WITP AE AAR Feb 09 Cathartes-JRCAR (Jap)

[ny59giants]

I love RHS map system with the ability to move along the edge to get from San Fran to Aden. Can the off map movement be shown and explained more??

I like the fact in RHS as an Allied player that I cannot pull up to the piers in San Fran and say, "Fill her up?" I have to manage getting the American economy repaired and running (shipping Resources to New Orleans for conversion to supplies mainly). Will there be some damaged HI, Oil, Resources, etc. in the beginning that have to repair and the American's slowly ramp up their economy?? Will this be just on map or will this have to happen off map to??     

[Chad Harrison]

Thanks for the great AAR and preview of AE!
 
Humbe requests:
 
1. Can we get some screenshots of typical early war base forces? Would be really curious to see some 'typical' ones from both the Allied and Japanease perspective. But even one screenshot would be awesome! [:D]
 
2. Also, would love to see how the new troop loading screen/function works now. Any details on that would be most appreciated!
 
Thanks in advance.
 
Chad

[jrcar]

It is hard to show the off map movement, but I'll leave it up to Cathartes and the other team members to answer your questions.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

I love RHS map system with the ability to move along the edge to get from San Fran to Aden. Can the off map movement be shown and explained more??

I like the fact in RHS as an Allied player that I cannot pull up to the piers in San Fran and say, "Fill her up?" I have to manage getting the American economy repaired and running (shipping Resources to New Orleans for conversion to supplies mainly). Will there be some damaged HI, Oil, Resources, etc. in the beginning that have to repair and the American's slowly ramp up their economy?? Will this be just on map or will this have to happen off map to??     

[jrcar]

Will do as the game gets moving.

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

Thanks for the great AAR and preview of AE!

Humbe requests:

1. Can we get some screenshots of typical early war base forces? Would be really curious to see some 'typical' ones from both the Allied and Japanease perspective. But even one screenshot would be awesome! [:D]

2. Also, would love to see how the new troop loading screen/function works now. Any details on that would be most appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Chad

[Cathartes]

2. Also, would love to see how the new troop loading screen/function works now. Any details on that would be most appreciated!

If it's ok with jrcar, I'll let him handle most of the sailing side of things, he's already on a roll with that. If he's busy with other stuff, we'll certainly get around to it sooner or later.

1. Can we get some screenshots of typical early war base forces? Would be really curious to see some 'typical' ones from both the Allied and Japanease perspective. But even one screenshot would be awesome!

I will show you some early-war base forces from the Allied side of things.

ny59giants--the Allied economy is similar to WITP. You will not be managing much of anything compared to the Japanese player. You will be plenty busy moving supply and fuel around however, including off-map.

BTW- I will show some off-map movement in the near future. You might also catch some in the parallel AAR that Yammy and Treespider are doing.

[Chad Harrison]

Thanks for the prompt responses from both of you! Looking forward to this AAR very much.
 
Thanks again.
 
Chad

[Cathartes]

Ok, an example of air training before I call it good tonight...

It's probably not the best choice for a VP squadron to spend a lot of time training for naval attack, it's just not what they were created for. Nonetheless, I will put them on Training, set their training level (in another screen) to 80% and choose Naval Attack. They will train in naval attack, and over time, they will hopefully be better prepared for the real thing compared to other VP squadrons that train on Naval Search or other training missions.

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: jrcar

A key change to air that really slows things down is replacements.

. . .

I just wanted to calify, we will still be able to click on 'Draw one Aircraft from Pool' as long as these conditions are met?

In other words, it will behave the same as WitP in that regards and not like UV (ie. in UV replacements could not be controlled by the player, you simply had to hope that they would show up).

From reading your posting and looking at the screenshots, it appears to be that way, but I just wanted to double check. I did not like that feature of UV.

Thanks in advance.

Chad

[jrcar]

If they are in the pool, and you met the conditions above, it will just "appear" in the unit when you click the icon to draw replacements.

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

ORIGINAL: jrcar

A key change to air that really slows things down is replacements.

. . .

I just wanted to calify, we will still be able to click on 'Draw one Aircraft from Pool' as long as these conditions are met?

In other words, it will behave the same as WitP in that regards and not like UV (ie. in UV replacements could not be controlled by the player, you simply had to hope that they would show up).

From reading your posting and looking at the screenshots, it appears to be that way, but I just wanted to double check. I did not like that feature of UV.

Thanks in advance.

Chad

[jwilkerson]

I might jump in here and point out that the effective "training system" is vastly different from stock.

In stock, in most of my games, the Allies didn't bother to "train" their pilots, since relatively speaking they already come in trained. On the other hand the Japanese (I've always played Japanese in my stock PBEM games) are always busy "training" their pilots. Typically this means "bombing" a dot you carefully didn't capture, some where deep in your own rear area, like near Java or the PI. In stock, I would "cycle" my air units to the front - use them there for a few days or weeks - then once they had been battered - I would send them to the rear - switch their planes to Nates or Oscars and "bomb" until I got to my release EXP level - usually 75 or 80 - and then switch to "front line" planes like Tony or Tojo and then return the unit to the front. A full cycle was several months - and typically only about a third - of say the IJA fighter force could be fighting "at the front" at a given moment.

Well, all this is different in AE. In AE, you can't much effectively bomb dots - especially if you are a fighter - because it will not help you one bit.

But, you can set you fighter unit to train on the "escort" mission which will help it be better at "air to air" combat. I've tried Allied fighter units up from EXP 30s to EXP 50s in a couple of months - and you can train up to about 70 via this method - on the skill in question. You can also train on "general skill" and affect all your skill ratings over time - but now we're talking much longer. Probably a year - to train up to 70 across the board.

So the "training" mission and related settings are key activities in AE and you will spend a LOT of time working with this. Roughly as much time as you Japanese players spent adjusting your units bombing the dots in stock.

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: jrcar

If they are in the pool, and you met the conditions above, it will just "appear" in the unit when you click the icon to draw replacements.

So, same as it ever was with WitP. Thanks again for all the answers!

[Dili]

BUT the AAR is here to expose things, feel free to comment, if there is time it will get reviewed, otherwise it may go to a patch... or maybe this is the best way to do it.

I also don't understand the over complication with replacements(of same type of aircraft). IRL if Yamamoto or the Southern Army HQ says send 20 Zeros to Guadalcanal the Zeros would be sent even if there is miserable supply there and they just get rot in field and not operate.

I think it is a much more significant issue converting between different planes. Going from Hayabusa to Ki-61 was a bit different likewise starting to manage a Corsair or changing one engine plane to a two engine plane a pilot/unit should loose or have iatus time with training, usually was also a time to rest.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Dili

BUT the AAR is here to expose things, feel free to comment, if there is time it will get reviewed, otherwise it may go to a patch... or maybe this is the best way to do it.

I also don't understand the over complication with replacements(of same type of aircraft). IRL if Yamamoto or the Southern Army HQ says send 20 Zeros to Guadalcanal the Zeros would be sent even if there is miserable supply there and they just get rot in field and not operate.

I think it is a much more significant issue converting between different planes. Going from Hayabusa to Ki-61 was a bit different likewise starting to manage a Corsair or changing one engine plane to a two engine plane a pilot/unit should loose or have iatus time with training, usually was also a time to rest.

Replacements works the same as it did in WitP basically. If you dont have supplies at the base to take the replacement it will be deducted from a base with an air HQ in it, assuming of course that an air or command HQ is within range to do this. And of course the magic "20,000 supply" is in there.

Upgrading is another kettle of fish. To upgrade, you need 20,000 supply AND a level 7 airfield - sort of.

If you have an air HQ at the base, the radius of the HQ adds to the effective airbase size. So a level 6 airbase with an air flot HQ (command range = 1) would make your size 7.

[Monter_Trismegistos]

Overcomplication? Oversimplification! In fact, ALL replacements should appear as fragment that have to fly to their units.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

I use CS a lot. The combination of CS and waypoints will enable much more control over resupply missions.

CS??? [X(][X(][X(] AE must be a thousand times better than WITP if I should use CS and even then I doubt that CS is doing what I want it to do...[X(]

[Nomad]

I use CS TFs in WitP-1 with no problems, why shouldn't they work fine in AE?

[Kaletsch2007]

Another question concerning the drop-tanks.

If the performance of the plane does not change (dropping them before engaging sounds obvious to me), what will be the disadvantage ? Or the other way round, what will be the advantage of not using them ?
Will the sortie cost more supplies ?

In addition to all they others posting here before, i am already addivted to your thread !!!

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I use CS TFs in WitP-1 with no problems, why shouldn't they work fine in AE?

CS works fine, and always has. Not Auto-Convoy, though.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

I might jump in here and point out that the effective "training system" is vastly different from stock.

In stock, in most of my games, the Allies didn't bother to "train" their pilots, since relatively speaking they already come in trained. On the other hand the Japanese (I've always played Japanese in my stock PBEM games) are always busy "training" their pilots. Typically this means "bombing" a dot you carefully didn't capture, some where deep in your own rear area, like near Java or the PI. In stock, I would "cycle" my air units to the front - use them there for a few days or weeks - then once they had been battered - I would send them to the rear - switch their planes to Nates or Oscars and "bomb" until I got to my release EXP level - usually 75 or 80 - and then switch to "front line" planes like Tony or Tojo and then return the unit to the front. A full cycle was several months - and typically only about a third - of say the IJA fighter force could be fighting "at the front" at a given moment.

Well, all this is different in AE. In AE, you can't much effectively bomb dots - especially if you are a fighter - because it will not help you one bit.

But, you can set you fighter unit to train on the "escort" mission which will help it be better at "air to air" combat. I've tried Allied fighter units up from EXP 30s to EXP 50s in a couple of months - and you can train up to about 70 via this method - on the skill in question. You can also train on "general skill" and affect all your skill ratings over time - but now we're talking much longer. Probably a year - to train up to 70 across the board.

So the "training" mission and related settings are key activities in AE and you will spend a LOT of time working with this. Roughly as much time as you Japanese players spent adjusting your units bombing the dots in stock.

Another vast improvement and proof of some deep thinking.............

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I use CS TFs in WitP-1 with no problems, why shouldn't they work fine in AE?

CS works fine, and always has. Not Auto-Convoy, though.

ah sorry, was thinking about auto convoy.