Wear and Tear at sea

[Nikademus]

Given WitP's larger scale, I was wondering if there were going to be any changes to the "wear and tear" model curently implemented in UV.

Besides the larger hex scale and bigger map, i have a couple concerns regarding the model as seen in UV. In reading about USN carrier ops between late 41 and early 43, I was impressed to find out just how much time at sea the USN carrier TF's spent due to concerns over a "repeat" Pearl Harbor. In the early days the general rule of thumb was no more than 1 carrier TF (out of three total) at Pearl at a time and then for only as long as necessary i.e., get in, replenish, get out.

In short...carriers and their escorts spent alot of time at sea so while crusing speeds dont put a huge amount of incidental SYS on a ship, it does start to quickly add up the more time a ship stays out of port. Since propulsion speed is currently linked to SYS, this can turn into a problem rather quickly.

Incidental SYS is very acute of course in bombardment and Fast Transport missions which require short bursts of high speed and will very quickly reach signifigant SYS within 10 missions or less on average.

Now this may not be as much of a problem in WitP if the ports with actual repair facilities can quickly knock this back down, but currently in UV, it can take months to bring even a modest level of SYS (say 20%) down to under 5, after which one or two fast transport or bombardment type missions will quickly bring that back up by half or more. Given the way it works in UV right now....it would be very difficult for one to recreate say, for example the Tokyo Express runs that ran almost nightly for almost half a year, at least not without rotating a navy's entire DD arm through it because of the mass SYS being acumulated due to wear and tear. Carriers also are not able to spend extended times at sea, not to mention, just traversing say from Japan to Truk, or Pearl Harbor (or worse....the West Coast) to Normura or Australia which could prove problematic

While i think incidental SYS is a good thing to have to represent the eventual need for ships to spend some down-time resting and refitting in a port, i'm wondering if perhaps it should be or will be toned down a bit for WitP? The AI in particular seems oblivous to incidental SYS as well as i routinely spot and attack warships that i've never previously fought that have the little wisps of smoke coming out of them which indicate +10% SYS. My feeling on this is that warship powerplants are a tad bit more durable than currently showing in UV and can handle the stress of higher speeds for longer periods of times. If one is talking "months" of heavy use running around without a refit, i can see signifigant SYS accumulating, but not after a couple of weeks (or around 10 missions of bombardment or fast transport)

[mogami]

Hi, I think just placing a limit on the amount of sys damage a ship can gain from sailing around would work nicely (rather then a complex formula for adding/subtracting damage from being underway. say 7-8 points would be the maxium amount a ship could have from non battle damage.
But, in lieu of adding more points have major casualties possible
Example a ship is at sea for an extended period. It accumulates the maxium system damage, now instead of gaining more system damage from being at sea it has to check from time to time for a breakdown.
Main reduction gear, Boiler going off line, things that reduce the ships speed and can only be repaired at a shipyard/repair port.
This would allow ships to remain at sea for long intense periods without depleting the entire Navy but still reproduce the "risks" of such use.

Combat ships normaly need to spend a month or two every 18 or so months to refit/repair. I do not know how hard it would be to keep track but if a system for normal yard periods was in place it would be easy to hand out random system damage, just give it to ships that have missed their yard period.

Repair ships and tenders can provide yard periods in forward areas. (2-3 week period) to halt/repair system damage from long periods at sea.

[Nikademus]

thats a really good idea Mogami. I was thinking of something similar myself (a check for critical breakdown) but figured it might not sit well given all the morass of details already being considered.

So toning down the incidental SYS routine seemed like an easier suggestion.

[CapAndGown]

I like Mogami's idea. Wouldn't mind seeing it in UV as well, though this might be harder; need to send em back to Pearl once and while?

[lucascuccia]

I am glad someone has thought this was screwie also. I am sick and tired of ships making a single sortie and all of a sudden, half of the ships in the force take damage. Either the model needs to be changed to ease up on the points generated, Mogami's idea needs to be implemented, or ports should be able to repair this kind of damage much more quickly. If the ship is at see for only one day, it should only take a similar amount of time to fix it.

[Toro]

To take a tangent, underway replentishment would also have to incorporate replentishment of ammo, which UV doesn't do now (at least the last time I checked). Otherwise, you're forced back into port after every engagement or two regardless.

[tanjman]

For underway replenishment (UnRep) the following ship types will need to be included:

AE -- Ammunition Ships
AF -- Provision Store Ships

For forward ship repair (Service Squadrons) the following ship types will need to be included:

ABSD -- Advanced Base Section Dock
AD -- Destroyer Tenders
AGP -- Motor Torpedo Boat Tenders
AR -- Repair Ships
ARB -- Battle-Damage Repair Ships
ARD -- Floating Dry Docks
ARH -- Heavy-Hull Repair Ship
ARL -- Landing-Craft Repair Ships
AS -- Submarine Tenders
ATF -- Ocean Tugs, Fleet

There are probally some I missed.