Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: bigred

Wow. What do I do w/ the unused engine plants? PDU is on. This is where as a newbie jap player I can make some critical mistakes. Changing those plants is alot of supply and I am using alot inoperations currently, so I may have to wait until I establish my perimiters.

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Here's what the Hitachi (early) is used for. I'd recomend turning that off.

You have 3 choices with any factories:

1. Produce
2. Shut off
3. Convert to something else.

If you're worried about supply, just shut them off right now. You can convert them later. In my PBEM, I'm in Apr 42 and there are engine factories that I shut off at the beginning of the game and haven't yet converted them. Don't feel you have to convert immediately. This is a long game. A 30 point engine factory takes one month to completely convert. Look to see what your engine needs will be in the future. Backplan, taking into account your current pool, and that will tell you if you need to increase the size of a factory or if you should convert one.

By the way, you just answered your question earlier of whether you should stop HI factories. You're concerned about supply. Turning off HI factories is the last thing you want to do.

bigred,
 
I noticed your Mitsubishi Ha-32 production is lower than needed and with only 1 in the pool it is likely that you have several aircraft not producing each turn because of the lack of engines.  I would recommend using some of that excess HI/supply and expanding your Ha-32 factories to meet the demand.  Likewise, the demand for the Ha-35 is lower than the expected need for several months so you may consider shutting down some of those factories for awhile unless you plan to expand your aircraft factories that use it.
 
Good luck!

I have similar views on naval and merchant points as Mike.

IMHO, it is the naval assets that win or lose most key defensive battles from midwar on. With this philosophy understood, I always pay very close attention to naval / merch production. I view the tradeoffs of acceleration to be so grave that I rarely do such. How frequently do you really know about and have a critical naval confrontation where that accelerated asset is critical to the outcome the of the battle? Think about all the ships you no longer will receive as a result. Those non-sexy AK, SC, DD and the like that need to be built too. I frequently cut back other parts of the economy to increase thes elements when necessary. And yes when it comes time to cut back production, TK are among the last to be stopped.

Comments here are good; some other notes:

1. SHIPS: Accelerate the CVs. I recommend turning off alot of sub production, especially the RO-Boats, but even the other boats. They consume too many Naval points, and won't win the war for you. Between the subs and YAMATO, you should accelerate TAIHO, and at least the first 3 UNRYUS.

Besides, you start the game with a fairly large Sub fleet.

2. VEHICLES: You need to double/triple Vehicle production; there is not near enough at start. Do this now.

3. ARMAMENTS: Don't expand. Monitor the stockpile, because you usually accumulate more than you need. Get to 100K and shut most of it off; that will help HI

You are running a big HI surplus, so you can afford to expand Engines (Ha-35 and Ha-32 are important), airframes, Vehicles, and Naval Shipyards. THAT'S what you should be doing with your HI surplus.

I only accelerate warships in my current PBEM. Many people do not agree with the way I do it. I do it in the most economical fashon.



Here's what the manual says:



"13.4.1 JAPANESE SHIP PRODUCTION
All ships remove 1 day of delay when the delay is greater than:

»» 10 * Ship Durability

This automatic delay removal does not cost Naval or Merchant shipyard points. Those ships set
for normal construction with a delay less than 10 * Ship Durability require Naval or Merchant
shipyard points equal to their durability to remove 1 delay (each day). If set to accelerated
production, the ship will remove 2 days of delay (each day) for a cost equal to 3 times its
durability. A ship that has a delay over 10 * Ship Durability and less than 30 * Ship Durability
may be accelerated. It will remove 1 additional delay (other than the free 1 delay removal) each
day for a cost of appropriate shipyard points equal to the ship’s durability."

Basically, if I want to accelerate a ship, I go to the ship availability screen in the intel screen. I click on the ship I am interested in accelerating. If I can't accelerate it, that means it's at >30*Durability days remaining. If I can I continue to click it. If I scroll through and can halt it, it's <10*Durability and it'll cost 3*Durability to accelerate. I leave it at normal. If I only have the option to set it at normal or accelerate, it's at 10-30 *Durability. If it is set at normal, it builds at 1 day per day for free. If I set it to accelerate, it builds at 2 days per day for the cost of 1*Durability.

Here's the chart. The green is the only place I accelerate:

Just my quick take on this ...........is ...............listen to Major Mike....................I played a team game with Mike some time ago.....and although most of my AE games ......on a combat lvl.....are perhaps not in the shape I would like them to be......in production terms......I'm in top shape......due in no small way to learning at first hand from MM.......

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Comments here are good; some other notes:

1. SHIPS: Accelerate the CVs. I recommend turning off alot of sub production, especially the RO-Boats, but even the other boats. They consume too many Naval points, and won't win the war for you. Between the subs and YAMATO, you should accelerate TAIHO, and at least the first 3 UNRYUS.

Besides, you start the game with a fairly large Sub fleet.

2. VEHICLES: You need to double/triple Vehicle production; there is not near enough at start. Do this now.

3. ARMAMENTS: Don't expand. Monitor the stockpile, because you usually accumulate more than you need. Get to 100K and shut most of it off; that will help HI

You are running a big HI surplus, so you can afford to expand Engines (Ha-35 and Ha-32 are important), airframes, Vehicles, and Naval Shipyards. THAT'S what you should be doing with your HI surplus.

Qball--This is a Reluctant Admiral Scenario. There is no Taiho but three Additional Shokaku-Kai CVs that come in during 1943.

BigRed--What is the date in your campaign? If you have Yamato coming in then it must be late-February/early-March. My plans--when this bad boy is done--is to restart Musashi and get her into the game by December 42.

Do you plan to build the chrome? In that I mean the two CBs and two additional CAs? The Sho-Kai's cost 100 to build each but are magnificent ships.

I've got a ton of questions but will hold off until these are answered.

Hi faber. Long time. I hope everything's going well.

I just did a little test. I guess the acceleration cost is based on how fast you want the ship vs. how long you want to wait for it.

This test assumes a durability of 10. This is very interesting. It really does depend on how long you want to wait for the ship. There were 4 options:

300-101 days/100-1 days

Normal/Normal - Days to complete: 300; Cost: 1000; Cost per Day: 3.33
Normal/Accelerate - Days to complete: 250; Cost: 1500; Cost per Day: 6.00
Accelerate/Normal - Days to complete: 200; Cost: 2000; Cost per Day: 10.00
Accelerate/Accelerate - Days to complete: 150; Cost: 2500; Cost per Day: 16.67

Very interesting. Here's the data. Check it for mistakes please:

ORIGINAL: topeverest

I have similar views on naval and merchant points as Mike.

IMHO, it is the naval assets that win or lose most key defensive battles from midwar on. With this philosophy understood, I always pay very close attention to naval / merch production. I view the tradeoffs of acceleration to be so grave that I rarely do such. How frequently do you really know about and have a critical naval confrontation where that accelerated asset is critical to the outcome the of the battle? Think about all the ships you no longer will receive as a result. Those non-sexy AK, SC, DD and the like that need to be built too. I frequently cut back other parts of the economy to increase thes elements when necessary. And yes when it comes time to cut back production, TK are among the last to be stopped.

Interesting food for thought. I accelerated alot of tankers and the CVEs. This did burn alot of Merchant build points. So many I had to cut back to the current level as shown in above post. I decided to keep accelerating the CVEs and some of the tankers to the point where I have a slight negative rate as shown. I may have made a mistake accelerating all those tankers for about a month.

FYI, this is a RA senario.
Turn april 7th.
I stopped the Yamato for a month in FEb as I was trying to figure out naval build rate. I had gone negative and needed a buffer to hold things together. Yamato due in April 15th.

Note post 12 attachment. All the crome is being built w/late arriving subs halted.

Note a severe strain is being placed on my production capabilites by the RA senario. Combined w/ my tactical strategy I am not sure I can sustain operations. Therefore I have opened my game to War Room review.

Hilo fell last turn. The effect of the Hawaii option on my fuel and supply state is a big issue.

Mike et al,

I love the language of math. It hides few secrets. That acceleration cost matches data I've done myself. It gets much more expensive realtive to available total when you accelerate a ship with more durability. It really can become a damatic opportunity cost / drain on available points when doing a critically large naval asset. That is the basis of my comment to think carefully on when to accelerate.

I think we are all talking the same language here. Just know what you are giving up when you do it, because you cant have it back.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Comments here are good; some other notes:

1. SHIPS: Accelerate the CVs. I recommend turning off alot of sub production, especially the RO-Boats, but even the other boats. They consume too many Naval points, and won't win the war for you. Between the subs and YAMATO, you should accelerate TAIHO, and at least the first 3 UNRYUS.

Besides, you start the game with a fairly large Sub fleet.

2. VEHICLES: You need to double/triple Vehicle production; there is not near enough at start. Do this now.

3. ARMAMENTS: Don't expand. Monitor the stockpile, because you usually accumulate more than you need. Get to 100K and shut most of it off; that will help HI

You are running a big HI surplus, so you can afford to expand Engines (Ha-35 and Ha-32 are important), airframes, Vehicles, and Naval Shipyards. THAT'S what you should be doing with your HI surplus.

Thanks All for your comments.

1. In the beginning of my campaign w/ DirtyHarry I had set my Sho carriers to an excellerated pace. Too do this I had to stop both yam's and some other surface units. Then over a 4 month period I sank Lex, Sara, Hornet and damaged the BigE. So I changed my production strategy to bring in all the chrome and went back to regular builds on the CVs as I have an on board tactical advantage.

2. I did early bump the vehicles from 100 to 180, which is current production. So u think I need more? I guess the pool will be big when my resouces get cut off.

3. I shut off armaments at 30k. so u say I need 100k. Interesting. I suspect the reason to get to 100k is so the pool is made so armaments cannot be taken away by later allied bombing, correct?

4. Hi surplus. If I expand any production it will use supply at a rate of 100 points per each factory expansion point.
use of 10 manpower and 10 Hi also.

5.So if i wanted to increase vehicles by 100 production points then it would cost:
1000man
1000HI
10000supply.
These cost are the same for any factory increase.

6. These same cost would also apply if say I wanted to increase my A6M2 by 100 planes per month or if i wanted to increase an engine factory by 100 per month, correct?

7. I understand that a factory can only be upgraded up to double the current capacity / a max of 100 points per upgrade. Rules state it takes 30 days to complete. I was watching tracker and saw as the Oscar upgrade occured my Oscar production started to increase(after I fixed the d--- minimum supply requirement of 10000 supply per base, which took me 2 game months to figure out). Little things like that 10000minimum per base are examples of newbie inexperience.

I would have a question? Let's take a single engined plane, (e.g. Nate) what is the total cost in HI? I suspect that it amounts to 36HI (18HI engine + 18HI airfarme), but I'm not 100% sure.

Thanks for the answers.

What are your naval points like now? Have you expanded your naval yards?

I'm at Feb 1, 1942 and have only accelerated a few ships. Want to get Yamato, Junyo, and Nisshin out of the que in 30 days or so and then start to make some serious decisions on building.

In your game have you had the big A-t-A differential that FatR and Yubari have written on?

Cannot believe you are trying for Hawaii! BANZAI!

ORIGINAL: Sun Tempest

I would have a question? Let's take a single engined plane, (e.g. Nate) what is the total cost in HI? I suspect that it amounts to 36HI (18HI engine + 18HI airfarme), but I'm not 100% sure.

You're correct.

ORIGINAL: bigred

Thanks All for your comments.

1. In the beginning of my campaign w/ DirtyHarry I had set my Sho carriers to an excellerated pace. Too do this I had to stop both yam's and some other surface units. Then over a 4 month period I sank Lex, Sara, Hornet and damaged the BigE. So I changed my production strategy to bring in all the chrome and went back to regular builds on the CVs as I have an on board tactical advantage.

2. I did early bump the vehicles from 100 to 180, which is current production. So u think I need more? I guess the pool will be big when my resouces get cut off.

Well it does also depend on combat replacements for your Veh, but as a rule of thumb 180~240 is what I aim for. 180 being at the lower end of the spectrum.

3. I shut off armaments at 30k. so u say I need 100k. Interesting. I suspect the reason to get to 100k is so the pool is made so armaments cannot be taken away by later allied bombing, correct?

That's correct, but it also gives a huge kick to HI. I want to keep that fairly constant though by adjusting Arm to maintain that level 43/44.

4. Hi surplus. If I expand any production it will use supply at a rate of 100 points per each factory expansion point.
use of 10 manpower and 10 Hi also.

5.So if i wanted to increase vehicles by 100 production points then it would cost:
1000man
1000HI
10000supply.
These cost are the same for any factory increase.

This is correct, and as you know 1000 supply per point repaired if over 10000 supply at base. The real cost are supplies, that's what you most likely have to budget for.

6. These same cost would also apply if say I wanted to increase my A6M2 by 100 planes per month or if i wanted to increase an engine factory by 100 per month, correct?

Yep

7. I understand that a factory can only be upgraded up to double the current capacity / a max of 100 points per upgrade. Rules state it takes 30 days to complete. I was watching tracker and saw as the Oscar upgrade occured my Oscar production started to increase(after I fixed the d--- minimum supply requirement of 10000 supply per base, which took me 2 game months to figure out). Little things like that 10000minimum per base are examples of newbie inexperience.

Not quite true. As long as you have available HI/Supply/Man you can continue to upgrade using the factory screen to 100 points multiple times. So expand 100 points click expand now and do again ... 30 days to complete, only if your expansion is 30, 100 expansion = 100 days.
You said in your OP...

3. Lack of supply at every base caused all plane (oscars) production to stop except at major bases.

This is not true, to expand you need supplies, to build planes you only need engines and HI.

Other points; I do what Mike does with acceleration of shipping. The sweet spot of "queued" in Tracker is what he's talking about. The button at the bottom "HI Cost" will tell you the HI costs of differing options (but I think there is a bug with the last "Accel Q & normal B")

You really need to sort out your engines ... http://sites.google.com/site/n01487477/Home?pli=1 I did some tutorials on using the engine interface (Tracker).

Good luck

You know, there are other things besides efficiency when considering ship acceleration. I would like to testify from personal experience that having 15 CVs available in 1943 (depending on losses, of course) can benefit the Japanese player tremendously.

Cap,

Agree there are good reasons to do...and not do ship acceleration.

ORIGINAL: topeverest

Mike et al,

I love the language of math. It hides few secrets. That acceleration cost matches data I've done myself. It gets much more expensive realtive to available total when you accelerate a ship with more durability. It really can become a damatic opportunity cost / drain on available points when doing a critically large naval asset. That is the basis of my comment to think carefully on when to accelerate.

I think we are all talking the same language here. Just know what you are giving up when you do it, because you cant have it back.

Well said, Andy. That last sentence is exactly the point of all this. It's why I'm cautious as the Japanese.

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

You know, there are other things besides efficiency when considering ship acceleration. I would like to testify from personal experience that having 15 CVs available in 1943 (depending on losses, of course) can benefit the Japanese player tremendously.

Yeah ... I should have given that caveat . I had my production hat on, not my tactical cap and gown [;)]