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gently caress that. If you got questions . I’ll try to answer them.Meanwhile if you’ve got archives the old RTW thread is here https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3731563
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May 22, 2019 20:13
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Between working the in the maritime industry by day and playing RTW2 and Azur Lane on the evenings, I think an inland-born landlubber like myself might be getting sea poisoning.
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May 22, 2019 20:18
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Oh man, okay - I'm starting out as Italy to keep my interest to one area. Here's a few things I'm currently wondering, though I suspect some of this would be fixed by just...reading about ships: 1. I have no real concept of how "fast" or "armored" or "gunned" a given class should be. Is it wisest to look at historical ships and figure it out from there? The legacy fleet has 500 ton displacement destroyers, and that seems...small, since I know Arleigh Burkes are 9k+, but I don't really know how DDs have evolved since 1900. My current dockyard max is only 17k, but I don't know what kind of boats I "should" be building with that capacity. 2. Until a fight breaks out, I'm just passing turns and watching research go by. What should I be doing in early peacetime? I can't keep more than two or three ships building without mothballing the small legacy fleet I have. 3. For armor, is there a common or efficient "ratio" between the different zones? Should destroyers be armored at all? 4. Is there good reason to build any new ships before research starts to work its magic? Squiggle fucked around with this message at 20:50 on May 22, 2019 |
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May 22, 2019 20:35
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On the first point, 500 tons was normal for turn of the century destroyers. They were designed as "Torpedo Boat Destroyers" to provide a small, fast, and cheap platform to keep away anticipated swarms of tiny torpedo boats from the expensive capital ships. Early game your DDs are basically going to be keeping other DDs away from your Battleships and occasionally torpedoing the enemies Bs because at the time they're the only things with swivel torpedo mounts and those are the best way to actually sink a heavy ship in 1900.
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May 22, 2019 20:52
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Squiggle posted:4. Is there good reason to build any new ships before research starts to work its magic? My first ship building priority at the start of the game is always corvettes. You need to have a dozen or so ships out on trade protection during wartime and it's nice to not have to use your fleet destroyers. Besides that I might pump out a couple lovely cruisers for foreign stationing depending on the country.
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May 22, 2019 21:00
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:On the first point, 500 tons was normal for turn of the century destroyers. They were designed as "Torpedo Boat Destroyers" to provide a small, fast, and cheap platform to keep away anticipated swarms of tiny torpedo boats from the expensive capital ships. And one of the things you can get from the light forces tech is increases in maximum allowed destroyer sizes --- IIRC it goes up to 1500t for the game. As for some of the other ones: 1. Historical or what AI builds may help. You definitely want to know why dreadnoughts are a big deal, too. There are some tradeoffs here, too --- like Germans leaned more towards armor while UK leaned towards speed and guns. (The right answer turned out to be "have a lot more boats of comparable class"). 2. Early on, there is indeed not much --- you can pay to expand your docks, maybe build some land-based cannons. Maybe adjust your intelligence or training if the war seems close. Later in the game, you may also want to do refits (like improved fire control, more AA if you're in RTW2, etc.) 3. I think destroyers can't be armored (except the guns and conning tower?). Otherwise... Well, early on you don't need deck armor much, and it's generally a really good idea to armor your turrets well. (Otherwise there may be something wrong with your bloody ships one day). You can click the "gun data" button in the turret editor to see how your current guns perform, which should give some idea of what you want to be guarding against. There is also some special rule where you want things to be at least 2inches in many cases, IIRC --- search manual of talk of splinters. 4. That's basically the main tension in the game --- research is always improving, but it indeed feels tough to not hold off before you invent dreadnoughts. Edit: RTW2 probably has different tradeoffs here than 1, since you can eventually convert obsolete hulls to light carriers...
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May 22, 2019 21:06
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I always like to build a couple of big (like 12-14k), good CAs if I didn't start with them. Since early battleship fights are indecisive, you want to sink enemy cruisers for your VP. I try to avoid building battleships until I at least have heavy secondary battery.
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May 22, 2019 21:18
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The key thing to note (and blow me down if this turns out not to be true) is that guns above 6" get a penalty to shoot at destroyers. Fundamentally there are 3 classes of ship: 1) Screens (destroyers) 2) Things that shoot screens (light cruisers) 3) Things that shoot big ships Your destroyers should be as big as you can make them. Light cruisers should have as many 6" guns as you can pack on them because that lets them shoot destroyers and gives them the advantage in LC vs LC matchups. You should aim to make them 2-3 knots minimum faster than your battleline, scaling upwards as tech progresses. As far as the game is concerned a Battlecruiser is the same as a Cruiser. This matters because the wartime battle generator basically assumes that everyone is up for a fight between similar forces all the time (sensible for a game), but that means that if you have any CAs in a region they will be drawn constantly into fights with Fischer's monsters that will eat them up. Aim to replace CAs with BC's, sending your old ships to keep tonnage up in the colonies. B's and BB's. A rule I've come to but never follow myself: always try to have 2 building at any one time. Yeah there's always new tech around the corner but that's always true - you can't crash build a battle fleet. You have three things to balance: firepower, protection, and speed. Generally it's pick 2 and sacrifice one. Always build big.
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May 22, 2019 21:19
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Squiggle posted:1. I have no real concept of how "fast" or "armored" or "gunned" a given class should be. Is it wisest to look at historical ships and figure it out from there? The legacy fleet has 500 ton displacement destroyers, and that seems...small, since I know Arleigh Burkes are 9k+, but I don't really know how DDs have evolved since 1900. My current dockyard max is only 17k, but I don't know what kind of boats I "should" be building with that capacity. I find that a good rule of thumb is see what ships the other guy has, and build your own to match them. So if you look like you might have to fight the French, and the best French battleships have so much armour your guns wont penetrate (theres a gun data button in the builder), you need to start building ships with bigger guns. Likewise, if a likely enemy has guns that'll penetrate the armour on your toughest ships, you need to up armour etc. Also, the other thing I wish i knew going in is for the love of god make sure your capital ships have the same speed. A battle line goes as fast as its slowest ship, so anything that has a top speed even 1 knot faster is wasting hundreds of tons of displacement on something that'll never be used.
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May 22, 2019 21:31
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Squiggle posted:since I know Arleigh Burkes are 9k+, but I don't really know how DDs have evolved since 1900. My current dockyard max is only 17k, but I don't know what kind of boats I "should" be building with that capacity. Arleigh Burkes would be armored cruisers by tonnage in 1900. The original Dreadnought clocked in at like 18k tons. So as others have posted (more usefully) compare with your peers in the game and if you got bigger, better armed, and better armored ships of the same class it's time for some jingoism.
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May 22, 2019 21:37
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There is a logic to the idea of improving speed over time with the assumption the battle line’s speed will go up as older ships phase out but IMO the Americans had the right idea. Pick a set speed for your battle line and stick to it for a while, maybe a decade or so. By 1920 you might want to start making new capitals faster though since this is about when the “Fast Battleship” becomes more practical. But yeah pick something in the 20-24 knot range and stick to it. And I agree that it never hurts to lollipop at real world warships of the era for inspiration or a general ballpark guideline of where your ships should be. I dunno if I agree with “always build big”. Once my battleships start displacing 30-40 thousand tons I’m loathe to go higher unless the AI decides to start escalating. You can build a good ship at that tonnage range and it’ll be significantly cheaper and faster to build than 50 thousand ton monsters. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 21:41 on May 22, 2019 |
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May 22, 2019 21:38
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Squiggle posted:Oh man, okay - I'm starting out as Italy to keep my interest to one area. Here's a few things I'm currently wondering, though I suspect some of this would be fixed by just...reading about ships: battleships and heavy cruisers should be armored against their own guns if you want adequate protection(Check the button labeled gun data). Of course you won't always be able to get a complete zone of immunity. Engine tech should allow you to build 25 knot battleships by the 1920s. Before then try not to dip below 18. Cruisers should be around 8k to 15k tonnage. CA's also get some what obseloted in the early dreadnought era but become more relevant once the 20s come around. Light cruisers are of dubious usage fleet wise in the 1900s and should be built for either trade protection, colonial duty, or raiding. This changes in the 1910s once you get better turret and ship design tech. If in doubt if you have above waterline torpedos then build some CLs. DDs are hard restricted below certain tonnages by techs at the start of the game.
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May 22, 2019 21:49
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Squiggle posted:1. I have no real concept of how "fast" or "armored" or "gunned" a given class should be. Is it wisest to look at historical ships and figure it out from there? The legacy fleet has 500 ton displacement destroyers, and that seems...small, since I know Arleigh Burkes are 9k+, but I don't really know how DDs have evolved since 1900. My current dockyard max is only 17k, but I don't know what kind of boats I "should" be building with that capacity. Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert at this game, just someone that's been enjoying it. Armor: One thing I like to do is armor my ships to resist their own weapons, on the theory that hopefully they won't be seriously outclassed (and if they are they'll probably die anyways). Maybe less so for Battlecruisers since ideally your battlecruisers will be chewing up enemy armored cruisers. You can even click on the gun data button next to your primary guns and it will tell you if your armor is proof against them and at what ranges. Guns: My inexperience shows here, but I like to plan guns based on either the largest gun a ship can efficiently use (clicking the check mark will tell you if a gun is too big - I know it's 500 tons for 4in, 1100t for 5in, and 20,000t for 15in) or else whatever guns I happen to have at good quality, which seems somewhat random. Other notes: 4in guns are good as dual purpose (both anti-ship and anti-air) if you're in the era of airstrikes, and there's what someone said above about 6" being good against destroyers. For engines... for whatever reason there seems to be "sweet spots" when it comes to speed. Like increasing 20->21 will be 20 tons, 21->22 will be 24 tons, 23->24 will be 45 tons, and 24->25 will be 30 tons. For most ships I like to aim for those spots (just below a big cost increase), though as others have said one dedicated speed for a specific ship type makes sense. quote:4. Is there good reason to build any new ships before research starts to work its magic? Well, it takes time to design a ship, and it takes a lot of time to build them. Also from what I've heard if your accumulated funds get above half your yearly income the government might start taking your money to pay for other stuff. Do note that it's cheap and fast to make small improvements to an existing design; if you design a destroyer, and then a month later you discover better machine tech, you can usually update the design for a pittance and a month of work. Similarly, doing a rebuild of an already built ship to just add fire control or similar is usually pretty cheap.
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May 22, 2019 22:47
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God drat, thank you guys, this helps a TON. Two other questions: 5. How interested should I be in banking funds versus Caltrans-ing the budget as close to my actual monthly funding as I can? Bremen mentioned the government gets uppity about lots of cash on hand. 6. By corvettes, here... sum posted:My first ship building priority at the start of the game is always corvettes. You need to have a dozen or so ships out on trade protection during wartime and it's nice to not have to use your fleet destroyers. Besides that I might pump out a couple lovely cruisers for foreign stationing depending on the country. ...Do you mean "tiny destroyers" since I don't see corvettes as a class option?
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May 22, 2019 23:27
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I personally spend most of the game in a constant state of budget deficit and anxiety
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May 22, 2019 23:29
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Squiggle posted:God drat, thank you guys, this helps a TON. In rtw1 they were minesweepers, don't remember what they get classed as in 2. Basically 200 ton things with a popgun on the back that goes like 12 knots. If you've got lots of money (50k+) for a few months in a row the government may take some of it and reduce your budget. uPen fucked around with this message at 23:34 on May 22, 2019 |
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May 22, 2019 23:31
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uPen posted:In rtw1 they were minesweepers, don't remember what they get classed as in 2. Basically 200 ton things with a popgun on the back that goes like 12 knots. If you've got lots of money (50k+) for a few months in a row the government may take some of it and reduce your budget. Corvettes are still in RTW2, but AFAIK you can only build them during wartime and they get scrapped immediately as soon as you agree on peace. You can build cheap 300 ton destroyers to use for trade protection though, just don't expect them to win any fights.
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May 22, 2019 23:52
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Squiggle posted:...Do you mean "tiny destroyers" since I don't see corvettes as a class option? That's odd, they should be right under destroyers in the ship designer. You can't build them below 600 tons in peacetime but they should always be an option to build. But yeah in the 1900 start I suppose a 500ish ton destroyer would be about as cheap and also more useful so I'd build that instead.
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May 23, 2019 00:12
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Does RTW2 still allow that strategy that permits you to build a CL with two 8-inch turrets, a few 4-inch secondary batteries, and above average speed at the start of the game? I could never tell if that was a bug or not. Anyways, it was always my go-to for winning the early convoy raiding war, since the AI could never produce CLs and DDs capable of matching them, and the early CAs couldn't keep up. Basically all the strengths of a BC without many of the weaknesses.
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May 23, 2019 00:28
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Bremen posted:Corvettes are still in RTW2, but AFAIK you can only build them during wartime and they get scrapped immediately as soon as you agree on peace. sum posted:That's odd, they should be right under destroyers in the ship designer. You can't build them below 600 tons in peacetime but they should always be an option to build. But yeah in the 1900 start I suppose a 500ish ton destroyer would be about as cheap and also more useful so I'd build that instead. I saw MS and AMC and...XX?, but yeah nothing else. Just to clarify, this is RTW1, if that matters. I did read in the manual that AMCs are sold off in peacetime, so maybe that's what you're thinking of Bremen?
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May 23, 2019 00:41
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RTW1 MS (Minesweepers) were reclassified as KE (Corvette) in RTW2. For RTW1, design a cheap MS and build a couple of dozen - you'll want them for patrol in wartime so you don't tie up useful ships. As for budget, there's not much point in accumulating money in RTW 1. All it really does is allow you to run a deficit longer.
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May 23, 2019 00:48
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RTW budget reductions are actually pretty realistic. Any government agency at pretty much any level that's running a surplus is gonna see that money taken away from them.
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May 23, 2019 01:17
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You can have KE during peace time, but they need to be at least 600 tons, smaller KE are suppose to be civilian ship pressed into service and are way faster to build but can't be kept outside of war.
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May 23, 2019 01:17
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Something to remember is that you don’t necessarily always want to be building the biggest ship you possibly can all the time. The AI watches your designs too and if you start building bigger ships than them they’ll respond in kind and then it’s a dreadnought race, which tends to get expensive. As Italy, don’t forget to take advantage of being able to build short-range, cramped ships with engines built for speed. You can save a huge amount of tonnage this way compared to what the U.K. will have to do. Light cruisers do one of two things, but not both: control the trade lanes or disrupt them. A CL for disrupting trade lanes has long range, maybe reliable engines, good speed, and only a few guns (seriously, 2x5” and some 3-4” secondaries will be fine). Put it into Raider status during a war and it will attack enemy shipping and get you points automatically. A CL for controlling trade lanes will have a bunch of 6” guns, a little armor (2-3” belt and turret armor and 1” deck), and enough speed to have a chance of catching the raiders, which will make it much larger and more expensive. For CAs, one of the designs I keep coming back to in my games is a big, expensive 4x10” CA with 10-14x6” secondaries and enough speed to run down enemy CAs. These are pricey (though in your case you can give these short range and cramped conditions just like your battleships) but in wartime their job is to chase enemy CAs, catch up, and process them into a fine mulch of VPs. CAs basically start to drop out of favor once BCs become a thing, but they start to come back towards the end of the RtW1 timeframe, or earlier if there’s a treaty.
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May 23, 2019 02:11
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PBJ posted:Does RTW2 still allow that strategy that permits you to build a CL with two 8-inch turrets, a few 4-inch secondary batteries, and above average speed at the start of the game? I could never tell if that was a bug or not. I built this in my current game, apparently early enough that it had a 1903 refit. I didn't get to use it very much until it was obsolete, but it did ok.  If I increase the guns to 8" and fill up the unused hull space, it's a legal CL design now (1936), but if I switch it away from protected cruiser armor it's a CA. 9" guns with protected cruiser armor is also a CA.
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May 23, 2019 07:34
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I tend to start my battle line at a 20kt average speed in 1900 and try to increase it by 2kt every 10 years or so. Your 1920s BBs can stay viable for a surprisingly long time with good initial design and periodic refits as tech development slows.
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May 23, 2019 08:28
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So I just wanted to pop in and say thanks alot for the recommendations on surface warfare "simulator" games. I've played Atlantic Fleet for about 30 hours or so now and its been absolutely wonderful so far.
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May 23, 2019 08:36
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SerthVarnee posted:So I just wanted to pop in and say thanks alot for the recommendations on surface warfare "simulator" games. I've played Atlantic Fleet for about 30 hours or so now and its been absolutely wonderful so far. Oh, just finished the tutorial did you?
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May 23, 2019 09:25
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Okay, here's my two cents on RTW. Just build destroyers. Torpedoes kill things, and destroyers go fast. They're also cheap enough to replace when they get sunk. Anything else is irrelevant.
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May 23, 2019 11:51
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Two days and no activation code. I'm glad this model is working for them.
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May 23, 2019 13:50
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Just when I was ever so slightly waffling on whether to buy or not... Thanks for reminding me why I chose not to buy.
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May 23, 2019 13:53
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Just ask for a refund. Either you'll get their full attention or you'll get your money back and remove monetary support for these idiots, either way it's a win! Please stop rewarding grog developers' incompetence.
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May 23, 2019 13:56
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Hey, someone posted this in the old thread, but can someone give me a link to the game in development that looks like it uses a remade Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic engine?
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May 23, 2019 14:52
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MrYenko posted:Two days and no activation code. 
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May 23, 2019 14:53
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Can you cancel your orders? I'm gonna guess that's not even an option.
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May 23, 2019 15:49
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Popete posted:Can you cancel your orders? I'm gonna guess that's not even an option. You mean, like, in some way that doesn't involve sending a stamped letter? No. EDIT: Joke aside, you have to email them and they handle it on a case-by-case basis. EDIT 2: The best thing about this clusterfuck is that I discovered that NWS sells Advanced Squad Leader modules, and they have surprisingly low prices on board games. Squiggle fucked around with this message at 18:27 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 18:07
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Squiggle posted:EDIT 2: The best thing about this clusterfuck is that I discovered that NWS sells Advanced Squad Leader modules, and they have surprisingly low prices on board games. NWS is the absolute best place to buy boardgames, though stock can sometimes be spotty.
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May 23, 2019 19:07
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Outside of purchasing issue, how buggy is the game?
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May 23, 2019 19:33
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Grey Hunter posted:Oh, just finished the tutorial did you? Close. I've gotten about halfway through 1942 so far and i've sunk 4 of the 6 german battleships and around 250 other warships. They were at about halfway point in regard to sinking enough of my merchant ships per month, but then the americans got dragged into the war and now they are at 1/7th of their needed merchant kills. Turns out torpedoes are loving wunderwaffen against german subs.
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May 23, 2019 19:41
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 05:09 |
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FrozenVent posted:Outside of purchasing issue, how buggy is the game? I see a lot of floating point errors, pop ups with no text or just the ship name, and pop ups that say my budget is cut and then the actual budget increases. Occasionally the ship designer takes a dump on me too. The 2nd most annoying thing is pushing play for the airplane thunderdome a few hundred times.
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May 23, 2019 20:28
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