PBW ethics, opinions please.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
[QB]

quote:

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Originally posted by tbontob:
In real life a mothballed ship cannot be upgraded. If you upgrade it, it can no longer be mothballed.

Why exactly? There is absolutely no reason to why it would be necessary to pay a full crew to man a ship at combat readiness while you are ripping out its guts and entirely replacing.
QB]

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Hi Graeme

Mothball is defined in my dictionary as
1. a ball made formerly of camphor---Oops wrong mothball

Let's try again
1. To deactivate (as a ship) and prevent deterioration chiefly by dehumidification.
2. To withdraw from use or service and keep in reserve.

My understanding of mothballing is that basically the ship is sealed off. If so, you cannot upgrade a ship and still have it sealed off.

As to paying a crew for being in combat readiness, take the Bismark as an example. It was built, and then IIRC went on sea trials in the Baltic for about a year to train its crew. Only then did it venture into the Atlantic.

The sea trials were important because in its first battle, it sunk the battleship Hood which was the pride of the British fleet and damaged the Prince of Wales.

Pretty good for a novice ship.

So, if we want to be really accurate, I guess we could build the spaceship, and then have the ship hang around the planet for a year while its crew are being trained (to the basic minimum) and only then venture out into deep space.

[tesco samoa]

I agree. The ship is mothballed and not crewed.

It still takes a turn to unmothball the ship and costs resources.

I just feel it is logical to build tons and tons of ships and if you cannot afford to keep them around mothball them.

A classic example of this would be fighting two different types of races.

Race a is organic and constantly builds ships with organic armor maxed out
Race b is a missle / fighter / psychic race.

You build BB ships with crews and Armor skipping weapons to fight Race A.

You build PDC and Master computer and quick fire DF weapons ships to fight Race B

Your At war with Race A so you moth ball your Race B attack ships and build ships to Race A.

Mean while you have just researched MC 2 so you upgrade your mothballed ships... ANd every time you get an up grade you upgrade those ships.

After a while Race A and you agree on a treaty so you mothball about 75% of your fleet and unmothball 25% of your Race B fleet.

Then you just keep building ships for both fleets, mothballing those you cannot afford to keep around and upgrading them when you need to.

That my friend is how to use the mothball and retrofit to its proper use.

It also allows you to max out your spending.

Warning.

Make sure you have enough resources stored to unmothball ships when you need them. And then some extras to have them go about 4 to 5 turns while continueing to build at current rates.

[Fyron]

Yes Tesco, I already knew that. That use of retrofitting mothballed ships is not a problem. The problem is when people abuse it with retroseries builds to avoid a big chunk of the costs of the retroseries.

[tbontob]

T.S.

I can see your point although I have never tried it.

If you want an instant fleet (well, as instant as is possible), unmothballing and retrofitting will get you a fleet faster than any other method.

All you need is a lot of ships with repair facilities hanging about and the resources to absorb the additional 50% cost (30% to gut the old component plus 20% to install the new components) as well as the cost of the components themselves.

Very expensive as you say. But then it may be cheaper than having a smaller fleet hanging around doing nothing.

[tbontob]

T.S. I think I may have missed the main thrust of your point.

And that is retrofitting while the ship is mothballed, thus avoiding maintenance costs.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Yes Tesco, I already knew that. That use of retrofitting mothballed ships is not a problem. The problem is when people abuse it with retroseries builds to avoid a big chunk of the costs of the retroseries.

Fyron, why is it a problem?

The game allows the retrofitting an existing ship in mothball status.

It also allows the construction of a new ship in mothball status.

Both are unrealistic, although the latter much more so (which may be your issue).

But the game does allows both although both are not factually based in real life.

If we do not like it, it is the coding which should be changed.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by tbontob:
My understanding of mothballing is that basically the ship is sealed off. If so, you cannot upgrade a ship and still have it sealed off.

Not so much sealing off as putting it in a port with a skeleton crew so as to avoid paying for a full crew, provisions, ammunition and fuel. I believe the Last Turkish battleship had a crew of 2 for several years (an old captain and his dog!) before the government decided to scrap it. Generally ships in mothball are cheap to maintain but deteriorate rapidly. Perhaps SE4's unmothball cost should be higher to represent the huge amount of work required to turn a decaying hulk into a battleworthy ship once more.

I can't see how this would prevent modifications to the vessel being made, though. There's no crew/ammo/fuel on board. Old parts that are rusting away can be replaced etc. Generally though, in real life mothballed ships are put in mothballs prior to being scrapped (the only exception I can think of is the American battleships mothballed then put back into action for the Gulf War), so it's hard to judge how this should be handled.

As to paying a crew for being in combat readiness, take the Bismark as an example. It was built, and then IIRC went on sea trials in the Baltic for about a year to train its crew. Only then did it venture into the Atlantic.

The sea trials were important because in its first battle, it sunk the battleship Hood which was the pride of the British fleet and damaged the Prince of Wales.

Pretty good for a novice ship.

Indeed, and the Prince of Wales was only recently built (when she left port to intercept the Bismarck she still had civilian contractors on board trying to get the main armament fully operational. During the Denmark Strait battle she was rarely able to fire more than 7 of her 10 main guns due to mechanical failures. Despite this she did manage to hit the Bismarck, rupturing a fuel tank and causing her to run for St. Nazaire. Several British ships were rushed into combat too quickly - I believe the record was a destroyer crippled/sunk just a week after being completed.

An interesting point is that the Tirpitz (sister ship of the Bismarck) was also recently built and was still working up when Bismarck sailed - hence she wasn't allowed to join the sortie (thank goodness - one battleship proved hard enough to stop).

The thing is that there are two issues that are lumped together in SE4:

1) Crew experience/training. This can be got round in real life by assigning crew from other ships to your new ship, or indeed, by training crew whilst their ship is being built. This is especially true if you have several ships of the same design on which to gain experience.

2) Vessel shakedown. No ship comes off the stocks fully operational, especially if the design is a new one. Generally weeks/months of sailing are required to shake out all the little niggling problems and make the ship fully battleworthy.

So, if we want to be really accurate, I guess we could build the spaceship, and then have the ship hang around the planet for a year while its crew are being trained (to the basic minimum) and only then venture out into deep space.

I'd like the training to be more important, perhaps by raising the amount of experience you can get, raising the amount you can get from training etc. This would mean ships raced into combat would be at a great disadvantage against those carefully brought up to full battle readiness. It would probably really hurt the AI, though.

Anyway, I've rambled on for enough.