- The Beginner's Guide to Shipbuilding -
A 12-inch Armed Dreadnought
Building a warship in CCNet, let alone a strong one, can be a very complicated and frustrating task. There is no real way to know how well a ship will fare in combat without exhaustive testing and that can take days, weeks, or even months. This guide is here to try and bring more aspiring designers up to speed with the latest knowledge on shipbuilding. Let's get started.
Rarely can a ship be built without at least some sort of plan behind it.
- What type of ship is this going to be?
- What is the purpose of this ship?
- Is this ship meant to only be good in my playstyle or is it more universally capable?
These are only a few of the hundreds of possible questions that a designer can ask themselves before laying down a ship. Here are some general tips and answers for some of the most common questions:
- Larger ships tend to have more armour and firepower than smaller ships and are well-suited to operating in fleets along with other heavy ships to deal significant amounts of damage and take a lot of hits but can be vulnerable if caught out alone as they tend to be slow and clunky. Smaller ships are faster and more agile. They also have access to more torpedoes but have weaker guns and armour, so they've good for commerce raiding and screening larger ships.
The 14-inch armed dreadnought R.S.S. Konigsberg (left) compared to the 4-inch armed corvette H.M.S. Firefly (right). - Armour always needs to be in front of flyblocks (concrete and redstone). A designer should always try to minimize exposed flyblocks.
- Ships with their guns spread across more turrets tend to have more survivable firepower as losing a turret disables less cannons, but turrets require armour and therefore more armour devoted to turrets means less for the rest of the ship. The reverse is also true. Less turrets means more armour for the rest of the ship, but more firepower can be disabled by losing a turret.
Two 12-inch armed dreadnoughts- one with 10 guns spread across 3 turrets (top) and one spread across 4 turrets (bottom). - The layout of armour on a ship is entirely reliant on its purpose and general characteristics. A ship that is high-sided will likely need more armour on the side and less on the deck and the opposite for a low-sided ship. A ship that is made to fight lighter ships would do well to have stronger keel armour to protect against torpedoes and a ship that is meant to fight heavier ships would do well to focus on side and deck armor to protect against larger calibre guns.
The general layout of a ship tends to be uniform across all navies due to the universal efficiency of certain design aspects.
- The superstructure of a ship typically has its bridge placed in the front or middle of the ship so that the pilot has the best possible view and aiming position. Having an armoured platform is beneficial so as to prevent a single shell from sending you falling off the bridge.
- Turrets of a ship tend to be placed in positions that allow for the most strategically advantageous range of fire. Two fore and two aft (A/B/X/Y), two fore and three aft (A/B/Q/X/Y), and two fore and one aft (A/B/Y) are among the most common types for ships. Each of these layouts are optimal for different ship classes and different shell calibres.
Three dreadnoughts, each with different turret layouts. A/B/Y (top), A/B/X/Y (middle), and A/B/Q/X/Y (bottom).
