TM, RA, and BTS Re-Write

[John 3rd]

Just looked up the stats and found what you listed above.

If your opponent wants to sink that kind of capital into building those beasts, then fine. It is all about trade-offs. Huge cost for a solid plane in late-44/early-45. What has he done with the Liz's? That should give you some insights into what he may or may not do.

[John 3rd]

As to the 'last time' comment, how will this single plane change the course of the war? It would be a monstrously expensive choice by your opponent to research the plane, produce it, and then try to accelerate the 2nd model. More power to your opponent. How many fighters could he produce instead???

Let him waste the points is my thinking and I am a Japanese Fan Boy...

[John 3rd]

Was just going thru the most recent version of BTSL/BTSH and the second generation of Rita is Armor 1. Looks like Michael and I changed that with the major re-write we did recently.

[Evoken]

You have upgrade path from G5N2 all the way to G8N2 as someone that was on the receiving end of this plane , its really game breaking.
My opponent very heavily invested in G8 and got it 4/42. Do you know what happened ? 70 of them got through a cap of 200 fighters without a scratch completely leveled a level 9 airfield causing 300+ planes destroyed on the ground. This was a base with radar , level 9 airfield , all fighters on 0 range and full cap also base had 5 AA units and a lot of base forces with good AA as well. Do you know why , even 100 P-38's couldnt hurt them , any other fighter couldnt catch them.
Its also extremely strong in night air attacks regularly achieving 12 to 1 kill ratio due to having 20mm cannons everywhere and completely leveling any airfields at night time too

Whoever put that plane into the game clearly did not test it or did not think about balance at all. First off get rid of upgrade paths , G8N1 should be available at least starting from 1/45 if player wants to invest in it they can get it about B-29's arrive where it wouldnt be such big deal.

Second , wtf is that bomb load and range combination ? Did you ever think why none of the Allied heavy bombers ever have full payload ? Almost all allied heavy bombers flying with around %50-60 payload of what they could carry i would probably guess its either for balance reasons or its what was realistic at those ranges , you either have to nerf range by half or bomb load by half , you cant eat your cake and have it too.

Third , you gotta nerf the 20mm cannons existing on heavy bombers like this because at night time they dont get their accuracy reduced causing absurd 12 to 1 kill ratios , better than any Japanese sweeper could hope for.

Regards.

[AtParmentier]

ORIGINAL: Evoken

You have upgrade path from G5N2 all the way to G8N2 as someone that was on the receiving end of this plane , its really game breaking.
My opponent very heavily invested in G8 and got it 4/42. Do you know what happened ? 70 of them got through a cap of 200 fighters without a scratch completely leveled a level 9 airfield causing 300+ planes destroyed on the ground. This was a base with radar , level 9 airfield , all fighters on 0 range and full cap also base had 5 AA units and a lot of base forces with good AA as well. Do you know why , even 100 P-38's couldnt hurt them , any other fighter couldnt catch them.
Its also extremely strong in night air attacks regularly achieving 12 to 1 kill ratio due to having 20mm cannons everywhere and completely leveling any airfields at night time too

Whoever put that plane into the game clearly did not test it or did not think about balance at all. First off get rid of upgrade paths , G8N1 should be available at least starting from 1/45 if player wants to invest in it they can get it about B-29's arrive where it wouldnt be such big deal.

Second , wtf is that bomb load and range combination ? Did you ever think why none of the Allied heavy bombers ever have full payload ? Almost all allied heavy bombers flying with around %50-60 payload of what they could carry i would probably guess its either for balance reasons or its what was realistic at those ranges , you either have to nerf range by half or bomb load by half , you cant eat your cake and have it too.

Third , you gotta nerf the 20mm cannons existing on heavy bombers like this because at night time they dont get their accuracy reduced causing absurd 12 to 1 kill ratios , better than any Japanese sweeper could hope for.

Regards.

IIRC the armour of 2 didn't really show any issues. As for the the 20mm, it would need a seperate device to fix, but that would also hurt the day time defence. This would be difficult to balance, but how much difference is there between a b-29 doing night bombing and a G8N doing night bombing, was that tested?

[JuanG]

Been out of the loop with how RA and its offspring are doing for a while, but decided to take a look at the newest ones I could find.

A few thoughts on the G8N issue;
-The upgrade link from the G5N is probably the biggest issue - it allows for acceleration via factory skipping to very hefty degree. Without it the earliest you might see them is early 44. Having a link from it is also inconsistent with a lot of others as its not a derivative design/airframe.
-The combination of bombload/range is somewhat disproportionate. I would probably either reduce the bombload to 12x250kg, or reduce the norm/ext range to about 75% of current values (Max can stay, as its flying empty).
-Durability is also potentially on the high side, maybe cutting a point or two might be appropriate (on that note the B-17s also seem a tad high compared to the B-24, B-29 and B-32)
-Semi-related, is the lack of G5N2-L deliberate? It would add a useful heavy transport for the IJA before the H8K-L arrives.

ORIGINAL: Evoken
Third , you gotta nerf the 20mm cannons existing on heavy bombers like this because at night time they dont get their accuracy reduced causing absurd 12 to 1 kill ratios , better than any Japanese sweeper could hope for.

This isn't an issue exclusive to this plane though, and the allied heavies bristling with .50s will also cause extremely disproportionate night-time kills. I think if John does something I would recommend it should probably be a wider solution (I was looking at reduced accuracy for all defensive guns for AltWNT/HDM several years ago because of this issue).

[ny59giants]

John and I have taken Big B's changes when it comes to power turrets on the American 4e bomber and added it to the recent versions. I don't recall if that was the last or last two versions of the mod. The B-24 should progressively be getting more and more of them as the models come out. Have not game tested this but if there are players who have the recent versions please check to ensure the changes are there. This may lead the Allies to being able to push through on their bombing missions with no fighter escorts.

In regards to the Liz, I don't know how fast they can become available in '42, but it would seem the Japanese player would have to put significant R&D resources into making this happen and sacrifice some factories that should be going into later war fighter R&D.

[Evoken]

I know the accurate gunners at night isnt Japanese only thing but i have not seen allied bombers regularly pull 12+ K/D ratio at night , it seems 20mm guns is amplifying the effects of night time gunner accuracy. Best i have seen in my game is 3/4 Japanese planes shot down for each Allied heavy downed at night which is still a lot.

[AtParmentier]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

John and I have taken Big B's changes when it comes to power turrets on the American 4e bomber and added it to the recent versions. I don't recall if that was the last or last two versions of the mod. The B-24 should progressively be getting more and more of them as the models come out. Have not game tested this but if there are players who have the recent versions please check to ensure the changes are there. This may lead the Allies to being able to push through on their bombing missions with no fighter escorts.

In regards to the Liz, I don't know how fast they can become available in '42, but it would seem the Japanese player would have to put significant R&D resources into making this happen and sacrifice some factories that should be going into later war fighter R&D.

On 10 facilities without an engine bonus and with Realistic RD on and with PDU on, it takes to around april 43 for the G8N2 to be researched. With the same rules, with an engine bonus you only need 5 facilities. With 10 facilities and some engine bonus it should arrive between december 42 to april 43.
Without Realistic RD the arrival time gets to late 42, with investment of 10 facilities and some engine bonus, you can get it between july and november 42.

[Nomad]

I also see that the second Liz has a SR of 3. It just keeps coming. I now wonder if I should continue or surrender now.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I also see that the second Liz has a SR of 3. It just keeps coming. I now wonder if I should continue or surrender now.

Also already changed in the recent re-work done by Michael and I.

[John 3rd]

Well...since, evidently, the above issues have already been fixed in the most recent (not published) version of BTSL/BTSH, Michael and I are looking at moving the ball forward. It appears that we can release the newest variant of Between the Storms Heavy without issues. It is in the realm of BTS Lite that we are bouncing ideas around.

BTSH focuses on Japan building the four Yamato's, a class of Light Battlecruiser, 2 more Shokaku, and 4 Improved Shokaku-Class CVs. No CV Shinano, Taiho or Unryus. In this scenario, the 'Fleet Faction' of the Kaigun stays a powerful element of the planning and building of the Capital Ships within the Imperial Navy.

BTSL shifts the build with to a more realistic 16" gun BB and building four of them. The Light Battlecruiser design is replaced by a class of tough CAs and the rest is the same. As the two of us have thoughts on things, Michael wants to add some changes (he can detail) and finish the China redesign following more of Big B's vision. I continued to think on this and have come up with an idea. Since Heavy is the triumph of the 'Fleet Faction' how about Lite be the the triumph of the 'Treaty Faction.' Simply put--BIGGER is not always BETTER! If this is the case, we change the direction of carrier building. Instead of Shokaku-Class, they continue to build and refine the fast, light Hiryu design. Far less costly, faster, and more can be created.

Between the Storms predicates the building of two heavy cruiser/carrier-sized slipways in 1938. These two additional slipways--joining the original seven major slipways helps to allow the construction additions.

Ideas are in just the formative stages but this is the thinking and it allows to the Mods to really go in different directions. Thoughts?

[NorthCarolinaDidNothingWrong]

I'm very curious to see how the rework of the Japanese 4Es goes. Curious enough I went back and re-read Nemesis, one of Nemo's AARs, since he gave Japan 4Es in basically what was a downfall scenario. Going from that it appears that accuracy doesn't have nearly as much of a bearing on the effectiveness of defensive weapons as it should, since he mentions having nerfed the accuracy of all 4E defensive armament twice and them still being overly effective after the second. It might also be worthwhile doing sticks of bombs for edge cases like the B-29 and G8N1 instead of just reducing payloads so that they score less hits but do the same damage with each. That said, I'm basing these on a 7 year old AAR and have a total sample size of one, so take these with large amounts of salt. The real problem might lie with the ability of the Japanese player to drastically ramp up production combined with having 4Es at all, compared to the allies who are stuck with a total production rate of between 15-40 for most of the war.

I really like the idea of moving the two different iterations of the mod further apart, and it'd be interesting to maybe see some changes to the allied OOB a bit to reflect the changes in the IJ OOB since right now the changes are really only meaningful for the Japanese player.

[John 3rd]

Not a bad thought whatsoever. Will consider it some.

Michael and I are proceeding forward with more separation, changing China, as well as a few other things.

[Nomad]

forget it

[John 3rd]

What is the issue?

[Nomad]

forget it

[John 3rd]

Mind reading is not my specialty Nomad.

[Nomad]

I'm getting old John, and I think my mind was playing tricks with me. I thought I saw something and later it was different that I remembered. Sorry.

[John 3rd]

Am stuck at the store while it snows to beat all heck. Very slow. Sort of like feel yourself age while working slow...

Michael and I have spoken several times on the separation of the Mods. I really like the idea. We are going to work something along these lines:

Between the Storms Heavy--The Fleet Faction of the Kaigun wins the struggle (as is historical) and we get the changes detailed the current BTSH. Yamamoto still becomes Naval Minister but cannot substantively change building policy within the Imperial Navy. You get the Shokaku/Shokaku-Kai designs, 4 Yamato-Class, and the Light Battlecruisers. It is heavier, bigger gunned and a fun scenario to play with.

Between the Storms Lite--The Treaty Faction wins the battle for the soul of the Kaigun. Everything stays the same thru exiting the Treaty System in 1935. Washington and London Treaties are the same. The change occurs when the Fleet Faction rams thru the exit from the Treaty System. Yamamoto and other Treaty-Minded individuals realize that things MUST change and purge the Fleet thru 'disappearances' and forced retirements.

This move leaves the Kaigun OPEN for changes. The Treaty Officers know that quality CANNOT defeat quantity. Without the controls of the Treaty System, Japan will be hopelessly outbuilt in ships. The solution, while time remains, is to build upon successful designs and work to find a workable philosophy to fight the United States Navy. More economical-sized ships are one answer. Instead of Hiraga's behemoths (Yamato and B-64/65), the design of a more conventional 16" Owari-Class BB is accepted. Fast carriers and strong heavy cruisers move to fore. The successful Hiryu-Class becomes the standard for Japan's Fleet Carriers. These fast and maneuverable carriers will serve as Japan's future. Compared to the Shokaku-Class these CVs are cheaper and faster to build. The Niitaka-Class CA (15,000T) build upon the previous successful heavy cruiser designs.

From 1936 to war start, Japan orders the following:
4 Owari-Class BB
4 Hiryu-Class CV
4 Niitaka-Class CA

Two of each are complete in Dec 41. The second pair of BBs will be available in 1943, the CVs and CAs will come in in late-42.

War orders see 6 more CVs and 6 more CAs. The pairs each come out in 1943, 1944, and 1945.


In Real Life, the Japanese had 2 Shokaku (72 planes), 1 Taiho (63), 1 Shinano (??--48), and 6 Unryu (63) for 633 Planes.

BTSL adds 10 CVs (69) for 690 Planes. The carriers are fast but brittle compared to the Shokaku, Taiho, and Shinano-Classes.


This is the preliminary idea. Certainly would make things different. The vast majority of the carrier force would be 34 Knots. You can move fast and strike at a distance and, PERHAPS, survive!