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HMS Indefatigable Class and an Balance Report


TotalRampage

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So I tried my hand at re designing an battle cruiser class. The original Indefatigable class was sunk during the battle of Jutland. I decided to remake the class in 1933 setting seeing if i could make the best BC I could that hopefully wasn't out of the scope of what the campaign of the game would allow in terms of effectiveness. And I think I did pretty good just looking for any feedback if any. 

The class costs around 77.4 mil to lay down kinda expensive but only an maintenance of 7,800 a month which I thought was pretty nice because an battle ships maintenance for the same year just to lay down some of the hulls starts at 50k a month without any guns or superstructure attached. Its probably known to the devs and will be balanced before campaign but I thought it was funny I could have essentially 7 of these battle cruisers for the monthly cost of an unarmed giant barge. 

And finally the overview if you didn't see the picture

45kn top speed

5-16 inchs of armour with 16in belt and 14in deck

2x3 14in guns

2x2 14in guns

1x2 8in guns

8x2 5in guns

14x1 3in guns

total displacement is 49,996/50,000 T

Yes I essentially made the fastest BC I could with about the same armour as an USS Iowa. Well I'd love to hear what you guys think of my creation and some thoughts on what they could do to change balance in the game economy wise when the game comes out. Im curious to see what the devs do to actually combat monetary discrepancies between classes because if they don't we could get an extremely up armored BC race instead of a dreadnought race if the AI or more cheeky players notice.

Just a note yes I know the games in alpha. Im not bashing the devs for not noticing something related to economy balance in a game that hasn't even released campaign for us to test things. Im just bringing it up in the off chance they didn't notice and my observation can help. 

5104385_HMSIndefatigableClass.thumb.png.3a0d6f0ed44f1d0a16e580983e2d45d6.png

 

Please see this gallery link for all updates to the design. Thank you all again

 

Edited by TotalRampage
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Few changes I'd make. Very short range on a BC isn't doing you any favors. Increase that to medium or long. I would also add additional bulkheads as any damage will kill that speed quick. So some damage mitigation would be nice. Your picture and description doesn't go over component choices, like aux engines, torp defense, flooding, etc. These make a massive difference and effect tonnage and cost enough they should be included here. But for what you have shown,  you could save costs and tonnage by changing to a All-or-nothing armor scheme. Cut down on deck, 6-8in/5-6in, is plenty and would resist everything up to 17-18in fairly well. Belt is fine, just ensure it's at least (or as close as possible) rated for your own guns at the engagement range your designing for. Drop conning armor to 4-6in. it only helps against smaller sized guns. Drop Secondary armor to the same. Increase turret to 15in and drop if needed, keep the tonnage priority with range, bulkheads and speed. Turret top is ok.

Lastly I'd lower the overall tonnage. More tonnage increases resistance but decreases maneuverability, which you don't want with a 45kt BC. It also increases cost having the ship so big.

On layout. That ship is pretty fore heavy. You could off set that by dropping the triple to a double and removing the secondary guns, the secondary on the barbette can go and the deck level guns on either side of the barbette moved aft. Then move the main guns aft slightly.

Edited by Ruan
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8 hours ago, Ruan said:

Few changes I'd make. Very short range on a BC isn't doing you any favors. Increase that to medium or long. I would also add additional bulkheads as any damage will kill that speed quick. So some damage mitigation would be nice. Your picture and description doesn't go over component choices, like aux engines, torp defense, flooding, etc. These make a massive difference and effect tonnage and cost enough they should be included here. But for what you have shown,  you could save costs and tonnage by changing to a All-or-nothing armor scheme. Cut down on deck, 6-8in/5-6in, is plenty and would resist everything up to 17-18in fairly well. Belt is fine, just ensure it's at least (or as close as possible) rated for your own guns at the engagement range your designing for. Drop conning armor to 4-6in. it only helps against smaller sized guns. Drop Secondary armor to the same. Increase turret to 15in and drop if needed, keep the tonnage priority with range, bulkheads and speed. Turret top is ok.

Lastly I'd lower the overall tonnage. More tonnage increases resistance but decreases maneuverability, which you don't want with a 45kt BC. It also increases cost having the ship so big.

On layout. That ship is pretty fore heavy. You could off set that by dropping the triple to a double and removing the secondary guns, the secondary on the barbette can go and the deck level guns on either side of the barbette moved aft. Then move the main guns aft slightly.

First thanks for the reply. Honestly range I wasn't factoring in just because it doesn't matter in academy so thanks for pointing that out. I could probably as you stated drop a few inchs from my deck and then add the range to medium. Also while im at work ATM ill check later but I did have the modules on for increased pumping and damage party to account for standard bulkheads also because of the Armour on my belt i'm confident that shouldn't be an issue. Also due to the mechanics in the game right now ships with this speed just are significantly harder to hit so my plan was to keep to an engagement range of around 12-14 km using speed to just have plunging fire  from enemy ships to avoid floods as well. This was also the idea behind the increased conning towers and deck to keep the ship as accurate at range as possible because once you lose your con tower in this game the ship is extremely ineffective. 

Now the fore heavy. That was just well me trowing on just anything. I really wanted to try the new raised 2ndry's out so i threw the 8in up there with the raised barbette which is why its so fore heavy. I also wanted to keep the tonnage up because I was representing the balance inequality between BCs and BBs in custom because of upkeep costs so its essentially supposed to be a BB but on a BC body. I'll think about changing the fore because the ships designed to kite or stay at range so its not great to have it so fore heavy the only reason i would want to keep it could be situation engagements in game like a convoy raid or chasing down ships while having a narrower target for enemy ships to engage. 

Again thanks for the reply and criticism. 

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More bulkheads and larger guns. Fewer guns, if you'll have to cut weight. Also, in the future, the range will have to be longer. In case with CAs, CLs and BCs, much longer.

Tbh I think battlecruisers need to have at least 16' guns in order to be able to fight BBs in desperate situations, and have easier time fighting enemy battlecruisers and cruisers. Also, since secondaries are almost always useless, I would remove most of them to save weight and cut the price.

45 kt top speed is a gimmick, really. I like it. But if you will have to sacrifice it for range and larger guns, then do it without hesitation. For a battlecruiser, I'd say 42 kt is the upper threshold, and 32 is the lower. Basically, it should be able to hunt down enemy cruisers (without turning the whole operation into a very long wild goose chase) and run away from battleships (escaping their weapons range as quickly as possible), but at the same time be capable of completely murder the former with little to no damage, and stand up to the latter, should circumstances demand it.

Edited by Shaftoe
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1 minute ago, Shaftoe said:

More bulkheads and larger guns. Fewer guns, if you'll have to cut weight. Also, in the future, the range will have to be longer. In case with CAs, CLs and BCs, much longer.

Tbh I think battlecruisers need to have at least 16' guns in order to be able to fight BBs in desperate situations, and have easier time fighting enemy battlecruisers and cruisers. Also, since secondaries are almost always useless, I would remove most of them to save weight and cut the price.

45 kt top speed is a gimmick, really. I like it. But if you will have to sacrifice it for range and larger guns, then do it without hesitation. 36 kt is the upper threshold of what you need.

I'll have to go back and look at the guns I could mount on the raised barbettes because I think thats why I went with that specific 14in but ill try to raise the caliber if i can. Also the speed is also my favorite part 45kt  means nothing can chase or run hahahah.  Also ill probaly remove the 3ins an keep the 5's and 8's

 

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3' are absolutely useless. 5-6' are good against destroyers, and 7-8' are kinda overkill. It'd be my recommendation to choose a single caliber for main guns and a single caliber for secondary guns - to improve accuracy. Since your main guns are dedicated cruiser-killers, there is no point in having 8' secondaries. Better make them all 5' or 6' twin/triple guns.

Also, if you want to keep your speed high throughout combat, make sure you have great bulkheads and citadel. It'd better to have a somewhat slower BC that can actually keep its speed, than a faster BC which will be doomed to be slowed down early during the battle.

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5 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

3' are absolutely useless. 5-6' are good against destroyers, and 7-8' are kinda overkill. It'd be my recommendation to choose a single caliber for main guns and a single caliber for secondary guns - to improve accuracy. Since your main guns are dedicated cruiser-killers, there is no point in having 8' secondaries. Better make them all 5' or 6' twin/triple guns.

Also, if you want to keep your speed high throughout combat, make sure you have great bulkheads and citadel. It'd better to have a somewhat slower BC that can actually keep its speed, than a faster BC which will be doomed to be slowed down early during the battle.

Thought with the 8’s was a sustainable long range fire on CA’s and CL’s so my 14’s could go after anything heavier. I’ve put good flood pumps and cit protection I’ll update later. But in terms of speed I’ll keep it just because of the evasion bonus that’s just ridiculous right now. Less of a chance to get hit it’s a gamble but one that should work nicely 

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