A review and new system for gun turrets/barbettes plus other ideas

[Whomst'd've]

Hi there.

I've been playing the game recently and have been enjoying it thoroughly, as I am a naval history nut, this is extremely interesting for me. I love the idea of building your own ships and taking the best ideas forward that have already been proven in real life. The combat I also enjoy, and is only bound to get better. 

However I have a couple problems with the shipbuilder that does strictly prohibit design choices and ideas. The main ones being anchor points for superstructures and barbettes and the turret/barbette diameter.  First I will start with superstructure anchor points. I know this has been covered before by many others but I will just quickly reiterate it again, the superstructure problem can be simply fixed by increasing the amount of anchor points along the length of the hull, where the hull can reasonably sustain it, like a line up the centre between two cut off points. This will enable players to play around with designs from Nelson and G3 class to the Nurnberg cruiser layout. For example: 

Barbette position would act a little different, kind of...

First off barbettes will be split into two categories, centreline and side mounted. Just like the gun turrets. The centreline barbettes will have essentially an increased amount of anchor points like in the picture above, but the points will extend all the way to where gun turrets are limited to. These barbettes when, holding down the left ctrl button, should also be able to do what gun turrets can do and be fine tuned in their place meant along the centre of the ship. 

Side mounted barbettes will be able to be placed like side mounted gun turrets, however their max diameter will only be able to hold upto 6 Inch sized gun turrets (as pointed out by @RAMJB any larger gun diameter the AI may overly take advantage of). 

 

Now onto the next problem regarding barbettes. Diameter size relative to gun caliber and number. 

 

See what I mean? These gun turrets are all equipped with the same 14 inch weapon. However they all have the same barbette diameter, which is unrealistic and annoying for ship building. The point of choosing a smaller number of guns in a turret is to reduce barbette diameter to help save weight, and to also keep the ships center of gravity lower down (increasing stability). This can be seen on the King George V class, and the conte di cavour class:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another problem is the limited size options for barbettes, just being three, which leads to designs like this: 

Both turrets are equipped with 15 inch guns. However for a 15 inch gun to be superfiring at the moment, the only barbette that can take that is the largest option, which is directly derived from yamato's triple 18 turrets, therefore being way bigger than needed for a twin 15 inch turret, (barbettes were designed to only be as big as they needed to be and nothing more, as seen in the real pictures).  

Therefore I suggest barbette size should be based on not only the caliber of guns but also the number of guns in a turret. The ratio can be worked out by looking into historical conversion plans. The north carolina class battleship was actually originally planned to be equipped with 3 quadruple 14 inch gun turrets due to the second london naval treaty of 1935. However they were upgunned to triple 16 inch turrets after Japan didn't sign the treaty. The same is said for Japanese heavy cruisers of the mogami class, going from triple 6 inch turrets to twin 8 inch turrets. Therefore we can assume roughly that for an increase in gun size for every 2 inches leads to one less gun in the turret for the same barbette size, eg:

 

This will mean players can have appropriately size barbettes for the equivalent gun size and number of guns in each turret. 

Also the ability to stack centerline barbettes upto triple 6 Inch gun turret size would also be allowed, so ships like the USS Atlanta and the secondaries on Yamato can be created. This stacking ability has a limit of 6 Inch weapons, as although the barbette can fit dual 8 inch guns, it (from my knowledge) has never been done historically, so therefore will not be allowed. Another thing to note is that you cannot stack side mounted barbettes, this is only a feature of lighter centerline barbettes. 

Final main thing to cover would be the ability to see the barbette armour in the ship builder (and overall armor of the ship). As well as the ability to determine the barbette armour itself both above and behind the main armour belt. It would look similar to the damage model we see in combat:

    

Another idea that popped up while making WW1 style ships was trying to make it easier to replicate the echelon layout. When a side mounted large caliber turret is placed, individually (without the auto mirror option), a line of anchor points would appear on the other side of the ship at the exact same distance as the turret from the center of the ship but mirrored, plus there would be two highlighted options, one being the exact mirror and the second being a reflection from the center of mass. This should have no lateral instability (assuming you are placing the same gun turret), eg:   

This suggestion also uses left ctrl to finetune the position of the turret, but you are locked into moving your turret only lengthways up and down the ship to make sure you keep the stability. If you want to widen your echelon layout, you have to move the original turret and replace the second one. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading my proposal and vote on the polls. 

Cheers. 

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Whomst'd've

[arkhangelsk]

On 1/16/2020 at 3:16 PM, Whomst'd've said:

However I have a couple problems with the shipbuilder that does strictly prohibit design choices and ideas. The main ones being anchor points for superstructures and barbettes and the turret/barbette diameter.  First I will start with superstructure anchor points. I know this has been covered before by many others but I will just quickly reiterate it again, the superstructure problem can be simply fixed by increasing the amount of anchor points along the length of the hull, where the hull can reasonably sustain it, like a line up the centre between two cut off points. This will enable players to play around with designs from Nelson and G3 class to the Nurnberg cruiser layout. For example: 

You know, the more I poke around this game, the more I find the devs might have had something in mind for using limited mounting points. Consider this picture:

 

Note how thanks to the limited mounting points, I am stopped from the atrocity of concentrating 3 11-inch turret on the bow of a relatively small, 17000 ton hull, even with the tower at the rearmost point. If I had been permitted to use anywhere on the line, that red turret would have just fit and I could easily make a ship with five 11 inch gun turrets on a mere 17000 ton displacement hull.

On 1/16/2020 at 3:16 PM, Whomst'd've said:

See what I mean? These gun turrets are all equipped with the same 14 inch weapon. However they all have the same barbette diameter, which is unrealistic and annoying for ship building. The point of choosing a smaller number of guns in a turret is to reduce barbette diameter to help save weight, and to also keep the ships center of gravity lower down (increasing stability). This can be seen on the King George V class, and the conte di cavour class:

I suppose it is to make those three fixed barbettes look less conspicuous, but it's not clear you are being charged for the extra weight. What's clear is that the space is being put to good use. It is said that counting everything a triple should be worth about 2.5 single guns. In this game, a quick check suggests it is closer to about 1.8-1.9. So either we are seeing particularly ergonomic single turrets or particularly cramped triple turrets.

If we are going to modify the barbettes, we might as well get rid of them entirely, and just give the option to "extend" the turrets for superfiring. That way, we won't have to fool around with tables (besides, what about Scharnhorst's 3 11-inch to 2 15-inch?)

Quote

Also the ability to stack centerline barbettes would also be allowed, so ships like the USS Atlanta can be created. This stacking ability will have a limit depending on the size of the barbette.

It'll be less fun when some player turns your intended 8 mounting points for 5-inch doubles into 8-mounting points for 8-inch triples

But I would like an armor viewer. If it is not too much trouble, that is.

Edited April 5, 2020 by arkhangelsk
Recover quota by deleting attachments

[akd]

39 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

Note how thanks to the limited mounting points, I am stopped from the atrocity of concentrating 3 11-inch turret on the bow of a relatively small, 17000 ton hull, even with the tower at the rearmost point. If I had been permitted to use anywhere on the line, that red turret would have just fit and I could easily make a ship with five 11 inch gun turrets on a mere 17000 ton displacement hull.

Hold CTRL and you can place the turret anywhere along the line.  Doesn't work with barbettes.

[Skeksis]

2 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

Note how thanks to the limited mounting points, I am stopped from the atrocity of concentrating 3 11-inch turret on the bow of a relatively small, 17000 ton hull, even with the tower at the rearmost point. If I had been permitted to use anywhere on the line, that red turret would have just fit and I could easily make a ship with five 11 inch gun turrets on a mere 17000 ton displacement hull.

Current limited nodes are more likely to a ‘Auto-Build’ programming issue rather than a player interface issue which is already control by costs, weights, offsets and tech level. The same for side mounted barbettes, there auto-resolved ability probably hasn’t been developed yet.

Have you seen some of the game "atrocity" of inserting tiny calibres in between mains! and to mention, dotting small calibres all over modern hulls, in this case beauty is in the eye of the beholder…designer. As @akd said, there's no interference with C turret so you can move B back alittle. 

 

[arkhangelsk]

Well, I tried it again, and actually he is right. I ended up managing to cram eighteen 11 inch guns onto the 17000 tonner. The only small grace is that at least the pitch penalty actually seems to start working when you push things that far (it's always working, but it is not apparent when its decrement is small).

[Whomst'd've]

4 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

You know, the more I poke around this game, the more I find the devs might have had something in mind for using limited mounting points. Consider this picture:

Note how thanks to the limited mounting points, I am stopped from the atrocity of concentrating 3 11-inch turret on the bow of a relatively small, 17000 ton hull, even with the tower at the rearmost point. If I had been permitted to use anywhere on the line, that red turret would have just fit and I could easily make a ship with five 11 inch gun turrets on a mere 17000 ton displacement hull.

I suppose it is to make those three fixed barbettes look less conspicuous, but it's not clear you are being charged for the extra weight. What's clear is that the space is being put to good use. It is said that counting everything a triple should be worth about 2.5 single guns. In this game, a quick check suggests it is closer to about 1.8-1.9. So either we are seeing particularly ergonomic single turrets or particularly cramped triple turrets.

If we are going to modify the barbettes, we might as well get rid of them entirely, and just give the option to "extend" the turrets for superfiring. That way, we won't have to fool around with tables (besides, what about Scharnhorst's 3 11-inch to 2 15-inch?)

It'll be less fun when some player turns your intended 8 mounting points for 5-inch doubles into 8-mounting points for 8-inch triples

But I would like an armor viewer. If it is not too much trouble, that is.

I think players should be able to play around with these relatively weird/nuts ideas, but they should be restricted just like in real life, so if you had gone with that set up, something like your hull strength would be dropped considerably. Along with other factors like that. 

Yes extending the barbettes automatically would be ideal, I just figured this solution would be easier to implement due to not having to make a programme to auto detect and create barbettes. However I may be wrong.

Scharnhorst's 3 11-inch turrets are a very interesting case, they were actually built extremely wide and spacious, more than was necessary for tiple 11s. Done with the possibly to refit at a later date. For more information on this I suggest looking at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD6pgMf1TTM

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

Current limited nodes are more likely to a ‘Auto-Build’ programming issue rather than a player interface issue which is already control by costs, weights, offsets and tech level. The same for side mounted barbettes, there auto-resolved ability probably hasn’t been developed yet.

 

Have you seen some of the game "atrocity" of inserting tiny calibres in between mains! and to mention, dotting small calibres all over modern hulls, in this case beauty is in the eye of the beholder…designer. As @akd said, there's no interference with C turret so you can move B back alittle. 

 

I feel the auto build problem could be solved by restricting what the auto builder can do with the system we have not, but have the builder set up differently like it has been suggested here just for players?

[arkhangelsk]

I suspect there are two things separating our perspectives. First, while I do like realism, I don't place a lot of weight in reproducing a historical ship exactly, and I suspect most players will too once the novelty goes off. You create the perfect HMS Hood or HMS Vanguard replica and send it into battle. The enemy's "Super Battleship" or "Modern Battleship" smashes it to pieces with its 18 inch guns. After that, you'll probably think much more about what gives you an edge in the game than perfect replicas that you won't even spend a lot of time admiring anyway, because most of the time you are zoomed out trying to manage the fight. Having realistic overall capabilities and results is much more important.

One example is a certain player who demanded a specialized light cruiser hull so he can recreate HMS Arethusa (another wanted USS Atlanta) with 8 6-inch and 16 5-inch guns respectively. All I can think of from here are unintended consequences like 24-gun (3x8) ships. And I think the current destroyers that already allow 12 5-inch guns is quite enough to represent that part of the bracket.

The second thing is that I don't buy the whole "It's for the AI" argument. The complexities of making a campaign ship notwithstanding, creating a good ship for Custom Battle is something the AI should be good at and wouldn't need fixed spots. In the above example, it should be able to easily wargame out the dreadful effects of 18 11-inch guns because it knows all the formulae it will use and reject that option. Because the range is given, it should be able to easily wargame out what would give it the best overall damage potential and then what combination of speed and armor can best neuter my damage potential (isn't it obvious the only two real bulkhead variants are Many and Maximum?). I can't help but think they are letting us win with the current builds, rather than the best the AI could really manage.

I think those limits are for us players. In above example, I actually briefly tried the Ctrl trick the first time but for one reason or another I couldn't get a green. The mounting points do still discourage you from the three turret, and because the tower can't be moved freely with the Ctrl trick at least I can't put cram a fourth in there. At least the possibility should be further investigated before just saying "I want complete freedom to build my Arethusa" or my imaginary design.

Further is the problem of equality and challenge. People seem to really mind when the AI gets advantages, but when it is their advantage, they don't. Besides, if setting some limits reduces our advantage and makes it more challenging, that's also a factor to consider.

Maybe an option is a "historic mode" you can click. When that setting is on, the placement becomes free, BUT you are restricted from using ahistorical equipment. For example, if you click on it when you are the UK, you get free placement, but 17 and 18 inches become singles only (no G3 replicas, sorry), 16 inches become triple only, 15 inches are twins only, you can only use 6-inch triples on CA, not CL, and so on and so on. Since the game already blocks equipment from selection based on year and other factors, hopefully this won't be a hard program module.

[Whomst'd've]

3 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

I suspect there are two things separating our perspectives. First, while I do like realism, I don't place a lot of weight in reproducing a historical ship exactly, and I suspect most players will too once the novelty goes off. You create the perfect HMS Hood or HMS Vanguard replica and send it into battle. The enemy's "Super Battleship" or "Modern Battleship" smashes it to pieces with its 18 inch guns. After that, you'll probably think much more about what gives you an edge in the game than perfect replicas that you won't even spend a lot of time admiring anyway, because most of the time you are zoomed out trying to manage the fight. Having realistic overall capabilities and results is much more important.

One example is a certain player who demanded a specialized light cruiser hull so he can recreate HMS Arethusa (another wanted USS Atlanta) with 8 6-inch and 16 5-inch guns respectively. All I can think of from here are unintended consequences like 24-gun (3x8) ships. And I think the current destroyers that already allow 12 5-inch guns is quite enough to represent that part of the bracket.

The second thing is that I don't buy the whole "It's for the AI" argument. The complexities of making a campaign ship notwithstanding, creating a good ship for Custom Battle is something the AI should be good at and wouldn't need fixed spots. In the above example, it should be able to easily wargame out the dreadful effects of 18 11-inch guns because it knows all the formulae it will use and reject that option. Because the range is given, it should be able to easily wargame out what would give it the best overall damage potential and then what combination of speed and armor can best neuter my damage potential (isn't it obvious the only two real bulkhead variants are Many and Maximum?). I can't help but think they are letting us win with the current builds, rather than the best the AI could really manage.

I think those limits are for us players. In above example, I actually briefly tried the Ctrl trick the first time but for one reason or another I couldn't get a green. The mounting points do still discourage you from the three turret, and because the tower can't be moved freely with the Ctrl trick at least I can't put cram a fourth in there. At least the possibility should be further investigated before just saying "I want complete freedom to build my Arethusa" or my imaginary design.

Further is the problem of equality and challenge. People seem to really mind when the AI gets advantages, but when it is their advantage, they don't. Besides, if setting some limits reduces our advantage and makes it more challenging, that's also a factor to consider.

Maybe an option is a "historic mode" you can click. When that setting is on, the placement becomes free, BUT you are restricted from using ahistorical equipment. For example, if you click on it when you are the UK, you get free placement, but 17 and 18 inches become singles only (no G3 replicas, sorry), 16 inches become triple only, 15 inches are twins only, you can only use 6-inch triples on CA, not CL, and so on and so on. Since the game already blocks equipment from selection based on year and other factors, hopefully this won't be a hard program module.

Oh no I dont intend to make replicas, I intend to make unique designs that hopefully take the best from that time period and put it all into an effective platform. But I also want it to be very mush set in a realistic manner. There shouldn't be a god tier weapon, it should follow like real life, with advantages and disadvantages, trying to find the best combination. But you should not be restricted by these anchor points where the hull can clearly support them. It should be almost like your sorting out the engineering behind the ship yourself, load up the front of the ship to much, you risk snapping the keel. Put too much weight up hight, your not gonna like storms. Everything should be counterbalanced, not just restricted yo a point where it can never be a problem. 

I actually fully agree with you on the AI argument there, thank you for pointing that out. 

[Shaftoe]

I definitely support that new barbett system, because it would allow to create more historical(ish) ship designs, particularly super-dreadnoughts, such as Wyoming, New York, etc. 

[RAMJB]

On 1/16/2020 at 8:16 AM, Whomst'd've said:

First off barbettes will be split into two categories, centreline and side mounted. Just like the gun turrets.

Let me preface that I think all your ideas are really good. The barbette/superstructure/turret placement mechanics have been argued a lot of times in the forum, it's clear the system is not flexible enough (not by far), and the devs are on it. I'm sure we'll see changes on it in the future and your suggestions could very well be some of those changes, as all of them are solid, well argumented, historically accurate and well explained.

This part I quoted, but I'm referencing to your suggestion to "stack the barbettes" in the poll, however.

But referring to the quote itself, there were no cases of over-the-deck barbettes on the wing turrets of any main battery of any warship of the era that I can recall (you can me correct me on this one, but I'm almost 100% sure of it). There were cases of some battleship side-mounted secondaries raised to quite high levels, though, so that'd be perfectly fine. I think the 203mm cutoff you put is a very generous one. I know the Lexingtons had it but those were CVs and we don't have them in the game (and probably won't for a very long time to come). So...I'm...not sure about that one. I'd put the cut-off at a lower end, maybe 6'' guns.
Otherwise I can see the AI going absolute balls-wild with turreted side 8'' secondaries that make no sense and would be massively immersion-breaking in the campaign. Which is a serious concern, at least from my standpoint.


But back to what I wanted to say about the super-mounting of barbettes. Super-superfiring weapons weren't common, and those that existed were of small caliber (I consider anything up to 6'' caliber "small caliber"). They had the potential to add a ton of topweight and unstability. So unless our ships are modelled with the inherent trait of being able to just roll over on moved seas because we built them with far too much topweight - main battery guns on super-superfiring positions should not be a thing in this game ;).

I of course know about the Atlantas, and about some battleships and cruisers mounting secondary turrets in super-superfiring positions. The Yamatos had a triple 6'' mounted just behind the A and B turret, for instance. And there are more instances of secondaries mounted like that, as in the clevelands or baltimores. So it was a thing and should be here aswell.
But that's it- stacking barbettes should be restricted to strictly secondary caliber guns. Again with a top cutoff of 6'' caliber for them. 

Other than that, all your ideas are really good and I'm sure in some form or another, we'll end up with very similar mechanics for the designer in the future :).

Edited January 17, 2020 by RAMJB

[Whomst'd've]

8 hours ago, RAMJB said:

Let me preface that I think all your ideas are really good. The barbette/superstructure/turret placement mechanics have been argued a lot of times in the forum, it's clear the system is not flexible enough (not by far), and the devs are on it. I'm sure we'll see changes on it in the future and your suggestions could very well be some of those changes, as all of them are solid, well argumented, historically accurate and well explained.

This part I quoted, but I'm referencing to your suggestion to "stack the barbettes" in the poll, however.

But referring to the quote itself, there were no cases of over-the-deck barbettes on the wing turrets of any main battery of any warship of the era that I can recall (you can me correct me on this one, but I'm almost 100% sure of it). There were cases of some battleship side-mounted secondaries raised to quite high levels, though, so that'd be perfectly fine. I think the 203mm cutoff you put is a very generous one. I know the Lexingtons had it but those were CVs and we don't have them in the game (and probably won't for a very long time to come). So...I'm...not sure about that one. I'd put the cut-off at a lower end, maybe 6'' guns.
Otherwise I can see the AI going absolute balls-wild with turreted side 8'' secondaries that make no sense and would be massively immersion-breaking in the campaign. Which is a serious concern, at least from my standpoint.


But back to what I wanted to say about the super-mounting of barbettes. Super-superfiring weapons weren't common, and those that existed were of small caliber (I consider anything up to 6'' caliber "small caliber"). They had the potential to add a ton of topweight and unstability. So unless our ships are modelled with the inherent trait of being able to just roll over on moved seas because we built them with far too much topweight - main battery guns on super-superfiring positions should not be a thing in this game ;).

I of course know about the Atlantas, and about some battleships and cruisers mounting secondary turrets in super-superfiring positions. The Yamatos had a triple 6'' mounted just behind the A and B turret, for instance. And there are more instances of secondaries mounted like that, as in the clevelands or baltimores. So it was a thing and should be here aswell.
But that's it- stacking barbettes should be restricted to strictly secondary caliber guns. Again with a top cutoff of 6'' caliber for them. 

Other than that, all your ideas are really good and I'm sure in some form or another, we'll end up with very similar mechanics for the designer in the future :).

Thanks for commenting!

Yeah that makes sense for the side barbettes to have a lower limit, as AI would probably take advantage of that. Ill also make it clear that you cannot double stack side mounted barbettes. The only case I could see that happening is really late game with duel 100mm AA guns as seen on the Jean Bart when she was commissioned the in 1950s (currently outside of this games time frame).  

As for stacking the centerline barrettes, triple 6 inch size is a fairly historical limit (as seen on the Yamato) so therefore i'll make that clear in the OP.

 

[Whomst'd've]

Also quick question to anyone who might know, have there been any cases of a ship being actually built with turrets that have more than 4 guns in them (no matter the caliber)? Just wondering if I may need to expand the table for barbettes.

[akd]

Actually built? No.  Sketched after too much vino? Yes.

https://stefsap.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/ferrettis-10381-in-quintuples-battleship-design/

[Whomst'd've]

4 hours ago, akd said:

Actually built? No.  Sketched after too much vino? Yes.

https://stefsap.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/ferrettis-10381-in-quintuples-battleship-design/

Oh my... 

Yeah maybe they should not implement turrets above 4 guns at all XD

 

Edited January 18, 2020 by Whomst'd've

[disc]

On 1/17/2020 at 6:20 PM, Whomst'd've said:

Also quick question to anyone who might know, have there been any cases of a ship being actually built with turrets that have more than 4 guns in them (no matter the caliber)? Just wondering if I may need to expand the table for barbettes.

To be ultra-pedantic, plenty of Royal Navy ships with octuple 40mm pom-poms or sextuple 40mm Bofors. One may also consider the rotatable versions of the Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar, and technically many torpedo launchers are guns, too. These would be called mounts, not turrets, but that's sort of quibbling too.

In a more grounded sense, no, there were no naval vessels that I know of with more than four big guns in one turret.

 

Curiously, though it is often said that a heavy weight far forward or far aft on a ship contributes to pitch, this is not actually true, according to DK Brown, the famous ship constructor. This was a common misconception through the predreadnought era, til some better science proved otherwise.

It does, however, contribute to hull stress, which can be severe. That's not in the game, though, so I think this is an appropriate abstraction.

 

I don't think we should limit the players from building idiotic designs with 3x6 super-super-firing turrets. Just give them appropriate negative modifiers, and the "problem" will solve itself. It's not like these were strict physical impossibilities, they just required too extreme of trade-offs for big guns. They would be fun to build and play around with in a video game.

On the other hand, I think the auto-generated enemies should have restrictions. The computer is pretty stupid.

Edited January 18, 2020 by disc

[Whomst'd've]

5 hours ago, disc said:

To be ultra-pedantic, plenty of Royal Navy ships with octuple 40mm pom-poms or sextuple 40mm Bofors. One may also consider the rotatable versions of the Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar, and technically many torpedo launchers are guns, too. These would be called mounts, not turrets, but that's sort of quibbling too.

In a more grounded sense, no, there were no naval vessels that I know of with more than four big guns in one turret.

 

Curiously, though it is often said that a heavy weight far forward or far aft on a ship contributes to pitch, this is not actually true, according to DK Brown, the famous ship constructor. This was a common misconception through the predreadnought era, til some better science proved otherwise.

It does, however, contribute to hull stress, which can be severe. That's not in the game, though, so I think this is an appropriate abstraction.

 

I don't think we should limit the players from building idiotic designs with 3x6 super-super-firing turrets. Just give them appropriate negative modifiers, and the "problem" will solve itself. It's not like these were strict physical impossibilities, they just required too extreme of trade-offs for big guns. They would be fun to build and play around with in a video game.

On the other hand, I think the auto-generated enemies should have restrictions. The computer is pretty stupid.

Yeah I was thinking over another concept about stresses and top weight etc tom devote a topic too, to make the player really feel that they are engineering the ship itself.  

[Whomst'd've]

Got an idea. 

As turrets mounted in en echelon layout was quite common for WW1, I think it should be easier to replicate this idea on the shipbuilder. When a side mounted large caliber turret is placed, individually (without the auto mirror option), a line of anchor points appear on the other side of the ship as the exact same distance as the turret from the center of the ship but mirrored so (assuming your placing the same type of gun turret) you should have no lateral instability, eg:   

This suggestion also uses left ctrl to finetune the position of the turret, but you are locked into moving your turret only lengthways up and down the ship to make sure you keep the stability. If you want to widen your echelon layout, you have to move the original turret and replace the second one. 

I know you can kind of already do this with left ctrl, but it's really finicky and easy to screw the lateral stability. Plus you can only really make one wide echelon layout, else the stability goes way off, eg:

This doesn't really make too much sense when there were ships like the invincible battlecruiser with a tight echelon layout (yes I know I wider layout is better but these options should be available to players). 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Whomst'd've

[arkhangelsk]

It seems the present computation of lateral stability does not only take into account the distance from the centerline - unless you use a perfect mirror, just putting it equidistant from the centerline on the other side does not result in a balanced ship. Your display should have two dots - one for the mirror and the other being the one other point where it'll also be balanced (if it is available on the line at all). Any other position you might as well place yourself since it won't be laterally even anywa.

[Whomst'd've]

21 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

It seems the present computation of lateral stability does not only take into account the distance from the centerline - unless you use a perfect mirror, just putting it equidistant from the centerline on the other side does not result in a balanced ship. Your display should have two dots - one for the mirror and the other being the one other point where it'll also be balanced (if it is available on the line at all). Any other position you might as well place yourself since it won't be laterally even anywa.

Something more akin to this?

Edited January 22, 2020 by Whomst'd've

[Whomst'd've]

Revised OP and polls to include the echelon layout idea

Edited January 22, 2020 by Whomst'd've

[Whomst'd've]

Been thinking up another idea.

I think the player should be able to see where the boiler/engine rooms are with respect to the funnels placed and the ability to move them around, hence, shifting the center of mass of the hull. Being able to see the center of mass of the hull should also be allowed. eg:

That way if we have a nelson layout type ship, with the funnels at the back, the boiler/engine rooms should also be at the rear, bringing the center of mass along with it, which would balance the all forward armament of the ship and keeping it is stable. The ability to finetune the boiler/engine room placement could be done with a slider like what is done with displacement of the ship. 

Another thing that could be added to the sliders to the left would be the ability to increase/decrease the beam and length of the ship (which would respectively affect the displacement) eg:

 

Comment what you guys think of this!

[Whomst'd've]

Another idea:

The ability to plate over casements should be allowed like what happened in refitted WW1 era ships, as well as having an option to remove the area for casements in the first place should also be an option

[PainGod]

I think barbettes as discretely placed objects should be removed. Instead, any turret should have a checkbox or something similar to let the player determine whether they want it to be mounted on a barbette.

This way we'd remove a bit of unnecessary clickfest as well as the maddening concept of barbette hardpoints.

[Whomst'd've]

On 2/4/2020 at 11:54 PM, PainGod said:

I think barbettes as discretely placed objects should be removed. Instead, any turret should have a checkbox or something similar to let the player determine whether they want it to be mounted on a barbette.

This way we'd remove a bit of unnecessary clickfest as well as the maddening concept of barbette hardpoints.

Yes I have heard about this idea before and I agree that it would be a better option, making the barbettes auto form for the turret. This idea i figured would be easier to implement in the mean time

[IVIemories]

A good solution I feel would be to simply have a fully unlocked build mode where not only are Anchor Points increased, but there are no restrictions whatsoever for any ship type (stick 18 inch guns on a destroyer if you want); the AI would obvious still use the old build mode unless we assign the AI ships manually.