WITPBriefing reports

[11Bravo]

I just sent Spooky a number of reports based on the scenerio 15 version 1.21. I call these WITPBriefing and I developed them to help me learn, enjoy and play WITP. I will describe the reports in a series of posts later. Look for them on Spooky's website soon and give me some feedback.

[11Bravo]

Background:

When I first started WITP I was overwhelmed with the scope and scale of the game, the unfamiliar geography, the capability of the various ships and aircraft, and a lack of understanding of the history of the Pacific campaign. I needed a way to organize all that detail into a big picture view.

After Michael McFarland published witpload, I had access to all the raw data and began to assemble it into reports to get that big picture view. Over time I developed a utility that uses witpload to extract the data automatically, maintain a database, and extract reports into a spreadsheet that can be filtered, sorted, searched, and printed.

In its present incarnation, I have 15 reports that seem to answer the questions I was asking as I first explored the game.

Description:

The first 3 reports answers who is in the game, what types of units do they have, and how much of each do they have. Each report is a summary of the count of landbased combat units, airgroups, or ships, by type and nation at the beginning of the game.

The next 6 reports are itemized lists of bases, landbased combat units, landbased airgroups, seabased airgroups, taskforces, and ships. This information is arranged by timing, geography, capability, quantity, and leadership. The timing gives the date the unit is available in the game.

The geography section breaks down the location into control zone, side, nation, command, major theater, minor theater, area, and base the unit is at or is near. (Ships, taskforces, and seabased airgroups are not attached to commands, so they are given basecommands that are the command HQ of the nearest base to those units). The major theaters are the China-Burma-India, Strategic Resource Area, Northern Pacific, Central Pacific, and Southern Pacific. In the Strategic Resource Area we have minor theaters such as Java Sea, South China Sea, Philippines, Sulawesi Area, and Timor Sea. The Philippines is then divided into areas such as Luzon Area, Mindanao Area, and Samar/Leyte Area. In the Luzon area we then have 18 separate bases or airfields. In this way it is possible to zoom into the area of interest or zoom out as needed.

The capability and quantity sections give high-level information on what and how well the unit performs. For land combat units these are what type of unit, does it report to a restricted command, can it be airdropped, how much support and aviation support does it provide. For airgroups it includes what kind of aircraft is being flown and what does it upgrade to and when. For ships it includes the AA and ASW ratings and whether the ship is in a task force.

The leadership section gives who is the leader, and what are his ratings.

A separate leader report gives a list of all leaders and their ratings, and indicates whether they are currently employed at the beginning of the game. This list will give you a sense of which leaders need replacing first and what the average ratings of the remaining leaders are.

Finally the last 5 reports give details on the statistics of the devices, the upgrade paths, production, stuff like that. Many of these reports give more than one line per aircraft, ship, or base.

I emailed a sample of the reports to Spooky for scenario 15 version 1.21. The process of generating these reports is automated, so I can generate them for all the scenerios after the patch or any custom scenerios. I will try to use the time between now and the next patch to correct any errors or to improve the existing reports.

I will next post the data fields in the reports.

[11Bravo]

The first 3 reports are summaries of the starting units by type and nation. Here are the fields in those reports:

Code: Select all

1_SumLCU       2_SumAir       3_SumShip
 
 LCUType        AircraftType   HullType
 TotalUnits     TotalUnits     TotalShips
 Australian     Australian     Australian
 British        British        British
 Canada         Canada         Canada
 Chinese        Chinese        Commonwealth
 Commonwealth   Dutch          Dutch
 Dutch          IJ Army        French
 IJ Army        IJ Navy        IJ Navy
 IJ Navy        New Zealand    Indian
 Indian         Philippines    New Zealand
 New Zealand    Soviet         Philippines
 Philippines    US Army        US Navy
 Soviet         US Marines
 US Army        US Navy
 US Marines
 US Navy

[11Bravo]

The next 6 reports are individual items in the game like bases, units, or leaders. These reports are presented in a format which makes filtering, searching, and sorting very easy to get whatever information you need for your operational plans. Here are the datafields in those reports.

Code: Select all

4_Base         5_LCU          6_LBA          7_SBA          8_TF           9_Ship
 
 UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber
 Delay          Delay          Delay          Delay          Delay          Delay
 Zone           Zone           Zone           Zone           Zone           Zone
 Side           Side           Side           Side           Side           Side
 Nation         Nation         Nation         Nation         Nation         Nation
 Command        Command        Command        BaseCommand    BaseCommand    BaseCommand
 MajorTheater   MajorTheater   MajorTheater   MajorTheater   MajorTheater   MajorTheater
 MinorTheater   MinorTheater   MinorTheater   MinorTheater   MinorTheater   MinorTheater
 Area           Area           Area           Area           Area           Area
 LocMod         LocMod         LocMod         LocMod         LocMod         LocMod
 BaseName       BaseName       BaseName       BaseName       BaseName       BaseName
 LocX           LocX           LocX           LocX           LocX           LocX
 LocY           LocY           LocY           LocY           LocY           LocY
 BaseType       LCUType        AirCraftType   AirCraftType   UnitName       HullType
 PortSz         UnitName       UnitName       UnitName       Size           ShipName
 PortBuild      Formation      Formation      Formation      Homebase       ClassName
 AirfieldSz     TOEName        Restricted     ShipName       Destination    InTF
 AFBuild        Restricted     CVLand         CVLand         DestX          AA
 Forts          InTF           Kamikaze       Kamikaze       DestY          ASW
 Supply         Airdrop        AircraftName   AircraftName   LeaderName     ExperienceNight
 Fuel           AS             Upgrade        Upgrade        Rank           ExperienceDay
 Oil            ASMax          UpDate         UpDate         CommandType    LeaderName
 Resources      AvSupport      MaxCraft       MaxCraft       SurfaceAction  Rank
 DailySupply    AvSupportMax   ReadyCraft     ReadyCraft     AirAction      CommandType
 DailyFuel      Support        DamCraft       DamCraft       Skill          SurfaceAction
 DailyOil       SupportMax     Morale         Morale         Inspiration    Skill
 Jvictory       HQType         Experience     Experience     Agressiveness  Inspiration
 Avictory       HQRadius       LeaderName     LeaderName     Administration Agressiveness
 Damage         Experience     Rank           Rank           LandAction     Administration
 Disabled       Morale         CommandType    CommandType    PoliticalPointsAirAction
 PortDamage     Disabled       AirAction      AirAction                     LandAction
 ServiceDamage  LCUFatigue     Skill          Skill                         PoliticalPoints
 RunwayDamage   Planning       Inspiration    Inspiration
                TargetID       Agressiveness  Agressiveness
                LeaderName     Administration Administration
                Rank           LandAction     LandAction
                CommandType    SurfaceAction  SurfaceAction
                LandAction     PoliticalPointsPoliticalPoints
                Skill
                Inspiration
                Agressiveness
                Administration
                AirAction
                SurfaceAction
                PoliticalPoints
 

[11Bravo]

Finally, the last 5 reports are details of the devices contained by various items. These also give calculated ranges in hexes, upgrade paths, maybe some other stuff. A separate leader report shows who is employed and who is available. Many of these detail reports contain more than 1 line per item (prod, aircraft, ship) so be careful when filtering and sorting.

Code: Select all

10_Leader      11_DetProd     12_DetTOE      13_DetAir      14_DetShip     15_DetDev
 
 UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber     UnitNumber
 Employed       Delay          Side           Side           Side           DeviceType
 Nation         Zone           Nation         AirCraftType   HullType       AvailDate
 CommandType    Side           Type           AvailDate      ClassName      Name
 SurfaceAction  Nation         TOEName        AircraftName   AvailDate      Upgrade
 AirAction      Command        Formation      UpgradeName    DeviceType     UpDate
 LandAction     MajorTheater   ASMax          UpDate         Device         LoadCost
 Skill          MinorTheater   SupportMax     DeviceType     Number         Effect
 Inspiration    Area           AvSupportMax   Device         AA             Penetration
 Agressiveness  LocMod         DeviceType     Number         ASW            Accuracy
 Administration BaseName       DeviceName     CVLand         Capacity       DudRate
 PoliticalPointsLocX           WpnNumber      MaxLoad        Endurance      Range
 Name           LocY                          MaxRange       Fuel           Ceiling
 Rank           DeviceType                    ExtRange       MaxRange       AntiArmour
                Device                        NormRange      NormRange      AntiSoft
                Number                        MaxAltitude    MaxSpeed       Armour
                StartOil                      MaxSpeed       CruiseSpeed    BuildRate
                StartResource                 CruiseSpeed    Manuever       Pool
                DailyOil                      ClimbRate      Durability
                DailyResource                 Manuever       BeltArmour
                                              Endurance      DeckArmour
                                              Armour         TowerArmour
                                              Durability
                                              BuildRate
                                              Pool
 

[11Bravo]

The reports are available in three formats, big, bigger, and biggest.

Using scenerio 15 as a test run...

15 zipped csv's = 939 KB
1 zipped excel spreadsheet (formatted) = 2158 KB
1 zipped access database = 2991 KB

If I get good feedback, I will run additional reports for other scenerios and turn them over to whoever wants to host them on a website.

[strawbuk]

Fabbo stuff mate!

[11Bravo]

I will try to upload one of the reports...this one is small...it is for the bases. Remember to rename the file so it has a ".csv" extension. For some reason the forum only allows txt files and a few others for uploading.

[rockin_ron41]

Looks good to me. I was hoping someone would come up with some more info in order to better plan the opening stages of the campaign game.

You could send to me direct so I do not have to wait for Spooky to post on his site.

Ron

[11Bravo]

I could if I had your email address. [;)]
Send me an email and I'll mail scen 15 v 121 out.

If you want a different report, I need the scenerio files, the version number, and the starting date of the scenerio. I have the scens that shipped with the game. The starting date is important, as I scrub the database delay fields and zero them to the starting date. This gives a better delay field for filtering.

[morphin]

Hi 11Bravo

Great! Thank's. It seems that this is exactly what i was looking for.
May you could this do also for the lemur's scenario?
Could you send it to me also direct?

Andy

[11Bravo]

I can do these for any scenerio...but I need to know 3 things:

1. Where can I get the exact scenerio files
2. What version is it (so I don't run the same one over and over again)
3. What is the starting date of the scenerio (so all the dates work properly during filtering and sorting)

Also...if you find errors or have suggestions for how these might be made better, please post them.

I am finding them very useful for planning operations. I like to sort all the units by arrival date and write their orders into the spreadsheet. I also edit the base information when they get captures. Good stuff in those reports.

Thanks,
11Bravo

[nico71]

Errr....call me stupid, but how do I use the csv-files? If I open them in Excel I get only some distorted lines!

[11Bravo]

The csv files are comma delimited files. The first row are column headers and the the subsequent rows are data and all the commas are there to put everything in the right column.

Here is what works for me:

Double clicking the file.

or

Fire up excel and use File>Open
Select Files of Type: Text Files (*.prn;*.txt;*.csv)
Open

or

Fire up excel and use Data>Get External Data>Import Text File
Select Files of Type: All Files (*.*)
Import
Then go through the text file import wizard making sure you choose Delimited on the first tab and Comma on the second tab

OK?

[nico71]

The 'import text file' function did the trick (simply open doesn't work here)! Now I got it! Thanks! [:)] Cool stuff, BTW!

[11Bravo]

Updated version of WITPBriefing is on Spooky's website. Corrected mistakes in SBA and LCU reports. After the patch comes out I will run the rest of the scenerios and Spooky agreed to host them as well. In the meantime, email me if you want something other than the scen 15 v 121 report and be prepared to give feedback if you find errors.