Catch-22 in developing carriers

[smustafa]

It's 1918 and I got a warning message saying that I couldn't advance any further in naval-air-ship-launched tech until my navy had an operational aircraft carrier.

So I go to the Design Ship window and design a CVL, and it gives me the error message that my nation hasn't developed aircraft carriers yet.

How do I get out of this? Is there some third tech or condition that I need?

[Silamon]

There is a third tech that allows purpose built CVL, you can do it earlier by converting a ship into cvl though.

Just pick one of your cruisers that you don't care about, preferably a decently fast one. Open the rebuild menu for it, go to the graphics tab. On that tab there is an "auto convert to carrier" button that will do everything you need for the conversion automatically, even draws a flight deck for you.

[smustafa]

Thanks, I'll give that a try. What is the other tech that allows purpose built CVLs?

[Silamon]

"Purpose Built Aircraft Carrier" from shipboard aircraft operation tree.

IIRC you can still research tech from it, just can't have it on high priority until you have a cv in the fleet.

[Andrew Cree]

Yes, you take a penalty to carrier tech research if you don't have an operational carrier.

These days, when Shipboard Air Operations unlocks, I design a Cruiser of about 15,000-16,000 tons specifically for building and converting to a CVL once the tech is unlocked.

Key points of the design are good speed (min 25kn), light belt armour, plenty of weight in main armament and maximum free weight that you can manage.

[smustafa]

Nope, that didn't work. When I tried to convert a CA to a CVL, I got the same error message that "Building Nation has not yet developed carriers."

But the tech to develop carriers can't advance until I have a carrier.

This does seem to be a Catch-22. I can cheat by going into the Save file and manually giving myself the tech, but I'd rather play it straight.

[smustafa]

Originally posted by Silamon:

"Purpose Built Aircraft Carrier" from shipboard aircraft operation tree.

IIRC you can still research tech from it, just can't have it on high priority until you have a cv in the fleet.

No, the message reads "You can make no further progress toward..." until you have a carrier.

But having a carrier requires a tech level that I can't reach until I have a carrier.

[Andrew Cree]

Out of interest, can you build floatplane carriers (AVs)?

[WM_NWS]

Originally posted by smustafa:

It's 1918 and I got a warning message saying that I couldn't advance any further in naval-air-ship-launched tech until my navy had an operational aircraft carrier.

So I go to the Design Ship window and design a CVL, and it gives me the error message that my nation hasn't developed aircraft carriers yet.

How do I get out of this? Is there some third tech or condition that I need?

Something sounds off in your game - If you can, please upload your save that shows the issue by going to your Save folder located in "Steam\steamapps\common\Rule the Waves 3\Save", zipping up the correct save folder, and leaving a link to it here using a file-sharing website like WeTransfer, MediaFire, Google Drive, Drop Box, etc to post the save to. This will help us quite a bit to track this down.

[jb.codling]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Just pick one of your cruisers that you don't care about, preferably a decently fast one. Open the rebuild menu for it, go to the graphics tab. On that tab there is an "auto convert to carrier" button that will do everything you need for the conversion automatically, even draws a flight deck for you.

Why on earth is it hidden in the graphics tab? That took me ages to find.

Surely that should be with the flight deck and aircraft complement as a more logical place to be.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by jb.codling:

Originally posted by Silamon:

Just pick one of your cruisers that you don't care about, preferably a decently fast one. Open the rebuild menu for it, go to the graphics tab. On that tab there is an "auto convert to carrier" button that will do everything you need for the conversion automatically, even draws a flight deck for you.

Why on earth is it hidden in the graphics tab? That took me ages to find.

Surely that should be with the flight deck and aircraft complement as a more logical place to be.

Don't ask me, I didn't put it there lol

[jb.codling]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by jb.codling:

Why on earth is it hidden in the graphics tab? That took me ages to find.

Surely that should be with the flight deck and aircraft complement as a more logical place to be.

Don't ask me, I didn't put it there lol

Indeed! Perhaps they'll read this and rethink some of the UI to assist some of us 'less lateral thinkers' :D

[Silamon]

Originally posted by jb.codling:

Originally posted by Silamon:

Don't ask me, I didn't put it there lol

Indeed! Perhaps they'll read this and rethink some of the UI to assist some of us 'less lateral thinkers' :D

Seems someone was listening!

On the patch notes for the beta:
• Moved the auto carrier conversion button to the box for flight installations.
• Added a function to auto change carrier graphics to angled flight deck.