Ship repair proposal

[Yamamoto]

I own and play Uncommon Valor and think it is a fantastic game. There is one area where I think it could be improved though, and that is in the area of ship repair.

In WiTP I would like to see ‘repair squads’ the same way we have ‘aviation support’. These squads would do their thing on damaged ships that were docked at their port. There would be a limit on how many repair units could work at a given port based on port size.

The current system in UV is based purely on port size. Each turn there is a random chance that any damaged ship at a port will have a point of damage repaired. It doesn’t matter how many damaged ships are in port. The only think that matters is port size.

Yamamoto

[byron13]

I'm going to respond because I'm bored and feeling cantankerous.

I disagree.

First, the game is going to be large enough that we don't need any more REMF units running around.

Second, the size of the port is probably the most relevant factor in the rate of ship repair - if you assume the size of the port reflects the size, capacity, and sophistication of the repair facilities. You drop 5,000 welders on a desert isle, and they will be severely hampered by the lack of heavy cranes, drydocks, rail lines wharfside to transport heavy items, etc. The size of the port reflects the availability of these resources, and it is assumed that the port has the manpower to repair ships at the most efficient rate.

[ltfightr]

I think port size would works as a repair rate in UV. What I do not like in UV is 3 things:

1. How random the repair rate is. I want to prioritize repair not have a carrier sit in port ignored while a pt boat gets repaired.

2. The amount of time it takes to repair damage. A ship hits port with a list of repairs, many will be eazy fixes a part not on the ship at sea but on hand at a major port. Maybe the last few points (3-4) should go slow waiting on rare parts or just a system that is buggy but large amounts of damage should go a little quicker than currently in a major ports. By making a push to get a major ship repared. Perhaps tied to the supplies in the port.

3. The amount of system damage ships take in regular sailing. While I agree things break they should not break as quickly or as much. maybe after 10 sys damage the rate slows.

[loader6]

I agree that ships take too much system damage from just sailing. Then again I've never been on a Navy ship at sea either. Anybody who was/is in the Navy who can enlighten me in how often stuff breaks, especially stuff that affects ship performance like system damage does. Thanks,
Loader6

[Jeremy Pritchard]

I would like to see an 'emergency patchup' option that would do what they did to the USS Yorktown after the Coaral Sea. It would repair the vessel, making it seaworthy, but just barely combatworthy. It repairs the major damage, by putting a lot of effort toward quickly making the ship capable of joining the fleet. It should be very uneconomical (i.e., take the resources away from most other ships repairing in the port, depending on the size of port) and the ship should have potential flaws and/or a much weakened armour and/or durability. Also, should the ship ever be repaired so it would be back to regular status, the repair job would take place as if the ship was in the same condition as it was BEFORE the emergency patchup. This is basically an emergency option, when you really need an extra ship for a few months, and am willining to take the risk and waste the needed resources on it.

[EricLarsen]

Yamamoto,
I'm with you on this one. I want to see "naval support" squads that repair ships like aviation support does planes. Port size just isn't a good indicator of repair, ports do not repair anything people repair stuff and the game should reflect that. The chaotic random repair of UV just plain stinks as you can have one damaged ship in a level 9 port and it will only get one repair chance, whereas if you have 100 damaged ships in the same port you'll get 100 repair chances. What should happen is that if a port has a naval HQ with say 90 naval support squads then that port should carry out 90 repair attempts (with a random factor for being successful or not) regardless of whether there's one ship in port or 100 ships. That's what's wrong with relying on port size and the random factor in UV, there no quantifying how much repair a port does each turn based on the port's ability to conduct repairs. It's only based upon how many damaged ships are in port and the repair rate fluctuates with the number of damaged ships in port.

I would like to see naval support squads in the naval HQ's so that ship repair is limited to a few big ports, just the way it was historically. By using naval HQ's with naval support squads you don't have to create anymore new units. It would also have the benefit of giving naval HQ's something tangible to do. I sure don't see them doing anything to enhance or detract from tf ops the way Pacific War made naval HQ's responsible for doling out operations points.

I also would like to see naval HQ's control how many ops points big CV and BB tf's can have. There should be some way to keep a player from basing his big CV's and BB's at some minor port like Lunga or Tulagi as if it were Truk or Rabaul. I think that naval HQ's aren't being utilized well in UV and they're basically nothing but another worthless unit that is only good for providing ground unit support because all it is filled with is plain support.

I also think that there should be some kind of ship class list that a player can designate what class of ships he wants repaired as a priority and the port will then concentrate all repair on just that class of ship. That could help emulate what Nimitz did with Yorktown between Coral Sea and Midway.

So what's a nice Fighting Flattops player like you doing in a place like this??? Enjoying the realism I guess.

Eric Larsen

[Jeremy Pritchard]

Actually, emergency emergency repairs could be done anywhere. A few ships had their bows or sterns blown off, but were repaired at nearby ports to be able to sail to main ports for total repair.

The idea of repair squads is redundant. Just make fixed repair facilities a part of certain ports. Most ports had some sort of drydock and repairs that could handle small vessels (probably up to light cruiser), but for heavy ships you had to go to major military bases for heavy repair (you can repair superficial damage anywhere, even at sea).

I feel all that needs to be added are some special repair facilities as a part of ports. Limitations of full repairs should be inacted. For example, Sorebaja had drydocks and port facilities to fully repair lighter vessels (destroyers and such) but could not repair Cruisers or larger vessels.

Also, these facilites were not easy to create or expand (took months to years). The US had the ability to make anchorages, but not repair facilities, in captured Atolls.

They should be something different, but not squads, rather infrastructure. Possibly even rating the actual avalible drydocks for types of vessels? Maybe Pearl had the ability to repair 2 capitol ships (BB, CV, CA, CL) and 8 light ships (DD, DE, SS, etc..) at a time? You state which vessel will be going into drydock. Many USN BB's were patched up at Pear Harbour, but sent to the West Coast for complete repairs (to free up repair facilities at Pearl)

[mdiehl]

This is an interesting idea but not sure how necessary it is. The port size has worked as a good proxy for me. It would be nice, though, if one could assign priority to a ship in any given port.

In addition, the USN and the IJN both operated support vessels with dedicated repair facilties. You're not going to be swapping out Houston's jammed-in-train turret with a tender, but repairs to electrical systems, significant welding jobs, repairs to secondary systems, &c could be field jobs. IIRC USN submarines benefitted heavily from their tenders.

Perhaps such proposed repair squads could be assumed to be inherent with tenders. The presence of a tender in a port enhances the repair capacity of the port.

[byron13]

Jeremy, I buy off on what you said.

mdiehl, I buy off on what you said as well. "Proxy" is the perfect term. The size of the port is a proxy for the ship repair capability of in that area.

Eric, I agree with much of what you said except for the repair squads. You are correct that men repair things, but they don't repair things without adequate facilities. Again, putting 5,000 welders (or 10 ship repair units) on an atoll will not get a new turret on a battleship. You need the facilities, which usually increase in quality with the size of the port. It is a good proxy. Heck, let's have welder units and propulsion units and riveter units - yeah, that's the ticket.

Note that I'm not agreeing with the way repair is currently done. I think you should be able to prioritize. But having ship repair units that I have to cart all over the Pacific in a monster game is too laborious and not realistic. If you want increased repair capability at a port, increase the size of the port.

[Yamamoto]

I think everyone has forgotten that in my original post I said that the repair squads would still be limited by the size of the port. For example port size times 50 would be the maximum number of repair squads that could be used at a base. No one said anything about dropping thousands of repair teams on an atoll.

Yamamoto

[Jeremy Pritchard]

In reality, the areas for ship repair MUST be near a form of civilian population, as this is where most of the workforce is. Also, neither side was really willing to risk these workers, skilled or not, in being positioned in the front lines.

The key to ship repair is manpower and facilities. There were specific facilities and specific areas of manpower. They are fairly limited. The size of repair depended on the two factors. Some bases simply could not repair capitol ships, and some did not have the room to repair more then a few at a time.

These squads you talk about should not be movable, and limited to the main areas of ship repair. These being...

Specific cities in the Japanese Home Islands.
Specific cities on the US West Coast.
Oahu.
Singapore.
Sorebaja.
Colombo.
Sydney.

And there would be very few others.

There will be the USN mobile repair force, and the Japanese Navy had a few naval repair vessels, but the majority of ship repair should take place in only a few specific bases.

All that other ports should offer ships is enough temporary repairs so they will not sink on their way to the real ports.

So, squads are redundant, as there should only be a few specific ports with the ability to repair vessels (with infrastructure and manpower fused as one factor), and these should have stated LIMITS to repair, and how this might affect new shipbuilding, if at all. Also, an order of repair should be included as well, as admirals were able to give priorities.

[Toro]

I like the repair squads idea, but they should be restricted in what level they can repair. A SIMA team or Tender, for instance, couldn't rightly repair a 50 sys damage CV in Tulagi.

Someone asked what kind of damage ships at sea can take. Generally, normal sailing sees light damage (in these kinds of games terms), perhaps upward of 10-15 damage points. Heavy seas can cause severe damage, and on some occasions primary equipment can fail (a part goes bad, boiler fire, etc), which can actually cause much more severe damage. But, those aren't too common. I think normal steaming damage is a bit more severe in this game than perhaps reality. I'd like to see normal steaming damage limited in scope (10-15 points, max?) and frequency (odds are, a ship is not going to see 10-15 points damage on a two week cruise), but add "random" events ("oops! you've just had a boiler fire, and your life now sucks!") which can cause much more severe damage (but not too often, mind you).

[Piiska]

If we consider the port size value, it has two very different functions. First it determines the loading/unloading rate of the ships. Secondly it defines the ‘chance’ of repairing ships. However, as Jeremy noted. “The US had the ability to make anchorages, but not repair facilities, in captured Atolls”. These are very different things by their nature and should be separated somehow.

Perhaps the easiest solution to the problem would be to alter the port size definitions; you can build only up to size 7 ports in the captured areas, but their unload/load rates could be almost as high as the bases with size 8 and 9.

Size 8 and 9 should only be restricted to places that had historical capability to repair capital vessels (see Jeremy's list). Along this vein, you could do emergency patch ups (all flood damage and maybe 5 points of sys damage) in below 8 ports to all types of ships, but you could properly repair (all of the sys damage) only small ships such as DD in them.

Size 8 would be the same as size nine in regards to types of ships it can repair, but the rate of repair would be slower in comparison to size 9. For example, Pearl Harbour could be size 8.

Size 9 should be reserved only to ports that actually build ships from scratch and have the best equipment, supply lines and availability of workers, such as Tokio and US West Coast.

With this system you could build effective base heads that could do small repairs for any ships, but you would have to consider carefully when to send your ships to Pearl Harbour, or even back to US to do the heaviest stuff.

Also the amount of ships that can be repaired simultaneously should be reflected. Perhaps size 8 port can only repair x number of capital ships at time when 9 can repair them unlimitedly.

The system where you have 100 ships and 100 attempts is bad, and it shouldn’t be too impossible to implement the priority system instead, which is much more realistic and practical.

Ship repair squads as suchs are not neccesary needed. I believe that simply the availability of the base force is enough. Obviously it doesn't do much good if you have a size 7 port without any people, so in order to acquire port repair benefit the port should have ground personnel in it, but base forces as they are, should be enough to simulate this without getting too nitty gritty.

[EricLarsen]

I still think that trying to use ports only as a means for controlling repair just won't work. The Pacific War and Uncommon Valor games both overstate most port sizes and the ability to build them up quickly. I think that size limits for port and airfield sizes needs to be cut down a bit as it seems like any old place can be a level 9 port the equal of Pearl. The new game also denigrates the importance of naval HQ's as they are nothing but ground unit support enhancers. I like having naval repair squads in naval HQ's to control repair by how much can be repaired any turn and what ships could be repaired. I also want naval HQ's to control the ops points better so that tf's coming out of ports with a major naval HQ get more ops points than coming out of some small backwater port with no naval HQ. Naval repair for big ships needs to be better controlled so that only a few ports will have the capability to repair big ships with lots of battle damage.
Eric Larsen

[mdiehl]

IN PW, not all level 9 ports functioned equally. IIRC there were "shipyard" points (listed under the View Industries menu) that affected new construction *and* repair. Anyhow, if "shipyard" did *not* affect repair rates in PW, then they *shoud* affect repair rates in WitP. Then you won't have Port Moresby upgrading ships at the same rate as Colombo or Pearl.

[DoomedMantis]

I also feel that damage that's incurred while cruising accumulates to quickly, especially when 0-10 is meant to represent minor system faults. I find it hard to believe that a ship will continue to get system damage at the same rate after this amount. Also what about on board repairs. Each ship has the ability to repair minor damage while they are cruising and this is not represented in UV.

With regards to ship repair allocation, I agree wholeheartedly that there should be a priority rating for ships to be repaired, as this is what happens in real life. That CV is worth so much more to you than an AP or DD that happened to come in at the same time or even before. Maybe if the base had used its allocation of repair berths, there could be a time penalty for removing one ship and replacing it with another in the repair schedule. The current random nature of repairs is dissapointing to say the least.

I also feel that Naval HQ's should be given a greater role in the game. A base with a Naval HQ could receive a loading/unloading bonus.

Whether or not we have repair teams I'm not going to get into the debate except to say I don't think we need individual units, but something attached to the naval HQ's to represent efficiency of repairs might be worthwhile, not the actual workers themselves as mostly these where civilian.

DoomedMantis

[Supervisor]

Originally posted by DoomedMantis
...Also what about on board repairs. Each ship has the ability to repair minor damage while they are cruising and this is not represented in UV.

I have had ships repair damage while at sea, so I would think that would indicate some ability for ships to do minor repairs.

[DoomedMantis]

Yes but was that system damage or flood or fire damage. I have seen them reduce the later two, but never system damage. If they can then I withdraw that part of my last comment.

Doomed

[herbieh]

Just started to read this thread and somebody asked for some real life feedback on how quick a ship sustains damage.
Well for the last 18 months of my career I was the senior sailor in charge of a 34 year old steam destroyer, which basically ran the same boilers as a WW2 BB, CL and DD . Turbines and pumps were also little advanced from WW2, steam in, it turns, water out.
Well i can truly say that despite all the besy efforts we never ever had 0 systems damage. We always had at least 5 to 6 within 6 hours of flashing up, ie, several major pumps down, a leaking valve somewhere, water problems. 4 boilers onboard= 34 knots. Loose one boiler, =27 knots, ie system damage, what? 15?.loose two boilers, = 27 knots( complicated isnt it!) We basically only had 4 boilers available for about 9 months a year for my entire time in the puss.
Paradoxically, the longer you are at sea, the BETTER system damage gets, ie, the sailors fix the dockie cock ups, stores finally catch up, and you get on top of the work ( working 24 hrs, not 8 a day.)
Sometimes we sailed at at least 75 system damage, ie, only one boiler, one shaft available.(next day damage 5)
Hope this helps.
By the way, flying in repair team NEVER helped much, they NEVER
had the required bits, or facilities.
You can only get big jobs fixed in big ports.
And I never let "strangers" fix my stuff if I could possibly get away with it.

PS Beer is good

[DoomedMantis]

Originally posted by herbieh

Paradoxically, the longer you are at sea, the BETTER system damage gets, ie, the sailors fix the dockie cock ups, stores finally catch up, and you get on top of the work ( working 24 hrs, not 8 a day.)
Sometimes we sailed at at least 75 system damage, ie, only one boiler, one shaft available.(next day damage 5)
Hope this helps.
By the way, flying in repair team NEVER helped much, they NEVER
had the required bits, or facilities.
You can only get big jobs fixed in big ports.
And I never let "strangers" fix my stuff if I could possibly get away with it.

PS Beer is good

Firstly, was most of the damage that was incurred due to the age of your vessell (34 years)?

Secondly the point about repairing system damage while cruising, I agree with, if you had a problem you had people on board who knew the ins and out of their individual ships intimetley, and were therefore in a better position to fix 'minor' problems while cruising. Any major damage would still have to be repaired in a port with the proper facilities, but the crew would still work on it after the dockies had finished.

Next day damage 5 from 75, I'd like to see that modeled in the game

Doomed

ps Yes I agree, beer is good