Matrix Games Forums

You've been reading too many Knavey posts........ [:D] [:D] [:D]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Docked and disbanded are 2 different things. Minis hit the disbanded ships (I think anyways, I have never seen them attack the TFs at Pearl). I dont think they would attack a docked TF. So (as far as I have seen) docked TFs are immune to sub attacks, period, regardless of port size. If Im wrong, Im sure Don will correct me [;)]

Docked TFs at Pearl could indeed be attacked. Just aren't any. Later in the war, midgets can try again. Play against the AI and watch for them.

I think that midgets are the only subs that can attack docked TFs. No provision for harbor penetration by full sized boats.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the first time I loaded up WITP to play a full first turn of the grand campaign, I was quite daunted and it took me _hours_ just to look over everything and form a mental picture of what I had. Then I had to start planning... it was easily two days before I had that first turn done, but once I did it I had a much better grasp of WITP. After that, first turns generally took more like 3-4 hours and once I got further into the game, turns were taking me 15-45 minutes depending on what was going on.

Now with AE you will have that same experience, because so much will be new and different in terms of the map and the detailed orders of battle. Expect that your first turn (especially for the Japanese) will take a long time just to wrap your head around things. Try the small scenarios first, try playing against the AI first, etc. Once you get past that first learning "cliff" it will become much easier as it did with WITP and it will take less time.

It is also important to emphasize that with AE, there is more to setup on the first turn also in terms of getting patrol routes set, setting up waypoints and such. But these things save you time in the long run and make it easier to manage certain things than it was in WITP.

Nevertheless, there's a reason why we made WITP a requirement to own AE. We don't want folks who haven't played WITP to jump into AE without any preparation. WITP vets will be fine, given some time to learn the ropes.

Regards,

- Erik

Got an e-mail from Tree saying his high speed internet was out until monday, so I took the day yesterday and played "Pappa" with my 3 year old grandson. Back at it now. Finally got through all the ground stuff (takes me a little longer than it will take you because Im doing 2 things you wont be: 1) Im explaining to you how to do stuff [;)] and 2) Im still checking for things that dont seem or look right and asking those questions on the dev board and sometimes I stop what Im doing in the game until I get an answer. So with that, Im off to production.

The Japanese home island produce somewhere over 15,000 supply a day, so I will try to keep my production changes down below double that (takes 1000 supply to repair 1 point of factories). So in a nutshell what I am saying is I will modify no more than 30 factories.

This is the current factory production:



What I am looking at is the production rate numbers. First off, I will look for planes I no longer need. We are playing with PDUs on in this game, so I know I can live without the Pete as the Jake will be my standard shipboard scout. I am producing 1 Jake a day (27/30ths actually) and this should be good enough between what I have in the pool already and the ones I can strip from land based squadrons. The land based groups will also eventually be fitted with Jakes, but I can live with Alfs and even Daves in some places for now.

The Nate I wont need of course, but heres the deal on that. There is a setting when you start the game called "realistic R&D" (the default for this is ON). With this on (and we are playing with it on), you cant change R&D factories to existing (ie producing) types and vice versa. So where in CHS I will change my Nates to Tojos, I cant do that here. Likewise, I cant change the Sally to Helens yet either.

Army dive bombers in AE arent "dive bombers". The decision on that was based on them not having dive brakes, so since they are just run of the mill "level bombers" I will be changing the Ann, Mary, Sonia, and Ida to other types (although the Sonia and Ida are the only ones that have factories). Lilys arent really worth keeping, but I need a squadron of Lily-2s to convert a Babs squadron later, so I wont change the Lily factory yet (since it will auto upgrade to -2s in Apr 42). I will however shut the factory off until then so Im not wasting resources producing an inferior aircraft. Note, the Tina and Mavis-L doesnt appear on this list because there are no planes in the pool, and no production (I have filtered this display to only showing those that have planes in the pools).

So this gives me 30 Sonia, 32 Ida, 45 Nate, and 3 Pete to convert to other existing types. Now looking at my "needs", I have:
A6M 56 producing, I want 150
B5N 1 producing, I want 60
D3A 12 Producing, I want 45
G3M 22 producing, I want double that
G4M 25 producing, I want double that

The Oscar-1c I am torn on. I will need an army fighter and God knows the Nate is worthless, but the firepower of the Oscar is near worthless as well. It cant stop a bomber (I will say I have noticed a major difference in the accuracy of bomber attacks that dont face a CAP vs those that do). But the problem is you dont have enough Zero squadrons to spare (the Japs only start with 2 - 45 plane groups that can be broken down into 3 squadrons of 15 each, and an 18 plane group and a 9 plane detachment and both these units go away in early April 42, although you get 2-27 plane groups and a 45 plane group in Apr 42 to offset it). So Im thinking I will have to double this production.

Topsy I will need a lot more Im thinking 60 a month. Same with Dinahs. Mavis production is very low with only 6, but you dont need a lot. Other than current losses, you only get 1 more squadron (of 18 planes) in mid-Apr so these 6 really should be enough for that.

You only have 2 units that can fly Tina or Mavis transports and none of either plane type in production. The Mavis is actually far superior to the Tina in AE. It has almost double the cargo space and 14 hexes more range, not to mention that the Mavis can fly into or out of a base with no airfield as long as its a coastal base. So I will put 20 or so points into Mavis production.

This will account for 9 or 10 of my 30. Next thing to consider is the R&D stuff.

Side note: The industry list now has all the airplanes grouped together (so you dont have to hunt) and it also shows current and current maximum sizes of those factories:

This is far more better than WitP [:D]



Yes, I said "more better" [:'(]

Hi Erik,

Since there have been a lot of changes (WitP to AE), and since we apparently still have a bit of a wait [:(] until final release, would it be possible to release a bit of the manual early? Not all of it, but perhaps a chapter or even a few pages. Particularly if it covers big changes, such as TF loading/ports, etc...

A "bone" tossed our way would be much appreciated!! [&o]

thanks

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I don't know about the rest of you, but the first time I loaded up WITP to play a full first turn of the grand campaign, I was quite daunted and it took me _hours_ just to look over everything and form a mental picture of what I had. Then I had to start planning... it was easily two days before I had that first turn done, but once I did it I had a much better grasp of WITP. After that, first turns generally took more like 3-4 hours and once I got further into the game, turns were taking me 15-45 minutes depending on what was going on.

Now with AE you will have that same experience, because so much will be new and different in terms of the map and the detailed orders of battle. Expect that your first turn (especially for the Japanese) will take a long time just to wrap your head around things. Try the small scenarios first, try playing against the AI first, etc. Once you get past that first learning "cliff" it will become much easier as it did with WITP and it will take less time.

It is also important to emphasize that with AE, there is more to setup on the first turn also in terms of getting patrol routes set, setting up waypoints and such. But these things save you time in the long run and make it easier to manage certain things than it was in WITP.

Nevertheless, there's a reason why we made WITP a requirement to own AE. We don't want folks who haven't played WITP to jump into AE without any preparation. WITP vets will be fine, given some time to learn the ropes.

Regards,

- Erik

Yh, this is really interesting! Thank you for sharing. I'd love to see the same details on the Allied side.

Don and YH: thank you for your answers to my query. But... afraid I'm still a bit confused. [&:]

If I've followed correctly, having a TF 'docked' now has a significance in AE it doesn't have in the game 'as is', in that it reflects the use by the TF of the port's (limited) cargo handling facilities. In the game 'as is' being docked or undocked seems to make no difference to loading/unloading.

I've always assumed that, in the game 'as is', an undocked TF in a base hex was treated as if under way outside the harbour defences. As such it should be less vulnerable to air attack, but forfeits the immunity to sub attack it would get from being docked in a port size 3 or above. I had also assumed that if the port size was less than 3, TF's were vulnerable to sub attack irrespective of whether they are docked (that's what the manual implies to me).

Given the change in AE, it appears that a ship in a base hex could potentially be in one of four possible states:

1. Disbanded, at anchor

2. In a TF, docked (taking a share of port's cargo handling capacity, and highly vulnerable to air attack)

3. In a TF, undocked but within harbour defences ('at anchor'?) - can load/unload slowly, but immune to sub attack if port is big enough. Air attack vulnerability?

4. In a TF, undocked and outside harbour defences - in effect the same as being at sea.

I don't know whether AE does recognise all of these four possible states, but it looks as though it should because each could have a significant bearing on the ship's vulnerability and/or the drain it imposes on the base's resources.

Sorry if I'm being very dense about this, but would appreciate clarification.

the Japs only start with 2 - 45 plane groups that can be broken down into 3 squadrons of 15 each

I had been under the impression that aircraft would generally be organized into chutai, not larger groups. Is this not the case?

I'm always reluctant to break down air groups in vanilla WITP because of past bad experience splitting and recombining units. E.g., I could use 9 Kates on a CV right now, but I don't know how the engine would react if I split a 27-plane group into three and disbanded one into the CV's Kate group. If AE still features larger air groups, are there any restrictions (e.g., rules, database limits or bugs) on breaking them down and recombining them?

ORIGINAL: Grotius

the Japs only start with 2 - 45 plane groups that can be broken down into 3 squadrons of 15 each

I had been under the impression that aircraft would generally be organized into chutai, not larger groups. Is this not the case?

Mixed. Some do, some don't. BTW, for "45 plane groups", read "45 plane MAX groups". The Tainan Ku S-1, for instance, starts with 27+5 A6M2s.

I'm always reluctant to break down air groups in vanilla WITP because of past bad experience splitting and recombining units. E.g., I could use 9 Kates on a CV right now, but I don't know how the engine would react if I split a 27-plane group into three and disbanded one into the CV's Kate group. If AE still features larger air groups, are there any restrictions (e.g., rules, database limits or bugs) on breaking them down and recombining them?

I never break down air groups myself, so that's for somebody else to answer. Plenty of air groups, like the above-mentioned Tainan Ku, start out pre-broken down, so it can operate more than one plane type (in this case, the Babs).

Another example of what YH is talking about is the Yamada Detachment, which begins the game at Soc Trang, Indochina. It operates the A6M2, the A5M4 and the Babs, broken down into three sub-units.

ORIGINAL: dwesolick
Since there have been a lot of changes (WitP to AE), and since we apparently still have a bit of a wait [:(] until final release, would it be possible to release a bit of the manual early? Not all of it, but perhaps a chapter or even a few pages. Particularly if it covers big changes, such as TF loading/ports, etc...

Yes, some of it will be released early as part of the promotion, but not most of it. I expect we'll release the first bit in a week or two.

Aircraft upgrades

Why do we see aircraft upgrading to the same types?

A5M4-Claude_________upgrades to A5M4-Claude?
Ki-15-II Babs_________upgrades to Ki-15-II Babs?

Versus
A6M2 Zero ___________upgrades to A6M2 Zen Baku-rd?

How does AE handle pre-production aircraft (like the Ki-44 Tojo's) that appear before R&D & production is complete?

Does AE handle aircraft downgrades, (airgroup of Ki-43 Oscars arrives but none in pool), will the group be formed with Ki-27 Nates?

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
Lilys arent really worth keeping, but I need a squadron of Lily-2s to convert a Babs squadron later, so I wont change the Lily factory yet (since it will auto upgrade to -2s in Apr 42).

Does this mean that you still need to convert a certain unit to a certain type of AC to "unlock" that AC type (like the upgrade of the 7th BG in Witp)?
And if so, will these units be listed in the manual?

YH,
 
Are there any late war ('44 and beyond) R&D airframes that you would consider changing over to current planes??
 
Is that something that is even possible??

ORIGINAL: pad152

Aircraft upgrades

Why do we see aircraft upgrading to the same types?

A5M4-Claude_________upgrades to A5M4-Claude?
Ki-15-II Babs_________upgrades to Ki-15-II Babs?

Versus
A6M2 Zero ___________upgrades to A6M2 Zen Baku-rd?

How does AE handle pre-production aircraft (like the Ki-44 Tojo's) that appear before R&D & production is complete?

Does AE handle aircraft downgrades, (airgroup of Ki-43 Oscars arrives but none in pool), will the group be formed with Ki-27 Nates?

With the first two.........I think it is because there are no airframes in productions.......so no factories to upgrade............

question regarding the Kate production numbers;
where do the 72 B5N1 +B5N2 come from, since there is only one in production; is there a historical explanation for that?

The Kate was out of production at the start of the war. The Jill was supposed to replace her. Design problems with the Jill lead to the restart of the Kate production. This would leave the IJN critically short of Kates in 1942.

thanks, didn't know that one...

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: dwesolick
Since there have been a lot of changes (WitP to AE), and since we apparently still have a bit of a wait [:(] until final release, would it be possible to release a bit of the manual early? Not all of it, but perhaps a chapter or even a few pages. Particularly if it covers big changes, such as TF loading/ports, etc...

Yes, some of it will be released early as part of the promotion, but not most of it. I expect we'll release the first bit in a week or two.

So, in a week or so, some of the manual will be released as part of the promotion of ??????????