Glad to hear you are interested. We have a build in the GR area on Jan 18. A goood time to talk boats!! We also have some boats for sale. Is there anything you are thinking about?
Welcome Dustin, whereabouts are you I'm the farthest north,up in Clare county. Most of the GLAS members are in Detroit and GR area.
Hey Dustin, welcome to the Party, If you are over Muskegon way you should stop over and we can talk boats and I can show you one or two so you can get an idea for what you want. Hope to see you on the water. Craig
I would STRONGLY suggest building a convoy ship first. One, there are never enough targets and your first ship will be ROUGH. But that's ok. You'll learn how to build a simple straight forward boat, simple easy systems. You'll begin to gather the tools and experience you need and you'll quickly learn how to try and avoid getting hit. It will get you in the game quickly and cheaply and you'll get a chance to see what is out there to build, as well as get some ideas of what direction you want to go in. Then next I would strongly suggest building a cruiser. They are fast, effective and fun. Their systems are simple and easy to build, just a step or two above your convoy ship. By taking your time and learning the ropes it will make your next step into either building a battleship, the Queen of the battle line or going smaller into destroyers - the Greyhounds of the fleet. With a Convoy Ship, a Cruiser and ultimately a Battle Wagon you'll have your own fleet and the flexibility to play the game and stay in the game when you have a ship down for repairs. You won't be overwhelmed like I have seen so many times when someone starting out decides to build a battle ship right off the bat and then give up ever getting on the water. They are not cheap, simple or easy. Baby steps.....baby steps. Remember this is supposed to be FUN!!
I feel like this advice only applies if you're planning on battling big gun, in IRCWCC The only time you would run a convoy ship would be during the two campaign battles at Nationals. We do not normally run campaign ships during regular battles and there really is no provision for how to score hits on them where their successful runs during fleet battles. Considering OP's location and the fact that big gun essentially does not exist outside of the West Coast, it's relatively safe to assume that OP is most likely going to end up in Fast Gun. The commonly accepted logic for a newer captain is to build a class three heavy cruiser, or a smaller class four battle cruiser. Great starting ships to consider would be: French cruiser Suffren. Not the best at anything not the worst at anything cheap and easy to build, very maneuverable for its size, will stay with you long after you graduate into a bigger boat. Plus it's French, so regardless of what nation your primary battleship ends up being you can always use it as a backup ship since the french flip sides. Des Moines class cruiser. The largest of all heavy cruisers, has triples which can be very powerful. It's large size makes it a forgiving build. British Battlecruiser Invincible/ German Von Der Tann. Class four 26 second battle cruisers, they are competitive enough to have a lot of fun in they are big enough that they can be relatively easy builds, but they aren't so big we're so juicy of a target that they will be too difficult to build or constantly focused by the enemy. Anything smaller than this and you run the risk of it being too difficult to actually build because of extreme size and weight constraints. Anything too much bigger than this and you run the risk of it being too expensive of a build, a big ship with rookie problems that will get sunk a lot, etc.
As a newer captain myself, I definitely would suggest a class 3 cruiser or class 4 first, and depending on the ship maybe a class 5 if you had the funds, really wanted to get into the hobby, and a great local support group. Being in Michigan, you'll probably be battling with GLAS, so you have that last one covered.
Not sure if you all realize that was the users only post and it is from 2019. Not sure they are still hanging around.
