N4.5 Rules Question/Comment thread

[Carthaginian]

I've added the mine rules, torpedo rules and first part of the Misc. Weight rules to the main rules thread.
I also received the Victory at Sea ruleset.
While not as flexible as Grand Fleet (no rules for adding new ships), it seems simpler for combat.
Gonna have to try a couple of battles on Sunday to see which I like best.

Remember, we're hoping to keep all but the most important battles scripted- only the most important ones should need to be fought out!

[Carthaginian]

Victory At Sea looks like it might be the winner- simply because Grand Fleets is no longer receiving support and has no aircraft rules. It seems like it will work well, though it will require a little more work to put custom ships into the system.

Remember- we're planning to sim out only 1.) major fleet battles OR 2.) assaults on Ports.
Anything smaller and less deciding than, say, Jutland or Midway, we ask that you have a plan to script it out.



ADDITIONALLY:
This is a warning, and this is only a waning- though it might just progress beyond that:
A-Q-Y wasn't meant to become a world-wide standard.
It shouldn't become a world-wide standard.
Only a very few ship types exhibited this kind of layout historically- i.e. monitors, coast defense ships and one type of battleship. If it turns out that people are going to try and build massive numbers of medium and light cruisers and try to get every ship in their fleet to be A-Q-Y... well, it will have to be more specifically restricted to heavier ship types. I don't mind it showing up in larger ships- but let's show some discretion here. :(

[Carthaginian]

20APR12
Due to 1910 date for restart and need to prevent destroyers from becoming outsized from the start, destroyer tonnage adjusted to 1,250 tons (normal) for start. I had originally pictured the restart as being a 1920-equivelent and sized the destroyers to that era. This adjustment should better reflect the size of destroyers in the period we will be starting.

[Nobody]

1) I think it would be nice if we had names for the continents. Suggestions? (I have none unfortunately)

2) There are no rules for 'civil ships' (that is: ships which have none or a very low military value for their size) yet, are there?
Even if they are not supposed to be cheaper (they weight the same after all), I think it would be nice if they had a lower maintenance (e.g. half).

3) We are still missing rules for guns and armor. I realize there are more immediate questions, but I'm sure you have more limitations in mind than just the maximum caliber. It would also be nice to know how much armor one has to put onto a ship be be able to withstand a certain gun or what the benefits of a longer/shorter barrel or different shells will be.

[Carthaginian]

1) I think it would be nice if we had names for the continents. Suggestions? (I have none unfortunately)

I am looking for the names... LOL, trying to get something that'll work.
Suggestions are welcome.

2) There are no rules for 'civil ships' (that is: ships which have none or a very low military value for their size) yet, are there?
Even if they are not supposed to be cheaper (they weight the same after all), I think it would be nice if they had a lower maintenance (e.g. half).

I haven't given too much thought to the 'civilian side' of things. Honestly, I think the 1/4 tonnage & upkeep rule for construction will suffice.

3) We are still missing rules for guns and armor. I realize there are more immediate questions, but I'm sure you have more limitations in mind than just the maximum caliber. It would also be nice to know how much armor one has to put onto a ship be be able to withstand a certain gun or what the benefits of a longer/shorter barrel or different shells will be.

We will simply say that we use Big Gun.
It is simple, easy and available... it gives all the necessary output.
NAaB is complicated compared to Big Gun and not nearly as user friendly.

[Carthaginian]

I've posted rules for merchants and tenders in the rules section.
These particular rules I welcome comments, questions and suggestions on.
They may be tweaked a bit in the following days... look to this post for a change log.

[Nobody]

I've posted rules for merchants and tenders in the rules section.
These particular rules I welcome comments, questions and suggestions on.
They may be tweaked a bit in the following days... look to this post for a change log.

Well... they are quite different from the old ones. They are not what I had in mind either, which is why I explicitly asked for 'civil' not 'merchant' ship rules.

Comments:
They explicitly exclude the type a ship actually used in WW1 and 2. Don't mention auxiliary cruisers, but a merchant cannot even carry a single medium caliber gun on it's stern?

I still think there is some room between these merchants or tenders and full fledged military ships. Like my patrol boat. Sure that one is small and one could afford them even paying full, but they are not really warships, are they? I mean I specifically designed them (I'm referring here to a couple of bigger yet unposted designs) to be small and not carry a competitive armament (just a cannon to be able to shoot in front of someone's bow, a 'auto'-cannon against hostile wildlife and machine-guns for law enforcement).
Now I don't want a loophole for a cheap fleet of warships, but I think it would be nice to have rules for cheaper 'intermediate' ships mostly intended as 'fluff' or role-playing. (potential limits I would expect: moderator or community approval; full price but lower upkeep; low speed (<<20 knots); limit on gun caliber (<110 mm) and number; no AAW; a minimum required composite strength >1; no torpedoes; no mines; no dept charges)

[Carthaginian]

They explicitly exclude the type a ship actually used in WW1 and 2. Don't mention auxiliary cruisers, but a merchant cannot even carry a single medium caliber gun on it's stern?

I think that the gun request can be accommodated... will one gun of up to 6" OR 2 guns of up to 3" be ok?

And I said 'merchant' to mean 'civil'; your word is better, so I will change it to 'civilian' ships rather than 'merchant.'

[Delta Force]

Would it be possible to standardize the units used in the rules perhaps? It is confusing to mix units from different systems across the rule sets and even within the same ones. For example, the rules on guns and lifeboats are using inches and feet, but in the torpedo rules things get complex because the torpedoes are using metric for size and range but knots for speed. Since yards are usually used in naval matters (at least with US and Commonwealth sources) wouldn't it be easier to give the range in yards and size the torpedoes in inches and feet? I mean I have no problem with using the metric system (I prefer it over US standard units for many uses) but I would prefer we stick to one system of measurements, whether that is the metric system or the US standard system.

Also, references to tonnage are in long tons, right? I found out the hard way a few weeks ago that sometimes sources do not distinguish between the long ton, short ton, and metric ton. US sources generally mean the short ton, European sources generally mean the metric ton, and sources relating to naval matters generally mean the long ton. Needless to say, when compiling a ship tonnage list where they throw around multiple tons that are all just called tons, it can become a real headache to sort through.

Lastly, and on another note, what is meant by the references to light, medium, and heavy cruisers in the rules? Since tonnage is not mentioned in them and given that the light cruisers are allowed turbines, are we really talking about 3rd, 2nd, and 1st class cruisers, or unprotected (deathtraps in 1910), protected, and protected cruisers? Also, how would civillian/commercial ships like cruise liners/auxiliary cruisers fit into the picture, they would be larger than most cruisers but would of course carry little to no armor.

[Carthaginian]

Most torpedo diameters are expressed in mm even if they are measured in inches. This is true the world over ATM... so it is a small conciet to make to our friends on the metric system. Tons are long tons as expressed in Springsharp- this should be easy to figure out... As it is the standard for designing ships, it sets the staandards for our units of measurs. Finally, there are tonnage limits; read the treaty again.

[Carthaginian]

There are also rules forr liners. Look at period appropriate ships for examples.

[KWorld]

What are the limits, and costs, for coast guns?

[Carthaginian]

What are the limits, and costs, for coast guns?

This has not yet been determined. I don't know whether it would be a better thing to use a 'generic battery' which has a fixed cost, or use Springsharp to sim the guns as batteries.
If you have an opinion on this subject, post what you think might work. I will try to think something up myself, and we'll see what fits best- as long as you don't get any algebra involved, any suggestions will be considered.

I will say that if you are planning coast guns, don't plan for anything bigger than what is allowed for battleships at that time.

[snip]

I think simming the turret in question in SS should work and would fit well with the way the system is set up. The question is, do we want to add additional costs or take the KISS approch?

[KWorld]

Depending on mounting types, you could use SS3 to calculate the gun weight (for guns mounted in concrete mountings) or the turret weight (for turret mounted weapons).  It will be "off", but consistent.  I was thinking of some 11-12" coast mortars, at least for starters: yeah, they're not too long ranged, but they'd do very bad things to any ships that they hit.