Updated 30/07/2022: Bottlenecks in the Pacific v1.3b

[dennishe]

I really like the idea of this mod. Excellent work. I have been staring at WITPtracker for quite a while. The empire is short on 4600 resource centers (this is 300 for regular DBB-C) and since one cannot switch off the light industry this is a major problem. One would have to reduce the HI production to 33% to break even. I can't find 4600 resource centers on the map for the Japanese to take (DEI, Malaya, Burma, Philipines). Can you give me a few suggestions how this mod should be played as a Japanese player? At this point I don't see how one can keep the economy from crashing within just a few weeks.

[dennishe]

added a picture

[LargeSlowTarget]

Well, that's why it is called 1.1Beta, and that's why I have warned in the mod notes that I may have messed up things since my approach was pretty much "seat of the pants". Seems that my intuition was off a bit, so I have made corrections for the release version.

Here is a recap of the current state of things in the v1.1. release candidate:


Bottlenecks Economics Theory

The economy in stock and DBB scenarios have two shortcomings:

1. Japan can afford to keep a lot of merchant ships idle in port without suffering a deficit in resource imports.

2. Allied supply production is fixed, they produce the same amount of supplies each day between Dec 7th 1941 and the surrender, instead of starting on a shoestring and having production rise over time.

My tinkering with the economy tries to rectify this. After feed back from forumites, I have tweaked the economy a bit more.

1. I have increased the resource generation per resource center and increased the resource requirements of heavy and light industries by 5 points each, and 2 points for oil. This means more resource/oil input is required per HI/supply/fuel point generated. The amount of resources and oil/fuel that must be moved to feed the industries is higher, therefore increasing shipping requirements.

Note that resource requirements for LI actually dropped from 25 to 20 from the first bottlenecks version, since originally the required input for LI was 15 and I had added 10 instead of 5 points by accident.


2. Note that neither refineries nor heavy industry generates supplies, only light industry does.

For me, heavy industry is primarily the conversion of metal ores into basic metal products like armor plate, sheet steel, wire etc. which is then used in the manufacturing industries - shipbuilding, aircraft/armament/vehicle factories and light industries to produce weapons, tanks and trucks etc. Light industries also use resources to produce ammo, uniforms, gear and food i.e. supplies in the game sense.

The oddity is that airplanes use supplies created exclusively by light industries - before they used supplies generated at least in part by refineries. In an ideal game, there would be avgas, but we have to make to with what we have. Anyway, I deemed it even more odd that that in stock/DBB ground units can "eat" supplies generated by refineries or heavy industries. Planes flying on supplies or LCU eating mineral oil products - I had to make a choice. My decision should it make less desirable to establish a "fortress Palembang" type of defense with the garrison being supplied with food and ammo produced by a refinery.

In order to compensate for the loss of supply generation by HI and refineries, the supply generation of LI has been doubled and the number of LI centers has been adjusted, so that at game start, the same amount of supplies is being produced for Japan than in the base DBB scenario. For the USA, see 5. below.


3. I have removed most of the heavy industries in the SRA and modified the light industries quantities. Apparently there was little if any conversion of metal ores into metal products in the SRA.

Concerning the DEI: "In 1941, the Dutch East Indies produced large quantities of coffee, tea (20% of the world's supply), cacao, coconut (25% of the world's supply), sugar, pepper, tobacco, rubber (35% of the world's supply), quinine (most of the world's supply), and oil (significant portion of the world's supply). The islands were the Netherland's main source of raw materials; very little industry was developed in the Dutch East Indies." Source: https://ww2db.com/country/dutch%20east%20indies

Same for Malaysia: "Malaysia had very few secondary industries before World War II. The little that did appear was connected mainly with the processing of the primary exports, rubber and tin, together with limited production of manufactured goods for the domestic market (e.g. bread, biscuits, beverages, cigarettes and various building materials). " Source: https://eh.net/encyclopedia/economic-hi ... -malaysia/


4. Japan is resource-poor and had to import much of the resources and food needed. In the game, the ratio of "home-grown" resources and imports seems to be slanted too much towards "home-grown", so I have moved a sizeable number of resource centers from the home islands to Korea/Manchukuo/SRA. As a consequence, the daily resource deficit of 38k at the start is now considerably higher than in DBB, and Japan must conquer 1534 resource centers in the SRA and ship those resources to Japan to pull even. There are 3600+ resource centers in the historic SRA for the taking, so this should be doable. The resource stockpiles Japan controls at game start have been increased to 10m, which will cover the 38k resource deficit for about 267 days. Within this time, you must get the SRA resource flow running.

Note that in DBB, the resource stockpiles did cover a daily resource deficit of only 5800 for a whopping 1250 days, thus not requiring imports from the SRA for most of the war, no industry expansion provided. I don't believe Japan was self-sufficient in resources to that point.


5. For the Allies, many factories etc. start damaged and must be repaired. This reflects the fact that production levels esp. in the USA at start of the Pacific War were just picking up from post-depression peace-time levels.

Forumite feedback suggest that the five major CONUS ports go and do stay "in red" supply-wise for weeks, making it difficult to ship supplies to the PTO for months.

Therefore, I have revisited the factories and daily supplies in CONUS. In the US+Canada, LI supply production start at only 4556 points, but once fully repaired, LI centers will yield 57k supplies per day. On day 1, all industries and resource centers needing repairs in the USA and Canada do require 122186 supplies daily. Daily supplies at 53k and LI production at only 4556 at start obviously will not allow to repair everything at once. The key is a selective repair of assets. LI, HI and resource centers should be priority. It is highly recommended to delay repairs of repair shipyards, oil centers and refineries until the LI and resource centers have recovered - they require 5k (repair yard) resp. 2k (oil facilities) supplies per point repaired for a total of 71k supplies per day. Expanding oil facilities and shipyard facilities is heavy construction work and requires time, the delay will lead to more realistic delivery schedules.


Picture: Current state of Japan at start - HI, fuel and supply generation are at or very close to DBB base scenario levels.



Edit: As you can see, in my mod Japan will start with less oil centers in operation than in DBB, but has damaged oil centers. The damaged oil centers represent the coal liquefaction which Japan increased during the war.

[dennishe]

Thanks for your very elaborate response. I think your new numbers are spot on. I'm looking forward to the release of v1.1.

[Yaab]

LargeSlowTarget, I am not sure if I am voicing a general sentiment, but every time I click on a HQ unit and view its TOE, I am dumbfounded by "Brass/Staff/REMFs" device. The informal name breaks immersion for me. Can't you just name this device Staff?

[btd64]

LST, Is there more art somewhere. I dl'd and the Allied art has just one ship in the file....GP

[LargeSlowTarget]

For those who want to take a look and help with playtesting: Bottlenecks v1.1 "Release candidate" [incremental update, requires v1.0]

- economy revamped - see post further up
- fixes a pwhexdat issue west of Shanghai
- fixes various glitches with ship upgrade paths and LCU TOEs
- adds a few new ships
- some changes to base sizes, for example in the Aleutians west of Dutch Harbor.
- more stuff I may remember later

I think your new numbers are spot on.

Time will tell. As observed above, a mod is never really finished. Please provide feedback [:)]

Can't you just name this device Staff?

Feel free to change the name of device 808 to whatever you want before starting a new Bottlenecks game.

LST, Is there more art somewhere. I dl'd and the Allied art has just one ship in the file....GP

v1.1. Beta / RC is an incremental update, you need to install v1.0 first and then "patch" to v1.1 Beta / RC.

The "official" v.1.1. will be a full version.

[Anomander Rake]

Some impresion after 2 months of play (game time).
You should remmember that we (I and Dave) are playing a modified version of game, so Japan not run out of resources but is big problem to delivered them.
1. I have first resource crissis. Maybe LST changed somethig or I have to bring more resources, so transfer from Kiushiu to Honsiu is very limited. So, I have closse to 1 mln resources in Japan but shortages in Tokyo.
I must change my conwoy routes. Anyway it will be hard to deliver everything what Empire wants.
2. China situation could be a little harder for Japan. Maybe several Central Corps should be better trained and more completed. It is possible that Dave felt too confident seeing the initial chaos. And when he sorts out his positions, the situation will stabilize a bit.
3. On other fronts is not so easy so the reason for China's weakness is the quality of their army, and also mobility of Japanese troops.
4. Sonias even with 50 kg bombs are very usefull in new configuration. I think that will be more problem with Lilys dive bombers version with 2x100 kg bombs only (really?).
5. Engineering forces are missing, but that's what I expected.
6. A lot of dot-bases may be the reason for easier supply of units on such a front.
7. There is too little fuel in Europe. Perhaps sending ships there does not make any sense at all (replacing fuel and resources for supplies), but there are so few fuels that there is no way to get back from there.

[Lowpe]

Got tracker up and running....

Some more observations: Tabby available at game start really improving air lift for Japan.

Industry inputs/output comparison:

[Anomander Rake]

I found error in database. This is effect of repairing an error with an invisible Kate model.
Now Kate 2 upgreade to non-existent 693 aircraft (or similiar number). In effect I lost my Kate2 factory. It is possible that I can fix it but we will be know it after next turn.
Fuel problem is probably unsolvable. I play version with Refinery fuel output = 9 and this is to little due to very increased shipping.
Is it posible to change refinery output in being game?
Sonias are still not efective in terrain different than clear and armour isn't help when enemy have AA guns.

[LargeSlowTarget]

I found error in database. This is effect of repairing an error with an invisible Kate model.
Now Kate 2 upgreade to non-existent 693 aircraft (or similiar number). In effect I lost my Kate2 factory. It is possible that I can fix it but we will be know it after next turn.

Indeed, aircraft slot 628 does upgrade to slot 629 which is empty, it should update to itself.

That's what I meant when I wrote in my mod notes "fixed database glitches and added new ones"...[;)]

Thank you for the hint.


On this occasion a warning to modders:

The editor makes it easy to create errors.

In the drop-down menus used for certain data (like the aircraft upgrade path), you can select from the drop-down list the slot with the value you want to assign.

After having selected the value, the drop-down menu closes and the data field shows the selected value - so far so good.

However, the selected value can be changed with the scrolling wheel, it actually scrolls through the list of the drop-down menu without opening the menu.

This can happen easily happen by accident when moving the mouse from the menu to another place, leading to unintended changes of the value.

[btd64]

Absolutely 100% true. Click in the open spaces to exit the field....GP

[Pascal_slith]

Hi LST,

haven't been on in a very long time. Glad to see you're here and that you've got this very, very interesting scenario built. I've always been somewhat of a Pacific War logistics nerd, so this will get my full attention!

[Pascal_slith]

An added note: the new files for Andrew Brown's extended map are now in a new version. You are using the old version, no? The color scheme is different in the new version. I guess which one you use depends on your tastes.

[btd64]

Which map version? I have one from 2016....GP

[LargeSlowTarget]

An added note: the new files for Andrew Brown's extended map are now in a new version. You are using the old version, no?

I'm using v2 of MakeeLearn's excellent "Bellum Pacifica" map mod.

There is a v3 which renders the railway and roads more visible.

This version was published after I had finished modifiying the v2 version, and I did not want to re-do everything.

[DOCUP]

I remember you saying that the civilians in your game should be evacuated. I was doing some research and read a few articles that made me think of your mod. Have you thought of adding pre war civilian airlines. Like Pan Am, KNILM, Quantus and others. I have read that these and others helped evacuate civilians and move troops/supplies around early in the war.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Hi DOCUP, I do have added some civilian planes in China and in New Guinea. There are also the Quantas "Empire" flying boats which are part of original DBB. I know that some of the PanAm Pacific clippers were pressed into service as well as some Dutch flying boats, but I do not have enough data / artwork to include them in the mod.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Update on the work in progress:

I have published two "tentative" versions of Bottlenecks v1.1 in this thread, hoping to finalise the "official" v1.1 soon.

However, I am still busy verifying and correcting arrival dates of ships and hunting for missing withdrawal dates - see fb.asp?m=4384356

I have started with US ships, but have discovered that the British ships also have many fantasy dates in both stock and DBB.

For US ships I'm relying a lot of the well-known DANFS. A good source I have found for the Brits is http://www.bandcstaffregister.com

For example two ships that never leave the PTO in the game although they left IRL - the Rohna was sunk in the Med in Nov 1943 with heavy loss of life, the Lancashire was Commodore ship for Juno Beach on D-Day.

Or Durban Castle which enters on map in the game in 1943, although in reality she was in the Med.

Here is the one of Durban Castle with "Wartime Movements Records" which proves the stock and DBB scenarios have it wrong: http://www.bandcstaffregister.com/page186.html

Also interesting is the listing of "periods under repair" which shows that she was docked for "voyage repairs" six to 10 weeks per year. Looks like the game has nerfed sys and engine damage from cruising around too much. Old timers will know that the original WitP had a much higher rate of accumulating sys damage, until player protests led to a patch with the damage rates we have now. Looks like the original values have been more realistic, and the nerfing helps to explain the overabundance of shipping available in the game - our virtual ships don't spend as much time in the yards as their real-life counterparts.

In short - I'm not done yet and it will still take a lot of time to finish.

Therefore, I will release in a few days the "official" v1.1 version with all the corrections and tweaks done so far.

I will update this version later when work on the arrival and withdrawal dates is finished or I just have enough of the digging.

[traskott]

Good work!! Keep on!!!