Why Everything is more Complicated than it Seems

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

I think we have to keep that in mind when running around and requesting gameplay modifications
because we specifically dislike something.

+1 [8D]

Having said that, and agreeing with you 100%, let's go back to your example of pilot training. Maybe you need to start a separate thread (if I understand you correctly, your aim in this thread is simply to get everyone on the Mike Solli path: "piano, piano" ... translated as "GO SLOW!" with respect to asking for changes. [;)]

So, I also agree with you that pilot training needs examination. It can be improved, it is a huge impact upon game play and balance, and if we are thoughtful, the fixes can be within Michael's scope (meaning we need to work within the scope of what is there now, which is a lot, and limit ourselves to "tuning"/"tweeking" which is still a lot. Being as you are the "beta - team air Guru", what specific suggestions would you make for changes and testing procedures based upon your understanding of how pilot training is currently implemented? We've got lots of other fairly sharp people here as well to share inputs (Damian, George, Andy, et.al., not to mention Michael), particularly on the testing. More than anything else, we need a test plan to be sure whatever is recommended we can be sure we have looked at enough game situations to be sure the changes are at least no worse than current, and better in MOST cases. I am particularly concerned with tweeking the air unit mission experience/skill advancement. Changes to this need to well tested as they are most prone to player gaming ....

Looking forward to your thoughts ... [8|]

[Crackaces]

I have flown airplanes (although I do not -yet- own a pilot license). I know the instrument
panel layouts of about 30-40 different a/c by heart, and I could land anything the size of a
Bonanza or a C172 without ruining the plane.

This is what I was pointing to. The skill required for handling some easy stuff like a Cessna and
the skill to keep an artificially unstable high performance plane under control in a combat enviroment,
are two different things.

Actually flying a "artificially unstable high performance " airplane is not that much harder ... with a little help.. newbies get a chance to " spin" an aerobatic aircraft ... http://www.aircombat.com/ In as little as 3 hours with the help of an experinced instructor one can put a rank amateur in the cross hairs ..that is what happened over the Marianas ...[;)]

BTW) I do have a Commercial Ticket, was the owner of N231JM (no I did not crash it .. they guy I sold it to crashed it [8|]).. a Mooney .. I wrote in the MOA and MAPA .. I have reposted some articles in this forum to discuss "turbocharging" and high altitude flight ...

Precise aerobatic maneuvers can be taught to a private pilot in about 10 hours .. I did recurrent yearly "upset" training to get a break on insurance and have some fun .. that is the context is which I write ... Having no military experince behind the stick, but a lot of civilian experince along with aerobatic experince .. The problem is not flying per se ..

What cannot be taught so rapidly is ACM and requires expeirnced pilots to teach it .. [the game has it right in taking out level 80 pilots into TRACOM ] it is not learned out of a book or flying aerobatics ...BTW) What Thatch did was to simplify ACM at the sacrifice of indepedence ..
Anyway .... the problem the Japanese had went so much deeper ..

The Japaneese training system focused on "Top Guns," while the USN / USAAF focused on thousands of average pilots for which a few arose to kill the few skilled IJ pilots that came out of the system. Two battles Coral Sea and Midway stripped the elite out of the force and the Marians reduce the pool to "bus drivers ..." Even if Japan decided to change teh system .. Implemeneting a system that took average joes and turned out fighter pilots would have taken a cultural and instituional change that was not going to happen before the war was over ..

BTW) Now that fighters are so few today compared to the thousands of fighters in WWII we have a similar system to weed out medirocre and we train very few to be very good ...

Anyway .. WitP AE is a game not a similation ...[;)]

[Sardaukar]

I basically agree with what has been said here.

I think there should be some limits with Exp and Skills gained by training.

Someone with skills in 70+ (and especially exp) whould be already an ace. 80% of pilots should be around 50 exp/50 skills.

BTW, I think Bergerud got it right in "Fire in the Sky" that real killer of IJNAF aviation were battles around Solomon's & Papua New Guinea & Rabaul. IJNAF lost quite massive number of pilots there compared to relatively few carrier battles. Even in Midway, IJN was able to rescue most of the pilots despite losing CVs (according to Shattered Sword).

[GreyJoy]

Agree at 100% with you both in Pilot training and on the general problem of changes which nobody really knows the long term effects.
 
Particularly on pilot training...i think if we tune down the ability of gaining skill points on training to a CAP around 55 the whole game would completely change prespective.
But again i don't know the techical aspects of the game that good so i am not able to provide anything more depth...
 
What i know is that in my game (August 1944) the USAAF, USN, RAF and RAAF are littleraly swimming with thousands of fighter pilots well above 55 exp and 70 A2A skill...so to say that we have thousands of Hartmanns....which is just not good

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

What i know is that in my game (August 1944) the USAAF, USN, RAF and RAAF are littleraly swimming with thousands of fighter pilots well above 55 exp and 70 A2A skill...so to say that we have thousands of Hartmanns....which is just not good

Well...55 exp & 70 in A2A skills would indeed be fully trained pilot with *exceptional* A2A skills and already some experience. I agree that effect might be bit too big...and very few pilots should come out of training with skills over 50.

I think some sort of "limiter" that would restrict 70-80% of pilots to certain treshold in skills depending on their Exp in training. But this could of course open up another can of worms..like ASW not hitting anything etc...

[Crackaces]

My pontification was to clarify where I believe LoBaron does not understand the fundemental problem. Although he is pointing out intended and unintended consequinces with great authority, I do not believe the problem is some long training period to fly "unstable aircarft" -- it is ACM. If in fact some sort of realistic moddling of pilot training it is focused around learning to shoot some other guy down and more so preventing getting shot down -- not learning how to fly ..

My point being .. simple transport aircraft based at Alice Springs . assign the guy a route from Alice Springs to Tennant Creek .. in 3 months this guy cannot realibly get there without a good probablity of crashing the aircraft .. operations losses are completly off the chart .. but setting a system based on "skill" and "experience" has this untended effect .. If I fly 400 miles back to the same base I might get a loss . if I fly the same miles to another base .. kiss that plane good bye ... If I had a student that flew for 3 months straight after solo and could not fly 200 miles without risking an accident .. I wold ask them to find another hobby ...[8D]

Anyway .. its a game .. not a similation .. it is a game .. [;)]

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

My pontification was to clarify where I believe LoBaron does not understand the fundemental problem. Although he is pointing out intended and unintended consequinces with great authority, I do not believe the problem is some long training period to fly "unstable aircarft" -- it is ACM. If in fact some sort of realistic moddling of pilot training it is focused around learning to shoot some other guy down and more so preventing getting shot down -- not learning how to fly ..

My point being .. simple transport aircraft based at Alice Springs . assign the guy a route from Alice Springs to Tennant Creek .. in 3 months this guy cannot realibly get there without a good probablity of crashing the aircraft .. operations losses are completly off the chart .. but setting a system based on "skill" and "experience" has this untended effect .. If I fly 400 miles back to the same base I might get a loss . if I fly the same miles to another base .. kiss that plane good bye ... If I had a student that flew for 3 months straight after solo and could not fly 200 miles without risking an accident .. I wold ask them to find another hobby ...[8D]

Anyway .. its a game .. not a similation .. it is a game .. [;)]

Crackaces, op losses are a bit off topic IMHO but please consider this:

You are used to modern day flight. Higly reliable engines, GPS, VOR in case you want more navigational fun, CAT III ILS systems, perfect communication,
advanced autopilot, exact charts, reliable weather report, optimized training methods. And you personally probably got an ammount of flying hours any
trainee could have dreamt of back then.

We are talking about something that by now has happened close to 70 years ago.

Nothing of the above was available. Planes failed all the time or got lost in weather, there were no external navigational aids to speak of, handdrawn charts
with landmarks, engine or electric failures,...

Thats a bit of a difference.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

My pontification was to clarify where I believe LoBaron does not understand the fundemental problem. Although he is pointing out intended and unintended consequinces with great authority, I do not believe the problem is some long training period to fly "unstable aircarft" -- it is ACM. If in fact some sort of realistic moddling of pilot training it is focused around learning to shoot some other guy down and more so preventing getting shot down -- not learning how to fly ..

My point being .. simple transport aircraft based at Alice Springs . assign the guy a route from Alice Springs to Tennant Creek .. in 3 months this guy cannot realibly get there without a good probablity of crashing the aircraft .. operations losses are completly off the chart .. but setting a system based on "skill" and "experience" has this untended effect .. If I fly 400 miles back to the same base I might get a loss . if I fly the same miles to another base .. kiss that plane good bye ... If I had a student that flew for 3 months straight after solo and could not fly 200 miles without risking an accident .. I wold ask them to find another hobby ...[8D]

Anyway .. its a game .. not a similation .. it is a game .. [;)]

Crackaces, op losses are a bit off topic IMHO but please consider this:

You are used to modern day flight. Higly reliable engines, GPS, VOR in case you want more navigational fun, CAT III ILS systems, perfect communication,
advanced autopilot, exact charts, reliable weather report, optimized training methods. And you personally probably got an ammount of flying hours any
trainee could have dreamt of back then.

We are talking about something that by now has happened close to 70 years ago.

Nothing of the above was available. Planes failed all the time or got lost in weather, there were no external navigational aids to speak of, handdrawn charts
with landmarks, engine or electric failures,...

Thats a bit of a difference.

LoBaron ... I have a few hours in a Maule .. I do know what it is like to fly without glass [;)] Never crashed because I did not have a VOR or CAT III ILS ..[actually LAAS now is availble for the Private Pilot -- CAT III requires instrumentation,special training and check out only for the big boys ....] Anyway I successfullu flew with only a radio and a compass/DG .. and IFR .. [I Follow Railroad [:D][:D][:D] ]

[LoBaron]

I like the idea. Could be something to pursue over quite some time, and it definitely gives ground for an interesting discussion.

[LoBaron]

Based on your experience, how would you rate your flying skills/experience compared to a WWII pilot
after type conversion to a fighter a/c (which comes close to on map training) and transfer to, say, Australia or NG?

I think you are far better than the average trained WWII pilot in skill, knowledge about your enviroment, geographical
and meteorological training and you fly more forgiving planes. You do not sound like a 19 year old kid that adored aircraft
from a distance until 1940, and operated something with an engine for the first time 1 year ago, then got thrown into a
thunderstorm infested area nobody has maps of.

The Maule must be great to fly, you probably are able to hit every tiny landing strip with that plane.
Wonderful approach speed and -characteristics. To be honest I envy you.

Warhawk must have been a b**** to fly compared o that.

Shores in "Bloody Shambles" tells some stories of newcomers to Australia wrecking more than 50% of their P40Es
in landing accidents and navigational errors on their way to through Australia to Darwin and Perth at war´s outbreak.
And that wasn´t even Java yet.

We should be able to train fast, but only to a certain level, beyond that there should be a mechanism to generate large gaps
between trained pilots and gifted ones. A difference between 70 and 85 A2A skill does not account for that IMHO.

I think we will not come to a consensus completely, though with your obvious experience you can reflect on the situation
better than I am able to, and I do see your point.

[Crackaces]

Shores in "Bloody Shambles" tells some stories of newcomers to Australia wrecking more than 50% of their P40Es
in landing accidents and navigational errors on their way to through Australia to Darwin and Perth at war´s outbreak.
And that wasn´t even Java yet.

This is a particular problem to the P-40 very narrow span on the landing gear with a tail dragger and add a fast appoach speed and you get ground loops ..add looking at the sky with very little horizon during the landing roll and you get planes running into things .. I can think of a few tail draggers in this category but its the high approach speed of a P-40 that is not going to happen in a FAA Part 23 certified aircraft

We should be able to train fast, but only to a certain level, beyond that there should be a mechanism to generate large gaps
between trained pilots and gifted ones. A difference between 70 and 85 A2A skill does not account for that IMHO.

Now in all this discussion if in fact the game wants a better feel of A2A combat at the operational level ..a expotential curve would be more akin to ACM experience ..

The ability to take off, land and find ones way is pretty straight forward .. then weather . then defending agaisnt someone shooting at you ...

I think the game does well to divide the experience skill and the A2A skill for example .. experience is going to get you home in the weather ...A2A is a particular skill involved in understanding lead and lag pursuit and putting rounds on a target .. two different skills entirely ..

In terms of difficulty to fly I am not sure which direction you are going ...

In terms of muscle nothing works one like a B-17 .. in terms of being extermely aware of angle of attack, speed, and energy there is no more unforgiving plane than a Hurricane because of the elipitcal wings the tips stall before the wing roots and thus no warning before one is in a flat spin ..in terms of management the DC-3 requires the uptomst in weight and balance skills, along real deftness recognzing an engine out ..so pilot skills come in lots of colors and sizes [8D]

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
Now in all this discussion if in fact the game wants a better feel of A2A combat at the operational level ..a expotential curve would be more akin to ACM experience ..

The ability to take off, land and find ones way is pretty straight forward .. then weather . then defending agaisnt someone shooting at you ...

This is what I see too.

In terms of difficulty to fly I am not sure which direction you are going ...

In terms of muscle nothing works one like a B-17 .. in terms of being extermely aware of angle of attack, speed, and energy there is no more unforgiving plane than a Hurricane because of the elipitcal wings the tips stall before the wing roots and thus no warning before one is in a flat spin ..in terms of management the DC-3 requires the uptomst in weight and balance skills, along real deftness recognzing an engine out ..so pilot skills come in lots of colors and sizes [8D]

This is something we have to live with (if we implement type specific skills the game would go completely out of whack). What interests me is where the threshold lies
when a specific skill starts to be very difficult to improve, and personally I think this value should be much lower than 70.

Also I have difficulties with the impact exp has on skill training. The higher your exp gets, the slower your skill improves.
I am aware the intention is to prevent the training of uber pilots with more than 2 premium skills, but in fact it is counterintuitive.
Why should a more experienced pilot take longer to get better in anything?

And interesting modification could be to govern the skill cap by exp, the higher your exp the higher you can train your skill to, and to
slow down training speed only in proportion to absolute skill (e.g. training speed starts to reduce at 40 for example).
If we somehow then can get some randomness into these values to enable those gifted pilots to pop up from time to time, compared to the
average mass, a lot is gained I think.


witpqs prefers another approach: to tone down results with skills over 70. This is an interesting prequisite for a discussion as well.
But there it is a bit more difficult to come to an agreement what this "toning down" actually should look like, and it does not provide
the gaps between the really good pilots and the average one I´d prefer to see ingame.

[LoBaron]

...

edited, will open new thread

[Banzan]

From your new thread:
- lower the threshold/cap for skill gain through training to 50
- keep avg. training time required to reach 50 as it currently is to reach 70
- decouple speed of skill gain through training from exp value (?)
- govern skill threshold/cap below exp 50 by exp value (e.g. exp 30 -> max potential skill 30)
- increase skill gain through combat (just a tiny notch)


I see some problems there. Getting exp and skill mainly by fighting may work on fighters (but will mess up defense skill with the current system), but on bombers or even more for ASW groups it will be a major pain. With the current system my ASW groups get about 3-5 increases in exp a year. With 50 skill and 50 exp they will not be able to achieve anything. Allied ASW groups may be ready for ASW long after the war is over using your system. Japanese can "work around" due very high exp pilots being avaible.
Allied bombers being able to use "big bombs" is already very very hard to reach, will be impossible with your system. I'm more with witpqs approach about changing the value of very high skills instead of changing the training.

[LoBaron]

Banzan

From your new thread:
- lower the threshold/cap for skill gain through training to 50
- keep avg. training time required to reach 50 as it currently is to reach 70
- decouple speed of skill gain through training from exp value (?)
- govern skill threshold/cap below exp 50 by exp value (e.g. exp 30 -> max potential skill 30)
- increase skill gain through combat (just a tiny notch)

I see some problems there. Getting exp and skill mainly by fighting may work on fighters (but will mess up defense skill with the current system), but on bombers or even more for ASW groups it will be a major pain. With the current system my ASW groups get about 3-5 increases in exp a year. With 50 skill and 50 exp they will not be able to achieve anything. Allied ASW groups may be ready for ASW long after the war is over using your system. Japanese can "work around" due very high exp pilots being avaible.

See bolded part. I want to see a bit more emphasis on combat ops. Flying ASW missions
should increase skill a bit more.

TBH, with 70+ ASW skills subs get hit more often than I find realistic in any way, and
by any accounts I have read. Airborne ASW was more damage/drive away than kill.
Effective ASW was only possible by coordinating airborne ASW with ASW TFs.

To have 1-2 hits on submarines within a 200 mile radius around a base with +70 skill
airborne ASW is common ingame, and higly unrealistic. I find the results more in accordance
with reality when skill ranges between med 50s to low 60s, which should be possible to reach
the proposed training model and slight boost of skill gain through combat ops.

Allied bombers being able to use "big bombs" is already very very hard to reach, will be impossible with your system. I'm more with witpqs approach about changing the value of very high skills instead of changing the training.

Good point, but minor, as it only requires a slight lowering of the avg. exp threshold required
to use these bombes, depending on test results.

[Banzan]

I noticed that part, but unless i translate "tiny notch" wrong, i think it won't be enough. [:)]

Are you talking about reported hits or real hits? I see lots of reported hits in the combat reports, but as allied i think i haven't seen a sunk submarine by an ASW (air) patrol before 1944. I only sink subs in coop work of planes and destroyers, where the planes find the sub and the destroyers sink them. And the long range planes like Liberators were quite a menace for the german submarines, but may have been different in the pacific as the area there is much larger.
 
I noticed a difference when playing japan, but i guess the main difference is the experience of the pilots (high exp/low skill seesm to easy beat high skill/lower exp) and the damage of the bombs. At start, most planes an allied player can use for ASW duty use 250lbs bombs, while most japanes planes use 250kg bombs. This start to change in '43, but untill '44 most allied players will need their heavy 4Es for land/landing campains and not for ASW.

[LoBaron]

Banzan, on second glance I agree that you raise a valid point that could
favours witpqs´s approach over mine.

If there are no additional limitations the players will be able to
reach 70skill no matter what, given enough time and low enough losses.

I will have to keep that in mind, and maybe expand the proposed changelist.
Still thinking about the implications. exp 70 is pretty tough to reach,
so you could use exp as threashold for skill increase through combat as well.

[LoBaron]

Are you talking about reported hits or real hits? I see lots of reported hits in the combat reports, but as allied i think i haven't seen a sunk submarine by an ASW (air) patrol before 1944.

Admittedly FOW plays a large role here. I try to estimate strenght with data from both sides though
(of reported hits I estimate 20-30% to actually damage the sub, and include damage accumulated by US
subs when operating under IJ air umbrella).
Our ASW skills are probably 55-65 on average, so we are not even near the threshold yet where exaggerated
success rolls are reported.
Until now according to ship losses I estimate 3-5 IJN subs sunk by arial bombas alone representing only
a tiny fraction of the subs actually hit.

Below is IJN sunk subs list sorted by device, as of 22.Jun´43 from our PBEM:



Problem is that ASW is a topic where results have an extreme variation due to different settings
depending on player, and completely different approach to use of subs in general.
Very hard to get hard data to build statistics on...



Edit: June 43, wrote 42 [8|]

[Banzan]

I see 2 subs sunk by 250kg bombs, arn't only the dutch DB-7B bombers using them? You only get about 30 of them (if i remember correct), and with a range of 6 (ext. 7) ASW range is only 3 hexes, so thats quite an impressive result.

[LoBaron]

This you will have to ask the proud commander of CW and DEI Guearilla Forces, Rob Brennan.
I play the US side.

T.IVa is the second plane carrying 250kg bombs I think.