German fighter production discussion (BTR)

[Nicholas Bell]

Folks, reread my reply.  It's a joke.  I'm just amused at all the hankering for Nazi "super weapons" early on.  So why not have some of the Allied "super weapons" early?

The only real advantage that the F6F or F4U had in *1943* would be range.  They would have been a great asset in 1943 considering the Jugs only had short legs then.

But the underlying point is that many wargamers want to "fix" all the mistakes the Germans and Japanese made, without considering "fixing" the Allied mistakes, which kind of makes me wonder where they're coming from....if you know what I mean.  So why not say the USAAF realized that they desperately needed a long range fighter to protect the bombers and worked with the USN creating a "joint-fighter" or at least developing large fuel tanks earlier.  It's about as realistic as Hitler deciding in 1941 that he needed to push for jet engines to defend against bomber attacks from a nation Germany was not at war with.  This Luftwaffe '46 stuff is just such fantasy bs in my book - which is why I mentioned the B-29.  There's plenty of "artwork" of fantasy Nazi planes attacking B-29s over Germany.

[Hard Sarge]

well, the statement that the B-29 wasn't for the ETO is wrong, early plans and all, the B-29 was going to be a main weapon, but by the time it was ready, the 17 and 24 were doing a good job, and it wasn't really needed for what it could do

But... if things had gone different, or more badly, the 29 would of been over there

[HMSWarspite]

There is a lot of misunderstanding of what is happening in the research phase of an aircraft. True research is very scaleable - you basically need one genius per idea, and a team to support them, and facilities. Unfortunately, true research is  almost exactly what is NOT happening in the months before a new aircraft enters production. The design phase is quite short (in this period, less than a year typically, except for the first jets, but even so , not much). Then you build say half a dozen prototypes, usually spaced over a few months. In this period, these are effectively hand built, for speed (no extensivce tooling, lots of highly skilled labour (relatively), cost of each in terms of man hours and money: absolutely astronomical. Then the first one flies, and you find a problem. This requires a redesign. Prototypes 2 and 3 (probably) are too advanced to be modified, so 4 gets the mod. 2 and 3 do some other work (or worst case get rebuilt). No 4 finds something else. Rinse and repeat. Then when you have a relatively bug free version (or, if rushed, before) convert design to be mass produced (often a complete further redesign). Then do low rate production to shake the bugs out of the production process, then ramp up, and start using planes for service trials/training etc etc.

Adding resource to the early phases does not shorten the programme much, it just increases the number of prototypes to the wrong standard. If you start production too soon, you just have more airframes to modify, etc. You can shorten programmes a little with resource, but not much, and it should not be linear.

IMHO, you should be able to have a chance of reducing lead times by adding more factories... nothing should be guaranteed. I would change the entry in to service date to be a variable say -2 months +6 months from history (linear) and then allow a chance of improvement for extra factories each month. The player should have an estimate of the EIS date, which is (say) +/- 20% (i.e. 20 days when 100 days away, 1 day when 5 away)

[guctony]

Ok one by one

ahhh german production politics. One of my favorite topics!

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
As I play more and read more about german Air warfare something hits me. I think much of the problem comes from Messerschmitt specially From Willy Messerschmitt. Like a good bussiness man He got good connections with the party and enforced Use of his product to great extend. in 1936's clearly Heinkel produced a bit more complex but faster plane the BF 109 But what I read tells me it was a executive decision to divide fighter production to Messerschmitt and bomber production to Heinkel.

I thoroughly disagree with the assesment. Yep, the He112 was faster. It was also smaller and lighter, and thus had a much more limited development potential. and contrary to your stated point of "it was a bit more complex", the He112 was way, way more expensive that the 109, most of it coming from its complex wing design.

Even then, the official luftwaffe single-engined fighter competition was held during 1936. By that date the 109 was in a very good shape and could easily be put into pre-production. In contrast the He112 was a nightmare of mechanical problems that still required more than one year to be fixed. In the competition there were two planes calling the atention: one with very good performance and ready to be put in service, the other with even better performance, but more expensive, and really not ready for the trials.

The results can hardly surprise anyone. In fact the Bf109 won against all odds, for Milch and Messerchmitt had an extreme personal feud dating back from some years behind. If the RLM chose the 109 as winner with that personal hate of Milch against Messerschmitt it was only because the plane was excellent, cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and ready for production. And had won the hearts of a lot of pilots, mechanics and high-ranking personnel within the RLM. Milch simply couldn't say "no"...as much as he wanted to because he really HATED (with caps) Willy Messerschmitt and wanted to kill Bayerische Fleugzeugwerke since some years before (and he almost achieved it at least once).

The He112 on the other hand simply wasn't ready, and had no backing by pilots or RLM "top" heads. Yeah, it was liked, more or less. Yeah, everyone was impressed with it's promised performance. But the plane in 1936 couldn't deliver what it promised, everyone liked the 109 more, thus the 112 was the loser. And a clean loser.

The He100 was a whole different world. It was an extraordinary design for its time but I still wonder about it's development potential. And anyway the He100 came as a flying prototype during 1938. Too late. Germany was hard pressed by then to build enough 109s to fullfit the luftwaffe demands. Even by the war start, the Luftwaffe had a lot of outdated 109Doras in front service because there weren't enough Emils to cover for the demand.
Under those circunstances changing production was a no-no. It would've required a stop,retooling and restarting of the factory lines producing the plane. As it was it was a close run for the LW to have enough planes for the Poland and French campaign. So, simply said, Germany couldn't allow itself to build the He100 by 1938.

Something similar happened to one of my all-time favorite planes, btw, the Focke-wulf Falke. It was an outstanding design, superior in almost everything to the Bf110. However by the time the Falke was ready to be built, Germany couldn't build it because it would've meant stopping the 110 production line, retooling it, and starting it with the Falke. Again, there weren't nearly enough 110s to cover the ZGs demands of the plane (IIRC some ZGs went to war with 109Ds as their main fighter, like ZG26, for instance). To introduce the Falke simply couldn't be done.

Well I have to admit that most of your points are beyond argument. But Let consider intresting things. For example Japan with much more limited resources completed more then 5 different type of fighter design. Although the were never materially superior they were advancements one on to other with different detailing. I am not saying it was good to divert that much but If you see your weakness you have to do someting. In Case of Heinkel my fiction get strong when I look at He 100. A plane that gives the impression of lessons learned from past. And Better performer too. So mainly It is sometimes comes to point that "good is good enough" At the time of Bf 109 there were no serious competition. And Me 109 was ready and needed urgently. But these fact doest make it good decision. I know it is not that simple But it is impossible imagine a real war mongering country like Germany can design and manufacture other then Me 109 and Fw 190 in 9 years of war.

quote:

And The Design of Bf 109. There is two novel features, one is use of landing gear and other is easly removable wings. So Bf 109 could easly moved around and serviced unliked many other planes. Because the wing doesnt have to carry the load of landing gear both wing could be in simple construction and could be easly detached form the main Body. So the plane can be moved very easly around.


I think you're not giving enough credit to Messerschmitt. He applied almost every novel aeronautic feature he could in his plane. Retractable landing gear, wing slats, and for the first time a total dissatention to wing loading, fixing instead on speed as the main weapon of the plane, etc... He gave his plane cannons at a time when almost every other designer in the world was fixated on MGs. And he achieved all that in an easily built plane (more than 30.000 built in the extremely inneficient and corrupt Nazi production system), easily serviciable, and with a long life expectancy with upgrades.

Honestly, being a plane designed in 1935, one couldn't ask much more from Messerschmitt, or his plane.

Did the plane have faults?. Of course, there has been no combat plane without an achilles heel in the whole story of aviation. But by its time, the 109 was a superb machine.

What is seems that every novel feature made the plane less forgiving to the less exprienced Driver. Would you prefer a motorcyle which would always takes you down when the limit is past or would you prefer it to give your childeren as birth day present. I would prefer a forgiving plane. Cannons issue is the same. I think there were two type of fighter pilots, those who are trigger happy and those who go for the kill. You can quite easly discover which type you are when you go to local shooting yard. I am trigger happy kind. this doesnt make me bad shooter but makes me take both my PCP's and revolver. I thing Germany should follow two sided armament policy. Those who would engage with Bomber can have the largest caliber. But for going after Figters I would prefer 6 to 8 15mm gun. Which is better for rokies or trigger happies.
It doent make sense when you are not building the best figter, in how many number you produce. A more complex but durable and faster plane could be easly winner. I would prefer 5 good planes to 20 bad planes. Which means that any of the simplicity of the plane gives nothing positive to Combat value. It just increase production count.
Yes I am aware that in 1936 no body could know that. But If you design something you now better then everybody that it has a time. If willy designed The 109 consistency requires something better in the face of better enemy desigs. It is designer duty keep track of what going on.

But we know the end Result was a narrow tire span that make landing and take of was very difficult. And almost 15% loses occured from landing and takeoff.

I always find it kind of funny that the 109 is remembered among other things because its "dangerous" landing gear while another plane with exactly the same gear distribution, with almost the same % of loses in landing accidents as the spitfire is rarely mentioned for it.

Yes, the gear was a compromise. It had too short track and could give problems when landing or taking off. However remember that in that 15% of accidents one has to include all the untrained kids who slammed themselfs against the ground when trying to land by late 1944/early 1945. For the time being (1935-36) Messerchmitt designed a plane for well trained pilots. They also had accidents, of course, but he wanted a plane easy to build, easy to maintain in flyable condition. It's a tradeoff, and I always thought it worked all right in the end.

Spitfire was backdrop plane even in 1942 I guess. I personaly think that spitfire is a successfull PR story of the Battle of Britain. Do you blame untrained kids for slamming the Bf 109. In design terms There is saying "FOOL PROOF". You should always consider that what you design can be used by a total Jerk, slum, idiot. It is my personal assumption that in war machines when you make compormise the results are never satisfactory. If Bf 109 designed in 1944 or lets say in 1943 I would agree that a compormise would be apllied giving the fact that more planes were needed. But that compromise is needless in 1936 I think. Yes I agree he wanted a plane that could be easly build but that shouldnt mean so much compormise in safety. And We all know that it also effected the combat performance. In paper Bf 109 wings could take better G and could made better Turns then Spitfire at the time of Battle of Britain. But no pilot risk it from the sound of wing under stress and visiable simplicity of the wings. maybe no plane did crashed from this failure but it effected the combat performance. And I can consider that taking the wings of and making it walk around could mean some advantage. But the main advantage comes in production line. This cant come really handy in combat situations.

In design point of view this features are only for the factory and Company. It would greatly accelerate the production. One legs on it is on a moving production line. So The wings. But this is so profit oriented.

Not really. When germany started to give some serious steps towards war production fighter parts were built at very different companies. That includes the Bf109 and the 190.

Its worth mentioning that kurt Tank also took a lot of compromises so his fighter could be easily built and maintained on the field. He took modular production ideas and took them to the limit. His way to deal with the problem of changing a wing was radically different than messerschmitt, though, but in an overall analysis, both Messerschmitt and Tank had easiness of production and maintainance as one of their top objectives when designing their respective planes.

and I'll insist, with more than 30.000 109s built and more than 20.000 190s built (an awesome feat in an inneficient production system as the one in Germany), they gave the Luftwaffe a tool to fight until the bitter end...mostly because of their attention to easiness of building and maintainance.

So no, I don't think messerschmitt was thinking about profit when designing his plane.

For me if simplicty of design in terms of production comes before Field abuse and actual performance it is for profit. No matter how good is the intentions. I cant say that it is bad or good or even judge it. But it is plain and simple profit. It is like you are not getting what you payed for. ýt is not fair. I am not so familiar with Kurt Tanks production ideas only I can say that when I looked At FW 190 I see no issue of profit. If compormises made they are not there to comment.

quote:

Even late in the war if I am not wrong he elluded high order of mass producing different planes other then his own. One example if I am not wrong is HE-219. He was ordered to mass produce HE-219 but he slip on to it.

This I've never heard of. Sources?

And in any case the He-219 program was full of $h1t. Firstly the plane couldn't deliver what the designer said it could do. Secondly there was such a crapload of politics behind the program that noone wanted to get dirty in the pool of scum that plane caused (Milch vs Heinkel, Heinkel friends with Kammhuber, Kammhuber vs Milch. His persistence about taking the 219 into production was one of the reasons kammhuber got sacked, so go figure who wouldve accepted any mass production orders without some serious issues.)

And thirdly, Messerschmitt had already his hands full with the Bf109 updates, the Me210/Me410, the Me262 project, the projected 109 successors, the Komet, the Amerika Bomber, etc. I'd also have tried to avoid complying such an order as to take part in yet another program (and even more as I said if it was so full of flying crap as the He219 was).

I have to find where I have read it.

And BV-155 issue. When the design project transfered to Blohm-Voss they discovered it was very badly detailed and there was alot of discussion and argument.

Unsurprising. The Me-155 was never more than a more or less low-rank, low-priority item in the wide messerschmitt AF set of projects. The concept was interesting and thats' why the RLM ordered the design to be trasnferred. Blohm und Voss didn't make out anything decent out of it, anyway, and for them it indeed was a high-priority project. And yeah, there were some controversial points between BuV design team and the Me design team acting as "bridge" for the transfer to be smooth. But Messerschmitt, personally, had nothing to do with it (he never gave the plane anything like a bit of attention, to be honest...at that stage he was totally centered into turning the Me262 into a viable combat plane)

Ok Not goona debate about BV-155 issue. But I really like to say that All that time spend to Me-262 is waste in my point of view. At that time around 1942 lets say at the root of Me-262 development. If Willy developed someting two times better then BF-109 I really think that he could save his country. At least from destruction of the cities or so many civilian casulities. And this word is for all fighter designers of the are. From my point of view germany did not need Me-262 Maybe Arado-blitz or HO-229 But not Me-262.
Why. I never think that a bomber destruction oriented tactic would result in success. ME-262 could kill bomber but never could fight the figters. IF anything like Ta-152 was around in 1943 or at 1944 somethings would be definitly differant.

Accually These reasons are quite make me transfer all the Messerschmitt production to something different.

Kurt Tank was not the most company man neither Hortens. They were good designers. So we see them perish after the war.

BUt what they design still lives On.



I'd say the 109 design still lives on. And what about the Me262, or the myriad of projects studied in the Messerschmitt AF, many concepts of which were later used in 2nd and 3rd generation jet fighters. Messerschmitt for sure had a tremendous ego, but I think he did a very nice job within the Nazi production system to provide the luftwaffe with the right tools to do a decent job, up to the end of the war.

said that, Kurt Tank for me is a semi-god, for the Fw190 is my all time favorite, the Falke as I said, is other of my favorite all time planes, and tank designed them both. But Messerschmitt was a hell of a designer aswell.

I will say again "fool proof, fool proof" Me 109 was not fool proof. And I am not judging Willy in terms of how innovative or clever he was. I just find his design profit oriented. and I personally dont like that.


Regards

[Nikademus]

If players want a true what if scenario....how about simply one where Germany has more gas, and a bigger pilot training program?

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

If players want a true what if scenario....how about simply one where Germany has more gas, and a bigger pilot training program?

Totally agree. You could also add Germany getting over its national superiority complex and actually getting to licence build in 1943 the superior Italian serie 5 aircraft rather than the tired 109s.

Alfred

[Kesselring]

Can anyone tell me how to manage/change the production, please? I cannot find the R&D section in the manual.

[wernerpruckner]

ORIGINAL: Kesselring

Can anyone tell me how to manage/change the production, please? I cannot find the R&D section in the manual.

click List of Targets
click Production List (upper left corner)
click any of the sites for changing the production
if you click an assambly plant, it will show you what parts and engines are needed for the A/C you want to produce
click Show Requirements for overall industrial overview

and click on production control on the bottom to toggle between AI and human control

[Kesselring]

ORIGINAL: swift

ORIGINAL: Kesselring

Can anyone tell me how to manage/change the production, please? I cannot find the R&D section in the manual.

click List of Targets
click Production List (upper left corner)
click any of the sites for changing the production
if you click an assambly plant, it will show you what parts and engines are needed for the A/C you want to produce
click Show Requirements for overall industrial overview

and click on production control on the bottom to toggle between AI and human control

Thanks a lot!

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: guctony
But I think it will be a bit different in this game. At the start of the game non of the Bf 109Ga flying group accept Bf109G's now after 30 day the started to accept. And by the way how can we know which groups will fly Ta 152C in real life it was none.

It's hard to establish accurate production numbers of the Ta 152C, but at least 39 (from December 1944 to February 1945) can be traced back through records in the military archive in Freiburg, Germany, 32 of them went to testing, but at least seven Ta 152C had been transfered to Luftflotte Reich (tasked with protecting the Reich) and commissioned, it seems. The Luftwaffe did not receive any Ta in March 1945.

Also, the company ATG built 37 Ta 152 H-0 (high level fighter version)(where it's not clear whether the Luftwaffe actually received them or not) until January 1945, Focke-Wulf, in turn, delivered 20 Ta 152 H-0 to the Luftwaffe that same month.

[2ndACR]

bump for the new guys

[kaybayray]

Greetings [8D]

Thought I would bump this as I am looking in the German Production and there are some excelent points and information among this threads posts.

After reading through it I did learn a lot about German Production and how you manage it. Still a lot of questions on the nuts and bolts of how to do it but this thread IMHO is a great start. Nicholas linked it to me and I want to make sure others can take a look at it.

Some of the discussion from Sarge and Harley were centered around instituting limits to what the German player could do to avoid overwhelming the Allied player with advanced AC very early in the game. I am very much against this and for several reasons.

What I gathered was that you have to dedicate Production Points to R&D and have to actually build so many AC of a new type before they can come online. At first glance seems easy to do and would appear easy for the German player to overwhelm the Allied player with advanced AC in early 44 and even in late 43. If I am not mistaken this requires a significant proportion of you overall AC Production Capacity to be shut down from actual production of current models in action and dedicated to R&D efforts toward the new AC.

Still sounds pretty easy right? At the start you have tons of capacity. But I believe that the pertinent question is, Will the Allied player leave the German AC industry alone long enough for the German player to be able to develop and put into production the more advanced AC to a level that may actually effect the war? I dont know the answer to that one. So I think that to react to this too harshly without some compelling evidence would hurt the game.

One idea to limit the German players ability to too easily do this I believe put forth by Harley, was to force the development of intermediary AC types along the path to the advanced model. I kind of like this one. Having worked as an R&D Engineer in multiple industries it makes sense and I believe it follows suit with the historically accurate basis for this games mechanics. I cringe at the thought as the Allied player of engaging Ta152's or Me262's in late 43 when I can just barely escort my Strategic Bombing forces to the western most edge of the continent.

I dont worry about what the AI "might" do or "can" do because I am runing AI Vs AI games and man the AI is stupid in many ways. In a Human Vs Human game like PBEM setting I dont think you are going to get too far because Humans are smart. They are not going to let you have a free hand in your AC Production or Development. But there are some things that hinder the Allied players ability to intedict your efforts.

Yes you have a map that tells you where all the German AC production facilities are. However I dont believe that running Recon to AC Fabs will tell you exactly what is being made there. IE: if you Recon an Engine Fab I dont believe the Recon you get tells you what model of engine is being worked. So you're playing a "Shell" game with respect to hitting the particular facility that is working up the Development on the new AC. However features could be added to the Recon routine that might enable the Allied player to have some potential of gleaning more in depth Intel of what is going on at a particular fab. This also allows for some intrigue with Fog of War, which might be interesting when played out.

Just some thoughts I had after reading this thread. I would really like to hear more about the nuts and bolts of how you actually change production in a way as to be successful in actually producing the models you want.

Regards,

KayBay[8D]

[Tuk]

One of the problems in attempting to recreate production is we have the benefit of hindsight. There is no way that a country in the middle of a collosal war would turn over all its production facilities to the production (development) of an untried aircraft. In game, we are allowed to do that. There is no way, either, that turning over all your production facilities to R&D would advance R&D. Production and R&D are seperate processes even if there is some overlap.
 
It would be good if there were options, as who's to say attempting simulation is better than a pure fantasy game, just I prefer the former.
 
In the game  as is, I'd prefer to seriously restrict German R&D, but what I'd really like to see is R&D given it's own layer, it's own specific resources and minimal need for potential mass production facilities. Rather than naming projects historically, they could be disguised until finished. Players could be provided with snippets of more or less accurate performance information as testing progressed, allowing them to put more or less R&D resources behind each project.

[Hard Sarge]

Kay

one thing, we didn't do this or that, to "hurt" the LW player, we did it because the program wasn't working as intended, and the player could get the Ta 152 in 43 (because the program wasn't doing what it was suppost to)

then when that was fixed, we found out later, that it wasn't going into delay like it was suppost to (it was telling you it was on delay, while it was really making stuff)

which in the long run, we were testing it to see if it worked, not testing it to see how it worked (it worked)

so if anything, that is my bad, I tested it to see what it did, not what it could do (which, some of the changes we have added, would of made it a whole lot easier to spot it then)

one of the what if's that always gets floated around, is what if the He 280 had been made instead of the Me 262, it was ready, a lot earlier then the 262 was

hassle is, it wasn't, yes a test plane flew early, but the plane wasn't ready, and as the work went along, when it started to get close, so was the 262, and the 262 was going to be the better plane, so in the end, the 280 was stopped, as the the 262 was going to be better, the 280 was never ready (now, if they had wanted it, and started when the test model first flew, maybe so, but they didn't)

the Ta 152, needed the work that was going on, with the 190C, or there never would of been a 152, and again, we get to the point, that, after all the work, we can make this, but the 152 is going to be better, so the C was dropped (too much trouble with the TurboCharger)

[kaybayray]

Tuk,
I Agree. I dont want to play a Fantasy game either. But I dont know if it is possible to actually turn production over and deliver the most advanced AC within just a few months. If that is the case then yes I could see how that could be a problem.

I also agree with your other point. It's easy to look back 75 years and see what was a good AC and focus on that. These are both Meta-Gaming issues. There will always be those that will push things as far as they can. I dont want the minimum freedom of movement or level of options for 90% of the players to be controlled by efforts to shut down that 10% that always go over the top. I want to maintane the freedom to be able to control production. I dont like when my world is limited because of 25 people that want to play Fantasyland Air Combat. Let them.

For me a game loses its' luster when it is easy to defeat your opponent. So I dont want to be the Allies with B-52's in 44 or the Luftwaffe with Ta152's and Me262's in 43. I think that is playing a Fantasy game. So when I encounter a player that pushes things over the top I just dont engage them in the game. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to play a PBEM game with somebody that wants to play Fantasyland Air Combat.

That is why Harley's idea of forcing R&D to progress through the intermediary models to the more advanced, I like it. It makes sense. Part of the major attraction to this game is the "What if". For most of us that is "What if I were in Command?". I liken much of this to this, if a Kid is playing a WWII Armored Fighting Vehicle game and he looks at the German inventory he sees things like the Tiger, Panther, etc... So an immature player will conclude that the best strategy would be to have all Tiger tanks.... Fantasyland. But nobody is forcing anybody to play a game against that Kid. So I dont see a problem.

Now if there were an online mass multi player game where we were all engaging in the game format simultaneously and that was the predominant way it had to be played. Then you got a serious point and drastic measures must be taken to control the "Fantasyland Kid". But some of the players on this thread IMHO, appear to perhaps want to play Fantasyland Air Combat. Hey I dont have to play against them. I garuntee you that if you and I were playing a PBEM game and in October 43 I see Ta152's engaging my Strategic Air Stikes.... it would be Game Over. I am done.

I want to play around with Production. I have a lot of ideas I want to try. They dont however include introducing the most advanced AC before the end of 43. I want to get to some of the more advanced AC in 44. I want to see if the He162 and Me163 can be used for a Point Defense system for Critical industy facilities. I want to see if the Luftwaffe can operate some squadrons of Do335's, Ta152's and Me262's against my Strategic forces and what they can do and what can I do to deal with them. I mean can this game even go on to mid-late 45? I dont know. that seems like a long time down the road for Germany to me in this game.

Check out my thread in the War Room. KayBay's Allied Strategic & Tactial Doctrine. I have been playing this game getting close to 3 years now and I am just scratching the surface of what can be done in it. I want to really get down into the nuts and bolts of it. I want to build variants of the 109 and 190 to be used along with the Ta's and the Me jets/rockets. I want to build out variants of the Ju's and Me NJG AC. I want to work them all together in an overall system. I want to build a multi-layered Air Defense system around Germany and see if I can still break through it and destroy German Industy.

I have a lot of questions about Production. That is why I bumped this thread so that those of you that have the experience can fill in the blanks for the rest of us. All aimed at accomplishing my goals in this game. And I can assure you that those goals do not include Fantasyland Air Combat. [8D]

Regards,
KayBay [8D]

[Tuk]

Kaybayray, I'm not suggesting you want to play fantasyland aircombat. So what if you do? I loath war, but I love war games so however you dress it up within historical parameters or not, the game's all fantasy for me. But if like me you want to work within historical parameters, you have to try to simulate what could have happened if different but plausible choices had been made. That means imposing restrictions on what players can do.
 
Everyone will want to balance simulation with alternative histories to a different extent. That's why I think realism options would be a good idea.
 
For the game I'd enjoy most, I agree that having to follow stages of R&D is a useful mechanism, I'm all for it, but I'd argue that the current production system is too far removed from reality to yield an historical result or to feel like the player is making plausible historical choices. Taking dozens of production facilities out of line to research new products is a gamey solution to an inbuilt lack of detail in the program. If R&D can be set to follow stages of development, why not re do the whole thing? I love making work for other people, sure, but at least I'm prepared to pay for it. Am I excused?

[Hard Sarge]

Taking dozens of production facilities out of line to research new products is a gamey solution to an inbuilt lack of detail in the program.


the trouble here, is, it is the player doing this, those are suppost to be making product for the war, the player, and to a lesser intent, the AI, pulls them from production

if you don't do it, you get the stuff when your suppost to

[kaybayray]

Hey Tuk, <S>

I was never upset at you. Or anybody for that matter. I completely agree with you on this topic.

I agree with Sarge as well. I am just worried that the ability to manipulate the historical path of AC development will be shut down in order to deal with the handful of players that "will" abuse it. This was my primary reason for posting my thoughts. So I am sorry if you or anybody else (Sarge maybe?) thought I was upset at them. I am not.

I just think that having the ability to manipulate AC R&D is a tremendous feature for this game. As I posted in one of my replys, I want to do just that in an attempt to build a different Luftwaffe for the Allies to contend with. My observations are that the AI is pretty stupid in comparison to a Human. So I want modify its teeth so to speak to make it more of a challenge. I also want to explore the aspects of this game with respect to the Luftwaffe. Which I am fairly ignorant of in comparison to the Allies.

At any rate, I want to learn how to go about manipulating the Production so that I can work to meet my goal within the game. Any instructions, advice, observations or thoughts from those of you that have done so are greatly appreciated.

Later,
KayBay [8D]

[Noon Gatherer]

I think this game needs some pilot pools also. Like in War In the Pacific has..

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Taking dozens of production facilities out of line to research new products is a gamey solution to an inbuilt lack of detail in the program.


the trouble here, is, it is the player doing this, those are suppost to be making product for the war, the player, and to a lesser intent, the AI, pulls them from production

if you don't do it, you get the stuff when your suppost to

While I was opposed to it at first, I rather like the way the AE approach has worked out: R&D facilities can shift to other R&D products, and production facilities can shift to other production products, but you can't switch facilities from R&D to production or vice versa.