Are there negative effects to less than 100% TOE Max settings?

[56ajax]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: Saulust

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

Another one to add to the list - if you set the max ToE for an air base to 50%, it will only get 50% of the fuel it would have got during logistics compared to 100%. So if you put a bomber on an airbase with 50% max ToE, you will be disappointed at the levels of fuel the airbase will have next turn.

Yeah I didn't think it was a good idea to lower Max TOE% setting levels on Airbases tbh.

I am mainly asking about HQs and SUs is it a good idea for them?

So say setting HQs to 90% so that most replacement go straight into your combat units for example, what about at 85% or 75%, are there levels that impact too negatively their supply draw, or pass down or reduce CO skill points?

Well I think it may be worthwhile on German recon bases say, and especially ones that withdraw like 11th army recon base.

On map units that withdraw need to be above 75% to withdraw - but you can try to get closer to that than 100%

There used to be a tip of choking your HQ ToEs to 93% say, as they were equally effective at 91% or 100% - but that was removed by a patch (I think by Morvael). So now any reduction in ToE on an HQ will reduce the effectiveness of the HQ. Whether it is better to have the manpower in the HQs making their units better, or just having the manpower in the units is a difficult choice. But the consensus from others is there is no point trying to reduce manpower HQs anymore - it is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Again some HQs that are leaving soon may not be worth keeping high. And some HQs (like RHG commands) might also not be worth it.

Again any SUs that withdraw I set on 20% ToE max - unlike onmap units they do not remain in the game even if their ToE is under 75%. Personally in 1941 as Axis I put all SUs that take arms points to build to 20% max ToE - you will have a shortage of arms points in the blizzard and will need them to rebuild your infantry divisions, not artillery regiments. Remember being on a maximum of 20% does not mean they will be at 20%, just they will not receive any replacements. You will still have a lot of those SUs left with a lot in them. Once the arms point crunch eases you can start to ease up on the ToE maximums. For the SUs that do not need arms points (they use AFVs for example) you may want to check the pools. If you have an empty pool, at least turn your worst units of that kind down to 20%. For places like Finland that have manpower shortages you may want to choke bad infantry units and build up their artillery instead. For expensive SUs - like those super heavy artillery guns - you may want to reduce their ToEs to 20% -once they are used for Leningrad or Sevastopol they may not be used again. And given how expensive they are they might not be the best use of points anyway (possibly)?

In section 11.3.1 in the updated manual it states you lose 1 admin point for every 10% where the HQ TOE is below maximum. ie don't go below 90% Is this still current?

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: 56ajax

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: Saulust


Yeah I didn't think it was a good idea to lower Max TOE% setting levels on Airbases tbh.

I am mainly asking about HQs and SUs is it a good idea for them?

So say setting HQs to 90% so that most replacement go straight into your combat units for example, what about at 85% or 75%, are there levels that impact too negatively their supply draw, or pass down or reduce CO skill points?

Well I think it may be worthwhile on German recon bases say, and especially ones that withdraw like 11th army recon base.

On map units that withdraw need to be above 75% to withdraw - but you can try to get closer to that than 100%

There used to be a tip of choking your HQ ToEs to 93% say, as they were equally effective at 91% or 100% - but that was removed by a patch (I think by Morvael). So now any reduction in ToE on an HQ will reduce the effectiveness of the HQ. Whether it is better to have the manpower in the HQs making their units better, or just having the manpower in the units is a difficult choice. But the consensus from others is there is no point trying to reduce manpower HQs anymore - it is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Again some HQs that are leaving soon may not be worth keeping high. And some HQs (like RHG commands) might also not be worth it.

Again any SUs that withdraw I set on 20% ToE max - unlike onmap units they do not remain in the game even if their ToE is under 75%. Personally in 1941 as Axis I put all SUs that take arms points to build to 20% max ToE - you will have a shortage of arms points in the blizzard and will need them to rebuild your infantry divisions, not artillery regiments. Remember being on a maximum of 20% does not mean they will be at 20%, just they will not receive any replacements. You will still have a lot of those SUs left with a lot in them. Once the arms point crunch eases you can start to ease up on the ToE maximums. For the SUs that do not need arms points (they use AFVs for example) you may want to check the pools. If you have an empty pool, at least turn your worst units of that kind down to 20%. For places like Finland that have manpower shortages you may want to choke bad infantry units and build up their artillery instead. For expensive SUs - like those super heavy artillery guns - you may want to reduce their ToEs to 20% -once they are used for Leningrad or Sevastopol they may not be used again. And given how expensive they are they might not be the best use of points anyway (possibly)?

In section 11.3.1 in the updated manual it states you lose 1 admin point for every 10% where the HQ TOE is below maximum. ie don't go below 90% Is this still current?

Yes that is the case. You should aim to keep your HQs operating at 100% TOE in order to avoid suffering an admin roll penalty.

[Saulust]

ORIGINAL: morvael
Previously RRV meant nothing FBD/NKPS used MP to repair rail, and had them fixed at 16. So even if you have detached all construction units from them, and reduced their TOE to 20% they were as good as before at rail repair. This had to stop, so finally I tied MPs of those units to their RRV.

But Morvael, RRV may now be tied to MP of the FBDs, but there is some modicum of voodoo here with how this works still, it will be appreciated if you could enlighten further please?

My main concern ATM is the RR repair ability of the Construction SUs, but if the Max TOE% effects fortification entrenchment performance that would be good to cover too, thanks.

I will say that in this thread it has been established that construction SU do fuction (apparently) at RR repair while at less than 100% TOE.

So, what is happening under the hood with construction SUs:

Is it linear though, at 90% TOE, it performs at up to 90%, 80% at 80%, 75% at 75%, etc and is this moderated or enhanced by Morale in the way that UNREADY state is?

In FBDs and the 1st Rumanian RR Command unit both RRV and MP are tied to the number of Const SUs, but that isn't exactly linear though, nor are these two figures in sync with each other, what number of const SUs variations determines their final fugures?

(Some FBDs start with more Const SUs than others but have the same MP & RRV while adding or subtracting one or two changes MP & RRV figures differently, obviously MP tops out at 16, but RRV can jump 2 points with one Const SU change, how come?)

The 1st Rum RR Cmd starts with only 5 Const SU Btlns, which you can add the 4 from AG Antonescu HQ, but only the first two you add bumps up the MP by 1 & RRV to from 9 to 10, the next two do nothing but increase man power, no more 1 bump in MP & RRV, why?

Is the ability of Const SU Btlns reduced from less than effective when they're out on own auto-deployed from HQs at lower levels of TOE% or based off number of actually ready/fit Labour Squads, such that if they fall below a point they are too cut down and wont be able to do 100% RR repair themselves as a single unit?

(Hence why you see them doubled up on Hexes! And when do they start to need to do that?)

How does terrain or ground weather conditions effect them apart from MP costs with RR repairs and fortification digging in terms of reduced TOE% or ready Labour squads?

The main reason I am asking is that I want to set all the Const SU TOE% to a number less than 100% so that I send my replacement man power to combat units as a full priority over them. So far it looks like I can do that, say at something reasonable like 90% or 75% and forget about worrying about them over the long term or at least until the blizzard. I just want to be sure if I can do that over a long game too and be able to successfully RR repair with slightly depleted Const SUs both from HQs and in FBDs especially for Summer '42 and to easily cover partisan damage to the Railnet behind the lines, etc. However if I ran them down to 75% will I need to count them as 4 to 3 at 67% 3 to 2 effectively or if I let them slip to 50% will I always need double?

When you build more Construction SUs as the Soviets you create them as cadre shells that you can set their Max TOE% so how they function at 90%, 75% , 67%, 50%, or 20% matters if you can do that especially since I build up to 40 of them, so I would like to know if I can save Man power this way or not?

Also as the Soviets I wonder if you need to ever change the starting 8 Const SUs in STAVKA HQ on T1 from Max TOE of 91% or if you can just completely get away with just forever leaving these set at 91%?

Cheers.

[morvael]

MP of on-map rail repair units is capped at 16.
Extra construction units will be helpful only in winter, when their construction value drops and they generate less RRV.
Some units get a special bonus to their construction value for the purposes of rail repair, hence they have big impact on RRV, and would be best kept at FBD/NKPS/RR Command (those that contain "R.A.D.", "O.T.", and "RR Construction" get x9 multiplier).
Other than that every element is a possible source of construction value, which should result in more effective fortification building and rail repair (when sent alone from normal HQ, or when helping to generate RRV for on-map rail repair units.
There is no hard cap at some predetermined %TOE value, you have less men in those units, they should perform poorly. Sure, when this translates to just 1-16 MP of the on-map rail repair units it's possible to optimize this a bit, mostly by moving out units that contribute less (so those without special name), while still keep high MP (but beware of winter).

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: 56ajax
In section 11.3.1 in the updated manual it states you lose 1 admin point for every 10% where the HQ TOE is below maximum. ie don't go below 90% Is this still current?

I understand that used to be correct - but no longer is. (I guess by admin you are referring to ratings here, not admin points?) This was because of a patch change by Morvael. The old exploit was specifically to reduce the ToEs to as close to 90% as possible without going below, so you needed some sort of margin above for the few losses in the turn before the logistics phase. So I used to set them at 93% on the understanding that this (almost) guaranteed they never went below 90% in logisitcs and were always 100% effective. The description given by Morvael was that he patched this specifically to stop that exploit, and now any reduction below 100%, however small, would reduce the effectiveness. The lesson being do not aim to reduce HQ ToEs below 100%. However I have not checked on the formula or tracked which patch that change was made on. Perhaps someone else knows?

[morvael]

I think manual was never correct. The chance to get bonus +1 to admin rolls was always (number of support squads in hq / 1000), and I didn't invent that.

[Saulust]

ORIGINAL: morvael
...
Some units get a special bonus to their construction value for the purposes of rail repair, hence they have big impact on RRV, and would be best kept at FBD/NKPS/RR Command (those that contain "R.A.D.", "O.T.", and "RR Construction" get x9 multiplier).
...
There is no hard cap at some predetermined %TOE value, you have less men in those units, they should perform poorly. Sure, ...

Thank you very much Morvael, 'X' niner'! OK then, but this leads me to ask what exactly is the base amount of RRV generated by these special Const SUs that this x9 multiplier is a bonus to for RRV repair?

Is this x9 multiplier bonus only important for SUs in FBDs or will it also ultimately matter with them when they are in HQs auto-deploying on their own to Hexes repairing RR damage?


There are at a quick glance 166 German Construction SUs and 4 starting FBDs, plus the 5th FBD which arrives on Turn 48 14/May/'42 with its compliment of 2x of Road Const, 2x OT Const & 2x RAD Lbr Grps.

Of the starting 166 SUs there are 12 double sized Grps at 72 Labour Squads max TOE which you are saying that apart from being double sized also attain this x9 multiplier for RRV.

There are 34 Det/Btlns of special ability RR SUs (16x RAD Lbr Abteilung & 18 "OT" Const Btlns) all at 36 Labour Squads max TOE with this x9 bonus to RRV repair too.

The rest of the 120 German starting Construntion SUs are either Road or just plain vanilla Const Btlns with a basic or base of 1 amount of construction/RR repair abilities but which seems to be enough most of the time. Since AFAIK even with sub 100% max TOE for these "C' Bns" to work at RR repair from HQs at least in Summer.


There still seems to be a quite a little bit of voodoo here in the FBDs, but after playing around a bit more with them it seems that 'sometimes' 3 plain Const SUs amount to 1 RRV point, but sometimes not though somehow, so quite frankly they are not at all really worth putting or leaving in FBDs, but OTOPH you have no real choice with what to do with them in the Rum 1st Railroad Const Command, since 9 Rum Btlns is all you've got, but I suspect that the 5 that actually start off in it have a small RRV bonus of some type, still though I find that these Rum Const SUs are not entirely linear that I can work out ATM.

OTOH both the RAD Lbr Det & "OT" Btlns seem to count as 2 points of RRV while the double sized Lbr Grp counts as 4 RRV, but I am not sure if large TOE reductions will reduce this however.


At least I know now it would be best to remove the Road & vanilla Const Btln SUs from the FBDs.


ATM it seems like a good idea to me to just put the 2 of the 12 double sized Lbr Grps into the FBDs that start off assigned to Army HQs at the start of the GC in AGM, getting 3 per FBD and only putting or leaving two RAD Det or OT Btlns in each of them as effective configurations, any suggestions otherwise?

I am wondering though should I concentrate the remaining 26 of these special x9 effective RAD Lbr Det & OT Const Btlns at OKH or in the 3 RHG HQs or a combination to ensure these best RR repair German Const SUs are prioritise for their 'special' x9 bonus.

I was setting the 3 RHG HQs to 50% Max TOE%, but do I now need to have them back at 100% so they properly or adequately support & supply their own batches of assigned 'special' RRV bonus SUs if I want to employ them as kind of mini FBDs?


As to the topic of their Max TOE percentage I am now thinking that I would like to just set them all to 67% Max TOE for the game and call it a day, unless there are either significant RR repair ability or fortification digging negative penalties.
(Perhaps because these 'special' bonus SUs provide double or quadruple RRV, may be these I could set to 50% and 25% Max TOE respectively!)

With all this discussion about regular HQs which I am also interested in, I am still not sure about the 1000 Support Section FBDs themselves, they are only really there supplying and supporting the SUs contained in themselves. How will allowing them to drop down to various percentage amounts effect their on map MP and RRV?

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: morvael

I think manual was never correct. The chance to get bonus +1 to admin rolls was always (number of support squads in hq / 1000), and I didn't invent that.

I am still unclear on this. Does this mean the admin rating is never reduced or penalised? But it has the die roll of (number of support squads in hq / 1000) to actually be increased or have a bonus to it of +1. This would also mean that if STAVKA,say, had 1000 support squads there would be no benefit to having one more?

[morvael]

I think I have posted details of leader rolls with as much detail as possible several times (copied from my post on a dev forum). There are all details.

As I said the chance to get this bonus +1 to leader admin skill is based on the number of support squads in his hq divided by 1000. So top-level HQ with 1000 squads should always pass this test and grant this bonus. A corps with 250 squads has only 25% chance to grant this bonus, and so on. Reducing support squads linearly lowers your chance to pass that test. That's quite simple. So even one squad less results in a lower chance to get this bonus.