Out of pilot slots

[pompack]

When I run the 1sep45 turn, I get the out-of-pilot-slots message (about a gazillion times). When I try to pull a new pilot out of the pool, I get the message and no pilot.

turn created on 1108p3

problem exists when the turn is processed with eitther p3 or p6.

Save attached with file renamed from .pws to .zip, PW by PM to michaelm

[Sardaukar]

You need to release pilots from your units & reserve if you have reached 50k pilots to free slots. There are buttons for that in Beta, in unit Pilot screen and in reserve pool page.

[Dereck]

In what Beta was releasing pilots added?

[mikkey]

some tweaks are in
[1108m] -> Tweaked Deleted more killed/captured pilots when at pilot max limit [MEM]
and also in
[1108m4/5] -> Added Option to release or retire low experienced named pilots - in group and reserve lists [MEM]
-> Tweaked Pilot overflow to clear more pilots. Corrected some discrepancies in pilot numbers [MEM]

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: mikkey

some tweaks are in
[1108m] -> Tweaked Deleted more killed/captured pilots when at pilot max limit [MEM]
and also in
[1108m4/5] -> Added Option to release or retire low experienced named pilots - in group and reserve lists [MEM]
-> Tweaked Pilot overflow to clear more pilots. Corrected some discrepancies in pilot numbers [MEM]

yep, got all of those.

I am not retiring low experienced pilots because they are better than the ones in the pool that I can't get to. I move those pilots from the general pool to the training squadrons and only go to the base pool when I run out (or I get lazy [:D])

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

You need to release pilots from your units & reserve if you have reached 50k pilots to free slots. There are buttons for that in Beta, in unit Pilot screen and in reserve pool page.

"Releasing" pilots does not help at all since they still stay on the name list. Retiring pilots from the general pool into oblivion would help but that is rather pointless since the pilots in the general pool are better than the noob pilots in the base pool that I would like to access.

As to total numbers, I have 5500 in the general pools, 3500 in the base pools and about 2000 active in the air units for a total of about 11,000 pilots. While my opponent has a lot, I don't think he has over 39,000 which still puts our total, live pilots at under 50,000

[jmalter]

perhaps we'll need michaelm to answer this, but what would be the effect of using the old 180-day rotation?

that is, open your save-game in 1106, punch the dross pilots back for 6 months leave, save the game, then re-open in 1108.

will the R&R pilots still count against the 50K limit?

[witpqs]

I thought the whole point of the "Release Pilot" was that they were dropped altogether, freeing up pilot slots.

[jmalter]

hmm i may be wrong, but i think my released pilots are going directly to the reserve pool.
the 1/5/10 release buttons are just to reduce the clickfest of sending them 1st to sqn reserve, then clicking again to general reserve.

[PaxMondo]

That is releasing from the air group.  If you go to the pilot pool screen, it also has a release button.  Releasing from the pool sends them to oblivion.

[jmalter]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

That is releasing from the air group.  If you go to the pilot pool screen, it also has a release button.  Releasing from the pool sends them to oblivion.

thx! i see that now - when i access the pilot pool from the 'I' screen & switch to the reserve pool, i get the option to bliterate 1/5/10/50 pilots to blivion. or i click on individual pilots to do the same - v. useful to cull the worst from my pool. Some of these guys are worth sending to 'training' sqns, but there's more than a few that need to explore career options in the civilian sector.

[michaelm75au]

There are about 300 empty pilot slots in the save. So not sure why you would be getting the out of pilots.
[edit]
Error in count.

[michaelm75au]

The error message in being reported when it can't get a pilot from a particular pool, but it then manages to get one from another.
So the message is redundant.
Seems to a case where I didn't suppress the message rather than a true 'out of pilots'.

edit
However, it does run out of pilots by end of the turn.
60+ US bomber groups showed up absorbing the spares.

[michaelm75au]

I probably could increase the number of pilots, but that would break any Tracker or Witpstaff access.
The DLL would need to change with all its issues that have cropped up in the past.

[WLockard]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I probably could increase the number of pilots, but that would break any Tracker or Witpstaff access.
The DLL would need to change with all its issues that have cropped up in the past.

Increasing the number of pilots would seem to be needed sometime, might as well do it soon and let tracker and staff people deal with it.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: WLockard

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I probably could increase the number of pilots, but that would break any Tracker or Witpstaff access.
The DLL would need to change with all its issues that have cropped up in the past.

Increasing the number of pilots would seem to be needed sometime, might as well do it soon and let tracker and staff people deal with it.

+1, especially since everyone is overloading their units with pilots.

[jwilkerson]

We doubled the number of slots from WITP ... from roughly 32,000 to 64,000 ... in the early game the total number of pilot slots used in AE is probably less than WITP, but over time it clearly increases.

If we add more slots, this will only apply to newly started games and as Michael says would break some of the third party tool, some of which may no longer be supported (I'm not sure - maybe they all are).

If we add more slots, we should probably go crazy and add maybe four more bits to go up to roughly 1,024,000 ... a number of internal accumulators might need to be adjusted and maybe some screen items. But an increase like this should at least ensure that stock games which run out of pilot slots would be rare.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

We doubled the number of slots from WITP ... from roughly 32,000 to 64,000 ... in the early game the total number of pilot slots used in AE is probably less than WITP, but over time it clearly increases.

If we add more slots, this will only apply to newly started games and as Michael says would break some of the third party tool, some of which may no longer be supported (I'm not sure - maybe they all are).

If we add more slots, we should probably go crazy and add maybe four more bits to go up to roughly 1,024,000 ... a number of internal accumulators might need to be adjusted and maybe some screen items. But an increase like this should at least ensure that stock games which run out of pilot slots would be rare.

In real life, I discovered that the Japanese had about 12,000 pilots "trained" as Kamikaze pilots at the time of the Japanese surrender. With that thought in mind, I build up a large pool of obsolete a/c and started an intensive kami training program by training in "low naval" up to 61. By the summer of 45 there are so many Japanese training units that it is quite easy to get 100-150 pilots per week graduating at that level by summer. By pushing this program with every training unit, I was only able to get to about 5000 "trained" kami pilots before this slot problem occurred.

So I think that there is historical justification for at least doubling the number of pilot slots. It's certainly not something you need during the bulk of the game, but the endgame is quite different.

(and with this current limitation, I am now training the kamis to 75 and that is a really well-trained kamikaze [:D])

[witpqs]

I'm not sure about WITP Staff, but the Tracker guys are quite active and and increase in the pilot pool might be only a minor change for them.

Having two DLLs (for Tracker), one for "before increase" and one for "after increase" seems manageable.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

We doubled the number of slots from WITP ... from roughly 32,000 to 64,000 ... in the early game the total number of pilot slots used in AE is probably less than WITP, but over time it clearly increases.

If we add more slots, this will only apply to newly started games and as Michael says would break some of the third party tool, some of which may no longer be supported (I'm not sure - maybe they all are).

If we add more slots, we should probably go crazy and add maybe four more bits to go up to roughly 1,024,000 ... a number of internal accumulators might need to be adjusted and maybe some screen items. But an increase like this should at least ensure that stock games which run out of pilot slots would be rare.

I certainly think this would be the right course of action. Increasing the pilot slots to 1 million together with the associated necessary work would be an excellent narrative for a new official patch which would also incorporate all the beta work.

Yes it would be a pity if some third party utilities were to be broken. That however is not a valid concern. The primary concern must always be the officially supported product. The population which is able to, or want to use third party software is only a subset of the population which has bought and plays the game.

With 1 million pilot slots, there really would be no excuse for players to complain they ran out of pilots. So many slots would mean each existing airframe in every air unit would have much more than 100 waiting pilots to step in. That degree of pilot hoarding is very poor allocation of assets.

Alfred