RHS 5.76 & 6.76 & 7.76 issued and frozen solid

[el cid again]

I have been waiting a difinitive review of ship art pointers - which was only going to take a few days - weeks ago. Meanwhile I have continued to prosecute eratta and develop matters indicated by comments or tests. I am not going to wait any longer. The eratta rate is low enough to warrant serious testing - so we will freeze here and proceed to in depth long term testing. IF there are ship art eratta we can issue a microupdate of the class file to address them.

Features which have been worked into x.760 - aside from a variety of minor eratta - include:

1) We have redefined the USN "submarine cruisers" (Nautelus, Narwhal & Argonaut) to give them their transport capability.

2) We have redefined all transport aircraft to a new standard in terms of capacity. This standard is based on the number of troop seats present - or equivilant - rendered as 100 kg (or 220 pounds actually) per troop. This has reduced the effective capacity of most transports by about 10%. However, note that the C-47 lost more like 40% of its capacity - because its standard load is 6000 pounds - and we used to give it its maximum load of 10,000 puonds. A few transports got their ranges tweeked. Flying boat transports also had capacity defined to the same standard. This makes them look relatively good. And - indeed - the greatest of them all (the Mars) delivered a gigantic amount of plasma to Iwo Jima - because they were fantastic air transports. Data for these changes has its own thread.

3) We comprehensively reviewed JAAF reinforcements for command assignment. This permitted us to insure that the political point option scenarios have to spend points to get planes where players want - but other scenarios do not. It also is a way to help the AI know where to send planes for AIO.

4) We are even more comprehensively reviewing JNAF reinforcements for command assignment. The same comments as for (3) above apply here, but there was a lot more work done. The JNAF is very complex - and we have found a number of things that might be interpreted better a different way - so they got folded in. This process is ongoing but will complete - probably tomorrow.

5) We tweeked a few economic stockpiles to help spread things more where they are needed at start. This will result in a revised version of the RHS Economic Utilities.

6) In EOS and AIO we assigned 56th Division Brigade to reduce Midway on its way to Hawaii. This because testing indicated Midway takes too long for light units (one or two regiments, even supported by tank companies) to reduce it.

[el cid again]

Still at it - working on JNAF which is very complicated.

7) Hurricane IIc and IV pick up range - going from 9 to 15 hexes. IV picks up as yet undetermined speed/maneuverability values.

8) JNAF 601 air group (Kokutai) will be carrier capable and carrier qualified - because it initially was. But it needs to be set not to accept replacements unless below strength IF you want it for carrier use - as all four squadrons will go to 48 if left alone - as they ended up land units.

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Still at it - working on JNAF which is very complicated.

7) Hurricane IIc and IV pick up range - going from 9 to 15 hexes. IV picks up as yet undetermined speed/maneuverability values.

8) JNAF 601 air group (Kokutai) will be carrier capable and carrier qualified - because it initially was. But it needs to be set not to accept replacements unless below strength IF you want it for carrier use - as all four squadrons will go to 48 if left alone - as they ended up land units.

I hope that is max transfer range...

[el cid again]

Just so. Extended range = 5. Normal range = 3. These are compared to 9/3/2 before - and the range of the pre Hurricane IIb still. Seems the addition of drop tanks was a significant feature, but many references continued to report the standard (internal tank) range. Anyway - reviewing this - we found more data.

[el cid again]

This is it - and it is frozen indefinitely for human testing.

It appears no changes are required for ship art pointers. Revised ship will be issued in due course - but it may be done during ongoing games. This revised art will take advantage of many artists offerings - and will feature in particular battleships in each of their different modified forms.

Because waiting to know this involved weeks of time - a number of eratta were detected or reported and all have been corrected. Aside from that, there was a little actual unplanned development.

a) A report of a possible misrating of the relative cargo/range ratings of C-46 and C-47 led to a new RHS standard definition for transport capacity. This has been applied to all specialized transport aircraft of both sides - and to all dedicated transport flying boats. [Patrol flying boats "capacity" remains the weapons load] The basic definition is "troop capacity times 220 pounds (or 100 kg)" - which is available in almost every case. A thread documents these revisions and all the exceptions. In general, transport capacity ratings decreased about 10% - but the C-47 decreased 40% in its US form - and even more in its Soviet and Japanese forms (since they carried fewer troops).

b) A report of a possible misrating of the Hurricane IV led to a revision of its speed and maneuverability ratings, and to a 60% increase in the range of both the IIb and the IV versions. Armament changed only slightly.

c) The Japanese air services were wholly reworked relative to command assignments, starting locations, and sometimes other data. The scenarios continue to diverge, so that command assignments are appropriate to both scenario and unit. The scenarios with extra political points will tend to need to use them more, those without extra points will tend to need them less often. This was done, mainly, because we had to look at command assignments to help AIO "know" where a unit should be sent? Looking at each unit - we insured all scenarios were properly assigned.

d) The 3 USN "submarine cruisers" (Argonaut, Nautelus and Narwhal) were turned into the submarine transports they really were - without losing their other patrol capabilities. These submarines are special assets - and can be used in games as they were IRL - to transport raiding parties bigger than regular submarines can.

e) EOS and AIO were somewhat updated - and diverged. Note in particular that in AIO air units arrive at forward bases which really have to come by ship - because AI will not unload a ship of an air unit. But EOS has those same air units now ON BOARD AKs - and if a player never sees the AK has an air unit - he will never tell it to unload. One air unit does this at Johnston Island, two at Maui. [Thus, in EOS, there is a risk the planes won't make it to their base - they might be sunk - or diverted - en route]

While we may issue courtesy updates from time to time, we do not plan any at this moment until after we get some extensive human testing done. We do not plan to update Level 6 after this point - unless there are art pointer issues - in which case we will only do a microupdate to correct them. This means the number of supported RHS scenarios drops from 21 to 14 - 7 Level 5 and 7 Level 7. Post test possible development might include monsoon and winter maps - that is pwhex files as the maps actually exist. But we do not plan to continue intensive development - only to address technical issues - and actually play some games! [Cobra and I may begin work on a China invades Taiwan game in due course - he has done a first set map from my physical map already]

[el cid again]

Although I will do an RHSOIO scenario if there is any interest - it is a back burner project - and I may do pwhex files for monsoon and winter maps for RHS Level 7 -

I am now entering an extended playtest phase. Unless we need technical updates for some reason discovered in preparing the game first turns - I do not plan to issue a lot of changes to RHS until after we have lessons learned from this testing.