Ship Speed and system damage

[Major Ball]

What is the relationship between system damaged and speed?

Is it better to have your TF moving behind you lines on cruise speed or mission speed?

Seems that whenever my ships are 1 move out of port they alway get some sort of system damage when on mission speed..chance is suppose to be 1 in 90 or something. My ships on mission speed seem to suffer a much higher rate than this....

I am aware at full speed the chances of system damage are increased greatly.

[Feinder]

What is the relationship between system damaged and speed?
Sys dmg is a 1:1 percent reduction in speed.  So a ship with 20 sys dmg, has a 20% speed reduction.  And speed losses are rounded to the slower speed (so you lose a full kt of speed with the first point of sys dmg).
 

Is it better to have your TF moving behind you lines on cruise speed or mission speed? 
I kinda depends.  For supply convoys, I always have them move at full speed.  Slower ships seem to accum sys slower at full speeds, and because their speed is slower to begin with, the speed loss from sys is less dramatic because they're moving slower anyway.  Might as well go 2/2 instead of 2/1, it gets your convoy there 25% faster.  For combat TFs, behind the lines, I usually go at mission speed.  While you do rack up a little more sys dmg from mission vs. cruise, it's not that bad.  If I'm sending a ship back for repairs (that doesn't have flooding), I'll often send it full speed, because the extra point or two of sys that i'll get from full speed, well, it's heading to the docks anyway.
 

Seems that whenever my ships are 1 move out of port they alway get some sort of system damage when on mission speed..chance is suppose to be 1 in 90 or something. My ships on mission speed seem to suffer a much higher rate than this.... 
Ships with faster speeds (your warships), tend to accumulate sys faster than slower ships.

I am aware at full speed the chances of system damage are increased greatly. 
Yes.
 
 
 
Also be advised that transport TFs that arrive a destination at full or cruise speed will not begin unloading during that pulse (12 hour cycle).  A transport TF arriving at destination at mission speed will spend any ops points remaining for that pulse to unload (so a they will move and unload whatever they can during the same pulse). 
 
That little tid-bit can be can significant.  Primarily, it allows you to control which pulse you want to unload your invasion in.  And if you do run your supply convoys at full speed (like I do), you don't want to "waste" the first 12 hours when they arrive at port for not unloading (because you were moving at full speed), so I switch them to mission speed the turn before arriving.  Basically, you're saving yourself a day at either end.

[AirGriff]

Thanks, Feinder!  That is a handy little piece of information.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

That little tid-bit can be can significant.  Primarily, it allows you to control which pulse you want to unload your invasion in.  And if you do run your supply convoys at full speed (like I do), you don't want to "waste" the first 12 hours when they arrive at port for not unloading (because you were moving at full speed), so I switch them to mission speed the turn before arriving.  Basically, you're saving yourself a day at either end.[/i]

I wondered why some TFs did that, now I know.

[Barb]

There is a chance to gain 1 system damage point each time ship enters new hex. The chances are 1:90 for cruise speed and 5:90 for full speed (Mission speed is normally night phase at full and day phase at cruise speed - if you are doing run in-run out mission, you are doing both phases at full speed).

I usually run on Mission speed with my combat units. I am just testing cruising speed for my convoys and unimportant transfers or so.

average numbers for 100hex long route at various speeds (with max speed 30+kts)
MAX: 5,5 sys dmg - 8,3 turns - speed drops to 28kts
MISSION: 4,09 sys dmg - 11,1 turns - speed drops to 28kts
CRUISE: 1,1 sys dmg - 16,7 turns - speed drops to 29kts

[rtrapasso]

What is the relationship between system damaged and speed?
Sys dmg is a 1:1 percent reduction in speed. So a ship with 20 sys dmg, has a 20% speed reduction. And speed losses are rounded to the slower speed (so you lose a full kt of speed with the first point of sys dmg).

The first SYS damage almost always seems to knock 1 kt. off the maximum speed... this can sometimes reduce the number of hexes the ship can move in a turn, so (for instance) - 1 SYS will reduce the number of hexes a 28 kt. ship from 6 hexes/phase down to 5... so that 1 SYS is really aggravating. [:@]

[erstad]

Doesn't the game engine keep track of fractional hexes, though?

May not help if you "absolutely have to get there overnight", but for a long haul the difference between 10 knots and 9 knots should be only about 10%, not 50%.

Or is this just another example of the manual being wrong?

[Barb]

The game does keep track of fractional hexes (something like ground units that walked 01-59 miles of the hex). So when you have 9kts convoy (Allied TK, cruise, 0sys) showing you 1+1 speed and 12kts convoy (Allied AK, cruise, 0sys) showing you 2+1 speed, they will be separated by few hexes only at the end of the run.

Everyone could try this simply. Just send the ships say 100 hexes away and give them return orders.

[Feinder]

I'm fairly sure for naval movment, the game does not give credit for fraction hexes.  Thanks to Bilbow's occupation of Northern Australia, I've had to send plenty of ships from San Francisco to Sydney to Perth to Columbo.  That's a LONG way to go.
 
I think some of the "fractional" movement, esp on long hauls, is because of refueling efforts.  But if you put 50x tankers of same class (so same endurance thus no refueling to skew your results), you get very consistant movement.
 
-F-