R&D Aircraft Factory Questions

[Omnius]

rustysi,
Thanks for confirmation as it started to sound counterintuitive to turn off production to stop an R&D factory from automatically upgrading to a production factory.

Omnius

[Omnius]

Lokasenna,
Sorry but I'm just not interest in Tracker, or putting Java on my Windows partition. Way too much information and I can do a spreadsheet that only gives me pertinent info I'm interested in.

Omnius

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: Omnius

rustysi,
Thanks for confirmation as it started to sound counterintuitive to turn off production to stop an R&D factory from automatically upgrading to a production factory.

Omnius

Yep, sounds off, but that's how it works. Checked again last night, and comfirmed that my Zero R&D is progressing nicely. Production is off on the R&D page. BTW I seem to recall that if you leave prodution on and the factory goes to production you have a one day 'grace' period to switch it back. I wouldn't recommend that path though.

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

ORIGINAL: Omnius

rustysi,
Thanks for confirmation as it started to sound counterintuitive to turn off production to stop an R&D factory from automatically upgrading to a production factory.

Omnius

Yep, sounds off, but that's how it works. Checked again last night, and comfirmed that my Zero R&D is progressing nicely. Production is off on the R&D page. BTW I seem to recall that if you leave prodution on and the factory goes to production you have a one day 'grace' period to switch it back. I wouldn't recommend that path though.

Ok, back for a bit of crow, the above statement is not entirely correct. I had not tested this fully before, but had only read it. Now I generally do these things manually, but I had my Zero R&D ready to advance to the A6M3 and decided to see what the code would do. Here it is. In the industry screen looking at the R&D portion I had the 'upgd' and 'prod' columns set to 'no'. Well R&D reached 100% and the R&D factories went to prodution factories, but there weren't any A/C produced. So the production toggle on the R&D page will not prevent the R&D factory from changing to production. OTOH I was able to switch the factories back to R&D (and I play realistic R&D), proving the 'one day grace' period as stated above.

[Omnius]

rustysi,
Thanks so much for testing this out and telling me exactly how it works. I had thought that the Production column was for production only, not for upgrading. Thanks for giving me the correct answer after an initial incorrect assumption. It's good to know that the R&D factory can be switched back within a one day grace period.
Omnius

[Malagant]

I finished my spreadsheet and included a column for upgrade paths so I know which planes upgrade to which. I went into the editor to gain that info.

This is what's making R&D such a challenge for me. The mechanics of what the factories do are relatively simple (since all of you folks have done the experimentation to figure it out, anyway! Thx! [:)] )...but the upgrade path info should be easily accessible from in the game so players can make relatively educated choices.

I'm finding myself spending countless hours at work in Tracker trying to figure out not only upgrade paths but performance information on the planes.

Which is my way of saying thanks to you guys for posting awesome info like this so newbs like me can try to keep up!

[rustysi]

Ok, ran a few days to see how this works out. From the industry management screen the setup is such. There are six A6M3 R&D factories, the upgd and prod columns are set to 'no'. All A6M3's are purple and at 100% to begin production(yes I know advancement is based on a die roll and it can be here a bit). This is what I did.

31May42: Six factories, FOUR at 30(0), one 29(1), one 24(6). Set the four completed factories to the A6M3a a few days ago as the A6M3 was at 100%. These went to
went to four 30(0) factories and A6M3a advancement was at 12% at this time. I left the other two to complete repairs since I figured they would repair
about one point a day at 100%. Additionally I was thinking with prod off I they would remain R&D.

01Jun42: A6M3a research went to 16% (expected). A6M3 went to production (unexpected), but remained purple. Saved and checked to see if I could move them
back to R&D. As expected they went back. Restarted save to have them back as purple production factories.

02Jun42: A6M3a to 20% (expected). A6M3 still purple and able to switch back to R&D (unexpected). So you kinda have two turns to switch them back. No A6M3
were produced (expected). After all production was set to no.

03Jun42: A6M3a to 24% as expected. A6M3 at this point went to yellow and could not be moved back to R&D. This was expected, its just that I expected it on
the 2nd.

I then turned A6M3 production on and of course I started getting A/C produced. So on the R&D 'page' of the industry management screen it appears to me that the 'prod' toggle has no affect on what happens. Just saying.[:)]

[Omnius]

rustysi,
A good test. I was a little surprised that the production toggle had no effect on R&D aircraft factories. I guess once they're working there's no reason to turn them off since they consume no supplies or resources. I'll make sure to pay attention to purple factories.
Omnius

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

I can see how that could be interpreted as never do anything but once a month. But that is not what I meant.

Of course you tweak things as events in production occur. Especially when R&D factories turn Blue. Which means they will switch to Production if you do not take action.

What I do only once a month is

1. Review engine need versus production and adjust by increasing factories by 10 to 20 or turning off factories. I could adjust more depending on need but try to keep adjustments so they will be completed within a 30 day window.
2. Review AC pools and adjust production as needed, increase/turn off.
3. Track both pools on a monthly basis to see trends so adjustments can be made slowly over time versus 'Oh crap I'm out of X' reactions [:)]

Of course the only thing that all this production stuff does is determine when, not if, you will lose [:(] So any JFB thinking that all of this will make any difference against a competent AFB will be sadly mistaken. As long as you go into playing Japan with this mindset, the production 'game' can be a lot of fun. But its impact on the final outcome is pretty small.

Japan always loses the war - but does it lose the game? That's why there are victory conditions!

Sorry if it seemed like I was jumping on you. That wasn't my intent.

I review aircraft/engine pools far more often, but I also use daily historical data from Tracker to inform my decisions.

Japan can pretty much always get an AV in '43 (in stock anyway) so if you want to count that as a 'win' in the game, then it is [:)]

But for me I really do not consider VPs a way to consider winning. Nor do I consider lasting past August '45 a 'win' either. Unless I have managed to keep the HI out of B29 range [:)]

Japan was doomed from the moment PH was attacked. So far I have always played Japan in the game, both against the AI and PBEM. In PBEM, I accept that I will lose both the war and the game. For me the 'fun' gcomes from both seeing the path the Allies take to victory and how massively bad it can get in '44/'45 for Japan [:(]

So since there was no way for Japan to 'win' in RL, I do not consider that Japan can win in the game either. But that is just me [:)]

[bigred]

I also think it underdeveloped LI factories, it had way too many resources left as did the Allied one. I also doubt the Japanese AI built up HI factories.

IIRC it cost 100 supply points to increase LI 1 point. 20 LI produce 1 supply point. Soppose u buy 20 LI at a cost of 2000 supply. This would give you one extra supply point per day. So 2000/365days is 5.4 years to get to break even. Not sure I recall my data, been 3 years since I played Japan.

[Malagant]

Are you sure on that Big Red? I thought 1 LI produced 1 Supply, but consumed 15 resources doing it.

From manual:

One light industry center requires the input of fifteen resource points, and generates one
supply point, per day.

It's interesting to me to read here folks discussing increasing LI, while in other threads/AARs I read folks turning off Repair of captured LI so as not to waste resources needed for HI.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: bigred

I also think it underdeveloped LI factories, it had way too many resources left as did the Allied one. I also doubt the Japanese AI built up HI factories.

IIRC it cost 100 supply points to increase LI 1 point. 20 LI produce 1 supply point. Soppose u buy 20 LI at a cost of 2000 supply. This would give you one extra supply point per day. So 2000/365days is 5.4 years to get to break even. Not sure I recall my data, been 3 years since I played Japan.

It costs 1100 Supply to increase LI 1 point. Each point of LI produces 1 point of supply. So it takes 1100 days to break even.

You may not need to break even to make it a worthy investment, but you definitely need to do it sooner rather than later, and you certainly can't do a lot of it everywhere. That said, I would do more of it if I were playing Japan again. Particularly in China.

HI, since it produces 2 points per factory, only takes 550 days to break even... but it has the additional input of Fuel, so you'll burn that up faster. There are reasons why you might want to do a little bit of that though.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Malagant

Are you sure on that Big Red? I thought 1 LI produced 1 Supply, but consumed 15 resources doing it.

From manual:

One light industry center requires the input of fifteen resource points, and generates one
supply point, per day.

It's interesting to me to read here folks discussing increasing LI, while in other threads/AARs I read folks turning off Repair of captured LI so as not to waste resources needed for HI.

The reason people don't repair LI is because of the 1000 days (the 1100 comes from the 1000 to repair + 100 to expand) to get that supply back. You'll have more Resources than you know what to do with. The concern on HI inputs is Fuel.

[bigred]

HI, since it produces 2 points per factory, only takes 550 days to break even... but it has the additional input of Fuel, so you'll burn that up faster. There are reasons why you might want to do a little bit of that though.

Singapore comes to mind as one place where you might increase HI because of the proximity to fuel supply.