AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues [OUTDATED]

[findmeifyoucan]

Is there any advantage to sending highly experienced pilots to the training pool. My thought process behind this is that they could help in the training of rookie pilots thus resulting in decently trained pilots coming quicker than if this was not done.

[gingerbread]

Db change needed. This is from Scen 7, I have not checked the others.

3BG/90BS is flying Dutch Mitchells.

/g

[eMonticello]

I noticed that the SBD-4 isn't in the game and that the SBD-3, which ended production in 1942, extends into 1943. Was the SBD-4 production rolled into the SBD-3 and, if so, shouldn't the production rate be higher since roughly 24% of the combined production run enter the theater compared to 49% for the SBD-5?

[Grotius]

Hey Q-Ball, I found an answer to our question about the difference between EXP and skills, from The Elf himself, in a different thread:

EXP is a bunch of 1s and 0s. So are skills. Each value is used for something. The skill name gives a good indication of what it is used for. EXP is a more general value used to assess a pilot wherever there isn't a skill already covering it. It is used collectively and singularly depending on the multitude of instances where is appears in the code. It appears in a lot of places. Ops loss is one, so is morale calculations, Fatigue reduction etc...

Hope this helps some.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Hey Q-Ball, I found an answer to our question about the difference between EXP and skills, from The Elf himself, in a different thread:

EXP is a bunch of 1s and 0s. So are skills. Each value is used for something. The skill name gives a good indication of what it is used for. EXP is a more general value used to assess a pilot wherever there isn't a skill already covering it. It is used collectively and singularly depending on the multitude of instances where is appears in the code. It appears in a lot of places. Ops loss is one, so is morale calculations, Fatigue reduction etc...

Hope this helps some.

DING DING DING! An answer! Thank you!

That makes sense. So, if I have a pilot that has 70 NavT skill, but only 45 Exp, he will still be just as good as a more veteran guy hitting ships. He'll just get tired quicker, have a crappy attitude, and be more likely to crash his plane. Got it!

[Nemo121]

Couple of questions and possible errors...
 
1. In Aircraft in the editor ( Scenario 2 ) class 844 and 845 ( Tsurugi) are listed as level bomber. I am curious as to why they wouldn't be listed as dive-bombers or somesuch. In real life in the non-kami role they were never designed for a bombsight or anything like that...
 
2. Top view art for the Ki-115a and b appears to be switched. From the side the 115a is greyish but from the top camoed while the 115b is camoed from the side but greyish from the top.
 
3. Ki 84a and b both upgrade to the Ki84r. Surely the a should upgrade to the b which should then upgrade to the r version?

[Nemo121]

Dive-bombing vs glide-bombing vs level-bombing for dive-bombers....
 
It appears that dive-bombers have several different attack profiles now. Each profile appears to be triggered by the altitude at which they cruise to the target but I can't find a clear statement of which altitude bands lead to which sorts of attacks.
 
skip-bombing occurs when set to 100 feet.
I've heard that dive-bombers definitely dive-bomb at 10,000 feet
 
What are the altitude bands for glide and level-bombing? I imagine that knowing those altitudes would make dive-bombers MUCH more survivable over heavily-defended land targets and thus could be very useful. Unfortunately no-one seems to know.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Db change needed. This is from Scen 7, I have not checked the others.

3BG/90BS is flying Dutch Mitchells.

/g

I changed it to a/c 295 in my mod of Da Babes.

Thanks

[Smeulders]

Don't really see the problem, the Dutch Mitchells are the same as the American and it would only make sense that if for some reason they weren't delivered to the Dutch, the Americans would have used them themselves. 

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: Smeulders

Don't really see the problem, the Dutch Mitchells are the same as the American and it would only make sense that if for some reason they weren't delivered to the Dutch, the Americans would have used them themselves. 

No in game use problem, it is totally aesthetics in order to get the correct markings to show on the images.

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Db change needed. This is from Scen 7, I have not checked the others.

3BG/90BS is flying Dutch Mitchells.

/g

It's set up this way to allow the USAAF to dip into the Dutch B-25 allocation, as was the case historically.

[Cathartes]

Dive-bombing vs glide-bombing vs level-bombing for dive-bombers....

It appears that dive-bombers have several different attack profiles now. Each profile appears to be triggered by the altitude at which they cruise to the target but I can't find a clear statement of which altitude bands lead to which sorts of attacks.

skip-bombing occurs when set to 100 feet.
I've heard that dive-bombers definitely dive-bomb at 10,000 feet

What are the altitude bands for glide and level-bombing? I imagine that knowing those altitudes would make dive-bombers MUCH more survivable over heavily-defended land targets and thus could be very useful. Unfortunately no-one seems to know.

If no one seems to know, then why seem to ask? [:D]

Info passed on to me is as follows:
Glide bombing is 16-18K feet.

[Nemo121]

Cathartes,

Because while no-one seemed to know someone MUST know and hopefully one of the people in the know will answer... as you did. Thanks...

[Dobey455]

Hi all,

I was just playing around in the Editor and noticed that the Buffalo I has an arrival date of 04/42 and the Dutch B-339 (Which can also be used by the RAAF?) has an arrival date of 03/42. I'm just curious as to the reasoning for this. The design was already on the way out, so why not just put a few in the pool with the production set to stop in 12/41 or 01/42?

(Sorry, I know this is off the current topic, but this seems the logical thread for this question.)

[Herrbear]

ORIGINAL: Dobey

Hi all,

I was just playing around in the Editor and noticed that the Buffalo I has an arrival date of 04/42 and the Dutch B-339 (Which can also be used by the RAAF?) has an arrival date of 03/42. I'm just curious as to the reasoning for this. The design was already on the way out, so why not just put a few in the pool with the production set to stop in 12/41 or 01/42?

(Sorry, I know this is off the current topic, but this seems the logical thread for this question.)

IIRC this represents when new replacements arrived. The British start will a pool of 39 that can be used now. Once that is used, there are no other Buffalos until April 42 when replacements started arriving from England through Middle East. Similar for the Dutch. They would use any pool,if any, planes for replacement and then they were supposed to receive more aircraft from US in March 42.

[Cathartes]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Cathartes,

Because while no-one seemed to know someone MUST know and hopefully one of the people in the know will answer... as you did. Thanks...

You're welcome, and I didn't mean to sound like a smart-a##.

So much to track and so many questions and there's only one or two guys in the coding trench that know exactly what's going on with certain details. I'm certainly not one of them.

[fbs]

Any thoughts on this: I'm having a real hard time figuring out what my air groups are doing when I put them in CAP/Escort.

Problem is that they will fly CAP through the day, without being listed anywhere. Also, they may also fly escort to bombers, but as the combat report doesn't list units that are escorting and the number of escorts is obfuscated, it is very difficult to have any idea of who is doing what.

For example, my raid had 20 bombers and only 1 fighter was listed as escorting. I have 5 units in range on Escort/30% CAP. Three units got air-air kills on the previous turn and were not involved in CAP fights, so I reckon there was more than 1 escort on my raid. Perhaps there were 5 escorts? or 10? No idea; I even compared the number of missions per unit on the previous turn and this one, and voila several missions were flown by my fighter units -- but as non-combat CAP does not list anywhere, I have no clue who did what and which unit is guilty that poor bombers got raked by those Zeros.

[Cathartes]

ORIGINAL: fbs


Any thoughts on this: I'm having a real hard time figuring out what my air groups are doing when I put them in CAP/Escort.

Problem is that they will fly CAP through the day, without being listed anywhere. Also, they may also fly escort to bombers, but as the combat report doesn't list units that are escorting and the number of escorts is obfuscated, it is very difficult to have any idea of who is doing what.

For example, my raid had 20 bombers and only 1 fighter was listed as escorting. I have 5 units in range on Escort/30% CAP. Three units got air-air kills on the previous turn and were not involved in CAP fights, so I reckon there was more than 1 escort on my raid. Perhaps there were 5 escorts? or 10? No idea; I even compared the number of missions per unit on the previous turn and this one, and voila several missions were flown by my fighter units -- but as non-combat CAP does not list anywhere, I have no clue who did what and which unit is guilty that poor bombers got raked by those Zeros.

If you're tracking kills with your air units that's one way you can tell. Are you watching the combat replay all the way through? Sometimes additional planes show up later in the air to air animation. Also, CAP can sometimes intercept recon and naval search, but you will never see the combat animation for this. Further, if you want fighters to have a better chance of showing up with striking bombers set the CAP target the same as the bombers' target and set the altitude to be the same as the bomb strike. Other things that help: fighters at the same base will better be able to coordinate a successful escort, Air HQs in range make a difference.

[foliveti]

BOMBER REPLACEMENTS

I started a new PBEM game with patch 2 and have patched all the way through the hotfix. We are playing Scenario 2 which indcates that 8 LB-30 a month are available as replacements beginning in December 1941. We are into January and no LB 30 replacements have entered the pool yet. Also I did not receive any B-17E on January 1, not a big deal yet. However, I am concerned that there will be not replacements for that either. Is there a problem or have I just been extremely unlucky with the random number generator. I would prefer not to go through the whole war flying B-18s.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

ORIGINAL: fbs


Any thoughts on this: I'm having a real hard time figuring out what my air groups are doing when I put them in CAP/Escort.

Problem is that they will fly CAP through the day, without being listed anywhere. Also, they may also fly escort to bombers, but as the combat report doesn't list units that are escorting and the number of escorts is obfuscated, it is very difficult to have any idea of who is doing what.

For example, my raid had 20 bombers and only 1 fighter was listed as escorting. I have 5 units in range on Escort/30% CAP. Three units got air-air kills on the previous turn and were not involved in CAP fights, so I reckon there was more than 1 escort on my raid. Perhaps there were 5 escorts? or 10? No idea; I even compared the number of missions per unit on the previous turn and this one, and voila several missions were flown by my fighter units -- but as non-combat CAP does not list anywhere, I have no clue who did what and which unit is guilty that poor bombers got raked by those Zeros.

If you're tracking kills with your air units that's one way you can tell. Are you watching the combat replay all the way through? Sometimes additional planes show up later in the air to air animation. Also, CAP can sometimes intercept recon and naval search, but you will never see the combat animation for this. Further, if you want fighters to have a better chance of showing up with striking bombers set the CAP target the same as the bombers' target and set the altitude to be the same as the bomb strike. Other things that help: fighters at the same base will better be able to coordinate a successful escort, Air HQs in range make a difference.

Appreciate the info, Carthage. I think that the only way to know which air group is escorting is replaying the combat animations -- problem is that I have get them excruciatingly slow in order to be able to read the flashing text, and then I don't have time to write them down anywhere. I wish the flashing text of combat animations was saved somewhere.

Thanks,
fbs