Matrix Games Forums

Industry. Oil (in Japan, Manchucuo, DEI, Malaya, Philipines and Burma + reserve) are sufficiently for Japan heavy industry (+ big reserve) but resorces are too small. Intentional?

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Certainly not. I am running long term tests and I find more "burdon" is possible. I just added dozens more (mostly small) supply sinks - at places where resources should not produce many supply points directly.

It may not be clear, but the system demands more oil than resources - about 100% more - so the lower resources numbers are not directly an issue.

I do not like this economic model. I prefer to use 5 to 10 resource types, and several kinds of industry (we have heavy industry, shipyards, aircraft factories, vehicle factories and armaments factories - I want oil refineries - light industry - heavy industry broken apart so the most critical of strategic materials - steel - is visible as such - that is I want steel mills - with steel becoming a resource for ships, armaments, vehicles, etc). I have difficulty with too much abstraction - comprehending what is meant? But I am being a technician here - working INSIDE the system - not designing it to my taste. So while I think there needs to be more resources - it is not yet clear this is so? We are "calibrating" the mod by running it. So far it looks like it generates fuel and supply fine.

My big worry is not Japan - but the USA later in the war: will there be enough supply for all those units? It appears the system CANNOT move anything like 22,500 points a day from United States (CHS) - NOR 20,0000 points a day (stock) - it may be able to move 18,000 points a day of supplies (RHS) - but it cannot handle that much fuel (RHS) - yet I doubt that is enough? Time will tell.

I know this will have been discussed at length somewhere

Could you point me to with a thread that tells why you have decided to decrease the value of all aircraft's durability so much.

I find it curious because the Nick mod went the other way to improve air combat by increasing plane durability.

I know you will have a good reason and am interested to understand the logic.

50 Hvy AA bn has TOE like AA Rgt.

I do not see this.

The mixed AA regiments in the game - they seem to derive from CHS -
are one bn of 105s and one bn of 76s - each of 18 guns.

Oh - I see what you are trying to say - the unit POINTS AT a regiment as its "formation" - rather than a battalion.

Also - it has 76s instead of 105s. Got it. Thanks.

I looked that Lily II has identical bomb load for short and extended range (8x100) it's ok?
Planes in RHS have very, very long range. Are this practical range for this planes? In RHS Liberator have to bombard Soerabaja from Australia and use then his short range...

RHS uses real data - and never gives any thought to operational implications in the game. However, I would like to reduce the ranges by a function for operational reserves - 5 or 10 %. But the real problem is many planes have very SHORT ranges - 1 or 2 hexes - almost not worth having in the game.

WITP does not use maximum bomb loads for bombing missions. It uses the listed bomb load at normal range - and LESS THAN that for extended range - according to Joel Billings.

Under Locations, "Solomons" is mis-spelled as "Solomans" for every entry.

That is me. There are 18 identified kinds of intelligence, and spelling is not one I score well in. Worse, I was taught phonetic spelling - and German - and Japanese - where spelling is almost consistent and phonic. I do not think in terms of the many vaguries of English spellings. I will fix it. I promise! Thanks.

Could you point me to with a thread that tells why you have decided to decrease the value of all aircraft's durability so much.

I find it curious because the Nick mod went the other way to improve air combat by increasing plane durability.

I know you will have a good reason and am interested to understand the logic.

My mod is attempting to deal with several issues at one time. I believe it is necessary to do ALL these things together - or things get out of whack worse than they are to begin with:

1) Address air air combat attrition
2) Address AAA combat attrition
3) Address operational attrition

Now the theory was widely held (I may have now disprooved it) that durability was a key factor in attrition. We wanted a lot more attrition due to AAA and operations - so we had to decrease durability to get it.

Along the way I found a "knee" in the data (Programming term). Matrix figured out they plane durabilities were wrong, but instead of fixing them, they "cheated" by a patch - in effect to make heavy bombers harder to kill they changed the algorithm (at around durability = 40). IF I got the relative durability function right, I had to remain below that level - or the "knee" would force me to be wrong again. Since reducing durability a lot was the only way to get attrition up - it was easy to keep the values all below 40.

In order to insure lower air-air attrition, I did something very Nik like - I reduced the values of weapons. But instead of assuming they were right to begin with, I studied them, and conclused they were grossly wrong - one programmer said "they probably are seat of the pants" - and surely all the modders were - since we had no formulas to use.

So I reverse engineered formulas from the data set, then made my own variations.

I also noted that the ranges were wrong. In WWII air combat is a close range sport - and yet our planes were not playing that way. IF you had cannon - you could shoot at a bomber - and it could not reply! On the other hand, cannon were understated in power: IF you got a hit it was not much different than a mg hit! This combined with the grossly wrong values for durability - so bad they had to put in the "knee" - to mean that fighers were hard to kill - particularly by bombers with only MG on the threat axis.

Another problem was ammo: a fighter can engage 100 times or more! Having a high durability, even if it gets hit, it probably lives and keeps fighting! In that context, my changes matter a lot:

1) Air combat almost always is at range 1 to be effective (some later weapons - particularly rockets - are exceptions). The bombers can shoot back at that range - every time!

2) IF the fighers get in lethal range - it is a TWO WAY lethal range. BECAUSE they have low durability, they do not live to shoot 10 times - never mind 100.


I succeeded in getting AAA attrition up. I succeeded in making air combat less lethal. I failed to increase operational attrition. Or if I did increase it - it was nothing like the x2000 we need. It is going to take a hard code change to fix that.
The result is a lot less attrition in the air.

Japan has about 12.000 heavy industries at start and can easy conquer 550 h.i. This is 12.550 heavy industries + mayby expand.
Japan has 545 oil center at start and can take 2600-2750. This is about 3.200. x6 = 19.200 oil per day. Oil reserves aren't necessary.
Japan has 5.469 resource center at start and can take easy 2.300-3.200. This is about 8.600 resorces per day maximum.
4000 heavy industries aren't resources. Reserves about 3 mln resources/4000 h.i. will be enough 2.5 years but Japan won't conquer all resorce center quickly and allies have bombers...
Sorry for my english, again.

With database editor - locations - type - you choose 02 base or 06 airfield (or 05 HQ for example).

OK - I understand. This solves a problem - thanks.

I would like to reduce the ranges by a function for operational reserves - 5 or 10 %.

This is too small. 5-10% resrves maybe will be ok for short range aircrafts, but for long range aircraft won't.
I think that shorter ranges in WitP or CHS weren't accidental.

This is too small. 5-10% resrves maybe will be ok for short range aircrafts, but for long range aircraft won't.
I think that shorter ranges in WitP or CHS weren't accidental.

You are confused:

stock and CHS often have up to 100% too much range

The data set is very mixed and very awful

There were lots of things done on purpose to distort the ranges - and that combined with errors in the data used - which is hard to get "right" because often sources differ - and fail to tell us all the conditions for the range

They give one plane too much range, the next one too little, and a third one dead on right. Looks like there was NEVER any effort to account for operational reserves on a ferry mission. But the 33% extended and 25% normal ranges WERE reasonable values - and DO account for operational factors well. I want to reduce range YET AGAIN - so you are taking 33% or 25% of a smaller value - and your transfer missions are not attempted at 100% range. But that is going to hurt a plane like F1M2 badly. It already is too short a range in game terms (due to the excessive hex size).

stock and CHS often have up to 100% too much range

Yes, but never as long ranges as RHS.

OK
Thanks for the info
Couple of brief comments

Re aircraft cannons vs machine guns.
I remember reading about tests for Spitfires with 8 * Browning compared to the gun power of BF109's with 2 * 20 mm cannon and 2 * 7.7.mm. mgs. in 1940. BOB

They tested the "weight" of the ordnance that could be fired in a timed burst. Because of he slower rate of fire of all the cannons in WWII the actual weight of shot delivered was very similar. It made the argument that fighter-to-fighter combat there was no advantage in cannon vs multiple machine gun.

Cannons were only useful against Bombers because of the explosive power compared to the fuselage mass.


I also wondered why you believed we need operational attrition to increase.

In playing vanilla WITP I get operational losses for some planes that average one per day for relatively low numbers of flights. .If planes fell out of the air at a rate much greater than 1% say 1 per 100 flights, pilots would not be willing to get into them. You'll remember that attrition rates of 10% caused the 8th air force to stop day light bombing in Europe in 1943 and that was combat attrition not just operational attrition.
Also that the Marauder B26 ( I Think) was nearly withdrawn from service because of operational losses that amounted to less than 100 I believe.



Also wondering about the rockets, - are we certain that the program handles them only as Air to Ground I see some heavy hitters in the data base with gun values in excess of 300.

Thirdly I am also interested with the amount of resources available on the map compared to the level of industry for the Japanese. Is this a CHS issue or RHS play balance?
I suppose the question may be why have you added so much HI for the Japanese.

Also interested in why so many bases have small amounts of Oil and resources. (1's and 2's) After all you don’t see Oil wells sticking out of the ground every where you go in Sth East Asia.


Any case thanks for the magnificent efforts so far.

Yes, but never as long ranges as RHS.

Au contraire, mon ami. I did the Japanese planes for CHS - and they got reviewed and confirmed by Joe Wilkerson using 5 sources. But then they got reviewed again - apparently without reference to sources - and one of the few written complaints I got (must be top of the head - it is wholly false) is that I "changed the long range Pete" by grossly reducing it. It had been rated far too high. Same for Glen. On the order of 100% too much range. There were more than a few other cases where I reduced the range - but these were probably the worst offenders. Makes you wonder ?

As for 4 engine bombers, I also did them for CHS - although they too didn't get adopted in the "second review" process. But it was MIXED - it is true I usually increased range - but there were several cases where I reduced it - and a couple that it did not change at all. Really mixed bag.

Re aircraft cannons vs machine guns.
I remember reading about tests for Spitfires with 8 * Browning compared to the gun power of BF109's with 2 * 20 mm cannon and 2 * 7.7.mm. mgs. in 1940. BOB

There was a lot of debate at the time about the US practice of 4 .50s vs UK of 8 .30s - and it seems they were similar. Using my values - 1 for a .30 and 2 for a .50 - they ARE a wash if you compare twice as many 30s with 50s - in effect terms.

But this is a bit more complicated a model. Effect is not all there is. Accuracy also matters. So you have to consider the CHANCE of a hit AND the EFFECT of a hit. A cannon may do more damage IF it hits, but it is usually LESS likely to hit. Our 20mms are worth 7 .30s - or 3.5 .50s - in terms of effect. But they are not nearly that much more valuable in terms of chance of hit times effect compared for all weapons. Here the exact model counts - different guns have different accuracy ratings. So we end up with a whole range of values. Just as we should.

They tested the "weight" of the ordnance that could be fired in a timed burst. Because of he slower rate of fire of all the cannons in WWII the actual weight of shot delivered was very similar. It made the argument that fighter-to-fighter combat there was no advantage in cannon vs multiple machine gun.

I agree with this evaluation and comment. And I think that IF you consider the accuracy (based on ROF actually - misnamed IMHO) and effect - not just effect - you will see this is so - as I have interpreted the data.

Cannons were only useful against Bombers because of the explosive power compared to the fuselage mass.

I thought so too. But turns out even the .30s were explosive. And the real difference was penetration vs armor. In our case things are more complex than I said (this is a VERY GOOD model - IF you feed it good data): there is penetration and the armor rating of the target. This seems to be on a unitary scale, where 1 more or less = 1 inch = 25mm in the case of armor. MGs don't do well in that case, cannon do, with die rolls for exceptions (you shoot the pilot through the window, it matters still).

I also wondered why you believed we need operational attrition to increase

It is a consensus on the board with which I agreed - I came along after it formed. The board consensus is clearly right - real operational attrition rates are AT LEAST 2000 times (one close order of magnitude greater than three orders of magnitude greater) than real life - although it is hard to measure if you don't do millions of sortees to cover many different conditions.

In playing vanilla WITP I get operational losses for some planes that average one per day for relatively low numbers of flights. .If planes fell out of the air at a rate much greater than 1% say 1 per 100 flights, pilots would not be willing to get into them. You'll remember that attrition rates of 10% caused the 8th air force to stop day light bombing in Europe in 1943 and that was combat attrition not just operational attrition.
Also that the Marauder B26 ( I Think) was nearly withdrawn from service because of operational losses that amounted to less than 100 I believe.

Here you are not so much wrong as using a wrong approach. You cannot look at a small number and get anything but misled. You need overall attrition rates. These are clearly very very wrong. Not even close to 1 in 100 of what they ought to be. Apparently significantly less than 1 in 1000 of what they should be. For all nations. It IS worse for Japan - which is right.

Also wondering about the rockets, - are we certain that the program handles them only as Air to Ground I see some heavy hitters in the data base with gun values in excess of 300.

No one has seen them work in the air.

That said, I HOPE they work in the air, I THINK they work in the air and I WANT them to work in the air! I DESIGNED them that way! They are really air air guns - misnamed! And they are a strange weapon - awful ROF (only 1) - but IF you get hit - awful effects. Just as they should be. We don't see hits because of low ROF (accuracy) - but WHEN we get one - you will knock em down. Which was the reason they were invented (on the other side - Brits did them to hit U boats).

Thirdly I am also interested with the amount of resources available on the map compared to the level of industry for the Japanese. Is this a CHS issue or RHS play balance?

Andrew believes there is too much industry - and apparently resources. I feel otherwise - and am going the other way - gradually.

My working assumption (very likely wrong) is that the game was designed properly or at least functionally. Turns out - by accident or design - it works a lot better than I thought it would - IF you get rid of artificial supply from resource centers where it should not be (which is to say, sometimes, or sometimes partially).

Also, remember Japan controls - and can get more of - China. But I have added big resource centers in the SRA too - and some in Manchukuo. The biggest copper mine in Asia is in RHS - on Luzon - for example. Sort of a questionable thing too - since Japan didn't exploit it. But I figure it could have - and nothing compells players to use the resources.