Working title: Zen and the Art of Japanese Aircraft Production

[brisd]

Lemurs modified scenario 15 has made the change that's been suggested to Ki-43's upgrade path, good for him! [8D]

[Brady]

I too would like to see more flexabality in the upgrade paths, many things are so far off wack that it is realy hard to defend the History of it, if that is being used to determine why they chose to do the paths the way they did, look at the Ki-67 for example, it would be nice to have the flexabality to build this plane and asigne any Navy or Army Bomber unit to it, considering that both the Navy and the Army used it, and Why cant it cary a torpedo in the Game? Same goes for the P1Y1, it to is not torpedo capable.

It would I think be nice to have a optioon switch that the player could select to alow for a fre upgrade and production regeime with then game, one only confined by research time and expeddatures, and Unit types upgrading withen or along similar types, or follwoing logigical upgrade paths that are not so ridigaly defined.

In a game like this whear you are fighting an aponet that out numbers, produces ,and mostly out preformes the other side, and given the fact we can suoposadly controle the Empires ecenomy it makes since imo to have this option, it in the long run will make for better gameplay as well.

[TheElf]

Brady,
If you want all those things Check this out....

PS where'd you find the art for your Banner?

[Cap Mandrake]

Anyway you can word-wrap that Elf?

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Anyway you can word-wrap that Elf?

Mind if I ask why? Word files are not supported [:@]

Can you not read the text file? I tried manually "wrapping" the text file and re-uploading it, but it didn't work. Try copying the text in the textfile and pasting it into a new Word Doc. That works, but you can't attach a word file to a post

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Anyway you can word-wrap that Elf?

Mind if I ask why? Word files are not supported [:@]

Can you not read the text file? I tried manually "wrapping" the text file and re-uploading it, but it didn't work. Try copying the text in the textfile and pasting it into a new Word Doc. That works, but you can't attach a word file to a post

I see what you mean...here is the text..I couldnt read the dl well. Looks like a heap of work. Nice.

******************************************************************************************



Mikes WitP scenario 15 mod notes.

Enjoy!

I have worked with Grigsby games for a while now, starting with BTR i worked fairly heavily with Jean Claude on modding scenarios.
Many changes which we researched extensively are just as applicable to this game as well as BTR. The A20B & B26B/C for example.

So, here goes.

I have added a slight amount of heavy industry and repair shipyards to Sasebo both because Sasebo was one of the 4 most important ports in Japan and because i have complicated Japan's aircraft construction program and remember, every time you switch aircraft production you damage all factories. This change will keep things balanced.

All aircraft have been reworked. A6M5's are less impressive, F6F's are less impressive, A20B's have no armour, B26B/C's have fewer nose guns as the 131 built with extra nose guns mostly served in Europe in a low level role while the B26's in the Pacific served in a medium level role.

Buffaloes/339's/F2A's have all been reworked to historical numbers. Some of you might be pleasantly surprised. The F2A is, after much soul searching, the F2A2 which was onboard the carriers at game atart. The F2A3 is not represented. No slots. Not my fault!

P51H's have been added for the allies. Yikes are they fast!

All Japanese upgrade paths have been reworked; Ki-43's are no longer stuck at model 2's, they now upgrade to Ki-84's.
There are now 2 models of Ki-61 available, the model Ib in late '42 and the model 2 in '44. The Ki-61 is now worth building. These were the best mid war fighters Japan built and i would much rather fly one of these than a Zero.

A6M2's now upgrade to A6M3's. There was NO reason for them not to upgrade. The A6M2 was removed from front line service in October '42.
The A6M3 is still the model 32. More or less. After a bit of thought i did not want to upgrade Japans Zeroes any more than they already are. The A6m3-22 gained additional range by being even more flammable, thus a lower durability. If you want long range Zeroes keep building A6M2's.

N1K Kyufu Float fighters are now available to replace the Rufe in January '43. They will auto upgrade.

The bomb load of American heavy bombers has been reduced to realistic levels. 4000lbs for B17's, 6000 lbs for B24's.

D4y Judys are now available for production in late '42. These planes were ready to build in '42 historically and were not built mostly to save cost of retooling.
P1Y's now carry torpedoes and G4M2's will upgrade.

All Japanese planes have origional names, at least the ones i could find.

The Ki-21/Ki-48 maneuver issue has been fixed and now Ki-21's will upgrade to the marginally better Ki-49's.

I restrained myself and did not add the G8M or the G10M bombers to Japan. I might add them in the future with like 1 fictional group for each. Boy, they would be expensive though!

Many allied aircraft have been slightly reworked with armour removed from some early aircraft and my pet P39 upgraded slightly. I thought about adding the P39L/N/Q to the game as an upgrade but decided the changes were too incremental.

The Hurricane IIB is now in the game with the IIC showing up about 6/42. The IIB will be the allies best fighter for a while. Watch out Oscars!

The P400 really, really sucks now. Badly.

B17C's are now D's at game start as that is historical. They had all been sent back to Seattle and rebuilt as D's.

American anti aircraft has been toned down a tad as it was ludicrously over powerful. 1.1 guns are now quite bad.

Newer Japanese destroyers have DP guns. They probably all should as the 5" guns on the US carriers are DP and the 5/25's are decent DP.
Pet peeve of mine.

The Momis APD's are now DE's. The Minekaze class is now all APD's. This is historical; the Momi was considered too small to be an effective APD.

The KGV class battleships now has guns facing the rear.

None of the 'C' 'D' or 'E' class British light cruisers was actually an AA cruiser. The origional scenario had virtually all of them being AA cruisers. I fixed it.

The British carriers when upgraded now have aircraft ordinance.

I added 1 Yamato battleship, 2 Mogami heavy cruisers, and 8 Yugumo destryers to the build pool. Now before you allied fan boys scream yourselves hoarse, this does not mean Japan GETS one extra ship, it means they have a historical choice of what to build. Remember that a Yamato battleship on normal build will eat 20% of your shipyards all on its own. DE's might be a better choice! But, you now have a choice.

Allied AP's/AK's now have slighhtly less of a max load. The values in game are higher than what could historically be loaded.
They are still higher than Japans merchants.

Yamashita is now commanding the 25th Army. MacArthur is no longer in charge of SWPAC unless you put him there. SOPAC and SWPAC are now reinforcements and must be moved where you need them.

Many South Pacific bases are less developed at game start.

The Japanese 55th division is short one brigade in strength now at game start.

The Aussies at Darwin are a bit weaker in ground strength due to fixed double accounting. Many early war British Empire tank units now have essentially no tanks.

I had no idea what to do with the 2nd Marines... i changed their arrival to summer '42. It is not perfect.

The 3rd NZ division is no longer in the OOB. The 18th NZ brigade is a reinforcement in 1/42. The 5th NZ brigade is now a '45 reinforcement.

Alexander Patch again commands Americal.

Many of the changes are in the aircraft. This file is a good start.

I hope this is enjoyable. Feel free to email your questions a comments.

Michael Johnson
lysimachus@charter.net

[Brady]

WoW , many of the changes sound good to be shure, though of course I suspect I could defenatly see making more, it is an very nice start, whear can this be found at?

Also, While I keep seeing TBO refered to I noticed that the figures given do not refelct the numbers historicaly produced, so my question is whow is TBO arived at?

[brisd]

I think it great that Mike (Lemurs) and others are doing scenarios to improve on an already great job by the designers. But what I really care about are changes to the official scenarios as that is what most people will play vs each other to ensure honesty. Don't want the world just historic upgrades.

[HawaiiFive-O]

ORIGINAL: brisd

I think it great that Mike (Lemurs) and others are doing scenarios to improve on an already great job by the designers. But what I really care about are changes to the official scenarios as that is what most people will play vs each other to ensure honesty. Don't want the world just historic upgrades.

This is a very valid point. Looking over the changes, there's a lot of good stuff there. But I can't use this scenario in my 'practice' games against the AI, because that would tie me down to finding an opponent that also uses this mod.

Hopefully we can get some of the OOB changes implemented officially. At least some of the upgrade stuff which seems very restrictive to the Japanese side.

[Drongo]

A6M2's now upgrade to A6M3's. There was NO reason for them not to upgrade. The A6M2 was removed from front line service in October '42.

The A6M3 is still the model 32. More or less. After a bit of thought i did not want to upgrade Japans Zeroes any more than they already are. The A6m3-22 gained additional range by being even more flammable, thus a lower durability. If you want long range Zeroes keep building A6M2's.

There may then be a problem with keeping the A6M2 in production as last time I looked, aircraft assemblies will always attempt to auto-upgrade once the next upgrade aircraft becomes available.

If the A6M2 now upgrades to the A6M3, all the A6M2 factories will start switching over as of 4/42 and I don't think you can stop it.

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: Oznoyng
I've spent some time pouring over Japanese aircraft production, and wanted to share some insights. I might be wrong, I might be right. Let me know what you think.

First Principal of Aircraft production:

Second Principal of Aircraft production:

Third Principal of Aircraft production:

Fifth Principal of Aircraft production:

Sixth Principal of Aircraft production:

I think that you presented a good overview of the situation regarding Japanese Aircraft Production.

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Well, one thing that is amazingly (and if true will not improve the situation) is, that the old planes in pool vanish after some days...

i made a test scenario, gave both sides everything to check things... in this game against myself, i found out that the japanese planes vanish after you regroup em...
I had switched all nates to oscarIs (yes my upgrade path is nate-oscar1-oscar2-ki83a-ki83c, only some goes around the ki44 and ki61..) and then, the next day the pool was empty...
but i still have nates-group that will come into service... later...

so even if we can´t downgrade the planes, we shoul hold at least 150% of the planes of one kind in the pool until the last airgroup appeared...


also, an other idea about the solution of downgrade:
if it could be possible to make a fix airplane in pool thing (like you allways have 50 or 100 planes (enough to "upgrade any unit)), so you allways can rotate through your upgrade path... so, we can chnage the planes. These planes can´t be used, so nobody can fly the p51d in 42... (the "last plane got the first as an upgrade...

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Another point for Aircraft-Research
someone mentioned that it is "unhistorical" to research only the "good" planes...

hm, but on the other hand, same is true in any game about a war...

as the allied, you know the key locations... do you act exactly like the historical counterparts ? Or the use of planes...? Minewar, etc....

Also, don´t forget that the japanese developted most planes much earlier as they used em, the ki44 is a good example...

I agree, that the allies should also got more chances to produce different planes. Esp. the spits are way to inferior and my personel view about the spit xvi compared to the corsair is, err, different. In 100 fights of equal pilots 90 spits should survive... but that is a personell view i can change in an ai-game quite easy [:'(]

My dream is that you do not know the performance of the planes you develop, they can vary and you only say "develop a new fighter" use 100 planes worth of equippment (to show the consumption) and voila, sometimes you get a p38g, sometimes not... (later they will come, at correct time table, but to improve the planes, you need to wait until they come into service or develop blindly...)
so no cheating, no bashing about unhistorical sifi-games... the player has to make decisions and sometimes they are worth the "money" and sometimes not... every game a different result (but sure, for the eto the germans can´t develop a battle ready me262 earlier as late43... but maybe cause they develop so much, they can start with 150% of the production ? But for that, they hadn´t produced 2 years long each month 100 me109 less, for example...

so, this is my idea of the solution of the problem we have with hindsight...

even better, if you do not research, you can produce only a few planes (if you wait for the p38, do not develop here and get only 5 planes a month you are p!ssed off !. take just the raw idea

[esteban]

This is a really good thread.

The only thing that I would add is that you can stretch out some of your not-so-upgrading upgrades.

Examples:

1. Val/Judy. Bomb load is the same. The only difference is that the Judy has 1 hex greater normal range, and the val has 2 points higher durability. I would have no problem producing these planes side-by-side throughout the war.

2. The Hickory, already discussed earlier in this thread.

3. Kate/Jill. Another case of nearly identical aircraft. The Grace, however, is a really nice plane, and it becomes available a few months after the Jill. You might consider living with a small production run of Jills, just enough to upgrade your Kates to Jills, and then immediately upgrade from Jills to Graces.

[Brady]

". Val/Judy. Bomb load is the same. The only difference is that the Judy has 1 hex greater normal range, and the val has 2 points higher durability. I would have no problem producing these planes side-by-side throughout the war. "


Well insomuch as WiTP models it, actualy the Judy could carry a 500KG bomb into action (or two 250KG bombs) and did so (depending on the source you sight) in combat.


..............

Just What is TBO, How is this figure arived at, andI corect in asuming that once acheaved you can not build beyond it?

................

Anyone add the Tabby to their mod yet?


With over 500 Built during the war it is one of the most signafagant Japanese transports and is Not in the game.

[2ndACR]

I think TBO stands for the total number of aircraft in the units of each type. They counted the number of aircraft
that each unit will have if at full strength.

I think the Tojo only goes to 6 units, about 8 for Tony's.

Much of the IJA are stuck the entire war with Oscars when there are MUCH better a/c avail if you build enough.

[Brady]

CC, this is what I thought as well, but what I am woundering is how they arived at the figure they use for TBO, as an example above some whear in this post I saw a TBO figure for the George at around 400 or so, when their were well aprox. 1,500 (or so) of this plane type built (in WiTP the George is generic, representing both the N1K1 and the N1K2).

[2ndACR]

The Japanese may have built 1500 of them in real life, but in the game you only have the units
to use say 400 of them at one time. For transport a/c which you hope will never suffer huge losses,
why keep building each one, using a factory, when you have 200 of them in the pool yet only need
200 to keep the units at full strength.

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: esteban

This is a really good thread.

The only thing that I would add is that you can stretch out some of your not-so-upgrading upgrades.

Examples:

1. Val/Judy. Bomb load is the same. The only difference is that the Judy has 1 hex greater normal range, and the val has 2 points higher durability. I would have no problem producing these planes side-by-side throughout the war.

2. The Hickory, already discussed earlier in this thread.

3. Kate/Jill. Another case of nearly identical aircraft. The Grace, however, is a really nice plane, and it becomes available a few months after the Jill. You might consider living with a small production run of Jills, just enough to upgrade your Kates to Jills, and then immediately upgrade from Jills to Graces.

The Hickory is a joke in terms of "upgrade". As for the Judy and Jill, they are definately upgrades IMO. There are four important characteristics of a bomber imo: Speed, Speed, Speed, and Speed. Er..... Actually, Speed, Range, Bombload, and Durability/armor.

1. Speed because the CAP's ability to shoot down a bomber is directly related to how fast the bomber is.
2. Range because you need to be able to fly to the target
3. Bombload because if you can't do any damage then what is the point?
4. Durability/armor because the more you have, the more flak you can absorb before getting shot down.

The Jill adds 64 MPH, 1 durability, and 1 more range over the Kate. Of those, the biggest imo is the speed, but I definately plan to build the Jill.

The Judy adds 103 MPH! and a bit of range, while losing a bit of durability and some bombload. When it comes to air combat in WitP, speed kills. IMO, the difference between a Judy and a Val in terms of ability to evade damage is more than big enough to want the Judy.

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: Brady

CC, this is what I thought as well, but what I am woundering is how they arived at the figure they use for TBO, as an example above some whear in this post I saw a TBO figure for the George at around 400 or so, when their were well aprox. 1,500 (or so) of this plane type built (in WiTP the George is generic, representing both the N1K1 and the N1K2).

Total Build Out is the total number of planes in all squadrons that will ever be able to fly the aircraft. So when I say that the TBO for A7M2's is 1910 aircraft, I include the totals of all the squadrons that will ever fly the aircraft. All A5M4, A6M2, A6M3, and A6M5 squadrons get added in because they all can eventually upgrade to it. At the time I calculated the numbers, I was using the upgrade path listed in the database. In the scenario editor, air groups can ignore this default and upgrade to something else. For instance, at least one group of Ki-43IIb upgrades to Tojo's (and then to Frank's) in scenario 15. Because of this, my numbers may be skewed a bit, but probably not by much.

edited for spelling and clarity