Proposal for CHS - Remove the Zero bonus. Any opinions?

[Demosthenes]

ORIGINAL: pauk

ORIGINAL: witpqs
No, because I think the zero bonus works fine (see my earlier posts in this thread). As for increasing USN and USMC expereience, I'm not sure it would be right or wrong. Seems to work okay as is, so I'm not concerned about it.

Hi, I know that, i was just joking, knowing that no one (from those who posted such (censured) ideas) will accept my proposition (challenge).

I'm just getting tired of periodical "spontaneously wroted threads" and their pro-Allied attitude...and all their nonsence...But to be honest i cant blame anyone except myself - i shouldn't take a look at this thread (the mod which I'm not going to play, anyway). Go ahead, creators of CHS can do everything to please certain people here....

Folks, is anyone here win the game as Allies[8|]? According to your posts Allied victory is myth (or urban legend).[:'(]

howgh!

Challange? Censured ideas? Hmm

You are quite correct. Big B, go sit on your test, if anything it proves that the Zero Bonus isn't near strong enough.

By all means, keep the Zero Bonus - the Japanese are totally incapable of doing anything without it, that much is clear. And after all, we all know the focus of 'War in the Pacific' is to keep it fun for the Japanese player.

Don't worry about the most interesting part of the war, the first four to five months, it is all about 'winning' you see, never mind anything else. Oh by the way can anyone find out exactly what the Bonus was up to in Feb 1942?

Sorry to have upset the sensative among you.

[spence]

I guess I'm an Allied Fanboy. I haven't played the IJN yet except for a couple of turns in scen 2 vs the AI.
But I think the Zero Bonus is conceptually a good thing for the game (for historical effect) and it probably ought to extend to the Oscar as well.
I don't like how it is implemented though. If as the designers seem to intend the Allies are trying to devise tactics to deal with the Zero then some of the experiments ought to succeed. For general application by all Allied fighters such successful experiments would depend on incorporation into training so there'd be a delay in general application.

But there ought to be a "die roll" for every single A2A combat which determines whether or not the Zero/Oscar bonus will be applied for that combat. The probability would decrease over time. Argueably I'd vote that the USN/USMC fighters and the AVG be either "immune" or get their own "die roll" to see if they get the same (or maybe slightly smaller) bonus AS WELL. The two bonuses would fade away together over some period at least several months long. I think the IJN Player needs a little anxiety in their life - even in the "happy time". This would do it.

RECODING REQUIRED BUT they did it for ASW and other issues players thought important.

[Ron Saueracker]

RECODING REQUIRED BUT they did it for ASW and other issues players thought important

Do you have any idea what it took to achieve even this ASW change.[:(]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: pauk

Hi, I know that, i was just joking, knowing that no one (from those who posted such (censured) ideas) will accept my proposition (challenge).

Sorry - I totally missed the joke. It's just that you are always so serious! [X(]

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: BlackVoid

First, I must agree on CHS with Oleg. It is an Allied fanboy mod, that leaves the MORE IMPORTANT issues alone, and goes into detail on allied equipment and OOB. Flak is not adjusted, air combat not adjusted, etc....
I would only play CHS, if an equal number of japanese modders worked on it.

Think you are being a bit unfair. OLEG is one of the great "Japanese Fan-Boys" out here, but his opinion isn't always valid.

I am not a Japanese fanboy, no way, if I appear to be, it's just because there are so many absolutely positively *rabid* Allied fanboys on this board, who are also incredibly vocal (even if some of them do not even own the game, or have never played IJN turn one by their own addmission etc.).

Someone has to stand up to them, and not allow them to simply flood the board with their posts and neverending whines. That's all.

And BlackVoid is absolutely right... CHS usually avoid touching things that matter, and simply add more and more and MORE Allied stuff to the OOB. This does not apply to every guy in CHS team, nor to everything they do, but it's their usual modus operandi.

BTW, my first sentence in this thread was that I would be the first to vote for Zero bonus to be removed, personally I don't like it, but serious, balanced and reasonable discussion needs to be held about all aspects of the game, or the mod, or whatever.

Removing the Zero bonus, as part of overall Allied wet dream mod that is CHS, just makes this funny unbalanced, filled-to-the-brim-with-crazy-ideas mod even more laughable. As I said, the only thing that amazes me is that CHS guys didn't get to removing Zero bonus earlier [;)]

Let me just remind you, CHS already took 1 hex range from Zero in CHS - after they remove the Zero bonus next step will be to make it non CV capable I guess [;)]

O.

[Black Mamba 1942]

I like your idea of "randomizing" the Zero bonus. Good thinking.[;)]

As a player more concerned with the meteoric pace of this game.[;)]

I would like to see both sides AK availability and capacity reduced by at least 50%.
The reduction would be considered a form of organic transport for the civilian economies.
Without the preponderous amount of AK's available, players would have to be more selective with their shipping needs.
This could be modded for the CHS. No need to tinker with the code to fix this.

It's the massive amount of AK's available that allows the rapid expansion for both sides.[;)]
I consider this more important than the Zero bonus. The bonus goes away, AK's just keep stacking up.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

I like your idea of "randomizing" the Zero bonus. Good thinking.[;)]

As a player more concerned with the meteoric pace of this game.[;)]

I would like to see both sides AK availability and capacity reduced by at least 50%.
The reduction would be considered a form of organic transport for the civilian economies.
Without the preponderous amount of AK's available, players would have to be more selective with their shipping needs.
This could be modded for the CHS. No need to tinker with the code to fix this.

It's the massive amount of AK's available that allows the rapid expansion for both sides.[;)]
I consider this more important than the Zero bonus. The bonus goes away, AK's just keep stacking up.

I chopped the AK capacities by 80% in a game I'm playing with irrelevant. Coupled with increasing the load costs of devices, this has REALLY slowed everything down.[X(]

[bilbow]

ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

As a player more concerned with the meteoric pace of this game.[;)]

I would like to see both sides AK availability and capacity reduced by at least 50%.
The reduction would be considered a form of organic transport for the civilian economies.
Without the preponderous amount of AK's available, players would have to be more selective with their shipping needs.
This could be modded for the CHS. No need to tinker with the code to fix this.

It's the massive amount of AK's available that allows the rapid expansion for both sides.[;)]
I consider this more important than the Zero bonus. The bonus goes away, AK's just keep stacking up.

I am playing Drex using Pry's mod where he did reduce by 50% all the APs, and AKs by varying amounts. It really does slow down the game. I'm in late April 42 and am just now finishing up my SRA campaign. In Burma, Mandalay just fell a couple of days ago. The game has a much better feel to it. It's especially hard to keep the pace up with the halved APs. I highly recommend this mod for a more reasonably paced game.

[Big B]

I have but one serious but honest question for the many supporters of the Zero Bonus .

In all honesty, if it (the bonus) is of little consequence, why does it have such passionate defenders and refuters? The question consistantly draws more posts and 'hits' or reads than about anything else - and over a very short time span.

If the Zero Bonus really is inconsequential, why does it generate such interest and passion when ever it comes up? It sure seems a universal 'hot button'.

Not trying to be a wise guy here.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Big B

I did my own a2a test last night with the Zero Bonus very much 'on' from scen#2 Rising Sun.
Big B's "Battle of Manila, 07 DEC 41 to 01 JAN 42" .
Conditions: No air ops on Jan 1st, all air action takes place in December 41. That left 25 days available for operations, of which 9 days had no flying. So the total below was accumulated in 16 days of air combat.
Also, outside of Dec 7th, no sorties were flown - except those of the three Zero groups on Tainan vs. the combined P40 strength in the Philippines moved to Manila. I wanted to just test Air to Air Combat.
Further I had the P40's on maximum CAP (that is 90%) with a height advantage on all occasions, altitude ranging from 12,000 to 22,000 feet - mostly at 15,000 feet.
The Zeros were always on Sweep to Manila at an altitude of 10,000 feet.

The screen shot below shows the score board on January 1st, after the test.

I expected a Zero kill ratio of three or four to one, but 8 to one seems high to me...

Thanks for the testing Big B. That is exactly what is needed to help understand how the Zero bonus affects the game. Further tests would be needed to see whether, and how, the bonus could be removed and still provide equivalent results.

From the real life data that was posted earlier, from air-to-air battles in the DEI - "So if we count the A2A battles between fighters, the score is 36 Allied fighters lost against 5 Zeroes lost against them in one month " - 8 to 1 air-to-air losses in the Zero's favour sounds about right. So if the Zero bonus was removed, the experience of Allied (Commonwealth, Dutch, USAAF) pilots would have to be reduced by an amount that would result in the same loss ratios. Now the big questions - how large a reduction would be needed to give that result? And how long would it take for the Allied air units to overcome this initial disadvantage, compared to the 5 months for the Zero Bonus to disappear?

Anyone able to help with testing along these lines?

Andrew

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: bilbow

ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

As a player more concerned with the meteoric pace of this game.[;)]

I would like to see both sides AK availability and capacity reduced by at least 50%.
The reduction would be considered a form of organic transport for the civilian economies.
Without the preponderous amount of AK's available, players would have to be more selective with their shipping needs.
This could be modded for the CHS. No need to tinker with the code to fix this.

It's the massive amount of AK's available that allows the rapid expansion for both sides.[;)]
I consider this more important than the Zero bonus. The bonus goes away, AK's just keep stacking up.

I am playing Drex using Pry's mod where he did reduce by 50% all the APs, and AKs by varying amounts. It really does slow down the game. I'm in late April 42 and am just now finishing up my SRA campaign. In Burma, Mandalay just fell a couple of days ago. The game has a much better feel to it. It's especially hard to keep the pace up with the halved APs. I highly recommend this mod for a more reasonably paced game.

CHS did this as well.

[Lt. Calley]

ORIGINAL: Big B

I did my own a2a test last night with the Zero Bonus very much 'on' from scen#2 Rising Sun.
Big B's "Battle of Manila, 07 DEC 41 to 01 JAN 42" .
Conditions: No air ops on Jan 1st, all air action takes place in December 41. That left 25 days available for operations, of which 9 days had no flying. So the total below was accumulated in 16 days of air combat.
Also, outside of Dec 7th, no sorties were flown - except those of the three Zero groups on Tainan vs. the combined P40 strength in the Philippines moved to Manila. I wanted to just test Air to Air Combat.
Further I had the P40's on maximum CAP (that is 90%) with a height advantage on all occasions, altitude ranging from 12,000 to 22,000 feet - mostly at 15,000 feet.
The Zeros were always on Sweep to Manila at an altitude of 10,000 feet.

The screen shot below shows the score board on January 1st, after the test.

I expected a Zero kill ratio of three or four to one, but 8 to one seems high to me...

(I had made nice JPEGs of each group at the end showing their condition, but they seem to large to upload and display[:(])

It's possible that the version used might seriously affect the results of a test like this. In my PBEM (1.60) as Allies, I received the following results for an air strike by part of KB over Singapore (December), defended by AVG and some Buffalo I on CAP:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on TF, near Singapore at 23,50

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 58
D3A Val x 4

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 11
P-40B Tomahawk x 43

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 9 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Buffalo I: 5 destroyed, 1 damaged
P-40B Tomahawk: 25 destroyed

Allied Ships
AP Manoora

Aircraft Attacking:
4 x D3A Val bombing at 2000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I then decided to rerun the combat replay using version 1.795 beta, and the results would have been a lot worse for me:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on TF, near Singapore at 23,50

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 47
D3A Val x 16
B5N Kate x 24

Allied aircraft
Buffalo I x 8
P-40B Tomahawk x 40

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 4 destroyed, 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
Buffalo I: 7 destroyed
P-40B Tomahawk: 32 destroyed

Allied Ships
MSW Toowoomba, Bomb hits 7, on fire, heavy damage
MSW Maryborough, Bomb hits 6, on fire, heavy damage

Aircraft Attacking:
4 x D3A Val bombing at 2000 feet
4 x B5N Kate bombing at 9000 feet
4 x D3A Val bombing at 2000 feet
4 x D3A Val bombing at 2000 feet
4 x D3A Val bombing at 2000 feet
4 x B5N Kate bombing at 9000 feet
4 x B5N Kate bombing at 9000 feet
4 x B5N Kate bombing at 9000 feet
4 x B5N Kate bombing at 9000 feet
4 x B5N Kate bombing at 9000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe it was due completely to luck and there is no change in the combat model between 1.60 and 1.795. The different results could be explained by the new submarine combat model which changes the die rolls used for combat. Come to think of it, the attack on AVG happened near the end of the combat day and maybe the program "ran out" of "normal" die rolls because of the many more die rolls needed for sub combat in 1.795. However, from now on each time I have a major air combat I'll be sure to compare the results to see if I consistently do worse in 1.795 than in 1.60.

Incidentally, I had 66 ready AVG aircraft on 90% cap, don't remember now if Singapore has radar.

EDIT: I also switched the commander of AVG to Hickey, I think his air-to-air skill is 69 and he has high inspiration and aggressiveness. Also, another reason why I may have done much worse the second time is if the Japs got an outnumbering bonus from having the additional bombers which appeared in the 2nd combat counted in their force, even though no air-to-air vs. bombers actually took place.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Big B

I did my own a2a test last night with the Zero Bonus very much 'on' from scen#2 Rising Sun.
Big B's "Battle of Manila, 07 DEC 41 to 01 JAN 42" .
Conditions: No air ops on Jan 1st, all air action takes place in December 41. That left 25 days available for operations, of which 9 days had no flying. So the total below was accumulated in 16 days of air combat.
Also, outside of Dec 7th, no sorties were flown - except those of the three Zero groups on Tainan vs. the combined P40 strength in the Philippines moved to Manila. I wanted to just test Air to Air Combat.
Further I had the P40's on maximum CAP (that is 90%) with a height advantage on all occasions, altitude ranging from 12,000 to 22,000 feet - mostly at 15,000 feet.
The Zeros were always on Sweep to Manila at an altitude of 10,000 feet.

The screen shot below shows the score board on January 1st, after the test.

I expected a Zero kill ratio of three or four to one, but 8 to one seems high to me...

Thanks for the testing Big B. That is exactly what is needed to help understand how the Zero bonus affects the game. Further tests would be needed to see whether, and how, the bonus could be removed and still provide equivalent results.

From the real life data that was posted earlier, from air-to-air battles in the DEI - "So if we count the A2A battles between fighters, the score is 36 Allied fighters lost against 5 Zeroes lost against them in one month " - 8 to 1 air-to-air losses in the Zero's favour sounds about right. So if the Zero bonus was removed, the experience of Allied (Commonwealth, Dutch, USAAF) pilots would have to be reduced by an amount that would result in the same loss ratios. Now the big questions - how large a reduction would be needed to give that result? And how long would it take for the Allied air units to overcome this initial disadvantage, compared to the 5 months for the Zero Bonus to disappear?

Anyone able to help with testing along these lines?

Andrew

No Andy, 8:1 is too high. The Zero's are at extended range sweeping Manilla, the P-40's are on CAP over their own base. In other words, the P-40's are in the best tactical position, the Zero's are at a big dissadvantage having to nurse fuel for the trip back. If they are scoring at 8 to 1 under these circumstances, the results are horribly skewed. Remember, the Japs got air superiority over the PI on the first day of the war by catching most of the FEAAF on the ground. After that they had a numerical edge in most circumstances. If you give them an 8:1 edge in the circumstances cited above, the game will be badly skewed for an awfully long time. As little as 2:1 losses would still be huge in those circumstances.

I think you are playing with fire this way..., a "bonus" is much more controllable and needs far less of the testing you don't have the time or manpower to accomplish.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Big B

I did my own a2a test last night with the Zero Bonus very much 'on' from scen#2 Rising Sun.
Big B's "Battle of Manila, 07 DEC 41 to 01 JAN 42" .
Conditions: No air ops on Jan 1st, all air action takes place in December 41. That left 25 days available for operations, of which 9 days had no flying. So the total below was accumulated in 16 days of air combat.
Also, outside of Dec 7th, no sorties were flown - except those of the three Zero groups on Tainan vs. the combined P40 strength in the Philippines moved to Manila. I wanted to just test Air to Air Combat.
Further I had the P40's on maximum CAP (that is 90%) with a height advantage on all occasions, altitude ranging from 12,000 to 22,000 feet - mostly at 15,000 feet.
The Zeros were always on Sweep to Manila at an altitude of 10,000 feet.

The screen shot below shows the score board on January 1st, after the test.

I expected a Zero kill ratio of three or four to one, but 8 to one seems high to me...

Thanks for the testing Big B. That is exactly what is needed to help understand how the Zero bonus affects the game. Further tests would be needed to see whether, and how, the bonus could be removed and still provide equivalent results.

From the real life data that was posted earlier, from air-to-air battles in the DEI - "So if we count the A2A battles between fighters, the score is 36 Allied fighters lost against 5 Zeroes lost against them in one month " - 8 to 1 air-to-air losses in the Zero's favour sounds about right. So if the Zero bonus was removed, the experience of Allied (Commonwealth, Dutch, USAAF) pilots would have to be reduced by an amount that would result in the same loss ratios. Now the big questions - how large a reduction would be needed to give that result? And how long would it take for the Allied air units to overcome this initial disadvantage, compared to the 5 months for the Zero Bonus to disappear?

Anyone able to help with testing along these lines?

Andrew

Thanks Andrew,
I am going to do more testing myself - in fact I have begun afresh doing a cleaner test - I plan to do several with and without the Bonus to compare. I will post them if you wish.

One quick note about my results with those posted from Shore's Book regarding the DEI in Feb'42.

Mine were all a2a cap vs sweep with the Allies always assigned altitude advantage (though of course they have to climb to get there) so its a controlled situation 'of sorts' with the Japanese usually always enjoying a 2 to 1 numerical advantage. If I send all 63 Zeros, 63 fly the mission over 90% of the time, whereas if I assign CAP to 90% (the max) I usually get about 50% of the planes up, which is why I found the Japanese always outnumbering by about 2to 1.

Anyway the reason I bring this up is - even though I asked Admiral Laurent, he gave no context to the results posted for Feb'42, therefore we don't know the odds and circumstance of each fight - so until we know the situation of each of those encounters the numbers by themselves give us very little reliable information to understand and forcast probabilities...do you follow me? Therefore we don't know what that 36 to 5 is telling us - they could have been caught outnumbered 4 to 1 and taking off for all we know, or bounced while landing. We really need a context to be able to interpret the raw data.

Anyway I am doing more testing...
B

[tsimmonds]

this has REALLY slowed everything down

Except for the rate at which I'm pulling out my hair.

Actually, halving the AK/APs has not slowed things down as much as has doubling the load cost of most squads/devices. I think this may have been the proverbial bridge too far.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: bilbow

I am playing Drex using Pry's mod where he did reduce by 50% all the APs, and AKs by varying amounts.

CHS did this as well.

Pry's mod is much more extensive in this regard.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

this has REALLY slowed everything down

Except for the rate at which I'm pulling out my hair.

Actually, halving the AK/APs has not slowed things down as much as has doubling the load cost of most squads/devices. I think this may have been the proverbial bridge too far.

Yeah, may have been a little over zealous but at least we KNOW now.[:D]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: bilbow

I am playing Drex using Pry's mod where he did reduce by 50% all the APs, and AKs by varying amounts.

CHS did this as well.

Pry's mod is much more extensive in this regard.

How's that?

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: bilbow

I am playing Drex using Pry's mod where he did reduce by 50% all the APs, and AKs by varying amounts.

CHS did this as well.

Pry's mod is much more extensive in this regard.

I love Pry's mod.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

So if the Zero bonus was removed, the experience of Allied (Commonwealth, Dutch, USAAF) pilots would have to be reduced by an amount that would result in the same loss ratios. Now the big questions - how large a reduction would be needed to give that result? And how long would it take for the Allied air units to overcome this initial disadvantage, compared to the 5 months for the Zero Bonus to disappear?

Andrew

I still disagree with reducing Allied experience. It's already a bunch lower than the Japanese for the most part. Reducing it further means the Allies stay behind the curve for much longer than realistic because they lack the in-game (on-map) training opportunities that the Japanese have.

Okay, I've said my piece.

Can you be more specific about which experience you are considering reducing?
- Units on-map at start.
- Replacement pilots.
- Units that arrive as replacements.
- etc.