ship preformance

[aklua24h]

hello all

I have a question does the reload time on guns and torps are they effected by crew damage? can gun mounts be destroyed? Does damage to the the top mast effect gun accracey?



Thanks

Aklua

[Neutrino 123]

I'm guessing that these things will be included in the damage model, but I think only one of them has been confirmed by a preview (the gun mount damage one - I forget which preview).

[Bullethead]

I'm guessing that these things will be included in the damage model, but I think only one of them has been confirmed by a preview (the gun mount damage one - I forget which preview).

I'm particularly interested in how well DG models the hardware differences affecting things like rate of fire. In the RJW period, there were all kinds of systems out there that had widely different capabilities. Different makes and model of guns, for example, not to mention different types of armor. These things gave ships with the same paper stats, such as 4x12" guns and 8" armor, VERY different levels of effectiveness, depending on which specific systems they had installed.

For instance, guns... By the RJW, the quick-firing gun was in widespread use in sizes up to 6", but some of the older ships still had the bag-loaded types with much lower ROFs and much higher vulnerability to ammunition fires. As to heavy guns, some had to be loaded at specific training and elevation angles due to their rammers being fixed to the ship instead of rotating with the guns. Others had all-around loading, but still needed a fixed elevation, and only a few could be loaded in any position. Obviously, these different systems had a huge effect not only on rate of fire, but also on accuracy, due both to the time between shots and the amount of re-aiming necessary.

Then there's armor. Metalurgy evolved much quicker than the peacetime lifespan of a battleship, so ships in the RJW fleets had several different types of armor plates, which provided different amounts of protection for a given thickness. Thus, some older ships with thicker belts might not be as effectively protected as others with thinner, but new belts. And then there's how the whole science of arranging the armor developed, such that some ships got better use out of the same thicknesses than others, or had more effective protection over more of the ship. And on top of all this, you have to consider how the gun and shell combinations used against these different armors also changed. At any given point in time, the armor of the day provided about the same resistance to the guns/shells of the same vintage. However, this means that older guns/shells were less effective against newer armor, and newer guns/shells were more effective against older armor, than the simple ratios of relative armor type effectiveness would indicate.

This is what makes this particular conflict so fascinating for me. It's the huge number of variables you have to consider when looking at how ships match up with each other. You have to look much deeper than the paper stats, to get into the specific details of a given ship's equipment.

I foresee this causing lots of grief for players unfamiliar with the RJW era. They won't know about all these very important, but not always obvious, differences, and will become angry when they see ships with apparently stronger stats getting hammered by seemingly weaker opponents. Then they'll come in here flaming the game's combat modelling as totally inaccurate, because they don't realize there's more to it than meets the eye at 1st glance.

Therefore, I REALLY hope the game includes some detailed technical info on the various systems of the ships involved. Something about the different types of armor, gun systems, etc., so that players have the info needed to make accurate comparisons. Having this all in a THICK appendix of the manual would be nice, but I'd especially like it if all this was visible in the game. I'm concerned this isn't the case, however. In the screenshots showing ship stats, I don't see anything mentioning the in-built limitations of a give gun's loading system, for example, nor the type of armor it had.

[Neutrino 123]

The screenshot here (http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/public/html/Distant%20Guns%20Screen%20Shots/pages/DG_Screen_17new-36_jpg.htm) seems to indicate that different armor types are modeled :cheeky: (another screenshot shows Krupp armor), and from the detailed gun information, different guns of the same size are probably modeled too.

[Bullethead]

The screenshot here (http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/public/html/Distant%20Guns%20Screen%20Shots/pages/DG_Screen_17new-36_jpg.htm) seems to indicate that different armor types are modeled :cheeky:

Hadn't seen that shot. Thanks.

However, there's still a problem IMHO. While it says what armor type it had, the numbers given for the amount of armor in various locations are the actual thicknesses (per Conway's) of the real ship. So while you know Ryurik's got 8" of steel on the waterline, you don't know how that compares to 8" of compound, or 8" of nickel steel, or 8" of Harvey, or 8" of Krupp. It would be nice if there was something in there that showed this. For instance, just listing the conversion factor used to relate a given form of armor to (as most mini rules do) Krupp. Or listing the location armor values after this conversion factor is applied, perhaps with the actual thickness in parens afterwards. Or maybe leave the actual thickness showing, but have a mouseover text that shows how much Krupp it was equal to.

the detailed gun information, different guns of the same size are probably modeled too.

I note there's a reload time listed. That's cool :). But in cases where a ship's reload time is way different from another's with the same size gun, it might be nice to have something in there (such as a mouseover text) explaining why the ROF is what it is. Otherwise folks might think it was a typo in the data and complain about it.

Even cooler would be to have the guns animated to return to their loading positions between shots, so players could actually see these things working in the game.