FS - foreign station question

[John S]

I am brand new to the game. Have played three “new games”, each for about ten years when I realized that I had learned a lot of new things and decided to start over again. Have played France in 1890 in each case and am enjoying it a lot.

Recently I had some odd experiences. I had a number of corvettes designed for colonial work (“C”). I realized the potential advantage in changing their status to FS - on foreign service. Thereafter I noticed a tendency on some of their parts to run into location problems. In some cases I find that though I had sent them to west Africa, for example, and tried to leave them there, they moved on entirely on their own to, for example, South America. The problem seems to be fixed if I switch from FS to AF (active fleet), at least so far there has been no unrequested movement.

Is this a normal issue when you put a colonial designed ship in FS? Do they just up and move on you when you have tried to and wanted to place them somewhere specific?

[GeBuch]

That is working as designed. Ships on "foreign station" task will be moved by the AI randomly but weighted by the requirements of your colonies, The advantage is a) they contribute without delay and with their maximal nominal weight, ships an active fleet duty only contribute once they have arrived in a region that had insufficient tonnage and they only count towards that regions requirements. b) The AI will do a pretty good job at spreading ships to every necessary region.

So FS-duty is more efficient but you lose some control, but it can also be used temporarly to spread out your colonial vessels before setting them to Acctive-Fleet duty once they have reached suitable locations.

Here are some examples.

If you have a design of 1500 tons and 3 regions that each require 1000 tons of displacement, you could satisfy the requiremnts by only building 2 ships and leaving them on FS-duty, but the ships will move araound between the regions.

Or build 3 vessels and sent them there on Active Fleet duty, which will incur a penalty due to the delay until they arrive, or you could set the same 3 vessels to FS-duty and they will eventually stabilze where there is 1 vessel in every region, at which point you could set them to active fleet duty. If those 3 vessels are on AF-duty and one is sunk you will be short of tonnage again.

Being short on FS-Tonnage doesn't matter if are being blockaded.

Fitting a ship for colonial duty gives it a bonus to its "effective" tonnage (30%, if I remember right). Above 6000 tons every additonal ton of displacement only counts partially and short range and cramped quarters also give penalties.

[John S]

Thanks for the info. I was wondering whether I had screwed something up and whether it was a bug. Good to know that this is how it is supposed to work.

The problem for me though was that playing as the French the ai kept sending the “colony” corvettes to areas where I had no base - both South American coasts, Caribbean etc. then I would get a notice regarding the overload re the nonexistent base and the ship would end up with maintenance issues. This was not a “rare” thing but truly a regular issue happening every turn. I ended up sacrificing the colonial advantage and putting them on active service so they would be where I needed and wanted them without a lot of tiresome notices and worries.

What exactly is the “penalty” when you have insufficient tonnage at a colonial area?

[WLRoo]

Increased chance of colonial possessions rebelling.

The Colonial Service tick box grants a 25% bonus to the adjusted value for vessels on FS duty.

Also, I too find that vessels assigned to FS will always be in motion, touring the world.

I handle it by meeting European and US Colonial requirements mainly with vessels on station using AF, then a second group of ships assigned to FS duty to cover breakdowns, sabotage and submarine sinkings.