Durability Question

[Tom_Holsinger]

What factors are used in computing ship class durability in WPO? I ask because pre-dreadnought battleships clearly have higher ratings than they'd have if displacement tonnage alone was involved.

[Rysyonok]

Quality of armor, its thickness and location. Crew training. Water control systems.
 
Durability ultimately is a guessed number. If you disagree with a value, it can be changed in seconds through the editor. However, the vast majority of them are good...

[Tom_Holsinger]

Thanks, Rysyonok.

WPO durability ratings as given make sense if they include armor effectiveness (thickness, quality and distribution). I thought, though, that armor was factored into the separate armor ratings. Which raises another question:

How does the WPO armor "system" for ships, and their armor ratings, differ from those in WITP (if they do at all), and from WITP-AE?

[Rysyonok]

Tom,

WPO 'armor' value affects penetration likelihood and 'durability' value affects extent of damage caused. You will notice ships that can take tons of beating as almost every shell explodes in their insides, and ships that will bounce off most of what comes at them, but once hit, go down quickly...

I daresay WPO and WITP are the same whereas WITP-AE is much more detailed.

To me, WPO is a nice, comfy medium between generic armor value games (e.g., Axis and Allies) and games where a ship will have close to 50 values for their armor (can't think of a title, but I've stumbled across a web-based game for WWI ships).

[Tom_Holsinger]

Rysyonok,

That is very helpful. I have a different question, one which I posted in the WITP-AE forums without any response. I have hundreds of hours of experience with the original Gary Grigsby's Pacific War, but am a newbie for WPO and WITP-AE.

The manuals for both the new games say that the fighting power of task forces larger than 15 ships is somehow diminished in anti-aircraft, and both attacking and defending in surface combat. I’d like to know how this is accomplished, if you know.

I’d also like to know, in vague & general terms, what factors the AI uses in determining what size task force to build in a given location, though this is limited to surface combat, bombardment and carrier task forces. I would particularly like to know if the AI tends to always build several TF's at a given port on any given turn (if it builds any at all) as opposed to one big TF, even if the port has only a few ships. I.e., will the AI build big task forces (say 10-15 ship TF's) only at ports with lots and lots of ships?

My experience in Pacific War was that the AI plain sucked at building effective task forces. It insisted on assembling several piddly little ones rather than one big TF, with the result that those kept getting destroyed by air attack or in surface combat while inflicting minimal damage, especially against full 15-ship/destroyer division player-assembled TF’s. Basically players used Mahanian principles of “Don’t Divide the Fleet” to assemble big, high fire-power TF’s which could easily defeat the smaller AI-assembled TF’s in detail.

I just purchased both WITP-AE and WPO, and have only watched a few AI vs. AI turns of each. It appears that the AI in both games keeps assembling the familiar piddly little TF’s. I have yet to see it assemble even squadron-sized battleship/battlecruiser TF’s – those seem to be only division-size at most and generally have only 2-3 dreadnoughts. AFAIK, those will be eaten by a big carrier strike in WITP, or a WPO player-assembled surface combat TF composed of an eight dreadnought squadron with 2-3 cruisers and a half-dozen destroyers as screen. Which means they would only be enjoyable in PBEM.

What is your experience on the size of AI-generated task forces in WPO? Is that any different for WITP-AE?

[Rysyonok]

> The manuals for both the new games say that the fighting power of task forces larger than 15 ships is somehow diminished in anti-aircraft, and both attacking and defending in surface combat. I’d like to know how this is accomplished, if you know.

The more ships you got in a task force, the less action will each one of them see. I go for 10-12 myself.

> I’d also like to know, in vague & general terms, what factors the AI uses in determining what size task force to build in a given location, though this is limited to surface combat, bombardment and carrier task forces. I would particularly like to know if the AI tends to always build several TF's at a given port on any given turn (if it builds any at all) as opposed to one big TF, even if the port has only a few ships. I.e., will the AI build big task forces (say 10-15 ship TF's) only at ports with lots and lots of ships?

AI ability to fight a naval war is very limited. This is a PBEM game

[Tom_Holsinger]

This is good news. It means the TF size limitation sort of works.

ORIGINAL: Rysyonok
> The more ships you got in a task force, the less action will each one of them see. I go for 10-12 myself.

>AI ability to fight a naval war is very limited. This is a PBEM game

But, sadly, not well enough. WITP-AE is too big for my PBEM taste. I'll give WPO a try after learning it.

[Rysyonok]

Play as Allies. Even if you totally screw up, your ships and troops will just keep coming.

[Tom_Holsinger]

I like the big guys banging on each other.