General Social/Chatter Thread

[Desertfox]

Hulesmeyer :
In-game, it works out to 10,000m, and basically is a detector telling you something reflective is "that a way"
Not horribly useful...unless you're a sentry in the dark, in which case it could be useful.

That's basically what I assumed. So the only Japanese ships that have gotten them are the auxiliary pickets, spy ships, and select auxiliaries (hospital/diplomatic) that I don't want running into things.

[The Rock Doctor]

I'm so relieved there are no 1916 or 1917 techs to start, because it means I can catch up on the last five 1915 techs I haven't started yet.

At this rate I won't be fielding an aircraft carrier until 1919.

Edit:  No, that's wrong.  Won't be laying one down till then.

[Desertfox]

Oh you rich kids... I still have 20 1915 and earlier unresearched techs...

[The Rock Doctor]

Ouch.

[TacCovert4]

Sad 1908 noises

[Kaiser Kirk]

The tech trees start out a little dense and then thin out.

Basically it means you can pick a couple categories and be "cutting edge" there,
but in the rest different countries will be at different places.

The Aztec/Inca/Japan all started a bit further behind, so it's a bit rougher for them.
That's where the the cost break for the older techs is nice.
Parthia just started the 1909 Engine tech, and the total cost is $4.20, so I'm going to plow through it in 4 HY.

[The Rock Doctor]

Trying to sketch out a ship and realizing that I obviously wasn't thinking about deck space when I assigned the tertiary armament.  No idea where half of it is supposed to go.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Conceptual deck space is interesting.
It seems the short ranged ships tended towards low freeboards and minimal superstructures.
As crews got larger, and ranges longer, superstructures ate up more of the deckspace,
but as freeboards go higher, there's more internal room and less need for superstructures.

So, I really like the rolling shutters with small craft (all those ship's boats) or torpedoes behind them, and the funky sponsons.
if you have the high freeboard, then you could just mentally shove those there, freeing up oodles of deckspace.

[The Rock Doctor]

So FYI, keep an eye on your weapon mount weights for machine guns.  I'm not sure precisely where or how, but I THINK SS has a glitch that adds too much weight to armor weights in that scenario.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Interesting.
I'd noticed way back when  that shields weighed a remarkable amount for the light guns/ MGs, so stopped fitting them.

Using 10 single deck mounts :

A 7.5mm MG with a 50mm (2" !) shield - the shield weight is 57tons.    : 5.7t each
A 9.9mm MG with a 50mm (2" !) shield - the shield weight is 44tons.    : 4.4t each
A 15mm MG with a 50mm (2" !) shield - the shield weight is 30tons    : 3t each   
A 23mm MG with a 50mm (2" !) shield - the shield weight is 22tons.   : 2.2t each
A 27mm MG with a 50mm  shield - the shield weight is 20 tons            : 2t each

Changing Mount type to QF drastically increases the weight.
7.5mm = 172 tons
27mm = 59t
75mm = 43t : 4.3/75mm QF mt.

AA drops the shield weight again to the MG level it seems.
All the other settings seem to use the QF system.

Very curious.

The minimum seems to be around the 75mm gun.
I think it scales from there.
It just scales UP instead of DOWN for the smaller guns,

but it may be based on the expectation that you need a Crew-sized square of metal,
so it shouldn't go too low.

Definitely goofy.

[The Rock Doctor]

I had a situation last night where a 10mm MG in deck mount with no side/other protection carried 2 t of armor...but if I increased the side/other protection to 3 mm for weatherproofing, the weight of the armor decreased to 1 t.

[TacCovert4]

Definitely goofy.  Although it may be that SS is simming a gun shield designed for your typical 'naval rifle' not a machine gun or light autocannon.   IE a full deck-ish to overhead and left to right wide enough to frontal protect the whole gun crew shield. Something in the single or twin .50 cal or 20mm range would in reality only have two 'wings' of steel as its 'gun shield', approximately 2ft x 3ft at a maximum.  Considering that I've hefted these gun shields as they're used on gun trucks in Iraq, they're only about 80-120lb tops for a typical 7.62mm resistant shield for a .50 cal, that's going to be around 3/8 of an inch thick.  Figure if you're doing a 8-30mm gun shield for your typical MG mount, it should actually run you around .1t per mount to .3 tons per mount depending on thickness, counting shield/hardware/strengthening of the mount for the weight. 

I'm with Kirk, I've not been putting armor on my MGs, won't be until aircraft strafing is considered a significant threat.  And by then we're probably looking at autocannon mounts rather than paired Machine Guns as the primary mid-close AA armament.

[The Rock Doctor]

I was adding the armor to the mounts and am now thinking it's probably cost me several tonnes I'd have liked to use elsewhere.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Definitely goofy.  Although it may be that SS is simming a gun shield designed for your typical 'naval rifle' not a machine gun or light autocannon.   IE a full deck-ish to overhead and left to right wide enough to frontal protect the whole gun crew shield. 

I think you've identified it.
But I think it's also scaling off a fixed point ~75mm, but the formula simply goes by difference, so 7.5mm is massive. 
One you add wings "other" it switches to some gunhouse formula.

As for Rocky's extra tonnage... look at that as 'cheap' comp hull waiting for a simple refit of deck guns.
or perhaps a sign the Wilno steel cartel paid off the Wilno naval designers to use extra product...
So you should "expel" the miscreant industry ! As a storyline matter that would mean sending a couple BP elsewhere.
Of course you wouldn't want them going to a neighbor, or even another nation with homeports on the Atlantic,
but somewhere like 2 nations away. Preferably a major nation who shares a border with the Golden Horde.
...like Parthia !
It's only logical.

[Desertfox]

Just send them even further away, like really far away, say the Pacific country of Japan?