. For instance, the SoDak fast BBs had 40.6cm/45cal guns, while the Iowas had better 50cal guns with improved penetration. Ditto with the Deutschland's 28cm guns vs the Scharnhorst's (52cal vs 54.5cal), et cetera. Increased barrel-length increases range and penetration, while decreased barrel-length decreases weight and turret rotation/elevation speed, as well as cost. This was a fairly important part of warship design.

 

"Marks" of guns would also be really interesting, but I'm honestly not sure how much of a physical difference there was between, say, the 16"/50 Mark 2, planned for the 1920's South Dakota Class, and the 16"/50 Mark 7, used on the Iowa's, that weren't accounted for by improvements in ammunition, charges, et cetera. As opposed for the physical guns themselves.

[Tycondero]

On 6/7/2020 at 12:12 PM, 1MajorKoenig said:

I am a bit undecided about this one. 

One the one hand it feels like architecting a ship as you simply decide on the inch and it feels like some freedom not to to be tight to national preferences.

On the other hand you can’t reconstruct even similar to historical designs for that reason. Example: I tried to make some kind of König class Dreadnought but the 12” guns in game do basically nothing to enemy Battleships. The German 12” L/50 high velocity gun was superb at that time and more similar to 13” guns in pen but that isn’t modelled so in game such designs fare rather poor. 

 

As a potential solution I would propose the following:

- keep in general these generic pieces 

- replace some slots with “national signature pieces” such as the British 15” L42 or the German 12” L50 for these nations

- maybe even add some special caliber for particular nations such as 35cm - but That is probably more a nice-to-have

 

This would still allow any nation to build whatever they like with no restrictions but would still enable us to use certain well known artillery pieces which were particularly important for certain navies 

 

 

We shouldn't have national components. However we should have technology make up this difference. Every nation should be able to build everything, however a nation should not be able to focus on all things. Some navies with a bigger budget could do more perhaps, but again it should also be a feasible strategy to build a lot of somewhat inferior ships or few highly advanced ones. Imo the player should make the choices to direct a nation towards a certain doctrine. I'm outright against perpetual flat national bonuses, but I'm ok with having a nation start out with a certain (historical) advantage. These factors should be the deciding elements which (in the campaign) should allow one to develop better/unique guns or other components.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Tycondero

[Friedrich]

On 11/14/2019 at 1:35 AM, Cptbarney said:

We could have quality, mark and caliber. So highest quality and marks would 6 or 10 and they would improve accuracy, consistency, ease of use, ease of manufacture might cost less or more depending on how much experience the builders have with them and how cheap they can get them down to.

While also increasing their attributes or just make them more expensive than previous marks so a quality 6 mark 2 482mm gun will be far cheaper than a quality 4 mark 5 482mm gun but the latter will have far better stats (the former would have good stats still but just cheaper to produce).

What would the difference between quality and mark be? I presume mark has to do with things like barrel rifling and breach design, while quality has to do with the manufacture of them, but what would the actual effect be? Making barrel length separate from bore diameter is a no brainer and goes along with my own issues regarding turret/barbette diameter as things which really ought to have been part of the ship designer from the outset, although not quite to the same degree. They are important enough that the high changeover cost is worth it, and I will expect it to be made, but I don't envy the devs for having to rejigger so much in the process. 

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, Friedrich said:

What would the difference between quality and mark be? I presume mark has to do with things like barrel rifling and breach design, while quality has to do with the manufacture of them, but what would the actual effect be? Making barrel length separate from bore diameter is a no brainer and goes along with my own issues regarding turret/barbette diameter as things which really ought to have been part of the ship designer from the outset, although not quite to the same degree. They are important enough that the high changeover cost is worth it, and I will expect it to be made, but I don't envy the devs for having to rejigger so much in the process. 

Mark i always assumed with the current version of the barrel itself in terms of technology and the next version from the previous same barrel. The effect would be as lower quality guns would make their shells spin less, un-able to fire as far and/or as much or fast along with accuracy due to the shell deviating far more as well. 

So the lower the mark the more primitive the gun/barrel and for quality the worse it is the less reliable, useful and effective it will be but also be far cheaper as well to buy, but probs more expensive to maintain.

Yeah, i have no clue how they are planning things on their end, but i don't envy their position atm.

[Friedrich]

25 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Mark i always assumed with the current version of the barrel itself in terms of technology and the next version from the previous same barrel. The effect would be as lower quality guns would make their shells spin less, un-able to fire as far and/or as much or fast along with accuracy due to the shell deviating far more as well. 

So the lower the mark the more primitive the gun/barrel and for quality the worse it is the less reliable, useful and effective it will be but also be far cheaper as well to buy, but probs more expensive to maintain.

Yeah, i have no clue how they are planning things on their end, but i don't envy their position atm.

So basically mark would alter the fixed stats like range, muzzle velocity, rof, etc, while quality is more the variable stats like accuracy (of the guns, not your firing solutions).

Actually now that I've articulated this, I really like the idea of this distinction, and think that shells, charges, barrels, etc should all have their own (semi-hidden) quality stats for historical authenticity. So Iowa would have mediocre charges, meaning it's main guns will have variable muzzle velocity and range giving them poor vertical accuracy (deviation in distance traveled, not angles) or Littorio having this up to absurd degrees and thus straddling literally every shot unless they get an actually tolerances batch at which point every salvo might as well be lasers for all the difference it will make in terms of accuracy. Bismark/WW1 Britain get unreliable shell fuzings (delayed/nonexistent and premature detonations respectively), WW2 Germany gets higher mark machinery that literally anyone else (who didn't copy/license them) but it's of stupidly low quality and as such will devour itself unless the crew is experienced in the arcane rituals required to appease the tempestuous machine spirits, etc. Not actually asking for this behavior in the game, just giving specific historical examples to illustrate how they could be modeled in game. I don't know any examples of low quality barrels, but that would obviously affect deviation in the initial shot trajectories and spin rate, which for the game I think are the same things.

The "semi-hidden" thing is the idea that you might demand a certain quality, but you don't know what you actually got until you test it out, and if you aren't satisfied you're only option is to try again and hope that this time you roll better. So you are basically setting a quality control standard and paying the according premiums for it. For things like ammo and fuel (more so for coal than oil) this would be randomized at the start of each sortie, gun barrels whenever they are manufactured/installed, and things like the engines and hull you are just stuck with unless you intend to pull a Kongou class and rebuild the entire damn things from almost the keel up.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Friedrich

[Cptbarney]

4 minutes ago, Friedrich said:

So basically mark would alter the fixed stats like range, muzzle velocity, rof, etc, while quality is more the variable stats like accuracy (of the guns, not your firing solutions).

Actually now that I've articulated this, I really like the idea of this distinction, and think that shells, charges, barrels, etc should all have their own (semi-hidden) quality stats for historical authenticity. So Iowa would have mediocre charges, meaning it's main guns will have variable muzzle velocity and range giving them poor vertical accuracy (deviation in distance traveled, not angles) or Littorio having this up to absurd degrees and thus straddling literally every shot unless they get an actually tolerances batch at which point every salvo might as well be lasers for all the difference it will make in terms of accuracy. Bismark/WW1 Britain get unreliable shells, WW2 germany gets higher mark machinery that literally anyone else (who didn't copy/license them) but it's of stupidly low quality and as such will devour itself unless the crew is experienced in the arcane rituals required to appease the tempestuous machine spirit, etc. Not actually asking for this behavior in the game, just giving specific historical examples to illustrate how they could be modeled in game. I don't know any examples of low quality barrels, but that would obviously affect deviation in the initial shot trajectories and spin rate, which for the game I think are the same things.

Yeah, those are some good explanations too be honest. Im not sure if the devs will, but they could have quality wear so as time goes on the quality goes down and so do other things, Shells could be their own separate entity ranging from things like common, AP, APC, APBC, HE, HEI etc. With different weight types and filler depending on the nation and also their industrial strength and economic leverage.

Also the higher the mark the more complex parts are needed and so that should also take long to produce due to number of improvements made towards to the object and also better materials to work with.

Could help make the game more dynamic gives more pause for thought as well, depends on how complex the devs want to make it really. They could make it pretty complex or just simple buffs and debuffs that effect certain parts of whatever it is.

If we get mod support we can add more complex versions in anyways.

[Friedrich]

14 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah, those are some good explanations too be honest. Im not sure if the devs will, but they could have quality wear so as time goes on the quality goes down and so do other things, Shells could be their own separate entity ranging from things like common, AP, APC, APBC, HE, HEI etc. With different weight types and filler depending on the nation and also their industrial strength and economic leverage.

Also the higher the mark the more complex parts are needed and so that should also take long to produce due to number of improvements made towards to the object and also better materials to work with.

Could help make the game more dynamic gives more pause for thought as well, depends on how complex the devs want to make it really. They could make it pretty complex or just simple buffs and debuffs that effect certain parts of whatever it is.

If we get mod support we can add more complex versions in anyways.

Yeah, the principle concern has to be with the foundational systems. Making super complicated stuff which tracks stockpiles of ammunition in detail and stuff like that isn't important for the base game, although the functionality to mod it in, and mod support in general, is something I would very much hope to see in the finished game.

Not sure about the shell types you mentioned though. There's Armor Piercing, Semi-Armor Piercing, High Explosive, Star/Illumination-Shells... and that's about it. Unless we count special cases like the japanese diving shells, american super heavy shells, british supercharges, or really esoteric stuff like the non-rotating projectiles and super-heavy AA. Of course those last two are for anti air, which isn't even in the game, so it's not really relevant. The ones you mentioned are more tank ammo varieties/variations on the AP and HE shells, which might vary between nations, and occasionally guns/ships, but aren't really distinguished, tactically speaking.

[Cptbarney]

16 minutes ago, Friedrich said:

Yeah, the principle concern has to be with the foundational systems. Making super complicated stuff which tracks stockpiles of ammunition in detail and stuff like that isn't important for the base game, although the functionality to mod it in, and mod support in general, is something I would very much hope to see in the finished game.

Not sure about the shell types you mentioned though. There's Armor Piercing, Semi-Armor Piercing, High Explosive, Star/Illumination-Shells... and that's about it. Unless we count special cases like the japanese diving shells, american super heavy shells, british supercharges, or really esoteric stuff like the non-rotating projectiles and super-heavy AA. Of course those last two are for anti air, which isn't even in the game, so it's not really relevant. The ones you mentioned are more tank ammo varieties/variations on the AP and HE shells, which might vary between nations, and occasionally guns/ships, but aren't really distinguished, tactically speaking.

Yeah APC is just Armour-piercing with a cap, its more of a sub-type of AP so i usually not mentioned unless in very specific details. Too be honest im looking forward to the campaign and seeing what it will offer, i do'nt expect huge amounts which is fine since it is mid-late closed alpha atm, so lots of work and adjustments, but still.

I can't wait for mod support as well, would allow everyone here to basically tailor make the game for themselves depending on how restrictive the mod support will be (hope it will allow for total overhuals, but that might be wishful thinking on my part too be honest).

[Friedrich]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah APC is just Armour-piercing with a cap, its more of a sub-type of AP so i usually not mentioned unless in very specific details. Too be honest im looking forward to the campaign and seeing what it will offer, i do'nt expect huge amounts which is fine since it is mid-late closed alpha atm, so lots of work and adjustments, but still.

I can't wait for mod support as well, would allow everyone here to basically tailor make the game for themselves depending on how restrictive the mod support will be (hope it will allow for total overhuals, but that might be wishful thinking on my part too be honest).

I'm not holding out much hope, seeing as none of the other Ultimate games got it, nor appear likely to receive it. Still, it's not like I'm happy about that, and a change in trajectory towards being more mod friendly would be a pleasant surprise.