Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

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geminif4ucorsair
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Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by geminif4ucorsair »

Zuikaku wrote:
With work on new Supreme Ruler announced, maybe it is time for us to help BGs with some ideas. So, here it is:

1. Coal and oil burning ships. Very important resource shift for the era, but I don't think engine can handle this...
* * It is true observation, however, for BG and game sake, it must be handled in the simplest manner.

* * Suggestion:

1. Coal versus Oil-powered ships:

Generally, coal-powered ships ran at slower speeds. Oil fired ships got underway, steamed faster.

Therefore: make all Coal-powered ships steam at 10-knots;
.....all Oil-powered ships, at 15-knots (as SR-36)

2. Transition from oil to coal began in @ 1920, or soon thereafter, for most navies.
Pre-dreadnought battleships and coastal defense ships /Guard ships (PATROL) were nearly all scrapped beginning this year - clearly obsolescent to totally obsolete.

Therefore: for warships (all categories), use 1920 as date for presumed, "conversion" to Oil.....automatically
given the ships 15-knot cruising speed.

3. Merchant Ships: same applies.

Any ships built after 1920 (or 1922), automatically are Oil-powered (as in SR-36).

Any merchant ships in service prior to 1920 (or 1922, BG choice), become Oil powered 1Jan1920 (or 1922).

----------------
Note. The reference to 1922 is related to the date of the Washington Naval Treaty year, and while some smaller navies (Peru for example), retained coal-fired scout cruisers and destroyers for more than a decade after the dates above, it was the exception rather than the rule.
georgios
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by georgios »

I disagree with a forced transition from coal to oil. Player must have the freedom to chose his fuel.
dax1
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by dax1 »

[_]B [_]B could be a tech, so speed unit +5%

but how ship can use coal? shold be it hardcoded... :o
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Nerei
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by Nerei »

To me a sudden mass boiler replacement is not exactly something that will add realism. Rather opposite actually. In many ways it detracts from it.
We are talking about upgrades that took months, possibly years that are suddenly carried out on every single coal fired surface combatant. Having done a bit of digging into the subject I found that Italy was not done refitting their 4 old coal fired dreadnought battleships until 1940. France used all of the 1920's to gradually rebuild their Bretagne class into oil fired ships. I cannot find any information that Britain ever refitted the Iron Dukes into oil fired warships. When the First London Naval treaty ended their service they where apparently still sprayed coal fired warships.

Japan actually did carry out extensive upgrades on the 4 Kongōs during the 1920's including boiler replacement. However they retained sprayed coal fired boilers. Only the late 1930's upgrade to fast battleships saw them get oil fired boilers.

The US did upgrade their Washington Naval treaty survivors with oil fired boilers but those where from what I can tell taken from parts originally meant for the South Dakota class. Thus had that treaty not happened (which it might not given that this game is alternate history) those spares would not have been available and the budget would probably have been taken up by new warship construction. Likely ships like the Florida class would have lived out their days as coal burning ships.


Had Washington not happened you can also be sure that Britain would not have scrapped all her old dreadnought battleships which where basically all sprayed coal with a few carrying mixed boilers. Britains advantage was amongst others in numbers and defending something as vast as the British empire would require a lot of warships. They actually still had pre-dreadnoughts in limited service when they signed the Washington Naval treaty. A good number of them where only put in reserve around the time of the armistice.
The Admiralty was so afraid that losing their oil supply during wartime would make their new Queen Elizabeth class battleships inoperable that they where originally going to give the Revenge class the ability to run on both oil and coal (yes that is back to coal from pure oil burning).

If we count war losses and assume Royal Navy just scraps all up to around the HMS Neptune launched in 1909 (that is 6 dreadnoughts 2 battlecruisers and around 30 pre-dreadnoughts (not going to do an exact count of those)) they still got:
HMS Neptune
2x Colossus
4x Orion
3x King George V
HMS Erin
HMS Argincourt
4x Iron Dukes

On top of that
2x Indefatigable battlecruisers
2x Lion battlecruisers
HMS Queen Mary
HMS Tiger
All of these ships run (at least partially) on sprayed coal.
Had they actually been in an arms race however you can be sure they would not scrap a single dreadnought warship (so +8). They might actually retain late pre-dreadnoughts such as the Lord Nelsons in low intensity areas.
Keep in mind admittedly smaller economy Italy used upwards of 20 years to upgrade her 4 dreadnought battleships. The Royal Navy is not going to do her 20-30 warships in a few years especially not if money is also going towards ships like the G3 and N3's which it definitely will. Most likely older warships would just serve out as they are gradually being moved to less important areas as they become increasingly obsolete.

Merchant shipping is another story entirely. You can be fairly sure the majority of ship owners would not even consider tearing large holes in their ships to replace their functional boilers with some brand new expensive oil fired versions that also require reconstruction of the coal bunkers to support the new fuel just to get rid of some cheap stokers as chances are the fuel is not even cheaper (sorry could not find coal prices for the 20's).

Sorry to write so much but honestly I would rather see a few good solutions happen to a few problems than a large number being poorly solved.
To me ideally there would be a way to refit/upgrade units (e.g. if I want the Kongōs to run on oil I have to carry out an upgrade on them) and we would have a flag that tells us what a ship runs on (e.g. 0=oil, 1=coal 2=mixed boilers) naturally with accompanied resource consumption.
geminif4ucorsair
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by geminif4ucorsair »

georgios wrote:I disagree with a forced transition from coal to oil. Player must have the freedom to chose his fuel.
Well, coal performance was clearly inferior to oil powered turbines.

So, what you and some others are saying, you want to have BG design a Tech and Upgrade (cost) that replicates the transition from coal to oil??

Do I understand that correctly?

The automatic transition by AI would seem to be less complicated, for what would otherwise FORCE BG to design something that it had not successful been able to do for SR-36: design an UPGRADE.

So, to me, BG should be encouraged to take the simpler route, and have it automatic for all retained ships.
Last edited by geminif4ucorsair on Jul 23 2017, edited 1 time in total.
SGTscuba
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by SGTscuba »

Coal is obviously less powerful as it yields less energy per kg of it brunt.

Also, an automatic transition would probably be best just for the AI's sake.
My SR:U Model Project, get the latest and post suggestions here:

http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 79&t=28040
Nerei
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by Nerei »

The simplest choice will always be to not do anything at all and honestly if what is going to happen is just a simple and arguably ahistorical speed increase to all existing coal fired ships I am fine with there being nothing.
The resources creating it could be diverted towards something else like improving the AI unit construction so it does not simply manufacture equipment until the game grinds to a halt.

Strictly speaking the system does not simulate coal fired vs oil fired ships either. It makes coal fired ships go faster at a set point in time. That is all. There is no difference between an Iron Duke or Queen Elizabeth battleship at any point in time except when this specific upgrade is applied. From 1914 to 1920 they are completely identical except their stats are slightly different. To me the entire appeal of such a system would be that a coal fired ship has some mechanical difference to an oil fired one.
The fuel type consumed could be one and could be fairly important if a nation might have problems securing petroleum (though that would be down to the economic model).
Just about everything else can be handled with existing unit settings. Greater visibility due to coal producing more smoke? We have a visibility stat. Speed? There is a stat for that. Range? operating cost? again already covered.


Also oil being better than coal is not as simple as simply comparing energy densities.

If energy density was all that mattered all ships today would be nuclear powered and any new ship built for the last 50 years would have been.
The mass energy density of uranium is after all roughly a few million times higher than oil. In terms of volumetric energy density uranium actually beats most fusion processes so no point in research into fusion either, right?

Yes there are other factors than energy density in the case of uranium but there certainly also is in the case of oil vs coal. For starters fuel availability is fairly critical for a navy and in the case of Kaiserliche marine (or Royal Navy to a lesser extend) it is not exactly great. Oil fueled Kaiserliche marine would be terrible as it would basically be stuck in port out of fuel almost all the time.
That is not to say oil fired boilers does not have advantages such as simpler to operate, require less crew, no coal fumes etc. but you really need a reliable fuel source for them to be worth it. It is not like Germany did not know oil existed as they actually used mixed boilers setups but they certainly had a reason to not just convert entirely to oil.

For the merchant marine energy density is secondary to costs amongst others and replacing boilers is not exactly cheap. A ship in dry dock does not make money it cost money.
Replacing boilers on all ships at the same time would be insanely expensive and drive any company into bankruptcy.
The running costs needs to be lower for such an upgrade to be worth it which it might be but how long does it take to recoup the initial investment is a fairly critical question. Further there needs to be the resources to facilitate the conversion.
In some cases the process of converting merchant ships was actually started well before 1920 but again it certainly was not a process that happened overnight. Short than sail to steam sure but still not that fast.


Again what I prefer is a few well thought out, well executed features that work and add significantly to the game not a huge number of extremely simple features that does very little and honestly having having coal fired ships go 5kn faster on January 1st 1920 is to me in the latter group.
georgios
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by georgios »

geminif4ucorsair wrote:
georgios wrote:I disagree with a forced transition from coal to oil. Player must have the freedom to chose his fuel.
So, what you and some others are saying, you want to have BG design a Tech and Upgrade (cost) that replicates the transition from coal to oil??

Do I understand that correctly?

No, I don't said that.
I said that for such a historical game the choice to advance in the internal combustion technology or remain in the steam age is a strategic decision.

Coal use can be an alternative for countries with no petrol resources. Steam ships may be slower than oil ships, but they should remain as an option, including new (fictional) designs and upgrades for WW2, cold war, modern day and future.

Goats, please don't be so lazy with such simple things.

Same applies with nuclear energy: nuclear ships must burn their uranium and resupply when out of it, not considering it as a building material. It was happening in SR200, but don't think that it was acceptable. We have already accepted military goods to serve as every unit's parts and ammunition and many others. Don't reproduce such cheap mod-like hacks for everything.
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Balthagor
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by Balthagor »

georgios wrote:...Goats, please don't be so lazy with such simple things...
Changing the fuel source is not simple as shown by the length of this discussion. We do what we can with a small team. Don't be rude.
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georgios
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by georgios »

Firstly, I apologize for any rude words.

But why is it so difficult? You have already achieved the oil fuel system, you know how it is done.
Nerei
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by Nerei »

I suspect there might be a few thousand hooks (or whatever the term is my coding is fairly rusty) in the fuel system calling other parts of the code. If the code was never intended to run with multiple fuel types adding another one can be extremely tricky. The debugging alone could be a full time job for a long time.

Out of curiosity though how do you plan on handling things like Kaiserliche Marine? If they run purely on oil they would be stuck in port almost constantly. Give Germany more oil sources? Then again if Grand Fleet does not blockade them properly it might solve it all.

BTW the nuclear refuelling system is not that bad really. I can write pages about the problems of the nuclear system but as a whole that part is not so bad. Typically a nuclear powered vessel is only refuelled during its mid-life refit or they are outright retired when they need refuelling (yes it is that expensive). A Nimitz carrier is going to be refuelled once in it's estimated 50 year lifetime and the process basically involves cutting holes in the ship to access the reactors. During the process a lot of other system are repaired or upgraded as it is not exactly a quick process.
Other ships such as the Virginia class submarines have an estimated reactor lifetime of up to 33 years and I suspect the US Navy plans to just retire them once they are at that point.
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Balthagor
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by Balthagor »

@georgios - no worries, thanks.

I don't have much to say on this topic, partially because it's not as high a priority as getting the larger areas of the game done. This project has been triage from the first day of development due to its smaller size and budget. Even simple things take time. There is not much time allocated to this topic currently due to pressures on other areas.
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geminif4ucorsair
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Re: Suggestion: Coal and Oil-powered Ships: How to Handle

Post by geminif4ucorsair »

The other issue no one has yet brought up, is that it was not a clear transition from coal to oil.

By 1905, the Royal Navy was already practicing a policy that involved spraying on coal fires in boilers: oil.
From 1904 onward, all capital ships were design to burin a partial coal-oil mix, having bunkers for both designed into the sips. This despite Wales providing the world's best steaming coal. On smaller ships, when the "Tribal" class was first designed, it was with oil only.

[Note: Only the later "Beagle" class DDs reverted to coal, due to perception that there was not enough worldwide oil and the Navy might still have to rely on coal to some degree.]

In terms of coal versus oil for maritime purposes, oil provided 1.3 to 1.4 times the thermal content in moving a ship further distances, compared to coal. During WW One, larger ships had reserve coal bunkers, but the Navy found they were often not usable. Coal bunkers always had to have a large space at the top for ventilation, and access. Oil bunkers could be filled to 95% on average.

A ex-RN officer of HMS Agincourt later noted that the ships three boilers had a capacity of 2,000, 450 and 800-tons of coal and was given further 600-tons of oil bunkerage. Without this, the ship would not have been able to steam, but for a few days at high speed, because available access was limited to the forward bunker (450-tons of coal), without an extended port visit. In practical operational terms, the great Royal Navy Grand Fleet was limited to the steaming ability of its accompanying destroyers.

When the "Royal Sovereigns" were in post-commission, it was found that power output within a specific volume was increased by one-third. In addition, with oil, turbines (see separate thread post) could exceed their rated power output in terms of steam, when boilers were forced (as the term was).

Thus, in SR Great War, this issue of coal-to-oil is historically more complex than a simply tech or AI stroke that would convert ships from coal to oil.
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