The world's newest and fastest merchant marine???

[elcid]

You cannot tell from UV that Japan had (deliberately) the newest and fastest merchant marine in the world. The third largest, it had for decades subsidized ship production with certain conditions - that old ships be taken out of service and that new ones meet minimum speed conditions. They also had a large motor fleet, that is, diesel powered ships with great range - usually faster than the steamships of similar size. Most Japanese APs ran 18-22 knots. Most AKs went 12 knots. Many of the ships in UV are documented at significantly higher speeds than they have in the game. Why is this????

[Drex]

That's a significant bit of news. the trip to Truk wouldn't take forever. One day maybe Matrix will update this.

[mogami]

Hi, In UV all Japanese merchant ships belong to one of three classes
1k 2k 3k.
In WITP they are in
AP Class
4.5k 14kt
3k 12 kt
1.5k 11kt

AK
7k 11kt
3.5k 10kt

AP load and unload troops
AK load and unload supply

AP load and unload supply slower then they do troops
AK load and unload troops slower then they do supply.

I don't think final stats for any ship have been decided. Also more types are included
AE,AS,AD,AR

Already WITP has reached points where items can not be backward transfered without also redoing the entire data base. (I am not in position to say whether this will occur or not but the differing scales of game already result in new airgroup and land unit types and sizes)