Calling All Ship Graphic Designers!

[Exile]

Normally, I don't bother to announce a scen of mine is in the works until it's complete.

Just my way.

But this time is a little different.


I've decided to throw together a Jutland scenario. The design is simple but will need a little testing to get the numbers just right. The scen will be a duel, with the "third/AI" player controlling the hapless Danish steamer that precipitated the meeting engagement.

Btw, does anyone know whether a giga map of maximum size can be all ocean?

All I need are . . . .

The SHIPS

Now there are already quite a few very, very nice WWI ship graphics out there, and I'll happily use the best, but this calls for something very customized in terms of graphics, if for no other reason than that there'll be no other graphics anywhere in the scen.

Fairline?

[fairline]

You rang?

Just so happens I've got an excellent Osprey source book for Jutland. Great idea for a scenario

Shall we discuss ship types? As well as the obvious generic types - dreadnought BB, pre-dread BB, battlecruiser, armoured and light cruisers, destroyers - it may be worth representing the outstanding designs present. The German BCs Von der Tann and Moltke were better armoured than the British BCs, while the Queen Elizabeth class were the best BBs afloat, for example. What are your thoughts?

[Exile]

I've been checking some sites for info on ship classes and I'll dig up my Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century and decide on types. Although there were a plethora of classes of torpedo boats and destroyers, those types can be represented by units of several boats, but I haven't decided on the multiplier yet. I do want to represent each class of battleship/battlecruiser, but there were a lot of Brit classes. We can be less picky about the light and armored cruisers. If the capital ships occupy the lion's share of unit slots, the cruisers can be made generic, with 1 type representing all lights and 1 representing all armoreds. This can also be extended to both fleets, if a slot shortage appears, though I'm reluctant to make reductions like this. If only I had MORE UNIT SLOTS!

The real question here is; how many classes? I'll get on this right away, lol. now.

By this time, you've got my ideas on mechanics and we'll just keep those secret for the time being.

[Case]

Re: Calling All Ship Graphic Designers!

Originally posted by Exile
Btw, does anyone know whether a giga map of maximum size can be all ocean?

AFAIK, you'll need to give each side a city for the scenario to be playable.

BTW, as a word of advice, it would probably be best to forget any plans you may have for this scenario to be playable against the AI. Among it's many flaws, the AI doesn't 'do' naval combat well, especially if you're planning on using 'shell' missiles.

As an aside, I recall that there was a project to do a Jutland scenario a few years ago (ie, 2000 or early 2001). A couple of naval geeks obsessed over it for a few months, appeared to have the time of their lives testing bits of it to death, and then the whole project disappeared suddenly.

I suspect that one of them found a girlfriend

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Exile
Btw, does anyone know whether a giga map of maximum size can be all ocean?

The size isn't an issue, but apart from what Case said... If you'd start a game on an all Ocean map, the AI wouldn't be able to find settler locations, so you'd get the powergraph right after starting up, and the game ends. So you'll need at least a few squares...

But if it's going to be all sea anyway, why not make it an all land map instead and change the graphics to ocean. That way you could play around with the graphics a little more, if necessary, since you have more terrain types to play with. This could really only be problematic if you intended to let ships carry air/land units.

[GePap]

IN the scenerio, will ships actually fight each other, or will tey trade shots with misisle, air units serving as shells? Each ship could begin with 8 shells, obviously you get the 15 inch, 14 inch, 12 inch, 8 inch, 6 inch, and perhaps torpedoes also.

Make all the ships carriers, give them high defense and HP, and no attack by themselves, so that ships have to trade shots over distance. This way the BB's can fire at each other at distance, while smaller ships

[Exile]

yesyesyes . . . .

Fairline, I've examined the ship classes, lined them out, and it appears that we will easily have a sufficient number of unit slots for each capital ship class, with about 15-20 slots to spare. It appears, therefore, that we can differentiate the light and armored cruisers by classes too, though I'll have to see how many of those there are.

Case; yeah, I suspected that I'd have to place a couple of cities somewhere and then cover them up. Maybe I can find a couple of islands out there somewhere on a map. lol. And yes, I also suspected that the AI would flounder given such a task as naval combat on the tactical level. When I began testing, this suspicion was confirmed. I loaded a battlecruiser with shells, switched human player to the opposite side, and hit return. All the shells on the opposing battlecruiser took off in every direction quite indepedently. It might have been my fault, however, because I'd forgotten to give these particular shells the "destroyed after attacking" ability. Maybe they thought they were just air units?

Mercator; many units will be air units, or I'd consider trying what you suggest. It'd be interesting to be able to play with "oceanic" terrain.

Gepap; Yep, you've stumbled on my formula exactly, though I've added a few things. Torpedos, smoke, and ramming.

The only drawback that I can see will be that the game MUST be played as a duel between two human players AND there will be several very important house rules by which the players must abide. If you can't think of them, try testing the situation yourself and see what you encounter.

[fairline]

Exile: this is probably redundant now then . This is the OOB of British Capitol ships at Jutland. I make it 17 classes of BB and BC. I was assuming using a catch-all British armoured cruiser, light cruiser and DD. I can do similar for the Germans if you like:

GRAND FLEET ship class

2 Battle Sqn
AJAX KGV BB 10x13.5in 1912
CENTURIAN KGV BB 10x13.5in 1912
ERIN Erin BB 10x13.5in 1914
KGV KGV BB 10x13.5in 1912
CONQUEROR Orion BB 10x13.5in 1912
MONARCH Orion BB 10x13.5in 1912
ORION Orion BB 10x13.5in 1912
THUNDERER Orion BB 10x13.5in 1912

4 Battle Sqn
IRON DUKE Iron Duke BB 10x13.5in 1914
CANADA Canada BB 10x14in 1915
ROYAL OAK Royal Sovereign BB 8x15in 1916
SUPERB Bellerophon BB 10x12in 1909
BELLEROPHON Bellerophon BB 10x12in 1909
BENBOW Iron Duke BB 10x13.5in 1914
TEMERAIRE Bellerophon BB 10x12in 1909
VANGUARD St Vincent BB 10x12in 1910

1 Battle Sqn
AGINCOURT Agincourt BB 14x12in 1914
HERCULES Colossus BB 10x12in 1911
MARLBOROUGH Iron Duke BB 10x13.5in 1914
REVENGE Royal Sovereign BB 8x15in 1916
COLLINGWOOD St Vincent BB 10x12in 1910
COLOSSUS Colossus BB 10x12in 1911
NEPTUNE Neptune BB 10x12in 1911
ST VINCENT St Vincent BB 10x12in 1910

3 Battle Cruiser Sqn
INDOMITABLE Invincible BC 8x12in 1908
INFLEXIBLE Invincible BC 8x12in 1908
INVINCIBLE Invincible BC 8x12in 1908

BATTLE CRUISER FLEET

LION Lion BC 8x13.5in 1912

1 Battle Cruiser Sqn
PRINCESS ROYAL Lion BC 8x13.5in 1912
QUEEN MARY Queen Mary 8x13.5in 1913
TIGER Tiger BC 8x13.5in 1914

2 Battle Cruiser Sqn
INDEFATIGABLE Indefatigable BC 8x12in 1911
NEW ZEALAND Indefatigable BC 8x12in 1912

5 Battle Sqn
BARHAM Queen Elizabeth BB 8x15in 1915
MALAYA Queen Elizabeth BB 8x15in 1915
VALIANT Queen Elizabeth BB 8x15in 1915
WARSPITE Queen Elizabeth BB 8x15in 1915

[Exile]

Ok, now for the ship classes discussion

Gareth,

I've gone through my Jane's book (again, lol), and have taken a look at a few other sources. Jane's agrees with your assessment of the late-built super-dreadnoughts of the Queen Elizabeth class as the "best" units in the battle. 15 inch guns do make a difference, especially when your opponent is using almost exclusively 11 inch and 12 inch rifles. The QEs also have very thick armor (or is it armour? ) and a very "modern" look.

Battlecruisers and battleships were differentiated by the former's sacrifice of armor for speed. Both carried all big guns and were capital ships. As you probably know, being both British and a naval warfare enthusiast, the British admiral Jackie Fisher was the driving force responsible for the battlecruiser concept, even though his critics predicted that these ships would be used in the battle line in time of war, where their comparative weakness in armor would be telling and these critics were proved correct. The German battlecruisers were not quite as vulnerable because they had been given more armor. I'm going to simulate this by giving all the capital ships the AEGIS ability, except the British battlecruisers. There is a Jutland site out there--use google to spot it, lol--that has a ship-by-ship list of how many total hits were taken by each ship in the battle. The numbers there are very enlightening. I began testing the AEGIS thing and the result is satisfactory.

[fairline]

Re: Ok, now for the ship classes discussion

Originally posted by Exile
Gareth,

I've gone through my Jane's book (again, lol), and have taken a look at a few other sources. Jane's agrees with your assessment of the late-built super-dreadnoughts of the Queen Elizabeth class as the "best" units in the battle. 15 inch guns do make a difference, especially when your opponent is using almost exclusively 11 inch and 12 inch rifles. The QEs also have very thick armor (or is it armour? ) and a very "modern" look.

That'll be 'armour' old chap . I hadn't realised until checking my source book that 2 of the improved Royal Sovereign class were also present at Jutland, making a total of six 15-in QE's and RS's armed BBs. You're right: they could throw a lot more metal per salvo than the 11, 12 and 13.5in guns, and were more accurate than the British 13.5in. This was offset slightly by the superior German gunnery; they tended to score more hits than the British.

Battlecruisers and battleships were differentiated by the former's sacrifice of armor for speed. Both carried all big guns and were capital ships. As you probably know, being both British and a naval warfare enthusiast, the British admiral Jackie Fisher was the driving force responsible for the battlecruiser concept, even though his critics predicted that these ships would be used in the battle line in time of war, where their comparative weakness in armor would be telling and these critics were proved correct. The German battlecruisers were not quite as vulnerable because they had been given more armor. I'm going to simulate this by giving all the capital ships the AEGIS ability, except the British battlecruisers. There is a Jutland site out there--use google to spot it, lol--that has a ship-by-ship list of how many total hits were taken by each ship in the battle. The numbers there are very enlightening. I began testing the AEGIS thing and the result is satisfactory.

I like the AEGIS flag idea Again, you're right about the relative armour of the German vs British BC's, while the British carried larger calibre guns (12/13.5 vs 11 in). To be fair, Fisher had envisioned BC's as recce ships and fast merchant raiders (or more accurately, counter-merchant raiders); at the battle of the Falklands they had proved their worth against cruisers, as they had been designed to. It was the blood-and-guts suicidal charge against similarly-armed capitol ships made by Beatty, the BC Fleet CO, that exposed their weakness. Luck played a part as well: HMS Tiger received 15 11-in hits and survived whereas Invincible got unlucky and took 1 hit straight to her magazine.

Have you considered fog-of-war in this? Both Jellicoe and Scheer spent most of the battle not knowing where their enemy was, and when contact was made, little or no use was made of radio, with over-reliance on flag signalling.

[Exile]

Next installment

I've done the "ship classes" math and here's what I've come up with;

17 classes of Brit capital ships
9 classes of German capital ships
7 slots for shells/misc.
4 classes Brit armored cruisers
12 classes Brit lt. cruisers
1 slot for Brit DDs
6 classes German lt. cruisers
1 slot for German DDs
------
57 slots . . . . and well within the limit of 62 slots available. It appears that we'll be able to customize every individual ship class with its own graphic and capabilities. How convenient.

On the Fog-of-war topic; Can someone please give me a simple, easy-to-understand explanation of the "no special view/reveal map/etc." stuff? This must be done right. I have books on the subject, so I'll take a look at them too. But I seem to recall that there is some hidden, or not-so-obvious-as-all-that aspect of this stuff and that someone else had some difficulties with it not too long ago.

[curtsibling]

This scenario has great potential!

I sense another Exile classic in the works!

[POTUS]

Re: Next installment

Ok. For fog of war:
Reveal all shows everything, including units. No special view cancels that.
Uncover map (Cheat menu, I think under the scenario one) will show the terrain only. Cover map cancels that.

[Case]

Re: Ok, now for the ship classes discussion

Originally posted by Exile
I've gone through my Jane's book (again, lol), and have taken a look at a few other sources. Jane's agrees with your assessment of the late-built super-dreadnoughts of the Queen Elizabeth class as the "best" units in the battle. 15 inch guns do make a difference, especially when your opponent is using almost exclusively 11 inch and 12 inch rifles. The QEs also have very thick armor (or is it armour? ) and a very "modern" look.

The QEs get my vote as the best battleships Britain ever built.
The upgraded QEs were, IMO, the best British ships had in WW2 as well (at least until they began to literally fall apart in the second half of the war )

Re fog of war: why not give all the ships the submarine flag? This will make tracking them difficult, thereby simulating the confusion of the battle. Also, it will give destroyers and the other light ships a useful (and their historical) role if you give them the 'can spot subs' flag. As a happy coincidence, subs can also carry missile units.

[GePap]

Can one be sub and carrier at the same time?

One of the ways to prevent small ships from holding large shells could be to make large calliber shells airplanes vs. small shells or tops being missiles-that way a BB could hold 14 inch shells and 6 inch shells, but a light cruiser could not hold 14 inch shells.