Couple of questions, mostly naval

[AlanC9]

First, what's the story with battleship models? The treaty battleship is superior to the fast battleship in sea defense. Did the North Carolinas really have better armor than the Iowas, or the KGVs more armor than Vanguard? And why are the models in reverse order in battleship.txt, anyway?

(I noticed this when refitting my copy with naval combat strengths along the lines of the Starfire mod, since standard naval combat is completely indecisive. I actually got good results out of this)

Is there any advantage to purpose-built CAGs? The units and techs seem to be the same whatever you do.

Why does the Netherlands start with schnorkel tech?

Why am I even asking naval questions, since this is being reworked in the next release.

And on ground issues, non-medium tanks seem to come with substantial penalties if you keep researching them, particularly heavies. Have people found them useful anyway?

 

[baylox]

Re. Purpose-built CAGs: Its true the stats are the same for CAGs, but the Purpose-built ones (the techs) are available a year earlier than their Converted variants and they don't require any other aircraft techs to research (Converted requires CAS and either INT or FTR of more or less same year as the CAG tech).

 

[HistoryMan]

Why does the Netherlands start with schnorkel tech?

Mainly because they invented it... Have a look at http://ubootwaffe.net/glossary/glossary.cgi?sect=27;abb= for instance.

We've discussed the Battleship issue before - and it is under consideration as part of the naval review, so you may well see some changes here. Note that a later model of ship does not automatically imply a "better" ship, so that this "reversal" of models isn't necessarily wrong, as such.

Re Non-Medium tanks - the issue is one of proliferating your designs and therefore splitting your research and production lines, hence the penalties associated with continuing to the later models here.

Tim

 

[AlanC9]

Mainly because they invented it... Have a look at http://ubootwaffe.net/glossary/glossary.cgi?sect=27;abb= for instance.

OK, but in-game this means that the British and Americans get the blueprint, and will probably end up with the tech before Germany. Unless the AI ignores the tech; haven't checked.

We've discussed the Battleship issue before - and it is under consideration as part of the naval review, so you may well see some changes here. Note that a later model of ship does not automatically imply a "better" ship, so that this "reversal" of models isn't necessarily wrong, as such.

But according to the tech dates and model names, the "fast battleships" are the Iowas and Vanguard, which were clearly superior to the treaty designs. The other fast battleships are hypotheticals. I just can't figure out the design intent here; are the hypotheticals driving the design?

Re CAGs: I never noticed, because the tech screen is wrong about the 1 year delay -- the techs are right, but the conversion tech names give the wrong year. I'm sure this is already reported.

Re Non-Medium tanks - the issue is one of proliferating your designs and therefore splitting your research and production lines, hence the penalties associated with continuing to the later models here.

Tim

Fair enough. But have you found the heavy and lights tracks to be worth pursuing? I never liked them much in vanilla, and now I like them less. But I haven't done the math on the attachments

 

[HistoryMan]

As to the schnorkel, well, the British were indeed given the details for it in 1940, but chose to essentially ignore it. The first British design to include a Schnorkel was the A class, designed in 1943, but not actually built until after WW2. No conversion work on existing British subs was carried out during the war.

In game, the way to resolve this (for the AI) is to put the tech either on the ignore list (a bit harsh) or to at least not prioritise it, so that the AI will tend to get round to it later rather than sooner.

Tim

 

[Hagar]

As to the schnorkel, well, the British were indeed given the details for it in 1940, but chose to essentially ignore it. The first British design to include a Schnorkel was the A class, designed in 1943, but not actually built until after WW2. No conversion work on existing British subs was carried out during the war.

In game, the way to resolve this (for the AI) is to put the tech either on the ignore list (a bit harsh) or to at least not prioritise it, so that the AI will tend to get round to it later rather than sooner.

Tim

Not only that, in 1940 they insisted that the Schnorkel should be removed from the Dutch subs O21 and O22 after they evaded towards the UK, as the Royal Navy found the system to be 'unnecessary and dangerous'...
In 1933 the O16 was the first sub fitted out with the 'Snuiver' (literally 'Sniffer') system, which later would become famous as the 'Schnorkel'. Both the O19 and O21 class were fitted with these 'getrimde diesel systemen' (trimmed diesel systems), and with the capture of the O25, O26 and O27 in May 1940 the Germans were able to copy it for their own use. For more information I can recommend http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/ .