Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Yikes, it's a Saturday morning and I just tried to follow Q-Ball's excellent and detailed formula...and now I know why Step 3 is to quaff a beer. 

[:D]

P.S.  Thanks for making it easier for Japanese players to inflict defeats on we Allied players.  [:@]

(P.P.S.  Really, though, well done and helpful.)

Yeah, this is great stuff, but happily, it works for both sides, you JFB dogs!

Ahh, after the SRA is liberated.  I haven't looked that closely at ground reinforcements yet.  Still in short term planning for the most part. 

I expect to upgrade just about all the Kiso and To'su xAKLs to PBs eventually.
 
Good idea about the TBs.  I hadn't thought about them much either.  I really need to look at each "escort" class (DD, E, TB, etc.) to try and figure out the best use of them.
 
I can see converting as many STD- classes as possible to TKs.  Are you short AOs too?

ORIGINAL: AirGriff

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Yikes, it's a Saturday morning and I just tried to follow Q-Ball's excellent and detailed formula...and now I know why Step 3 is to quaff a beer. 

[:D]

P.S.  Thanks for making it easier for Japanese players to inflict defeats on we Allied players.  [:@]

(P.P.S.  Really, though, well done and helpful.)

Yeah, this is great stuff, but happily, it works for both sides, you JFB dogs!

Hey, we got an infiltrator in here! [:'(] [:D]

Q-ball,

Thank you very much for putting this detailed review together. I've been trying to cobble something like this together, but your approach is simply much more elegant. Much appreciated.

Probably not news for the JFB in this thread, but at the start of the game there are already 17 Std-C that can be converted to 2850 capacity Tankers, that might release the early TK pressure a bit. 

Yeah Smeulders, you're right.  They can't convert until Jun 42 (or something like that).

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

That's the only way to play as the Japanese player.

Particularly under patch 1, where Japanese pilots' skills do not improve in combat (well, technically they do improve, but this happens too rarely to ever be meaningful - on the level of one improvement per month for your entire aviation) and you can neither put 2-3 rookies in unit that does well and expect them to become better, not train by bombing Chinese/Bataan/whatever.

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Hey Q-Ball, you're really converting to the -t?  Granted, i haven't started my game yet, but I don't expect to have to do that.  Interesting.

Early on, I expected xAKs to be in short supply.  I'm not so sure anymore because the outer Home Islands can almost supply Honshu by themselves.  Yeah, it takes a lot of hulls, but I figure it'll take less than 1/3 of the starting xAK hulls to do it, and that's mainly small ones.  I'm finding that the chokepoint is port size.  There are lots of land units that can't load, primarily because of the limited docking space (at least at the beginning of the war).  Maybe the -t conversion would help, because you'd need fewer xAKs to load an infantry unit.  Hmm....

I've found that delay due to load on an undocked TF is very small, if it exists at all, for infantry units. For example, 65th brigade was easily loaded for Luzon on locally available transports (the TF was clearly too big for the port). Tanks and artillery, however, sometimes lockdown your loading procedure almost completely. At least I presume that this happens because of them.

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ahh, after the SRA is liberated.  I haven't looked that closely at ground reinforcements yet.  Still in short term planning for the most part. 

I expect to upgrade just about all the Kiso and To'su xAKLs to PBs eventually.

Aren't To'sus better as ACMs? At the beginning you don't even have enough ACMs to maintain minefields in the ports you already own. And AS rating of 2-3 basically means that your escorts can only serve as deterrents against surface sub attacks anyway. I've tried to actively attack discovered subs with ASW TFs, but the effects are very disappointing even against AIs - 4-5 sank ASW ships for damaging one sub. (I'll try bait transport taskforces of one xAKL and alot of ASW escorts next, but I doubt that this will improve things radically enough.) With minefields you can at least stop subs from hitting you at your ports.

FatR, yeah, the To'sus may be a better ACM. As JWE has said repeatedly, the Japanese player has to make some hard decisions on what to do with their ships and how to convert them (if at all). I like the To'sus over the Kisos as PBs because they're a bit faster, but they only have 2 DC racks vs. the Kisos 3 DC racks. It takes several days for any ship to convert to an ACM so some of our minefields are going to degrade and there's nothing we can do about it. I've picked the minefields I want to keep and am sending the starting ACMs there. In addition, I'm allocating ACMs to certain ports I want to lay minefields in. Some of those ACMs exist, some are being built and some will be built later. Tough decisions.

Well, here's the airframe/engine spreadsheet. A bit of explanation is in order.

When you open it, you're on the airframe page. It's only showing the types available at the start of the war. Check out column U. You can sort by month you receive a new airframe or the whole shebang. Oh yeah, I stole this from someone else and modified it. Many thanks to whoever put it together. [:D] The only column you need to update is column G (Monthly production) as you change things. Note that column H shows airframes that are currently off, so they don't show up as requiring engines in the engine sheet.

The important thing to remember in this sheet is to add the monthly production to the R&D airframes as they become operational. This will update the engine sheet.

On to the engine sheet. This shows your current surplus or shortage in engine production. The only thing you need to update is the monthly rate (Column C) for the engines. You can update the pool too, in order to have that info handy. The important column is the Surplus column (Column E). If it's green, it's good. If it's red, it's not.

This spreadsheet should be good to go for the entire war. One thing I'm considering adding is the R&D max for airframes in the prod off column. That way you can see what the potential is for that airframe. If you want to play around with a certain engine, sort by that engine in column D and move the numbers from prod off to monthly prod to see what you will need in engines in the future.

As always, comments are welcome.

This will be a huge help to me in learning how to play the dark side. Thanks Mike!

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Hey Q-Ball, you're really converting to the -t?  Granted, i haven't started my game yet, but I don't expect to have to do that.  Interesting.

Early on, I expected xAKs to be in short supply.  I'm not so sure anymore because the outer Home Islands can almost supply Honshu by themselves.  Yeah, it takes a lot of hulls, but I figure it'll take less than 1/3 of the starting xAK hulls to do it, and that's mainly small ones.  I'm finding that the chokepoint is port size.  There are lots of land units that can't load, primarily because of the limited docking space (at least at the beginning of the war).  Maybe the -t conversion would help, because you'd need fewer xAKs to load an infantry unit.  Hmm....

Thanks MIke, I'll look for the update.

I agree, you don't need more than 1/3 of your hulls to feed the Japanese economy. All the Resources you really need are close at hand, and you don't need to haul anything from the SRA in that department. Now, I am finding that if you conduct major fleet ops, you don't have enough TKs; I will run it a little more, but I foresee needing AKs to haul fuel. You might have enough TKs if the IJN sits in port, but that's not an option!

I started off conservative in Ak-t conversions, and initially it seemed enough. Once the SRA is done, though, and alot of reinforcements are appearing in Japan, I found myself WAY short of troop lift capacity. And with that conversion, it STILL hauls more cargo than troops.

I have been on a crash Ak-t conversion program, and am converting hulls like mad. I brought home alot of xAKLs that start on the perimeter for hauling resources. You need SOME out there for short supply runs, but not more than a couple dozen total.

I am also finding myself short of escorts; I only use DD escorts for Invasion or Replenishment TFs. I am converting to alot of Kiso and To'su PBs.

I am also converting all non-Long Lance equipped DDs to APDs (anything older than a Mutsuki), with the exception of the Momis, because they lose a boiler in that process. Converting all the TBs to Es when available is also a no-brainer IMO. With the sub-par torps they are not very good DDs, but as APDs they make terrific ASW escorts.

Nice explanation of the training/resize options Q-Ball. And I am pretty much doing the same things re: converting AKs, converting to PBs etc. Great minds think alike [:D]

Thanks for the spreadsheet Mike !

You're welcome!

My head is spinning just reading your explanation above[:D]

ORIGINAL: BrucePowers

My head is spinning just reading your explanation above[:D]

says the rocket scientist. [:D]

How goes the space shuttle, Bruce? Still in Houston?

I am home[8D]