AFAC recon, BTR original

[Dobey455]

Like many others I'm playing the original version of the game while this one is in the works.
I've played it a little before so I'm not entirely new to it however one thing I never really figured out was getting recon on German AFAC's

I can recon them and see the number of prodution lines and the extent of any damage and I had thought that was all you could see, but I've read through some other threads recently and it seems you can get information on what types are produced in the AFAC's as well. Is that true? or am I confusing the old game with features of the new?
If it is possible, how?
Am I not flying enough recon missions, or do they need to be low level to determine what type of frames are being produced? And ofcourse same question about engine factories.

[Hard Sarge]

I would say, you are either misreading, or reading into something that was said

Recon will only tell you size of/damage to a Factory, not what the Factory is making

(Low Level Recon will count AA guns, and types (light vs heavy)

with out cheating, about the best way to guess is by name (and that is not always any good)
(DB and BMW are normally going to be those Engine types, the Me and Fw plants normally build those types, but, other "brands" make them too)

and once the AI needs to build something, it don't care where it makes them, as long as it is allowed to build them there

[Dobey455]

Thanks HS, I was reading through some threads at work and probably misread something as I was rushing through.

Will this change in the new version?
In real life didn't the allies have a pretty good idea what was being made and by who?
IIRC one of reasons for the Regensburg raid was that the allies knew it was one of the main Me-109 plants.

[Hard Sarge]

really, I think it is back and forth, as to what is known, in the long run, alot of the info was still prewar, you could and did get intel from paritson

you can look at the Intel on Rockets, Recon planes had been taking pictures and spotted V-2s for a long time, but one of the top GB Rocket Expert, said the Germens couldn't build that type of rocket, and if they were trying to make one, it would look like this (what is weird, two US Col's sat in on the meeting, and knew better, but nobody at the meeting, had the clearance level needed to know what they knew, so they didn't say anything)
some Danes, seen a bad test launch, found the crash site, took photo's and passed them on, and once Intell, seen they did not look like what they were looking for, remembered seeing them, then it was a mad rush, to find out where and when, and alot of back tracking of old photos were done

so, to make a long story short (:) no, I was hoping to have something like this added, but don't look like it

also, remember, the Allies had Photo Recon, Tac Recon, Ultra, and radio intercepts, they never really knew where the LW was at, they had ideas, and knew areas, they didn't really know, that there were 17 Bf 109G-6s at this base and 12 at that base, a lot of times, once the ground forces moved forward, they found bases that the Intell, didn't know about

most sweeps, hit what they seen, when they seen something, it wasn't, hey, on the way back, we going to hit Munster AF, as the III./NJG3 is based there

(which remember, there are different types of sweeps, the returning back to base and lets get lucky, or the preplanned, we going to hit this base, those were the really deadly ones, you had high cover, low cover, Flak suppessers, you had rovers looking for movement, and then you had the gunners who hit the field)

[wargames]

I have a strong feeling that AI Allied is cheating on recon. I never saw AI bombing my retooling factories, perhaps with the exception of target of opportunity.

[wernerpruckner]

ORIGINAL: wargames

I have a strong feeling that AI Allied is cheating on recon. I never saw AI bombing my retooling factories, perhaps with the exception of target of opportunity.

the AI needs all help it can get!!!! [;)]

[Hard Sarge]

I am not really sure that is cheating, or just the odds, if it was bombing every factory that you start to retooling, then I would think it was cheating, but to not bomb them, ?????

[wargames]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge
I am not really sure that is cheating, or just the odds, if it was bombing every factory that you start to retooling, then I would think it was cheating, but to not bomb them, ?????

It's surely beyond odds. I ran a test game retooling all major engine factories. 8th AF just wouldn't touch them any more. AI is clever enough to know retooling factory is not producing anything[:o]. So, why bother?

[Hard Sarge]

but, really, your wrong, it is much better to hit them while they are retooling, you can do so much more damage, and distruption to the system, then to wait for them to come back on line

what I am saying, how many targets are there in the one target type ?

while it is more then just a random roll for targets, you can only target so many places, plus you also got other targets it may be going after

well, lets put it this way, I don't know if there are any built in cheats that lets the AI know if a target is retooling or not

we have taken out some of the AI cheats that we had found, that we didn't think were fair

[wargames]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

but, really, your wrong, it is much better to hit them while they are retooling, you can do so much more damage, and distruption to the system, then to wait for them to come back on line

what I am saying, how many targets are there in the one target type ?

while it is more then just a random roll for targets, you can only target so many places, plus you also got other targets it may be going after

well, lets put it this way, I don't know if there are any built in cheats that lets the AI know if a target is retooling or not

we have taken out some of the AI cheats that we had found, that we didn't think were fair

Disagreed. Here is the result if Allied bombs retooling factories. Offsprings of DB Genshagen and Bussing NAG ironically reduced their retooling time from 69 days to 39 days.

My test handsoff game ran for more than a month. I just couldn't believe Allies would have left alone my engine factories alone for so long if I did not retool them.

[Hard Sarge]

Retooling and dispesal sites are different things

the AI has to find a Dispesal site to be able to bomb it, they don't know where they are at (neither does the player)

(which makes it HARD to recon, as it don't know it is a target, until something random spots it, new game recon, will have a better chance of finding them)

you can retool a site you already have, and the AI knows that site is there

[wargames]

I am sorry if I did not make myself clear enough. It seems that we have two disagreements here.

1) Although with no hard evidence, I strongly believe that AI knows which factory is retooling and apparently avoid attacking retooling sites. This is coming from my observation of a handsoff test game as Axis for more than a month. In that game, AI had not been attacking any retooling engine factories, which is significantly different from normal AI behaviour. I had Eisenach-BMW not retooling in the test game. It happened to be bombed within a week or so.

2) I suggest that in terms of delaying LW production, AI bombing a retooling site is less effective than distroying it when the site is fully functional. When a factory is distroyed and dispersed, retooling penalty period disappears. Take Bussing NAG as an example. If we retool the factory to Jumo Engine production, retooling time will be 70 days because of the size of the factory. If AI distroys the factory on the same day retooling starts, the factory disperses to several new sites, retooling penalty period disappears and is replaced by reconstruction penalty period which is between 35-39 days. However if bombs drop after retooling is completed, full retooling penalty would be taken by the site. That's a difference of 70*7=490 engines. The picture in my previous post shows the replacement of retooling time by reconstruction time.

[Hard Sarge]

that is a WAD

the issues isn't how long the retooling of dispersal sites take, it is how long a Large Factory takes