Allowing ALLIED On-Map Production

[John 3rd]

There has been all sorts of discussion over in the Perfect War Allied Thread about allowing for limited on-map Allied production. I know there are various thoughts on how to accomplish this and want to see what be the most practical.

Ideas bantered around:

1. Create a series of bases in Japanese hands (no troops) that would have to be 'captured' by the Allies and then they can supply and expand the bases as well as industry. The 'captured' idea surfaced as another manner to keep from the bases being operational day one to realistically force more time for ramp-up of industry.

2. Allow bases to start in Allied hands but with Port 1/AF 1 trying to accomplish the point of number one without making them be captured.

3. The bases would need to be at least four in number:
---1 British
---1 Aussie
---2 American

Think that each base should allow for 3-5 aircraft production lines that could be expanded.

The production lines would start really SMALL but be expandable. This would cost LOTS of supply and fuel, eat up shipping, and force Base Force units as well as Engineers to expand the bases and allow for on-map aerial training of planes.

How would one go about this? I know there are differing perspectives but I felt this should be thrown for everyone to contribute and then be possible for this to be used in other Mods,.

Opinions?

[wdolson]

The capturing Japanese plant idea won't work.  When they are captured, they become Allied factories and fall under the Allied factory rules.

Anything allowing for Allied production would have to involve new code.  It would be a fairly major change.

Bill

[kfsgo]

Well, the mechanics of it are pretty simple; add the factories to a base somewhere and you've got a party. I find that the factories repair at the same rate (1/day) whether you've got engineers in whatever number there or not, at a cost of 1000 supply/factory. I'm not certain that's not moddable, but I haven't seen any way to do it. If there's no supply at the base, they don't repair. In other words, the supply is the 'key'. Of course, you can also set them to not repair manually.

Now, 1000t isn't much in the grand scheme of things - if you put them anywhere that can draw supply you can get the job done immediately. So, some (undoubtedly not all) options, all of which 'work' but none of which are particularly elegant:

A: Put them somewhere that can't draw supply directly but can receive it from other bases; Port Stanley is the one that got thrown about originally, I think. Works, but PS also gets the occasional supply convoy and potentially has at least some relevance as an actual base; so, you can just let them sit and they'll activate eventually.

A1: Do that, but also install a unit to drain an appropriate amount of supply that the player has to keep 'fed'. "Works"...but what's stopping ignoring it? Also, I don't know whether units draw supply before bases do or v-v.

B: Put them somewhere that can draw supply and link turning them on (remember, you can turn them on and off at any time!) to PP expenditure. Works, but may not feel secure enough. A variant of this is used widely for units crossing borders, of course, but conceptually you can at least find out if the border's been crossed, right?

C: Put them somewhere that can't draw supply from anywhere and restrict the input. I like this one most, but that's probably just because I came up with it all by myself, heh. I did this as a little mini test scenario:



The whole complex is too remote to draw supply from anywhere else, except maybe a tiny bit by air supply. Conceptually you'd set a fixed input at the bottom base and ship it upwards (the factories are too remote from the source base to receive supplies overland, so there's a double restriction - what you allow to go in as daily supply or convoys and what the ships themselves can move); you might put more advanced aircraft types at the most distant base, thus making them cost more due to wastage. The same effect could be acheived without the shipping element by using multiple isolated bases fed by daily supply or supply convoys, though you maybe lose a little flexibility that way.

Actually the way I imagined this working was that you'd also have to move engineer units (arriving at the mid-lake base as restricted units, so unmovable without paying PPs for them, and bloated out with support devices so as to raise their PP cost) as 'activation' counters before you could actually turn any of the factories on, thereby combining all of the ideas, but that was before I realised that they just repair anyway. You could still do that, of course...

Philosophically none of these ideas require the expenditure of huge quantities of supply, shipping, resources etc; in essence you'd be drawing on aircraft that were sent to Russia, or exported, or cancelled late-war; all should really cost PPs in my opinion, which to my mind are at least as valuable as supply or fuel, and certainly a lot more scarce - your on-map LCUs, ships etc are your war-fighting infrastructure, after all, not your production infrastructure; and Stalin's not going to be happy, though the USSR isn't going to drop dead as a result of relatively minor alterations. The question is: how many PPs are X aircraft over Y length of time worth? I asked this a few days ago and got no answers...

If you're deadset on making it cost supplies and fuel...well, someone else'll have to tell you how you'd go about setting up the costs of it, since I haven't even started to think about how you'd do it! I'm sure someone else has, though, and they'll no doubt be along eventually.

e: it occurs to me that the ability for the Allies to turn factories on and off was I think introduced with one of the beta patches - a while ago, but I'm sure it was one. Not sure if repairing them was also - never had cause to check. So, if you Have To Have compatibility with non-beta patches...

[wdolson]

John's original post talked about expanding factories for the Allies.  That isn't possible.  If a factory is in Allied hands you can't expand it, even if it started out as Japanese.

If someone wants to do a mod putting all aircraft factories on map, that could be done, but some of the factories might end up in different locations than they originally did.  Places like the UK and the Eastern US had more aircraft factories than would fit in the hex.

Bill

[kfsgo]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

John's original post talked about expanding factories for the Allies.  That isn't possible.  If a factory is in Allied hands you can't expand it, even if it started out as Japanese.

If someone wants to do a mod putting all aircraft factories on map, that could be done, but some of the factories might end up in different locations than they originally did.  Places like the UK and the Eastern US had more aircraft factories than would fit in the hex.

Bill

Well, yeah - I was taking it as read that there's no expanding them, hence the trying to puzzle out how to make getting damaged ones online take some sort of investment rather than just being a turn-them-on sort of thing.

[John 3rd]

I have no real conception at all on how to do this. I would like it so the American could have the option of changing aircraft production to whatever they would like and be able to expand it some, however, I am not sure how possible that is. We could go along the idea listed above and have everyone VOTE for certain aircraft to get extra production I guess. In the screenshot above it shows P-40E being built. Could one do that but have it 1 (49) so it requires 50,000 supply to build it up? Location on the map is also the big question.

[wdolson]

Changing what an aircraft factory builds is not going to be possible without some change in code.  If you want to place the P-40 plant as close as possible to its real location, the company was based in Buffalo, NY.  They also had three other factories. 

This is a handy table for where all US aircraft were built: http://acepilots.com/planes/factory.html

Bill

[kfsgo]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

I have no real conception at all on how to do this. I would like it so the American could have the option of changing aircraft production to whatever they would like and be able to expand it some, however, I am not sure how possible that is. We could go along the idea listed above and have everyone VOTE for certain aircraft to get extra production I guess. In the screenshot above it shows P-40E being built. Could one do that but have it 1 (49) so it requires 50,000 supply to build it up? Location on the map is also the big question.

In the screenshot nothing's being built - the factories are all disabled, and will remain so unless some supply (in theory at 1000t/aircraft/month; in practice, in that situation, at around 2000t/aircraft/month, given wastage along the way) is introduced to the system. You can't change what a factory produces except by the aircraft's upgrade path (which most aircraft don't have in the base game - as there's no on-map production for them) - only provide enough disabled factories to simulate the ability to do so (by choosing which ones to repair) and then limit the use of all of them at once either by limiting the supply input (so only X of them can be activated) or HRing their activity such that X PPs have to be spent before they can be turned on, or per month for them to be on, or whatever.

Now, it's trivial to create 'new' aircraft models that are just copies of old ones with different upgrade paths, so obviously you can set those to upgrade along whatever path you like; you'd just have to decide what that is ahead of time.

So, in other words - you can be flexible (in that you can give the player a selection of mutually exclusive production options) but you can't be completely free with them; you have to decide what the options are ahead of time.

[John 3rd]

kfsgo: Your points are solid. Lets throw it out then. What do Allied players want? This must be kept within reason so I would propose something along the lines listed above on the first Post.

1. A British/Commonwealth Line of 5-6 builds.
2. Perhaps two US production centers with 10-12 builds.

What would an Allied player NEED--not want--NEED for the game? Think essentials that would help starting in about mid-42.

[Erkki]

How about putting some of the non-WC factories near or at the border of the map with no roads or railroad connection? That would/should limit the rate of repair as supply flow is limited. Make them mountain hexes or something too. [:)]

[John 3rd]

Nice!

I am a JFB. What do Allied player consider essential for additional airframes starting in mid-42?

[AdmNelson]

FIGHTERS FIGHTERS FIGHTERS ----P38s lots of them

[John 3rd]

To me you would need a development line for:

Americans
Navy: F4F, Corsair, SBD, Avenger, and PBY
Army Fighters: P-40, P-38, ???
Army 2EB: B-25, A-20, B-26
Army 4EB: B-17, B-24

That is twelve development lines and the thought is somewhere between 8-12.

Commonwealth:
Hurricanes, ???, ???, ???

What other 3 planes would help?

[AdmNelson]

John

I am a JFB playing the allied side. I am not sure if the allies need more aircraft. I tend to think this does balance out the game. A few points is there are air groups in the US that cannot be converted over to other commands to be used outside of the west coast. What I have found difficult is that productions of some airframes just stop and leaves airgroups without replacements, and converting over to other airframes makes this tough.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

John's original post talked about expanding factories for the Allies.  That isn't possible.  If a factory is in Allied hands you can't expand it, even if it started out as Japanese.

If someone wants to do a mod putting all aircraft factories on map, that could be done, but some of the factories might end up in different locations than they originally did.  Places like the UK and the Eastern US had more aircraft factories than would fit in the hex.

Bill

Some years ago, it was suggested that we allow "expansion" of Allied aircraft factories by starting them damaged - then permit repairs. Ever since then, I have put virtually ALL Allied production on the map - to simulate "ramp up" of production of some types - other types may replace existing production on the same line at the existing rate (if that was done). I then have a house rule: do not "repair" factories before the start date of the plane. On top of that, to the extent possible, factories are in the right locations as well. It works perfectly fine with this wrinkle: Allied players must pay the supply points. IF they ignore the house rule - and try to build ALL damaged factories ( I also permit expansion of other industry for years - to get supply points to increase over time ) - they can run out of supplies in the USA (mostly). But it is certainly possible to produce more over time by this mechanism - and to simulate aircraft production increases over time as well.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: AdmNelson

John

I am a JFB playing the allied side. I am not sure if the allies need more aircraft. I tend to think this does balance out the game. A few points is there are air groups in the US that cannot be converted over to other commands to be used outside of the west coast. What I have found difficult is that productions of some airframes just stop and leaves airgroups without replacements, and converting over to other airframes makes this tough.

Here I prefer to modify the aircraft production dates. IRL the Allies might stop production for lots of reasons - including that they were winning the war and didn't need them. But in a fictional game world, that choice might not be the same. So - ONLY IF a type is REPLACED by another type (or some other special cases - the type is no longer producable etc) - does production end. OTHERWISE it continues to the end of the game. I could see that units might be starving for replacements etc in some (or many) cases - and it does not seem right to impose that in a world war sitation where it would not have been imposed. The Allies can afford more planes - AFTER they build up their industry.

Now the idea you start out with a type at huge numbers also is wrong. So I put production on the map and have it "ramp up" - in the case of the P-47 - it gets over 400 a month - but it takes a long time - and is at several locations. It is tricky - but you can combine replacement of one type with a new factory (or two) all doing the same version - so it can start at the old type rate (say 55) and add to that 1 or 2 per day at different locations - until it is a 3 figure number if needs be. But it will take months to happen - not instantly.

Another aspect of this I have not implemented is production of OTHER kinds forgone. It would need careful evaluation. For example the Lone Ranger (only one Ranger flying boat ever built - but its turrets are on the B-24). It could be produced in leiu of some B-29s (those made at Tacoma - which represents Renton - the largest factory in the world - built for that specific plane but converted to the B-29. Renton has a ramp to lake Washington less than a football field away - so the Ranger could take off on water). You could give the Allies such a type - and ALSO a B-29 plant at Renton - but make a rule "do not repair both types" - they still get B-29s from other locations. That would let the Allies have some choices about what kinds of planes to build - trade offs.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

How about putting some of the non-WC factories near or at the border of the map with no roads or railroad connection? That would/should limit the rate of repair as supply flow is limited. Make them mountain hexes or something too. [:)]

Some types can be put in off map locations - I let UK represent UK for example (go figure) - South Africa represent CW - Soviet Union represents (you guessed it - USSR - and also CAF planes that came from Russia) - and I put exported Russian planes at their US locations - either on map or off map - depending on type.

Every month on the first day - the Allied player must look at all these locations and turn on repairs of any new type that appears - although many new types will simply replace existing types automatically as well - the new factories need to have repair turned on - usually. In special cases - the factory just starts producing automatically - but that is because of a choice to transfer planes.

[darbycmcd]

While I understand (and feel) the urge for the Allies to have on-map production, as I was trying to work it out for a personal mod, I came to believe it isn't worth it. Really the only thing you can achieve is the 'ramp-up' effect. You can't change models or increase beyond pre-determined levels set by the scenario. And the idea that it would cost supply is nice, but for the allies just really irrelevant, they are positively swimming in it after the first few months, on CONUS. So for all the effort, what do you gain? not too much.

I think the way to go would be set the levels of production at some base level, and then just add static reinforcement units to be disbanded to simulate additional production, like with the '42 AA pool or the '45 infantry reinforcements. It would be fine to overshoot in this case, if the allies need the planes then great, if they don't need them, they just sit in the pool and don't hurt or help anything.

Or as one other poster already suggested, make a couple iterations of the key models and have them do 'upgrades' to higher production levels. It is inelegant because it would make tracking model types in use in various squadrons difficult, but it is possible.

But really every option is an ugly kludge. I think it is best to think about the EFFECT you want to achieve and create that in the most simple way. If you want to increase the airframes, just increase them. But options which are not options (there is no reason not to take the choice, and requires no meaningful trade-offs for the player) are not really worth the effort to put them in, in my opinion.

[John 3rd]

Good comments to think about. I am not wedded to any concept I just think it would be nice for the Allied player to have some options.

El Cid--What did you do specifically in this area and was it successful?

Thanks darby and Adm Nelson!

[kfsgo]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

How about putting some of the non-WC factories near or at the border of the map with no roads or railroad connection? That would/should limit the rate of repair as supply flow is limited. Make them mountain hexes or something too.

Well, if they can draw any supply they can draw enough to fix everything in one go - no supply movement limits here, and there's so much floating around in the Americas that wastage can just be ignored. I think if you're going to limit their expansion you have to isolate them completely one way or another.

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Nice!

I am a JFB. What do Allied player consider essential for additional airframes starting in mid-42?

Interesting question that doesn't really have an answer, I think; what's essential is going to depend on what happens in the first six months of the game, and what the player wants has to be balanced against what's actually available. I mean, what I want as Grand Military Poobah is the B-29 and atomic bomb projects cancelled, and so 250 B-17s and 250 P-38s a month, right? In reality, what's available are either larger numbers of last generation's British aircraft or small numbers of up-to-date ones, and US aircraft historically sent to Russia. The exception to that's probably the USN; they're the only ones really focused on the Pacific. So, if I were setting up new aircraft chains, I might do something like this, each aircraft upgrading to the next one down on the list:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1Hrlf ... m&hl=en_GB

That's one way you might do it, without going into the issues of transports, patrol aircraft etc. Feel free to use all or part of that, or not; anything not directly from stock is a complete WAG so tinker freely. If you do want to use any data, delete col. C (the notes) in Excel or whatever and it's packable into the WITPair.csv that witploadAE generates.

You'll note there are no P-38s, no heavy bombers, no P-47s etc; those things would all be nice, but there is a war on elsewhere! I suppose in theory the player might be provided with enough supplies to activate some number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever) of the 11 listed production lines. All aircraft to be used in this theoretical on-map production system are "new" models (e: except that 540 upgrades to 277, the existing A-26B, whoops) and so are visually distinct from existing ones - ie no stealthily turning everything on as it'll be obvious to your opponent that you've done so.

e: the point that none of this is technically necessary is also a good one; you can of course just add production to existing models, or add aircraft to the Cape Town supply convoys, or whatever - I'm just trying to think out how you'd actually go about doing on-map production rather than the alternatives.