Moderators: Joel Billings, wdolson, Don Bowen, mogami
mag explosions in battle are very rare so a 1% figure is not unreasonable,
ORIGINAL: Nikademus
One of the aspects of my preposal for more dynamic FIRE interaction was just that....the poss of uncontrolled fires based on the current FIRE level. This was a feature of past GG tactical games. The higher the FIRE level, the greater the possibility of add'l FIRE levels being created. Thus, for example if you had under 20 FL's and good Damage Control, you would have a good chance of reducing FL's and saving the ship. However if you had say, 45 FL's then you were in trouble as the chance for additional FL's would be exponentially greater and if the DC level is not up to the task, you are faced with a losing proposition. Thus FL's could go both UP as well as DOWN. Each turn damage might be caused up to and including a critical event dependant on a random and the current FL. Merchants should be extremely vulnerable to such a thing and it's absense is one reason why merchants are over durable in the game. A quick read from Frank will reveal that the majority of merchant casualties resulted from reletively small numbers of hits that started fires that eventually consumed the ships.
However this would require a complete rewrite of the code because a key difference in WitP/UV is that FL generation is much greater than in those old GG games. In past games any FL above 20 was extremely dangerous, but in the game this is a common occurance. a strike by SBD's with GP bombs for example can routinely cause FL's in the 30's and 40's. Under the old system this would be a virtual death sentance for both sides every time. Never forget my first reaction to this effect after purchasing UV. I had an american tanker hit and next turn i saw that it had 40 fire levels. Because of my past GG game experience, my first thought was "crap! that ship is dead!" I was suprised to see next turn that the FL's had been cut in half. Next turn it was under 10, next turn, fires out. Only some add'l SYS had been caused.
Sadly, such a complete re-write is not economically feasible. To quote Commander Korr though....."It would have been glorious..." [;)]
ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Ron, I understand your feeling about not being able to redesign parts of WitP. However, I think you're overstating it about no Alpha phase. The game was in testing for over 18 months IIRC and we made tons of changes based on tester comments. It's very true that we chose not to rewrite many/most major systems as way too much work (in terms of code time, bug fixing time, and balancing time) versus the benefit, but I very much disagree that we weren't influenced by UV player and WitP tester comments during the 18 months of alpha and beta testing. I can't make you agree with me about the importance of the things we did change relative to those you wanted to change, but relative to other games I've worked on, this had a longer test cycle and more user/tester suggested changes than most.
ORIGINAL: Tankerace
Wrong dude. 2 cases.
On 21 November 1944, the battleship Kongo took 1 torpedo (some sources speculate 2) from the submarine Sealion II. After a few hours, she was dead in the water and sinking. Then, without anywarning, she blew up and sank.
On 25 November 1941, HMS Barham took 3 torpedoes from U-331 in the Mediterranian. As she bgan to list very rapidly, her magazines suddenly exploded and she capsized and sank very quickly.
ORIGINAL: Tankerace
Eh? Report I read, supposedly cited from the official Japanese history, claim her forward 14" magazine went off, rather unexpectedly.
Water would flash into superheated steam when it came into contact with the boilers. Yes, the fire would be extinguished, but it isn't just the fire that is hot. The boilers themselves represent a significant thermal mass. All that energy would have to go somewhere. In a similar way I have read about an accident in a steel mill in which the molten contents of a crucible spilled onto a concrete floor. The floor itself exploded when the water contained throughout its porous structure flashed instantly into steam.As to Barham, boilers flood. They would have to be cranked wide open to blow.
