I mentioned that I am playing 3 games currently. Also, I have been playing the game for over 10 years but I am old and have forgotten more than I know about this game.
One of the games I am playing is Scenario 2 with PDU on. In that game I discussed with my opponent the fact that the Japanese player can manipulate aircraft R&D by downgrading factories and building them up and then upgrading them to more advanced plane models to expedite the R&D in a way that is not realistic. We agreed that he would not do this.
In the game it is now late march 1943 and we just had a large carrier battle.
During this battle I observed that every Japanese naval fighter he has is upgraded to the A6M5 zero. Including the fighters he used in both attack and defense that comes to over 250 airframes. In addition I had already killed nearly 50 of the aircraft making it over 300 that have already been produced in game.
My question is whether this is possible in a regular game and if so, what cost to the economy does it require to advance R&D so quickly as I cannot remember where I have faced that model of plane this early especially in such great quantities.
The long answer if you can stay with me but you might already know this stuff.
PDU only allow you to freely upgrade Air Groups to other aircraft models, limited only by the aircraft type (fighter, light bomber etc.) of the unit, or whether only the specifically defined upgrade paths specified for that Air Group and/or aircraft type must be followed. Once you go from research to production that factory can never go back to research if 'Realistic R&D' is on.
IF you turn it off anything is possible and i think your reference to the 'Japanese player manipulate aircraft R&D by downgrading factories and building them up...' is referring to this. I think most player player with this on.
If anybody asks me what the effect is of having both PDU and realistic R&D off I have no idea as they appear to contradict each other.
Some stuff on R&D
It isn't the research points that cause the delay in R&D, it's the repair. Repair is random and the larger the factory size and further away the original due date is the longer it takes to repair. Once repaired you know exactly how long it will be before you get the aircraft in production.
Factory production repair isn't random. If you have enough supply it will repair at a rate of one per turn.
In either case, changing the upgrade path as set by the scenario is the most efficient way of upgrading them, there is no repair required. However changing outside of this path always results in a 1/3 loss in size and all become damaged. Which is why changing, in particular, an R&D factory out of 'family' causes research delays.
Once researched, not R&D repaired, you can then either change to production or leave it as an R&D factory, researching the next ac in the family. There is no damage etc. if it is next in line. If it's not than all have to be repaired again. If Realistic R&D is on what you can't do is go back to R&D once its been turned into a production factory.
My current game
I've been playing as Japan against the AI using 26b for three years, I'm not rushing it! In game terms it's Oct 43.
To give the AI a chance and to see what research actually does I limited my R&D research. First I set myself a rule that all aircraft currently under R&D at the start of the game had to be researched before I could change the ac. This prevented the immediate whole scale R&D development that is advocated, I've seen as many as 9 x 30 ac sized factories researching a single ac. OK! so you may receive something much earlier but it's hardly 'realistic.
I did not limit R&D factory sizes although it's more or less pointless having any factory size over 30 so most were set to 30 giving one R&D point per day once repaired. Individual R&D factories of 60 plus will take a loooong time to repair, possible as long or even longer than the original due date?
Secondly, once in came online I was free to change as I saw fit. Idea being that by then a few ac may have been tested more rigorously and you not what was 'rubbish' and not to produce.
So this is the situation set on turn one for the A6M family up to the A6M5.
1x sized 60 A6M2 production factory. This upgrades to the Sen Baku but changed it to produce the A6M3a when it came online then A6M5.
1x sized 30 A6M2-N Ruffe R&D factory. Came online Apr 42. Built approx 60 then switched to the A6M3a when it came online then A6M5.
1x sized 30 A6M3 R&D factory. Fully researched Jun 42. Left as an R&D factory, next researching the next in family A6M3a, then A6M5 through to the A6M8. I never built the A6M3.
1x sized 30 A6M5 R&D factory. Fully researched Aug 43. Left as an R&D factory, next researching the next in family A6M5b and then through to the A6M8.
As you can see, my self-imposed rules prevented me form mass R&D of one aircraft model. The critical aircraft, the A6M3a only every had a short period of R&D.
Even with this limit R&D the full research times were:
A6M2-N Ruffe R&D came online Apr 42, it's original due date.
A6M3 R&D came online Jun 42, it's original due date.
A6M3a R&D came online Oct 42. Originally due Dec 42 so two months early.
A6M5 R&D came online Mar 43. Originally due Aug 43 so five months early.
Why the big difference in R&D between the 3a and 5, it's down to the repair time. All the R&D factories started with 30 all damaged. The Ruffe took 98 days and the A6M3 124 days to full repair, for both this left very little time to generate any repair points to advance the due date. However the A6M3 R&D factory upgraded to the 3a and as it was FULLY repaired at the date of it's upgrade (Jun 42) it started to generate repair points immediately. The end result being it arrived two months early.
Tip: A fully repaired 30 R&D factory will approx. advance a due date by one month for every three months game time.
This A6M3a R&D factory upgraded to a FULLY repaired A6M5 R&D factory in Oct 42. On top of this the original A6M5 R&D factory fully repaired mid Jan 43, doubling the overall research speed. Notice how long it took to repair compared with the M3/3a, it's longer because it original due date was further away.
There's also the engines count for these aircraft types. If you have >500 in the pool R&D points are doubled.
All this ultimately resulted in the A6M5 coming online 5 months early.
It's not had to see what increasing the number of A6M3 R&D factories will do to research times but ONLY when fully repaired.
It is now Oct 43 in game terms and the A6M5b is also online, eight months ahead of schedule.
Given your scenario you would still have had to R&D the A6M5 sooner than February of 1943 to produce 300 airframes and account for the maintenance time upgrading the groups to make them fully operational for air combat by March 27 1943.
It does however seem possible without potentially using the exploit we talked about.
Depending on Scenario played if its normal Scen 1 or 2
The Rufe can upgrade path directly to the A6M5 with no loss of factory capability.
Which means a player can convert RD plants to Rufe plants T1....get them almost to 30 by the time the Rufe is out for production. Then as the rufe goes into production the turn before they all convert to production you can upgrade them to A6M5 RD factories....
It usually wont take a long time for these factories to finish repairing and give full research on the A6M5 meaning if you put like 5-6 RD plants on the A6M5 you will get like 5% per day in research pretty quickly.
Now the issue becomes that from what i can tell u still need to upgrade your A6M2 factories in sequence to not damage the factories....so you also need to leave some RD on the A6M3a and any steps between the M2 and M5 otherwise u will damage and have to repair the current M2 factories to make A5s.
As Japan if you can stair step a factory up to M5 it will just auto produce without the damage but you need all the steps.
Esp in Scen 2 the Japanese can easily speed up the month/arrival and amounts of aircraft delivered massively.
