Which ship designer for cruisers in MTG?

[MorbiusStorm]

Before we had two different hulls for CA/CL. For the US, as an example, you might choose Electric Boat Company for basic screen improvements for the CL. And you may go with Brooklyn Naval Yard for the heavy armor and such for the CA.

Now that the CA/CL are the same hull in MTG, you have to pick one for both of them. Not sure I like the idea of them both having the same hull. Is that historical and one just had larger guns, or were they not historically different hulls?

Brooklyn Naval:
Capital Ships = +10% Armor, +10% Heavy Attack
Screen = No change

Electric Boat:
Capital Ships = -10% Surface Visibility, +10% Max Speed, -10% Heavy Attack
Screen = -10% Surface Visibility, +10% Max Speed

Newport News:
+25% Max Range to both cap/screen

Thoughts on which way to go and why? With Brooklyn you buff the CA without affecting the CL. Reasonable. With Electric Boat they both get a buff to visibility and speed. But the CA takes a hit to its Heavy Attack. Or you could buff range to both, or not have a design company at all giving just base stats (but you may as well at least take Brooklyn and buff one rather then none).

There are reasons to be willing to take the hit to heavy attack on the CA, considering speed and visibility are both helpful in detection now. If you are using the CL with catapults for detection, this can be valuable for your spotters. Perhaps skip using the CA and stick with BB or BC for caps to avoid the hit to heavy attack. Thoughts?

[Random]

electric is superior, because screens have torpedoes (alot due to numbers) which are just as good as heavy guns vs heavies as you will be limited on capital ship production just based on dock allocations.

Lower surface visibility + faster speed for all ships for intercepting and spotting is far superior.

no contest.

[MorbiusStorm]

I think I like the idea of Electric Boat for my style. The other may be semi neutral in that at least one gets a boost and no harm is done to the screen. But the buffs for EB are central to my spotters I think.

And the hit to heavy attack isn't terrible when you consider they did get speed/visibility buffs (I won't say I like it, but it's tolerable). Not to mention, some like to make AA cruisers that may not be affected much by the heavy attack loss (since its focused on AA). I haven't gone that route with cruisers, but I do need to up my fleet AA. Mixing some of those in isn't a bad idea.

And yeah, the US can easily afford it. First thing they should do is build 85 or so dockyards. The US with its economy problems is wasting lots of time trying to build civ/mil factories early on. But instead you could have built up your dockyards without them harming what little civ production you have the way mil factories would. Then you can build a continuous line of all ships and have plenty to spare for refit, more lines, or whatever. And about that time you should be close to loosing enough of those penalties to focus on your mil factories, meanwhile your navy is at full production.