Replacement pilot experience

Joe Kemper · Post by **Joe Kemper** » Sat Mar 08, 2003 7:28 pm

Playing new scenario 17, v 2.3. Ran first week without any plane activity and checked replacement pilots. For both Japanese and allies first replacements at 20-30 experience level. Under 2.2 seems like the first replacements were 40-50? Am I remembering correctly?

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Sat Mar 08, 2003 8:21 pm

Joe,

The replacement rates under the circumstances you describe should not give you reinforcement pilots with such low experience.

It should be the same as prior versions.

I just ran a quick check in 2.30 along the same lines as yours (9 days of scenario 17). Over 20 pilots arrived for both sides and the worst was 47 experience.

Were the 20-30 exp pilots arriving for any particular squadron or plane type? Did the Aircraft Losses window list any caualties?

Joe Kemper · Post by **Joe Kemper** » Sat Mar 08, 2003 10:07 pm

Drongo, thanks for checking. I will try to attach a file which will show the low experience levels.

In summary they are:

Zero.....37,37,32,32,22,21,36,30,29,28,20
Val........38,31,24,35,20,29
Kate.....32,30,26,24,22
Nell......35
Betty....34,34,34,30,28,27
Mavis...33,30,29

PBY......39,30,28,26
SBD.....34,32
TBD......39,36

As a side note, all 11 Japanese losses were operational.

Thanks again.

siRkid · Post by **siRkid** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 1:22 am

I've added this to our list.

Rick

Mr.Frag · Post by **Mr.Frag** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 2:09 am

I ran through many turns of keeping planes on both sides grounded and letting units fill up.

Attached is turn 19 of scenario 17. Only one plane lost, lowest pilot that every showed up on either side was in the high 40's.

You sure your upgrade was successful?

siRkid · Post by **siRkid** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 2:27 am

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
I ran through many turns of keeping planes on both sides grounded and letting units fill up.

Attached is turn 19 of scenario 17. Only one plane lost, lowest pilot that every showed up on either side was in the high 40's.

You sure your upgrade was successful?

Hmmmm

Joe Kemper · Post by **Joe Kemper** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 3:12 am

Thank you guys for your responses.

On my main game menu it shows version 2.30.

Mr Frag when I looked at your test I noticed the following experience levels:

VT2......44,41,30
VT5......35,33,31
VP9......41,41,37,36,36,32,27

I would guess some of the 40's probably came in as 30's.

I have also had similar results as you, the best being only a couple of pilots in the twenty's. The save I posted was probably a worst case scenario. Your Japanese replacements look ok, which I have also seen but I have also seen the 20-30 level replacements for the Japanese.

Joe

Mr.Frag · Post by **Mr.Frag** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 4:59 am

Hmm, I guess it really is dependant ... I did notice the TBD groups, but they are useless anyways. You start short 6 planes with a replacement rate of only 10.

VP-9 starts the game completely shot to crap so I wouldn't expect much from it. 3 pilots out of the squadron of 12 alive. I'm not sure what you expect to see for a decimated group like that. Same deal here, short 20 PBY pilots right of the bat. I'd expect some crappy pilots when trying to get almost 2 squadrons worth of pilots kicked loose.

The in-game training brought everyone of those pilots up to a skill of 50, without me doing anything except leaving them stood-down.

Funny how all three of them are slow filling squadrons of Navy pilots.

Guess the replacement rate on other Navy planes being much higher means they soak up all the good pilots, leaving the pool dry for the poor pilots.

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 7:08 am

Joe,

I looked at your save and it is definitely as you described. It is highly unusual.

My own attempts at recreating your situation using scen 17 from scratch is not producing results anything like yours.

I ran your save game through another turn after carefully noting down a few squadrons which should have been due for reinforcement pilots. I found that, on my PC, the new pilots turned up with an appropriate experience level (which was immeadiately obvious in comparison to the ones that had already arrived prior to your save of the game).

Please check the following :
Squadron EII-1 Daitai (A6M2) aboard the Zuikaku has 24 a/c (22 ready and 2 being repaired) and 23 pilots. A reinforcement pilot should arrive the following turn to your save to bring the pilot total up to 24. In your save, there are two pilots in the squadron with really low exp. They are V. Okano (35) and D. Morioka (20).

After I run the turn after your save, a reinforcement pilot arrives at EII-1. In my 2 attempts, I received one with 49 exp and then one with 50 exp on the second try. The squadron dunces (Okano and Morioka) had gone up slightly in exp but were still well below the new pilot.

Could you try the following :
Go back to your saved game and run another turn in Head to Head mode, but this time set the EII-1 Daitai to 0% training (ie, make the squadron stays on the ground so as to avoid losses).

Prior to running it, if you confirm that the squadron matches what I described (ie 24 planes, 23 pilots and that only the 2 pilots mentioned have the really low exp, the rest should be 70+), go ahead and end the Jap player phase and then end the allied phase.

After the combat phase has completed and then during the next Jap player phase, check the EII-1 Daitai squadron. It should now have 24 pilots.

Could you please post what the new pilot's experience is. If it's in the 20's or 30's and no major A6M2 losses occured that turn (ie no more than 1-2, I would say you may have a problem relating to the upgrade you just applied (understatement :p).

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 8:46 am

Posted by Joe Kemper

Mr Frag when I looked at your test I noticed the following experience levels:

VT2......44,41,30
VT5......35,33,31
VP9......41,41,37,36,36,32,27

Joe, regardless of whatever may be happening with your other pilot reinforcements, there does appear to be very low quality pilot replacements appearing for USN/USMC squadrons in May '42 scenarios. Either the pilot reinforcement rate has been set deliberately low for this period or something may be wrong with the USN/USMC replacement rates.

I am sending a save relating only to the USN/USMC pilot reinforcements to Kid to get his opinion. It may be a seperate issue and not related to your overall problem that you stated at the beginning.

Joe Kemper · Post by **Joe Kemper** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 9:15 am

Drongo

I went ahead and ran the test five times. Here is a list of the replacement pilots received by E-II-1:

Try 1.....Hagiri.........(53)
Try 2.....Kurakane...(43)
Try 3.....Ikeda.........(50)
Try 4.....Kawakubo..(51)
Try 5.....Matsuba.....(48)

These all look ok.

Thanks for checking this.

Joe

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 9:24 am

Joe,

Let's hope whatever caused the original problem with poor experience pilots for both sides was just a one off.

Cheers

Joe Kemper · Post by **Joe Kemper** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 9:31 am

Drongo

I appreciate you taking time to look at this. I have started another game and so far so good.

Thanks again.

Joe

Mr.Frag · Post by **Mr.Frag** » Sun Mar 09, 2003 9:58 am

Just to see a little farther into this one:

I took the stock scenario 17 and damaged all starting planes except 1 plane for each group, which results in all but the pre-assigned pilots vanishing.

This means that while the starting squadrons were full of planes, then had only 1 pilot.

As the squadrons repaired, they pulled pilots from the various pools. By turn 4, all the good pilots had been completely stripped from the pools and skill levels > 35 were showing up to fill the holes.

Obviously, the underskilled pilots SHOULD show up if one drains the pools. The question really becomes how big are these pools and what rates do replacements show up into them.

I guess the moral of the story here is don't loose pilots during May because the pools are not deep enough to keep up with simply filling the existing holes in the squadrons you start the game with.

You can see in the attached how the first 8 replacements were in great shape, then the well ran dry.

Subchaser · Post by **Subchaser** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 8:11 pm

Originally posted by Joe Kemper
Playing new scenario 17, v 2.3. Ran first week without any plane activity and checked replacement pilots. For both Japanese and allies first replacements at 20-30 experience level. Under 2.2 seems like the first replacements were 40-50? Am I remembering correctly?

I have the same problem, but in scen #19, IJN replacement pilots are coming with awfully low exp. level, some have exp. about 20-25, and it’s only may’42 now. I’ve never played #19 as IJN before and was pretty much surprised, unpleasantly. I can accept this in late 43’, but receiving ‘turkeys’ right from the start… if situation won’t get better I’ll be in trouble.

U2 · Post by U2 » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:11 pm

Originally posted by Subchaser
I have the same problem, but in scen #19, IJN replacement pilots are coming with awfully low exp. level, some have exp. about 20-25, and it’s only may’42 now. I’ve never played #19 as IJN before and was pretty much surprised, unpleasantly. I can accept this in late 43’, but receiving ‘turkeys’ right from the start… if situation won’t get better I’ll be in trouble.

Could you send me a save and telling me which SQs they are? That way I can also check the editor to see if the answer may be found there

dpalb02@student.vxu.se

Subchaser · Post by **Subchaser** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:55 pm

Originally posted by U2
Could you send me a save and telling me which SQs they are? That way I can also check the editor to see if the answer may be found there

dpalb02@student.vxu.se

Thanks for response Dan. I’ll send save file soon

Subchaser · Post by **Subchaser** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:56 pm

Can anyone tell me what exp.level is normal for japanese replacement pilots in #19?

Replacement pilot experience

Replacement pilot experience

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