Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
Turning to the petroleum products side, I'm perplexed by the table. For starters, I would disregard the 1942 values, as they seem likely to reflect the damage sustained by the NEI oil infrastructure in the Centrifugal fighting. As I recall, the Dutch did a good job of laying waste to all the facilities at Balikpapan, for example.

It seems to me that a better understanding of these figures may be needed before they can be used to suggest changes to Japanese petroleum production in the game.

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
If the petroleum requirements for HI is reduced to zero, would there still be HI outputs?

ORIGINAL: inqistor

Actually, looking closer, it seems there is NO AVGAS in-game. When air units is transfered it uses no supply, right?
Also, any supply usage is strictly by mission, not distance, and only bombers uses more supply, which directly shows their need of ammunition (bombs), not fuel.
There is also possible, there is no Gasoline representation, except wastage, during supply transport on larger distances (was it not actually abandoned in one of the patches)? As big vehicles should suck gigantic amount of supply, and they do not.

So, taking away actual smaller-vehicles (planes and cars) gasoline production, does anyone can calculate remaining results?

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
Turning to the petroleum products side, I'm perplexed by the table. For starters, I would disregard the 1942 values, as they seem likely to reflect the damage sustained by the NEI oil infrastructure in the Centrifugal fighting. As I recall, the Dutch did a good job of laying waste to all the facilities at Balikpapan, for example.

It is also possible, that during battle/war actions production was suspended.

It seems to me that a better understanding of these figures may be needed before they can be used to suggest changes to Japanese petroleum production in the game.

Indeed, numbers do not add in any way. Maybe those were by-products, and actually Refineries should also require some small amount of Resources?

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
If the petroleum requirements for HI is reduced to zero, would there still be HI outputs?

IIRC, there was no fuel-input for HI in WITP.
But IRL large quantities of material went by train (which should use coal-so Resources), not by wheel transport.

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
It is taking me awhile to get an understanding of this part of the econ model (most likely lack of concentration). If the petroleum requirements for HI is reduced to zero, would there still be HI outputs?

ORIGINAL: inqistor

Actually, looking closer, it seems there is NO AVGAS in-game. When air units is transfered it uses no supply, right?
Also, any supply usage is strictly by mission, not distance, and only bombers uses more supply, which directly shows their need of ammunition (bombs), not fuel.
There is also possible, there is no Gasoline representation, except wastage, during supply transport on larger distances (was it not actually abandoned in one of the patches)? As big vehicles should suck gigantic amount of supply, and they do not.

So, taking away actual smaller-vehicles (planes and cars) gasoline production, does anyone can calculate remaining results?

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
Turning to the petroleum products side, I'm perplexed by the table. For starters, I would disregard the 1942 values, as they seem likely to reflect the damage sustained by the NEI oil infrastructure in the Centrifugal fighting. As I recall, the Dutch did a good job of laying waste to all the facilities at Balikpapan, for example.

It is also possible, that during battle/war actions production was suspended.

It seems to me that a better understanding of these figures may be needed before they can be used to suggest changes to Japanese petroleum production in the game.

Indeed, numbers do not add in any way. Maybe those were by-products, and actually Refineries should also require some small amount of Resources?

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
If the petroleum requirements for HI is reduced to zero, would there still be HI outputs?

IIRC, there was no fuel-input for HI in WITP.
But IRL large quantities of material went by train (which should use coal-so Resources), not by wheel transport.

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
I am not talking RL or WITP. I wish to know if I go to the Device section in the Editor and reduce the Fuel In for HI to zero will this still produce an HI output using only the Resources IN (even without any Fuel IN)?

ORIGINAL: witpqs

John (WE) - I think you misunderstand my query/comment. I was hoping my question would point out that HI should not in this game system be represented by having zero Fuel input. Small Fuel input in deference to coal (represented by Resources) being the energy supply, OK sure. But non-zero to represent the petroleum products other than Fuel.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I see what you mean, but I think that Fuel in AE is like Supply in AE, insofar as it is a group of things rather than just one very specific commodity.

ORIGINAL: Pascal
AvGas was never separately modeled in WitP. The original intent was not to turn WitP into 'Quartermaster in the Pacific', though some of us would have wanted a more complex system as an option (whether considering economic inputs or war material outputs).

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
I am not talking RL or WITP. I wish to know if I go to the Device section in the Editor and reduce the Fuel In for HI to zero will this still produce an HI output using only the Resources IN (even without any Fuel IN)?[&:]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
PS: These comments exclude the avgas issue. As I have commented elsewhere, I added a supply output to refineries to represent avgas production, but I now think that was a mistake as it leads to unrealistic results in the game.

ORIGINAL: Pascal
Andrew, could you elaborate on your comment about supply output from refineries and unrealistic results?

ORIGINAL: Pascal

Andrew, could you elaborate on your comment about supply output from refineries and unrealistic results?

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I see what you mean, but I think that Fuel in AE is like Supply in AE, insofar as it is a group of things rather than just one very specific commodity.

It does represent a lot of things. To me at least. In general, what "fuel" represents is in the following two broad categories:
[ol]
[*]Heavy fuel oil used by ships.
[*]Every other thing - civilian, military and industrial - that products output by refineries were used for.
[/ol]
Some examples of the second part would include: petrol used by the civilian economy and the military (motorised transport etc.);all lubricants; all fuel used for heating etc. Basically, the way that "fuel" is represented in AE is in a "big picture" kind of way. Since the levers we have in AE to represent the economy are very few, and very crude, I chose to think of fuel in a general sense - what a country needs to import in total for ALL of its (non-shipping) needs - NOT in a narrow sense (as in - how much "fuel" is directly consumed by heavy industry itself).

In other words, look at, say, Japan. Look at how much refined oil products it imported in real life. Look at how much of that was heavy ship fuel. ALL of the other refined products still needed to be imported, so that need is represented in-game by giving HI centres a fuel requirement. Why HI? Because, in my view, the "fuel" requirements of an economy were proportional to how industrialised that economy was, and this "industrialisation" is most directly proportional to how many HI centres each country gets. Countries with large populations but which are less industrialised, such as China and the DEI, have much less HI, so needed a lot less fuel as inputs into their economies.

I hope that explains why HI has a fuel input in AE.

Andrew

PS: These comments exclude the avgas issue. As I have commented elsewhere, I added a supply output to refineries to represent avgas production, but I now think that was a mistake as it leads to unrealistic results in the game.

ORIGINAL: JWE

Setting capturable refineries to 40-50-60% of game values does make a certain amount of sense. Japan has a game refinery capacity of about 900 points (1030 with Korea and China); the DEI has a game refinery capacity of about 1950 points. So that’s about right; currently the DEI has roughly 2x Japan’s refinery capacity.

One problem is dealing with the Allied ability to blow things up. That shouldn’t be too bad since it doesn’t take an inordinate amount of time to rebuild/repair them, and they would rebuild/repair to IRL levels (40-50-60& of pre-war IRL levels).

Other problem (and it’s the real biggie), is that nobody really knows what the long-term fuel utilization is (should be) and therefore, what the fuel production targets should be (long-term, month by month, year by year) except perhaps Andrew. So, what exactly would happen, in game terms, if Japanese fuel production were cut by 33%? That’s what would happen if the DEI refinery capacity (2/3 of totals) was cut to/by 50%.

Is this total fuel production metric sufficient for, at least, nominal consumption, operations, expansions? The necessary min is the amount required to fuel HI. Transporting that stuff requires a ship-gas-tank delta, and there has to be some excess that allows for naval operations. Woof !!!!!

It’s a ton load of bitches
Brewed up by ten witches
With tight naughty britches
Along roadside ditches
That make great big glitches
Or other sad hitches
In vast unknown niches
For poop without riches
Like minor-league pitches
Requiring stitches.

Ciao. J