Japanese Industry/Production Questions

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

To be honest, I don't know. I've never kept it as a Claude factory past 7 Dec 41.

There is another Claude group that comes out like within 60 days if that's any indicator.

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: scout1

No way. The Mavis (if memory serves) has the longest legs of any search a/c. I increase these puppies. Always good to know what the Limeys and Yanks are up to [;)]

wrong - Mavis range 17, Emily range 24

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005
I am about 99% sure I had a BB repair 3 points in one turn. Once, in a distant galaxy, a long time ago...

And then all your penguin POWs dropped dead from overwork. [:D]

That's ok I know where to get more, just don't tell PETA...they scare me.[:D]

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: aletoledo

I'm in the beginning of '43 and have initiated taking my osaka repair yard to 200 repair points. I guess I have a lot of damaged ships and even distributing them amoung all the decent yards, I find that I still use up all the points each turn.

I knew I needed the extra points and so I started increasing the capacity early, but after the initial increases finished, I had a lull in the fighting and didn't continue increasing the yards. I regret that and probably should have cranked it up to 200 from the very beginning. it was hard (and still is) on supply, but I feel its been worth it so far, because cruisers really seem to benefit the most and I can turn them around easily.

What concerns me is over committing my supply levels. As a novice, I am constantly checking those supplies fearing I will run out - I'm used to the Allied side where you always have more supply then you need, it's more a matter of finding the ships to get it to the front safely that is the problem.

How much of a supply buffer does Japan really have? I have heard 6 months, but I think that assumes that you do everything right.

My first priority to was change several engine factories over to...can't recall the name of the engine, but its the one that JPN is desperately short of. Will I still have enough supply to upgrade repair yards? Should I also increase airplane production?

[pauk]

depends on your playing style and progress you've made in opening months.

If you capture resources and oil intact (or almost intact) then you will have enough supply for that. And maybe even more.

But be careful, you have to choose what is most important to you. In general this is how i rate it.

1. nakajima engines
2. increasing Zero production
3. arnament production
4. supply for building forts/AFs (sooner or latter you have to defend captured bases)
5. repair yards

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: pauk

depends on your playing style and progress you've made in opening months.

If you capture resources and oil intact (or almost intact) then you will have enough supply for that. And maybe even more.

But be careful, you have to choose what is most important to you. In general this is how i rate it.

1. nakajima engines
2. increasing Zero production
3. arnament production
4. supply for building forts/AFs (sooner or latter you have to defend captured bases)
5. repair yards

Thanks Pauk...makes sense...I have already started #4 in some cases...bad idea?

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: pauk

depends on your playing style and progress you've made in opening months.

If you capture resources and oil intact (or almost intact) then you will have enough supply for that. And maybe even more.

But be careful, you have to choose what is most important to you. In general this is how i rate it.

1. nakajima engines
2. increasing Zero production
3. arnament production
4. supply for building forts/AFs (sooner or latter you have to defend captured bases)
5. repair yards

Thanks Pauk...makes sense...I have already started #4 in some cases...bad idea?

not at all. This top five means what i expand at the start of the game (doesn't mean that you should go first for 1 or 4). I do not bother at with other things R&D, naval shipyards etc at the start of the game.

[jumper]

Hi,
I prefer to expand all naval shipyards above 10points and I leave repair yards without change. l also convert all those small merchant shipyards (1-3 points) to naval shipyards - they are expanded too above 10, once the first wave is repaired, but it is just a matter of taste. I´m running a game with Shinano being 3rd Yamato class BB, so I can not save 180points by stopping her - I want her[:)]
But whatever I do, I´m allways short of armament points. There is never enough of them. [:(]

btw I never had some huge problems with lack of supply (not countings first games with overexpanded economy [:D]). I´m having problems with fuel !!! I´m in the point that it really affect my naval operations and it is only mid 42.[:@]


it is probably caused by myself. I allowed my oponent to move most of stored fuel away.. Yes, I sunk a lot of his tankers, but with the fuel already loaded and i´m paying for it now. I thought he made a mistake by loading fuel and leaving oil to me, but now it seems as good move from his side[:@][:@][:@]

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: scout1

Turn off the Mavis factory too. It'll upgrade to Emily in Jan 42

No way. The Mavis (if memory serves) has the longest legs of any search a/c. I increase these puppies. Always good to know what the Limeys and Yanks are up to [;)]

I never said I didn't increase the factory. Mavis has a max range of 17 hexes and Emily is 24. The initial pool of Mavis is adequate for the short term and when the Emilys come in and chutai are converted, the pool in replenished. The factory begins with a production of 4 I believe.

In Jan 42, the factory converts to Emily free of charge. At that point, I increase production to 16. My mid 1942, I have all chutai except for a few in areas where the 24 hex range is not needed (SRA, Indian Ocean, etc.). I use up the remaining Mavis in those areas as well as training up any chutai that are disbanded.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

To be honest, I don't know. I've never kept it as a Claude factory past 7 Dec 41.

There is another Claude group that comes out like within 60 days if that's any indicator.

I use Claudes to train up my disbanded naval fighter groups. (Same with Nates for my disbanded army fighter groups.) After they are trained, I switch them to the frontline fighters. You start out with well over 300 Claudes (and over 900 Nates). Why waste them. They were paid for before the game began so why waste frontline fighters you are producing on your half-trained dimwits? If one of them crashes and burns in one of these, just accept replacements to get a replacement aircraft and grab another pilot.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: pauk

depends on your playing style and progress you've made in opening months.

If you capture resources and oil intact (or almost intact) then you will have enough supply for that. And maybe even more.

But be careful, you have to choose what is most important to you. In general this is how i rate it.

1. nakajima engines
2. increasing Zero production
3. arnament production
4. supply for building forts/AFs (sooner or latter you have to defend captured bases)
5. repair yards

I would add Oscars in there somewhere. Yeah, yeah, they're not that great, but they're better than Nates. I usually increase A6M2s to 200 per month and Oscar Ibs to about 150 per month. If you have too great a pool, you can always shut off the factory temporarily. I increase the Zeros to that high a level to get all my Naval fighters converted from Claudes to Zeros as soon as possible because of the Zero bonus. I want to kill as many Allied pilots as quickly as possible.

[IS2m]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

To be honest, I don't know. I've never kept it as a Claude factory past 7 Dec 41.

There is another Claude group that comes out like within 60 days if that's any indicator.

I use Claudes to train up my disbanded naval fighter groups. (Same with Nates for my disbanded army fighter groups.) After they are trained, I switch them to the frontline fighters. You start out with well over 300 Claudes (and over 900 Nates). Why waste them. They were paid for before the game began so why waste frontline fighters you are producing on your half-trained dimwits? If one of them crashes and burns in one of these, just accept replacements to get a replacement aircraft and grab another pilot.

Does anyone know if the Claude factory auto-converts?

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: Zemke_4
At the risk of sounding very dumb about the Japanese prodution system, I have a few questions for the "experten" out there.

Is is worth it for Japan to invest in increased ship repair? I am playing one PBEM where I did a significant increase in the ship repair yard in Tokyo, the up grade too a long time to take effect and during that time I had very few supplies, but now Tokyo is producing double the repair points it was at the start, did I make a mistake, should I have not created the SUPER repair yard?

I never use all the repair yard capacity that I have, but I tend to have games where my losses among the IJN are light. The advantage of a super repair yard is that you don't have to manage it as much. You just dump x durability points into the yard and leave it alone. If ship durability > 4 x repair yard size, then the ship will not benefit from the repair yard. The highest durability ships are 185 pt Yamato class, so a 45 point shipyard could do repairs on the Yamato, though repairs would be infrequent. The other advantage of a super yard is that it is esier to protect. You can CAP it more powerfully if you use only one and you don;t have to worry about ships transitting sub infested waters to disperse to multiple repair yards. The disadvantage is that too many smaller ships will sap all the repair points and leave you unable to repair the biggies. So the best thing to do is probably to put the big guys in Tokyo, then take their escorts to another port for repair.

ORIGINAL: Zemke_4
I also increase the Naval ship yard size in Tokyo with the hope that it would give me faster ship production coming out of Tokyo, again did I make a mistake in thinking this?

As far as new ship production is conerned, the location of the naval shipyard does not have an effect upon production speed at a given location. Only your pool of Naval build points matters. To the extent that your increase allows accleration of individual ships, it will have an effect, but otherwise there is no advantage to haviing a bigger yard in Tokyo.

ORIGINAL: Zemke_4
Supplies seems to build up very slowly for me in Japan, granted I have various factory changes in effect or factory increase in effect, which I suspect is the problem, or is Japan supply production just very slow?

Expansion saps supply production big time. I try to have no more than 10 factories repairing per day, though I exceed this in the first few weeks of the war.

ORIGINAL: Zemke_4
R and D of new plane types. I have read that one should start R&D on future planes, while at the same time I have read in some "Guides" to stop R&D on future planes. What should I be doing?

It is up to you. R&D may result in very little benefit at very high cost. Due to the likelihood of little payoff, many recommend not conducting research. However, research into an airframe that you plan to produce in large numbers is not bad. I would not research any plane where I wasn't going to field at least 1000.

Expansion of Japanese industry is something you really need to be careful with. Each point of repaired industry costs 1000 supply. Supply is very important in WitP. If you don't have it, planes don't fly, ships don't rearm, replacements don't fill out airgroups, troops fight at 1/4 strength, etc. It is a Bad Thing(tm). Another big determining factor in expansion choices is your PDU setting. If PDU is on, you take a different approach than if PDU is off. I will assume PDU is on. Finally, your choices depend upon your "gaminess" setting for the game. Conversions of IJA DB to LBA and Glens to Alfs are a question mark. Personally, I do not have a problem with IJA DB's converting, but do have a problem with Glens converting to Alf's (though converting Alf's to Glens is okay). What you do is up to you and your opponent.

1. Initally, I highly recommend increasing A6M2 production. Most of your kills early war will come from the Zero and you have roughly 500 spots for Zero pilots. Putting your pilots in Zeros ASAP is vital because the only resource more critical to you than supply and oil is pilots. Pilots in Zeros die more slowly than pilots in Claudes and they take more enemy pilots with them when they die. To do this, don't expand the existing factories. I recommend:

• Convert the L1N1 plant in Tokyo to A6M2 and expand to 16-20
• Convert the A5M4 plant in Nagasaki to A6M2 and expand to 16-20
• Convert the F1M2 plant in Tokyo to A6M2 and expand to 16-20
• Convert the E13A plant in Kitakyushu to A6M2 and expand to 16-20
• Convert the E13A plant in Hakodate to A6M2 and expand to 16-20
• Convert the E13A plant in Hiroshima to A6M2 and expand to 16-20

2. If you choose to allow IJA DB to upgrade to LBA

• Halt Sonia production in Tokyo and Nagoya
• Halt Lily production in Kyoto
• Double Sally production at Nagoya

3. Choose your primary transports. I tend to stick with L2D2 and L3Y for the Navy and the Ki-57-II for the army. I produce at one plant for each and expand if necessary. The rest I use to expand production of other aircraft or for r&d.

4. Halt the production at obsolete factories, or convert to r&d.

• The Ki-36 plant at Tokyo
• The Ki-57-II plant at Toyama
• The Ki-54 plant at Tokyo (After you have produced 36 to equip the 108th Tpt. Sentai - usually around Jan 12, 1942.)
• Halt the Ida plant at Tokyo
• Halt the Nates at Harbin and Gumma

5. Convert engines to Nakajima

• Convert Ishiwakajima engines at Tokyo to Nakajima
• Convert Nissan engines at Tokyo, Shimizu, and Hamamatsu to Nakajima
• Convert Hitachi engines at Tokyo to Nakajima (after producing enough engines to build out the Ki-54's)

6. Decide upon an August 42 fighter. You will get the Tony and the Tojo in August 42. The two fighters are very similar and each has it's own advantages. If you forego the Tony, convert the Kawasaki plants at Maizuru, Osaka, Hakodate, and Kitakyushu to Nakajima. Also consider ramping up production of one of the two after you capture Palembang, Brunei, and Balikpapan. If those are substantially damaged, do not expand anything until they are well on their way to being repaired.

7. Halt the H6K4 Mavis and expand it to 32. It will auto convert to the H8K in early January. When it does, restart production.

8. Halt the Nell plant until it auto converts to G4M1's, then restart.

9. Expand all armaments plants below 25. This can wait til after the oil centers are captured.

10. Expand all vehicle plants to about double the current production. This can wait too.

11. Use halted plants to condust R&D on aircraft you want sooner or to produce more of ones you want more of, but be careful about repairing them until you know the state of the oil centers.

Once you capture the SRA, you want to look at the number of damaged oil centers. If you do not capture Palembang, Balikpapan, and Brunei mostly intact, you don't have the oil production to support much industrial expansion.

[wild_Willie2]

Convert the A5M4 plant in Nagasaki to A6M2 and expand to 16-20

Would not do it as it auto converts to A6's in january [;)][:D]

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: wild_Willie2

Convert the A5M4 plant in Nagasaki to A6M2 and expand to 16-20

Would not do it as it auto converts to A6's in january [;)][:D]

Yep, it does. However, you lose a bit of production while you wait 23-30 days. Another choice would be to halt the A5M4 and expand the factory to 24. In early January (usually first 10 days or so), it will autoconvert and save you 6k in supply. I prefer to have the Zeros coming off the line in December.

[tsimmonds]

Oz, I agree with just about everything you have said (I can't believe you have only 805 posts; yours has to be the best ratio of garbage posts:total posts, as well as quality posts:total posts of anyone on the board).

That said I do see a couple of things differently. I think it is important to start to increase vehicles and armaments early. It's similar to compound interest; the largest effect is gained by beginning to make small contributions early, rather than waiting until later and contributing more. There are so many BFs that really need to have those 40 SNLF squads added so they can form a viable standalone defense force, or garrison in China, or a force to assault an empty base. Plus there are so many LCU reinforcements; it makes a big difference to the quality that you end up with, whether these arrive full strength or at 25%.....

I have similar feelings about repair yards. I like to expand the repair yards in the few size 10 ports so they are at least 100 points. I then also put 4 ARs in each of these, as well as a naval HQ. This maximizes the potential at these locations for basic repair, and then there are ample repair points available to take advantage of the repair die rolls if they fall your way.

I also do the same for naval shipyards. I like to expand the small ones, to get a bump of 10-20 NSPs per turn right away, and then do selective expansion so there are always one or two of them repairing.

I micromanage factory repair for the first six months or so, turning repairs on and off, sometimes every day, until the supply situation stabilizes. If you want to maximize the efficiency of your factory repairs, you have to look at each city where you have incomplete expansion, every day. In one city you may have expanded several different factories, yet find that you have only enough supply available there to repair one or two factory per turn. You can let the game decide which will be repaired, or you can do it yourself by setting the others to "do not repair". Unfortunately there are scant tools available in the game for keeping track of this, so the player must devise his own....

A team game is ideal for this. One player can manage the frontline forces, while the other manages production, supply, LCUs in the Home Islands, convoys, and China.

All in all I prefer to expand these unglamourous factories at the expense of a/c

....anyway, expanding some of the very smallest factories at the start, and then when those are complete, expanding some others, allows you to grow at a controlled pace.....

better read this over tomorrow; a bit of red-wine induced fever tonight[:o]

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Oz, I agree with just about everything you have said (I can't believe you have only 805 posts; yours has to be the best ratio of garbage posts:total posts, as well as quality posts:total posts of anyone on the board).

That said I do see a couple of things differently. I think it is important to start to increase vehicles and armaments early. It's similar to compound interest; the largest effect is gained by beginning to make small contributions early, rather than waiting until later and contributing more. There are so many BFs that really need to have those 40 SNLF squads added so they can form a viable standalone defense force, or garrison in China, or a force to assault an empty base. Plus there are so many LCU reinforcements; it makes a big difference to the quality that you end up with, whether these arrive full strength or at 25%.....

I have similar feelings about repair yards. I like to expand the repair yards in the few size 10 ports so they are at least 100 points. I then also put 4 ARs in each of these, as well as a naval HQ. This maximizes the potential at these locations for basic repair, and then there are ample repair points available to take advantage of the repair die rolls if they fall your way.

I also do the same for naval shipyards. I like to expand the small ones, to get a bump of 10-20 NSPs per turn right away, and then do selective expansion so there are always one or two of them repairing.

I micromanage factory repair for the first six months or so, turning repairs on and off, sometimes every day, until the supply situation stabilizes. If you want to maximize the efficiency of your factory repairs, you have to look at each city where you have incomplete expansion, every day. In one city you may have expanded several different factories, yet find that you have only enough supply available there to repair one or two factory per turn. You can let the game decide which will be repaired, or you can do it yourself by setting the others to "do not repair". Unfortunately there are scant tools available in the game for keeping track of this, so the player must devise his own....

A team game is ideal for this. One player can manage the frontline forces, while the other manages production, supply, LCUs in the Home Islands, convoys, and China.

All in all I prefer to expand these unglamourous factories at the expense of a/c

....anyway, expanding some of the very smallest factories at the start, and then when those are complete, expanding some others, allows you to grow at a controlled pace.....

better read this over tomorrow; a bit of red-wine induced fever tonight[:o]

I tend to agree with you. While I do not micro manage quite as much as you do, I check things often. I do a lot of halt/restart of factories to throttle production as well. For someone with little experience with the Japanese production system, doing all that can be hard. I think it is better to err on the side of caution for a newbie.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

To be honest, I don't know. I've never kept it as a Claude factory past 7 Dec 41.

There is another Claude group that comes out like within 60 days if that's any indicator.

I use Claudes to train up my disbanded naval fighter groups. (Same with Nates for my disbanded army fighter groups.) After they are trained, I switch them to the frontline fighters. You start out with well over 300 Claudes (and over 900 Nates). Why waste them. They were paid for before the game began so why waste frontline fighters you are producing on your half-trained dimwits? If one of them crashes and burns in one of these, just accept replacements to get a replacement aircraft and grab another pilot.

No my point was that if there's still a Claude reinforcement to come, then that probably means that Claude factory will convert on it's own, therefore saving supply to let it ride for a while. Naturally, you can always halt the production of it it beforehand and save the extra Claudes being made to boot.

[pauk]

it has been explained several times here on board, but i always forget that.

How many naval shipyard points are used for accelerating the ship? twice or triple?

example: if i accelerate Mutsu (normal production costs 180 NS points) , would i spend 360 navalshipyard points per turn or more?

[tsimmonds]

Well, you don't have to build Mutsu as she is already afloat for 20 years, but we'll pretend:[;)]

It depends on when you accelerate. There are two phases of a ship's construction that have an effect on this.

1) The last (10*durability) construction days prior to a ship's arrival is the only period of a ship's normal, unaccelerated construction that you pay for. In the case of, let's say, an Akitsuki class DD (durability 13), this is the last 130 days before she arrives. If you choose to accelerate during this period, the acceleration will cost an additional (2*durability) per day. So during this period the cost of an accelerated ship is 3*durability per day, and each day she will advance 2 days towards arrival.

2) A ship is eligible for acceleration during the last (30*durability) construction days prior to her arrival. Looking at Akitsuki once again, this is the last 390 days before she arrives. If you choose to accelerate during this period, the acceleration costs an additional (1*durability) per day. Normal construction cost during this period is 0, so during the period between (30*durability) and (10*durability) days, the cost of an accelerated ship is 1*durability per day, and each day she will advance 2 days towards arrival. If you are going to accelerate a ship it is far less costly to do it starting 30*durability days out.