Experience Points

[Cripes A Mighty]

I am about twenty turns deep into a 1943 700-turn game.

I think I'm doing OK so far. My score hasn't changed much, but I'm not too concerned about that.

I'm sorely tempted to dive-bomb the radar stations but at present am reluctant to accept the losses I am certain to receive at the hands of their flak gunners. At night I jam the German radar as hard as I can and only bomb in 0% lighting conditions. Bomber Command is hitting its targets and not taking excessive losses. I try to let them sit for a few turns after a raid to keep the fatigue factor low and allow for maintenance and repair of damaged aircraft.

As far as strategic bombing is concerned, I'm not not particularly concerned with piling up points at present. I am concentrating on keeping bomber losses low and allowing as much rest as possible. My number one priority is to KILL GERMAN PILOTS! I do this by using bomber formations that are fat enough to be tempting to bomb airfields within escort range. I do this so that my fighters can engage the German interceptors. The Germans have to come up to fight or else be destroyed on the runway. So far the escort fighters are doing excellent work. For my bombers, losses are low and morale is excellent. I'm sure this will pay dividends when I do have to use them on a tough target.

I consider the campaign in Italy to be a waste of resources, but that's the way it goes. My efforts there are minimal.

Anyhow... as to the subject line in this thread, I am curious about how units in general and pilots in particular accumulate experience points. Below are two screenshots of a Bomber Command squadron. The first was taken at the beginning of the game, and the second about twenty turns in. If you will note, none of the pilots have gained any experience points despite having participated in as many as four combat missions. Any enlightenment you can provide would be appreciated.

Thanks again for creating such a great game.

[Cripes A Mighty]

And here's the second screen shot.

[K.Pooley]

Wing Commander M Fleming has gained two points

Kev

[Dobey455]

4 missions is no where near enough for experience gain. I also noted it takes quite some time for any one to show an increase, but I believe this is because there is no pilot rotation modeled in game. Pilots don't go home after 20 or 33 missions, they fly as long as they live, so some pilots may end up with hundreds of missions under their belts.

I believe experience accumulates at a "relaxed" pace to prevent "super pilots" from appearing - That's just my observations and assumptions. Could be wrong, but I would not expect to see much XP gain prior to 7 - 10 missions.

[Cripes A Mighty]

Thanks for the input. I guess I just want it all NOW!

I'll keep a special eye on this unit and every five missions or so I'll post an update.

[Cripes A Mighty]

Eight missions. Still no change.

[Hard Sarge]

you see EPX gain more in fighter units, but it is based on what happens during a mission, for bombers it is more hitting the target (which since this is a night bomber, it may be a case of, it is not as easy to tell you are hitting the target, to gain that part of the EXP points (guessing here on that)

in a fighter unit, it is easy to see, you score a kill or damage a target, you may get 2 points for a kill, and 1 for a damage (not always) it can be odd though to see a guy get 2 kills and gain 2 points and another who shows nothing, will gain 4 or 5, but he may of been attacked and not hit, engaged and not hit a target, and so on, so he gained, but dont have anything to show for it

[harley]

sorry for jumping in way late...

There's also a counter - it counts takeoffs, landings, combat, flying low and a few other things. Once that is filled it will increment the XP. Kills and damage makes the counter go up by more, hence the occasional bumps HS talks about.

[PizzaDeOveja]

Sorry to hijack the thread but Im guessing that you did make those captures with FRAPS...does anyone knows why fraps sometimes captures game screens while other times doesnt??
Im trying to make a list of all types of planes in the game and it quite frustrating so far, but I know it can work because I already have all the german ones!
Window mode is not a go as you get an no font error upon loading in windows 7 64bit so lets hope you don't need the game to be windowed in order to make captures...

[Cripes A Mighty]

Twelve missions and still no change in experience points.

[harley]

OK, I'm not going to give a full rundown on how XP increments, but here's a few tips:

• in a dogfight both pilots gain experience. A 60xp pilot would need 10 - 30 dogfights to gain one XP
• In a Fighter v Bomber attack, the fighter pilot gets the same as a dogfight, but the bomber pilot gets less.
• Bomber pilots get a small bump for dropping bombs - the 60Xp pilot would need 8 - 24 missions to get one XP.
• Recon pilots get a BIG bump for a perfect photo. A 60xp recon pilot would need 3 - 9 perfect shots for a bump.
• A kill gets a nearly guaranteed XP bump. (yeah, only nearly...)

So, that out of the way...
You've found a bug. There is no experience for successful night bombing. There's also a few other tasks that do not get any XP gain, so I'll have to track through that to see if I can get this working better.

Thanks for sticking in there.

[Cripes A Mighty]

Thanks for the feedback Harley.

I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of the programming involved in a game as all-encompassing as this one. I'm glad someone even had the guts to try. I used to play the old Talonsoft version of TOH and enjoyed it a lot, but I must say that there are far fewer glitches in this new edition. (I do miss the printed manual, but I understand the economics of the situation.)

I am currently about 75 turns into my 1943 Long game and have found that night bombing of recently re-conned targets can be successfully undertaken with good accuracy and minimal losses if done in zero moonlight conditions using rested, high-morale units. Even with all their fancy gadgets, the German night fighters have great difficulty intercepting and attacking in total darkness. The Wild Boar isn't, at least at present, terribly beastly.

[Cripes A Mighty]

ORIGINAL: PizzaDeOveja

Sorry to hijack the thread but Im guessing that you did make those captures with FRAPS...does anyone knows why fraps sometimes captures game screens while other times doesnt??
Im trying to make a list of all types of planes in the game and it quite frustrating so far, but I know it can work because I already have all the german ones!
Window mode is not a go as you get an no font error upon loading in windows 7 64bit so lets hope you don't need the game to be windowed in order to make captures...

I went lower-tech than that to get my screen captures. I used the prt scrn key to put the appropriate TOH data page into the Windows clipboard. Then I opened Paint and pasted the image there. After that I cropped out the margins to reduce the file size and saved it as a JPEG to my desktop. Once all that was done I entered this message board using my web browser and uploaded and embedded.