NON Critical RHS 7.942 micro update: uploaded

[el cid again]

The reason we were testing the radical changes made in the 7.9 series -

submarine durability in 7.90
ASW weapons in 7.91

is that we needed to know they work in this system.

Durability worked - along with the system (invented by Historiker) to not have excessive cost to get it.
ASW weapons did not - because of a problem with the range value (which in fairness was said not to matter in code).
Well - it is literally true RANGE does not matter - but ASW devices use the range field for something else.

Meanwhile - users of Nemo's Empire's Ablaze reported a problem that affectes everything - even AE - if you dare use the Russian Active
Scenario setting (which outside of EA and RHS was probably rare).

Someone else reported a problem with ships repairing too fast - and working on that led to some improved economic impacts - and made HQ more meaningful in critical locations.

The need to have working ship ASW devices and - in the five Russian active scenario - to be able to fly into Russia - is critical.
This fixes both - well it fixes ASW and works around the Russian issue. I am not at this point confident Matrix will fix that in a patch for WITP - but IF they do - I will reconvert units back to Soviet in the 5 offending scenarios.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

The reason we were testing the radical changes made in the 7.9 series -

submarine durability in 7.90
ASW weapons in 7.91

is that we needed to know they work in this system.

Durability worked - along with the system (invented by Historiker) to not have excessive cost to get it.
ASW weapons did not - because of a problem with the range value (which in fairness was said not to matter in code).
Well - it is literally true RANGE does not matter - but ASW devices use the range field for something else.

Meanwhile - users of Nemo's Empire's Ablaze reported a problem that affects everything - even AE - if you dare use the Russian Active
Scenario setting (which outside of EA and RHS was probably rare).

Someone else reported a problem with ships repairing too fast - and working on that led to some improved economic impacts - and made HQ more meaningful in critical locations.

The need to have working ship ASW devices and - in the five Russian active scenario - to be able to fly into Russia - is critical.
This fixes both - well it fixes ASW and works around the Russian issue. I am not at this point confident Matrix will fix that in a patch for WITP - but IF they do - I will reconvert units back to Soviet in the 5 offending scenarios.

Please address the issue that the Japanese a/c sub attacks are much to effective and fix the PBY-5s (AS) or a/c as necessary to carry and use a load of D/Cs. How about the Luzon bases issue?


P.S. Your subject title refers to a 9.94 update. I'm sure you mean 7.94.

[el cid again]

Level 7 scenarios packaged and uploaded to primary distribution list.

Mifune is not available - so it must wait for his return before they can post to the RHS site.

Level 6 is not done - even though it involves less work.

Economic utilities are done - and also uploaded.

Test series games will restart as Series 11.

I spent two days testing the workability of air strikes on Russia and ASW.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

.

Please address the issue that the Japanese a/c sub attacks are much to effective and fix the PBY-5s (AS) or a/c as necessary to carry and use a load of D/Cs. How about the Luzon bases issue?


P.S. Your subject title refers to a 9.94 update. I'm sure you mean 7.94.
[/quote]

You are of course correct.

I cannot fix the Japanese a/c being too effective UNLESS you player restrict them NOT to do much A/S patrollilng. That is the real problem - they could have - but did not. Another way to limit them is not to sail in range of the more numerous aircraft. Finally - if you wait for later boats that dive deeper as well as get radar warning - you will survive better.

The PBY-5s (AS) DO carry a load of DCs. Further this is the default load - so you can force a PBY-5 (GP) to AS load if you want to.

I am not sure what you mean by the Luzon bases issue? I did - however - rework Olongapo and Manila. They won't get "free supplies" from inside the CD units. The Manila CD unit is gone - and instead it is in the one at the entrance of the bay. And that one does not get free supply. Fort Drum is a separate unit -- using the only slot that does not give up supplies as bad as others do. Both these changes will make those heses marginally easier to take - but you seemed to be concerned with OTHER hexes - and they remain - except to the extent they may have got a supply point or two from the CD units at Manila or Olongapo - which they cannot do any more (because there aren't any such points to share). Manila should be hard - urban. Olongapo should be hard - rough. Baguio should be monsterous - mountains. Clark/Angelus should be easy unless he puts combined arms in supply with support there - and that always works anywhere.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

.

Please address the issue that the Japanese a/c sub attacks are much to effective and fix the PBY-5s (AS) or a/c as necessary to carry and use a load of D/Cs. How about the Luzon bases issue?


P.S. Your subject title refers to a 9.94 update. I'm sure you mean 7.94.

You are of course correct.

I cannot fix the Japanese a/c being too effective UNLESS you player restrict them NOT to do much A/S patrollilng. That is the real problem - they could have - but did not. Another way to limit them is not to sail in range of the more numerous aircraft. Finally - if you wait for later boats that dive deeper as well as get radar warning - you will survive better.

Sid I don't think this abnormality happened before 7.90. This of course may be an error on my part because in my current game I changed my strategy to populate the Japanese Island waters with my sub fleet out of Dutch Harbor. However, please be sure. You have been incorrect before and if you can test or review the issue it would save your followers numerous turns in a fouled game.

The PBY-5s (AS) DO carry a load of DCs. Further this is the default load - so you can force a PBY-5 (GP) to AS load if you want to.

I am not sure what you mean by the Luzon bases issue? I did - however - rework Olongapo and Manila. They won't get "free supplies" from inside the CD units. The Manila CD unit is gone - and instead it is in the one at the entrance of the bay. And that one does not get free supply. Fort Drum is a separate unit -- using the only slot that does not give up supplies as bad as others do. Both these changes will make those heses marginally easier to take - but you seemed to be concerned with OTHER hexes - and they remain - except to the extent they may have got a supply point or two from the CD units at Manila or Olongapo - which they cannot do any more (because there aren't any such points to share). Manila should be hard - urban. Olongapo should be hard - rough. Baguio should be monsterous - mountains. Clark/Angelus should be easy unless he puts combined arms in supply with support there - and that always works anywhere.


My issue was surfaced a couple of times here on the forum recently of the four bases remaining with the two seemingly impregnable. I am not in your defensive point at Baguio and Manila and Bataan have not been attacked although you continue to carry on about them. Refer to my MAIO saved gave I sent you and my other posts and you can see for yourself the issue. Maybe your changes will cut off the supplies to those hexes and the problem will be solved but it does deserve some attention on the outside (as impossible as it may sound to you) that I have again found an issue, which is something very difficult for you to conceive.

Sorry Sid but at times you are exacerbating.

[ChickenOfTheSea]

Buck,
I think your comments on submarines points out a major difference in playing an aggressuve human opponent such as El Cid vs playing the more passive AI. In the early war as the Allies you can't waste submarines in a futile attempt to blockade Japan with subs with defective torpedoes. You are fighting for your life and you need the subs for mining, scouting for his invasion forces, and disrupting his offensive operations in an effort to make him more cautious. There are few unescorted convoys where you can use your guns rather than torpedoes and he really doiesn't care about losing a few small transports when he already has several months worth of supplies deployed forward. The threat of a capital ship hitting a mine or being torpedoed is another matter altogether.

In my game with El Cid I was using subs this way and none were harmed by aircraft. Early in the war subs without air detection radar should be very vulnerable to air ASW patrols. I was very persistent in this area and hit several of El Cid's subs which he was using very aggressively in my ports. I think if you are sending a lot of early war subs into the teeth of air ASW it is not surprising if your losses were greater than historical.

As a player in one of El Cid's test games I knew what it meant to be testing and I am not complaining that flaws were discovered. That is why we have test games. I also think you have provided some good input that El Cid has responded to so I don't want to discourage constructive criticism. Your frustration is similar to that as with the original stock as flaws were discovered and every mod that has come out since. I am appreciative of the efforts of El Cid, Nemo. Big B, Nikodemus, Badnews, Andrew Brown, and the entire CHS team and others I am forgetting to make this a better game and I want to express my thanks for their efforts. I should probably thank the AE team in advance as well.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: ChickenOfTheSea

Buck,
I think your comments on submarines points out a major difference in playing an aggressuve human opponent such as El Cid vs playing the more passive AI. In the early war as the Allies you can't waste submarines in a futile attempt to blockade Japan with subs with defective torpedoes. You are fighting for your life and you need the subs for mining, scouting for his invasion forces, and disrupting his offensive operations in an effort to make him more cautious. There are few unescorted convoys where you can use your guns rather than torpedoes and he really doiesn't care about losing a few small transports when he already has several months worth of supplies deployed forward. The threat of a capital ship hitting a mine or being torpedoed is another matter altogether.

In my game with El Cid I was using subs this way and none were harmed by aircraft. Early in the war subs without air detection radar should be very vulnerable to air ASW patrols. I was very persistent in this area and hit several of El Cid's subs which he was using very aggressively in my ports. I think if you are sending a lot of early war subs into the teeth of air ASW it is not surprising if your losses were greater than historical.
Your point regarding the subs is well taken. In my next game I will play it differently, but, it is pretty hard to escape the Mavis with its long legs

As a player in one of El Cid's test games I knew what it meant to be testing and I am not complaining that flaws were discovered. That is why we have test games. I also think you have provided some good input that El Cid has responded to so I don't want to discourage constructive criticism. Your frustration is similar to that as with the original stock as flaws were discovered and every mod that has come out since. I am appreciative of the efforts of El Cid, Nemo. Big B, Nikodemus, Badnews, Andrew Brown, and the entire CHS team and others I am forgetting to make this a better game and I want to express my thanks for their efforts. I should probably thank the AE team in advance as well.

I too am an avid fan of the overall RHS and have been since its beginning and to me there nothing comparable in WITP. I have owned the game since its first week of release and would have purchased it earlier except I had to travel from Los Angeles area to the San Diego area to use my son's high speed INTERNET to download it.

I will not carry on regarding Sid as I appreciate what he has brought to us (with his faults and he does have them) except to say I have been butting heads with him accepting some of my observations for quite some time now.

I see by your number of posts you are fairly new here (unless you had a former name) and hope you can have as much fun as I have.

[ChickenOfTheSea]

Buck,
I understand your frustrations because I was a former WITPer that gave up on the game due to continually having to restart due to discovered flaws and patching. I did come back although I went for a more humorous name. I really encourage you to stick with it as you have provided some very influential input and you did get El Cid to produce the most challenging AI game in MAIO. With El Cid, I think it is important to be persistant and provide supporting evidence. He does come around when he hears the same thing from enough players and sees enough hard evidence. I think it makes a difference when he sees it for himself in a head-to-head game as he doesn't think much of the AI.

Yes, I am enjoying the game very much again although as you well know it can be thoroughly exasperating. Just stick with it as I think things are moving in the right direction.

[ChickenOfTheSea]

By the way, Buck, you may be right about air ASW, but I think it is necessary to gather data frim people of varying playing styles to tell for sure.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

.

Please address the issue that the Japanese a/c sub attacks are much to effective and fix the PBY-5s (AS) or a/c as necessary to carry and use a load of D/Cs. How about the Luzon bases issue?


P.S. Your subject title refers to a 9.94 update. I'm sure you mean 7.94.

You are of course correct.

I cannot fix the Japanese a/c being too effective UNLESS you player restrict them NOT to do much A/S patrollilng. That is the real problem - they could have - but did not. Another way to limit them is not to sail in range of the more numerous aircraft. Finally - if you wait for later boats that dive deeper as well as get radar warning - you will survive better.

Sid I don't think this abnormality happened before 7.90. This of course may be an error on my part because in my current game I changed my strategy to populate the Japanese Island waters with my sub fleet out of Dutch Harbor. However, please be sure. You have been incorrect before and if you can test or review the issue it would save your followers numerous turns in a fouled game.

.

There is a problem. Due to a lack of devices - we have a weapon that is both a DC and a bomb. Since in the stock system both were essentially the same thing - and since it looks like an aircraft treats DC defined as such the same way it treats a bomb - I could not justify a different device for the same weight weapon - originally. I would separate them - but only a few ASW slots exist - and two that we use may not even be those (it is guessed by programmers they are). With the revised DC system - this bomb is now too effective compared to other DC.
But - if a bomb were carried - it would be exactly the same - and bombs are the main thing that attacks subs from planes. I think planes only attack subs on the surface - and I don't think planes ever do a true ASW attack. IF they do - it is an abstract one - and it is by no means clear what weapon is used. I say this because an UNARMED plane will still "hit" both surface ships and subs occasionally. With what did it hit - if there is no weapon loadout?

Aside from that - however - I cannot control the power of ASW air patrols. I don't think anyone knows exactly what happens - but I am sure is is vastly too simple - and if it is too effective - it is too effective. You can mess it up by running ASW at higher altitudes - though - if you want to do a house rule. ASW patrols were not always at 1000 feet - and if players do that - it is because it is most effective - not because it is the right altitude. At higher altitude you have a better radar picture. At lower altitude in some conditions you can see into the water better. But the game code is beyond our control: IF I did ASW we would start over - go sensor based - and it would be a lot harder. The game more or less abastracts air ASW: if you select the mission probably abstract sensors and weapons are intended. It may be the national modifier is not right too.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

[.I am not sure what you mean by the Luzon bases issue? I did - however - rework Olongapo and Manila. They won't get "free supplies" from inside the CD units. The Manila CD unit is gone - and instead it is in the one at the entrance of the bay. And that one does not get free supply. Fort Drum is a separate unit -- using the only slot that does not give up supplies as bad as others do. Both these changes will make those heses marginally easier to take - but you seemed to be concerned with OTHER hexes - and they remain - except to the extent they may have got a supply point or two from the CD units at Manila or Olongapo - which they cannot do any more (because there aren't any such points to share). Manila should be hard - urban. Olongapo should be hard - rough. Baguio should be monsterous - mountains. Clark/Angelus should be easy unless he puts combined arms in supply with support there - and that always works anywhere.


My issue was surfaced a couple of times here on the forum recently of the four bases remaining with the two seemingly impregnable. I am not in your defensive point at Baguio and Manila and Bataan have not been attacked although you continue to carry on about them. Refer to my MAIO saved gave I sent you and my other posts and you can see for yourself the issue. Maybe your changes will cut off the supplies to those hexes and the problem will be solved but it does deserve some attention on the outside (as impossible as it may sound to you) that I have again found an issue, which is something very difficult for you to conceive.

Sorry Sid but at times you are exacerbating.

Stipulated. Usually because I am not working on the same basis as others do.

First - I am not a gamer. I am a simulator. A very different sort of person. I am not really interested in how easy it is for players.
I am not even strictly interested in how easy it was historically: declaring Manila and Open City - evacuating ALL military units from it - meant it was not hard to take in 1942. Yamashita returned the favor in 1944 - BUT the IJN admiral did not regard himself as under Army command - so while we took the first half of the city with east - and announced it to the world we had the place - when we crossed the Pasig River and got near the walled city - we learned we had it wrong. A few thousand navy troops caused the most destructive urban battle in the history of WWII in Asia - and the second worst in the entire world after Warsaw. Manila is inherantly a tough nut to crack - I didn't make it so in the game - and I see no reason to try to prevent it from being so.

In half a dozen games I found what happens depends on players. Sir Robin out of Baguio and Clark - they fall easy. If you FIGHT for the North - well I don't like it. But note IRL that the IJA felt the same campaign was too long and too expensive. Homma was disgraced and side tracked. But maybe the force sent was not really enough? The game is supposed to let you learn that in play - and I think it does. I don't see it as a problem because - IF you find it hard THAT is right - IMHO. If it is easy - the player screwed up. Or you sent a lot more stuff.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

ORIGINAL: ChickenOfTheSea

Buck,
I think your comments on submarines points out a major difference in playing an aggressuve human opponent such as El Cid vs playing the more passive AI. In the early war as the Allies you can't waste submarines in a futile attempt to blockade Japan with subs with defective torpedoes. You are fighting for your life and you need the subs for mining, scouting for his invasion forces, and disrupting his offensive operations in an effort to make him more cautious. There are few unescorted convoys where you can use your guns rather than torpedoes and he really doiesn't care about losing a few small transports when he already has several months worth of supplies deployed forward. The threat of a capital ship hitting a mine or being torpedoed is another matter altogether.

In my game with El Cid I was using subs this way and none were harmed by aircraft. Early in the war subs without air detection radar should be very vulnerable to air ASW patrols. I was very persistent in this area and hit several of El Cid's subs which he was using very aggressively in my ports. I think if you are sending a lot of early war subs into the teeth of air ASW it is not surprising if your losses were greater than historical.
Your point regarding the subs is well taken. In my next game I will play it differently, but, it is pretty hard to escape the Mavis with its long legs

.

Both naval search and ASW patrol are far too effective.

I proposed a voluntary rule - and it is not widely used - but some players do this:

with the help of our resident PHD we came up with

the number of planes in the search (total - all units searching - but divide by per cent of search if less than 100) is divided by 2. That is the RANGE LIMIT of the search. Round fractions up.

This will greatly limit the pattern and be ALMOST right. But warning - you WILL be surprised by surface raiders, carriers, subs, you didn't spot 20 hexes out.

This should be addressed in code by Matrix - get the search algorithms right.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: ChickenOfTheSea

By the way, Buck, you may be right about air ASW, but I think it is necessary to gather data frim people of varying playing styles to tell for sure.

He is right - but he is wrong to think I can fix it. CODE must fix this.

IF you want MY fix - make it your house rule to range limit both naval searches and ASW patrols. THEN you won't get so many hits.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: ChickenOfTheSea

By the way, Buck, you may be right about air ASW, but I think it is necessary to gather data frim people of varying playing styles to tell for sure.

He is right - but he is wrong to think I can fix it. CODE must fix this.

The "right" acknowledgment at least leaves me knowing I'm not imagining things. I never assume that you can fix all game issues, just those you create by your changes. Since I never played my current sub strategy with the pre 7.91 mod update I don't know if the situation preexisted.
IF you want MY fix - make it your house rule to range limit both naval searches and ASW patrols. THEN you won't get so many hits.

[Buck Beach]

I ran a couple of quick test runs under 7.94 CAIO.  This was easy to do on 12/8/41 as I could attack the midget subs around Pearl and the one that always sets outside of the Manila Harbor. The ASW TF do attack and DC Ammo is depleting.  Using the x editor I note several of what appears to be inconsistencies or data errors.  I don't have them listed so I won't post them here.

One thing I really don't like is that many ship's ASW weapons are the same as other ship classes where previously there was more of a distinction.  I am referring to just the early war and I recognize that they may have actually had the same weapon configuration.

Question not previously asked.  Why do two ship combination units which have some ASW capabilities (eg PCs, SCs etc) only reflect one DC weapon?

[el cid again]

To begin at the end

a two ship ASW unit - which is ideal - probably should be extended to DEs as well as PC type vessels.

The actual tactical practice that gives a good chance to an ASW team is to have one ship make a run while a second ship tracks the target on sonar. The first ship must pass over the target - and must lose sonar signal for a period between when the target aspect is wrong and when the charges have not only been dropped/fired - but also sinking time. Until the moment of explosion - the SECOND ship can have its sonar tracking the target - giving the team a better sense of what the sub did - later in time.

When the explosion happens the signal is lost - for a long time - 15 -20 minutes or more - but the team has a sense of where the target was headed and how close it was to the estimated position ("datum point") than one ship alone would have had. The normal practice was to alternate runs.

So what I did was take two identical units - give them one pattern (which is the same being identical) but TWICE as many shots (runs) as a single ship would get. OTHER weapons - anti surface - AAA - are doubled - but the ASW weapons have the number of shots doubled instead.

The way ASW works is you stay in the area - not less than two days - and keep attacking. As long as you do the sub is pinned. If the game ever does ASW right - if you peel off an ASW TF - the sub will probably be stuck in the hex. Another reason for wanting more shots is that - if you stay with the convoy - you may have to engage another submarine later on.

[el cid again]

To end at the beginning

there really are a number of different ASW suites when the war erupts on PTO. On the Allied side you have patters of 2, 4 or 8 small DC on British and other non USN units, and on some very small US vessels. As well, you have patterns of 2, 4 or 8 large DC on most USN DD and PC - there are no DE per se iin USN yet. This is not really less than you had before - in fact the total number of ASW weapons is either the same - or it is two MORE than before - depending on wether programmers are right about two unused slots that "should work." The problem with complex software is that it can seem to work and not work entirely as you think it is. But I could not give you a lot more weapons - due to slot issues. I didn't give you less - and I was able to add FOUR. Two by combining two Hedgehog slots into one - they were really identical in terms of the values we use. And I also combined the two Mousetraps - because there is one of 4 rails and one of 8 - but if the 4 were used - you always had more than one - so I use a set of 8 and don't worry about if it is one set or two. That gave me two slots. I also used to empty slots that "should work for ASW devices." It is the best I can do. The special weapons before are all present - we have added four more.
What changed was the 8 DC slots were standardized on two sizes - and then you get different patterns (with the same effect but greater accuracy as pattern size increases). If I have more slots I can do more.

The idea was to change the way attacks occur: in Matrix GG world - 8 bombs is the same as 2 bombs 4 times. But in the real world - a pattern of 8 is just more likely to hit you - and you don't get 4 die rolls EACH of which might hit you. ONE die roll - greater chance of ONE hit - but NO chance of 2, 3 or 4 hits. The pattern is scientifically set so that - if the sub has not got far enough away - no matter where it is - it is going to be hurt - but it won't be hit by more than one - or if not hit directly it might be some distance from 2 or 3 - each of which does less damage than one hit - but the cumulative total might be similar. Die rolls can decide the actual impact - but the point is - it is fundamentally wrong to have - say - a pattern of 12 get 12 different die rolls - all with a fairly high accuracy - and of which more than one are likely to hit.

[el cid again]

What I did was try to reduce the chance of a hit - and also to introduce electronics as a factor in wether or not you detect (or evade).

Thus ASW ships (and also planes) use radar to find the sub. Also - I rate ships with good ASW sonar as DE - to get a higher ASW modifier. If fair they are destroyer other than DE. If not - PC or something else. That models the sonar on the hunters. Planes also get a MAD which will only work rarely.

Subs get radar and snorkels to help them detect hunters and dive (if they fail to detect first - they will be attacked on the surface - crude but not entirely wrong.

By reducing the number of "shots" to one pattern per attack (or two if there is an ahead throwing weapon) - we completely change the pssibiity of multiple hits for a single run. By reducing accuracy - which to my surprise seems NOT to be too low - I tried to get BELOW the right value using the minimum possible values - we have also made ship and air attacks less lethal - but ONLY when and if air units use ASW weapons.

We can go farther - and I will describe that next. But this requires human intervention - not data settings.

[el cid again]

To get air ASW right you can do two things:

1) Limit the range of ASW patrols to the number of searching planes divided by two (Base case - see discussion below)
- if it is an odd number round the fraction up.

2) Limit the air units assigned to ASW to those WITH ASW loads. Assume other air units are not trained nor do they have sensors nor effective weapons - which will not make them useless - but the engine does not penalize such planes - and so by not using them - we then ONLY model the planes who DO have sensors and training and AS weapons.

[el cid again]

Actual range limit:

A) Base case: a single unit on an island in a large ocean area: the number of searching planes divided by two (round up).
Definition: the number of planes is the number of undamaged planes times the per cent of mission: an 8 plane unit at 100 percent = 8,
at 50 per cent = 4, etc.

B) Fractional case: a single unit on a coast of a large land body requires the owning player to estimate the fraction of the arc that is sea.
If - say - it is a linear coast - half the area of the search is over land. In such case you may double the range setting, because you don't need to search the land half of the circle. If the sea area was 2/3 of the arc, you could multiply the range from A above by 1.5 - and so on.

C) Multiple case - if more than one unit is searching the same sea area - add the number of planes from both units before dividing by 2 to find the range limit. For example, if a naval task force has several ships with ASW armed aircraft - add the total number together before you divide. Code assumes seaplanes have small ASW weapons - so we do that too.