If my understanding is right, the mobility impairment came about with the overloading on the four-deck mod.
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If my understanding is right, the mobility impairment came about with the overloading on the four-deck mod.
True, amigo. The word of the day for Ares Spanish is "Full Metal MUNCHKIN." Personally, here's how I'd stack-and-rack the Three-Pluses:
*Tier 1: >120 guns 4-d Santissima Trinidad, slightly stronger than Ocean but much slower and less maneuverable
*Tier 2: ~118-120 guns Oceans, HMS Hibernia, Caledonia/Nelson classes
*Tier 3: ~110-112 guns HMS Ville de Paris, Commerce de Paris class, most Spanish threedeckers
*Tier 4: ~100 guns most British First Rates, handful of "midsize" Spanish 3-deckers
*Tier 5: (existing HMS Britannia as "base stat model") British Second Rates, Spanish 90/94's
That is a very good grading of them. The big problem is to decide where those tiers should be in numbers. I think we could place the absolute top at 9 and then work down. That would probably leave the third rates about where they are. It would probably leave some Spanish first rates at about the published strength or just a little bit lower but raise British and French quite a bit.
I'm also debating whether we shouldn't add another tier at the bottom to split the Second Rates, Tier 5 being late British 98's and Tier 6 being the Spanish 94's and pre-upgrade British 90's.
I do think they should be divided into two, not with a huge difference but..., and fit right over the Tonnant/Buccantaur...
I suspect one of our governing questions should be "was this enough change from baseline that a change-averse Admiralty deemed it worthy of fleetwide adoption?"
Also, I suspect Tonnant/Bucentaure should have more starting punch than a 90 but the threedecker should be able to keep taking swings appreciably longer. So maybe use a longer but lower-start T/B as a model for "Tier 6"?
Maybe this isn't the right forum for this, but I thought having this discussion in the open would give the general membership a chance to see Stats Committee processes in action and invite others with relevant knowledge to grab a line and pull--many hands make for light work, after all. :)
I did not move the discussion to the Stats forum for that very reason DB. Sometimes it is good to air your washing in public.
Rob.
Yes, the tiers would not entirely be based on the highest firepower number. There are several things weighing in like burden and number of boxes. Higher burden do give a higher firepower for a longer time while being hit.
That's one of the problems with burden, it's used for boarding, taking damage, ramming, grounding and so on. This is why I find it strange that 64 gun ships with almost the same number of crew as a 74 has lower burden, which lets them enter the world of frigates.
I'm therefore very hesitant to give any frigate burden 5 unless specifically that frigate has some historical reason. Ironsides has one. Indefatigable was made from a 64 gun (which I think should have 5) and all actions she saw had numbers like 50 wounded or dead on the enemy, 3 wounded on Indy.
I adopted a tier system for Burden in my house rules.
Burden 1 SoWs
Burden 2 Post Ships/Corvettes
Burden 3 32 gun Frigates
Burden 4 38 gun Heavy Frigates
Burden 5 3rd Rates (Constitution stayed here)
Burden 6 1st Rates
I standardized all classes as I felt that slight changes in broadsides didn't need representation.
I treat Temeraires as heavy 3rds and Bellonas as Light 3rds, using the same stats for all matching models.
The 4 vs. 3 broadside in Amazons an Concordes I attribute to the difference in length. The Amazon's shorter length gives a more focused broadside.
The Spanish are not really a fleet I have looked into, but I would base my stats on similar classes in other nations, mounting the same broadsides, but influenced by differences in length.