WesWorld

Folks,

so far we have no rule how ships age. The only thing dealing with age so far is one paragraph in the infrastructure rules:

"2.2.2 Refits:

Any ship ages. Its combat ability degrades and time and technology advances. For each year over 15 that a ship has not been refitted, it suffers a 5% penalty to its combat performance. Note that a ship may be refitted at any time, subject to any relevant naval treaty restrictions."


I´d like to see a rule that takes care of normal aging. I propose a rule that says a ship ages by 1% of its status every two years. Together with the rule above the status of a ship would thus degenerate like this:

1st year: 100%
3rd year: 99%
5th year: 97%
7th year: 95% (light damage)
9th year: 93%
11th year: 91%
13th year: 89%
15th year: 87%
16th year: 82%
17th year: 77% (moderate damage)
etc.

Such a rule would not only add some kind of realismn, it would also force all players to keep track of their ships condition and take care of them (refits, dock time etc.). Due to this it would become more challanging to handle ones fleets, docks and also factory output. One will not be able to focus on new vessels alone. Those who have a large fleet will also need much material to keep that fleet running.

What do you think? Should we add this to the rules?

Interesting idea.

I wonder if people with big fleets are going to like this. I'm in favor for this aging rule.

Walter

Hi

the idea is not bad

it might be time for us to share the spreadsheets we are using to keep our fleets organized

mine is still rather primitive, but that might change today

cheers

Bernhard

Well, keeping a large fleet running is really difficult if you take into account all the refits necessary, the modernisations for old units etc. A good chunk out of ones production is to be used for _not_ building new vessels but to keep the older ones in good condition.

As for the sheets: I use at least 4. One for the money, one for the tonnage used per category, one for numbers (per class and total) and one for the ship yards used (slips, docks and tonnage/points per month - thanks to Pengolodh). It would be nice to have all this in one sheet but so far I hadn´t time to put it all togehter.

now the first and the last one I would be interested in.

I currently use one for construction times and one for tonnage and that's it.

cheers

Bernhard

Will the rules also still assume that it takes the same amount of refit (25% of light displacement) to restore a ship to 100% regardless of what state it is in?

No, just like repairing a damaged ship. This should do to represent normal maintenance. If you´re ship drops to say 89% before you have a dock free for it you´ll have to spend time and material as if it is damaged 11%.

although Hooman's idea sounds more realistic i am in favour of what it says in the treaty now. It means less and easier work.

This is not part of the treaty.

With regards to repairing worn ships, this is what it says in the current 1.3-proposal - note the things in bold-face, and how they interact:

Quoted

2.2.2 Refits:

Any ship ages. Its combat ability degrades and time and technology advances. For each year over 15 that a ship has not been refitted, it suffers a 5% penalty to its combat performance. Note that a ship may be refitted at any time, subject to any relevant naval treaty restrictions.

A refit involves the replacement of relatively small items such as wireless, secondary guns, radar, and fire control directors. General internal hull fittings such as bulkheads and bunks may also be replaced at this time. It does not affect the ship’s hull or its overall performance to any notable degree.

The cost for refitting a ship is equivalent to 25% of its build cost. The time it takes to refit is equal to that figure as well. If a battleship originally cost 40,000 tons of material to build, its refit cost would be 10,000 tons of material and the time required would be 10 months. A refit does not add to the value of the ship, it just refreshes its combat ability.

Once a ship is refitted, it is no longer subject to the combat penalties mentioned above.

Unless this si reworded, it seems to imply that to bring a 40,000ton ship back up to 100%, from 95%, you would need to spend just as much material as if you were to bring it up from 75% to 100% (10,000 tons).

i meant the infrastructure rules

My original intention was to hear if you guys are interested at all in such a rule. If my proposal is accepted, we´ll have to add a new chapter to the infrastructure rules for "maintenance". It doesn´t make sense to wait 15 years without doing anything to keep the ships running while it also makes no sense to pay for 25% when only 8% are to be repaired.

Why not just make the rule this. A ship will enevitably age so why not make it lose 1% a year. The ship will constantly need matenance to keep it in top notch shape anyway and if not refitted the age of the ship would determine the % of wear and tear. A refit would make the ship allmost new and a rebuild would bring her back up to 100%. So for example Ship X is 8 years old and shes taken no damage, she is therefore at 92%. Perhaps after the age of 10 years a refit would only bring the ship up to 95% but before that it would make her like new.

Quoted

It doesn´t make sense to wait 15 years without doing anything to keep the ships running while it also makes no sense to pay for 25% when only 8% are to be repaired.

But these two points in the original rules balance out. The original rule on refits, perhaps with an increased penalty (~10%) handles things well enough for our purposes. I think tracking the maintenance status of individual ships, by year, would get a little complicated.

I'd prefer not to get that detailed with regards to ship condition.

Its simple....the ships age determine the condition, a refit would refresh it and every year after it would go down the same rate as before.

As long as we keep it that simple - but having some rule that if the ships are over such and such age, they can only be repaired up to 95% is overcomplicating matters without adding much to the sim. We should be careful with adding too many rules to the sim.

Quoted

Originally posted by Pengolodh_sc
As long as we keep it that simple - but having some rule that if the ships are over such and such age, they can only be repaired up to 95% is overcomplicating matters without adding much to the sim.

That´s not what I proposed. To quote my original post:

"I propose a rule that says a ship ages by 1% of its status every two years."

That´s all. It is not complex, it´s not difficult to track.

Wes did propose something like that, though:

Quoted

Why not just make the rule this. A ship will enevitably age so why not make it lose 1% a year. The ship will constantly need matenance to keep it in top notch shape anyway and if not refitted the age of the ship would determine the % of wear and tear. A refit would make the ship allmost new and a rebuild would bring her back up to 100%. So for example Ship X is 8 years old and shes taken no damage, she is therefore at 92%. Perhaps after the age of 10 years a refit would only bring the ship up to 95% but before that it would make her like new.

I think I missed the actual percent of wear and tear Hooman preposed but its very similar to what I preposed after the fact. One percent every two years would seem more realistic but complicates the math, were as one percent every year would be incredibly simple but less realistic. Do we go for realism or simplicity or another way completely?

What I was questioning was the second proposal you tagged on in your original post, about it being impossible to repair a ship up to more than 95% when it was ten years old.