IJ production mistakes

[bigred]

quote:

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

pacificbetta

Just some numbers in my PBEM for you to consider too. I'm new to the game, so take my 2 cents worth with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of new Japanese players really underestimate the amount of plane production they'll need. Here's where I sit in my game as the Japanese in terms of the major planes being produced, and note this game is with PDU off, so imagine if you were free to upgrade most units to say Zero's for example where you'd be.

This is as of Jan 10/42.

A6M2 Zero's In pool = 9 Production = 89x(147) brackets are factory expanding values yet to repair
Val's In pool = 3 Production = 36x(60)
B5N2 Kate's In Pool = 1 Production = 33x(95)
Ki-43-Ic Oscar's In Pool = 26 Production = 69x(83)
Betty's In Pool = 4 Production = 50x(0)
Nell's In Pool 64 Production = 38x(6)

So you can see I have almost nothing in the pools and I have not upgraded a lot of Nate, Claude, or Jean's squadrons yet. Factor in combat losses on top of upgrading and you can see there's a huge shortage of aircraft right now. I'll know in hindsight if I increased production too soon, but starting with small factory upgrades won't come close to producing what's needed. Hope this helps.



SML

I will not comment on your target numbers but I will caution you that overly rapid industrial expansion can utterly destroy you (just to be "overly" dramatic )

Per your numbers, just this expansion action cost you something over 50,000 supply which is roughly two days total supply production. Actually bringing just these changes on line will require over 500,000 more supply for repair.

This level of expansion will not cause you HI, fuel or oil problems for about a year but it can effectively bring Japanese expansion to a dead stop in just a couple of months if you are not careful. I would suggest that you increase any given factory by no more than five points at a time; once that expansion is repaired you and look at your supply situation and decide if you can afford another increase immediately or not.

[bigred]

quote:

ORIGINAL: pad152
Does anything less than 100 R&D points for aircraft do anything?
If not, is it safe to shutdown/convert R&D factories until you need them?

Nope, nothing ... don't see why you would want to shut them down cause they don;t cost anything, except if you are repairing them, in which case it is 1000 supplies/ point repaired.

Remember you need them fully repaired to start accumulating R&D points.

Conversions are fine, if you don;t want to get into the whole R&D gambit.

--Damian

[bigred]

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rexor
How do you know how much you've accumulated for each model?

You don't ... but through some guess work you can get close to approximating. If this is the same as WITP then ...

Firstly the factory must be fully repaired.

So say you have 3 factories doing R&D
30(0) - producing R&D points
30(0) - producing R&D points
15(15)- NOT producing R&D points

So that is 60 points / month (same as plane production), so in about a month and a half, you've accumulated 100 points and will get a reduction in a month.

[Edit] And from a previous post of this regarding WITP, I haven't tested this for AE yet, but I believe it is the same ... the WITP wiki also states most of this:

# Damaged R&D factories do not supply points, so a (1)30 factory will not supply R&D points until it is fully repaired.
# More factories doing R&D are better than less. If comparing just one 30(0) or 3 * 10(0) the latter is better.
# Larger factories do not supply more points - there is no substantial difference between a 30 and a 300 R&D factory.
# Factories that are damaged but Repairs turned off do not accrue points.
# Size 30 will give about 1 point per day... you need 100 to get a month off.
# There are no limits to the R&D timetable and no dice roll at 100 points.
< Message edited by n01487477 -- 9/30/2009 12:10:23 AM >

[bigred]

quote:

Considering that in the real game player won't have so many research factories available to him (for a single plane type), and that he would have to spend some time and supplies repairing them to full capacity before they start researching I can understand why this slipped below the devs' radar.

What worries me is that dedicated player can sacrifice lots of semi-useless later war plane types and focus on good models from 1945 and make them appear in early 1943...

For the reasons outlined in your first sentence, the second sentence is not so much of a worry anyway ... The time to repair factories of models a long time away is really prohibitive, but in a modding sense and even from what people have said here about engine R&D, it is something to be aware of. I did some testing on this (repairing R&D factories) a while ago, and that was very interesting too ...

[bigred]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Just to be clear on this.... I've seen proof in-game of what Damian says wherein multiple small factories brought a plane type into action several years early. ( Yes, years not months ).

Of course if people choose to disregard objective reality then that's their choice but they shouldn't wonder then why they remain perplexed.

While it is true you can bring planes in months/years early, in all fairness I was using a loophole in the witp code, which has been fixed for AE... but nonetheless R&D is not limited by time.

_____________________________

--Damian--

[bigred]

So if u want to increase r/d then the trick is:
1. convert some small r/d factories first to the frame of your choice at 1000/point per day.
2. Then expand these small factories at 100/point per day.

[nashvillen]

Subscribed, some nice insight here. I am on turn 20 or so as the Japanese and am struggling to keep my ahead above water, but managing. I am trying to not take big steps, but little ones and see what they do. My opponent reads these boards so I will not give away any details.

I do feel like I have several concerns with the economy under control such as fuel and resources (Can always use more), my big problem is keeping up with what I want my units to do and keeping them on track without distraction. Anyone have any ideas?

[Mike Solli]

Notes! I keep a notebook (several actually). One is separated by operation (Philippines, Malaya, SE Fleet, etc.). There I write down my OOBs for specific missions, to include those units that haven't yet arrived. It's more of a chart form (Unit, location, destination, mode of transport).

Fuel: Don't refuel your combat fleet at the Home Islands. That really means, don't keep your combat fleet at the Home Islands. You're going to need your fuel at the Home Islands for your heavy industry. Most of your fuel will come from the SRA. That will be the origin of your combat fleet fueling. Remember that you can convert some xAKs to TKs and you can transport fuel in xAKs. Just remember that AO/TKs are most efficient, followed by converted TKs followed by xAKs. Do the most efficient thing first. Also keep in mind that you can transport oil only with AOs and TKs. You have a lot of excess refinery capacity at the Home Islands so refine as much oil as you can in the SRA and ship the remaining oil back to the Home Islands.

Supply: Most of your supply production will occur in the Home Islands. You will need to ship supply to Burma, Malaya, China, Central Pacific, Truk (and points south) and possibly the SRA. Ship supply to Malaya now. I didn't and that mistake cost me taking Singapore by about 3-4 weeks. Ship supply to China when the first couple of yellow "!"s show up there. Otherwise, your offensive will come to a screeching halt.

Oil: I mentioned this earlier. All excess goes to the Home Islands. Your oil production will never meet your refinery capacity. Eventually, your oil surplus in the Home Islands will evaporate and then your supply production will be reduced as well. Plan for that. Don't remove oil from China/Manchuria/Korea (C/M/K). On occasion, you will need to ship oil and/or fuel there to keep your industry producing.

Resources: You most likely will get enough resources from the Home Islands, C/M/K and Formosa to keep Honshu's HI producing (assuming the fuel is there). Keep in mind that Honshu alone produces >3 million resources a month and needs ~6.3 million resources a month. That's a deficit of 3.3 million resources a month, or about 110k a day! Set up your convoys and protect them. Many argue that it's not a concern because the resources you need are close. I disagree. If you keep 3.3 million excess resources in Honshu, that'll last only a month. My goal is to get as many resources in Honshu as possible. I ship them from the SRA. Many will argue against that due to the excess fuel usage. That's a decision you need to make.

[SqzMyLemon]

quote:

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

pacificbetta

Just some numbers in my PBEM for you to consider too. I'm new to the game, so take my 2 cents worth with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of new Japanese players really underestimate the amount of plane production they'll need. Here's where I sit in my game as the Japanese in terms of the major planes being produced, and note this game is with PDU off, so imagine if you were free to upgrade most units to say Zero's for example where you'd be.

This is as of Jan 10/42.

A6M2 Zero's In pool = 9 Production = 89x(147) brackets are factory expanding values yet to repair
Val's In pool = 3 Production = 36x(60)
B5N2 Kate's In Pool = 1 Production = 33x(95)
Ki-43-Ic Oscar's In Pool = 26 Production = 69x(83)
Betty's In Pool = 4 Production = 50x(0)
Nell's In Pool 64 Production = 38x(6)

So you can see I have almost nothing in the pools and I have not upgraded a lot of Nate, Claude, or Jean's squadrons yet. Factor in combat losses on top of upgrading and you can see there's a huge shortage of aircraft right now. I'll know in hindsight if I increased production too soon, but starting with small factory upgrades won't come close to producing what's needed. Hope this helps.



SML

I will not comment on your target numbers but I will caution you that overly rapid industrial expansion can utterly destroy you (just to be "overly" dramatic )

Per your numbers, just this expansion action cost you something over 50,000 supply which is roughly two days total supply production. Actually bringing just these changes on line will require over 500,000 more supply for repair.

This level of expansion will not cause you HI, fuel or oil problems for about a year but it can effectively bring Japanese expansion to a dead stop in just a couple of months if you are not careful. I would suggest that you increase any given factory by no more than five points at a time; once that expansion is repaired you and look at your supply situation and decide if you can afford another increase immediately or not.

[/quote]

Hi bigred,

I thought I'd give you an update of a comparison of the same aircraft 8 months later in my PBEM which is now in Aug/42. I'm playing with PDU off.

A6M2 Zero - 183 in pool - production is 236/month - currently turned off
B5N2 Kate - 61 in pool - production is 60/month - currently turned off
D3A1 Val - 110 in pool - production is 58/month - currently turned off
G3M3 Nell - 123 in pool - production is 44/month - currently turned off
G4M1 Betty - 73 in pool - production is 55/month - currently turned off
KI-43-Ic Oscar - 147 in pool - production is 152/month - currently turned off

Engine Ha-32 - 163 in pool - production is 200/month
Engine Ha-33 - 200 in pool - production is 235/month
Engine Ha-35 - 691 in pool - production is 470/month
Engine Aichi Ha-60 - 274 in pool - production is 40/month

HI - 200k+ in pool - producing 2000+ surplus per/day
Supply 1.6 million in Home Islands and growing.

I won't mention oil/fuel in the Home islands as my PBEM opponent can read your thread so to keep things unknown I won't post those numbers. I'll provide that info in my AAR soon. Empire wide though fuel stocks are 3.8+ million.

PDU off is a whole different ball game in terms of what units can upgrade to what aircraft. These changes I made would be better suited for PDU on, but I didn't know much then and no idea of the limitations I would face with PDU off. Lesson learned right there [:D].

I'm still learning the game so I won't know the long term consequences of my production until the game progresses. My strategy all along was to build a large surplus of everything I needed in the Home Islands as quickly as possible while I could. I figure later in the war when resources are dwindling and I have difficulty shipping to the Home Islands that I'd have sufficient pools/resources built up to weather the growing shortages.

As you can see I've turned off a lot of air production to conserve HI as I have sufficient pools at the moment, but if I need an influx of aircraft I turn it back on and I can quickly build up the numbers again. I have over 200,000 HI in the pool and have not reduced naval, armament or merchant capacity as yet, which if done would swell HI production to roughly 4k/day.

The supply I expended earlier has been more than made up and I regulary ship large amounts throughout the Empire.

I see two options for expanding Japanese production. You can go slow and steady throughout the war and keep things managable. I chose a faster expansion at start to give me the numbers to upgrade air units quickly and stockpile reserves of certain engines (they don't go bad and I'll need thousands of them [;)]) and resources to be used years from now, a short term heavy expenditure of supply/fuel/HI to allow a saving of those same resources in the future by not having to expand anything after 1942 with the odd exception of course. I thought to expand quickly while resources are plentiful and then through conquest and efficient usage build up stockpiles to last me through the remainder of the war. As I said, I'm inexperienced and have no idea if this was a good approach but time will tell. So far Japanese industry is humming and I build/store a surplus of everything monthly.

I hope this update helps in some way. If anything maybe mine is a "what not to do" lesson!

[bigred]

Thanks Mike and SML for your comments. I am in may42. Noted the arrival of the a6m3b w/armor. Hmmm.

[jonreb31]

Any thoughts on merchant expansion/acceleration? What to do/not to do? Ever since my long-time-ago adventure of expanding the Japanese economy and gloriously crashing it I've largely left it alone.

[bigred]

I was advised from readers and the threads that--

"In the beginning the japs have alot of merchie points but do not waste them via exceleration as all those points will be needed in the middle to later part of the game for replacement ships."

note post #264- I burned up alot of merchant points first 3 months to excel some cve's. Seems to have been a mistake.

[Puhis]

I think tankers are only mercant ships worth accelerating. And only if you really need them.

[Kitakami]

Merchant point acceleration also depends on early losses... if you loose too many TK/AO ships, you can accelerate some (and/or convert xAKs to TKs). If you loose too many APs/AMCs and you want/need to keep invasion ability, you could accelerate those too. It truly depends on what you NEED to accomplish your goals.

[offenseman]

I like to accel TKs and AOs early on to get as many moving oil/fuel before 1943 and the torpedo effectiveness changes.&nbsp; To offset, I like to turn off certain smaller vessels that haul small amounts AND do not have a good conversion option. The types are escaping me right now though.

[bigred]

I wanted to bring this screen shot from april to comape w/ a June 4th screen shot in the next post.

ORIGINAL: bigred

This is a print of my current resource levels. april 7th 42. I figure I will be able to really lift some oil and resources after I finish off Java. So the r/o should stabilize in about 2 months.

[bigred]

And this is a SP from May42. I do have allarming trends. Hope my oponent is not watching this!

[bigred]

And here is the results... in a two month period. this indicated I have a 2 month supply of fuel, 11 months of resources and 8 months of oil.
Other good news is my fleet fuel reserves are up.
The good news is that my supply trend is going up.
supply fuel resourses oil


Solutions:
1. Now may be time to turn off lt industry in the home islands for a time. Thanks to Major Mike this link for this idea post #2.
tm.asp?m=2597400&mpage=1&key=
2. Fuel and oil. June has arrived and all standard C transports have been kulled from the fleet, given orders and are proceding to ports w/ ship repair docks for conversion(they will not convert if not in a repair shipyard). 4 to 5 have already started(I should have done this in may, having these ships in port for conversionon 1jun42). Must be at least 20 of these AKs flotting around. Also at this time I started sending the Ansyus to port for conversion to PB. They have a speed of 14, carry 1000tons and /or 15mines and will be needed in the next 6 months when the allied subs get going. thanks to FatR for his magnificent AAR Recap of beginning IJN transport duties(dont fail me now) at this link post #2. tm.asp?m=2469628
3. All the DEI is in submission to the empire except the NW end of Sumatra. I have read that a trade off exist between resources and distance hauling/use of fuel to bring home the resources.
4. I am beginning to suspect the RA70 senario will "MAKE ME OR BREAK ME" in terms of resource management.
5. I am looking for a formula to use to determine the fuel usage/ resource haul tradeoff.
What is the best ships to use at the optimal ports. What locations should I ignore. I have read the Nearu island is like beating a dead mule.
6. Naval support units have been utilized for offensive operations instead of resourse loading. Soon these units will redeploy to resourse heavy loading ports.
Thanks to Jacko for this thread. tm.asp?m=2354979&mpage=1&key=tranport%2 ... Cefficency?

[bigred]

This is a SP of two ships critical to support future needs of fuel for IJN. I counted 20 SDT-C tankers w/ a lift of 3000 tons each. 3000x20=60000 extra lift. these will need to be short run haulers.

[bigred]

Mike Solli
Here's my humble opinion: Use TKs (and AOs if that's what you choose to do) and ship all excess oil from the SRA to Honshu. Use any remaining available TK space (and any AKs you have available too) to ship fuel to Honshu. Keep in mind that you will need some of the SRA fuel for the fleet. How much? I haven't a clue yet.

The reason I suggest you ship excess oil is because you have substantial excess refining capacity in Honshu. You need fuel. Oil in and of itself is useless. It must be converted to be useful.

The other option is to spend significant supply to increase the refining capacity in the SRA to match the excess oil production. Then you still have to haul the fuel back to Honshu. Either way, you use fuel to move oil & fuel or just fuel to Honshu. Why spend the supply to increase refining capacity in the SRA when you have it idle in Honshu (well, it'll be idle when the oil in Honshu is used up by the end of 1942).