Some minor bugs v2.2

[chanman]

Hi Major,

what is the context of your comment? Nothing can be done about the rockets or that nothing can be done about the aircraft squadrons equipment?

Rockets do exist in PacWar, though the Squadron commander's choices of when to use them has driven me crazy in the past. When attacking a force with a major complement of PCs, the F6Fs or F4Us are loaded with 500 pounders so they get to use their machine guns. When attacking a task force with 2BBs, assorted CAs and such, the same aircraft are loaded with rockets. <Whine>

Daniel, Dacca and Rangoon should be isolated bases in your context. The roads were positively miserable and railways virtually nonexistent. Those bases will almost always have to be supplied by convoy. Why your automatic convoy system isn't supplying them may require some investigation. If you are running short of MCs due to allied subs, maybe the AI focusses the efforts of your merchant fleet on supplying your bases closer in. Not sure.

Chanman

[mogami]

Hi Ed just change them yourself. The groups you speak of (in my games) get Warhawks and Mitchells. I don't want anymore Mohawks or Nomads (In a game as Japan Nomads are a build option when changing Mary/Sonia production?)no thanks!!!

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[daniel123]

Originally posted by chanman:
Hi Major,


Daniel, Dacca and Rangoon should be isolated bases in your context. The roads were positively miserable and railways virtually nonexistent. Those bases will almost always have to be supplied by convoy. Why your automatic convoy system isn't supplying them may require some investigation. If you are running short of MCs due to allied subs, maybe the AI focusses the efforts of your merchant fleet on supplying your bases closer in. Not sure.

Chanman

i am in sep 42 and the auto supply convoys are reaching india just fine. rangoon was always showing isolated from the time of capture in dec 41.

[Major Tom]

What I meant was that barring a critical game stopping bug, the Matrix team cannot sort into the code to improve anything. They are head long into working on Uncommon Valour, and every moment they spend on Pacific War cuts into the time spent on UV, cutting into when they will be getting some finances.

One thing to note, if an aircraft is NOT in production, the pool still gradually increases over time. Ever notice that if you are using Blenheim IF's in a Group you get reinforcements to build it up to 50 even if there were only 30 planes in 1941 with no factory producing it? Mowhawk IV's and A-17 Nomad's will slowly replenish their numbers. Also, the theatres that the Mohawk IV's and A-17's are in are not critical, and the inactivity of 2-3 groups is not critical. By that time if you are the Japanese against the Allied AI you should probably have won the war anyway, or at least in a situation where 2-3 Chinese/British/Dutch air groups will not make a difference.

The PT boat problem has arisen after one of the later patches. I am not sure why, but, in order to 'fix' it the Matrix team will have to go back and spend some hours finding and fixing what is 'wrong'. What you can do, if you see this as a critical problem, is, to either edit the MTB's out (using one of the free editors, I think PWReports can do this) or change them to DE's instead of PC's.

If the demand is very high, I might create a PT-Boat-Free version of the OBC files. Since they do not do much other than annoy Transport TF's and suck up Kamikaze's, and aren't truely measured in their efficiency their loss would not be critical.

The ill history of rockets had been reported throughout the history of the game from their first appearance. They never used them against the targets they were best served against (DD, MCS, AP, PT boats) and always used them against the worst targets (Capital Ships). Fixing rockets will not be fixing a bug created by the Matrix Team, but, fixing one from when they were first introduced (not from the original Pacific War, probably through one of the first set of non-Matrix Patches). This would take up A LOT of time, because they would have to search the code for where their behaviour is located. Further detracting from their money making Uncommon Valour game. The longer it takes for this game to come about, the tougher it will be to finance War in the Pacific or other games.

Regarding the Rangoon bug, I think that there is an inherent problem with that base, and its location (being in the Indian Ocean, far from other 'friendly' bases). However, in scenarios from OBC42 onward there does not appear to be a problem with it being isolated. The problem occurs when one side conquers the base from the other, it immediately goes to Isolated (by default) but never reverts back. You can manually supply it, or, do what I do and drop supplies off at Bangkok which take the land route to Rangoon (without running the Indian Ocean Gauntlet!)

[This message has been edited by Major Tom (edited February 14, 2001).]

[grumbler]

I always thought the Rangoon "bug" was one of the most subtle-but-brilliant game decisions the designers made. It forces players to make an extreme effort to break the Mandalay-Imphal impasse (like amphibious invasions or masssive and vulnerable-to-submarines convoy work. If it wasn't for this "bug" the Burma-India campaign would not be at all historic.

[chanman]

Hi Major, you and I are actually on the same page. My hope is that when someone at Matrix has some "free time", they can take a look at some of the new bugs, which since they should be in the newer code should be easier to find (Note: the preceding comment assumes that the Matrix team is using some sort of version control system). The longtime bugs, such as the Rangoon supply situation, will obviously take much more time and effort and are probably better left to WitP. The newer bugs that I see in this forum are:
1. the new F6F factory in slot 100 doesn't work
2. carriers not showing up with full airgroups (or any airgroups)
3. air combat taskforce replenishing problems
4. artillery production issues
5. problems manually upgrading squadron equipment

Note that I am attempting to flag only new bugs. The use of rockets by the game I do not consider a bug so much as the AI making some decisions that don't necessarily match my intent.

(Whining and Snivelling starts here)
Where oh where is that free editor PWReports available from? The default editor doesn't work for me as noted previously.
(Whining and Snivelling stops here)

Thanks for the cogent discussion.

Chanman

[This message has been edited by chanman (edited February 14, 2001).]

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Mogami:
Hi Ed just change them yourself. The groups you speak of (in my games) get Warhawks and Mitchells. I don't want anymore Mohawks or Nomads (In a game as Japan Nomads are a build option when changing Mary/Sonia production?)no thanks!!!

Let me repeat myself. I'm concerned because the **AI** does not know about this problem and cannot fix it itself. Sure, I could manually switch those units to another aircraft type, or edit my own ob file to fix it. But what about other players, ones that don't read this forum, ones that will come much later down the road, who won't even know where to get a scenario editor for this game, or even know that they exist?

[mogami]

Hi Ed the folks who don't know about editors or this forum don't have versions of PacWar with Mohawks and Nomads included.

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[Mika Väliviita]

Sumner fix: You need to give _Gearing_ 1 armor. In the original obc Sampson is overwritten to become Sumner, using Gearing as a template. And there is the one point armor reduction. I don't know how the weapons on those two classes differ, if at all, so you might want to check if the resulting Sumner is the real thing.

I was just wondering about the Rudderows because they appear in the ship pool long before the actual Rudderow groups arrive, and so are useless until then. Was there some change from the original obc?

Maybe the computer moves the Japanese armies, I'll look more closely at this.

LA/Calcutta, I was referring to the cheat of using replenishment for moving ships and lcus around. It is now more difficult since you need to be within replenishment range and have AOs at each target base (hmm, I didn't actually try this with an empty replenishment tf).

Zero tankers: this happens when you've sunk all or most of Japanese tankers. I think it's related to the fix that was said to move the TKs so that they are used in routine convoys. Seems it is resurfaces sunk TK groups when there is no more in pool to fill them. You can test this if you can set the pool to zero and sink all the groups, then run a turn against computer Japanese. Then there are some groups with 0 TKs but that are not sunk.
Mika V.

[Major Tom]

Well, I am working on the OBC41, to fix whatever things I can.

Here's what I can do...

1. Removed the F6F factory and switched around others to compensate (must create an F8F factory somewhere)

2. Carriers not showing up with any airgroups is not a bug, and cannot be fixed. It is a limitation with the game mechanics. Only a certain number of air groups can be created, and that maximum was reached. Putting air groups on CVE's will result in fewer LBA Air groups. A sacrifice nobody is willing to make.

3. I can't fix this, possibly the Matrix team can, but, it would require a lot of work, and focus from UV.

4. Artillery production issues? Are too many guns, or not enough being produced?

5. Again, Matrix will have to fix this. I don't know if it will be, or can be fixed, given time and labour.

6. Tankers. One question, do these tankers actually transport fuel? One thing that I noticed, was, the Computer creates groups IF there are still ships in the pool but no/very few ship groups in the game. I have seen this done with destroyers (A bunch were in the pool, but the others were all killed off, suddenly a new group appeared which wasn't in the OBC)

7. Never actually heard of the replenishment bug. It looks like something unavoidable. How could you restrict the movement of a replenishment TF? The computer would have to be told that AP's or MCS's could not be a part of them. THIS would require a lot of editing, and could probably result in some bug being produced.

8. Rockets, they have always been a problem. They never were used against ships they were best suited against.

9. MTB's. The only solution that we could do immediately, is to edit them indo DE's, or edit them out of the game entirely.


PWReports, well, it has been a long time since I last used it. It was one of the first editors. You can't do much, but, I think rudamentary editing can be done with aircraft/air groups. I don't have the site(s) on me, but, give me some time to try and track it down, if it still exists on the web.

Ed, the loss of upgrades will not matter much to the AI. These 2-3 squadrons DO NOT play a key part in the game. It doesn't matter if there are 10 or 50 A-17's in China, or 10-50 Mohawks in India. In fact, their pools DO increase over time if down to zero AS I ALREADY STATED and there is a demand for replacements. The Mohawk IV DOES upgrade to the Seafire in 1943, I have seen it happen. Before then, it usually remains at 20-30 aircraft, even if the AI sends it into combat. I tested one game, it had that many aircraft and an experience level of 85 (showing it WAS in combat and DID recieve replacements). Eventually it switched over. The A-17 gets to about the same situation in China. Since China is not a major field of action anyway, it doesn't matter how many bombers the Nationalist Chinese AI has anyway. I don't see it as a problem that requires major reaction too. As someone else said, people who don't come here, don't have the patch. And even if they do have it, the noticability of it is minimal.

[chanman]

Hi Major Tom,

I look forward to your adjusted order of battle. I will give it a go when you post it. Gotta test those fixes ya know.

Chanman

[chanman]

Hi all, I just remembered that I do have a hackish workaround to the replenishment problem with air combat tf's. In the game I am playing, the computer will move the replenishment tf's to the same "hex" as the air combat tf, but won't refuel it. If you switch the ships around in the tf's you can refuel the ships. I switch the destroyers from the a/c tf into the replenishment tf, then have the replenishment tf replenish, then rotate the destroyers back into the a/c tf. Ok, I know that this is a complete crock of a workaround, but I do get my a/c tf's that are on their way to the front refueled without having to place CVE's waaaay behind the lines.

[sulup]

To Major Tom,

Are you going to change the cost of planes?

Currently you can't change heavy bomber factories to produce other heavy bombers because their costs are over 9. Looks like the EXE doesn't recognise plane costs over 9.

These heavy bmbr factories also take much longer to expand because the plane costs are so much higher in this version of PACWAR.

[chanman]

Hi Major, I second the motion to change the costs of heavy bombers so the production can be changed. This could have the advantage of overcoming the bomber production issues that I saw on another thread. Just have to make that initial production value pretty low so that the Allied player isn't up to his eyeballs in heavy bombers by 1943. Though as a former Boeing employee, the thought of B24's rolling off the production lines at plant 2 is a bit tough to take.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Mogami:
Hi Ed the folks who don't know about editors or this forum don't have versions of PacWar with Mohawks and Nomads included.

Ouch, good point. Although versions of WIR/PAC games, since they are free, will probably show up in other places even if Matrix is supposed to be the only official location for them, but by then, WitP should be with us, so my point is moot. I'll shut up now.

[mogami]

Hi, To me the biggest single thing needing fixing is those heavy bombers. The way things are now B-17/B-24 are a footnote to the war rather then a weapon with influnance.
(In current PBEM game as allies 4 out of 6 B-17 equipped groups are inactive due to lack of aircraft)

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[Major Tom]

Sorry for sounding a little crass! We are all out to make PW as good as it can!

I think that revising aircraft cost will be on the agenda. Never knew why Allied aircraft cost so much compared to Japanese!

Possibly cost will also reflect something, like economic investment. Since the US government invested a heck of a lot on the B-29's when compared to B-17's/B-24's then possibly their cost should be a little cheaper (to represent the greater interest in mass output?) then the earlier aircraft?

I think a max price of 9, if there is a bug, should be implemented.

Regarding B-17's, there were very few BG that had their full compliment of B-17's. They were very small numbers until mid-late 1942 of heavy bombers. If you read of raids by heavy bombers in the early war, only groups of 3-10 aircraft took part per group, while later in the war, raids of up to 30-40 aircraft per group were more common.

Remember, production is based on a weekly basis (so the numbers might seem small) and they are only delegated for the Pacific theatre, not including the greater part of production that actually went to the European theatre. I modified the B-29 factories all ready to start off at 3 aircraft per (even though they won't appear until 1943-44), so they get up to high production faster than B-17/B-24's.

I don't really use replenishment, so I was unaware of the bug. OF course, it will require an intricate examination of the code, which probably (unfortunately) won't happen.

The primary reason for releasing just the OBC41 (hopefully on Rich's site) will be for beta testing (so I won't do all this work on the other OBC's then realizing I have to make a wack of other changes!). I would like people to test the game with Allied vs. AI, Japanese vs. AI and Human vs. Human, just so everything can be tested. The Computer vs. Computer tests that I am running now show a greater Allied response in 1943 than the earlier versions. They are more aggressive and experience disparity is greater (in Allied favour).

[Mika Väliviita]

Zero Tankers: No idea on fuel transport since they are mostly sunk as soon as they appear, it's just whether sinking nonexistant ships gives allies extra killpoints.

Artillery: It seems the actual production is 5x factory size, and the result is that artillery pool for allies fills up quickly, and even for Japan production far exceeds losses. So if new factories are needed, artillery factories can be reduced.

Replenishment: Well, it's worse than I thought. I created an empty replenishment tf at Guam, and a transport tf loaded with a division and supplies in SF. End result: A division in Guam on first turn. Could not get the ships out the same way, probably because Guam was isolated. Anyway, this is blatant abuse of the system.

Gfx glitch: Playing Japanese against max help computer, B-24 groups had a picture of a Ki-84 Frank, and Beaufighter X had a pic of PB4Y Privateer. Maybe there was more, but I'm not familiar enough to notice any others.

On production: When the setting is max help (maybe with help too, don't remember) you get things earlier, especially plane types become available early. But which types, that depends on what factories exist. For each factory for a plane type, TTA is reduced by one each turn. Therefore, with 3 B-29 factories, they activate around turn 24 (which is about May 42). If plane type has no factory in the obc (like F6F in the current obc) they don't become any earlier. Types which convert to a new type don't affect the arrival of the new type. And since there is apparently a small chance that TTA is reduced by one even on even, I've seen Hurricane IIB that starts with TTA of 2, to end up with TTA of 255 (this with max help). Apparently a missing check for 0, similar to the Gearing->Sumner thing.
Mika V.

[mogami]

Hi, I don't expect to get mass numbers of B-17/24 but when it is 1944 and a dozen groups are sitting with 6 ac something is wrong. Somegroups seem to get the replacements while others (no matter how many are in the pool) do not grow.

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I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a differant direction!

[Major Tom]

I reset all aircraft costs to the original. So, the bomber problem will not be quite as acute. I cannot say when this thing will be done, as, there are a few things I am waiting for answers on before I can do much more.