Matrix Games Forums

Since I play witp, I have the idea of giving the Japanese side, or both sides, more freedom of choice - especially in the case of ships layed down.

I have a rather simple idea for that, that might work in a PBEM when both sides follow house rules:

Ships have to organized into hull groups. For instance:
- very large hulls: Yamato BBs and big CVs
- large hulls: BCs and CVs
- medium to large hulls: CAs and CVLs with ~ 40 planes
- medium hulls: CLs and CVLs

I think you get the point.

The game starts not with usual ships in the queue, but with hulls. These hulls have a durability to represent all the construction costs that are needed to complete the ship, while they only take lets say 50% of the building time.

When the hull is completed, it has a speed of 5kn and ist without any armament. The player then decides what he wants to convert it into.
He then has to move them into a port with sufficiant repair yard to start the conversion. It'll take the time the real ship would've needed to complete. A HR will require to leave the ship in the drydock to force the players to organize their conversions. The necessary Repair Yard will at least to some extent account for the reality of slipways. While it will be possible in this mod to construct 10 or maybe even 20 CVs at the sime time by halting everything else, this - of course - wasn't possible IRL as you can't build a CV on 5 DD size slipways and in shipyards with the infrastructure barly strong enough to lift a DD-Turret.

The idea has several advantages:
- The player can decide which ships he needs
- The player still has to build the ships
- The ships are on map for about 50% of their construction time, so they can be destroyed on the slip as was possible IRL
- THe hull can be sunk while being towed (with 5kn or 3kn or whatever is realistic) to the shipyard.
- If the player wants Aikzuki-DDs, he can have them as long as he pays for them. If he thinks smaller DDs are sufficiant for his doctrine, he can have more of them.

As there should be sufficiant slots by now, the queue can be filled with dozends or even hundreds of new hulls. So a Jap player will still have his ~1.300 Naval Shipyard, but a queue filled with 5.000 points. So in Turn two he has to decide on which hulls to work and which to stop.


Adding the ships to the database should be rather easy (can the Jap rename ships with double names as well?). What is difficult are the questions:
1. Which ship classes can be compared to be combined into one hull type?
2. What should be their durability to represent the building costs?
3. How long are the conversions, shouldn't there be some mass production bonus? A CA may cost as much as a CVL, but he might be completed 6 months earlier. I don't know that.

I can get some numbers together, but I know my knowledge is ship construction is way too small to set get accurate date for that myself.

Is anyone with the necessary knowledge like JWE or Terminus willing to help set the data?

the idea can be modded with the editor.
for a bigger fix, need the option to lay down
whatever ships you want within the available shipyard slots available

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf
for a bigger fix, need the option to lay down
whatever ships you want within the available shipyard slots available

Is there anyway to do this? I'd be interested also.

Historiker,
 
What I do is set up a VERY large number of ships that the IJ could build of a large variety of types.  Then, I set and HR on the limit of expansion of both NSY and MSY.  After that, I just don't care. 
 
Yes, at some point I might have too many +150M ships as compared to what the IJ actually had.  But I know, based upon NSY points that if that is true, it means I am cutting way back on support ship builds (DD type) and that will have consequences of its own.  It isn't perfect, I acknowledge, but it gives the player (me) the ability to build out as I think I need.  I can build more DD or more SS or more MTB or more PB, but I haven't got enough NSY+MSY points to build more of ALL.  In the end, I have in ship points about what IJ actually built.  However, I have been able to tailor what I actually built and when it was built to how the war is going rather than just getting the historical build which was the result of midway and a lot of poor planning and politics. 

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Historiker,

What I do is set up a VERY large number of ships that the IJ could build of a large variety of types.  Then, I set and HR on the limit of expansion of both NSY and MSY.  After that, I just don't care. 

Yes, at some point I might have too many +150M ships as compared to what the IJ actually had.  But I know, based upon NSY points that if that is true, it means I am cutting way back on support ship builds (DD type) and that will have consequences of its own.  It isn't perfect, I acknowledge, but it gives the player (me) the ability to build out as I think I need.  I can build more DD or more SS or more MTB or more PB, but I haven't got enough NSY+MSY points to build more of ALL.  In the end, I have in ship points about what IJ actually built.  However, I have been able to tailor what I actually built and when it was built to how the war is going rather than just getting the historical build which was the result of midway and a lot of poor planning and politics. 

I was think down the lines of having to spend PP to achieve the same result, and have it available for both sides. Thinking further this could be extended to LCU and Aircraft as well!

Is the ship database big enough?

NyGiants and I are already working on something very similar as it was an idea developed back in witp days. Unfortunately, that mod has stalled at present due to time constraints ... tm.asp?m=3010364

The Japanese did this to a considerable degree. Some hulls were laid down with three different options designed in - sub tender - seaplane carrier - light carrier - and others were modified. In some cases, it is suspected "ocean liners" were intended to be carriers all along - although in fact the ships were not ideal from a carrier point of view and the suspicion is probably misplaced.

Mechanially - I find a viable solution is to simply have the carrier version come first - on the historical date - with an option to convert it to the gunship version. This because the gunships take longer to build - so for example - if you get a Shinano as CV and prefer it as BB - you can convert it - at the cost of an additional 111 days. Just pretend it was building as a gunship all along. Something similar applies to Ibuki - and perhaps her sister (never laid down - Ikoma was considered as a name) - simply deliver the CVL on time - and allow the player to convert her.

The US could do the same with CVLs and CLs - or in one case CAs - although there is no correspoinding US BB on the same hull as a CV - the Lexington class shows it was possible.