Historical Ships

[sellsj]

Apologies if I missed this subject during my search.  Would it be possible to have the shipyard to start with historically accurate ships for design?  Yesterday, while setting up a custom battle, I chose the USS North Carolina.  The shipyard used 4 gun main turrets and a host of non-historic secondary's.  This would be great for the AI ships especially when wanting to "replay" historical battles.  The player could then "upfit" the design if a non-historical set-up is desired. 

Also, many of the WW2 battles, especially in the Pacific involved night engagements.  Any future for searchlights/night battles?  Still spoiled by the old Action Stations Game.

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

In the current state of the game, no. Right now, the only way to get a historically accurate or "close enough" design is to build it yourself. Sometimes the AI will wind up building fairly similar or at least "believable" ships. The devs have done a good job with releasing new hulls and superstructures, but just about everyone wants some more variety with the hulls and superstructures. The other big issue when trying to design a realistic or historical recreation of a certain ship is the pre-determined "snap points" for the superstructure, barbettes and guns.

So, I guess the short answer for you is this: there is a wide variety of hulls, superstructures, funnels and guns (many hulls, superstructures and guns are even nation specific as far as cosmetics/looks go) to choose from that allow for historical recreations of famous ships...but you have to build them yourself as the AI basically rolls the dice and creates a random design each time

[rc2001]

Sort of related question:

 

Is there a way to save a design so you can come back to it and try a variation, or do you have to design the whole ship from scratch each time? 

Edited December 12, 2020 by rc2001

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

You have to redesign your ship every time in custom battles, unless you choose the "replay battle" option at the end of the action, or if you pause the battle and hit the "redesign ship" button. Now, in the Naval Academy missions, it will automatically save your different designs, but only for that respective mission (i.e. you can have multiple designs saved, but only for that specific scenario)

[rc2001]

Thanks for the reply.  Is a simple save feature anywhere on the to do list for the devs?

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

@rc2001 I believe that a "save design" feature for custom battles is on the dev team's to-do list, as is the ability to design the enemy fleet in a custom battle, but the campaign mode is what is taking priority above all else at the moment.