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Hermann the Lombard
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Hoboken, NJ, USA
Jun 1999
time: 00:12
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Ship Chains: Theory & Practice
We often refer to ship chains, but any detailed discussion was a while back, so I thought I'd start a discussion. Here's what I think I know. 
1. The critical setup is to have a series of ships one move apart. YMMV with ship type and availability of Magellan. One ship in port, next ship one move out, repeat as needed. Caravan/freight starts in or moves to the port, and is put to sleep. (Poor thing!) Ship moves to the location of the next ship. Wake up (activate) the sleepers, then put them back to sleep. Next ship moves, and the cargo moves with them. Repeat as needed, and one shipload of cargo can move an arbitrary distance in one turn. [I think Scouse Gits was the first to bring this to my attention.]
2. Couple this with railroads, and "voila, le transporter beam" for one shipload of cargo.
3. For some reason, until this week I never realized that for a fully-functional ship chain which can repeat this stunt every turn, you need double the number of ships (basically an outbound chain and a return chain). A single chain can deliver a shipload on alternate turns, pulsing out and pulsing back. The double chain is optimum for "2-continents" work.
4. I have wondered about efficiency: can you deliver more cargo with a ship chain or with individual ships. The answer is that if sufficient cargo is available (an invasion, for example), then individual ships can deliver more shiploads than a ship chain can. Example:
Case: 2 legs, 4 ships, all start in origin port, fully loaded, no return cargo.
No chain: Turn1, move, T2, delivery (4 loads), T3, move, T4, reload, T5, move, T6, delivery (now 8 loads), T7, move, T8, reload, T9, move, T10, delivery (now 12 loads).
Forming chain: T1, move, T2, delivery (4 loads), T3, move, T4, 2 ships reload, 2 wait at midpoint, T5, deliver load (5 total), now 1 load per turn, so at T10 you deliver the 10th load. -2 loads overall.
5. That's theory. In practice, you simply won't have enough cargo on an ongoing basis to keep the holds filled. The advantage of the chain is for fast delivery and thus a better chance of meeting transient demand for a product. The optimum is probably a two-continents trading setup with ports and railroads at each end.
6. Also in practice, it's likely that demand for your products will be scattered among multiple AI destinations, so perhaps the ship chain will go to a "distribution center" from which individual ships will serve local destinations...if I could ever in my life be quite that organized!
-- Hermann
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09-03-2001 23:52
. Using the convoy you only need to control that part of the ocean where it currently lies, so it doesn't require a huge presence - especially if you stack strong defenders with the
, but you have to defend the entire chain if you want it to stay effective. This requires a large navy or early dominance of the water.
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