Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: TheLoneGunman

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Well, this is very useful information, SuluSea. Thanks again for running the tests to stoke this discussion. It's nice to have some realistic expectations for late war production aircraft.

Here's some lessons I've taken home:

Must have:

1. Tojo IIc

Very nice to have, but not irreplaceable:

1. Frank a-r
2. Ki-100
3. J7W1 Shinden

Plus or minus worthwhile:

1. Tony d model

Insufficient data:

1. Ki-83
2. Ki-201

Anyone disagree?

Well when you compare the Ki-61 with the Ki-84, the Ki-84 is overall a better aircraft since it can still take down bombers, but is much deadlier against Allied fighters. The only boon to the Ki-61 is that it is available much earlier and it's R&D carries over to the Ki-100.
I think personally, I'd invest most of my R&D into the Ki-84 to get it as quickly as possible, additional R&D would be diverted to the Ki-44 in order to get the IIc model developed ASAP. In the meantime, Ki-43s would serve primarily as bomber escort, but would be utilized for CAP and sweeps in emergencies and as a stop gap. Early model Ki-44s would do most of the CAP and sweep duties while the IIc is being researched.

Once the Ki-44 IIc is online, the R&D facilities that were previously dedicated to its development can be diverted to the Ki-83 or the Ki-201 since by this time they will be much closer to their actual development date and that will promote faster R&D rebuilding. The Ki-44 IIc takes over the role of the earlier model Tojos. Meanwhile the Ki-43s progress historically with no acceleration as they are not deemed to be critical. Newer models of the Ki-43 replace older ones in the role of bomber escort.

Once the Ki-84 is ready, it's gloves off time. The Frank should begin to phase out the Tojo as the Japanese Army Airforce's primary dogfighter, handling most if not all of the sweeps while the Ki-44 gets relegated to soley to CAP/Intercept duty. As Ki-84 numbers increase, it should also be able to handle the CAP/Interceptor role in a pinch.

Once all models of the Ki-84 have been researched, the R&D gets diverted to the Ki-201, since I'm assuming that the Ki-83 should be finished or nearly finished by that point.
If you focus on these few fighters, what else do you really need?

To me, the goal is to maximize the results from your R&D, and the best way to do that is to take advantage first of airframes that allow for a nice upgrade path, so that you can retain the fully built R&D facilities. Once those airframes are fully developed, then you can shift over to your late-model "dead end" research projects, and you'll be closer to their historical date so you'll see your R&D factories rebuild much faster than if you had tried to get them from Turn 1.

What do you guys think?

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Shark7

It is an interceptor, not a dog-fighter. This plane shouldn't be dog-fighting, but rather attacking bombers with high speed 'slash and dash' attacks.

Again, I think it is important to have a mix of planes that are better at different things. You need manueverable fighters to deal with escorts, and fast, heavily armed (like the Shinden) to deal with bombers.

This all sounds along the lines I would think would be correct. But we don't really know unless tests are done. GJ, Nemo, Pax Mondo, or PzB can tell us their experiences, which are probably the best out there without actual tests, but GJ also has unbelievably strong pilots in many cases, which might skew results.

The questions is not whether this plane should be fighting other fighters, but what happens when it does? It will have to deal with them. You (obviously) can't set fighters to only intercept bombers. If you have the ideal mix of planes, what if your bomber killers all get wiped out by fighters before the bombers get there?

Isolated plane tests are a good beginning, but fighter v fighter, and mixes adding bombers with escort v fighters, or sweeps + bombers with escorts v a mix of fighters is really going to get closer to real in-game situations.

LoneGunman

Looking over the late-war aircraft, I don't even think I'd bother putting R&D into the Ki-83. It's available only a few months sooner than the Ki-201 (although its range is awesome!).

Even though the Ki-83 has great range, I don't see it as a dogfighter, but as a plane whose sole purpose is to shoot down B-29s, something I think the Ki-201 could do just as well if not better, and the Ki-201 could hold its own with just about any enemy fighter at the time.

I'm also averse to dedicating too much effort to twin engine fighters, if producing both the Ki-83 AND the Ki-201 that's two seperate twin engine fighters you'd need to be producing. I'd rather rely on the single-engine Ki-84 in the meantime and benefit from its R&D carryover for accelerating newer models.

From all I've heard in GJ's game with rader and Jzanes game, also against rader, the Ki-83 is good all around against fighters or bombers. But without testing or using it ourselves, it'll be tough to really know. How we see things by the stats might work sometimes, but might not give a completely clear picture until tests are done.

PS - Some of the GJ tests might change thinking about effective CAP as well. Still interested in why this plane had fewer losses than others. Is it the speed? Or something else?