The nature of shipbuilding and technology.

[BobRoss0902]

The thing is about capital ships, is that often times they spend so long being built that by the time they are commissioned they are already out of date. for example if you were building 6 pre-dreadnoughts, and then HMS Dreadnought launches. Your new pre dreadnoughts are immediately out of date as soon as they launch, or by the time you are done building your ship that can out range any enemy on the seas, a better gun with more range has come out and so on.

[nimbalo500]

Yes that is true, however i will like to point out that most ships, even after being obsolete by a few generations, still continued to serve in many roles such as Schleswig-Holstein.

[Wowzery]

This is going to be an interesting aspect of the game.  Building a ship knowing that it will become obsolete.  Yet you cannot sit back and just not build anything.  If you need that defense force, you can't wait a couple of years for that new dreadnought hull, so you might only build 2 or 3 ships of a pre-dreadnought class.

I see the campaign mode adding new dynamics in designing that we're currently not touching on right now.  Do you build that one pre-dreadnought, or two cruisers?

Interestingly enough my Sat video (tomorrow 5/22) I focus on build time as the driving force for my battleship.  How fast can it be built, and what can I put on it, what factors change build time, etc.

[BobRoss0902]

3 hours ago, Wowzery said:

Interestingly enough my Sat video (tomorrow 5/22) I focus on build time as the driving force for my battleship.  How fast can it be built, and what can I put on it, what factors change build time, etc.

>shameless plug

lmao

[Skoggatt]

I think the effect that Dreadnought had on previous generations of battleship is a bit overstated when historians say things like "it made every previous battleship obsolete overnight." While it's true it obsoleted other ships in a technical sense, it took many years for sufficient numbers of Dreadnoughts to be built to begin replacing the older ships. Better to have obsolete ships active in the fleet than the most advanced ships in the world sitting on the slips when war breaks out.

[Wowzery]

8 hours ago, Skoggatt said:

I think the effect that Dreadnought had on previous generations of battleship is a bit overstated when historians say things like "it made every previous battleship obsolete overnight." While it's true it obsoleted other ships in a technical sense, it took many years for sufficient numbers of Dreadnoughts to be built to begin replacing the older ships. Better to have obsolete ships active in the fleet than the most advanced ships in the world sitting on the slips when war breaks out.

Yep, you take several pre-dreadnoughts and they will probably beat a single dreadnought.  As the campaign mode comes out I think we'll see players trying to balance the money side as well.  You probably won't be able to afford that fleet of super battleships like we play design and will have to make several sacrifices like armor, speed and armament.

8 hours ago, BobRoss0902 said:

>shameless plug

lmao

Yeah.  Though, I did learn only a few things actually effect building times and it seemed relevant to the threat, talking about how long it takes to build a battleship.  Not sure many have actually focused on that aspect yet.

Interestingly enough, the number of turrets, superstructure selected, thickness of armor, armor type, all did not seem to effect building time.  Its the top slider, tonnage, and some aspects of propulsion, nothing else.

[DougToss]

You'll go bankrupt if you repeatedly break ships up at the moment there is a better technology or scrap them at the yard half-built because something better came along. 

There's also an argument that the British actually set themselves back with the Dreadnought and Battle Cruisers because it effectively set the counter back to zero and brought Germany much closer to parity. Germany could never hope to match the numbers of Pre-Dreadnoughts in British service, but when Dreadnought launched, their lead slipped to 1-0 and the race was on. 

Anticipating too far into the future is also going to lead to financial ruin. Design ships to fight according to your doctrine. Of course your doctrine should anticipate both the current situation and predicted future developments, but you cannot reinvent your fleet structure and tactics every 3 years. If you think engagements will be fought at 10 000m, your ships, tactics and fleet composition should fit with that, even if you can reasonably expect that in the distant future engagements will be fought at 20 000m. 

Refitting has diminishing returns, but is often better than out and out replacement of a ship before the end of its service life:

An older cruiser can be refitted with better fire control at moderate time and expense, and its value to the fleet could be greatly increased by doing so. The attendant change in tactics from refitting better fire control is also manageable, simply increasing engagement ranges and possibly hit rates. Of course, if the guns and armament arrangements don't benefit from the improvement because they have short range and poor accuracy, then the refit is a wasted cost - the ship still wouldn't be able to use the improved fire control to full-effect and tactically would still have a limited engagement range. 

Upgrading the guns and fire control is better, because now the ship has the guns and fire control to employ the new doctrine and tactics. However there are still limitations, chiefly that it's entirely possible that guns of a different calibre cannot be mounted, that newer guns will not fit in the existing turret, that the turrets cannot be replaced by newer, larger ones, and of course that you cannot add turrets to an existing ship without a massive, massive rebuild that would take huge amounts of time and expense.

Assuming that the refit simply entails replacing guns with newer guns of the same calibre, that fit in the same mounts, the benefit of that cost may be reasonable. As tactics and doctrine  progress, it may or may not be worthwhile to refit improved firepower and fire control for a ship with an obsolete arrangement like partially casemated main armament, few centreline turrets or wing turrets. If for all the cost of upgrading the fire control and guns, the ship can only bring a few guns to bear on target, or does not have the mobility to screen or join the battle line, then the refits are again a wasted expense. 

 Newer ships will as a rule be faster than equivalent ships of an earlier design. A 1910 armoured cruiser will be faster than a 1900 armoured cruiser of the same firepower and protection as propulsion technology advances. Ships are designed and built around their powerplants, which is why you want to get it right from the drawing board. If you intend your battle line speed to be 16kts, every capital ship build has to achieve at least that speed, and every screen has to be able to exceed it, by a margin proportionate to its role. This might mean keeping the battle line slower than you'd like for longer than you'd like so older ships are still useful, or replacing and refitting older ships to achieve the new doctrinal speed.  However, rebuilding the propulsion plant of an existing ship to turbines from expansion engines will cost a huge amount, possibly as much as a third or half the cost of laying down a new cruiser designed with turbines.

As you can see, refits and replacement are all about measuring the utility versus the cost of keeping a ship in service, refitting her or replacing her. 

The most important thing to understand is that doctrine marks out the mission for ships. A ship that cannot fit into the doctrine is a ship without a mission, and thus a wasted expense. 

Edited May 25, 2020 by DougToss

[Alcar]

On 5/22/2020 at 8:09 PM, Wowzery said:

This is going to be an interesting aspect of the game.  Building a ship knowing that it will become obsolete.  Yet you cannot sit back and just not build anything.  If you need that defense force, you can't wait a couple of years for that new dreadnought hull, so you might only build 2 or 3 ships of a pre-dreadnought class.

I see the campaign mode adding new dynamics in designing that we're currently not touching on right now.  Do you build that one pre-dreadnought, or two cruisers?

Interestingly enough my Sat video (tomorrow 5/22) I focus on build time as the driving force for my battleship.  How fast can it be built, and what can I put on it, what factors change build time, etc.

Also, might the second ship of the same class be cheaper? Lots of games model this, that the lead ship costs more because of the design process and the industrial capabilities being brought to bear on it. Each ship after should get a slight price saving since that capacity already exists.

[DougToss]

On 5/26/2020 at 9:29 AM, Alcar said:

Also, might the second ship of the same class be cheaper? Lots of games model this, that the lead ship costs more because of the design process and the industrial capabilities being brought to bear on it. Each ship after should get a slight price saving since that capacity already exists.

RTW did this intelligently: 

Normally, the first ship in a class will cost 10% extra to simulate the costs of developing the design. A ship developed from an earlier design will get a discount on the development cost. To develop from an existing design, right click on an existing ship in service or in construction and select “open design”. When changing the design, you can see the percentage of the development cost you will pay in the top left corner in the “Developed from” box. The more changes you make the smaller the discount, and if you make big enough changes you will have to pay the full development cost.  
 

Generally the following are the limits for change before it becomes an entirely new design with no discount:

* Displacement can increase by a maximum of 10% or 1000 tons.

* Main guns over 6 in cannot be changed.

* Secondary guns over 6 in can be changed to a limited extent.

* Speed can be changed by one knot.

* Vertical armor can be changed by one in and horizontal armor by half an in. 

Once you have the design ready, you can lay down ships to that design. The first ship built to a design will carry a 10% extra cost, to cover the costs of developing the design. It is usually rational to build several ships of the same class. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by DougToss

[ArtifaX]

Wanted to mention RTW too=)

This is probably the most interesting mechanic for me in that game. By the time your new shiny BC is built (36 month) your tech allows for a a new BC to crush that one in no time. Makes you really consider what to build, when and how much. Also try your best at starting wars when you are ready.

And after a few runs of trying to always have the bestest ships and wasting your budget while having almost no active ships, the realization comes...

48 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Normally, the first ship in a class will cost 10% extra to simulate the costs of developing the design.

Things like that would definitely help model reality.