Player Choice in shipbuilding

[Shark7]

Been giving this some thought and I may have come up with a way to allow both sides a little choice in the ships they get, if it would work out. Obviously this would be for a mod since I am talking about 'Never Were's'.

My idea is that with some ships, you bring them into the game at launch date with just an engineless, unarmed hull that can be instantly converted to one of the conversion choices. I would not apply this method to every ship, only some of the ones that 'never were' or were under order as one type but might have changed due to war needs.

Couple of examples:

Shinano and Hull #111: Both of these ships started out to be slightly modified Yamato BBs, but as the needs of the war changed, Shinano was converted to a carrier and #111 was scrapped to free the slip. My idea would be to have the two hulls come in on what would have been their Yamato design launch dates (which I will gather by Looking at the average time it took Shinano, Yamato and Musashi to launch. At point it Shinano and #111 would simply be floating hulks with 0 speed and no weapons. The player could then choose to build either the BB or CV versions...and the conversion would take the actual build time to complete. This gives you the choice to build either type based on your needs.

For the Allies, a couple of good Never Were's would be the follow on Iowa and Montana ships that were canceled. Namely BB-66 through BB-71. I would give the Allied player the choice between building these ships in the BB design or as a flight 2 Essex (Iowas) or Midway class (Montana) class carrier.

I am fairly convinced this will work, and still allow the player to simply halt construction in the build Queue. Allies would probably be stuck accepting the hulls, but you do have the choice of simply ignoring them.

[DuckofTindalos]

Would only work with a non-AI scenario, but yeah, there are no other technical issues with this idea.

[Shark7]

To solve the AI problem would it possible just to set the blank hulls to upgrade in say a 3 day window to what would have been historically built?

IE Say Shinano launches on 8 October 1944...for the AI's benefit could I set an upgrade for 11 October 1944 with the proper delay? In the case of Shinano the completion date was 19 November 1944 (obviously it was not launched until very near completion).

If I understand this right, the AI would simply treat this as a standard upgrade and get the carrier by default, yet the player would have a 3 turn window to change to the optional configuration of the Modified Yamato.

[DuckofTindalos]

Also remember that you'll have a problem with air groups.

[Shark7]

For the player you can simply provide the air groups on the ground to use. Since its a mod, it won't hurt, and they can use them on the other carriers they have. For the AI, it will either be a carrier with groups or a BB without, the AI will simply use the air groups however it sees fit, or not at all. I already stepped out of the realm of reality by adding in the hulls to begin with, no reason to worry about the air groups.

What it does sound like is that I will need 3 versions, PBEM, Allied AI and Japanese AI though.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
What it does sound like is that I will need 3 versions, PBEM, Allied AI and Japanese AI though.

It will have to be PBEM/H2H only. The AI does not recognize 'conversions' of any kind. The AI only follows a regular, established 'upgrade' process flow.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Shark7
What it does sound like is that I will need 3 versions, PBEM, Allied AI and Japanese AI though.

It will have to be PBEM/H2H only. The AI does not recognize 'conversions' of any kind. The AI only follows a regular, established 'upgrade' process flow.

Exactly, so the AI versions would not use conversions, but rather simple arrivals or upgrade paths. Hence needing separate versions for AI games, as I stated in an earlier post.

By doing a vs AI version for each side, I can still leave in the conversions for players while allowing them to face a reinforced AI.

[Historiker]

This was already discussed here, where you might also find inspirations for necessary house rules:
tm.asp?m=2179124

[wdolson]

There were two Iowa class BBs that were launched early and set aside to allow building more Essex carriers.  These hulls could be provided with conversions to either the historic Essex carriers or the BBs that never were. That was a historic decision the US made.

Bill

[JuanG]

I remember you asking something similar in this thread;

tm.asp?m=2191655&mpage=1&key=Conversion&#2192402

As I pointed out there, it's a fine concept, but is technically limited becase of the game mechanics.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: JuanG

I remember you asking something similar in this thread;

tm.asp?m=2191655&mpage=1&key=Conversion�

As I pointed out there, it's a fine concept, but is technically limited becase of the game mechanics.

I asked about it before? I don't doubt you, I just don't remember it. [&:]

The AI and air groups are the main problem. If the DB was somewhat scripted it would be easy to fix, simply a couple of If>then statements that would say if player chooses carrier, Air groups A,B and C arrive on completion date, if player chooses BB, air groups A, B and C never arrive but float plane group D does...etc.

Unfortunately that is not an option in the current game, as you point out, it is a game mechanics limitation. So the best I can do is simply have the groups arrive and let house rules determine their usage, since I do think the player should have some say in the fate of these ships, after all, the decision to turn Shinano into a carrier and cancel #111 hadn't even been made on Dec 7, 1941. If Midway hadn't happened, those ships might very well have completed as BBs instead of Shinano as a carrier and #111 not at all.