B-Mod Update

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Wineguy

Hi Brian, it looks like scenario 197 was just updated yesterday. I am just in the process of starting a game with an opponent who is in the middle of Japan turn1. Is there anything critical in the update?

Thanks, Steve.

It was not critical, I just reassigned a starting HQ to two divisions that arrive in UK.

[spence]

I'm presently involved in a PBEM (Beta version 1.8.1126b of DBB Lite). I have some questions.

1) If I install the various ship/plane files in the Art sub-folders do the do the new files supplant the old ship/plane files in that PBEM or only in scenarios 197/198/199?


2) If those new ship/plane files do supplant the old ones in the PBEM what happens if my opponent doesn't have those same files?

3) The game is playable agsinst AI?

[Big B]

Hi Spence,
Art only changes what you see (or don't see at all) for the ships and aircraft on your pc - your opponent is not affected.

If you install art from B-Mod, in the various art folders, they will replace the existing stock art where there is a conflict or duplicate.
B-Mod Art files are fully compatible with stock, ...but I don't know for certain if DaBabes has some conflicts with any new boats/ships they may have added - conflict with B-Mod additional art added that is.
But both DaBabes and B-Mod art are compatible with all stock scenarios.

B-Mod is fully playable vs AI.

I hope that answers your questions...?

ORIGINAL: spence

I'm presently involved in a PBEM (Beta version 1.8.1126b of DBB Lite). I have some questions.

1) If I install the various ship/plane files in the Art sub-folders do the do the new files supplant the old ship/plane files in that PBEM or only in scenarios 197/198/199?


2) If those new ship/plane files do supplant the old ones in the PBEM what happens if my opponent doesn't have those same files?

3) The game is playable agsinst AI?

[spence]

Thanks for the rapid response.

OK, here goes.

[spence]

It seems some of the ships in DaBabes (lite) don't exist in the B-mod (being an old Coastie I noticed the 165 ft USCG cutters missing right off).

So if I like the AAA and ASW from the DaBabes Mod then I have to forgo the increased Mk XIV torpedo effectiveness of the B-mod and vice versa?

[Big B]

Hi Spence,
Well, unless you're really familiar using the Editor to pick and choose from one scenario to the other, and graft on changes...it does come down to pick one OR the other unfortunately.

...maybe I should do a straight up DaBabe's/B-Mod conversion...? It would take quite a while, but I have often thought of doing that.

B

ORIGINAL: spence

It seems some of the ships in DaBabes (lite) don't exist in the B-mod (being an old Coastie I noticed the 165 ft USCG cutters missing right off).

So if I like the AAA and ASW from the DaBabes Mod then I have to forgo the increased Mk XIV torpedo effectiveness of the B-mod and vice versa?

[spence]

I can wait for your DaBabes update or maybe for DaBabes to update to your Mod. Thanks for attending to my question anyways.

[Falken]

Hi Brian,

Just wanted to let you know that Wineguy and I have started a B-Mod PBEM campaign since Dec, and we are having a blast. Everything is going well, and haven't hit any issues. We are currently days away from Feb 1942.

But boy oh boy, it is different than other mods.

First, China, well done. Hard as heck to get anything going there, which was the whole point , Definitely not an easy thing to conquer, and my opponent is making it very hard to gain any ground. Because of the garrisson requirements, even if you manage to get something, you lose the whole unit/part of the unit as you need to garrison the thing. Again.. as expected, and as per code, but big difference to other mods.

Second, is A/C lost. Yes, we are losing planes, but have to admit, much less than I ever did in DBB-C. Could be the way that we are playing the game, but both of us (Wineguy/I) have not been afraid of confrontation.

I think I might be able to provide more info later on as we are approaching Feb '42, and Wineguy's forces should start getting stronger soon, as we approach May '42.

Anyway, nothing for you to do, or reply to, just wanted to let you know that things are going really well, and all the conversion to the "stock" map seems to have gone well, and haven't had any issues with replacements, reinforcements, schedules, and other stuff.

Seems to be really clean.

[Falken]

Hey Big B, can you do me a favor, and check out the last few posts in the Bottlenecks thread. I'm asking about the L2D2 entry date into the war. In Bottlenecks, it's 12/41 but in our BMOD game, it's 1944. I think, but cannot confirm, that it's also 1944 in DBB.

LST has really provided good stats on his reasoning, and seems to make absolute sense, but i'm not a war expert. I don't want the date changed for my current PBEM, but it might be something you want to check for any future updates to your MOD.

Thanks
Dave...

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Falken

Hey Big B, can you do me a favor, and check out the last few posts in the Bottlenecks thread. I'm asking about the L2D2 entry date into the war. In Bottlenecks, it's 12/41 but in our BMOD game, it's 1944. I think, but cannot confirm, that it's also 1944 in DBB.

LST has really provided good stats on his reasoning, and seems to make absolute sense, but i'm not a war expert. I don't want the date changed for my current PBEM, but it might be something you want to check for any future updates to your MOD.

Thanks
Dave...

Hi, for the record, I have the L2D2 Tabby arriving in Jan 1944 - because that's what Stock listed. Not being particularly interested in the L2D2 - I never researched it.
However, because of your request, I went back to the original Air Team documents, and sure enough, the L2D2 Tabby is noted as beginning production in Sep 1939. I crossed referenced this with other sources and got the same answer.

So, a starting date of 12/41 is quite accurate. [;)]

And I will update B-Mod to match

Brian

[Trugrit]

Thanks again.

I still regard this as the best historical player modification available for this game.

K

[Alfred]

Timtom was quite clear on the AE criteria for the starting availability date of aircraft models.  It was not based on the date the model first came off the factory line.  Instead it was determined on the date the first air unit equipped with that model became operational in the theatre.
 
Alfred 

[Anachro]

Which makes sense to me for a PDU-off game, but not so much for a PDU-on game. Then again, there might have been reasons for the delay between operational use and production. It seems they were used in the Philippines and China, though I'm not sure at what point in the war.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Timtom was quite clear on the AE criteria for the starting availability date of aircraft models.  It was not based on the date the model first came off the factory line.  Instead it was determined on the date the first air unit equipped with that model became operational in the theatre.

Alfred 

Raises the question what the Japanese did do with the Tabbies produced in 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943 if the first unit equipped with that model really became operational only in January 1944.

From what I have found, the first few Tabbies have been operated by the civilian airline Dai Nippon Koku or Imperial Japanese Airways. Before the war the airline was 50% government-owned, shortly after Pearl Harbor it became 100% government-owned and began operating exclusively for the Army and the Navy as "Dai Nippon Koku Choyo Yusoki Tai" or "Imperial Japanese Airways Commandeered Transport Unit".

I also found crash reports for "Douglas DC-3 (Nakajima L2D)" aircraft in March 1942, October 1942 and August 1943, plus others from January 1944 onwards: https://aviation-safety.net/database/op ... ?var=10415

So it appears that Tabbies have been used well before January 1944.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Timtom was quite clear on the AE criteria for the starting availability date of aircraft models.  It was not based on the date the model first came off the factory line.  Instead it was determined on the date the first air unit equipped with that model became operational in the theatre.

Alfred 

Raises the question what the Japanese did do with the Tabbies produced in 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943 if the first unit equipped with that model really became operational only in January 1944.

From what I have found, the first few Tabbies have been operated by the civilian airline Dai Nippon Koku or Imperial Japanese Airways. Before the war the airline was 50% government-owned, shortly after Pearl Harbor it became 100% government-owned and began operating exclusively for the Army and the Navy as "Dai Nippon Koku Choyo Yusoki Tai" or "Imperial Japanese Airways Commandeered Transport Unit".

I also found crash reports for "Douglas DC-3 (Nakajima L2D)" aircraft in March 1942, October 1942 and August 1943, plus others from January 1944 onwards: https://aviation-safety.net/database/op ... ?var=10415

So it appears that Tabbies have been used well before January 1944.

I don't know when the first air unit equipped with the Tabby entered operational service so I can't comment on whether Timtom made a mistake.

In the absence of Timtom from the forum all these years to explain his decision I will point out that in scenario 1 the unit you refer to appears to not exist in the OOB. That it had been a civilian airline might have been a relevant consideration for him and in the absence of any known to him military unit equipped with the Tabby operating before 1944, that would explain the introduction date of the model as it would be consistent with his criteria.

Players can always invest in R&D to get the Tabby before 1944. There is nothing written in stone that says only 1945 fighters can be advanced via R&D.

Alfred


Edit:

Have tracked down a 2009 explanation from Timtom regarding the Tabby:

tm.asp?m=2052368&mpage=1&key=tabby?

Post #21 is the relevant one.

Note how Timtom confirmed the introduction criterion I listed. Also note how, as usual, he had not overlooked during game development issues which players accused him of getting wrong. As always the AE devs were far advanced of the players and had to take into account many legacy engine/design limitations. To have the Tabby before 1944 would require having the much greater US transport capacity which is not in the OOB, incorporated into the official scenarios.

As always people who advocate "fixing" a part of AE don't see the forest for the trees. Player produced mods or use of the editor, can "fix" things but such unbalanced "fixes" are not appropriate for official scenarios.



Edit #2:

Another relevant post from Timtom. Look for post #11 in this thread:

tm.asp?m=2030910&mpage=1&key=tabby&#2031096

Every time Timtom has commented there doesn't appear to be anyone providing solid evidence of a unit, using his stated criteria, which was overlooked.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Thanks Alfred for your research, but I have never accused anyone of having made mistakes and never asked for corrections in official scenarios, so your "rebukes" concerning people who advocate fixing not seeing the forest etc. must be meant for someone else?

I understand the reasoning regarding the absence of utility planes, communications aircraft etc. in the OOB of official scenarios.

However, the change of the availability date concerns my personal mod. I don't feel bound by the "operational units" criteria used in official scenarios. My mod adds a few small "civilian" transport units to the Allies which can be (and historically were) impressed into military service. So I feel less guilty about advancing the Tabby for the Japanese. After all, the impact is minimal - the IJFN start with a whopping two transport units and gets a third one in mid-43 before the operational Tabby-equipped units arrive in 1944. That's two 27-plane Tina units and a six-plane Mavis-L that may be converted to Tabbies earlier than in the official scenarios - and the Tina and the Mavis-L have their merits in range resp. not needing airbases. So in the end I may end-up with one Tina unit converting to Tabby earlier than "allowed" - don't think this will unbalance the game, no?

[Big B]

Whenever I get to finish a campaign game I update with any new discoveries made during play.
I recently finished a CG early, and put updates in as usual.

Update completed as of 3/23/2019
Changes made:
1) Put L2D2 Tabby into limited production Dec 1941;
2) Added missing Coast Guard cutters (added from DBB Database);
3) Minor DB fixes to a few Chinese units upgrade path;
4) Identified and fixed the problem with the Ohka series flying bombs being unavailable (problem inherited from stock).



A note on the L2D2 Tabby, a ridiculous controversy arose on this thread over making the Tabby available before 1944, since the aircraft was already in production and use by the Japanese military before 12/41.
Note that the L2D2 Tabby is a real aircraft that the Japanese military actually produced and used...not a drawing board prototype fantasy aircraft that the game allows you to magically rush into the war 18 months early...
That was the most childish non-troversy I have ever read here.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Big B
... since the aircraft was already in production and use by the Japanese military before 12/41.
Note that the L2D2 Tabby is a real aircraft that the Japanese military actually produced and used...not a drawing board prototype fantasy aircraft that the game allows you to magically rush into the war 18 months early...
That was the most childish non-troversy I have ever read here.

My research agrees with you … and like you, I was rather dumb-founded by the "non-troversy" as well.

[;)]

[Falken]

HI BigB

Thanks for the update. I actually felt kinda bad about mentioning the L2D2 after all was said. It started a conversation that i didn't expect. My only goal was to highlight a possible need for a change/update. It seemed odd to me and my only intent was to figure out if we should fix it, not that we had to.

Thanks again.

[Anachro]

I'm not sure what everyone here is angry about or what the non-troversy is, but Alfred and Timtom raise a good point regarding the design of the game as a whole. As Alfred mentions, Timtom states that there are balance issues with adding in additional transport units such as the early L2D2. I don't think they overlooked the problem so much as made a game design decision on it; it isn't as simple as adding in a plane because it was produced in a specific period. The relevant text from the posts Alfred referenced:

We've gone back and forth on whether to explicitly include some of the command transports more than a few times. As the Air Team OOB-wallah, my main concern is that doing would be opening the lid on a industrial-sized can o' worms not least considering the number of Allied transports found in echelon or similar - fx the entire US Air Transport Command in the Pacific is omitted and the argument for doing so is probably weaker than that for the IJN transports.

So the real question for me, I guess, is that if you are going to come down on one side of the issue that the developer team struggled with (i.e. whether to explicitly include some of the command transports), how will you compensate for what they saw as the repercussions of doing so? As timtom states, doing such would probably further require fixing the Allied transport OOB, which he believes is an "industrial-sized can o' worms" with the number of Allied transports/capabilities also omitted from the in-game OOB. So my question for BigB and LST is if they considered this in deciding to introduce these planes.