Would you like the option of limiting supply to Japan and/or Australia?

Yamamoto · Post by **Yamamoto** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 11:27 am

If you could throw a switch on the options screen and reduce supply to Japan or Australia would that be something you would like?

pasternakski · Post by **pasternakski** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 11:41 am

Yamamoto, I find you to be an intelligent, competent poster and thread-starter, but I must confess that I have not the slightest idea what you're talking about here.

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 12:08 pm

Posted by Yamamoto

If you could throw a switch on the options screen and reduce supply to Japan or Australia would that be something you would like?

Mate,

Are you referring to what was discussed in another thread (Bombardment TFs?) where those players who wish to decrease the operational tempo of UV could have an option to reduce the replenishment level for supply/fuel at Truk/Brisbane/Noumea?

If so, yes.

derwho · Post by **derwho** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 12:31 pm

A cool thing would be that you could tweak the supply so that it would be variable. In the beginning of '42 IJN would receive ample supply but the US would be receiving only lets say 30%, and then gradually the tide would turn against the IJN so that after Q2 '43 the IJN would only be receiving 30% vs the USN 100%.. Or something like that.

Veer · Post by **Veer** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 12:33 pm

Operational tempo?

Well if the IJN was sending the entire Combined fleet to the Solomons, as often happens in the game, it would surely make sure there was sufficent fuel (basically all reserves). If the USN was sending the entire Pacific fleet to the solomons, it would do the same.

I prefer for operational tempo to be desired by the amount of ships you have in the theatre - fuel and supply are really secondary. Besides, even if I have 100,000 fuel stored at a base, that only lasts for one good big operation. With enough operations you do run out of fuel and have to wait for your tankers to fill up.

Besides, i'm not sure what an effect it would have. A supply TF takes 3-4 days between Turk/Rabul, plus 2-3 days to load unload. Similar times for Noumea/Lunga, Brisbane/Cooktown. If you set the total availiable fuel at Truk/Nouema at 50,000 p. day instead of he 90,000 currently, the player would simply stagger the arrivals of this resupply TFs and it wouldn't make a difference.

Better would be to have a 'cap' on the maximum supplies/fuel that a base can hold. I have found it a bit odd that a level 1 port can hold 100,000 fuel, or even more. Make the port size determine how much fuel can be held at the base and I think it will impact operational tempo sufficently.

Veer · Post by **Veer** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 12:39 pm

Originally posted by drwho
A cool thing would be that you could tweak the supply so that it would be variable. In the beginning of '42 IJN would receive ample supply but the US would be receiving only lets say 30%, and then gradually the tide would turn against the IJN so that after Q2 '43 the IJN would only be receiving 30% vs the USN 100%.. Or something like that.

But why? If the USN had the whole Pacific fleet in the Solomons in '42 it makes sense that they would have all their supply there at that time.
Similarily if the IJN still had the majority of the Combined fleet in the Solomons in late '43, they would provide adequate supply there.

Maybe the supply level should vary on the ship commitment level, but i doubt that this would have any effect on operational tempo.

Mr.Frag · Post by **Mr.Frag** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 8:34 pm

How about a setting that lets barges and PT boats use supplies instead of naval fuel as part of this great idea?

Way too much supply in this game as it sits now, on both sides. Being able to load up a tranport TF with over 100,000 supply and send it off is a tad silly.

derwho · Post by **derwho** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:23 pm

After some thought on the matter I must say that I hope no major changes are done to UV. All efforts to WiTP please.

Yamamoto · Post by **Yamamoto** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:30 pm

Originally posted by pasternakski
Yamamoto, I find you to be an intelligent, competent poster and thread-starter, but I must confess that I have not the slightest idea what you're talking about here.

Pasternakski, don’t worry. Things will make themselves clear soon. Basically, Drongo got it right. Some people thought that the sides (mostly Japan) were able to make too many sorties with their ships for the amount of fuel that would be realistically available. One solution we thought about would be to limit fuel to a lower amount than the current 90,000 per turn. As Veer states above, setting it to 50000 won’t make much of a difference. I was thinking of somewhere around 5,000 but letting it accumulate from turn to turn. Maybe even that is too much.

I also thought it might be interesting to turn off the infinite supply in Australia. In WitP the allies will have to supply Australia with oil and supply so maybe it would be a good idea to start practicing it.

Would these options balance each other out in a PBEM game? Maybe this would be something people only used in single player to handicap them against the AI.

Yamamoto

Feinder · Post by **Feinder** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:53 pm

Would it be a problem to tie the auto-supply levels to the committment level chosen? So that if a player is at 120% committment level, the auto-supply level is higher than what it would be for 100%.

It seems that if you make is static for all levels, you'd have to set it high enough so that if you'd have a reasonable use of the higher committment levels. Otheriwse, what's the point of using the higher committment levels if you've never got enough fuel to run more than a couple of ships. At the same time, setting auto-supply so that you can run reasonably run the higher committement levels, means that if you take the normal levels, you're never likely going to run out of fuel.

All that being said, is why I think that auto-supply levels should be tied to the committment level.

Oh, and if I have to resupply Austailia, I'd think somebody would give me ALOT more freighters.

Regards,
-F-

pasternakski · Post by **pasternakski** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 10:08 pm

Originally posted by Yamamoto
Basically, Drongo got it right. Some people thought that the sides (mostly Japan) were able to make too many sorties with their ships for the amount of fuel that would be realistically available. One solution we thought about would be to limit fuel to a lower amount than the current 90,000 per turn. As Veer states above, setting it to 50000 won’t make much of a difference. I was thinking of somewhere around 5,000 but letting it accumulate from turn to turn. Maybe even that is too much.

I also thought it might be interesting to turn off the infinite supply in Australia. In WitP the allies will have to supply Australia with oil and supply so maybe it would be a good idea to start practicing it.

I get it now. Thanks. I used to be pretty quick mentally, but seem to have slowed down some with age.

I also agree with Drongo.

m0ngoose · Post by **m0ngoose** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 10:41 pm

I would be fine with periodic supply. Like maybe 100000 is dropped on Truk/Noumea every two weeks. And maybe 25-50k on Brisbane every 2 weeks as well. And while we're at it, maybe have Wewak as an alternate for the IJN like a reduced TRUK.

Nikademus · Post by **Nikademus** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 11:22 pm

Another suggestion would be to limit US "unlimited" supply to Normura only.

Operational tempo would be greatly reduced with a US player being forced to supply both SoPac and SWpac from one supply "hub" as the Japanese are forced to do.

the auto highway supply feature from Austrailia to Townsville makes the op tempo even faster allowing the US player to immediately plan for an offensive in New Guneau while also contemplating action in the Solomons.

Having one supply hub would force a player to plan his logistics more carefully and to make choices in priortization. I think this would be especially useful for Sc17 where the weak start of the IJN is ahistorically so well known to players.

Yamamoto · Post by **Yamamoto** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 11:24 pm

Originally posted by Feinder
Would it be a problem to tie the auto-supply levels to the committment level chosen? So that if a player is at 120% committment level, the auto-supply level is higher than what it would be for 100%.

Oh, and if I have to resupply Austailia, I'd think somebody would give me ALOT more freighters.

Regards,
-F-

I hadn’t thought of tying supply levels to commitment levels but that’s a nice idea. I don’t know if its doable but it’s a nice idea. If you want to play with a really large commitment level, or a made-up scenario, then you probably wouldn’t use reduced supply. Remember, I’m talking about reduced supply as an OPTION, not a new standard.

Yes, more freighters would be needed, but not too many. After all, the northern bases already need freighters to supply them. Only Brisbane and the two cities north would need to be supplied. Actually, only Brisbane because the road network would still send needed supply north.

Yamamoto

Nikademus · Post by **Nikademus** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 12:04 am

another thought that just occured to me vis-a-vis operational tempo is the availability of merchant shipping. IIRC Matrix bowed to player pressure that they were not getting enough shipping to support their operations. Before that, players faced serious (and very reallife) challenges of simply not having enough shipping to do all the things they wanted.

Restoring those limits might also help though reducing unlimited supply and making it an option would probably be easiest for the coders.

XPav · Post by **XPav** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 5:05 am

Thats because most players treat their transports as one way disposable troop taxis and sail them knowingly into harms way!

In addition, its far too easy to catch transports offloading resulting in a high loss rate for transports.

In the Hammel book "The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal", a typical resupply run has the US transports TF 67.1 into Lunga in the morning of Nov 13, unloading throughout the day with a couple few hours of dodging avoiding air attack, and leaving by nightfall (leaving Scott & Callaghan to face the IJN).

(OOB at http://www.nobadlie.com/guadb.htm).

As it stands, the normal series of operations is to load the transports and when they get to their destination, to stay there until the supplies are offloaded.

Now, it seems to me that the "Retirement Allowed" setting should encourage this behavior, and some people have said that it allows Transport TFs to run from surface and bombardment TFs, but I've never seen it. Anyone?

Would you like the option of limiting supply to Japan and/or Australia?

Would you like the option of limiting supply to Japan and/or Australia?

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