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JWE -> RE: Hey, mister, please may we have our torpedoes back! (3/29/2009 6:52:15 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
This is really interesting stuff - thank you very much.
My first reactions were that it will supply an incentive to expand ports that is currently absent, and that it would make ammunition replenishment much more challenging. On reflection, I'm not so sure.
At present, in the absence of a suitable tender, a player needs a size 8 port to replenish torpedoes (both for submarines and surface ships). Now it looks as though this requirement is relaxed to a size 7 port. That suggests there is a substantial incentive to expand a number of ports that could never previously have functioned as torpedo reload points unless a tender was present. It seems that much may turn on standard potential sizes for ports, and how much extra effort will be required to expand to each successive size. Clearly expansion from size 6 to size 7 massively enhances a port's potential.
If port SPS's in CHS are anything to go by, port expansion to the 'magic value 7' raises interesting possibilities - e.g. Rabaul and Noumea would qualify, but Suva would not. Townsville will, Darwin won't. Previously none of these could have attained this magic value in CHS.
John's table also suggests that cruisers will be able to reload torpedoes in a port where an AE is present. Previously an AD was required. That introduces a significantly greater degree of flexibility into forward fleet logistics (well, for the Japanese and the RN at least - oh, and the Omaha CL's too I suppose). The way I read it, an AD is still going to be needed to replenish destroyers' torpedo loads; is that correct?
One thing I'm not clear about is how the threshold requirement can be met by tenders. If capacities of AE's are the same as in CHS then the individual Japanese AE's in the Kashino class and Mamiya satisfy it for Type 93 replenishment, whilst the Kinesaki class don't. Some of the Allied AD's don't have a capacity in CHS, so no doubt they'll be given one in Admiral's Edition. What I'm wondering is whether the threshold requirements can be met by aggregating the capacities of multiple AE's - i.e. would the presence of 2 Kinesaki's make it possible for cruisers to reload their Type 93 banks, for example? Logically, if you can tot up available Naval Support squads to get across the threshold, you ought to be able to do the same with tender capacities.
On the one hand it looks as though fleet replenishment has been made more difficult, but on the other the means for accomplishing it seem to have been extended. It's great news if this means that players will be properly rewarded by effective management of their fleet logistics.
Mr. Yokel; It is a pure pleasure to respond to questions like these. To begin, it’s very, very different from CHS.
Yes, there is an incentive to expand ports. Also, the basis port numbers were adjusted to account for this, so there’s a few more that can’t get to a 7, so there is additional incentive to deploy Naval Support (i.e., make a Naval Base) in places where engineer units are lacking or those ports that just can’t get there from here. Planning and flexibility is the key here.
A level-7 has significantly more capability than a level-6, in many more ways than just rearm capability. So the number of ports that can get to a 7 are substantially fewer, and for those that can, it will take substantially more effort to do so.
Any surface ship may load torpedoes from an AKE/AE. Cruisers and DDs (and DD similar ships, like DEs, Es, etc..) may also load torps from an AD. PTs (and MTBs, MLs, HTMLs) may also load torps from an AGP. Only subs may load torps from an AS.
Tenders have a “cargo capacity” data field that is used to determine rearm. The code first checks the data field to see if it’s big enough to satisfy the threshold requirement (of course it will be – pretty silly if it wasn’t). Once it passes this first check, the supply cost, to rearm, is taken from the cargo capacity – so it’s a diminishing quantity and requires a trip to a base having supply to re-stock, as it were.
Further, the number of ships that can convert to tenders of one form or another have been drastically reduced. In our testing, we’re seeing a full 80%, or more, of the Japanese merchant fleet (after the usual Army/Navy requisitions) required to move the necessary resources, oil, supply. Converting a merchie to a tender is a one-way trip, so the merchie fleet forever loses that hull’s carrying capacity. Additionally, only a very, very select few of the most highly valued and capable merchies ‘may’ convert to a select number of specific tender types.
Don’t think replenishment is more difficult, per se, just that replenishment locations are much more limited. However, players will indeed be properly rewarded by effective management of Base Construction and Naval Support assets, and particularly the judicious development and use of their fleet logistical support train.
Ciao. John
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