Tech Establishments (final comments)

[miketr]

With Guinness away it has fallen to me to push this forward, *KICK* Hey Charles! WAKE UP!!!

Any comments from the players on the tech tree available at the start of the game?  Recall you get one tech establishment for GDP/1000 FRD.  So with N$3,333 GDP thats 3 establishments.  It takes 5 years to switch establishments.

Startup Tech Tree

Years are: Years everyone can get it/Years only those with required establishment can get this.

Naval Establishments

Naval Propulsion:

Baseline: Engine year: year laid down, 100% coal, simple expansion engines only
1890 / 1885: Engine year: year laid down, 100% coal, vertical triple expansion engines

Shipbuilding Materials:

Baseline: Iron ships, overall strength of 1.1 required
1890 / 1885: Early steel ships, overall strength of 1.05 required

Armor:

Baseline: Composite armor.
1890 / 1885: Harvey Nickel Steel armor, protection +1.

Artillery:

Baseline: Max muzzle energy 1900 million lb.ft^2/s^2
1890 / 1885: Max muzzle energy 2500 million lb.ft^2/s^2

Torpedo Boats and Destroyers

1880 / 1875 - 50 tons (0.5 strength and at least 50% of mass to engines) (single TT)
1885 / 1880 - 75 tons (" " & " ")

Capital Ship Architecture

Baseline: Coles-Erricson Mount, A-Y layout up to twins
1885 / 1880: Open Barbette Mount, A-Y layout up to twins
1895 / 1890: Turret on Barbette Mount, A-Y layout up to twins

Army Establishments

Ordinance and Tactics

Baseline: 1860 Army Tech & 1860 Forts and Siege Guns
1885 / 1880: 1880 Army Tech & 1880 Forts and Siege Guns
1900 / 1895: 1895 Army Tech & 1895 Forts and Siege Guns

Mobilization and Reserves

Baseline: Can maintain one reserve unit per 3 active strength units & bring Conscript or Reserve Units to active status in three weeks
1890 / 1885: Can maintain one reserve unit per 2 active strength units
1895 / 1890: Can  bring Conscript or Reserve Units to active status in two weeks

[snip]

I rather like it.

[Tanthalas]

I only see 2 things I question.  What was the reasoning for switching back to 1.10 from the quoted more recently 1.05 and why are you outlawing AQY ships compleatly?

[miketr]

Hull Strength: Question was to be 1.1 -> 1.05 -> 1.0  or 1.2 -> 1.1 -> 1.0

Looking at Guinness notes its clear he wanted the game to start with weaker hull materials.  Later ships, IE none we are to start with or build for a few years were to get the 1.0 hull strength.  I am sorry for the confusion on this, again my fault.  Guinness has been very busy of late and so I am have been trying to sort this out.  Hence the mistakes.

A-Q-Y vs. A-Y:  Other than Brandenburg  Class I can't think of any example right off the top of my head.   Also tech chart is only up to 1890, cough 1900 / 1895 tech or perhaps later cough

[Valles]

Question: Are the 'Internal Security' and 'Intelligence Gathering' establishments removed, merged, or present-but-not-described-in-detail-yet?

[snip]

A-Q-Y vs. A-Y:  Other than Brandenburg  Class I can't think of any example right off the top of my head. 

I have an example. TheAdmiral Lazarev class monitor of the Imperial Russian Navy.

Does the A-Y rule allow for Ekatrena II style layouts (AA-Y AA-YY ect)?

[Nobody]

I have a couple of questions:

• "It takes 5 years to switch establishments." I would wish that to be a bit more precise.
  
• only A-Y ships? What about central batteries, e.g. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingyuan_%281881%29 or http://www.cityofart.net/bship/rn_italia.html#specs? Or ships with more than 2 turrets like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekaterina_II_class_battleship
  
• what's the point of "engine year = year laid down" if the engine type makes no difference to springsharp? Shouldn't it be at least something like engine year = year laid down-5 for those that don't have that establishment?
  
• we still don't know how to develop guns
  
  
  

  
  Question: Are the 'Internal Security' and 'Intelligence Gathering' establishments removed, merged, or present-but-not-described-in-detail-yet?
  

  That reminds me that I was thinking about starting a "break this code game/threat". I wonder if anyone would be interested?

[snip]

Technically, the Ekaterina IIs would be AAY, and there was talk of an AAYY variant afterwards (as well as an ABXY, but that is not going to happen), hence my question in the post above.

[Jefgte]

I disagree too about AY turrets restriction.
If we could justify other dispositions with historical ships (same date), so, we could use other dispositions,
(Admiral Lazarev, Ekaterina II, Dingyuan, Dévastation, Rochambeau...)

IMO, you could add this line in Baseline
"Historical armament disposition"


Jef  ;)

[Carthaginian]

Of course- we are now stuck with 'all the same ships' because there can be no analogs to historic designs.
Oh, well... so much for having fun designing ships.
Guess we'll all just copy the British battleships. >:(

Hella great gun layout choices- be like everyone else, no questions asked.
Did the Mods even consider historic designs when they created this list, or did they just randomly choose it, Mike? The point of starting in this time period was to have the vast range of insane designs available to us for inspiration. Now, we are all limited to cookie-cutter designs that represent only a single design philosophy that was only prevalent towards the end of the period that we are working in.

This, put mildly, sucks- it destroys the entire point of starting in the 1870's and building design lineages for our navies. If this is how it goes with no further negotiation... count me right the hell out. I have plenty of things that I can find to occupy my time than being told how to design ships for my navy by someone else because of a couple of players who refuse to behave. Remove those who cause the problems rather than pouring concrete around the rest of our imaginations. ::)

[Tanthalas]

Mike not to be argumentative or anything but there were several "period" ships that used layouts other than AY.  My personal favorite  examples are Admiral Lazarev & Royal Sovereign.  They are however far from the only examples of oddball layouts in our early period.  Personaly I intended to go with AY for "battleships" and AQY for Monitors initialy blending the 2 types into a single ship class in 1885 or so.

I would propose somthing like this

Capital Ship Architecture
Baseline: Coles-Erricson Mount, A-Y layout up to twins with secondaries or AQY no secondaries
1885 / 1880: Open Barbette Mount, A-Y layout up to twins with secondaries or AQY no secondaries
1895 / 1890: Turret on Barbette Mount, A-Y or AQY layout up to twins

[miketr]

How to put this?

The vast majority of capital ships built in the late 1870's onward to dreadnought era were A-Y layout.  Earlier ships were turrets grouped center and things like that.  As times moves forward YES you can find examples of other such ships but they were a minority.     

How do people suggest we keep this historic without hard and fast rules?  Its not a rhetorical question, if people don't want the hard fast system what do you want instead? 

Michael

[Tanthalas]

How to put this?

The vast majority of capital ships built in the late 1870's onward to dreadnought era were A-Y layout.  Earlier ships were turrets grouped center and things like that.  As times moves forward YES you can find examples of other such ships but they were a minority.     

How do people suggest we keep this historic without hard and fast rules?  Its not a rhetorical question, if people don't want the hard fast system what do you want instead? 

Michael

I would say allow AQY or other oddball for the period layouts on a ship by ship basis.  AQY no secondaries for example.

[Carthaginian]

I think that 'hard, fast rules' are needed.
I think the 'hard, fast rules' are going the wrong way entirely.

They are causing more and more restriction on people who design ships that play towards historic designs, and forcing them towards a design that doesn't really become 'standard practice' until the Brits do it in the mid-1880s.

Now- here's what I've seen looking through things.
We have at least two major capital ship theories emerging by the 1880s: 1.) the British style, featuring a few uniform heavy guns in concentrated locations, backed up by large numbers of fast-firing lower-mid caliber weapons VS 2.) the French style, which seems to favor a mix of heavy and upper-mid caliber weapons dispersed in several locations, backed up by a smaller number of lower-mid caliber weapons.

Both continue refining their style until it develops into the semi-dreadnought, and then finally the dreadnought.
They go about it in entirely different ways, though... and we need something to allow for that.

We might need to make a more complex system here... but one that allows for more options.
Start with something like Broadside Ironclads (1860)- this is the initial tech offering for all players. The players then select one of the following options for hulls: 1.) Central Citadel Ships/Casemate Battleships (1870), 2.) Low-freeboard Turret Ship/Coastal Battleship (1870), or 3.) High-freeboard Barbette Ship/Ocean-going Battleship (1870). The options for Hull Type will then lead into a focus for Gun Layout: 1.) Heavy Artillery with Quick Fire Secondary, 2.) Mixed Main Battery Guns, or 3.) Multiple Light-Heavy Guns.

I'll admit that this will involve more research, and more 'thou shalt not' rules... but it will allow us to have a greater flexibility in designs while preventing the fear of dreadnoughts appearing too fast.

[Carthaginian]

The vast majority of capital ships built in the late 1870's onward to dreadnought era were A-Y layout.  Earlier ships were turrets grouped center and things like that.  As times moves forward YES you can find examples of other such ships but they were a minority. 

They were in the MAJORITY in the French designs in the 1870's.
Trying to follow this progression is going to be impossible for me under the current rules- period. There has to be another ways to arrange things that allows those of us who don't want to build in the British design progression.