A couple of questions?

[Wingnut]

I have a couple of questions, if anyone can answer them?
1. What are the effects of a ship design being slightly overweight and overweight etc?
2. Does the engine variations (speed/normal/reliability) have a major effect? is a reliable engine worth it?
Thanks.

[Silamon]

1. More likely to develop design flaws and they take more flooding damage iirc
2. Higher reliability will allow a ship to run at max speed longer in battle, though this is mostly only relevant to coal burners. A more reliable engine will maintain its max speed longer as well before needing refits.

[bgp_spook]

My experience in the 1890s indicates that the one or two knots more you can get out of a boat by making the engine speed focused is not worth it. In largish fleet battles with normal engines I typically see one or two ships (with 20 or 21 knot top speeds) fall out of formation due to engine problems.

That said, normally, I am not convinced reliable engines are worth the weight.

The max speed of the engine also seems to matter with regards to reliability. There is a knee in the curve of speed vs weight increase for that speed for any given engine tech, it seems. For 1890s tech, the knee seems to be at 19 knots.

The further above this knee the more frequently engine problems will be had. I say this based on anecdotal experience, not any emperical data and research.
That said, I feel confident in stating it.

[ulzgoroth]

Reliable engines should also reduce the chance of a ship tasked as a raider being forced to intern or scuttle due to engine failure. Though that's only useful for certain types of ship.

[Leisen]

If I recall correctly, fast engine start deteriorating in 10 years, normal in 20 years and reliable in 30 years so the choice of engine type depends on how long I expect the ship should serve, or more precisely how long the ship's engine should serve. For example, I tend to refit 1915 design coal fueled 1500t destroyer's engine when oil is available in 1920s so using fast engine on their initial design is acceptable. 1920s super dreadnought design on the other hand usually need to serve til 1950s so I will seriously consider using reliable engine.

[MAD-3R_Marauder]

Originally posted by Leisen:

If I recall correctly, fast engine start deteriorating in 10 years, normal in 20 years and reliable in 30 years so the choice of engine type depends on how long I expect the ship should serve, or more precisely how long the ship's engine should serve. For example, I tend to refit 1915 design coal fueled 1500t destroyer's engine when oil is available in 1920s so using fast engine on their initial design is acceptable. 1920s super dreadnought design on the other hand usually need to serve til 1950s so I will seriously consider using reliable engine.

Those numbers are way too high.
Normal engines start to deteriorate after around 10 years.

Speed engines deteriorate sooner (I have had one ship that started to lose speed after 6 years, but that was an outlier, around 8 years seems to be the norn.

I haven't seen a reliable engine deteriorate sooner than after a good 12 years, usually they hold up for 13+ years.

Personally, I have reliable engines on anything larger than a CL, as I can't, for the life of me, rationalize the cost of an engine refit.
I'm fine with a ship losing a single knot and by the time it loses the 2nd or 3rd knot, it is due to be scrapped anyway, so using reliable engines to prolong the time of usefulness is well worth it in my book.

Now, if you intend to engine-refit your ships anyway, then going with Normal engines is probably more efficient.

[Green Knight]

Early game (Coal VTE) reliability is very convenient, as it means you can run down fleeing AI ships with the same (or slight higher) speed, as your engines are likely to outlast their. Once you have turbines (and oil) it's not as important.

[Wingnut]

Thanks for the replies.
Is there a way to zoom in on the bow/stern in the top down view in the design window, or scroll the view when zoomed in?

[bgp_spook]

Originally posted by Leisen:

If I recall correctly, fast engine start deteriorating in 10 years, normal in 20 years and reliable in 30 years so the choice of engine type depends on how long I expect the ship should serve, or more precisely how long the ship's engine should serve. For example, I tend to refit 1915 design coal fueled 1500t destroyer's engine when oil is available in 1920s so using fast engine on their initial design is acceptable. 1920s super dreadnought design on the other hand usually need to serve til 1950s so I will seriously consider using reliable engine.

I have usually seen normal engines start to lose speed around 10 years with 1890's tech.

[Wingnut]

Is it a good idea to have thick upper belt armour and extended belt? Any good tips?
eg: 12in main belt and 9in upper belt and extended belt. Or 14in main belt and 6in upper belt and extended belt.
which is better?

[bgp_spook]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

Is it a good idea to have thick upper belt armour and extended belt? Any good tips?
eg: 12in main belt and 9in upper belt and extended belt. Or 14in main belt and 6in upper belt and extended belt.
which is better?

What are you looking to face in what year? What is your armor scheme? How effective are the guns of your likely enemies?

What is the purpose of the ship?

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

Is it a good idea to have thick upper belt armour and extended belt? Any good tips?
eg: 12in main belt and 9in upper belt and extended belt. Or 14in main belt and 6in upper belt and extended belt.
which is better?

I usually only did 2 inch upper belt for splinter protection and immunity to dd guns, extended belt I usually try to shoot for immunity to cruiser guns, so around 6 inches.

[Wingnut]

I did some checking and it was quite common for early dreadnoughts to have pretty thick upper belt armour (pre AON). Dreadnought herself had 8in upper belt and 9-11in lower belt. Later dreadnoughts (still pre AON) had thicker lower belts but thinner upper belt. QE had 12-13in lower belt and 4-6in upper belt.
So i did some designing and found the weights in this game are waaay off.
I tried to recreate HMS Dreadnought using 1906/07/08 tech, more advanced game tech than the real design.
IRL Dreadnought was 20700tons. I couldnt recreate her in under 26600 tons.
Has anyone else tried recreating historical ships?

[Andrew Cree]

For starters, ships are usually closer to their Full Load displacements than standard displacements in game terms.

But yes, there is a tendency for ships to wind up overweight even then. If memory serves, one of the biggest culprits is the weight of D (and DE?) armour

[Wingnut]

Originally posted by Andrew Cree:

For starters, ships are usually closer to their Full Load displacements than standard displacements in game terms.

But yes, there is a tendency for ships to wind up overweight even then. If memory serves, one of the biggest culprits is the weight of D (and DE?) armour

I was quoting Dreadnoughts full load displacement, 20700 tons. Its normal load was 17900 tons.