balance Naval gun reloads and other stats

[FailKnight]

Attached is an overview of reload times for all the naval guns I have manged to get my hands on in finished British and United States campaigns. Often times the reload times spike for at least one gun in the series, but these spikes are also not consistent with a single poundage. Something similar is going on with the prices, but since my campaigns are on varying difficulty levels I can't fully compare them yet.

Since I am by no means an expert on naval guns I must ask, are these reload discrepancies intended or are they errors?

[sterner]

It is an error, we will fix soon the issue.

[FailKnight]

Allright, reload rates seem fixed across the board, but there are still a couple of prices that seem a bit off. Based on an Easy/Easy British campaign with max stats for discount etc. the 32pdr Woolwich costs 338, compared to to the Woolwich 24pdr costing 394 and the 42pdr costing 717. The 42pdr Armstrong costs 406 compared to the 32pdr's 424 and the 24pdr's 394. The Blomefield 18pdr costs 211 compared to the 12pdr's 237 and the 24pdr's 315.

Other than that the 32pdr French Re-Borded costs 315, roughly comparable to the same poundage Borgard (312) and very much on the low end price wise for the 32pdr guns, while the 42 pdr French Re-Bored costs 1095, making it the most expensive gun I have found and thus the most expensive of the 42pdr guns.

[Rygoat]

The difference should not be linear.  People have a tendency to think that the increase in lbs of shot should be proportionate, but naval guns still have different calibers (barrel length proportinate to diameter of barrel).  Barrel diameter is a cubic function.  4/3 pi r^3 for volume.  Density of lead is constant among different shot.  Density = mass (lbs) / volume.

We also don't know the muzzle velocity of shot.

The game oversimplifies this by having short, standard, and long barrels.  But even in a given family of weapons, gun caliber, and even barrel thickness all vary from different lbs of shot.  

[TBRSIM]

Nevertheless, in a given gun family you should always see the heavier shot resulting in longer reload time. I actually did this for fun (drilling with and shooting Age of Sail muzzleloaders) some 20 years ago at the naval academy, just after my time on our sail training ship. There are four factors dependent on the gun and carriage that influence loading speed:

1) Overall weight of the moving elements (i.e. gun+carriage of the gun+sled element for carronade type mounts), the lower the weight the quicker the loading cycle

2) Weight of Shot - Lower shot weights can be handled easier and quicker

3) Amount/Weight of Powder - More Powder means more time for handling and more need for ramming

4) Ergonomics (all else being equal f.e. a shorter barrel is quicker to clean and load, a gun on a carronade type mount can be reloaded and sighted quicker than the same gun on a carriage etc.).

Of course, crew size, training and stamina are also major factors, but those are external to gun and carriage design and size. Also, on sailing ships, width of deck and space between gun mounts could be important factors, Some French designs were notorious for cramming too many guns into battery, so that the RN removed 1-2 guns when they put them into service as a prize.