Japan Replacement Pool: bug?

[Mr.Frag]

A thread in the main forum pointed out that the A5M4's seem to act a little strangely. I dug in a tad further, getting more and more confused by Japan's aircraft pools.

Scenario 17, A5M4 = 5, A6M2 = 65, A6M3 = 35 for monthly rates at the game start. Following this logic, that should be roughly the monthly total in the pool minus what gets used to bring groups up to strength...

Watching the pools ebb and flow it would appear that planes are vanishing for nothing at all.

Upon reaching 18 A6M3 in the pool, then very next turn there are now 4, yet there are 0 A6M3's in play anywhere in the theater so where did they go to? thats 12 aircraft vanished into thin air.

A5M4's make absolutely no sense whatsoever, with the A5M4 F2/Tainan group located at Rabaul magically getting aircraft to bring it up to strength that do not exist based on the A5M4 rate of 4 a month.

Can you look into this? I can provide save games if you want, but it is pretty obvious if you just start a H2H game and ground everything and cycle through turns...

[Drongo]

Mr. Frag,

Re A5Ms - Did you factor in the A5Ms on 3 of the 4 CVL's that may still be in Japan at the time?

If they convert to A6M's while in Japan, they will free up an equivalent no of A5Ms to go in the replacement pool. If the F2/Tainan is under strength and in reinforcement range of Truk, it will normally receive all the extra A5Ms (that it can hold) within a turn of them being available.

Cheers.

[fcooke]

The reinforcement squadrons that you haven't got yet are usually the reason the planes disappear from the pool. You're slowly watching your P39 pool build up and then 'whammo, it drops back down and none of your P400 squadrons have upgraded. What has upgraded was the next reinforcement squadron of P400s, which are now P39s. You'll notice this by the sudden jump of P400s now in your replacement pool.

[Feinder]

Another thing to watch, is the air-groups on your carriers. Carriers can refit their airgroups, while they are in Kure/Pearl, and also even draw replacements en route to theater.

-F-

[Mr.Frag]

So you guys are saying that units that are not in the game at that point in time are swiping planes?

Ok, that makes perfect sense from a where they went standpoint not that I would have ever thought to look there

Not sure I agree from a logic standpoint though, as you are basically swiping planes for units that do not even exist yet potentially. I'll track those additions as it is only 3 additional squadrons.

F2/Tainan Daitai = 8 (Rabaul)
DI-1 Daitai = 12 (Ryujo)
CII-1 Daitai = 12 (Zuiho)
CI-1 Daitai = 12 (Hosho)

Tracking them ...

F2/Tainan Datai upgrades to 27 A6M2's
DI-1 upgrades to 22 A6M2's
CII-1 upgrades to 18 A6M2's
CI-1 upgrades to 15 A6M3's

Leftover A5M4's = 43 in Pool which is a little confusing still as there were 44 planes originally coupled with 5 per month being added. I wonder if there are operational losses off board so to speak, as I have 0 plane losses shown.

It seems that the game gives priority to upgrading CV air wings over that of land based units, as the F2/Tainan unit get upgraded last, which is why it seems to take forever to happen even though it is listed in the database prior to the others.

Even tracking every A5M4 unit in the game, the numbers still seem to be off by about 8-10 planes, unless there is a trade in reduction on value (like you only get 80% of old units being upgraded etc).

[Mr.Frag]

Ok, final post on this one. Perhaps someone can explain the logic of having units that will not be in play for 100+ turns stealing aircraft for fleshing out their air units while my poor guys in the field are forced to sit on their hands with nothing to fly ... I can understand ships sitting in Japan already swiping planes to top things up, but ships that have not even arrived to be released seems a little strange to me ... With the patch that changed the upgrade path on Japan A5M4 -> A6M2 -> A6M5 & A6M3 -> A6M5, Japan is really hurting now, as that replacement rate of A6M3's which used to upgrade A6M2's now offers nothing in the way of benefits.

The moral of this story:

Japan aircraft effectively decreased 35 aircraft a month in Scenario 17 types, as A6M3's don't provide a value anymore. These 35 a month used to upgrade A6M2's, freeing groups of A6M2's for redeployment (which translates to an extra 27 per unit upgraded going back in the pool to fill losses). Since Japan's fighters are paper thin to begin with, this loss of nearly 30 planes a month really adds up in short order.

I'm basically asking if this was the original intent of how air replacements and upgrades were set up for Japan, or does it need a touchup due to this patch change. Upgrading squadrons that do not exist within the theater just seems a little off...

[Drongo]

Posted by Mr. Frag.

Japan aircraft effectively decreased 35 aircraft a month in Scenario 17 types, as A6M3's don't provide a value anymore. These 35 a month used to upgrade A6M2's, freeing groups of A6M2's for redeployment (which translates to an extra 27 per unit upgraded going back in the pool to fill losses). Since Japan's fighters are paper thin to begin with, this loss of nearly 30 planes a month really adds up in short order.

You may have nothing much to worry about soon regarding the above.

During 2.30 beta testing, the CV based A6M2s were set to have an upgrade path to A6M3s. This did not apply to the land based A6M2s (still upgrade to A6M5s).

Assuming it comes through with the official 2.30 patch, your problem will be mainly solved.

[Mr.Frag]

Thanks for the info Drongo. I hadn't noticed that there were any non-Navy versions of these planes in the database, so this will speed up the process a tad.

I'd still like to understand why units that are off screen swipe planes that could be used on screen. Seems to me that there should be a *check* in that part of the routine that ensures that active units get priority...