In my defense, I actually made sure I had the logical capability for things like nuclear reactors (I had SSNs already in service and I've been building SSNs rather constantly for the entire game) and the Reprisal wasn't much of a leap over the Defiant in terms of size, an increase of less than 10,000 tons. Also, it did take five or six years to build, as I believe I stated that it was finally laid during 2010 and my period of absence from the game after the Astarian situation went kablooey.CmdrWilkens wrote:Steve wrote:If this is how things are with the whole "must be so powerful to have carriers", how come I didn't get complaints for being a Kingdom that started the game with a navy centered around three conventional-powered 57,500 ton CVs and three Wasp-analogue LHDs? Nor did anyone complain when I continued the program that led to my new 65,000T CVNs (one entered service in 2017, the other won't until 2019-2020). Is the complaint just about carriers above a certain tonnage or with nuclear capability?
I mean, I agree with Wilkens' logic, but this is really something that should've been put into the game rules from the getgo.
Here is the thing, and I probably haven't madethis clear enough because I did partially object to your carriers when construction started:
These things are damn expennsive. Building them even more so, building them when you can't support continuous yard operations is even more so. In otherwords its fine to start off with carriers but the longer you have them the more they will age and wear out. When a 3 carrier nation goes to build a 60,000+ ton vehicle then it should incur a cost penalty (for having to retool the yards) and a time penalty (for having to retool the yards).
I'm going to try to put together a set of proposed ideas for fleet carrier construction but I think it would be fair enough to say that for any nation without dedicated facilities (and you'd need either to have allies or a navy or your own with at least 6-8 ships for a dedicated yard) it shoudl take a decade from first funding and 6 years from keel to commissioing a fleet carrier. The US does it in 8 from funding and 4 from keel which is what a dedicated yard should be able to do.
Anyway I willwork on amroe detailedproposal andoffer it for consideration before the weekendis out.
I'd always conceived that the Defiant-class was designed in the 1980s, so it is feasible - especially cost-wise - that Cascadia built its current LHD and CVA fleet - the one it started the game with - over the course of the late 80s through the 90s to the early 00s, and that before that there was a 30-35 ton helo carrier design, later worked to use STOVLs, called the Republic-class (one is still in service with the Adabani, to be added to the Pacific Union service). I'll gladly tinker with my proposed CVN fleet to enable that fleet to represent a replacement cycle with a further spread out construction schedule (though I believe I've already posted that Defiant will probably be decommissioned and put up for sale by 2019 and I may have it go on a final deployment this game year).
And there's always the possibility that Cascadian shipyards have also built vessels for other nations, especially some of the new ones we're adding (hooray for retroactive justifications!
), to help maintain the needed expertise.
Be advised that "patrol frigate" is a better term(Beo even has them labeled as Corvettes in his navy), and that they are very austurely kitted out. Me and Beowulf originally came up with the design because of a need for a cheapo ASW vessel. If you want a Anti-air warfare frigate, there are better options out there.
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I've learned my lesson, and so far the only thing thats happened is Im using smaller carriers then most others. I'm compensating for this by saying they are upgraded up the YingYang with modern equipment, so I don't mind...
