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

[LargeSlowTarget]

@Tanaka: The air units are stood down and training because this is a "Dec 7th post-attack" scenario with the historic damage done to PH, Clark Field, Malaya, Wake etc. - no additional airstrikes are supposed to fly on the first turn. And yes, many land units and subs have move or patrol orders and most ships scattered around the map have been put into convoys heading for "collection points" in order to save time and reduce the first turn clickfest. While modding I had to make so many restarts and I got tired of doing the same thousands of clicks time and again to setup my standard opening moves.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

@Tanaka: The air units are stood down and training because this is a "Dec 7th post-attack" scenario with the historic damage done to PH, Clark Field, Malaya, Wake etc. - no additional airstrikes are supposed to fly on the first turn. And yes, many land units and subs have move or patrol orders and most ships scattered around the map have been put into convoys heading for "collection points" in order to save time and reduce the first turn clickfest. While modding I had to make so many restarts and I got tired of doing the same thousands of clicks time and again to setup my standard opening moves.

Thanks! This is a very nice convenience bonus added to the mod! Great work here as well! Love the mod! Cheers!

[JanSako]

@LST I have one comment to your initial Japanese setup.

You have made most of base forces on the Home Islands strat move to Yokohama (I think), which is not so good for all those disabled factories in the places they are leaving. It took me a few turns to realize why my prod factories are not repairing... no ENG units present... [X(]

Also it would help if cargo ships that will be allocated to Korea-Home Islands res convoys would go to their ports instead of Yokohama (wasting fuel going there & then back), but that is really just me being lazy & wanting someone else to do the calculation how many ships & from where can ship the 180K resources/day I need for Home Islands. [8|]

[LargeSlowTarget]

Hey JanSako, Eng units do not help with and are not needed for factory repairs, they only play a role in port and airbase repairs and port / airbase / fort construction. However, you need 10k supplies minimum at a base for factory repairs to occur.

People have different ideas about what ships to use for the various convoy routes, so anything I do could find approval or disapproval. Nothing prevents you from creating new convoys to send the ships to where you want them to go [:)].

[JanSako]

I saw the other thread, thanks for the clarification! Are there some 'rolls' as well that need to be passed? Does it repair just one type of factory or one of each type of damaged factory?

If I have a damaged LI, HI, Air Prod & R&D factory (Hello from Tokyo) all in the same base with plenty of supply, what will get repaired?

We learn something new every day!

[LargeSlowTarget]

All industries except R&D and resources / oil usually repair one point of damage per turn, provided enough supplies are available (minimum 10k plus the amount needed for repairs - 1k per point in stock scenarios, different values in my mod). R&D have just a chance to repair one point per day, the probability of repairs going up as the arrival date gets closer.

So a damaged LI, HI, Air Prod & R&D factory all in the same base with plenty of supply will repair one LI, one HI and one Air Prod point per day, and maybe an R&D point as well.

[gervabit]

Consult, someone has been able to take and raise the level of ports, of all the bases from Hanoi, to Shanghai? If that feat is achieved, is it possible that the oil/fuel/resources offloaded in saigon will reach HongKong, Shanghai?

What did the river crossings with yellow X mean?

[JanSako]

Consult, someone has been able to take and raise the level of ports, of all the bases from Hanoi, to Shanghai? If that feat is achieved, is it possible that the oil/fuel/resources offloaded in saigon will reach HongKong, Shanghai?

Yes, possible BUT.
- offload in Cam Ranh Bay is better than Saigon. Pretty sure anything unloaded in Saigon gets pulled to Singapore if you have that set to 'accumulate'.
- you would 'probably' have to take & improve the railroad across China. I don't think the resources would flow through so many hexes without road connection as they are on the coast. Think once a week jump between each hex times how many hexes? It would take a long time before anything would make it through.

What did the river crossings with yellow X mean?

There is a 'railroad' connection between the hexes, BUT you are not to use it until you improve the ports on both sides to their max 'normal' value (the number listed). This is a house rule only, the game engine would let you strat-move stuff through there normally.

The crossings with 'Red X' do not have a railroad connection so you cannot ship stuff through directly no matter what. This simulates places where there were no railway bridges in real life at that time (& long afterwards).

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Anomander Rake

Hi LST. We are still playing your mod. Now we have end of February 1943.
I understand that some things in mod was changed so maybe many of my comments are no longer valid.
1. A plenty of dot bases good working in China but it is annoying when those deprived of troops pass "for free" to Japan side (and it need garrisons).
2. I'm not sure that is good idea in Burma. I think taht baselines significantly simplify the supply even without roads.
3. I have some problems with ASW weapons in aircrafts. I don't know if this is due to the general weakening of ASW or the reason is similiar to this http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4503597
4. Some aircraft performance is very bad. Oscars, even IIb version are very weak. Sonias also are useless when enemy have even few AA guns. Bombers should be harder. Now a little defence fighter advance gives bombers butchery.

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Hi AR,

thanks for your feedback.

1. All Chinese-owned dot bases in China have a tiny Chinese "Civilian Administration" garrison unit in order to prevent the auto-flipping of dot bases to the Japanese side. All dot bases also have a minimum daily supply of 1 in order to keep the Administrators alive. Don't see where your issues comes from.

2. The dot bases in Burma and elsewhere do have a supply CAP, which in roadless jungle is very low (10 per day IIRC). If the supply CAP is working as I believe it does, supply flow through dot bases should be limited.

3. The version you are using should have only one plane using the dedicated ASW weapon filter and a "depth charge" - the Jake. The "depth charge" is actually a renamed bomb device, so should behave like a regular bomb. Could you please give more details about the problems you face?

4. Oscars have always been weak and I did not even touch their stats at all in my mod. The KI-51 is now a dive bomber with "Attack bomber" ability and armor even for the A model - the plane has been designed as ground attack airplane for both low-level and dive bombing. However, in the game anything lighter than 100kg bombs is pretty ineffective against troops in terrain other than "clear", and no Allied player worth his salt will keep troops in the open as long as Japan has air superiority. Best use for the Ki-51 and similar light bombers is hitting airfields or ports in order to prevent fort construction.

Still exploring your wonderful mod. This post interested me after the feedback I received on attacking land units with carrier aircraft and divebombers (Vals). If you set Vals to attack land targets at 10-15K they will dive bomb land targets and get more exposed to AA. Thus here in your mod since the Sonias are now dive bombers you will get the same effect at these altitudes dive bombing and not level bombing. So like Vals you will need to set the Sonias in your mod to attack land targets below 10K or above 15k to avoid more intense AA from divebombing...

[Tanaka]

Also I take it you will not be updating your map to the most current version of Bellum Pacifica or a non-hexside version?

I also saw you noted there are no AI files included but I did notice there are AI files for Scen 59, 60, and 61 included in the mod folder. These are perhaps from DaBabes mod?

How does the Historical First Turn On/Off option work with your mod since you already include historical strikes? Do you recommend on or off?

[LargeSlowTarget]

What did the river crossings with yellow X mean?

A yellow X means a bridge did exist but has been damaged / destroyed prior to Dec 7th. 1941, a red X means no bridge did exist until after the war.

You will also note that some rail links are black-grey dotted lines - these indicate railroads destroyed or railroads not existing on Dec. 7th, 1941

For the dotted railroads and the yellow X crossings, the railroad is actually in place map-data-wise, players have to observe the house rule not to use the rail for strat moves until "repaired" or "constructed".

This is being simulated by using Eng assets in order to increase the port in the two hexes connected by the bridge resp. each hex traversed by a dotted railroad to max standard level before being allowed to use strat move of units in these hexes.

The flow of supplies over yellow X and dotted railroads and accopanying roads is still possible, but is strangled due to the application of supply caps - it will increase with each port level built.

I don't think, the flow of fuel/oil/resources is being impacted by supply caps, but you will need to occupy the entire railroad from Hanoi to Shanghai in order to create what has been termed the "magic highway" that links Singers with Shanghai, and find the necessary garrison forces since each hex has a garrison requirement.

Given the limitations and possibilities of the game engine, this is the closest I have come up with to simulate infrastructure improvements by player choice in the game and the necessary investments (engineering assets and supplies).

The alternative way of handling this would be to use a set of different pwhexdat (map data) files that would need to be applied by each player at predefined dates, starting with no railroads in place where damaged/not build and adding sections of repaired/constructed railroads over time. However, this would not tie-down any engineering assets and not use supplies, giving infrastructure improvements for free. Plus the hassle with different map data files to manage. Not my cup of tea.

If you set Vals to attack land targets at 10-15K they will dive bomb land targets and get more exposed to AA. Thus here in your mod since the Sonias are now dive bombers you will get the same effect at these altitudes dive bombing and not level bombing. So like Vals you will need to set the Sonias in your mod to attack land targets below 10K or above 15k to avoid more intense AA from divebombing...

My Sonias also have the "attack bomber" profile. I'm not sure how it interacts with the dive bomber profile - I think (or rather hope) they dive-bomb if set to 10k-15k, level-bomb above 15k and between 7k and 9k but drop to attack at 1k with a full bomb load when set to 6k or below.

Also I take it you will not be updating your map to the most current version of Bellum Pacifica or a non-hexside version?

I really like Bellum Pacifica v3 and use it in my PBEM. Always wanted to do a Bottlenecks version of it, but it is a lot of work and I have not found the motivation to start working on it - yet.

I also saw you noted there are no AI files included but I did notice there are AI files for Scen 59, 60, and 61 included in the mod folder. These are perhaps from DaBabes mod?

Yes, from DaBabes. Included for testing, not intended for playing a campaign vs computer - AI probably won't use the new bases or worse may get confused.

How does the Historical First Turn On/Off option work with your mod since you already include historical strikes? Do you recommend on or off?

Personally, I like giving orders on turn 1 to change some "historic stupid moves" like the Wake Is. invasion, so I turn historical first turn off. As long as you heed the HR about keeping the air forces grounded on the first turn, "historical off" should be fine.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

What did the river crossings with yellow X mean?

A yellow X means a bridge did exist but has been damaged / destroyed prior to Dec 7th. 1941, a red X means no bridge did exist until after the war.

You will also note that some rail links are black-grey dotted lines - these indicate railroads destroyed or railroads not existing on Dec. 7th, 1941

For the dotted railroads and the yellow X crossings, the railroad is actually in place map-data-wise, players have to observe the house rule not to use the rail for strat moves until "repaired" or "constructed".

This is being simulated by using Eng assets in order to increase the port in the two hexes connected by the bridge resp. each hex traversed by a dotted railroad to max standard level before being allowed to use strat move of units in these hexes.

The flow of supplies over yellow X and dotted railroads and accopanying roads is still possible, but is strangled due to the application of supply caps - it will increase with each port level built.

I don't think, the flow of fuel/oil/resources is being impacted by supply caps, but you will need to occupy the entire railroad from Hanoi to Shanghai in order to create what has been termed the "magic highway" that links Singers with Shanghai, and find the necessary garrison forces since each hex has a garrison requirement.

Given the limitations and possibilities of the game engine, this is the closest I have come up with to simulate infrastructure improvements by player choice in the game and the necessary investments (engineering assets and supplies).

The alternative way of handling this would be to use a set of different pwhexdat (map data) files that would need to be applied by each player at predefined dates, starting with no railroads in place where damaged/not build and adding sections of repaired/constructed railroads over time. However, this would not tie-down any engineering assets and not use supplies, giving infrastructure improvements for free. Plus the hassle with different map data files to manage. Not my cup of tea.

If you set Vals to attack land targets at 10-15K they will dive bomb land targets and get more exposed to AA. Thus here in your mod since the Sonias are now dive bombers you will get the same effect at these altitudes dive bombing and not level bombing. So like Vals you will need to set the Sonias in your mod to attack land targets below 10K or above 15k to avoid more intense AA from divebombing...

My Sonias also have the "attack bomber" profile. I'm not sure how it interacts with the dive bomber profile - I think (or rather hope) they dive-bomb if set to 10k-15k, level-bomb above 15k and between 7k and 9k but drop to attack at 1k with a full bomb load when set to 6k or below.

Also I take it you will not be updating your map to the most current version of Bellum Pacifica or a non-hexside version?

I really like Bellum Pacifica v3 and use it in my PBEM. Always wanted to do a Bottlenecks version of it, but it is a lot of work and I have not found the motivation to start working on it - yet.

I also saw you noted there are no AI files included but I did notice there are AI files for Scen 59, 60, and 61 included in the mod folder. These are perhaps from DaBabes mod?

Yes, from DaBabes. Included for testing, not intended for playing a campaign vs computer - AI probably won't use the new bases or worse may get confused.

How does the Historical First Turn On/Off option work with your mod since you already include historical strikes? Do you recommend on or off?

Personally, I like giving orders on turn 1 to change some "historic stupid moves" like the Wake Is. invasion, so I turn historical first turn off. As long as you heed the HR about keeping the air forces grounded on the first turn, "historical off" should be fine.

Thank you for your answers!

I always thought Kamikaze Bellum Pacifica was the most recent version (v4?) and did not realize version 3 was actually an alternate version?

So you use version 3 with your own mod in PBEM? Curious why you like this version better than Kamikaze which to me is most recent and the best looking map of all?

I hope you do think about updating to the Kamikaze map one day but understand if not! Thanks for your efforts and communications! Enjoying learning about your mod before I play it!

[JanSako]

+1 on the Bellum Pacifica map. We understand if that is enough for you to want to spend who know how much time on it though!

A question about Sonia's. Like you said they, like any dive bombers, they are in trouble if there is a lot of flak or air opposition & they don't have large enough bombs to send them against entrenched units.

I am trying to use them in an ASW role, primarily around South China sea. With the proper training, would they be more effective in a dive bomber profile (10-11k) or attack bomber profile (3-4k or even less)? I am trying to understand which one has a higher hit chance. I can detect plenty of subs cause I have a lot of search up, but obviously Type-95 depth charges are... less than perfect... especially in deep water.

Should they be trained in Naval/Low Naval or ASW for this?

[LargeSlowTarget]

Ah got confused - my mod uses "Pacifica Bellum v2", which was followed by a v3, also using hexsides. This was finally followed by "Bellum Pacifica Kamikaze" with the "World at War" style "hexdots". So I use Kamikaze in my PBEM, and maybe one day will do a Bottlenecks version of this map.

Almost any Japanese plane is in trouble if there is a lot of flak or air opposition [:)]. The Sonia is no exception, as a ground attacker she was ok for use against the Chinese but not doing well against opponents well-equipped with AA. ASW is probably the best use for them outside China - I would train ASW and fly them between 2k and 6k. The last US warship sunk in WWII by enemy action was a sub sunk by a Sonia.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Ah got confused - my mod uses "Pacifica Bellum v2", which was followed by a v3, also using hexsides. This was finally followed by "Bellum Pacifica Kamikaze" with the "World at War" style "hexdots". So I use Kamikaze in my PBEM, and maybe one day will do a Bottlenecks version of this map.

Yes it is confusing with the four versions and glad to hear you also prefer Kamikaze and would be fantastic if you eventually upgraded to this! The map is the most beautiful and I much prefer hexdots to hexes.

When you say you use it in your PBEM is this Bottlenecks or are you playing a different scenario? Do you only play Bottlenecks?

[kbfchicago]

Alpha,

No need to lose anything! Copy your game folder (in total all files) into a new folder. Modify from there. I currently have seven (7) WITP-AE folders (each with a slightly different name) one "base" which I copy to make mods and six with various versions of the game and mods added. You are only limited by your storage space! Note you will need to be sure you copy (or create new) and update your shortcut for starting the games to point to folder you want to use. [:)]

Game On. Kevin

[Zovs]

Or you could use GME and easily swap them out in one install.

[Falken]

Hi LST,

Sorry for the dumb question. When I look at the Scenario 60 (limited R&D), i seem to only be able to see 17 R&D Factories, but the manual mentions 18.

Am I not seeing something, or is it actually 17. I re-counted several times, and seems to be only 17.

Can you confirm (or someone who has the mod)? reason i'm asking is with 18, it gives me about 6 types of planes to research (6x3), but with 17, i'll have to make one of them only have 2 factories assigned.

Thanks

[LargeSlowTarget]

Hi Falken, looks like I cannot count

[LargeSlowTarget]

@JanSako Why does your screenshot show China covered with base flags? Most of them should be dot bases