PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT!

[el cid again]

The majority of Jap forces at the beginning of the war were just as green as the forces they were fighting.

Actually not. Most historians (correctly) point out that Japan had been at war intermittantly since 1935 - and continuously since 1937. It had fought in several parts of China, Manchuria, Mongolia and Korea. The average naval pilot at the start of hostilities with the USA had thousands of hours of flight time and quite a bit of air combat experience. Another factor was training. This turned out to be a two edged sword - Japanese navy training was TOO GOOD - and it prevented training in the numbers needed (See Saburo Sakai's Samouri). Japanese naval pilots often did not take parachutes - because it was SOP to train to jump from your plane WITHOUT one!!! Yep - if you sprained an ankel you washed out of fighter school. You were expected to know how to jump out (at low altitude of course) and land properly. You also had to spot stars in the daytime - something I found hard to believe until I asked an astronomer - and he taught a whole class to do it in less than a minute! [An enemy plane is as hard to see as a star in the daytime - and if you can learn to see one you can see the other! A real advantage since most victories go to the side that spots first.] Sakai was in a car that went off a cliff - and 4 out of four passengers - student pilots all - JUMPED to safety! We just didn't train to such standards.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
I must be the only regular Allied player and occasional Japanese player who likes PDU.

When we started our game PDU’s had just been implemented and like so many others we decided to use the new feature. It wasn’t common knowledge that the system could be so heavily abused until many months (real time) afterwards and by then we were too far in to restart. Personally I will never use PDU’s again, simply because of the abuse factor.

I suspect had I started upgrading 2E bombers to 4E bombers months ago, I would have a very different situation. But I’m a stickler for history and I wanted to use those 2E bombers. But I’ve learned my lesson, 4E bombers will appear by the hundreds shortly and I hope to visit some pain on my opponent very soon.

With that said though, I still wish there was a way to fix air combat. No matter what all the defenders of the model are saying in this thread, it’s broken because it’s too bloody period. Historically groups were kept in the front lines for months on end and flew missions every day.

Only the player who has air superiority can do this currently. The other player is forced to withdraw groups after only 1 or 2 days fighting. Had air units taken those kind of losses historically, even the massive US production would not have been able to keep up with all the air frames falling from the skies.

Has anyone tried simply quadrupling durability or something? Anything that can drastically reduce kills would be a good thing in my book.

Jim

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: ADavidB
I must be the only regular Allied player and occasional Japanese player who likes PDU.

When we started our game PDU’s had just been implemented and like so many others we decided to use the new feature. It wasn’t common knowledge that the system could be so heavily abused until many months (real time) afterwards and by then we were too far in to restart. Personally I will never use PDU’s again, simply because of the abuse factor.

I suspect had I started upgrading 2E bombers to 4E bombers months ago, I would have a very different situation. But I’m a stickler for history and I wanted to use those 2E bombers. But I’ve learned my lesson, 4E bombers will appear by the hundreds shortly and I hope to visit some pain on my opponent very soon.

With that said though, I still wish there was a way to fix air combat. No matter what all the defenders of the model are saying in this thread, it’s broken because it’s too bloody period. Historically groups were kept in the front lines for months on end and flew missions every day.

Only the player who has air superiority can do this currently. The other player is forced to withdraw groups after only 1 or 2 days fighting. Had air units taken those kind of losses historically, even the massive US production would not have been able to keep up with all the air frames falling from the skies.

Has anyone tried simply quadrupling durability or something? Anything that can drastically reduce kills would be a good thing in my book.

Jim

I'm curious....in your game :

How many sorties have been flown?
How many planes have been shot down?
How many operational losses?

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Has anyone tried simply quadrupling durability or something? Anything that can drastically reduce kills would be a good thing in my book.

Jim

You could try NikMod 5.0. Nikademus has made quite considerable changes with durability ans AAA, for example. I've not played it yet myself, so donno how it works, but there are some AARs that you could check.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: treespider
I'm curious....in your game :

How many sorties have been flown?
How many planes have been shot down?
How many operational losses?

Here’s the current turns (9-5-42) intelligence screen. As you can see almost half of Japans air losses are operational, so I’ve destroyed about 1400 through combat ops while he’s destroyed about 3100 of mine through combat ops. A large number of his combat op losses are bombers destroyed on the ground or by flak though, while the majority of my losses (well over 2/3rds) are fighters.

The only major combat ships I’ve lost are 3 BB’s, 1 CL and 7 DD’s. The rest are AK’s, AP’s and MSW’s along with about 30-40 PT boats and 18 Subs. Most of the subs were lost to KB’s uber ASW aircraft sweep north of Darwin within one week. We have since implemented a house rule limiting how many planes in a group may be set to ASW and no search aircraft of any kind may be set lower than 6000 feet. This change has made a huge difference in sub survivability.

Japan has lost 1 AV, 1 CL, 5 DD’s and 1 APD along with 7 subs all lost to depth charges. This is according to my intelligence so there may be some other non-reported combat vessels lost, but no major fleet actions have occurred other than landing operations by Japan since about February when I sortied a British battleship to bombard Japanese troops southwest of Rangoon and lost it to enemy air attack.

Jim

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

Air combat is fine....it is the LCU combat that needs to be fixed.

Air combat is fine? That's a joke, right? [8|]

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: String

Anyway, I'm not the least bit surprised that 100 superior fighters wiped out 50 inferior, elderly fighters.

If the air combat took place in a wrestling ring.[8|]

You mean in cage, right? [8|]

[Sneer]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

Air combat is fine....it is the LCU combat that needs to be fixed.

Air combat is fine? That's a joke, right? [8|]

I think he is serious
surface combat fire distribution and LCU cobat is worse than A2A

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
Once you get P38s ( with trained up pilots ) you will rule the skies ...

But there's the rub, I don't want to "rule the skies" later in the game because of a broken game model. I want a tough dogged attrition battle that will last for months. I want to see air groups left in the front lines for months on end and not see 100% of their planes wiped out in 1 friggin day.

There's the rub. Many players love just that sort of silliness. In fact, if you talk to them they'll swear up and down there's no problem to begin with.

How long did the Cactus Air Force fight at Guadalcanal against desperate odds before being pulled out? Four months at least I think. Had results like we see in WitP been the norm in WWII, the Cactus Air Force would have been decimated in 1 or 2 days.

I don't want tips on how to play within the broken model, I want the model fixed. Being decimated in a few days or decimating my opponent in return later isn't fun, it's frustrating in the extreme.

Again, you're in the minority. "Tips" are what Russ has to offer. He's chock full of tips. Your feedback is that that doesn't afford you the kind of game you're after. Unfortunately it does afford the kind of game many other players are after. They seem to like it rude and crude. Less luck for you.

If we all cry out for a fix, perhaps it will be addressed some day. Yes land combat needs help too, but the air combat routines are more important I think since it affects the naval campaign in a more direct manor.

If "we" all cry out for a fix?

(hesaid...lookingaroundtoseewhoelsemightbeinthebuilding)

[Przemcio231]

Ok just runed a test[:)] I opened the Marianas Scenario i stuck the Jap CV's in 3 Different TF's One with Taiho , Shokaku and Zuikaku + a CVE with 27 Zakes on it and the other CV's were distributed into two other TF's and i put the Ageainst US CV's it turned out that 4 US Carrier Group weren't on the Different Hexes 3 were on one and the last one was hex away.... first US strike from the 3 Carrier groups About 80 Hellcats + about 200 Bombers maybe more ageains 130 Zake CAP Resul All Zake's Dead and shot down 25 Hellcats + about 20 bombers but this was done mainly by Flak... Shokaku and CVE crippeled , Taiho and Zuikaku slightly damaged... then my 3 TF's lunched separate strikes ageains US TF alone on the hex... First wave from Zuikaku TF was made of About 80 Zake + 80 Bombers ageainst 68 Hellcats Result : 80 Zakes Dead + abot 65 Bombers the rest didn't scratched a single ship.... the other 2 waves did much worse and the result of all attacks my Planes dead and one bomb hit scored:( My point is that the Zuikaku TF's strike got pilot exp in 70's and 80's and this even didn't help... the CAP is to efficient i think... becous the time Hellcats wasted on trashing my Zake's schuld be used by my bombers to reach the Target[:)]

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
Once you get P38s ( with trained up pilots ) you will rule the skies ...

But there's the rub, I don't want to "rule the skies" later in the game because of a broken game model. I want a tough dogged attrition battle that will last for months. I want to see air groups left in the front lines for months on end and not see 100% of their planes wiped out in 1 friggin day.

How long did the Cactus Air Force fight at Guadalcanal against desperate odds before being pulled out? Four months at least I think. Had results like we see in WitP been the norm in WWII, the Cactus Air Force would have been decimated in 1 or 2 days.

I don't want tips on how to play within the broken model, I want the model fixed. Being decimated in a few days or decimating my opponent in return later isn't fun, it's frustrating in the extreme.

If we all cry out for a fix, perhaps it will be addressed some day. Yes land combat needs help too, but the air combat routines are more important I think since it affects the naval campaign in a more direct manor.

Jim

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! The arguement that "it all balances out in the long run" stinks. Just because both sides get to take advantage of the crumby system does not make it less crumby. Whomever mentioned it is correct that the system simply falls apart as the numbers rise. Had the odds been 20 Mohawks to 40 Tony's you would have probably seen a more acceptable result---evidently 2by3 never bothered to test the system with larger numbers. Which is silly as they gave both sides too many aircraft which suffer far too little attrition---and player's being player's they will mass the biggest numbers they can manage.

If they can't fix the upper end of the combat results program, you would think they could at least put a "splitter" mechanism into the process that would chop both sides in to 50 plane chunks to keep the combats from reaching the upper "luniatic fringe" of results.

Aircraft replacement rates can be addressed with the editor, at least. It would help immensely if Matrix would throw us a bone and also 1) limit stacking and 2) increase operational loss rates by a whole lot. Not holding my breath, of course, but that's what is called for in this particular case.

I wish you'd taken Matrix up on their offer to use you on the development team. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall had that hypothetical materialized. Or maybe just as good, be privy to the private correspondence between you and Ron during that period . . . then make book on which one of you got canned first, and for what lame excuse. [8|]

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Ideologue

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Air losses should be reduced by a factor of 10 or more I think. Perhaps only allowing fighters enough ammo for 1 shot would do the trick. Currently it’s not uncommon to see dozens of aces made in a single engagement. While 5 kills in a single mission happened once in a blue moon during the actual war, it happens almost every other day in WitP.

I wouldn't go as far as to say the air combat model is totally broken, but ammo as well as opportunities to use it do seem to be awfully plentiful in every engagement.



In response to the point about "never seeing a Midway," it happens from time to time, as long as the Allied player masses his carriers and the Japanese player splits his. I stomped a 4-CV KB with two TFs of 2 CVs apiece, without loss, only heavy damage on one of the task forces (which is pretty much the "Midway model," if the second TF had had one CV by itself, ala Yorktown, I guess it would've been sunk).

I did eventually lose them on the way home, but that was because I was stupid and didn't take into account submarines.[>:]

Who's running this phantom account? [8|]

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Wrong, the air model is probably the part of WITP that is the closest of UV. The worst part of the two models is that every unit on CAP will intercept every incoming unit, even if it has fought allready ten raids this turn.

While this may be what you have seen, it is NOT true in the sense that other results are possible. I find multiple strikes work very well BECAUSE it is NOT true. The later strikes get through because the cap is gone - or almost gone. Typically, the SECOND strike faces EXTRA CAP - if there are more planes available and the field is still up - but after that the CAP seems to get "tired" - it becomes less effective. After about 5 strikes the CAP seems to die - if the strikes are big enough. Once I had a single Boomerang go up late in a strike series - he took on dozens of Zeros and even shot one down - I wanted to give him a medal - even though I was the Japanese! But my strike penetrated with all its bombers.

The man's point was that 1) there's too much CAP to begin with in many cases and 2) it's entirely too effective, all of it engaging each incoming wave. To assert that CAP eventually gets "tired" by the fourth or fifth or sixth strike hardly argues that the air-combat system makes sense. It patently does not make sense for most (if not all) situations. CAP ought to "parceled out" to bandits, and all fighters on both sides need to be severely limited as to how many combats they're able to engage in, this to broadly simulate the limited quantity of ammo they were loaded with (an incredibly inept omission on Gary's part, which is pretty much proof positive that all he's either interested in doing and/or is capable of doing is to regurgitate old game ideas that never worked right in their original forms, a kind of "old dogs/new tricks" scenario, I suppose).

[Feinder]

I'm not sure I'd actually want to increase the ops LOSSES.

Ops losses = victory points and dead pilots (which would further hamstring Japan). Somewhere I recall being called and "Allied Fanboy" but... never mind.

Anyway. I think maybe increasing Ops DAMAGES might be useful. Ops damages means you can't fly the whole squadron. You're also not losing pilots left and right. If you -do- overstack, you've now got a base full of damaged aircraft, just waiting to get pounded. However, if your opponent does nothing about it, it doesn't covert into VPs for him (or actual losses for you).

-F-

[treespider]

Aircraft replacement rates can be addressed with the editor, at least. It would help immensely if Matrix would throw us a bone and also 1) limit stacking and 2) increase operational loss rates by a whole lot. Not holding my breath, of course, but that's what is called for in this particular case.

I wish you'd taken Matrix up on their offer to use you on the development team. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall had that hypothetical materialized. Or maybe just as good, be privy to the private correspondence between you and Ron during that period . . . then make book on which one of you got canned first, and for what lame excuse.

Speaking of bones ....change the resource point/supply point ratio when resources and supplies are generated and allow the modders to set daily supply values in Japan. Japan would then still have to ship resources to Japan for HI and then supplies out of Japan.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

I agree with Joe Wilkerson. I think we all agree that smaller engagements are fine, large ones aren't. I have regular encounters in China and even in the S/SW Pacific where only one, two, or even three aircraft are shot down. Total. I also see my P-38s have a bad every now and again vs. Tonys and even A6M2s.

The difference is I try not to get into the typical WitP player's "keeping up with the Joneses" rut. I'm beginning to believe the cold war-style arms race in the sky's of WITP and human nature are really the culprits of the whacked A2A model. What I mean by this is players often see an A2A battle where they didn't get the upper hand and think; "Hmmm... next time I'll get him, I'll just send more aircraft..." the next turn the disappointed opponent thinks; "hmmmm...ok I see how it is, let's see him beat THIS..." and the Numerical advantage race is on.

The people I see posting the "This air model is broken!" threads tend to have retardedly large air battles where the already weak A2A system sees what the "bad man" is doing, puts on it's safety helmet, and proceeds to lick the inside window of the short bus in hopes the "bad man" will stop....

Yes, the system is weak. Yes it needs to be "fixed". Yes, there are too many 4E bombers. Yes it's too easy to close an airfield. Yes, the KB's CAP is impenetrable. Yes, large air battle result in lopsided results, BUT....

I've said it once. I've said it 100 times:

"Garbage in = Garbage out"
"Ahistorical use = Ahistorical results"

All that that says is that the system is hopleless whacked. And it further begs for a list of house rules as long as your arm. Nothing wrong with your analysis, but in the end it doesn't sound good to me.

I'll argue here that there has yet to be a game designed that can design human natures will to defy the rules out of it. There is always a loop hole, a cheat, a unimaginative tactic usually involving massing one thing or another in unimagined numbers and rolling over everything. Thus the state of the A2A model in WitP today....

Whenever you start using terms like "always" you're likely to be on thin ice--not every time, but the odds are good. So, is it true that no system, is perfect? Yes. Is it true that all wargames have large loopholes in them, to the extent that we find in WitP? I don't think so. That would be to argue that all game designers are of the same stripe, all development processes are identical, etc. Which sounds dubious on its face. In any event, I've played any number of games that were designed better (a lot better) than this one, and I believe that most of the people on this board, if they were truthful with themselves, with that could and would agree.

[treespider]

I'm not sure I'd actually want to increase the ops LOSSES.

Ops losses = victory points and dead pilots (which would further hamstring Japan). Somewhere I recall being called and "Allied Fanboy" but... never mind.

Anyway. I think maybe increasing Ops DAMAGES might be useful. Ops damages means you can't fly the whole squadron. You're also not losing pilots left and right. If you -do- overstack, you've now got a base full of damaged aircraft, just waiting to get pounded. However, if your opponent does nothing about it, it doesn't covert into VPs for him (or actual losses for you).

-F-

IMO when myself and or others suggest increasing OPS Losses we are refering to Destroyed and Damaged. Not just Destroyed.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I'm not sure I'd actually want to increase the ops LOSSES.

Ops losses = victory points and dead pilots (which would further hamstring Japan). Somewhere I recall being called and "Allied Fanboy" but... never mind.

Anyway. I think maybe increasing Ops DAMAGES might be useful. Ops damages means you can't fly the whole squadron. You're also not losing pilots left and right. If you -do- overstack, you've now got a base full of damaged aircraft, just waiting to get pounded. However, if your opponent does nothing about it, it doesn't covert into VPs for him (or actual losses for you).

I couldn't care less about VPs. I only care about game play itself. If gamers are so lame as to require VPs then they're beyond hope here. Maybe they could petition Matrix to somehow address the altered VP issue at the same time, though again, that sounds like an utter waste of development resource to me.

Anyway, yes, OP damages and outright losses need to be increased by a whole lot. We're talking about machines with sensitive instruments and engines with only so many hours of life, all of which is exacerbated by the climate (hot and humid) these machines operated in. No way Jose does the game even approach accuracy in this area. And so the system continues to wind on too fast all over the place.

It's been awhile since I said this, so let's review:

[i]There is almost no aspect of this game system that came out of the box correct, or even close to correct.[/i]

Now we can all chew on that for awhile. An unpopular statement, no doubt, but God's bare truth nevertheless.

[treespider]

And another bone...

Modify basing restrictions from IRC ..> Base Size * 50 cut 25% and > Base Size *100 cut another 25%

to

>(Base Size) Squared Times 10 cut 25%-50%
>(Base Size) Squared Times 15 cut 50%-75%

So....

Size 1 = 10, 15
Size 2 = 40, 60
Size 3 = 90, 135
Size 4 =160, 240
Size 5 = 250, 375
Size 6 = 360, 540
Size 7 = 490, 735
Size 8 = 640, 960
Size 9 = 810, 1215
Size 10 = 1000, 1500

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

So, excuse me for being too harsh, but you did two stupid things - didn't upgrade crap Mohawks to something better, and didn't carpet bomb Tony base - and you complain when you get clobbered?

I think this is yet another case of player not being a good player/strategist, or thinking he's "just being fair", and turning his anger on the system when things go bad.

Had you bothered to read and actually comprehend what I wrote you dimwit, you’d realize 250 other (better) fighters had already been destroyed to virtually no loss to the Tony’s in just a weeks time. But true to your simple minded base ignorant self you insult my intelligence and play ability for reasons that elude me.

The allies lack Japans unlimited production abilities and have to contend with empty aircraft pools for all of 1942 and most of 1943. I realize you have very little experience playing as the allies, but trust me had there been better airframes to use the Mohawks would be upgraded. But in fact they are one of my better airframes left with any kind of reserves in the pool at all.

So in conclusion I do not excuse your rude comments and ask that you refrain from further discourse with me as it appears you really have nothing constructive to add.

Well, I've been around here for some time now and that's the first occasion I can recall someone calling Oleg on his neverending bullshit in such a frank and, if you don't mind my saying so, refreshing manner. (He's been called any number of times on his rudeness with regard to the work of others, especially modders, but not for this type of completely misleading feedback.) Except for me, of course. I get into it with this company yes man frequently. Of course that won't change him a jot, but it does keep my tools sharp. [8D]