Matrix Games Forums

Which file and which field would i modify to remove ironclads having the ability to transport troops?

I'm checking with Eric. Expect a response soon...

I dont worry about that much, I just make the assumption that since NO combat vessel of the era was designed to carry large troop concentrations that the ability is given for the obvious support vessels that one can NOT make.

I know it's abstracted and that we can't produce transports. In my mind I'm fine with Fleets of Ships and Frigates abstractly having transports and other support vessels tagging along to move the armies. But I just can't justify in my mind a fleet of ironclads having wooden ships following them. Just a personal preference. I figure it would make the more expensive ships more important and diverse for their ability to fight and transport and leave ironclads just to conduct combat operations.

I found a can carry and carry type field but looking it over I want to make sure I'm changing the right thing before I screw somethign up. The look of the numbers assigned looks like it could have dual meanings and I don't want to remove the ability of ironclads to be assigned to fleet containers.

You can run a semi quick test. Save the folder , just rename it ( I add an (a) at end before the dot) make a single change in the file that the game will use and see what happens.

Repeat this until you get what you want or discover it isnt the right fields.

Best bet is to change one thing and if it isnt what you want, chage it back before changeing the other, if that still doesnt work THEN try changing both at the same time.

The ability of ironclads to carry troops is hard-coded. But as was pointed out, its accompanying ships that can carry the men. And it's not unrealistic to think that if the USA were sending an amphibious invasion it might have accompanied that fleet with an ironclad or two, just to make sure that things worked out right.

Ironclads rarely operated idependently of the more common wooden ships. Ironclads were part of flotillas and Flotillas had more wooden ships in them than ironclads. There was never a Flotilla composed solely of ironclads. Within a Squadron or Flotilla a Division could be composed solely of ironclads.

When operating on the inland rivers, ironclads were usually accompanied by wooden warships and transports.

Table of Organization for the Navy was: 1) The Fleet; 2) Squadrons; 3) Flotillas and/or Divisions; 4) Individual ships.

If a part of a Squadron, say the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, was detached to blockade a port such as for instance Savannah, then that part of the Squadron could be termed a Flotilla and perhaps a Division, although a Flotilla which was a smaller Squadron in effect, just may have had 2 or more Divisions in it, and a Division could be composed of a mixture of ironclads and wooden ships, solely ironclads, or solely wooden ships. Non-combatant ships were frequently directly attached to Flotillas and Divisions, and of course Squadrons.

Chris