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Why I almost never use these 8 component types


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  • Auxiliary Engine: Engines are often one of the heaviest and most expensive components on a ship, especially given that most of the Naval Academy missions may end up with you trying to run down enemy ships, for which high speed is a requirement. Auxiliary Engine increases both weight and cost by large percentages. The benefits would have to be absolutely massive to be worth it, but they're just not. Maybe if the campaign has a role for slow convoy escorts with barely any engines to begin with. IMO the cost would have been better as an increase in HP requirement per ton displacement, or failing that, a hull weight modifier.
  • Shaft: Same as Auxiliary Engine. This one isn't quite as bad since it mostly increases cost rather than weight, but it's still a hard sell.
  • Barbette: Some facts about flash fires and detonations. First, you can't get flash fire chance down to zero. You can get detonation chance down to zero but it requires big sacrifices. However, you can never get flash fired or detonated if the shell's penetration is less than the thickness of your turret armor. So you have two choices: design your entire ship around reducing flash fire chance, picking suboptimal shells, ballooning your hull and turret weight modifier (which affects turret armor weight too!)... and still possibly get flash fired anyways. Or you could just slap on 25"+ turret armor and forget about all that. Ironically, it's CLs and DDs that might actually consider barbettes since they can't just armor their way to immunity.
  • Reinforced Bulkheads: Having disposed of flash fires, the remaining benefits aren't enough to justify the hull weight increase.
  • Anti-Flood: The benefits are really narrow. But the weight cost is also fairly small so I wouldn't consider it a huge loss to take this either.
  • Citadel: Again, having disposed of flash fires, the remaining gains from stronger armor tend to get eaten by the hull weight increase. A case could be made for maximum Resistance stacking, but this only really works with a few specific late-game BB hulls.
  • Shell Weight: I put this here because Super-Heavy Shells are just so much better than everything else. The range increase means greater accuracy at all ranges due to how the accuracy formula works; it's almost enough to carry the choice all by itself. Add in the penetration and damage bonuses and it's a foregone conclusion. Arguably this was the best choice historically, but from a game perspective it seems too overwhelmingly the correct choice for anything that's not a pure torpedo ship. Of course, Super-Heavy Shells prevents getting flash fire and detonation chance close to zero, further cementing turret armor as the way to avoid flash fires and detonations.
  • Turret Traverse: These increase engine or hull weight by a percentage (even if all you have is a single 2" gun) for a pretty fringe benefit, which is hard to justify unless e.g. the battle starts at less than 5 km distance. I'd be more receptive to using these if they only affected the turret weight, and the bonus was bigger relative to the weight increase.
Edited by Evil4Zerggin
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It is all a matter of personal preference. I would not go without keeping flash fires in check and reduce it as much as possible. However if you found a way to avoid it that is all good. 

Citadel schemes need a rework and I also agree that super heavy shells are the no-brainer option for most situations. I hardly ever used light weight shells for instance, however perhaps these should have some additional benefits.

The thing is that the current tech/designer system is a blend of technology progression (thus aways better) with some options for personal preference. To balance it in such a way that every choice remains meaningful is difficult.

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I've been messing around with light shells specifically and they seem like they're the perfect kind of shell type you'd want to use on a screening ship for the rate of reload benefit, potentially firing Lyddite for maximum havoc amongst destroyers. If you're trying to blap over a BB, they're pretty bad yes, but they can also have a benefit on the really large guns too like 18+ inchers if you actually want more sustained fire and are okay with sacrificing that overkill 18s and up usually do against basically everything.

Auxiliary engine and shaft are things you'll want at least something of instead of not at all. Shaft in particular is great for just steering the ship for it's price, and the auxiliary engine keeps you from getting dead in the water due to an unlucky ammunition locker detonation or a solid belt penetration. The weight really only starts to get insane if you are using it with a very fast ship, and I think that's mostly a fair trade for reducing the effect of an engine knockout pretty significantly. If anything, I feel like turbo drives should be even more expensive/heavier than they are currently, but the petrol/diesel backups could be lighter and cheaper (this is considering that these options require more fuel, which does seem to compound with the range slider).

Anti-Flood and Bulkhead strength in particular are more of a "lose less as bad" option since bulkheads reduce flooding chance and anti-flood does have a noticeable effect on pumping speed, which can make a difference on ships when they do get holes poked into them that can still be pumped.

I'll mostly agree with you on the Citadel and Barbettes though. They're not bad in particular I think, but they could be looked at. I personally am not a fan of the turret armor outright stopping flash fires (if it is true, which I'm not sure it is).

Edited by AdmiralObvious
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The only thing i dont use is barbettes really. citadel its mostly number 3 or turtle back as everything else is either unavailable or bad. Turret traverse is a big yes, since ships dont turn their hulls with their turrets to speed rotation but only their turrets, meaning the ship with better systems will fire first and get too hit you first.

Bulkheads and anti-flood are a must as well, especially with weak bulkheads, they will prevent your ship from simply sinking so quickly and remove flooding quicker (and reduces the chances in the first place).

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23 minutes ago, AdmiralObvious said:

Auxiliary engine and shaft are things you'll want at least something of instead of not at all. Shaft in particular is great for just steering the ship for it's price, and the auxiliary engine keeps you from getting dead in the water due to an unlucky ammunition locker detonation or a solid belt penetration.

A fair concern, but the engine slowdown is hard capped at 90%, so you'll never be completely dead in the water regardless. Furthermore, another passive 10% reduction is available from techs.

24 minutes ago, AdmiralObvious said:

I personally am not a fan of the turret armor outright stopping flash fires (if it is true, which I'm not sure it is).

This is derived from decompiling the .dll.

2 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Bulkheads and anti-flood are a must as well, especially with weak bulkheads, they will prevent your ship from simply sinking so quickly and remove flooding quicker (and reduces the chances in the first place).

Number of bulkheads (the slider) is great, it's Reinforced Bulkheads that I'm not so keen on. Anti-flood doesn't reduce chance of getting flooded in the first place, it's torpedo belt/multiple bottoms that does that. Unless you're referring to the indirect Floatability effect, but the percentage is quite small.

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2 hours ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

A fair concern, but the engine slowdown is hard capped at 90%, so you'll never be completely dead in the water regardless. Furthermore, another passive 10% reduction is available from techs.

This is derived from decompiling the .dll.

Number of bulkheads (the slider) is great, it's Reinforced Bulkheads that I'm not so keen on. Anti-flood doesn't reduce chance of getting flooded in the first place, it's torpedo belt/multiple bottoms that does that. Unless you're referring to the indirect Floatability effect, but the percentage is quite small.

Do you use visual studio to decomplie the files at all? 

Reinforced does help i've noticed, i think anti-flood helps with flooding chances rather than being the main thing, dunno about floatability. But then i havent played the game for awhile so excuse me ignorance on some things.

Edited by Cptbarney
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I use ILSpy. It did great work with From the Depths. You want default/game/build_Data/Managed/Assembly-CSharp.dll, which is the same relative location for all Unity-based games I've come across.

(Devs: If you don't want talk about decompiling here, I will respect your wishes. However, I submit that this is not exactly obscure knowledge.)

Edited by Evil4Zerggin
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1 minute ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

I use ILSpy. It did great work with From the Depths. You want default/game/build_Data/Managed/Assembly-CSharp.dll, which is the same for all Unity-based games I've come across.

(Devs: If you don't want talk about decompiling here, I will respect your wishes. However, I submit that this is not exactly obscure knowledge.)

Noice, ill have to grab that then. Have a poke about. i wish i could be more excited, but this heat and humidity is killing me.

Thanks for the quick response as well 'w'/

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12 hours ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

unused_components.thumb.jpg.b05677f7957a1b1a04e15c05bfb48615.jpg

  • Auxiliary Engine: Engines are often one of the heaviest and most expensive components on a ship, especially given that most of the Naval Academy missions may end up with you trying to run down enemy ships, for which high speed is a requirement. Auxiliary Engine increases both weight and cost by large percentages. The benefits would have to be absolutely massive to be worth it, but they're just not. Maybe if the campaign has a role for slow convoy escorts with barely any engines to begin with. IMO the cost would have been better as an increase in HP requirement per ton displacement, or failing that, a hull weight modifier.
  • Shaft: Same as Auxiliary Engine. This one isn't quite as bad since it mostly increases cost rather than weight, but it's still a hard sell.
  • Barbette: Some facts about flash fires and detonations. First, you can't get flash fire chance down to zero. You can get detonation chance down to zero but it requires big sacrifices. However, you can never get flash fired or detonated if the shell's penetration is less than the thickness of your turret armor. So you have two choices: design your entire ship around reducing flash fire chance, picking suboptimal shells, ballooning your hull and turret weight modifier (which affects turret armor weight too!)... and still possibly get flash fired anyways. Or you could just slap on 25"+ turret armor and forget about all that. Ironically, it's CLs and DDs that might actually consider barbettes since they can't just armor their way to immunity.
  • Reinforced Bulkheads: Having disposed of flash fires, the remaining benefits aren't enough to justify the hull weight increase.
  • Anti-Flood: The benefits are really narrow. But the weight cost is also fairly small so I wouldn't consider it a huge loss to take this either.
  • Citadel: Again, having disposed of flash fires, the remaining gains from stronger armor tend to get eaten by the hull weight increase. A case could be made for maximum Resistance stacking, but this only really works with a few specific late-game BB hulls.
  • Shell Weight: I put this here because Super-Heavy Shells are just so much better than everything else. The range increase means greater accuracy at all ranges due to how the accuracy formula works; it's almost enough to carry the choice all by itself. Add in the penetration and damage bonuses and it's a foregone conclusion. Arguably this was the best choice historically, but from a game perspective it seems too overwhelmingly the correct choice for anything that's not a pure torpedo ship. Of course, Super-Heavy Shells prevents getting flash fire and detonation chance close to zero, further cementing turret armor as the way to avoid flash fires and detonations.
  • Turret Traverse: These increase engine or hull weight by a percentage (even if all you have is a single 2" gun) for a pretty fringe benefit, which is hard to justify unless e.g. the battle starts at less than 5 km distance. I'd be more receptive to using these if they only affected the turret weight, and the bonus was bigger relative to the weight increase.

Well, this is your opinion, so its perfectly fine to disagree. This is my view on this.

1 and 2

They boost considerably your acceleration and turning speed, besides reducting damage likelyhood and debuffs to the engine. They are almost a no brainer for any large ship imo. You better have torp V protection if you dont have these, otherwise you will stress when you see a wave of torps aproaching your BB.

3

I think I have seen flashfires from hits to other parts of the ship that arent the turret, but if what you say is right about turret armor, then they may not be as useful as I previously thought.

4 and 6

Again, these are reliant on flashfires being nulled by turret armor like you said. If not, whatever fully pens your ship armor is gonna hit some juicy citadel meat inside.

5

Anti-flood not worth it? Huh... Yes it is. 90% of the times your ship will sink from flooding. Pretty much everithing that is protecting your ship insides atm besides armor (that can still be penned) is the bulkhead slider. Besides the bulkheads, if you get a bad torp or shell hit, you are gonna be praying your ship stops those floods. I've seen what happens to ships with flood protection and those who dont have it.

6

I sometimes just set it to heavy to save weight, but I see your point.

7

I see your point here, though I usually also max it out. Depends on yout playstyle. If you are playing destroyer war and wiggle left and right, it somewhat of a no brainer to have.

Edited by Stormnet
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aux engines: fair enough, if engines are well protected these can be left out

propeller shaft: they make the difference from a lucky hit to the rudder sending your bb to nowhere and keeping it in the fight, at least the first step seems beneficial

barbette: fair enough except if you use super heavy shells with charges with high flash fire chances, I or II can make the difference between a loss and a destroyed turret

reinforced bulkheads: fair enough, but they are useful if you go for a 0 extended belt/deck armor to keep large caliber fore/aft hits to propagate inside

anti flooding: same as bulkheads, they can be skipped unless you go for a true all-or-nothing, but I rarely go over anti-flooding I, compensating with tower with high repair bonuses

citadel: they can convert efficiently weight to cost, no much use otherwise, albeit either a citadel or a aux engine to preserve mobility can be nice

shell weight: fair enough

turret traverse: fair enough

 

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Barbettes, I use because anytime I don't have it I always lose the ship to a flash fire.  So yeah, my experience hasn't been good without it.  You can't always slap 25" of armor on your turrets.

As for anti-flooding, I assumed that was for pumping the flooded area out.  The higher the level the quicker it will pump out the water.

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/18/2021 at 11:36 PM, Tycondero said:

It is all a matter of personal preference. I would not go without keeping flash fires in check and reduce it as much as possible. However if you found a way to avoid it that is all good. 

Citadel schemes need a rework and I also agree that super heavy shells are the no-brainer option for most situations. I hardly ever used light weight shells for instance, however perhaps these should have some additional benefits.

The thing is that the current tech/designer system is a blend of technology progression (thus aways better) with some options for personal preference. To balance it in such a way that every choice remains meaningful is difficult.

What could be done is make older choices get certain buffs as time/technology progresses (to a limited extent) to simulate a technology being perfected over time. Or, when we have the campaign, older technologies should be more reliable.

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I think a lot of this is moot if you just want to "roleplay" and avoid min-maxing while playing the campaign. Like, yeah, I'm going to design some awful ships in the campaign, because historically many countries designed bad ships and subsequently paid the price. 

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On 8/29/2021 at 12:04 AM, shingo3130 said:

What could be done is make older choices get certain buffs as time/technology progresses (to a limited extent) to simulate a technology being perfected over time. Or, when we have the campaign, older technologies should be more reliable.

Reliability or requiring less build time would make sense. We do have to keep in mind that the newer tech is usually also a lot more expensive, so they can balance a bit using costs.

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I personally find that due to hilarious RNG, the anti-flooding is almost a requirement.

Sure sometimes 100 penetrating shells does nothing but make compartments red, but othertimes a salvo of 3 hitting shells causes irreversible flooding to a 100 thousand ton warship...For some reason!

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Even with anti flooding and everything it's random and unpredictable.. not in players favour.

Only way to make enemy flooding to stick is to flood half their ship at once, then there is a chance they won't pump out one section or two.
Any flooding on player ships, on the other hand, almost always sticks, even if it's a tiny fraction of one compartment due to  a single hit.

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This is my biggest complaint so far, and I fully agree -

 

Shell Weight: I put this here because Super-Heavy Shells are just so much better than everything else. The range increase means greater accuracy at all ranges due to how the accuracy formula works; it's almost enough to carry the choice all by itself. Add in the penetration and damage bonuses and it's a foregone conclusion. Arguably this was the best choice historically, but from a game perspective it seems too overwhelmingly the correct choice for anything that's not a pure torpedo ship. Of course, Super-Heavy Shells prevents getting flash fire and detonation chance close to zero, further cementing turret armor as the way to avoid flash fires and detonations.

The biggest problem here is that the larger shells have a much lower muzzle velocity - to the point that they should

a) actually have a SHORTER range than lighter shells (the additional weight only increases the range if the muzzle velocity stays close to the same)

b) because the shells are moving slower, they spend more time in the air, this should make them LESS accurate as the target has more time to be somewhere else

c) slower moving heavier shells would need to be fired at higher angles, less direct flight paths, this would also make them LESS accurate as there is more chance of error in calculations

Obviously the SHORTER RANGE and LOWER ACCURACY of super heavy shells is offset by the fact that if they do hit something they absolutely wreck it. At the moment the only thing against super heavy shells is the lower rate of fire, and thats not enough to make them less desirable.

 

As an example of range vs shell size, in the Battle of the Falklands, 1914 the German 10.5cm/4.1 inch guns outranged the British 15.2cm/6 inch guns (a combination of shell velocity and gun elevation) but the far larger 6" shells did considerably more damage (admittedly this is 4" to 6", but even within a caliber lighter, faster shells should be more accurate and longer ranged, but less able to do damage.

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On 9/5/2021 at 10:28 AM, Chickeneye said:

This is my biggest complaint so far, and I fully agree -

 

Shell Weight: I put this here because Super-Heavy Shells are just so much better than everything else. The range increase means greater accuracy at all ranges due to how the accuracy formula works; it's almost enough to carry the choice all by itself. Add in the penetration and damage bonuses and it's a foregone conclusion. Arguably this was the best choice historically, but from a game perspective it seems too overwhelmingly the correct choice for anything that's not a pure torpedo ship. Of course, Super-Heavy Shells prevents getting flash fire and detonation chance close to zero, further cementing turret armor as the way to avoid flash fires and detonations.

The biggest problem here is that the larger shells have a much lower muzzle velocity - to the point that they should

a) actually have a SHORTER range than lighter shells (the additional weight only increases the range if the muzzle velocity stays close to the same)

b) because the shells are moving slower, they spend more time in the air, this should make them LESS accurate as the target has more time to be somewhere else

c) slower moving heavier shells would need to be fired at higher angles, less direct flight paths, this would also make them LESS accurate as there is more chance of error in calculations

Obviously the SHORTER RANGE and LOWER ACCURACY of super heavy shells is offset by the fact that if they do hit something they absolutely wreck it. At the moment the only thing against super heavy shells is the lower rate of fire, and thats not enough to make them less desirable.

 

As an example of range vs shell size, in the Battle of the Falklands, 1914 the German 10.5cm/4.1 inch guns outranged the British 15.2cm/6 inch guns (a combination of shell velocity and gun elevation) but the far larger 6" shells did considerably more damage (admittedly this is 4" to 6", but even within a caliber lighter, faster shells should be more accurate and longer ranged, but less able to do damage.

Superheavy shells don't necessarily translate to reduced range.  The lower muzzle velocities and recoil distances allowed for US naval cannons to be elevated well in excess of what one might expect otherwise, the 16" guns reaching a 45 degree elevation.  Needless to say the German 16"/52 guns that can only elevate to 33 degrees in naval mounts simply can't match those for range.  As a result the 810 m/sec muzzle velocity of the German 16"/52 naval guns had a reduced range compared to the US 16"/50 guns firing super-heavy rounds at 762 m/sec muzzle velocity.  That said, the super-heavy shells actually had a reduced bursting charge compared to the shells of other nations, especially when you consider other nations were using the more powerful but less stable picric acid based fillers versus the more stable but less powerful Dunnite in US service.  The 2,700 pound super-heavy shells had a mere 40.9 pounds of filler.  The German 2,271 pound shells?  53.4 pounds of filler.  Its almost like that unless you want to make your shells super-long you need to reduce internal volume to add weight.  Which is exactly what happened with the heavy Mark 5 AP shells used for USS Colorado.  Same weight as the German 16"/52 shells, but the projectile was about half a foot shorter, 64 inches compared to the German ones at 70.3.  By comparison those 2,700 pound superheavy shells later battleships used were 72 inches.

So, to balance that out for gameplay and to provide a reason why you wouldn't use superheavy shells as historically every nation besides the USA did, have increased damage but reduced penetration for standard shells compared to super-heavy shells, especially against angled hits such as decks or bows since a major source of the added weight was heavier, thicker, and wider caps designed to help penetration with oblique hits.

Edited by SpardaSon21
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All things being equal, superheavies have SHORTER range due to the increased mass resulting in far slower velocities.

However you can increase the amount and power of the powder behind said heavier projectile to up the velocity and therefore make a long ranged shell.

Superheavies do not allow for higher elevations inherently, that is up to the design of the turret, mountings, and more. Yamato had 45 degrees maximum elevation as well, and her shells were quite typical weight for their size.

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4 hours ago, ThatZenoGuy said:

All things being equal, superheavies have SHORTER range due to the increased mass resulting in far slower velocities.

However you can increase the amount and power of the powder behind said heavier projectile to up the velocity and therefore make a long ranged shell.

Superheavies do not allow for higher elevations inherently, that is up to the design of the turret, mountings, and more. Yamato had 45 degrees maximum elevation as well, and her shells were quite typical weight for their size.

All things aren't equal though.  The US 16" guns had surprisingly small chamber volumes and low working pressures as a result of the lowered muzzle velocities.  The 16"/50 weighed merely a single ton more than the British 16"/45's that were under development for the Lion-class, and had the same recoil distance despite their superior performance.  Now, US cruiser cannons had a lot more recoil, but the US was most definitely not frakking around with those given their similar if not equal performance to longer, heavier cannons, the 6"/47 absolutely shitting on the German 5.9 and 6" L/60 cannons.  The Japanese 6.1"/60 did have superior belt but worse deck performance at the same range brackets and much greater range... but it was twice the weight and got roughly 1/3 of the barrel life.  The Japanese 20cm/50 got better overall performance... but again, shredded its barrel at about twice the speed the 8"/55 Mark 12 did.  I don't know about you, but given the distances involved in the Pacific, being able to fire off two full magazine loads without worrying about barrel erosion or its effects is definitely worth the trade for moderately worse performance.  Oh, and said Mark 12 weighed even less than the 20cm/50 despite being a 20.3cm/55 cannon with over a full ton of weight savings.  Seems like a hell of a bargain to me if you're getting similar pen with less wear and weight, even if you lose maximum range.

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2 hours ago, SpardaSon21 said:

All things aren't equal though.  The US 16" guns had surprisingly small chamber volumes and low working pressures as a result of the lowered muzzle velocities.  The 16"/50 weighed merely a single ton more than the British 16"/45's that were under development for the Lion-class, and had the same recoil distance despite their superior performance.  Now, US cruiser cannons had a lot more recoil, but the US was most definitely not frakking around with those given their similar if not equal performance to longer, heavier cannons, the 6"/47 absolutely shitting on the German 5.9 and 6" L/60 cannons.  The Japanese 6.1"/60 did have superior belt but worse deck performance at the same range brackets and much greater range... but it was twice the weight and got roughly 1/3 of the barrel life.  The Japanese 20cm/50 got better overall performance... but again, shredded its barrel at about twice the speed the 8"/55 Mark 12 did.  I don't know about you, but given the distances involved in the Pacific, being able to fire off two full magazine loads without worrying about barrel erosion or its effects is definitely worth the trade for moderately worse performance.  Oh, and said Mark 12 weighed even less than the 20cm/50 despite being a 20.3cm/55 cannon with over a full ton of weight savings.  Seems like a hell of a bargain to me if you're getting similar pen with less wear and weight, even if you lose maximum range.

This is ignoring some context.
Firstly: America was the economic superpower of the entire planet, if you stacked every axis member in the whole war against the US, the US still towers over them like they were insects. Accordingly they could quite literally spare any expense with their weapons while other nations had to make do with what they had, which was often a complete and utter lack of rare metals
Secondly: The 16/50 was a brand new, state of the art, and specifically LIGHT WEIGHT weapon designed to fit the barbettes of the Iowa class, which turned out too small for the older 50 cals
Thirdly: Japan was a glorified third world power during WW2, it still used livestock to tow planes around for god's sake! The fact that Japan stood against the US and lasted as long as they did is more a disservice to the overwhelming technological superiority the US enjoyed for practically all of the war
Lastly: The Brits post-WW1 was a naval failure, only beating Germany really in terms of effective designs

Again, all things being equal Superheavy shells have shorter ranges due to the fact the same amount of powder is now pushing on more shell. Simple tradeoff.

This is a game, not real life where you can practically throw money at problems until it goes away ala WW2 America.

The 16/50 had a working pressure of 18.5 tons/in2 and had a velocity of 762m/s
The Nagato's 16 inch guns  had a working pressure of around 19 - 19.5 tons/in2 and had a velocity of 780m/s

Gee whizz I wonder how the US got such velocity despite having a lower chamber pressure and a heavier shell! Propellant burn rate and barrel length, hence the weapon is 50 caliber, rather than the usual 40-45 caliber of earlier BB's.

The American 16/45 had 'only' a velocity of 700m/s, which falls in line with my claim, all things being equal, superheavy slower, and therefore less range. 

The American 45 had a range of 36 thousand yards, the Japanese with 2 degrees less elevation could push this to 42 thousand yards.

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The big trouble here is we are not talking real world information. Yes in reality some naval guns were far superior to what they should have been on paper, shell, powder technology and so on also created many different results.

But in the game we are given some numbers based on what modules we fit on the ship:-

A 16" Mk3 Gun, regardless of nation, using High TNT Propellant has the following numbers (currently):-

Super Heavy Shell - 1775Kg, MV 699 m/s, 31.3Km Range

Heavy Shell- 1592Kg, MV 719m/s, 30.6Km Range

Standard Shell - 1224Kg, MV 777m/s, 29.2Km Range

Light Shell 857Kg, MV 874m/s, 27.8Km Range

We don't know what angle of elevation the guns can reach - the game does not tell us - but given that a shell fired with air resistance reaches its maximum range at somewhere around 38 degrees of elevation (and many Battleships had about 35 degrees in reality presumably for this very reason - no need for more elevation, the shell won't go any further - unless you plan for AA use).  The trouble is that given these numbers its clear to see that the Light shell leaves the gun at just short of 200m/s faster than the superheavy, over a 25% increase in starting velocity.  When things are equal, (and I am going to assume for the sake of simplicity that they are here - as in the Light and the Superheavy shell have the same cross section - both being 16" and the same drag coefficient - both being the same shape shell, and both leave the barrel at exactly the same speed and at the same elevation), then the heavier/more dense projectile would go further than the lighter/less dense one, air resistance having less of a slowing effect on the heavier shell.

BUT and this is the problem - Its NOT equal, the lighter shell starts at 25% greater speeds, it will reach a greater range, I can't say exactly how much, we are not given enough information to work out even a close approximation, but it would go further, and due to the higher starting speed would cover shorter distances, before it had been slowed by air resistance, more rapidly than the heavier shell. Less time in the air, means less time for the target to move, means errors in calculations, gun dispersion, wobble in shells, air resistance, pressure and so on have less time to affect the shell which makes it MORE accurate.  It just does a lot less when it arrives.

If the game designers want Super Heavy shells to have the longest range then all they need to do is equalize the muzzle velocities across the board, or simply delete the muzzle velocity data.

Further to this but in the same general area - 8 inch and greater guns could generally fire just as far as their bigger cousins due to firing a lighter shell, faster, and with a better elevation. (Currently in game lighter gun = less range e.g 10" Mk5 Superheavy range of 22.2km with 875m/s initial velocity, light is only 19km range with 1093m/s velocity).

I will say that yes gun wear, and the associated accuracy and cost ramifications, with higher velocity shells is a HUGE reason why not many nations went down that route. HMS Nelson tried high velocity 16" and changed back to lower for several reasons but rapid barrel wear was one of them.

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I think the problem is 'super heavy' sets both the charge of the shell AND the blasting charge.

So the shell is heavier but has more power sending it forwards.

Really need to split them up so light shells with super heavy blasting charge have the longest range and can be 'sniper' type rounds, but need a big disadvantage from the increased blasting charge.

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