AFB Request: Hellcat

[pad152]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Yes, in theory that's the number of pilots.

Then maybe it should say Pilots and not Crew, you think![8|]

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
So much trust here, Jim. [;)]

Well when I see that Japanese bombers are more maneuverable than or as maneuverable as the Hellcats, it doesn’t do much to engender trust in the teams reasoning behind some of the factors given. After my recent unpleasant experience with the nik mod air to air changes and the fact I watched the Japanese planes get to make 8-10 or more attacks for every 1 allied attack in fighter combats since maneuver ratings determine who gets to take a shot or not, I fear the same thing will happen in this mod.

The Hellcat was a totally dominate air frame that allowed the allies to protect their ships from disastrous casualties. That combined with AAA that would shoot down 50%or more of any attacking planes that got through the Hellcats, allowed the US to keep up the momentum of their attacks through 1944 and 1945.

The problem that then crops up if you nerf the Hellcat and keep flak totally impotent as it is now, is that the allies will take far more ship losses in 1944 and beyond then they did historically. Far too many to sustain a challenging game I fear. Allied Hellcats and Flak allowed ships to stay on station in hostile air space for weeks historically, if the Hellcats and flak don’t allow that to occur in game, the game will be unplayable for the allies in late game as they’ll simply run out of ships.

With no ability to keep shipbuilding ramped up because of the severely limited allied replacement system (way too over limited in my view), the allies will have no way to sustain offensive ops once a few disasters occur that sink a lot of their invasion type ships.

Were cargo and invasion vessels re-spawnable, then there wouldn’t be a threat to the game like this. But they’re not and the downscaling of allied production in mid 43 and beyond is hard coded into the game, even if the allies take far more losses than they historically did. So it’s a fragile balance and something easily broken if the Hellcats don’t work as they should.

I’m willing to reserve final judgment pending some test results shown to us, but so far I’m not too confident in the testing that has really been done on this late game stage of affairs.

Before everyone jumps down my throat, I am a proud WitP fanboy, I just want to see a game that will work since so many years have to be invested in getting to that late stage of the game.

Jim

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Well when I see that Japanese bombers are more maneuverable than or as maneuverable as the Hellcats, it doesn’t do much to engender trust in the teams reasoning behind some of the factors given. After my recent unpleasant experience with the nik mod air to air changes and the fact I watched the Japanese planes get to make 8-10 or more attacks for every 1 allied attack in fighter combats since maneuver ratings determine who gets to take a shot or not, I fear the same thing will happen in this mod.

<best McCoy voice> This is not a mod, Jim. </best McCoy voice> This is a new game with a completely rewritten air combat engine. The stats do not work the same way they used to work. The higher maneuverability you saw on a bomber means little to nothing without factoring in the other stats as well.

You also have seen the words of the designers and the testers who've posted here with results and opinions that Air Combat in WITP: AE really works well.

I think you are extrapolating _WAY_ too much from a single screenshot about a game that you haven't actually played. I read through the doomsday scenario for the Allies you outlined and I simply don't see that being the case at all based on my play of AE.

I’m willing to reserve final judgment pending some test results shown to us, but so far I’m not too confident in the testing that has really been done on this late game stage of affairs.

Well, like I said you can certainly choose not to trust me on that, but yes late game testing was done and will continue to be done up until release and Hellcats (and all planes from what I've seen) perform more historically in AE than in the original WITP.

Before everyone jumps down my throat, I am a proud WitP fanboy, I just want to see a game that will work since so many years have to be invested in getting to that late stage of the game.

I hear you - seriously though, if you love WITP, you will love AE a lot more.

Regards,

- Erik

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
<best McCoy voice> This is not a mod, Jim. </best McCoy voice> This is a new game with a completely rewritten air combat engine. The stats do not work the same way they used to work. The higher maneuverability you saw on a bomber means little to nothing without factoring in the other stats as well.

Ok, I'll give the benefit of the doubt here, but that said, what exactly does maneuver represent then if a bomber is rated higher than a war winning fighter? I mean if the code was redone, shouldn’t the code have been optimized so maneuver means maneuver and isn’t simply some arbitrary rating to be tweaked without regard to it actually simulating anything?

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Well, like I said you can certainly choose not to trust me on that, but yes late game testing was done and will continue to be done up until release and Hellcats (and all planes from what I've seen) perform more historically in AE than in the original WITP.

Fair enough, but why then is flak still almost non-existent? It was a HUGE part of allied ship defense throughout the war but most importantly during the late war period.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
I hear you - seriously though, if you love WITP, you will love AE a lot more.

Of that I have no doubt.

Jim

[wworld7]

It is not proper or realistic to throw "Bones" into any situation without using his signature line. So to rectify this huge error...here goes...

<best McCoy voice> He's dead, Jim.

[:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)]

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

It is not proper or realistic to throw "Bones" into any situation without using his signature line. So to rectify this huge error...here goes...

<best McCoy voice> He's dead, Jim.

[:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)]

or to paraphrase one of his quotes:

Dammit Jim, these are software devs, not miracle workers!!!

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
<best McCoy voice> This is not a mod, Jim. </best McCoy voice> This is a new game with a completely rewritten air combat engine. The stats do not work the same way they used to work. The higher maneuverability you saw on a bomber means little to nothing without factoring in the other stats as well.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Ok, I'll give the benefit of the doubt here, but that said, what exactly does maneuver represent then if a bomber is rated higher than a war winning fighter? I mean if the code was redone, shouldn’t the code have been optimized so maneuver means maneuver and isn’t simply some arbitrary rating to be tweaked without regard to it actually simulating anything?

The air combat model was redone by an active duty USN fighter pilot (TheElf). I've been an air geek for as long as I can remember and I have an engineering degree as well as a strong background in Physics and he knows a lot more about the Physics of air combat than I ever will. He's satisfied with the results.

Maneuver is not the primary factor in air combat. Also taken into consideration are pilot skill, aircraft types (bombers don't dog fight), altitude, speed differences, as well as some other factors I don't recall off the top of my head.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Well, like I said you can certainly choose not to trust me on that, but yes late game testing was done and will continue to be done up until release and Hellcats (and all planes from what I've seen) perform more historically in AE than in the original WITP.

Fair enough, but why then is flak still almost non-existent? It was a HUGE part of allied ship defense throughout the war but most importantly during the late war period.

I'm not sure where you heard that. Late war Allied flak suites are quite large. The flak model has been improved over stock and it works more accurately too.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
I hear you - seriously though, if you love WITP, you will love AE a lot more.

Of that I have no doubt.

Jim

I don't think I will ever be able to play stock again. AE is a much richer experience all around.

Bill

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
The air combat model was redone by an active duty USN fighter pilot (TheElf). I've been an air geek for as long as I can remember and I have an engineering degree as well as a strong background in Physics and he knows a lot more about the Physics of air combat than I ever will. He's satisfied with the results.

As I said, I’m reserving judgment until I can see some actual test results. But I’m *uneasy* about the ratings I see.

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Maneuver is not the primary factor in air combat. Also taken into consideration are pilot skill, aircraft types (bombers don't dog fight), altitude, speed differences, as well as some other factors I don't recall off the top of my head.

Fine, so maneuver is just some arbitrary rating then with no basis in attempting to actually simulate maneuver abilities of the planes.

We should rename it to rating slot A or something instead of calling it maneuver then. Bombers were laden down with heavy ordinance and had less durable airframes than fighters when it came to pulling high Gs, they should never be more maneuverable than a fighter, especially the fighter that racked up the most air to air kills in the Pacific theater.

ORIGINAL: wdolson
I'm not sure where you heard that. Late war Allied flak suites are quite large. The flak model has been improved over stock and it works more accurately too.

The early war AAR of a carrier exchange near Port Moresby they posted had very few (if any) attacking planes downed by flak guns. When I mentioned that losses of attacking airframes usually exceeded 50% of the planes to flak, I was ridiculed and told I needed to prove that claim. When I did prove it, and demanded they show me a carrier attack where just a handful of the attacking airframes were downed, the team stopped commenting.

Flak downed a huge number of attacking planes, we see nothing like that in the current game and the AARs posted so far for AE show it will still be pretty much impotent.

Jim

[Iridium]

ORIGINAL: Shark7


2. Why do some of the planes have Japanese names and others don't? Examples: A6M2-21 SenBaku Then you have A6M2-21 'Zero' which is just the English translation of the Japanese name for it (Rei shiki Kanjo sentoki, Type 0 Carrier Fighter)...Allied codename was actually 'Zeke' for the A6M series IIRC.

Senbaku means fighterbomber iirc, the original 'Zero' is just a fighter.

[m10bob]

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Maneuver is not the primary factor in air combat. Also taken into consideration are pilot skill, aircraft types (bombers don't dog fight), altitude, speed differences, as well as some other factors I don't recall off the top of my head.


Jim D Burns sez:
"Fine, so maneuver is just some arbitrary rating then with no basis in attempting to actually simulate maneuver abilities of the planes."


Gosh Jim, only you are claiming maneuver is an "arbitrary". Total misconception of the aero-dynamics involved which are multi-dimensional. This has been explained several times.
Why are YOU not getting it?



Jim D Burns sez:

"We should rename it to rating slot A or something instead of calling it maneuver then."


"WE"??...Are you on the dev team??

Since none of the dev team is being paid for their time, and you have very obvious doubts of their formula and progress, why not just sit it out till the program is released. Then, watch one of your friends who might have a copy of AE..If you like what you see, buy it. If not, don't.

This thread was opened as a means of allowing the non-dev forum members a peek over their shoulders, but your repeated demands for a posted example of aerial combat between the F6F and some other planes is a bit over the top.

Be appreciative of anything they are doing for us. You are not being forced to purchase it, nor are they being paid to be ridiculed, or criticized at this stage.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
The air combat model was redone by an active duty USN fighter pilot (TheElf). I've been an air geek for as long as I can remember and I have an engineering degree as well as a strong background in Physics and he knows a lot more about the Physics of air combat than I ever will. He's satisfied with the results.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
As I said, I’m reserving judgment until I can see some actual test results. But I’m *uneasy* about the ratings I see.

If those ratings were used in the stock air to air engine, I understand where you would be uneasy. The air to air part of the game engine was rewritten. It's quite possibly the most different part of the code. What you have learned from WitP is not necessarily relevant anymore.

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Maneuver is not the primary factor in air combat. Also taken into consideration are pilot skill, aircraft types (bombers don't dog fight), altitude, speed differences, as well as some other factors I don't recall off the top of my head.

Fine, so maneuver is just some arbitrary rating then with no basis in attempting to actually simulate maneuver abilities of the planes.

We should rename it to rating slot A or something instead of calling it maneuver then. Bombers were laden down with heavy ordinance and had less durable airframes than fighters when it came to pulling high Gs, they should never be more maneuverable than a fighter, especially the fighter that racked up the most air to air kills in the Pacific theater.

It appears I didn't make myself clear. Maneuver is one rating among many. It is not irrelevant, but a plane with a maneuver of 30 is not necessarily better than one with a maneuver of 20 in air to air combat. All the factors have to be weighed.

The maneuver numbers are only a starting point. I just looked at the code. I can't give specifics, but pilot experience, altitude differences, the altitude band, speed differences, top speed differences, whether the planes are carrying a load, surprise, and a few other things all modify the maneuver ratings and lead to the final tactical situation before the two sides start firing at one another.

Another thing to consider about the experience is that it is now broken down into many different types of experience. Kate pilots will have skill at torpedo attacks, and probably level bombing attacks, but their air to air skills will be poor, even early war. The airframe, unloaded, may be maneuverable, but the pilot is not going to be skilled at fighter tactics. That will be reflected in the combat results.

ORIGINAL: wdolson
I'm not sure where you heard that. Late war Allied flak suites are quite large. The flak model has been improved over stock and it works more accurately too.

The early war AAR of a carrier exchange near Port Moresby they posted had very few (if any) attacking planes downed by flak guns. When I mentioned that losses of attacking airframes usually exceeded 50% of the planes to flak, I was ridiculed and told I needed to prove that claim. When I did prove it, and demanded they show me a carrier attack where just a handful of the attacking airframes were downed, the team stopped commenting.

Flak downed a huge number of attacking planes, we see nothing like that in the current game and the AARs posted so far for AE show it will still be pretty much impotent.

Jim

I didn't see that thread so I don't know what happened. Flak was not uber effective early on. It was notable when the Enterprise's TF was able to beat off a Val attack mostly with just flak at the Battle of Santa Cruz. The flak suites on all ships had been vastly upgraded at that point, which was about six months after Coral Sea.

American flak didn't really come into its own until proximity fuses were introduced mid-war.

I did a quick look and I can't find any numbers for air losses at Coral Sea broken down by cause. I would be quite surprised if flak accounted for anything close to 50%. If I remember from what I've read about Midway, Americans lost few aircraft to flak, and Japanese losses were a little higher to flak, but CAP accounted for more.

Did find results for the Japanese attacks on the Yorktown at Midway:

1st attack, 18 Vals - F4Fs get 10, flak gets 2
2nd attack, 10 Kates, 6 Zeros - F4Fs get 4, 5th shot down could be flak or F4F cause is uncertain it exploded when shot at by both.

This is a very well documented sequence of events corroborated by records from both sides. US fighters got 14 attacking planes for sure with 1 more possible (and a few Zeros too). Flak got 2 for sure and possibly a 3rd. So that's either 11% or 17% depending on who you give the unknown to. (I'm not counting the Zeros, which would increase the Wildcat's score.)

Late war flak is a different thing from early war.

Bill

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
I didn't see that thread so I don't know what happened.

Did find results for the Japanese attacks on the Yorktown at Midway:

1st attack, 18 Vals - F4Fs get 10, flak gets 2
2nd attack, 10 Kates, 6 Zeros - F4Fs get 4, 5th shot down could be flak or F4F cause is uncertain it exploded when shot at by both.

Well the Yorktown was torpedoed twice at Midway in two different attacks (Japanese thought second torpedo attack was on a different carrier), so your numbers are not complete. I think I had read that 70% of the attacking strike aircraft had been downed by Yorktowns flak at Midway, but I can't remember for sure.

Coral Sea saw a minimum of 33% of the attacking airframes lost to flak. This percentage is probably higher as many of the 69 Japanese planes in the strike package were probably zeroes, but I wasn’t able to find any sources that gave specific numbers for zeroes so included all 69 to come to the 33% figure. Here’s the post where I summarize the numbers I came up with:

I only made assumptions about the Coral Sea battle, and that was because hard data about the strike is hard to find. But I did post further info that cleared up some of those original assumptions. So what we’re left with is this:

Fact: 69 Japanese planes were in the strike package.

Fact: 27 of these planes were lost.

Fact: 4 of these 27 were lost to SBDs, regular Wildcat CAP played no role in shoot downs because they were out of position.

Fact: That leaves 23 that were flak losses.

So the only thing left we don’t know for a fact is how many of the 69 airframes were zeros. But even if we assume none were zeros and all 69 were strike aircraft, 23 out of 69 is a loss rate of 33%, well within the 30%-60% estimate I gave.

Of course I seriously doubt none of the 69 were zeros, so it was probably closer to 50% of the strike airframes being destroyed by flak. But I freely admit that is an assumption based on an educated guess.

However, nothing above is subjective opinion, it is all based on the actual numbers historically involved in the fight. And more than backs up what I said originally.

Here are the threads where the discussions took place:

tm.asp?m=1910523&mpage=1&key=

tm.asp?m=1923563&mpage=1&key=

In the end, I still doubt anyone can point to a carrier action where at least 30%-60% of the attacking air frames (those that dropped ordinance on the ships) were not lost to flak. Later in the war that percentage was much higher.

Jim

[String]

Jim, why is it so hard to understand that the maneuver ratings are the best possible? I don't find it so unbelievable that a japanese light bomber with no ordnance could outturn a hellcat. In fact i wouldn't be surprised if the Val could even out turn a zero under optimal conditions. Now these ratings would be wrong if they were used "as is". However it has been stated many times that these ratings are modified by the speed of the aircraft, the ordnance they carry, their a2a skills and god knows what else. So in the end it ends up in a realistic way and the hellcat dominates the kate.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: String
Jim, why is it so hard to understand that the maneuver ratings are the best possible? I don't find it so unbelievable that a japanese light bomber with no ordnance could outturn a hellcat. In fact i wouldn't be surprised if the Val could even out turn a zero under optimal conditions. Now these ratings would be wrong if they were used "as is". However it has been stated many times that these ratings are modified by the speed of the aircraft, the ordnance they carry, their a2a skills and god knows what else. So in the end it ends up in a realistic way and the hellcat dominates the kate.

I do understand that, and I did say I was reserving judgment pending some test results. In the old system maneuver determined whether you got to take a shot or not, and only if you passed that roll did speed and other factors come into play.

If that underlying part of the engine is still present, then we will see 10-1 attack rolls being made like I saw with the nik mod where the Nate’s were hitting every single one of my AVGs airframes 5 or 10 times each and I wasn’t hitting them even once in return.

If that's been changed and everything is taken into consideration and modifies the maneuver rating before the ability to roll an attack is determined then fine I'll be a happy camper. But I wonder just how much of that underlying combat engine sequence was actually able to be reconfigured, I suspect the maneuver check will again prevent attack rolls from even getting to be made for airframes with significantly lower maneuver ratings. And speed and other mods won’t matter a nit if that’s the case.

Jim

[Erik Rutins]

Jim,

The entire air combat engine was re-written. I wouldn't assume anything based on what you know of the original WITP air combat engine combined with the new stats.

Regards,

- Erik

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: wdolson
The air combat model was redone by an active duty USN fighter pilot (TheElf). I've been an air geek for as long as I can remember and I have an engineering degree as well as a strong background in Physics and he knows a lot more about the Physics of air combat than I ever will. He's satisfied with the results.

As I said, I’m reserving judgment until I can see some actual test results. But I’m *uneasy* about the ratings I see.

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Maneuver is not the primary factor in air combat. Also taken into consideration are pilot skill, aircraft types (bombers don't dog fight), altitude, speed differences, as well as some other factors I don't recall off the top of my head.

Fine, so maneuver is just some arbitrary rating then with no basis in attempting to actually simulate maneuver abilities of the planes.

We should rename it to rating slot A or something instead of calling it maneuver then. Bombers were laden down with heavy ordinance and had less durable airframes than fighters when it came to pulling high Gs, they should never be more maneuverable than a fighter, especially the fighter that racked up the most air to air kills in the Pacific theater.

ORIGINAL: wdolson
I'm not sure where you heard that. Late war Allied flak suites are quite large. The flak model has been improved over stock and it works more accurately too.

The early war AAR of a carrier exchange near Port Moresby they posted had very few (if any) attacking planes downed by flak guns. When I mentioned that losses of attacking airframes usually exceeded 50% of the planes to flak, I was ridiculed and told I needed to prove that claim. When I did prove it, and demanded they show me a carrier attack where just a handful of the attacking airframes were downed, the team stopped commenting.

Flak downed a huge number of attacking planes, we see nothing like that in the current game and the AARs posted so far for AE show it will still be pretty much impotent.

Jim

Jim, if you read my earlier post, you'd likely have understood that MVR does not work singularly. It is but one of many cogs in the ratings system, and the code. When you view the stats of the aircraft in this screenie you do so with out the benefit of understanding how, when, and why they are used.

In this particular case the information you've been operating without includes the following:

1. How Bombers behave in the code under Air Attack.
2. Whether Bomber even use MVR vs. Fighters (they don't as they are in formation)
3. How a fighter like the F6F would dominate a kate even if it DID use MVR (The F6Fs Topspeed would HALVE the Kates MVR)
4. Even if all the above weren't true, there would then be the effective firepower of the Kate and it's inability to consistently produce enough fire to kill a Hellcat.
5. The various bonuses that are applied in the resolution of A2A based on Altitude, Superiority in numbers, Air Leader ratings etc.

So much you are missing in your conclusion.

[witpqs]

Maybe we can all move on if the Dev team agrees to a simple change in the displays and editor: Change "Maneuver Rating" to "Ultra Top Secret Modifier". [:'(]

Seriously Jim, you seem determined to stop everything right here and now until you personally are satisfied on this point and you will not take their word at all. If you won't give them a break then how about giving the rest of us a break and let us trust them and wait to see how well it works when it's released? [8D]

[Dili]

It all goes by what anyone understands by maneuverality. Since the game have at least speed and climb besides maneuverality field, it means that MVR rating in AE is a more restricted ability than usually refered in books and historical accounts where that separation is not done.

[TheElf]

MVR is now closer to what one would expect it to be than it ever was in WitP.

[RevRick]

Elf, I am truly sorry I ever opened this can of worms....forgive me, please....
OY!!