Sorry but I have to rant.....

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

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Miller
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Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Miller »

I know a game of this size will never be perfect, and I'm not normally one to complain, but there is one issue in the air model that is really p****** me off.......

We are all having problems with airstrike co-ordination and its not nice to see unescorted raids get murdered, but I have noticed something happening all the time which I just cant comprehend.

When the escort becomes seperated from the bombers, it either turns back or continues onto target by itself. If they continue to the target they fight the CAP then withdraw, lets say for sake of argument they meet 20 fighters on CAP. Why is it then when the unescorted bombers go in they meet a CAP that is (on average in my game) three times or more higher, so 60 plus CAP........[&:]

Is anyone else seeing this in their games?

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Nikademus
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nikademus »

A couple of the new routines are conflicting with each other. Unescorted strikes (or strikes that lose their escort) are triggering the 'unescorted bombers withdraw' routine and aborting but then are hitting the "post bombing CAP phase"

Had this happen to me in a friendly game vs. Brady recently.
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Miller
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Miller »

Any chance of a Hotfix then?
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LoBaron
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by LoBaron »

Miller that happens because only a limited number of planes assigned to CAP are actually in the air when the attack is identified. When your fighters arrive this triggers the standby fighters
to scramble and engage. If they have enough endurance they so are still in the air when your bomber formation arrives.

Quite realistic in my opinion though admittedly annoying.
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SuluSea
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by SuluSea »

From what I've seen, If the aggression ratings are low enough for the bomber commanders they won't fly in unescorted.
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AcePylut
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by AcePylut »

Here's a thought...

Give a function to each Air HQ unit... the function to create a "strike package".

Click on the "strike package" button in the Air HQ display, and this will bring up a screen of all air groups within the HQ command range.

Then, assign these groups as desired, to the strike package.  Once you have assigned your groups to the "strike package", you can then give flight orders to the group - as a whole. Fighters would obviously have the escort role, bombers bom, fighterbombers can do dual, etc...

Any groups assigned to this "strike package" would then get a coordination bonus based upon the skills of the Air HQ leader.

Any groups assigned to the strike package would not "fly off and do other stuff". I.e. say you have a group of Zeros and Netties in the strike package. Lets say that you also have a group of Ann's on naval attack that are *not* in the strike-package.... under no circumstances would the zero's fly escort for the Ann's, they'd only fly for the Netties and if the Netties didn't pass the right checks to fly, the zero's would not magically change orders to escort the Anns.


Jus a thought
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Nikademus
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: Miller

Any chance of a Hotfix then?

unlikely.
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Nemo121
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nemo121 »

Nikademus,

Is what you describe actually a bug though?

Bombers arrive, see fighters and decide to withdraw. In the meantime the fighters spot them and give chase.

Since the bombers are egressing the area when they are caught it triggers the post-bombing phase of combat resolution.

Sure it is a misnomer but in terms of realism I'm sure many times bombers that aborted ended up still getting jumped by bits of CAP...
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witpqs
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Nikademus,

Is what you describe actually a bug though?

Bombers arrive, see fighters and decide to withdraw. In the meantime the fighters spot them and give chase.

Since the bombers are egressing the area when they are caught it triggers the post-bombing phase of combat resolution.

Sure it is a misnomer but in terms of realism I'm sure many times bombers that aborted ended up still getting jumped by bits of CAP...

It happened at Guadalcanal I think.
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Nikademus
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Nikademus,

Is what you describe actually a bug though?

Bombers arrive, see fighters and decide to withdraw. In the meantime the fighters spot them and give chase.

Since the bombers are egressing the area when they are caught it triggers the post-bombing phase of combat resolution.

Sure it is a misnomer but in terms of realism I'm sure many times bombers that aborted ended up still getting jumped by bits of CAP...


No, its not a bug, hence there's not much chance of a tweak as true bugs are the main focus now. Idea behind it i believe was to cut down on typical WitP slaughter-fests. The interaction with the new Post attack CAP phase i think is an unintended effect as it defeats the purpose of full strikes aborting in the face of a CAP with no escort. Personally i don't like the rule as i'm not aware of any carrier strikes that turned back as a whole without trying to reach their targets once spotted just because they had no escort. The torpedo squadrons at Midway for example, certainly didn't tuck tail and run despite having no escort. In worst case scenarios....as happened to me in a current PBEM, it allows an unanswered strike + heavy losses to the side who's strike aborted without any attempt to bomb.
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TheElf
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by TheElf »

Bombers turning back was quite the player requested feature for, ohhh....about 4 years during WitP's lifetime. See all the posts on the old WitP forum titled "why do my bombers go into the target unescorted?"
IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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Nemo121
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nemo121 »

Aye, i don;t think it is a bug. i think it is pretty much working as designed and reasonably....
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m10bob
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by m10bob »

The idea of the friendly fighters going in and "stirring up the hornets' nest" for later arriving(slower) friendly fighters sounds realistic(albeit annoying) as well..Maybe counter this with a couple of sweeps first?
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usersatch
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by usersatch »

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Here's a thought...

Give a function to each Air HQ unit... the function to create a "strike package".

Click on the "strike package" button in the Air HQ display, and this will bring up a screen of all air groups within the HQ command range.

Then, assign these groups as desired, to the strike package.  Once you have assigned your groups to the "strike package", you can then give flight orders to the group - as a whole. Fighters would obviously have the escort role, bombers bom, fighterbombers can do dual, etc...

Any groups assigned to this "strike package" would then get a coordination bonus based upon the skills of the Air HQ leader.

Any groups assigned to the strike package would not "fly off and do other stuff". I.e. say you have a group of Zeros and Netties in the strike package. Lets say that you also have a group of Ann's on naval attack that are *not* in the strike-package.... under no circumstances would the zero's fly escort for the Ann's, they'd only fly for the Netties and if the Netties didn't pass the right checks to fly, the zero's would not magically change orders to escort the Anns.


Jus a thought

I like this idea a lot.
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Nikademus
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: TheElf

Bombers turning back was quite the player requested feature for, ohhh....about 4 years during WitP's lifetime. See all the posts on the old WitP forum titled "why do my bombers go into the target unescorted?"

which were usually produced by the players not being careful in setting ranges and targets for their airgroups. Now, it tends to happen spontaniously. If by itself, it would cut down on bloodiness, though the logic of it is, IMO skewed, as i can not recall any instance of a full carrier strike turning back because their escort failed to show up. The interaction with the Post attack CAP phase defeats the purpose of the former rule though. End result, you get the slaughter the "requested player feature" was designed to prevent or reduce without a single chance to hit a ship.

There were instances were elements of a strike aborted by dumping their loads and gunning it for home after being attacked and/or chased by fighters, this is covered by the morale failure rules already in the game.
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Shark7
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Here's a thought...

Give a function to each Air HQ unit... the function to create a "strike package".

Click on the "strike package" button in the Air HQ display, and this will bring up a screen of all air groups within the HQ command range.

Then, assign these groups as desired, to the strike package.  Once you have assigned your groups to the "strike package", you can then give flight orders to the group - as a whole. Fighters would obviously have the escort role, bombers bom, fighterbombers can do dual, etc...

Any groups assigned to this "strike package" would then get a coordination bonus based upon the skills of the Air HQ leader.

Any groups assigned to the strike package would not "fly off and do other stuff". I.e. say you have a group of Zeros and Netties in the strike package. Lets say that you also have a group of Ann's on naval attack that are *not* in the strike-package.... under no circumstances would the zero's fly escort for the Ann's, they'd only fly for the Netties and if the Netties didn't pass the right checks to fly, the zero's would not magically change orders to escort the Anns.


Jus a thought

Perhaps, but they might also press the attack and swap from escort to sweep. Might get the 'continue to target, engage any hostiles' command for example. And while they might not technically be escorting the Ki-30s, they could have the effect of tying up the CAP while the Ki-30s slip in.

Lots of variables here.
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Nikademus
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by Nikademus »

your basically slipping more and more into the tactical realm however. The game already has a huge workload as it is.
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AcePylut
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by AcePylut »

Well i was thinking about that Nik... but not sure it adds any more mouse-clicks. 
 
I mean, if all you're doing is clicking on "strike package" on your air-HQ LCU, adding groups and giving orders as a whole.  Not much of a difference imho between that and going to each airbase in range of the air-HQ LCU and clicking orders individually.  Dunno if that's too tactical for the goals of the game or not.  It's a tough call, trying to mix-match grand strategic and detailed operational level combat in one game. 

I just know that it frustrates me to no end, to see 100 fighters fly escort for 3 Vals, while the 150 Netties attack Bataan and get slaughtered.  While I like that the "commanders at the base" have a little leeway to mix things up... quite frankly, any Air Base commander that had 100 Zero's and set them to escort 3 Vals while sending in 150 Betties unescorted against a CAPped base... would be shot.  That, imho, simply should not happen. 
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eMonticello
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by eMonticello »

Coordinated air strikes happened, but it doesn't appear to be the norm given the unpredictability of the weather, at least in New Guinea.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAFHS/AAF-HS-113.pdf

Read Chapter IV, pg 69+ (particularly pg 81, 89, and 94).

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. -- Pudd'nhead Wilson
bklooste
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RE: Sorry but I have to rant.....

Post by bklooste »

People are using high aggression leaders also , high aggression = fool hardy you must expect nasty losses but you will hit . I imagine low agg leaders will abort earlier giving the cap less time but i dont know if it is coded like that.
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