Tech Establishments (final comments)

[miketr]

I am waiting to hear a suggtion for how to do this otherwise.

How about a limit on 4 main guns?  None of the wierd French ships between Admiral Duperre and Bouvet had more than 4 guns in their strange layout.

To clear up an earlier question, Guinness has been busy for some time now and P3D quit.  Till Guinness gets back its me in effect and this was my call.

Michael

[Tanthalas]

I could go for that mike, i'm willing to deal if 6 gun AQY is eliminated in startup even if it is as Carth once put it my kink (it realy is my favorite layout even with all the inherent flaws in it).  I don't expect to get everything I want in the rules at startup, but I truely hate being told I have to build cookie cutter british or american ships.

[Carthaginian]

Well, that does fix the problem for those who want to make French-style lozenge layouts, but it completely kills off Jef's Central Citadel ships. It also kills my intention to develop more along the French AA-Q-Y and AA-YY ships (like Ocean and Amiral Duperré)

One Rule To Rule Them All... it's not going to fit in this time frame.
There are just too many different types of ships, with too many different layouts and too many different angles on each one. We CAN start regulating with a single rule when the 'Race to Dreadnought' begins- but right now, I can't see one rule that allows everyone to make good period ships of all the different types of ships available.

The rules need expansion rather than contraction... that's the best I can do ATM.
Given a few nights worth of work, I can work up a proposal for a broader tech tree that will lead into the dreadnought design pattern from more diverse starting points.

[miketr]

A quick comment right now its Charles and me.   :)  Not just the Mike show.

Michael

[Valles]

Given how it's gone whenever I've previously tried to actively advocate any move in a particular direction, I think I'll confine my commentary on the subject of ship designs to this post.

I do not think that it is overall to the game's benefit to restrain the ways in which players are permitted to use the tools available to them. When the entire point is the exploration of differing avenues and choices from those made historically, saying that things must be done in a particular fashion seems self-defeating to me. If particular design traits are not desirable, then let them be enforced by the historical realities that made them sub-optimal, rather than by GM Fiat - all-big-gun designs shouldn't be built during our period because the lack of fire control and range, combined with low rates of fire, makes them sub-optimal, not because God Forbids Them. Airborne invasions in 1900 should fail because of the prohibitive cost of building and operating enough transport airships, not because 'It didn't happen that way!'

If someone wants to spend the resources on a failure of a ship anyway, they should be able to.

We're not here for a history, we're here for a sandbox. I'd suggest aspiring to Deus Ex, not Final Fantasy, so to speak.

[ctwaterman]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.. *snort* hhhuuhhh.... Im awake...

Ok....

Some Views here....
1.  We are trying to allow for the Greatest amount of freedom and creativity in ship design.
2.  We must provide a rule structure that prohibits the construction of say HMS Dreadnaught 26 years earlier then historical.

So..... I am open to suggestions I have looked at many of the designs here in the 1870 to 1880 era and thought thats perfect for a ship from the Early 1890's !!!  Now thats just my Opinion and there are lots more knowledgeable people out their about Pre World War II Warships then me.   My Warship designs are not really available until we get to the Era we just Quit in N3... the 1920's thru 1940's.  :'(

[Tanthalas]

im lost at that point charles (1920-1940) my personal favorite period is about 1905-1920, although I have been doing extensive research on the 1870-1890 period recently.  The majority of ships boasted no more than 2 turrets, however just about every nation had atleast one 3+ turret design, and some were admitedly more usefull than others.  I cant remember how exactly it was set up in the original rules, but I know they had somthing about AQY ships in them.  As to the Ships Jef wants to build my reading of the proposed rules is it only limits guns mounted in turrets is that right?

[ctwaterman]

As to the Ships Jef wants to build my reading of the proposed rules is it only limits guns mounted in turrets is that right?

I Believe so...

I was going to build some very Conservative Ship Designs with the Armored Central Box containing the majority of my Medium Caliber 6" to 9" Guns and with 2 Armored Barbetts with 10" to 12" guns in them.  I was also viewing my navy as a 2 tier system.

1. Trade Protection with the intent to build something similar to the US Great White Navy of the 1890's eventually. Lots and lots of Armored Cruisers and older Armored Steam Frigates.

2.  Costal Defense with a strong force of Costal Battle Ships.

[Tanthalas]

My plan was a large "coastal" force (Battleships and Monitors) and a Cruiser trade protection force.

[Carthaginian]

I'm looking for a system where this ship,

this ship,

this ship,

and this ship

all of which were from the same general time period, can be built by a player without breaking any sacred rules.

I have a plan for ships that combines 1.) ocean-going vessels with barbettes and/or central batteries and 2.) coastal ships with central batteries OR barbettes. My ship designs- while fitting within the broad French design principles of this time- would break every rule in the N4 tech tree... they will often have more than 4 'heavy guns' (or, rather, largest guns), some will have uniform batteries laid out in strange ways, and some will have very high or very low freeboards.

It's really difficult to pigeon-hole designs here... the 1870's is probably the single most dynamic times in naval warfare.

[ctwaterman]

Hmmmmm....

Ship 1- A very conventional Broad Side Lay Out

Ship 2- A Broad Side Layout with a Central Armored Barbette ???

Ship 3- I honestly cant tell what it weapons layout is from the Picture!

Ship4- Some sort of Turreted with Braodside armament it looks like 2 Turrets Aft I cant tell if their is also one Forward or Not ????

The Names of the Ships so I could examine them would definetly help....

Charles

[Carthaginian]

They are, from top to bottom:
SMS Tegetthoff (Austria 1876): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Tegetthoff_%281878%29
HMS Ajax (Great Britain 1876): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ajax_%281880%29
SMS Bayern (Germany 1878): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Bayern_%281878%29
Amiral Duperré (France 1879):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ironclad_Amiral_Duperr%C3%A9_%281879%29

These vessels span only three years of development, but run the gambit on armament schemes, hull types, and design philosophies. One has all-or-nothing armor, one has all armament in turrets, one has all breech-loading main guns, one has a hybrid barbette/battery layout, and one is only very recently divorced from the centuries old ship-of-the-line's design.

These ships show the incredible range of layouts and technological considerations that THREE YEARS of the period in which we are designing ships for must consider.
And if there is any way I can help, I'd be willing to go whole-hog on trying to catalog the French trends of the 1860's-1880s to try and help with a baseline for the techs.

[ctwaterman]

Honestly I think the only one that really breaks the tech rules as we laid them out is the French Design....

If I think about it HMS Warrior was an all central Armored Citadel... the Armored Box.
So the First 2 even if their Armor layouts are funny dont violate the rules.

The third has 1 Large Central Armored Barbette with 2 Guns Port and 2 guns Starboard in Effect and 2 Guns in a Forward Barbette that can fire forward and 1 port and 1 starboard.

The French  *sighs*  Ok its a very funny looking ships but you are correct her gun layout violates the hard and fast rule.  On the other hand they are all single turrets and honestly I wouldnt even begin to know how to sim that Gun Layout in SS2 or SS3... :o

[Carthaginian]

The French  *sighs*  Ok its a very funny looking ships but you are correct her gun layout violates the hard and fast rule.  On the other hand they are all single turrets and honestly I wouldnt even begin to know how to sim that Gun Layout in SS2 or SS3... :o

Ya sim it just like THIS ;):

http://www.navalism.org/index.php/topic,5692.msg73730.html#msg73730

Tenetke, Acadie Armored Cruiser laid down 1874
Barbette ship

Armament:
      4 - 9.40" / 239 mm 19.0 cal guns - 350.00lbs / 158.76kg shells, 100 per gun
     Breech loading guns in open barbette mounts, 1875 Model
     2 x Single mounts on sides, forward deck forward
     2 x Single mounts on centreline, aft evenly spread

The French did at least two classes (one with 13.4" guns, and one with 9.4" guins) on this general layout before going to an A-Q-Y single 13.4" gun barbette design. These vessels were also pre-dated by vessels featuring an AA-YY barbette layout (9.4" guns) with a central battery of heavy guns (10.8" guns) in broadside mounts. Additionally, they were contemporaries of some central battery vesels with casemated 13.4" guns.

I've done some designs with all these features during my work-ups for how I'd like my ships to look-and much of how I plan on my fleet developing hinges on the ability to say "This worked in this ship, and that worked in another, and this here worked in still another... why don't we put them all together to make THIS!" Without that, I'm just pissing away my time copying the Royal Sovereign class with French calibers till I get to the dreadnought age.

Seriously- there are just too many 'special cases' floating around in all the navies to dismiss them, even if it is hard to decide how to keep their features from being abused.

[Tanthalas]

its AAQY or AAXY, and while the potential for abuse grows with each Divergence from the british style layouts it adds to the overall flavor of the period.  Noone realy knew what worked so we ended up with what we know in hindsight was mistakes but at the time were just as viable of options as anything else.