Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

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Traslogan
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Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Traslogan »

Hey folks,

I don't know if anyone else has seen this, but I cannot get the Type 26 destroyer patrol ship to appear for England in the Shattered World 2020 start.
They have its only prerequisite tech of Naval production '94, and I can't see any unit prerequisite in the files.

The odd thing is that Scotland has access to it, despite otherwise being very technologically behind England, and can research it at game-start (Scotland has 21st century British submarines in reserve but lacks the non-tradeable sub-techs from the 40s and 50s)

I checked the .UNIT file and the Type 26 is flagged for the M Region, so it should be available all nations that inherit the british units.

I've reset my cache and all my modded files (which were just the .UNIT and .TTRX in my case), re-validated with steam to get the originals just to be safe, and England still has no access to this design. As far as I can tell they might be missing some other designs, I cannot spot some designs I was using as Scotland like the Donnini Escort Ship, another British design, but either way I think this seems to be a vanilla issue instead of an issue of my own modding breaking things.

Edit: To clarify I can't find it in obsolete / replaced designs either, since some 21st century british ships do quickly render their predecessors obsolete in the game.
Last edited by Traslogan on Aug 19 2019, edited 1 time in total.
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Balthagor
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Balthagor »

Do you have the unit ID? Perhaps we have notes in our system about it...
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Traslogan
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Traslogan »

The British Type 26 destroyer has SR5ID 19697

I've definitely had this ship as the UK in the more normal modern starts (e.g. Trump Rising 2017/ 2018), and can definitely get this as Scotland in SW2020, but not as England.

The Donnini Class Escort Ship has SR5ID 17440, I can get that as Scotland but wasn't able to find it as England in SW2020, again I can get this in other modern starts as the UK though.
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Balthagor
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Balthagor »

Honestly, I don't know why you don't see that unit as England in SW...

It wasn't added by us, it was part of the additions made by Zuikaiku. I'll try and see what's up with it. Tech 1704 is the prereq and I can see the ship as a design unlocked by that tech in Global Crisis, but not in SW. Very strange.

Side note, I'm concerned that a 2019 ship has a 1994 prereq. You can get it 20 years earlier than should be possible. I think it's prereq should be at least 319 (2014).
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Traslogan
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Traslogan »

Yeah I mean it was first ordered in 2015 after demonstrations so it really should be a 2014+ navy tech. That said, the Queen Elizabeth Carrier for Britain also has no requirements relating to carrier techs (though it does require two techs), it doesn't even want super carriers or modern super carriers.

I'd been modding Britain heavily to make some of its unit pieces more accurate and whatnot and I was afraid maybe it was my modding that got rid of it, but since it's available in other starts it confused me.

I think the issue is with that particular start and not the tech though. It feels like England is missing a ton of options in research for naval units in SW2020 compared to any other start (and even compared to Scotland in SW2020, who is severely behind in sub tech but otherwise is almost on-par with England for surface vessels)

Many of the british ship designs are a little quirky anyway though (The QE-class carrier is defenseless against any form of naval attack, has no way to return fire, and so carriers like the Midway class from WW2 are still god-tier by 2050 due to carriers not getting much better or even getting worse, the Gerald Ford Class is the same mostly)
Nerei
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Nerei »

Queen Elizabeth really does not carry much in terms of weapons. From what I can find it only carries Phalanx CIWS and some 30mm cannons.
I guess those could count as surface attack but for anti-ship duty it is really useless against anything but stopping say suicide dinghies. Honestly if facing say a world war 2 Kagerō class destroyer and only able to rely on its guns my money would be on the Kagerō.
I am however surprised that Queen Elizabeth even has medium air attack as Phalanx and Bushmasters are not exactly able to hit medium air targets. The range also seems too high as the effective range of those weapons are like 2km.
I doubt MANPADS (assuming those are part of its small arms armoury) can get it to 55km range either.

Really Queen Elizabeth is a near defenceless floating airfield that is entirely reliant on its escorts and CAW for protection.

Gerald Ford like all post war US carriers also carry little in anti ship weapons instead relying on its CAW and escorts for protection. The only nation that have really build carriers with any kind of significant protection after world war 2 is the Soviet Union. The logic with aircraft carriers as seen from the West is "Stay away from the enemy and let the aircraft do the work". Personally I would say that is a good way to handle carriers.

Also while on the Elizabeth it probably should not have the "LongDeckCarrier" flag as they are STOVL carriers. They are large carriers sure but lacking especially arresting gear greatly limits what aircraft they can operate. Not having catapults does not really make it better but is not as serious as the lack of arresting gear.
You can probably bump it up to a capacity of 4 though. The US navy super carriers can also do with an increase as some of them really have pathetic capacity compared to what they operated during the cold war.


As for why ships like Midway is good at any period of time is that it has good range, high speed, carry a lot of aircraft and for say 2020 is extremely cheap. The combat stats are honestly less important as really any carrier if left alone is an easy target. Even a Russian carrier should have an escort.
With carriers it should be a fast, cheap airfield that can go a long distance without resupplying. In this regard Midway is amazing at anything but cargo capacity no matter the year.

Further the lower price of Midway means you can build and maintain a battlegroup for the same price as a modern carrier like the Ford which makes it a much, much harder target to kill than really any modern carrier left alone.
You can also add say an Algol to the mix which will compensate for the lower cargo capacity of the Midway.

The Central problem with aircraft carriers though and why Midway rules despite the US Navy historically considered it too small by like 1975 is that to the game a Grumman FF-1 and Grumman F-14 are entirely identical. Yes the F-14 unit weigh more but if the carrier has enough cargo capacity it handles them just fine. Unless it is an interwar carrier cargo capacity is not an issue that cannot be alleviated with a cargo vessel to bring spare supplies for the aircraft.

Add to that the way the game handles nuclear vs conventional propulsion and there is really little reason for the US to upgrade its Essex to Nimitz. The only thing you effectively gain is increased cargo capacity but at a much, much higher price tag.
Really how royally shafted nuclear propulsion is in the game compared to conventional propulsion is a topic of its own. Especially nuke boats are hurt by the way diesel boats work.
Traslogan
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Traslogan »

True but the game's authenticity of data is often also mixed into balance of game mechanics itself. Take the Type 26 for example, which has 200km radar in real life. In the game? that would basically make it the greatest patrol-type ship in the game for spotting purposes, and thus it doesn't have it. (THe QE-class has the same 200km BAE Artisan Radar system in real life, but incorporating it would require a proper naval rebalance from the 90s and 21st century ships entirely to accomodate such realistic measurements, and Britain has been refitting even their older ships with the BAE Artisan 200km radar now too, so even early-2000s UK ships (And what the game calls the "duke" class, aka the type 23) could have it.

In terms of long-deck carriers, well the QE-class is STOVL but long-deck is what lets it use non-heli aircraft at all iirc, and thus you either have to readjust all VOTL craft to work on the short-deck carrier format, or just leave that there. This would lead to hilarious issues, e.g. the Type 26 is meant to be able to take helicopters in real life, so do we make that a short-deck 1-capacity carrier patrol ship? (It's possible, but then anything that can use short-deck can use the type 26), suddenly F-35B CV Lightnings are on a Type 26 Patrol frigate, and we have an equivalent issue to the one you said that we already have, where carriers do not care about the size of a plane.

That said, I'm not criticizing QE's lack of firepower as if it should be OP, but the game pitches it as being literally defenseless, not just weak. A basic mid-80s patrol ship that can't take on any meaningful surface vessel will actually win against a QE-class (Or most post-ww2 carriers), and without missiles loaded up, any planes on the carrier would have to be god-tier anti-ship for their age to take down a couple of patrol ships in time before the QE sustains serious damage. I think the old carriers probably need nerfed badly, given their tremendous firepower compared to any modern equivalents since their guns can't age in the game to reflect the older tech.

For now though the issue in this thread is just that of ship designs being missing for England in SW2020 start.
Nerei
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Nerei »

STOVL aircraft are short deck aircraft hence why I am suggesting making the QE a short deck carrier. The QE does not need to be a long deck carrier to handle the aircraft it does in real life. Aircraft like the F-35B have the ShortDeckTakeOff flag so they will work fine. Warships with low capacity like say 1 or 2 helicopters usually have those considered as part of their stats. Giving an warship with a capacity of 1 or 2 the ability to operate a helicopter unit means it can take upwards of 12 to 24 times the aircraft it really can so it is not just a case of type but also one of capacity.

The problem is that the defence vessels like the QE or Ford has against a 250 tonne La Combatante II literally is that it will probably run out of ammunition for it's 76mm Oto Melara before inflicting critical damage. They really are that defenceless. Ford might have a few M2's or GAU 19 to defend itself. QE could have the bushmasters represented but it would likely just add up to maybe 30-50 points for naval surface attack. Old carriers just do carry a lot more weapons and would easily win in a shooting contest. Midway can beat any world war 2 destroyer in a gun duel. I can probably beat modern warships too. Lexington could likely take on and win over a York class heavy cruiser (if we ignore the Yorks torpedoes).
Giving modern western carriers better combat stats is not going to make Midway less OP (not that there are any justification for it as ships like Ford does not really carry any anti ship weapons). Midway rules in 2020 due to it being cheap, fast, having more than enough range and carrying more aircraft. The price difference is enough to account for an escort which is what all carriers need to survive. That is the OP'ness of Midway.


As for the issue of England in shattered world 2020 not being able to research ships like the Type 26 the issue does not appear to lie with the Type 26. England does not appear to have access to region group M at all. I cannot find any British units to research. All are worldwide designs. The odd part though is that W2020.cwp does indicate England should have access to groups M and E but I cannot see any designs from these groups at all.
To be specific all designs appear to belong to region group *. I assume that is a default one everyone gets access to?
Nerei
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Nerei »

Okay I think I found the issue. SW2020.regionincl calls for the 1398 England not the 1301 in SW2020.cvp. 1301 has region groups M and E under worldavail 1398 does not. I was looking at 1301 which is why it looked wrong. Adding M and E to worldavail for 1398 England solved the issue for me. England in SW2020 now has access to the Type 26 amongst others.

To solve it you need to edit W2020.cvp.
Look for "&&CVP 1398" That is the relevant England to edit.
Find the worldavail line
Change it to "worldavail ME" and recompile and it should work.
At least it worked for me.
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Balthagor
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Re: Some British Ships unavailable to England in Shattered World Start

Post by Balthagor »

We'll do that on our end as well so it's fixed for everyone in the next update.

Thanks Nerei!
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