Deletions from 1.0
a) removed Merchant DUR change. Now that cargo can be damaged by hits it seemed superfluous
b) small naval gun penetration tweak has been removed baring more testing.
Below are the listed changes:
Nik Mod Version 2.0
Changes-
1. Formatic Speed modifications to fighter aircraft. Purpose is to reduce the effect of the "speed" variable in A2A combat. Blunts extreme situations such as Nate/Claude vs anything or A6M vs F4U. Increases the importance of experience. Speed remains the most important variable....just not so overwhelmingly so that it negates all other variables. Preserves the preporational relationship in speed between the various airframes.
2. Armament mod and MVR modification for Ki-27/43 and A5M4. New Device armaments created for these planes, duplicated in all aspects save for ACC which has been doubled. These devices are labeled with (.c.) designation (centerline) Purpose: Because of the linear nature of how WitP calculates “gun values” weakly armed fighters such as these two children suffer disproportionate and outragious kill ratios vs modern fighters armed with high valued devices (classic example – 6 x .50cal) As a result in most cases when a P40 for example fires a “pulse” of fire in the combat animation it scores a kill vs these aircraft. When these aircraft fire, they score a “damage” 9.9 out of 10 times. Result is a badly skewed and expensive kill often on the order of 11-20:0. It is hoped that with these changes that what will result more often is a high degree of nimble evasion on the part of Oscar in particular thus reducing kill scores against them with a boost in ammo power that will increase tendancy of kills somewhat. Version 2.0 debutes the MVR change and a further increase of the ACC so this change is not fully tested.
3. DUR change for all aircraft. (increased by 50%) Purpose: To reduce air to air bloodiness which in particular for 6x .50cal and cannon armed Japanese fighters is rampent.
4. ASW change for IJN subs. IJN Sub DUR increased by 4x. Because of the effect this would have on Japanese production, IJN Subs have been removed from production and added to game at location 350 Purpose: IJN subs in early half of war can now survive Allied ASW attacks better in deep water hexes thus avoiding the first discover, first hit, first kill effect often seen in the stock scenerio. Don’t try this in shallow water kids.  A FAQ with Japanese sub deployments will be included in the mod. To save time I am simply listing the month and year that the sub would be “completed” based on the OOB’s. (Yes I could go through my own sources for this but who has time for that?!!!
) The AI of course will not follow this schedule and will use all 110 “building” subs. However since the AI always deploys them BADLY, I figure this is a hancicap that Allied players can live with. We all like increased challenge. 5. AA modification : DP and AA weapons have had effect rating increased by 50% Purpose: compensate for aircraft DUR change
6. Altered the starting fully trained pilot pools and fully trained pilot production rate. Purpose: to prevent the sudden complete drop in pilot quality due to the adding of half trained/untrained exp 20-30 pilots into frontline combat units and change it instead to a gradual drop dependant on attrition levels experienced during 1st year of fighting. Also compensates somewhat for the fact that players have to dip into the same pool for fighters, bombers and recon/patrol/transport planes
Japanese navy starting pool – 1000 Production changed to 50 per month
Japanese army starting pool – 500 Production changed to 60 per month
This aspect is not fully tested yet. A future version may see a decrease in the starting Navy pool.
Japanese army train level increased to 60base
10. Heavy bomber loadouts reduced by 50%. Purpose - reduce overwhelming effect of heavy bombers attacking bases and ground LCU’s. Also represents the fact that in the first half of the war, heavies often flew with a variety of loadouts and rarely at full capacity.
11. B-17 production altered. Reduced to 8+8 for 16 examples a month Purpose: Represent historical trickle of B-17’s for the Pacific. Should eliminate the 2/42 I’m being attacked by full strength B-17 groups all over the map effect and instead, encourage players to use their precious 17’s more cautiously.
12. Daily supply gain for Allied cities reduced. Indian bases (Karachi and Bombay) by ¾ and US production cities by ½ Resource amounts have not been changed. Purpose: Slow down the logistics aspect somewhat which is generally greatly accelerated due to the abstraction of all logistics into “supply points” This feature has not been tested. I suspect it will have little impact on the west coast but may help slow down India being turned into a bombing powerhouse too soon.
13. OOB changes
- Corrected IJN cruiser main turret armor
- Corrected USN cruiser main turret armor
- changed all wooden decked carriers to 20mm for deck armor (Junyo – 0) to allow 500lb and 250lb weapons to penetrate the flight deck instead of bouncing off
- P-40E MVR reduced by 1 point
- P-39 MVR and DUR reduced and 37mm cannon Acc reduced to 1.
- pre 41 USN aircraft armor reduced to 0 (USAAF did not begin retrofitting self sealing tanks and armor till around this time starting with the most modern planes first. TBD could not accomidate armor/self sealing upgrade, armor reduced to 0.
- F4F, F6F, P-47 armor increased to 2
- SBD armor increased to 2. TBF armor increased to 3 Should blunt losses to large gaggles of Zeros and beter differeniate them from their more vulnerable counterparts in the Japanese navy
- Yamato class DUR increased by 50% (actually the max rating allowed is 255) and removed from production (purpose: with a tweak to increase torpedo effectivness, this class can often be crippled and sunk with 4-6 torps. This change is not fully tested and might unbalance surface combat if setting up a straight BB fight, however I consider it more likely that these ships will face aircraft than Iowa class battleships. Yamato commissions 12/41 and Musashi Commissions 5/42
- KI-100 MVR increase by 1 point
- F4F-4 Production start date moved from 12/41 to 4/42. The -4 varient was still the XF4F-4 in Dec 41 and when production began initially east coast squadrons were equipped with the new varient. Pacific based CV VF’s began converting at the end March 42.
