Bulkheads - Needs balancing.

[Gavin McStine]

I've seen other posts about this but I wanted to add my two cents.
So it seems that anything less then maximum and maybe many will flood after a single hit. I think this should change, as you have only 1 hole to patch and your whole ship to flood which would take longer then a single bulkhead. If you have repeated incoming flooding hit it could overwhelm your repairs and the water pumps sinking the ship.

I think having fewer bulkheads should give some bonuses. Beyond the reduced weight and build time.

-Increased water pumping. Like lets say you have 3 segments on two ships, one with no bulkheads and the other with two bulkheads. The ship with no BH would have 3 pumps (or a large pump) just like the two BHs. This would allow for faster pumping.

-Increased fire protection. I understand that this is the opposite of what bulkheads are for, but hear me out. So I agree that having additional bulkheads would prevent fires from spreading and also have a reduction in initial fires starting. A HE round would spread shrapnel/fire further without bulk heads. But I think fire fighting would be easier as crew fleeing the explosion and fire fighting crew would pass in a hallway/corridor instead of taking turns going threw a choke point bulkhead.

[Toblm]

You have described two things that having more bulkheads actually make easier as benefits of having fewer bulkheads.

[Gavin McStine]

Yep having more bulkheads would prevent your crew from getting overwhelmed, but if your only taking limited incoming fire/hits your crew should be able to cope. Right now your ship sinks regardless of the incoming fire or the damage to your ship.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Gavin McStine:

Yep having more bulkheads would prevent your crew from getting overwhelmed, but if your only taking limited incoming fire/hits your crew should be able to cope. Right now your ship sinks regardless of the incoming fire or the damage to your ship.

Not on a decently designed ship.

[Gavin McStine]

So a ship that has only maximum/many bulkheads? I think that's the point of my topic, like a ships rudder, you can have high speed but wide turns, or narrow but slow turns. There is a trade off, with bulkheads there isn't. Fewer bulkheads should repair faster, but once overwhelmed the ship is lost. A ship with more bulkheads should be slower to repair and if overwhelmed the bulkhead can be sealed and stop the spread.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Gavin McStine:

So a ship that has only maximum/many bulkheads? I think thats the point of my topic, like a ships rudder, you can have high speed but wide turns, or narrow but slow turns. There is a trade off, with bulkheads there isn't.

The trade off is you have fewer physical bulkheads. The difference between max and min is most drastic. But every tick fewer bulkheads increases the chance of losing a ship when it experiences battle damage.

So you need to balance fitting what you want in the ship, vs how survivable you want the ship. Just like any other defensive components, armor, torp pro, citadels ect.

[Gavin McStine]

There is no balance, its max or death.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Gavin McStine:

There is no balance, its max or death.

Max bulkhead ships sink too.

But yes there is little reason not to have max bulkheads on any ship thats expected to survive combat. Max bulkheads are just a good design philosophy.

[Gavin McStine]

Max bulkheads don't often sink on one hit. All ships not having max or many will sink off one shot.

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Gavin McStine:

Max bulkheads one sink on one hit. All ships not having max or many will sink off one shot.

Depends on the shot. Depends on the ship. Not just the bulkheads.

A ship without internal bulkheads will sink the first time its hulled without really good damage control.

A ship with some internal bulkheads may sink when hulled, but offers more chances for damage control to control the flooding.

A ship with max bulkheads offers the best chance for damage control to control the damage.

Early starts have limited ability to design with good damage control leaving crew training, which is often lacking early in campaigns, as the main factor affecting damage control abilities. Early starts also often have hulls that actively want to sink.

[munroburton]

What years are you playing in? If you're still sloshing around in the 1890s, those ships are supposed to be really poor. Mid and lategame ships don't really sink from single hits, unless it's some poor DD taking a 16-20" salvo to the heart. Those sliders' effects are a lot more noticeable after 1910.

[Gavin McStine]

That's the thing, I think at the 1890 it shouldn't have much of an impact as it does, your not throwing anything larger then 13" and a 2" can one shot. I think that is a problem, it would mean every ship HAVE TO HAVE MAX bulkheads. It isn't like the rudder where you have a choice of a quick wide turn or a slow narrow turn. If you replace or make your ships from scratch at the start of an early game, its really unbalanced for AI made ships as like I said earlier it's a one shot death sentence making for very lop sided battles. And if you chose to have less then max, It feels very wrong that ships are sinking so quickly.

[munroburton]

That's just the era's technology, design practices and doctrine at work. All poor, poor, poor. In 1890, the difference between bulkhead settings may literally be zero, one, two, three internal subdivisions. By 1920 it goes from something like five, ten, fifteen, twenty.

[Gavin McStine]

And it should be poor, but the issue isn't getting a BB sunk by a single torpedo, it's a BB sunk by a single 2". Very unlikely. A ship shouldn't sink as fast as it does. Going back to my old statement the ship would have fewer bulkheads, but would be able to pump out the water coming in because there being a lack of bulkheads the water would spread to multiple sections of the ship, which would allow for multiple pumps to pump out the water, and unless the pumping system gets overwhelmed by a few shots it should be able to cope with a few holes.

Remember people weren't stupid back then, they understood that if a war ship that is going to fire at other ships, it would most likely be fired upon too, and when shots are fired, then leaks can form. They would understand that water would need to be pumped and have a general understanding way back in the 1400s that water can get in ships and it needs to be moved out.

Even if you built a ship with the minimum bulkheads, that along with pumps would be more then enough to take some damage without sinking.

[caaron14]

I mainly run standard bulkheads since I play US mostly, and even from 1890 I haven't seen anything like what you are describing. Standard would be what was true to reality, max is a gross exaggeration of such. Thing is, if your armor gets compromised you should remove yourself from the battle and slow down to allow your pumps a chance to do their job, and then assess whether you are still battle capable or should retreat. A single 2" might have done for a real life battleship if it was just the luckiest shell ever, and made it pull a British maneuver. Still, your anti-flood level does as much to help prevent sinking.

[munroburton]

The problem wasn't stupidity, it was inexperience. Before 1890, they had a precedent where an ironclad outer hull was all they needed to bounce cannonballs and those ships had to ram each other. With that as a baseline, they really did not see the need for lots of internal protection - basically just block off the bow so it can be used to ram. if that much. Until they started shooting each other and saw what happened - and that didn't really happen until the Spanish-American war(which started because USS Maine was so badly built she sank herself so rapidly it looked like an attack or sabotage).

2" guns don't just make 2" holes like cannonballs would have against wood. The shells start exploding on contact and when they do that with an ideal penetration of that outer hull, it makes a much bigger hole. Once that happens to a ship's waterline with very few internal bulkheads, it's gone.

Titanic is kind of an example, despite being a civilian vessel. They said she was "maximally" protected and unsinkable because she'd stay afloat with 4 compartments flooded. And IF she had missed that iceberg, or hit it head-on, that standard might well have continued for a long time. But it turned out that wasn't enough and since then, cruise liners build with a "minimum" of a double hull, way more anti-flood compartmentalisation and enough lifeboats.