Triple Expansion Steam Engine

[Commander Reed]

Why are they obsolete in 1912? The titanic had a Triple Expansion Engine and (obviously) sunk in this period. 
I could say the same for Coal Fuel type! 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Commander-Alexander-Reed

[Cpt.Hissy]

Fair point.
i think most tech shouldn't disappear at all. Wanna create cheap archaic boat using some parts laying around since your grandfather's rule? You should be able to.

[Dirlinger]

15 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Fair point.
i think most tech shouldn't disappear at all. Wanna create cheap archaic boat using some parts laying around since your grandfather's rule? You should be able to.

Sidenote:

In real life maintaining that archaic crap is almost impossible unless you have access to know-how from your grandfathers time. Cheaper certainly it isn't. Not to mention supporting infrastructures which no longer may be there. Speaking from bitter experience here.

More related to the thread, Liberty ships in WW2 initially were built with triple expansion engine too, so certainly the know-how and tech were available but in military use USS Texas launched in 1912 and commissioned in 1914 was one of the last battleships using triple expansion engine (certainly last USA battleship - I may be wrong but I think British ditched that tech even earlier. ). Probably why devs used 1912 as cut off.

As to whether it should be hard cut off or not on tech - I think not. In campaign mode, I guess it will be fairly quickly apparent in time why switch to the turbines happened. No need for devs to put in arbitrarily hard limits on technology.

 

[Cpt.Hissy]

3 hours ago, Dirlinger said:

Sidenote:

In real life maintaining that archaic crap is almost impossible unless you have access to know-how from your grandfathers time. Cheaper certainly it isn't.

Absolute truth, yes.
But there we're not dealing with THAT archaic stuff. Piston engines were widely used in civilian fleets even well after WW2 and end of game's timeline. As well as actual knowledge that went into "outdated" hulls and technologies of the game was still used elsewhere, some of it even still is i believe.
These things were only becoming cheaper over time, and received some modernisations in certain parts to be "compatible" with current infrastructure and even a bit better in performance.
Reason to ditch those in navy was that they were outperformed by cutting edge tech, and there performance is everything.
But outdated machinery might still lay around somewhere from decommissioned vessels, and in distress situation or when you simply need "something" to do the job, Vanguard happens. Or Liberty.
That's what i mean ^^

[disc]

Agreed, these options should stick around longer. I suspect that the cutoff is based on the USS Oklahoma, which was laid down in 1912 with triple-expansion engines. This was the last US battleship with reciprocating steam propulsion, and to my knowledge the last battleship actually completed with them (in 1916) anywhere.

There were other classes of warships with steam engine propulsion after this, but no cruisers or destroyers that I am aware of. Edit: The Kaba and Arabe classes of Japanese-built second-class destroyers were built with triple expansion engines. The Kabas were all laid down 1914 and completed 1915, and the nearly identical Arabes (built in Japan for France) were laid down and completed all in 1917.

The French Normandie class of battleships, laid down 1913-1914, would have partial triple expansion drive. However, these were not completed due to the war. Bearn, the last member of the class (laid down 1914), was actually to be built with turbines alone, but curiously the machinery layout was changed later, and the ship was completed in 1927 as a carrier with partial triple expansion.

After this, steam engines were used primarily in auxiliary vessels, merchant ships, and warships built to mercantile standards. This latter category includes a whole host of escort aircraft carriers, corvettes, and frigates constructed during WWII.

Edited February 3, 2021 by disc

[dbs1701]

Remember what is still appropriate for merchants is not necessarily military spec. Civilian ships (like the Liberties) would use the most efficient tech for the budget and need, so using older cheaper engines is less a problem than on military ships. 

Agree though, old tech shouldn't disappear, rather it should be obvious in builder that, sure, it's cheaper but there are tradeoffs in weight, fuel cost, etc. that make it better to go with the newer tech.

They honestly need to do something like this about the diesel engines in game - there isn't much reason aside from cost to go with them in most cases.