"Ship cannot be identified as any legal type" error

[thedoctorking]

I fought a very long war against a coalition of Germany and Britain, and was finally successful in getting a good peace settlement where I could have one of the oil producing colonies. Then, I started refitting my ships as oil burners and adding some speed. I had three classes of battleships, all essentially the same (each slightly larger than the last as my docks got bigger). The first class, the 25k tonners, converted just fine to 25-knot oil burners, though the game told me they were now BCs. Okay. Then I went for the next one, and the same refit gave me the error message. The larger class had the same problem.

I got mad at that point and tried to mess with the .des files, unsuccessfully, and then deleted the save game file and uninstalled the game, so I sadly can't give you any data, but I'm sure you know what's going on here. This is a really frustrating aspect of this game. I should be able to design a ship that functions in terms of weight, speed, hull shape, etc., and not have the game engine refuse to accept the design because of some sort of allegiance to historical categories of ships. And most of all when it accepts one design and rejects another that is similar in almost all ways aside from being a little heavier and a little more heavily armored.

[WLRoo]

I assume you mean B-type battleships?

Yeah, the game does not like them going above 23kn and won't accept them. If the guns are small enough they can be reclassified as CA otherwise it locks up.

[thedoctorking]

Right, they were Bs. The issue was that one of them it accepted, reclassifying it as a BC. Then, when I went to do the other two types, it rejected them.

The distinction between the two types is pretty academic anyway. These ships were 20+ KT, with 3-4 double turrets carrying modern (-1 or 0) guns and medium/small secondary battery (6 or 5 inch). Why the game didn't call them BBs I don't know.

In general, the game's insistence on types of ships having strict (and seemingly undocumented, or at least I haven't found them in the documentation) limits on their characteristics, is pretty annoying. I should be able to build a 30KT cruiser if I want.

[WLRoo]

The limitations are in for the AI and scenario generator more than the player.

My guess would be that your main battery was too small in calibre to classify as a BB and with too much B armour to classify as a CA - you can get away with up to 7", not sure if it goes higher.

[thedoctorking]

They had 11 and 12 inch guns respectively. I really liked the 12 inch guys. They were the flagships of my fleet and clearly superior to the British BBs in armor, speed, and hitting power.

[MaximKI]

If you do get a save where you see this error again, please upload it along with a screenshot.

[thedoctorking]

I'm assuming that this is WAD, Maxim, which is why I didn't put it in the tech support forum. I was just complaining about the design decision!

[thedoctorking]

Here's an example. I can't save it with the design, of course, since the design is rejected by the error, but you can see what it is

Cannot be identified.JPG (743.89 KiB) Viewed 1030 times

. The issue appears to be that it is too lightly armed to be a BC and too heavily armored to be a CA.

I upped the guns to 11" and then it saved as a BC and I gave you the save game file so you can look at it.

[MaximKI]

Thanks, we'll take a look.

[Jades]

Looking at the screenshot of the design posted by @thedoctorking that Armoured Cruiser has 9 inch guns, does 26 knots, and is a whopping 19,900 tons. Looking at the manual, none of that seems to contradict the stated critera for an Armoured Cruiser.

The design fails to meet the requirements for a Battlecruiser as the main gun calibre is lower than 10 inches and there are only two main gun turrets.

I've built a few designs of Armoured Cruiser with 9" guns as there is an early ROF penalty for, IIRC, main guns with calibres below 9" in certain configurations. None of them were as big as that though, I prefer to have my Cruisers somewhat smaller than my Battleships.

[WLRoo]

In that case, it's the thickness of armour. If memory serves, CA Belt armour is capped at 6" or 7", making the ship fall outside the parameters for a CA.

[thedoctorking]

I like my armored cruisers to be armored...

The key here is that you can get in a gun duel with enemy cruisers and their hits do effectively nothing (except maybe set you on fire) and your hits are punching holes in them. That's why the ship needs to be so big. You can only ever build a couple of these bad boys but that's all you really need.

I did manage to build a few of these and I had a battle last night in which four of them took on an enemy BC with 13 inch guns and some CAs and pummeled them.

[Jades]

In that case, it's the thickness of armour. If memory serves, CA Belt armour is capped at 6" or 7", making the ship fall outside the parameters for a CA.

The manual gives the maximum belt armour for an Armoured Cruiser as 12 inches, the ship in the screen shot has a 10 inch belt.

[WLRoo]

Wouldn't be the first time there's a discrepancy between the manual and the game.

On the other hand, there's a strong argument for increasing the maximum belt armour allowed in game by a CA - most nations fielded designs with 8" of belt armour and there's a couple that I've found so far that went all the way up to 10". I've not yet scanned Spanish, Russian, USAian or Hungarian designs.

[EvanJones]

For CAs, you can go 7.5" on belt (more on turrets) and up to 26,000 tons with 16 10" guns.

Especially when combined with Night Fighting, these can take out any capital ship in the game. Which is a bit of a problem. If CAs could be freely combined with BCs in the Dedicated scout force, it would ease the transition to BCs, rather than forcing one down the gamey path of CAs only, at least for the larger powers.

Capital ships are part of the point of the game, so a gamey path to ALWAYS crush them without any cap ships of one's own is not a desirable result.

[thedoctorking]

I think CAs are capped at 19900 tons. At least I've always had the game try to reclassify them as BCs if I go bigger. I had one class of CAs that I put bulges on in refit to keep them from being torped and then the game reclassified them as BCs and put them up against enemy behemoths with 15 inch guns.

[WLRoo]

26,000t is the cap for a CA, and I have designed CAs of this size.

Edit: I just tested one developed from an auto-design which started with 8.5" of armour, though I didn't check that legality. When I increased tonnage to 26,000 I had to reduce B armour to 7.5" for the game to accept it as a CA.

Therefore, it's obviously a combination of tonnage and armour thickness that plays a part in the classification.

[thedoctorking]

Was just testing out: at 19,900 tons, the max armor is 9.5". If you go up to 26,000 tons, the very same ship, same guns, same armor, everything, it wants it to be a BC.

This is a really stupid design decision IMHO. You should be able to call your ships anything you like and if you can make it float tant mieux.

[WLRoo]

It's not for your convenience, it's for the battle generator, in order to ensure that your designs and the AI's designs aren't even more mismatched than they are already.

Consider the Courageous class as well - Fisher called them 'Large Light Cruisers'. Everyone else called them Battle Cruisers.

Likewise, the Alaska class, The US wanted to call them Large Heavy Cruisers. Everyone else called them Battle Cruisers.

[thedoctorking]

It seems to me that the battle generator could look at the size of the ship, the guns, the speed, the armor, etc. I had an earlier game where the battle gen was continually matching my 21k ton "BC"s that got reclassified because they got bulges up against enemy 50K ton behemoths with 15 inch guns. The battle generator should be able to look at the "large light cruiser" that is 30K tons and sports 14 inch guns and match it against similarly equipped enemy ships whether they are called corvettes or what have you. And most especially, the game should not be able to reject a design entirely and not permit you to build it just because it doesn't fit into any of the categories.