Re: OT: The Battle of Savo Island
 

Take a look at the Carrier Battles mod.

I've had a number of battles where both sides survive, and even when you win big, you are almost certain to take some moderate damage.

Successful fleets need to include gunships as well as the central carriers and their fighters.

Re: OT: The Battle of Savo Island
 

I might point out that the Astoria was also in the Battle of Midway and did server as Admiral Fletchers Flag ship for a time after his Carrier was sunk. The ship also served in a State function where it transported and then participated in the state funeral of a Japanese diplomat to the US prior to the war.

Re: OT: The Battle of Savo Island
 

I'd be interested in the mod, but I don't have time to author it.

That said:
The differences in weapons would be fairly easy to mod: the guns were essentially the same, the Japaneese had the advantage in torp range and speed though both were deadly when they hit.

The American / allied forces had an advantage in damage control: Once Japaneese ships began to take damage they did not recover from it as well as allied ships. This would be especially hard to model. The concept of "progressive damage" from fires or loss of atmosphere are not part of the game, yet this is an area where their opponents had a disctinct advantage.

So I see that we could make the advantages of the Japaneese, but not model the (rather tenuous) advantages of the allies. Nevertheless, the lack of the latter would not unbalance the game much.

Re: OT: The Battle of Savo Island
 

It has been discussed many times, but no one has the time to invest in doing it.

Re: OT: The Battle of Savo Island
 

The easiest way would be just better repair components for the allies. Throw in supply generation across all components and limited stores and the advantage of repair (controlling) damage faster means that damaged Allied ships will be still able to fight while Japanese ships that are less damaged can't fight as they have no supplies.

Just an idea.

Re: OT: The Battle of Savo Island
 

You could put some supply storage into the hull itself.

Making some in-combat repair (via the armor regeneration ability) for some basic systems (B/LS/CQ/ETC?) would also do well.