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Deluxe Ship Logs


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#1 Jahan

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Posted 08 February 2012 - 09:36 AM

Hello I am wondering if the deluxe ship logs contain a picture of each ship like they do on the front graphic. Or if there is a preview of a page of the deluxe ship log I can see somewhere. I couldn't find much info about the contents and they seem a little pricey to buy without knowing more.

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#2 Cpt M

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Posted 10 February 2012 - 01:45 AM

Hello I am wondering if the deluxe ship logs contain a picture of each ship like they do on the front graphic. Or if there is a preview of a page of the deluxe ship log I can see somewhere. I couldn't find much info about the contents and they seem a little pricey to buy without knowing more.

Thanks,
J

While having a graphic with the log would've been nice, it was not possible for several reasons. First, the log size was kept to the size of a business card to keep the logs from becoming too large for practical use; such a size precluded adding a ship graphic of any reasonable (and readable) size. Second, getting images of the same consistent size and resolution (and were in the public domain) for so many ships was just not possible. And finally, for some of the ships featured (especially for the minor ships and minor navies) no image could be found of any kind (line drawing or photograph).

As for the logs themselves, each set includes all variants of each ship of each major ship class (BBs, BCs, CVs, CVLs, CLs, CAs and many of the DDs. Those DD classes not covered in full due to the number of ships in the class (like the 175 commissioned Fletchers) have multiples of all variants included.). Additionally, all the variants of the minor combat ships (DEs and below) are also covered (although each individual ship is usually not covered due to the size of the ship class. It would've been impractical to cover every RN Flower class corvette commissioned or every one of the 300+ USN DEs commissioned. But examples of every variant is included). Coverage also extends to the very large number of auxilliary ships from oilers, transports, and cargo ships all the way down to repair ships, amphibious ships and mine warfare ships. In all cases, the changes in guns, AA, sensors, etc that a particular ship or class had during its wartime experience are covered in detail. To give an example of the coverage, the three USN sets come to over 3000 logs while the IJN set numbers roughly 1000 logs.

Free examples of the logs themselves featuring the Greek, Yugoslav and Romanian navies can be downloaded from the Public Access Library. Goto Downnloads> Public Access Library> General Quarters> Deluxe Ship Logs.

#3 Chris Lane

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Posted 10 February 2012 - 10:16 AM

The ship logs are certainly worth the price....and I will be buying the new ones at some point (pay day soon!)
They bring so much more to the game and offer a great range of ship to be used. The amount of work gone into them alone justifies the price.!

#4 Bob Benge

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Posted 10 February 2012 - 10:16 PM

I know the amount of work that the authors put into this project; you are getting off very cheap in my opinion. Mike and Mal put a huge amount of time and sweat into these logs and they are extrremely accurate, gorgeous, and quite frankly awesome! They did a fantastic job on them and as Chris mentioned they really do bring alot more to the game. :)
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#5 Aman

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Posted 19 November 2012 - 09:15 PM

As a supporter of the game who is also trying to _grow_ the game in my area, I heartily suggest that a detailed description of the ship logs be included at the store. Asking $100 for the Pacific War (delux) ship logs is something that can't be done casually and with no explanation. We're gamers, and you'll only take our pence out of our cold, dead hands!

That suggestion being said, I have a recommendation for the ship logs in the game/rules purchase - include one example of each type or _very_ significant variant (such as Nagara Cl EW v. LW with lots of AA replacing other guns). Presently there are repeats of identical ships for no real purpose (I can fill in a ship name based upon the class by 5 second at Wiki) while other useful ships are omitted.

Also, if it's possible, an explanation of how to convert a ship from Jane's or other resource to a ship log would be nice. Then we can cover ships that aren't in the logs or better understand how to tweak them ourselves.

#6 Cpt M

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Posted 20 November 2012 - 10:38 PM

As a supporter of the game who is also trying to _grow_ the game in my area, I heartily suggest that a detailed description of the ship logs be included at the store. Asking $100 for the Pacific War (delux) ship logs is something that can't be done casually and with no explanation. We're gamers, and you'll only take our pence out of our cold, dead hands!


That's probably a good idea. Unfortunately, it's not my call. (Although I will forward the idea to the ones whose call it is...)

That suggestion being said, I have a recommendation for the ship logs in the game/rules purchase - include one example of each type or _very_ significant variant (such as Nagara Cl EW v. LW with lots of AA replacing other guns). Presently there are repeats of identical ships for no real purpose (I can fill in a ship name based upon the class by 5 second at Wiki) while other useful ships are omitted.


Well, in a fashion, this is already done. Many of the most active classes and ships are represented in the logs. The logs themselves had to be limited in scope since these are included in the printed rules (and every page adds a certain amount to the overall price of the rules). The criteria used in selecting the ships had to whether they were active during the most active period of the war in the most popular theaters of the war. In addition, types that were, in some manner, significant (but not necessarily in any of the major battles) were also included. For example: The SW Pacific is one the most popular areas among gamers, so many of the ships involved in the battles in that area (Savo Island, Guadacanal, et al) were included in the logs. This, by necessity, leads to many identical ships (especially DDs) in the logs since they need to be included to cover those battles (the altogether reasonable expectation being that the game provide all the logs necessary for those battles).

Now regarding including an early war/late war version of the same class. While that might apply to one particular ship, it most likely would not apply to other ships in the same class since ships were refitted at different times to different configurations. To properly reflect the changes, you'd have to include all the changes for each ship. For example: The USN commissioned 175 Fletcher class DDs during WWII. Of these, at some point during the war, many were the same configuration. But the number of discrete configurations runs to over 30 (and the total for the entire class runs to over 250). So to use your example, there would need to be a log for each of these configurations and some cross reference showing what ship would be represented by what log at what time during its lifetime. Not an easy task, by any stretch. And finally, if such blank logs were included, there would be no way to just pick up the game and play, since the player would be required to identify the ships needed and fill out the logs (something that we wanted to avoid).

The problem of providing enough ship logs while keeping the page count reasonable is a daunting one.

Also, if it's possible, an explanation of how to convert a ship from Jane's or other resource to a ship log would be nice. Then we can cover ships that aren't in the logs or better understand how to tweak them ourselves.

It's possible that some type of tutorial could be posted in the download section. In meantime, the Design Files (already in the Download section) contains the information needed for determining hull boxes, speed and AA (although they lack explanatory text). I have to caution you that finding the information necessary to complete a ship log is not necessarily easy to come by. As the author of the Italian, USN and IJN Deluxe Logs, I can tell you that from hard experience. From Conway's, for example, you often you get a configuration of a ship at launching and some rough idea of its refit history, but not nearly enough for a complete history. (And I'd caution not to use Jane's. Jane's is contemporary to the war and as such, based on best intelligence of the time. Which was often VERY WRONG. Example: For a considerable amount of time Yamato was thought to have 16" guns, and we know how wrong that was). To give an example of what is involved, the single most difficult section of the Deluxe USN logs to complete was the DD logs. This section took over 3 years to research and reference to multiple primary and secondary source material (including a trip to the National Archives in DC) to get an acceptable breakdown of the ships. So building ship logs is relatively easy; getting the information to build them from is the very hard part.

#7 Aman

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Posted 26 November 2012 - 05:51 PM

Ah, but the reverse is also true - that if you just name the ships without stating their class you give the game designer / host a large problem in that each ship in the logs has to be looked up to determine it's class, then you need to try and figure out if it is balanced against other similar ships since the vp's are very general. There are many DDs listed at 2 1/2 vps but I doubt they would fight each other equally.

So the best course would be to list one of each typical / common class in the logs, then include a list in the rules / log file with the names of ships that saw a lot of action, rather than include five logs of identical class ships and omit others. While I can always cross-reference a name / class at wiki in 5 seconds, I can't make a log for myself without a bunch of time and effort.

So now that the deluxe logs are done, I think it is time to re-evaluate the file of logs that comes with the rules. I mention this b/c I am working on presenting the game to a group of experienced gamers, and I have over 30 years gaming, and the other guys have very similar experience levels. So setting up historical, semi-historical and pickup games is difficult if I have to try to find the log for a certain type of ship by cross-referencing each name of the ones presented.

Cheers, a.

#8 Cpt M

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Posted 02 December 2012 - 10:45 PM

Ah, but the reverse is also true - that if you just name the ships without stating their class you give the game designer / host a large problem in that each ship in the logs has to be looked up to determine it's class, then you need to try and figure out if it is balanced against other similar ships since the vp's are very general. There are many DDs listed at 2 1/2 vps but I doubt they would fight each other equally.

Well, first off, the VPs are, at best, a rough reflection of a ship's value and not really useful for balancing a scenario. For my group, we tend to use fairly historical match ups with the actual forces in theatre. So, for us, the specific values become irrelevant. As for the logs lacking the class names, that is a problem that, due to the press for space on the logs themselves, couldn't be solved (there is just so much room available).

So the best course would be to list one of each typical / common class in the logs, then include a list in the rules / log file with the names of ships that saw a lot of action, rather than include five logs of identical class ships and omit others. While I can always cross-reference a name / class at wiki in 5 seconds, I can't make a log for myself without a bunch of time and effort.

Well, it's not quite that easy. As stated above, if we just take the Fletcher class DDs, you'd have 30 different logs with a spreadsheet listing some 250 ship configurations. And that's only for one class of DDs. And in the case of the larger ships (CLs and above), the need for different logs would be even more since most of the ships refitted to different configurations during the war with no two ships in the same class being alike, So you'd end up with logs for every variation. Extend this to the entire whole of the nations represented and you'd end up with several hundreds (yes, hundreds) sheets of logs and spreadsheets which is, no matter how attractive, impractical due to cost (the price of the rules being driven by the priniting costs). While the idea is attractive, it's just not practical.

#9 Aman

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Posted 11 December 2012 - 06:55 PM

so just start with the first most common configuration. You're suggesting that it is better to randomly include a bunch of identical ship logs that have _zero_ difference between them (5 identical DD logs with no class specification) instead of more variety of classes with only one of each?

That really doesn't make sense to me and has already proven difficult to make up both historical and what if scenarios.

The obvious solution is one of every COMMON ship by lead class vessal, and then let us photocopy that log if we need 5 Farragut DDs. Since there's little fine tuning and differentiation in most DD types anyway, it's not really an issue to present every variation in the basic issue.

I think nearly everyone would argue that they'd prefer more variety of ships logs (even at the most basic common configuration) than repeats or subtle variations on classes.

#10 Cpt M

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Posted 12 December 2012 - 09:51 PM

so just start with the first most common configuration. You're suggesting that it is better to randomly include a bunch of identical ship logs that have _zero_ difference between them (5 identical DD logs with no class specification) instead of more variety of classes with only one of each?

That really doesn't make sense to me and has already proven difficult to make up both historical and what if scenarios.

The obvious solution is one of every COMMON ship by lead class vessal, and then let us photocopy that log if we need 5 Farragut DDs. Since there's little fine tuning and differentiation in most DD types anyway, it's not really an issue to present every variation in the basic issue.

I think nearly everyone would argue that they'd prefer more variety of ships logs (even at the most basic common configuration) than repeats or subtle variations on classes.


While providing more variety in the ship logs is always desirable, the fact is that the mix already provided covers a rather large spectrum of ships. Most of the ships involved in, for example, the Solomons are provided. The reason for duplicates of the same class is that in many actions there were multiples of the same class involved. And, based on our experience, most gamers prefer to have all the ships available ready to go without having to copy and then refer to another source for names.




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