CHM - 100 day playtest

[pry]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


Found same results for the Japanese at Palau. Created a test scenario and added 10,000 initial Oil and 100 initial Resource to Palau. The base has no oil or resource production, in fact it has no factories of any kind. Started the game, formed a Tanker Task Force at Palau and instructed it to load oil. Ran one turn and verified that the Tanker had loaded oil and was continuing to load.

It seems that production itself is not the answer, just the availability of some resource. The more I think about this the more I come to believe that this is a small programming error in the cargo load functions.

During the orders phase the appearance of the "Load Oil" button is based on the presence of oil at the base.

During turn resolution there must be an "oil load" check whose purpose is to be sure that there is some oil at the base that can be loaded. This check may mistakenly reference resource instead of oil. This would be quite understandable - especially if oil and resource are referenced by offset - something like location[12] and location[13].

Don

Ahemmm perhalps I did not word it correctly

If you have 1 oil or 1 resource producing each turn then you will always have ability to load from these locations because there will always be some on hand, if you pull up to a base like Palau that has no inventory or production and unload say a load of oil then come back later and try to pick it up it is frozen in place and can not be removed... Now have the bace producing 1 oil a turn from the start and you should be able to use the base that way...

[Don Bowen]

Pry

You are correct but I would like to emphasize that is not the production of oil or resource that is the controlling factor. It is the presence of resource in storage at the base that allows the loading of oil that is stored at the base. If no resource is on hand, no oil can be loaded. The presence of factories to produce oil and resource will tend to ensure that oil and resource are available but I believe this masks the true problem - loading of oil is dependant on the presence of resource.

Don

[bstarr]

When Bulla upgrades from a beach to a port the Resource Factory does appear, along with a few Resource points that were growing there invisibly.

I think Bulla should remain a beach in the next version. I kinda like the idea of the Japs having to build a port before they can get the supplies out.
bs

[bstarr]

CHM has the disappearing aircraft production problem. It's mid-October and I have A6M3a factories up and running, but the planes keep disappearing out of the pool. I think Pry and/or Frag asked for a save with this problem earlier in the week so I posted in Tech support in case they still need it.
bs

[Halsey]

I don't think they mess with mods. Only stock scenarios.

[jwilkerson]

But it happens in stock scenarios all the time - so you shouldn't have much of a problem coming up with a save from a stock scenario - I've just chalked this up to - "that's the way it is" - and added it to the list - and kept on playing ! There have been hints that 1.5 will try to fix - but we will see when it comes out.

[bstarr]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

But it happens in stock scenarios all the time - so you shouldn't have much of a problem coming up with a save from a stock scenario - I've just chalked this up to - "that's the way it is" - and added it to the list - and kept on playing ! There have been hints that 1.5 will try to fix - but we will see when it comes out.

We may be looking at a different problem, or you're misunderstanding the problem. With the disappearing plane bug my Jap Naval pilots won't have any fighters in a few months. You can't really say "that's the way it is" and keep going if one side runs out of half of their fighters.\

However, this is supposed to be one of the big fixes in 1.5. I just hope it can fix a game in progress 'cause I'd hate to start one over that's lasted into 10/42.
bs

[Mr.Frag]

However, this is supposed to be one of the big fixes in 1.5. I just hope it can fix a game in progress 'cause I'd hate to start one over that's lasted into 10/42.

The actual bug is very specific. Ships that have air groups that are sunk during the course of the game continue to pull replacement aircraft forever. The more ships you loose, the more pronounced the problem becomes.

If your situation is not this (ie: you are loosing aircraft that are not naval based) then it is something completely different.

The developer has a finite amount of time to run through and find bugs. Having to flip flop back and forth between multiple versions of the code is bad enough without having to jump between different databases and maps. It would result in even less things being fixed which is why the work is done against the standard code/art/map.

[bstarr]

Mr Frag,
I've seen this problem twice - once with CHM and once with my own mod, which used standard issue stuff. Both times the game was pulling aircraft that the missing carrier groups were going to upgrade to, not planes that the carriers had on their decks when they went down. I don't think its absorbing replacements, I think the missing air groups are upgrading themselves over and over as soon as the planes are available.

Anyway, that's what I've seen. I'm hardly an expert.
bs

[bstarr]

Now this is odd . . .

in CHM the carrier groups are manually set to upgrade to A6M3s which would carry them past the A6M3a straight to A6M5s. But the A6M3as are the ones disappearing! So it's taking the planes that the aircraft upgrade to regardless of any manual changes to the path.

Damn I'm glad I'm not a programer. That by itself just gave me a headache.

I think I'm going to go buy one of those paddles with a rubber ball attached by a string - much closer to my level.
bs

[jwilkerson]

Maybe "my version" of the problem IS different. The problem I've seen ( which 2NDACR also commented on regularly ) was air groups "absorbing" extra planes and pilots ... it just happened to me with a land based Kate group .. I transferred them to Lunga and now they have 42 planes and 42 pilots ( instead of the 27 each they started with ). But this also happens to Nates and others ... I guess I'd call it the "Invalid Overstrengthing Bug" if I had to give it a name.

Is this one on a radar screen ?

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: bstarr

I think we're looking at an emergency field.

I thought about that this morning, and I've reversed my opinion back to 0(0), 0(0). there's simply no way this single-short-strip-runway-only could have become a base to support medium bombers (which is what a lvl 4 can do). Where would you put the facilities? Where would the planes park? Storage? Sleeping Quarters for the pilots? The ground crews?

You expand more by dredging up more seabottom.

A HUGE airport was created in a similar fashion at Bermuda out of almost nothing. The engineers dredged the bottom of the atoll and created an airfield that is large enough to comfortably land commercial airliners. Before the US arrived, there was a TINY island there (Bird Island). Now there is a huge airfield over once was mostly water. This was done in surprising short time in WW2. Before that, Bermuda was just a seaplane base.

I think Midways airfields (5000+ feet on one in East Island, and the ones on Sand Island appear far larger) were done in a similar fashion (at least in part).

French Frigate Shoals is an atoll, and the water here appears relatively shallow. Expansion could be done, with money, time and effort. This being only an emergency field, and a field used to transfer fighters - there was no pressing need to expand it as there was at Midway or Bermuda.

Again: It would take money, time and effort, but it could be done.

Agreed.

A possible problem owes to the one-size-fits-all nature of the construction model. In practical terms there was a world of difference between what the Japanese were capable of building and what the Americans were capable of building in World War II in these backwater places. The Japanese didn't have the requisite organization (equipment, trained manpower, means to ship in the necessary supplies) to even dream of building the sort of bases the Americans threw up almost overnight. This is yet one more fundamental difference between the two armed forces, and it was a huge one at that which went a long way toward spelling Japans's defeat.

Part of this is modeled in the game insofar as Japan doesn't have the beefed-up engineer units to employ, but if they put enough of what they do have in a hex and bring in sufficent supply they could theoretically perform engineering feats in the game which weren't possible in real life. It's like the ingame ability to stack an unlimited number of LCUs on Tarawa. Hardly realistic.

Just from looking at the pictures (the colored one I hadn't seen before) it's apparent that while the staging strip at French Frigate Shoals was just that, it could well have been expanded to about anything the Americans wanted had that order only been issued.