A6M2 cant upgrade to A6M3?

[MadDawg]

Hi Folks,

Im playing the Gaudacanal campaign, and I have a bunch of A6M2's I want to upgrade to a bunch of A6M3's I have spare. The problem is that the only upgrade option I am given for them is to upgrade to A6M5's, somethng that isnt even out of development stage yet and wont be ready for over 12 months, 7 months after the scenario is finished! [&:]

Am I doing something wrong here? It seems wierd that I cant upgrade these aircraft to the next model up which I have available but instead have to wait for one thats still being resarched and will never be availabe in this game, doesnt it? Is there any reason pilots from the A6M2 wouldnt have upgraded to the A6M3?

Dawg

added to FAQ

[2Stepper]

As I understand it, and I could be wrong on specifics, the upgrade paths are historical in nature. I remember reading of certain "get arounds", but I don't recall what specifically much less the thread... I know that's not much help, but I'm fairly certain that they'll stay A6M2's till the M5 comes out for that unit.

[Mr.Frag]

Correct, the A6M2 & A6M3 were not grouped together.

The A6M5 replaces both of them when it comes around.

[MadDawg]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I can live with that. [:)] My only comment though is that shouldnt this be up to the player? I mean, I can invade Brisbane in this scenario if I want yet I can ask my pilots to fly this other plane [;)]

Dawg

[Mr.Frag]

My only comment though is that shouldnt this be up to the player?

Air groups have what they historically had. If someone actually had complete control over industry and you could re-aircraft any groups with any aircraft, we would end up wandering into the turf of RTS games instead of a war game.

We asked about a billion times during the beta for some measure of control, but you keep coming back to the same old problem ... it would have to be an non-ai only version of the game.

[Tenzan]

The neatest way to do it would've been branched upgrade paths, as in A6m2's upgrading to either a3's or a5's, and so on...More than one single upgrade option, but, sticking to model and class and service upgrade paths...That'd give you a choice in what you want your airmen flying, to an extent, but, would prevent an RTS style build-up fest...

[2Stepper]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag
Air groups have what they historically had. If someone actually had complete control over industry and you could re-aircraft any groups with any aircraft, we would end up wandering into the turf of RTS games instead of a war game.

We asked about a billion times during the beta for some measure of control, but you keep coming back to the same old problem ... it would have to be an non-ai only version of the game.

Sounds like a solid candidate for the eventual Mod'ers to take on later on down the road. Something I find as an eventuality... For now though I couldn't be happier. Though honestly Frag, I would have to disagree that it would make it an RTS game... Nah... Just not a very historical one... Sort of a WiTP "what if" game. LOL!

Be a while before that happens... [8D]

[Hard Sarge]

Well, maybe we could use PP for this action as well (hmmm, don't even know if the JP side gets PP ?)

I mean some of it seems a little silly, the Chinese units have to wait for the P-40 N, but if I replace my P-40 E units with N's, I am going to have tons of E's sitting around, and all the Chinese units are still flying I-153's and I-16's but can't use my hand me downs

I mean, say, the normal path is P-40 N's, if I want to change it to P-40 E's it will cost 150 PP, change it to P-36's, it will cost 120, change it to P-38's, cost 500, change it to F4f4's 1000 (different branch), change it to Spit V's, 2000-3000 different country)

(well, really, I want to get some of them Demons into the air)

HARD_Sarge

[Mr.Frag]

Perhaps while you are outfitting the Allies, you can have those shipments of German aircraft arrive too. What if? I'll give you what if! [:'(]

Operation Sea Lion a success, Britain withdraws from the war! Germany turns her production to aid her Allies [:D][X(][8|]

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Perhaps while you are outfitting the Allies, you can have those shipments of German aircraft arrive too. What if? I'll give you what if! [:'(]

Operation Sea Lion a success, Britain withdraws from the war! Germany turns her production to aid her Allies [:D][X(][8|]

Nah... IMHO, while Luftwaffe could have beaten the RAF if they used better tactics the RN would have stopped any invasion (no matter the air supremacy over channel - British proved in WWII that, if necessary, they would operate their ships regardless of enemy air when necessary)... [;)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Mr.Frag]

Nah... IMHO, while Luftwaffe could have beaten the RAF if they used better tactics the RN would have stopped any invasion (no matter the air supremacy over channel - British proved in WWII that, if necessary, they would operate their ships regardless of enemy air when necessary)...

What can I say Leo, it just drives me nuts when people playing the Allies want even more stuff in their favour. They already have enough to fight 4 separate Japan's. Do they really need more??? [8|]

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

What can I say Leo, it just drives me nuts when people playing the Allies want even more stuff in their favour. They already have enough to fight 4 separate Japan's. Do they really need more??? [8|]

I am always for historical accuracy (when possible)!


Saying that Raymond, I will play grand campaign PBEM as Japanese using stuff they had and my only goal would be to try to be better than Japan historically was... I will fight to bitter (and predictable) end...


IMHO current WitP is just great for this because:

#1
We really don't need unhistorical ships (except for small craft for which I think there should not be any limits).

#2
We really don't need to see aircraft that historically come in 1944 to come in 1942 (few months advancement that WitP allows is just fine).


Leo "Apollo11"

[Spooky]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

My only comment though is that shouldnt this be up to the player?

Air groups have what they historically had. If someone actually had complete control over industry and you could re-aircraft any groups with any aircraft, we would end up wandering into the turf of RTS games instead of a war game.

We asked about a billion times during the beta for some measure of control, but you keep coming back to the same old problem ... it would have to be an non-ai only version of the game.

In this case, just provide this control to the Japanese player - similar to the control given to the Axis player in GG's BTR (ie : you can replace a day fighter by another day fighter but not by a night fighter or a bomber)

And the AI will only have to follow the upgrade paths defined in the scenario or by the editor.

To be honest, I really do not understand this hard-coded planes upgrade control [&:]. This control (or rather lack of) is for me the biggest WITP weakness

[ZOOMIE1980]

To be honest, I really do not understand this hard-coded planes upgrade control [&:]. This control (or rather lack of) is for me the biggest WITP weakness

It has to do with the fundamental developmental design of the program itself. A lot of fixed array based indexing of stuff with static global constants (hard coded stuff). The AI is going to expect certain aircraft (or types of aircraft) to be in certain, fixed "slots", in the arrays. If they are not, the AI "breaks". This type of design used to be highly favored in games because it uses less memory, requires little, if any, dyanamic memory allocations meaining less memory fragmentation, and can be very fast. All big plusses in the days of limited memory and slow processors. The cost however is flexibility and scalability. You are loargey "locked in" to what you start with. Even minor modifications can be daunting tasks with such a design. After a while your "fixes/mods" end up breaking more than they fix.

While there is no longer any need to design programs this way, a lot of older developers (i.e. GG) still adhere to this model because they are comfortable with it, understand it, and are leary of other, less "proven", methods of application design. Sending programmers to school or programming seminars, and then spending 12-18 months or more, to learn new development styles is not within the budgets of most of these extemely thinnly capitalized operations.

In short, WitP players need to accept the concept of "slots". It is just how it is.

[Rainerle]

But BTR is also a GG game and there it was possible ?

[Spooky]

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

In short, WitP players need to accept the concept of "slots". It is just how it is.

I agree, in this time of modded games, "Hard-coded" stuff is evil [;)] However, BTR was probably as hard-coded (and probably more) as WITP and provided some kind of flexibility in the aircraft upgrade model so it should be doable

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Spooky

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980

In short, WitP players need to accept the concept of "slots". It is just how it is.

I agree, in this time of modded games, "Hard-coded" stuff is evil [;)] However, BTR was probably as hard-coded (and probably more) as WITP and provided some kind of flexibility in the aircraft upgrade model so it should be doable

Probably has to do with scope more than anything. The bigger the scope of a game, when using this "fixed" data model, the more "rigid" it has to be bacause of the exponential increase in the amount of tedious work involved, especially the AI, where in such a system, it becomes the "lowest common denominator" and the limiting factor. That's the "scalability" problem with this kind of design. Like Fraggo elluded to, it would force a game of this magnitude and scale to become a non-AI game.

[ZOOMIE1980]

And one thing I've learned from gaming is players are NOT going to EVER see mods that would require an alteration of the fundemental way in which the program works. The data model in WitP is what it is. Whatever mods and fixes we are going to get, including the AI, are going to be what they can do WITHIN the design paradigm of the game. It would not make to sense to expect them to "rewrite" the game from the ground up just to make upgrade paths and everything else "soft" and user definable.

Plainly, some things are fixable, some things are not. Removing adherence to "slots" is probably something well beyond "fixability". Same thing with the AI "Death Spiral" problem. There may be only so much they can do with that based on how the AI is designed.

[Caltone]

I have to agree with Mr. Frag here. This is a historical war game, not a comic book. Slots or no, they work best for the way the game is designed. Why not use a fixed path when it is easier, it works for the design, and might allow slower machines to run this game?

While I have a new machine at home, many grogs are notorius for keeping old comps running many years past their prime. You'll notice the system requirements for this game are lower than most stuff released today. It runs well on older laptops. Don't forget guys, this plays to a limited but world wide audience.

By RTS factor, Frag means everyone would rush to build the "good" stuff like in Warcraft where everyone builds the same units en masse. The other factor is you would see Japan with jets in '43 and before you know it, the Nimitz would come steaming in to save Pearl Harbor.

Kirk Douglas and crew to the rescue [:D][:D]

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: Caltone

I have to agree with Mr. Frag here. This is a historical war game, not a comic book. Slots or no, they work best for the way the game is designed. Why not use a fixed path when it is easier, it works for the design, and might allow slower machines to run this game?

While I have a new machine at home, many grogs are notorius for keeping old comps running many years past their prime. You'll notice the system requirements for this game are lower than most stuff released today. It runs well on older laptops. Don't forget guys, this plays to a limited but world wide audience.

By RTS factor, Frag means everyone would rush to build the "good" stuff like in Warcraft where everyone builds the same units en masse. The other factor is you would see Japan with jets in '43 and before you know it, the Nimitz would come steaming in to save Pearl Harbor.

Kirk Douglas and crew to the rescue [:D][:D]

This is where the skills of a guy like GG are so impressive. In most of his games that allow this kind of play (using R&D to build uber-weapons), he knows how to make a player pay dearly for using strategies like that Warcraft nonsense, to the extreme. One of his earliest efforts, back in the Apple II days, was a game that simulated the strategic daylight bombing of Germany. The Japanese R&D model was actually born in that game back in 1985. Invariably the German player would go all out to research the ME-262 to get large numbers by Oct 44 and completely turn the game around. However, in a hot-seat game, the Allied player would simply bomb the hell out of the ME-262 research plants and win the game in even a shorter time period because the German player would be out of traditional aircraft way too early! Great balance there, great design!