General Social/Chatter Thread

[Kaiser Kirk]

I really think we need a revamp of the refurbishing rules, they are just too expensive right now for major work and will dissuade people from keeping around older ships.

My expectation is that as colonies are developed, $ will be less of a problem, and BP will be the limiter.
At which time, rebuilding existing vessels becomes a more efficient use of resources.

I'm planning on several rebuilds as it is, trying to work out when to do them.

[The Rock Doctor]

Aha.  Then I can drop the idea and feel not one iota of guilt for it.

[Kaiser Kirk]

and feel not one iota of guilt for it.

What, no guilt?
It's free !

[The Rock Doctor]

Well maybe a little, then, but I don't want to indulge.

[snip]

Of course there is also the possibility of a political need to favor refitting of ships, like a WNT-like item.

[maddox]

Real life issues on roller bearings and barbette/gunhouse construction.

Weight is important for the correct loading of the rollers. Without enough loading the load won't be distributed over all the rollers (steel flexes a lot in those diameters).
And most of the big guns/turrets used pure mass to get the loading correct. As we can see on the wrecks. Bismarcks turrets dropped out during the decent, as an example

One solution was to add tension rollers on the bottom of the race, or even simple bronze bushings with tensioners. 
But that is not a trivial task if it wasn't original. Pulling off a roller/bearing race and replace it with a newly designed one.

[Guinness]

FWIW, I believe that a twin 200mm turret and a single 280mm turret could weigh about the same, or at least be close enough that marginal changes in armor configuration could make up the difference. The German 28cmL45 (C/07) guns were almost exactly 2x the weight of the American 8"L45 (MkVI).

[The Rock Doctor]

It occurred to me last night that yanking the guns from the PDN, scrapping the hull, and building a new Sverige-type CDS (turbines, greater range, maybe not as much armor) would likely be cheaper from a cash perspective and probably not that much more expensive from a BP perspective than just refurbing the original PDN.

[Kaiser Kirk]

FWIW, I believe that a twin 200mm turret and a single 280mm turret could weigh about the same, or at least be close enough that marginal changes in armor configuration could make up the difference. The German 28cmL45 (C/07) guns were almost exactly 2x the weight of the American 8"L45 (MkVI).

FWIW, I believe that a twin 200mm turret and a single 280mm turret could weigh about the same, or at least be close enough that marginal changes in armor configuration could make up the difference. The German 28cmL45 (C/07) guns were almost exactly 2x the weight of the American 8"L45 (MkVI).

they can be similar.
The problem tends to lie in the older guns being very short.

Without figuring out the exact guns Rocky is discussing :

For a single-turret 280L45, the SS3 weight is 151t
But
a single turret 280L35 is only 109t
...but depending on the vilnus ship, I see 280L40s there.... so

Twin mounts would weight more of course.

For a Twin 200L45 the SS weight is 110t
For a Two-Gun 200L45 the SS3 weight is 138t.



With the 109 to 110 difference the obvious question is "well it's only 1 ton, does it matter".
That gets into the armor weight issue - but we are only talking the Gun + Mount tonnage, not armor.

So the prior rule was that this is a hard limit.
I lobbied against that at the time, and it's a hard limit.
I'm not going to rewrite rulings just because I have the pointy cap and corner seat now.

Now, if Rocky has just designed a 200L45 and realizes it's 1 ton over, then I'd let it become a 200L44 Twin at 106t so it would "fit". 
Same cost, and we can presume a large naval design team can provide some foresight to the player 'off screen'.

[Kaiser Kirk]

It occurred to me last night that yanking the guns from the PDN, scrapping the hull, and building a new Sverige-type CDS (turbines, greater range, maybe not as much armor) would likely be cheaper from a cash perspective and probably not that much more expensive from a BP perspective than just refurbing the original PDN.

It really comes down to the extent of the rebuild. 
I've been working up several and the costs seem to vary by ship type.
The tonnage of engines you replace matter alot as that's the single biggest item.

So my high % machinery scout cruisers are not economical to upgrade, and with the short hulls are limited in maximum speed by seakeeping.
I'm considering just replacing the old  reciprocating with new  reciprocating with the same output and putting the excess space towards destroyer tender duties.

With the Armored Cruisers and Predreads, the total costs seem about 3/4 of a new ship, but much less BP.   
As these had bigger longer hulls and high freeboards to let the casements work in moderate seas, some of them can hit decent speeds. 
Again, swapping to turbines is attractive, but the required electric drive drives that price up, so I'm looking at oil-fired reciprocating as a cheaper solution if their potential speed is limited by seakeeping.

[The Rock Doctor]

That feeling when you've got $6 and almost 21 BP still waiting to be used, without knowing how to really to spend it.

[Guinness]

21 BP!

Can we still do the thing where we pay for a ship's cost in $ and BP all up front? I may have a windfall coming...

[The Rock Doctor]

There's rules somewhere for acquiring foreign ships so I assume the option is there.  I'll listen to proposals, certainly.

[Kaiser Kirk]

There's rules somewhere for acquiring foreign ships so I assume the option is there.  I'll listen to proposals, certainly.

Foreign purchases can indeed happen.
They can either provide just $ or $&BP

It was/is my intent that the NPCs will eventually buy lead ships of classes every 3-4 years.
Those would then give an idea of the types that NPC has, and provide a possible sale venue
plus give folks design competitions for both players and guests.
Winners get a small $ prize and the contract. Runner up a small $.
However the free time block I had got used up on other game matters, so that has not happened yet.

Otherwise, there is the rollover allowance,
or you can reallocate your spending to free up more $ for BP.

Per Guinness's question - I'm not aware of any rule as to when you have to allocate the funds for a ship. Though it does have to be laid down.
You can't buy pieces for installation on undefined future vessels, or trade just parts. So no "x tons armor plate 300mm". Or "twin 325mm turret".

[The Rock Doctor]

I could re-allocate spending, but there's a bit of a push on for additional IC this turn.  It eases off next turn but I'm not sure I'd be using all those BP up anytime soon anyway.