Liberty Ships!?!?!?!?

[RevRick]

I am having a problem. On 31 Oct 43 turn I checked the pools - and noticed 20 Liberty ships in the pool. When I checked find ships, there are no Liberty Ships afloat in the Pacific Theater. When I checked with the Edit 1.22 - there are no Liberty Ships assigned to the Pacific theater - but there are beauqueax Victory ships which appear to come into the game from the beginning to the end. Is this an error? If so, which of the MCS files should be Liberty Ships, and is their arrival date correct?


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God Bless;
Rev. Rick, the tincanman

[LargeSlowTarget]

There are Liberty ships in the Pool, but you never get a Liberty icon in a port. Instead, starting mid-43 the Allied player receives 6000-ton-Marus in SF. That is definitely an error. Obviously, the Marus have been mixed up with the Liberties.
There is another error with this. As far as I know, the Victories were faster successors of the Liberties. Therefore, PacWar should start with Liberty ships instead of the Victories (and the Marus should be Victories). Perhaps someone else has some details on production numbers and dates of entry into service of the respective types?

[This message has been edited by LargeSlowTarget (edited December 09, 2000).]

[RevRick]

Regarding Liberty vs. Victory.
I was going to say something along the same lines, but memory was fuzzy. To the best of my knowledge, the only way a Liberty Ship could reach 14 kt. would be with a hurricane as a following wind. More like 10 kt at best. Did not the Victory's also have a larger cargo capacity as well? In the editor, the two ships are virtually identical.

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God Bless;
Rev. Rick, the tincanman

[babyseal7]

Liberty should be 11 knots, durability of around 30, capacity of around 100. Victory should be 16 knots (listed speeds of 15-16.5), durability of around 35, capacity of around 120.

Quite a few of the Jap merchant ships have a lower durability rating compared to the Allied ships than they should IMO. All tankers just about in the game should have a higher durability rating than they have, especially the larger ones...tankers were tough. The merchant ship speeds should generally be inverted...smaller slower, bigger faster.

Japs get 10 fleet oilers in the game...Jap OOB for 7 Dec 41 lists something like 35 AO's.

Speaking of, what does 1 capacity point compare to? 1 point=how many tons of cargo?


[This message has been edited by babyseal7 (edited December 09, 2000).]

[Major Tom]

For the IJN OOB's that I have read, many of those AO's were just Tankers pressed into IJN service, not true AO's (Not with the same speed or armament).

When I created the Liberty/Victory I wasn't able to find any statistics, such as cargo capacity and speed/weaponry. I created them as improved US MCS. In the newest OBC's I had to remove the Liberty Class ship, due to conflicts with the IJN MCS pools.

Just wait until the 2.2 patch is out. I don't know when it will be, but, most of the problems experienced (all those caused by any Matrix Patch) will be fixed.

[babyseal7]

Relax Tom...I doubt if most of us expect you to have every niggling detail perfect (in whoevers personal opinion), or to create an OBC that will make everyone happy in every way, all the time. I kinda figure that's why you gave us an editor and a PacWar thread to talk about it, ya know?

You might check out Ken Hansens OBC...awesome ship classes. Between yours and his OBC's I think just about everything is there. In particular the realistic boost in Jap amphib. capacity and light ASW...they already get their ASW rating hacked to 0.75, no need to hack out scores of their light escorts.

I rolled all the Liberty arrivals into the 10,000t cargo class. Victory was improved more than enough to rate a new class. Liberty's only appeal was numbers and price tag. They were actually kinda slow, vulnerable, and with crappy cargo handling gear/hatches from what I've read...truth be known, they probably should go into the generic 8000t class.

Jap AO's I just rolled them all into the single IJN AO class and put the extras in the pool. A few popguns or a coupla knots in a support ships speed really ain't important on the "strategic scale". The loss in IJN capability is though IMO...every tanker counts, LOL, and I've never heard of the IJN commandeering a ship and then giving it back to the "civvies".

Also, I increased the durability of all Allied subs by 1 point, and the Balao (heavy hull Gato) to 8...seems to be working well. Balao's get an "improved" Mk 14.2 torpedo with increased accuracy (15) to reflect late war US torpedo improvements/improved QC as well.

All new US ship classes that begin arriving after Jun'43 get an "improved" Mk 15.2 with an accuracy of 15.

[Major Tom]

The reason that IJN MCS and Tankers have such low durability is to reflect the poor convoy organization. The IJN didn't start making convoys until 1943-44, and even these were badly put together. In PacWar, convoys are automatic, so, in order to represent the relative weakness (ships tending to be on their own and very vulnerable to sub attack) their durability has been lowered.

I will re-do the Victory class, and shift around the speeds of the Small and Large MCS class vessels.

[JBarrett]

I response to babyseal7's question of how much cargo does 1 capacity point equate to, as far as I can tell, it is equal to 1 ton of supply/fuel. Thus, a 100 ton liner could carry 100 supply or 100 size points for an LCU.

[Major Tom]

Close, but it is 100t = 1 cargo point...

So a 10 000t Cargo vessel has 100 cargo points.

I have playtested the newest OBC file up to mid 1944, and it does get to be pretty accurate. The number of USN sub kills directly corresponds to the distance the closest base is to the killing grounds. If your subs are hunting close to an allied base of supply, then they will score more kills. I am averaging around 10 IJN ships killed per turn (equalling 40-80 per month) This doesn't include losses to aircraft, which are also increasing the closer that the Allies get to the main transportation routes.