RHS 5, 6 & 7.784 comprehensive update: uploading now.

[el cid again]

This was supposed to be a microupdate.

But working on ships for EEO I have found some eratta (things like missing shields for secondary and tirtiary guns).
So these require new class and ship files.

I have been asked to look at torpedo problems - and that will require device changes if they can be addressed.

There are likely to be location file eratta of at least minor significance - and anyway EEO requires a location file.

So we will make it a comprehensive update.

But the main changes will be the final version of the revised aircraft ROC and maneuverability data - and correction of eratta that process uncovered.

ETA one or two days. At which point we will once again attempt to freeze. [If only no one proposes a review of something like aircraft again we might succeed too] Most eratta are pretty trivial now.

EEO may be a day or two behind the others. And it will be Level 7 only - not in Levels 5 or 6. Levels 5 and 6 will update - but only with respect to eratta, not in all respects in sync with 7 changes. There are now 22 RHS scenarios, and I only work on 8 for everything: whenever possible the 14 Level 5 and 6 scenarios are not updated. But I want their final form to be significantly eratta free.

[m10bob]

Excellent, and the "ride" has (so far) been educational, on many levels.
Just waiting for the artwork.

[el cid again]

Someone reported that there was a problem with the longer range Japanese surface ship torpedoes. It seems AI "believes" the ranges we plug into it, and during a daylight attack attempts to fire torpedoes at unrealistic ranges. Hit probability is so low they are wasted.

Someone was right. Effective torpedo range is never equal to maximum torpedo range. [There was one exception in history: the greatest torpedo shot, by what I think was I-16, hit USS Wasp with four out of six fired. One miss cut a DD in half. The other miss went on, and on, and on, and hit a battleship not even in the same formation - so that for decades it was believed it must have been fired by another submarine.]

I decided to cut torpedo ranges in half to achieve more realistic ranges, and call that "effective torpedo range." This means torpedo ranges are proportional to their actual speed/range performance. So far I have found two interesting facts:

1) The Japanese air torpedo had the wrong weight - requiring revising all torpedo bomber weight ratings.

2) The US Mark 14 ALREADY was rated at exactly half its real range.

A third problem is the British Type VIIC had exactly 200% of its range, that on LESS than its real weight and with MORE than its real warhead, at a much higher speed! [A sort of micro nuclear powered torpedo???] Warhead should be 740 pounds (vice 810), weight 4106 pounds (vice 3732), range IRL was 5700 yards (vice 11,000), speed was 35 knots (vice 41). This was the torpedo running on shale oil and natural air. The SAME torpedo was originally oxygen enriched and ran even slower (33 knots) for 16,000 yards. It was converted to VIIc form early in WWII, and that is the form used in WITP.

The French DT torpedo was rated at less than maximum speed - so too much range: all other torpedoes use their highest speed setting - except for the British Mark VIII - which uses its second highest setting (at 41 knots!!). [That British torpedo served forever - is probably still in use - and is an amazing bit of work - outlasting all the ships and crews it originally was meant to serve]. Instead of 14,000 yards at 35 knots, the DT should go 9940 yards at 39 knots - and be now rated at 5 by RHS.

The Dutch H1 torpedo should have warhead and penetration of 397, weight of 1808 pounds, range of 6700 at 28 knots. It is a 17.7 inch (45 cm) weapon for use in the K (that is, colonial) subs.

All data by John Campbell in Naval Weapons of World War Two.

[el cid again]

I have begun packaging Level 7 for uploading. Will upload in due course.

[el cid again]

Level 6 is in the upload process.

While I hope this may be a level at which we can freeze, working on EEO may produce some ship or other eratta - and if it does I will do one more update before we freeze. This is time for data detectives to find problems.

[keeferon01]

hi cid
just tested 7.784 scen rhsrpo and there is a problem with hankow/wuhan, I know its easy to fix for oneself but I thought you would like to know, many thanks for all the updates, the torp fix is great.

Ronnie

[Mistmatz]

Out of curiosity I started to play around with RHS in a second installation. Now I noticed the three 'levels' that are around (5,6 & 7) but I fail to understand what they mean. Is each level a different map/pwhex file or what is the difference?

Btw. the installation procedure and description are not very user friendly. In addition I believe the huge amount of options/levels/versions and so on, worries most of the - generally mod-friendly - WitP players too much to even give it a try. No pun intended, I'm grateful you guys are around and try to make a better game for the community, but maybe the selling part needs some improvement. [;)]

[drw61]

Mistmatz,
Here is the link to the RHS handbook http://rhs.akdreemer.com/RHS%20Handbook ... ndbook.pdf
it has weath of information.

Also, here is a quote from el cid from a previous posting:

What level you prefer depends on what map system you want to use?

Level 5 is just like CHS - theoretically anyway. Perhaps "CHS with more map detail" - but everything will be in a familiar location - with a familiar shape. It began using a "slightly modified" Andrew Brown's Extended Map System map. It just evolved so there are a significant number of additional things on the map (more extensive exterior river systems, interior river systems, marked ferries at many points instead of a few unmarked ones, marked locations for major recourses of several sorts, a different interpretation of hex sides this point or that, etc).

Level 6 is just like CHS - in the middle. But around the bottom right and bottom left edge - and entire bottom - you have a primitive single row or column of hexes called a "map edge shipping track" which you can use to strategically move things between one side of the map and the other (by sailing through the Atlantic instead of crossing the Pacific). This is a proof of concept for the much more extensive ship tracks used in Level 7. It also introduces (at the South Atlantic Meeting Point) the idea you might want to EXPORT resources from Noumea and Australia (to get more production).

Level 7 still uses most of Andrew's map system, but the SW quadrant is entirely redone, the mini-maps in the NW corner and at Panama are redone, and a new and large minimap is added to the SW corner (with Madagascar and nearby islands). Moving between various points now has more options. You may sail around South America - up either side of it - or go to Madagascar and South Africa via several routes. Australia is done to a different scale - one closer to the average map scale than Andrew used. [Note that NO ONE INCLUDING US can EVER make a flat map that is "accurate" everywhere, at least not of a large area of a global body. I do not want to be thought to be saying our scale is actually better than Andrew's was. Instead - we made different choices about where we would have what errors - and that so we could get "more room" to put in our mini-map and shipping tracks.] It gives you more options as the Allies - and more problems as the Japanese - but it is significantly more complicated than stock WITP or CHS in some respects.

I hope this helps,

[Mistmatz]

Thx for the clarification drw61. I already read the handbook (esp. the installation part) but found it's tough to read, eg formatting. Seems to me it has been put together from various sources. Unfortunately I had a hard time to put together the information in the handbook and the files on the RHS download site. Again it wasn't very user friendly but I think I now managed to have a correct installation altough there might be an update for the allied planetops neccessary as one version of the P40 looks like an P38 now. [;)]

Anyway I didn't want to complain (too much..), just some feedback from a spoiled customers who is used to CHS and the batch file based installation/removal procedure. I hope you'll find it constructive.

[el cid again]

When I proposed an installation utility, I was told there is now automatic software out there to do that. And a link is supposedly provided on the site.

Another problem has been that things have kept evolving - you cannot write an explanation that works AFTER it is no longer current.

The manual was compiled by Mifune. It will get another edition now we are wrapping things up. He mostly took things from the Forum and put them in a logical order with a table of contents. I sometimes wrote special items.

Packaging pretty much must come last - at least in a polished form. Look for a lot more utilities and routines in the next time frame - and a lot less evolution.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. RHS is a product of the Forum - it has many contributors - and it has a good deal of technical support from Andrew Brown and Matrix staff. It is a "branch" of CHS, based on CHS 155 and incorporating elements of CHS 177 (unpublished developer editions of CHS). It is in the process of "polishing" the ship art to a "standard" form - meaning common technical standards - which are or will be used by stock, CHS and RHS.
It also will get a little more map art development - the data files and the pwhex file necessarily lead and it takes a while for even the worlds fastest artist (the real name of Cobra) to catch up - or for the art collector compiler (the real name of WITPQS) to integrate the best of several ship art sources. Even you have contributed - by pointing out the torpedo problem - and some other problem as well (I forget which) - I was able to make a better system. As usual I advised Andrew and Matrix by backchannels, and sometimes this sort of technical change gets adopted by them.

RHS was and to some degree is experimental, open to criticism and suggestion, and for those reasons it is/must be more dynamic. CHS and stock are deliberatly more "stable" - and stability is a virtue in its own right. RHS will now become more stable because the major development is over and because I must focus on another and more pressing project. One aspect of this is that packaging can/will get more attention. If I cannot find a volunteer I may have to write an installation routine (or customize one) myself. But bye and bye we probably will get one.

[el cid again]

Level 5 uploading now.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Ron James

hi cid
just tested 7.784 scen rhsrpo and there is a problem with hankow/wuhan, I know its easy to fix for oneself but I thought you would like to know, many thanks for all the updates, the torp fix is great.

Ronnie

Well - I don't know if there is a "problem" or not? Wuhan is a critical point - the end of the portion of the Yangtze which is navigable to ocean shipping - also the end of the "grand canyon of China" - and yet another river system into the interior joins the Yangtze there. It has a lot of troops and even air units - so they need supplies - more so if they are to either defend or capture the other nearby districts of Wuhan and clear the main rail line in either direction. IF you leave these units there - especially IF you want them to be combat effective - you need to feed them. That is not so much a problem as it is the way it was. The Yangtze is the "main highway of China" - even long after the war - and sending things that way is pretty much SOP - but rail lines are more time efficient - once you own them (and if you can get AI to cooperate, which is sometimes quite tricky in China). I cannot - of course - rewrite the AI. You have to figure out how to get it to do what you want.

[keeferon01]

no cid its just in the wrong hex is all, nothing more than that. But thanks for the lecture though [:)]
Just a side note I have actually visited China and Wuhan is a city I have been too twice among a few others.

[el cid again]

OK - a different lecture then. About hex locations of the component cities of Wuhan.

Since this is a map I am reponsible for, I assure you that, as near as possible, Wuhan is in the right hexes (plural).

There are three cities in the unique Wuhan metroplex:

Wuchang/Wuhan at 4736

Hankow/Wuhan at 4735

Hanyang/Wuhan at 4635

These are ancient (and walled) cities - and only in modern times did they decide to become one metroplex. They are separated on our map and IRL by three rivers - which join at two different points, almost surrounding Wuchang with
rivers. The Yangtze is the river that flows from them to Shanghai and also from them up to Chunking. Because of the feed of the other two rivers, and because of the end of the Yangtze river gorge, from Hankow onward you have water deep enough for ocean ships (and the major bridge across it at Nanking is tall enough for the Queen Mary to pass below: it is called The Great Bridge, it has two decks, and it passes RR as well as vehicles]. Wuhan was then - and is now - a significant shipyard for ocean ships, and today builds all of China's conventional submarines - deep draft vessels indeed.
[It celebrated its 75th anniversary about 2004 by displaying an AIP submarine which, until then, ONI denied existed - although I posted it on FYEO and FAS sites before that]

There are some problems of scale - but as near as we can do on this scale - these cities are in the proper hexes. Taken together they are significant producers - or can be IF they have resources and oil - so

a) IF you own them
b) IF you have oil and resources THERE
c) IF you do NOT have too many troops eating things there

they will be fairly self sufficient - and will export supplies.

The problem is, the game does not begin that way. You have lots of Japanese units in two of them - some large ROC units in the third one - no one owns the metroplex - and the surrounding areas that should supply them are not able to supply either oil or resources sufficient to let them produce as they can.

AI knows this is a vital area, and it tries to take over as ROC if it can. One reason is that the sum of port and airfield values is a signal to AI "this is a vital point." All three have port values - although two are on an interior river system and the third on an exterior river system - so it looks to AI like there are three ports - which indeed there are. Being adjacent and connected by rail, IF one side owns ports on both river systems, they will automatically exchange resources, supplies, etc.

[keeferon01]

I had to go into the editor and change it myself cid it was placed at 46 35 so i changed it to 47 35, oh well not to worry I just thought you would like to know for those that don't use the editor for themselves.
thanks for the second lecture thats two for the price of one, I am always willing to learn [:)]

[el cid again]

Hmmm - I missed the RHSRPO part. Usually erratta are the same in all anyway - so just looking at anything reveals it. This seems to be a unique case - and it is hard to explain how it could be - but values sometimes are shifted when editing.
Anyway - you are correct - so it will fold into the next update. Which means 7.785 probably will be comprehensive - that is in the location file.