To the Dark Side (Economic and Research Help Req'd)

[fcharton]

ORIGINAL: AcePylut
Question: If I decide to not produce a certain - lets say the Jack fighter, or it's engine (whatever it is)....
And a squadron of Jacks are set to arrive... but I have no Jacks or their engines in the pool... will that squadron arrive with a full compliment of Jacks, or does it arrive with "0" planes?

Almost all of your squadrons will arrive with planes, sometimes a full complement, sometimes less. You need the pools for replacements and upgrades, though.

[PaxMondo]

Francois,

Nice to see you!

[AcePylut]

Imma gonna pull a daird here… I fiddled with some of my first turn settings for my warp speed task forces… LOL… and somehow, someway, none of my Kates decided to attack PH. On top of that, my forces pre-set to invade Malaysia? Well, they didn’t. The 90 or so Netties at Siagon did create two new coral reefs, appropriately titled “the Prince of Whales Reef” and the “Repulse Reef”, I"m guessing 90 was a bit of overkill.

Don’t need help with this, I know what I did, just thought it was kind of funny when I was watching the PH strike and all I managed to do was plant a few 250kg bombs on the US battlewagons, and then the “hey, wait, what about my invasion force at Malaysia? confusion”

Outside of increasing a few vehicle factories, shutting off some arms factories, and twinking the Nav and Merc shipyards, I haven’t done much with the economy. I haven’t made any changes to R&D yet. I figure I’ll let the game roll for a month and make slow changes, and see if, in the myriad of data and confusion of the economy, I can start to make sense of it. It’s against the AI after all so it’s not like I have to worry about anything.

[AcePylut]

Ok, so studying the Japanese aircraft fighters.... I figure I don't need to bring forward any of the aircraft that arrive in '42.

For the 1943 aircraft, I figure on trying to advance the N1K1-J George (regular avail date of 07/43), The Ki-61-Ic Tony (09/43), the Ki-44-IIb Tojo (07/43). I'm not sure that there's an advantage to bringing forward any of the '43 IJN CV capable aircraft, which leaves me with the A6M5 to carry the bulk of fighting until '44 (unless I bring forward a '44 plane into '43 - which I"m likely to do, but haven't gotten that far yet).

As a swag, I'll need to produce 100-200 of each planes per month depending on use and abuse (400-800 fighters per month). Is that too much strain on my factories or not enough?

Any input on the aircraft I want to bring forward? Am I wasting my time with the Tojo?

[fcharton]

ORIGINAL: AcePylut
Ok, so studying the Japanese aircraft fighters.... I figure I don't need to bring forward any of the aircraft that arrive in '42.

You don't, but if the plane you want to accelerate is at the end of an upgrade path, you should begin with the earliest R&D in the line. For instance, if you want to accelerate the Tojo IIb, start researching the IIa instead.

Why? Because of factory repair times. Before you can research anything you need to repair the factories, and the earlier the model, the faster they do. Once repaired, you can upgrade them without damage to the next model.

In other words, if you want the Tojo IIb, begin the game by ordering 30 factories (or any multiple thereof) to research the IIa. They will repair much faster than if you ordered them on the IIb, and once they are repaired, you can upgrade them to the IIb, and get more advance. You cannot do this for the George, which is at the beginning of a line, but for the Tojo, Oscar, Tony and Zero (note the Rufe upgrade path...) this is the way to go.

Francois

[AcePylut]

That's good to know! I'm studying the fighters and the engines - and trying to plan out aircraft upgrades for most planes that use the same engine. Yes there will be a few odd, one-off, engine factories here and there, but for the most part, I'm trying to use as few engine types as possible.