Transport bug and cheating opponent

[Fred98]

If the turn length is set to 2 or 3 days then a ship can load its cargo or troops in one turn.

This was always the intention and the spirit of the game. Ergo problem solved.

Most of these scenarios are too long to play with a turn length of one day. I usually set the turn length to 2 or 3 days. I suspect with the longest campaign, if the turn length were 7 days it would still take almost 100 turns to play.

As for the long campaign, some time or other I will play a game against the AI and set the turn length to “continous”. As there are no real turns the transports will load anyhow. And I can move in any day that I feel like it to tweak my orders. That too is in the spirit of the game.

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[MP]

Our turn length was one day. I agree that two or three day turns would be ideal for finishing a campaign. But the longer the turn, the better the AI must be, or else TFs behave stupidly.

Michael

[mogami]

Hi If speed is your goal then 2-3 days I guess but none of my PBEM are anything but 1 day turns (I would hate to watch 2-3 days of "No don't go there,....come back....argh")
The PBEM games move right along at 1 day. (all of them started on new patch have passed 120 turns)(610 total in campaign)


Basing bombers where you say he placed them would be giving them away. Bombardment TF's could hit them every night and nothing he could do would save them. (I think that Island can be reached in one day from both Rabaul and Shortland.)

OK it does not really matter how long it takes to LOAD a TF (sure he will save a few days but in the end this means nothing as you can legal load a unit very fast if you simply assign enough transports. DO THESE TF UNLOAD FASTER? dumping engineers on a beach hex that close to LBA and the transports are not being sunk? (send surface TF of 6-8 DD every day) LBA?

[Fred98]

In a game against the AI, I am happy to play turns of one day length or even to use “continous”.

I have a full time 50 hour per week job, together with 30 mins travel time at each end of the day and a girlfriend who wants to know everything that I did today (I went to work – then I came home. But she wants me to expand that into a 30 min speech).

In PBEM, I can only ever play one turn every 24 hours. So I would like a typical game to last no more than a month and the longest campaign to last no more than 3 months or 100 days.

Therefore in a short campaign the turn length needs to be 1-3 days and in the longest campaign of 650 days or thereabouts, I need to set the turn length to 6 days or so.
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[Kavik Kang]

Yes, it does also happen to USN carrier based air put onto ground. I know for sure that Dauntless squadrons will swell from 18 to 36. I don't think TBFs grow, don't remember if Wildcats do. The one time I took planes off a carrier that happened to the Dauntlesses so I leave them on the carriers now.

[MP]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi If speed is your goal then 2-3 days I guess but none of my PBEM are anything but 1 day turns (I would hate to watch 2-3 days of "No don't go there,....come back....argh")
The PBEM games move right along at 1 day. (all of them started on new patch have passed 120 turns)(610 total in campaign)


Basing bombers where you say he placed them would be giving them away. Bombardment TF's could hit them every night and nothing he could do would save them. (I think that Island can be reached in one day from both Rabaul and Shortland.)

OK it does not really matter how long it takes to LOAD a TF (sure he will save a few days but in the end this means nothing as you can legal load a unit very fast if you simply assign enough transports. DO THESE TF UNLOAD FASTER? dumping engineers on a beach hex that close to LBA and the transports are not being sunk? (send surface TF of 6-8 DD every day) LBA?

Mogami, Why don't you and I try a PBEM game where I'm the US and I get to use RCT (Rapid Click Transport)? This will demonstrate the impact of this bug on play balance.

Dive bombers are like terrorists: they only need to be lucky once. If 50 SBDs can sink or cripple several warships in a single strike, then it's a good trade even if you catch a few on the airfield. If he has multiple airfields, then he can rebase his bombers before you can bombard, and then fly more missions (think of it as one of those sidewalk shell games). And if he can pump a lot of engineers into several airfields fairly simultaneously, then you end up having to bombard or bomb multiple targets that may or may not be shielded by weather. Also remember that size 2 airfields can be repaired quickly. By the way, I had plenty of LBA in Rabaul, the Shortlands and a little in Lae. They often couldn't find their targets, especially when convoys took advantage of bad weather.

You are correct that RCT doesn't decrease loading time (unless there is a bug in that, too). But this not really the point. Shaving loading + unloading time from, say, four days to two frees up convoys that much quicker. It becomes a domino effect. You can only bombard so many airfields (especially when lurking subs are absolute murder). If several are being built simultaneously and in one-half or two-thirds the time, then you have that much less time to react before his SBDs appear or his level bombers port strike.

I made many mistakes in that game. But it all came down to initiative. Every time I mounted an operation (to take Lunga, Dobradura, etc.). he was perfectly positioned to stop it. If the transport bug didn't give him an edge, then he is one of the best opponents I have ever played.

Michael

[Wilhammer]

I began to setup a test lastnight of the Plane Transfer (bug?) and found the Lexington had two Dauntless units, 18 a/c each and a reported maximum size of 18 each. I have not gone farther.

Are you saying that SBDs are going beyond that to 36?

======================================

Back to my Nisshin story....

After a couple of days, the land based float plane started having planes that needed repair and some were in reserve. On its own (as it should be) the remaining serviceable A/C flew back to the Nisshin, and the squadron already on board put its extra planes in reserve to make room for them. By the next day it was almost entirely back aboard, and a carrier with a limit of 24 planes had 24 serviceable planes 4 in reserve, and 4 on the ground.


Like I said, I have encountered it as bug and a nuisance, because the rules tell me that a carrier that goes over 110% has reduced operations, but it does not tell us the upper limit of storage on board these things.

I have not checked on that yet, but my CVs are used as warchips first, and on the way back, I drop off planes on bases on the way back to port. I have noticed I can't gt all the planes back on, so I have stopped the tactic mostly and have not done a detailed analysis.

If this is true, a way to exploit it might be to put planes on a deliberately inadequate base to force reserves and repairs, and transfer just the serviceable planes back to the the CV. Leave the rest behind, and you have doubled the number of units, and if the units are exceding their supposed approved strenght, you have doubled evrything; the unit, the strength, presecence, supply demands, support demands, but mainly, and dangerously, combat power.

[Kavik Kang]

Yes. The one time I took planes off a carrier both of the Dauntless squadrons increased to 36 planes. I remember that the TBFs did not change, but don't remember if the Wildcat squadrons grew or not. I liked it, I used them as land based strike forces and planned to put marine fighters on the carrier when it returned but quit that game before I got there.

I don't think you should be able to remove the planes from the carrier anyway, so it doesn't bother me. I just leave them on. Taking them off everytime you go into port to serve as land based air is unrealistic, and if I am going to remove planes I am going to do it every turn I don't expect the carriers to see action. So instead I just pretend they are hard-wired to the carrier:-)

That would be my vote for how the game should work in the first place, since constantly rebasing the carrier planes to land bases would be unrealistic and "it feels like I am cheating".

[Wilhammer]

Marine Fighters conducting carrier ops is another little bug I don't care for.

True, the planes were equipped for it, but the Navy did not approve F4U carrier operations unitl well into 1944.

I bet those navalized wildcats and corsairs the Marines had much of the naval equipment stripped off as useless weights.

The Marine Wildcats were landbased, and not true carrier units.

The same thing happens with Zeros, you can hop them things all over the place without any detriment in effectiveness.

Maybe a/c need a carrier ops experience/ability rating or something.

[zed]

true carrier units.

The same thing happens with Zeros, you can hop them things all over the place without any detriment in effectiveness.

[/B]

Could all Zeros fly from carriers? I read somewhere that not all of them had the folding wing tips necessary for the elevators.

[zed]

Originally posted by MP
I wasn't going to say this because it sounds like whining. But base mania wasn't the only weird aspect of this game.

His subs repeatedly damaged multiple destroyers, cruisers and even the Soryu. I know that others have complained about the ineffectiveness of ASW, but nothing I did seemed to stop them. What was incredible was how his subs were almost always perfectly placed to ambush me. I know subs hang out near Rabaul and the Shortlands, but his timing was uncanny.

His surface ships always seemed to catch that had the fewest escorts. Every time the IJN was in the Slot, his ships were waiting. I know coastwatchers are handy, but again his timing was perfect.

I don't know how many SBDs he had, but in the last turns he seemed to be transferring them constantly to avoid my bombardments of Dobradura and Kiriwina. I would have thought that the fatigue of transfer plus naval strikes woul d have exhausted his airmen.

I don't know how he could have manipulated these factors unless he played and restarted the game. It was probablyclever play on his part or sloppy play on mine. But I could never maintain the initiative without him destroying my plans.

Michael

Rabaul is especially vulnerable because ships can only come in through the channel between new Ireland and new Hannover, this is a major choke point for the japanese, everything, everything going from Truk to Rabual and further South along PNG must come through here. This is why I sometimes route convoys to shortlands and then come to rabual round about way.
Try putting 4 destroyers and 3 apds sailing around there, they are great at killing subs

[Ron Saueracker]

What's the point?:rolleyes:

[NorthStar]

Originally posted by Wilhammer


SNIP . . . .

Like I said, I have encountered it as bug and a nuisance, because the rules tell me that a carrier that goes over 110% has reduced operations, but it does not tell us the upper limit of storage on board these things.

. . . SNIP

Actually, it does; On page 112, right below the statement about air operations restrictions for carriers carrying over 110% capacity.
A ship may nerver have more aircraft aboard than twice its capacity.

Somewhere else it says that 5 AGs are also the limit.

[Ron Saueracker]

American SBD groups will balloon in size, up to 36 a/c per group. Have not seen F4F or TBD/TBF groups do this yet. I now refuse to base Naval squadrons on land as it screws up the CVs AG ratio.

I can't handle players that screw with the intentions of a game. Same people probably like 1st person shooters and "camps" out in ambush just to "win". Boy, what an accomplishment.:rolleyes:

[Toro]

I've only read about half this post, but it makes me wonder if a PBEM game game be loaded into the editor...??? I haven't played with that part of the program at all yet, so don't know.

[Didz]

Originally posted by Wilhammer

Anyone confirm this happens to American units?

Yes! I can confirm it happens to US Naval air Groups too.

I mentioned it a long time ago but did not release the implications until just now.

Offloading a US air squadron from a carrier tends to see it reinforced pretty quickly to 36 planes at the land base

[Admiral DadMan]

Originally posted by Toro
I've only read about half this post, but it makes me wonder if a PBEM game game be loaded into the editor...??? I haven't played with that part of the program at all yet, so don't know.

So far as I can tell, you can only use it to edit scenarios, not saved game files, i.e., PBEM, H2H, vs/AI

[Didz]

Originally posted by Ron Saueracker
What's the point?:rolleyes:

The point is that it makes them feel superior.

There was a very lengthy debate about the psychology of cheaters on the Sword dojo when I was a moderator there.

Basically, cheaters get a huge kick from being (in their eyes) intellectually superior to their opponents. They have figured out (or been told) of a loophole in the game mechanic's (or a s/w hack) that they can exploit and they deliberately seek out opponents who don't know of the loophole with the single intention of humiliating them with their superior knowledge of the game.

As such the game is a very personal thing because the cheater is not just interested in winning the game but needs to rub his opponents nose in it while he's doing so. After all what the use of being brilliant if your opponent doesn't realise just how brilliant you are. Hence you tend to get the bragging aspect which Michael mentioned in his initial post.

It's one of the reasons I gave up playing PBEM in the NWC because cheating on Talonsoft Games has become more or less institutionalised. So I only play moderated games now.

Its dissappointing to note that UV has already been cracked by these players as I'm afraid once this sort of thing starts its spreads very quickly.

In fact the information in this thread has probably created another batch of cheaters itching to join the fraternity and have a try at these new techniques.

[U2]

Originally posted by Didz


In fact the information in this thread has probably created another batch of cheaters itching to join the fraternity and have a try at these new techniques.

Hi Didz

That was one of my first thoughts also. Now people will know about this and use it. I have decided to try and keep the PBEMrs I have now because I trust them and enjoy playing against them. If I accept anyone new to this circle its gonna be well known or users of this forum I recognize. Sad but true. I dont mind loosing but it must be fair and square.
Dan

[Rob Roberson]

The Admiral steps on his soapbox

I thought this was sufficently important enough to bump it. Having read the string and thinking about it for a few days I thought I would weigh in. It makes me nuts when people use holes in games to gain advantage over their opponents. I was playing a PBEM of CMBO and had an opponent comment to me that he was playing it like a game and using all the weaknesses of said game to win. Me, I was playing it! Manuevering my units realisically, and getting my *** creamed because he had found all the exploits. The game ended right there. I play games for fun. It is not a serious endeavor at all. Sure, I get pissed when my brillant operations fail, but in the end its how much fun I am having. Hell, half the things I do in PBEMS are experiments, what ifs...that is the fun of it. If this is the way people pet their egos...they are beyond pathetic.

Things like this are the reason I avoid internet games, particularly the 1st person ones like Ghost Recon...you always find little kids (any one stupid enough to spend time clicking on transport groups over and over looking for exploits is an immature little brat) ruining them for everyone else. I would say to this person, whoever they are. SIZE=4]have some honor...[/SIZE] If you cannot find it within you to enjoy the game for the mere sport of it...go away far away back to I believe the comment was "that rock".

MP, if you want to play a game against an honest opponent, someone who loses with the best of em...drop me an email...I have a few games going, so it might be slower then most, but I assure you I will give you a run for your money...fairly.


The Admiral steps off his soapbox
Rob