A6M3 vs. A6M5 ...or keep A6M2

[Mike Solli]

What do you guys prefer?

A6M3:
Availability Date - 4/42
No armor
Maneuver - 36
Durability - 22

A6M5:
Availability Date - 9/43
Armor - 1
Maneuver - 34
Durability - 27

With 1.5 what do you think? Do you upgrade to A6M3 as soon as possible or keep the A6M2 until 9/43 to upgrade to the A6M5? The reason I ask is that Mogami said that factories no longer automatically upgrade for free. Now you have to pay for all upgrades. Is it worth the cost?

Thanks,

Mike

[sfbaytf]

If you get the Unofficial player guide its recommended you get the later zeros as it will help keep your pilots alive and anything that helps will be of benefit later on. Other than that I don't know. I'm still playing the Guadacanal scenario as Japan against another person and last night we had a massive carrier battle which I won. I sank the Enterprise and damaged the Hornet, while suffering no losses or hits to my fleet, yet the losses to my pilots was pretty bad.

I've also ended the same scenario (Guadacanal) with another person where I played as the Americans an we just started scenario 13. I'm Japan and I'm already planning on how to preserve pilots. The lesson of the carrier battle I mentioned above is still fresh in my mind.

I'm researching the A6M5 and A6M8 and will upgrade. Preserving pilots is paramont for Japan.

[hexgod]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

... The reason I ask is that Mogami said that factories no longer automatically upgrade for free. Now you have to pay for all upgrades. ...

Thanks,

Mike

Since when did this happen? OMG it will cost me a fortune to upgrade my Zeros!

[doktorblood]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

What do you guys prefer?

A6M3:
Availability Date - 4/42
No armor
Maneuver - 36
Durability - 22

A6M5:
Availability Date - 9/43
Armor - 1
Maneuver - 34
Durability - 27

With 1.5 what do you think? Do you upgrade to A6M3 as soon as possible or keep the A6M2 until 9/43 to upgrade to the A6M5? The reason I ask is that Mogami said that factories no longer automatically upgrade for free. Now you have to pay for all upgrades. Is it worth the cost?

Thanks,

Mike

I think maye Mogami is mistaken and factories still autoupgrade themselves as they did before. So I don't think you are going to have a choice...

A6m2 upgrades to A6m3a in 11/42. I think I would start turning off some of the zero factories after 3/43 when J2M Jack becomes available.

N1K1-J comes 1/44, so you might only need enough zeros to man any carriers have left.
Too bad the devs royally screwed the Japs by chopping the range of George almost in half and not bothering to put in N1K2-J George21 at all.

[mogami]

Hi, The auto upgrade had to be turned off because the computer would upgrade factories to newer aircraft even if the player wanted to keep using them.

Example Japanese player wants to keep flying Ann divebomber and sets factories to build. The computer would see Sonia as newer divebomber and upgrade the factories.

[Mike Solli]

Man is this going to get expensive......

[doktorblood]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, The auto upgrade had to be turned off because the computer would upgrade factories to newer aircraft even if the player wanted to keep using them.

Example Japanese player wants to keep flying Ann divebomber and sets factories to build. The computer would see Sonia as newer divebomber and upgrade the factories.

Huh? Why would somebody want to keep building old planes?

[mogami]

Hi, In the case of the Sonia-Ann example. The Sonia has armor but the Ann has greater range and bomb load.
The A6M2 has greater range and in my case will contiue to see service as a landbased fighter to escort Bombers after it has been replaced on the CV where range is not as large a factor.

[pompack]

Question: Is this true?

A6M3 is landbased only
A6M3a is carrier qualified

[doktorblood]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, In the case of the Sonia-Ann example. The Sonia has armor but the Ann has greater range and bomb load.
The A6M2 has greater range and in my case will contiue to see service as a landbased fighter to escort Bombers after it has been replaced on the CV where range is not as large a factor.

Keeping a few crummy Anns in the air is hardley worth the extra expense of millions of supply points to upgrade.

[mogami]

Hi, I can't say. I don't have any PBEM where I can try to upgrade CV groups.
I guess you could load a scenario and find out. I'll do it later but right now I am going to go drink beer. I'll be back late (so don't wait up)

(I just noticed I went over 10k posts[X(] almost 6 per day since I joined)

[DrewMatrix]

1) Happy 10,000th
2) Isn't 10,000 "Banzai" in Japanese?
3) If so "Banzai Mogami" (sounds like I took conversational Japanese 101, huh?)
and
4) Was any change made to the databases or economies if there is now a huge cost to change bases from one A/C to another? This was free in 1.4, right? And is now "lots" so the economies of the Allies and Japan just became enormously smaller, no?

[Grotius]

Under the old system, Nell factories auto-upgraded to Betties on January 1, 1942, right? Maybe I will speed-play my way to January 1 to see if that still happens.

[tsimmonds]

Hey guys, you can always play with "player defined upgrades" set to "off". Free factory upgrades that way.[:D]

[Mr.Frag]

(I just noticed I went over 10k posts almost 6 per day since I joined)

Slacker! [:'(]

[Tankerace]

I like the new sig Mr. Frag

[DrewMatrix]

I ran a game "continuous head to head Auto upgrades on" through 1/10/42. I should have stopped it at 12/31 but I didn't (I was spending quality time with my wife over dinner). The game I ran was a game I had already been playing as Japan vs AI so I probably had pushed a couple of buttons.

The Nell plant at Gumma did upgrade to Bettys. Apparently without damage (it is size 20 and is undamaged on 1/10 so it couldn't have been damaged on 1/1, right?_

The Claude plant at Nagasaki did _not_ upgrade.

I had set both plants to Halt but hadn't expanded either.

Anyone have any brilliant insight as to what happened? Perhaps I had touched the upgrade path for Claudes? But I had also upgraded some Nells to Bettys.

Anyhow, some upgrades are still sometimes automatic (there is a "jello-like observation") but I can't tell which is why as it were.

[Grotius]

You beat me to it, Beezle. Good work! But, er, confusing results.

Hmm. I may just carry on playing the AI through early January. Maybe the results will be different if one of the two players is human? So far I haven't upgraded anything, but I did halt Claude production.

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: Beezle


The Claude plant at Nagasaki did _not_ upgrade.

I had set both plants to Halt but hadn't expanded either.

Anyone have any brilliant insight as to what happened? Perhaps I had touched the upgrade path for Claudes? But I had also upgraded some Nells to Bettys.

Even in earlier versions, I've had trouble with that Claude plant upgrading. I've never had it upgrade 1/1. One game I let it go and it eventually upgraded, but not in January. Other games it didn't convert and I gave up and converted it in Jan. Now I just convert it at the beginning of the game.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Hey guy, you can always play with "player defined upgrades" set to "off". Free factory upgrades that way.[:D]

I would suppose that you can't change back to the other method once a campaign is started, can you? I don't know if I want to start over or not. Presumably when the AI Allies upgrade their economies will take a hit too, correct?