esteban
Matrix Hero

Posts: 618
Joined: 7/21/2004 Status: offline
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Hi! This is a great game, and I am awed by the amount of work that went into it. Unfortunately, there are some bugs that need to be addressed before this game can be played PBEM, at least in my case. I just had to call an early end to my PBEM game because of these issues. 1) Pilot/aircraft replacements. Playing Japan, I turned these off for all my naval squadrons, to conserve the very small pool of pilots that are available. However, even in doing this, and in taking other measures to conserve replacement pilots such as disbanding land-based squadrons into my carrier-based squadrons to replace many of my battle losses, I have drained my naval replacement pool completely. It is only December 26, 1941 in my PBEM game. The problem is that my Nell and Betty squadrons continue to draw replacements, even though I originally and repeatedly set them all to "no replacements". If an LRA squadron takes battle casualties, they replace them anyway, even though I have set them to not do this. If I transfer an LRA squadron to a new base, it draws replacements to fly aircraft that are "damaged" or in reserve to the new airbase. One of the specific problems is that the Nell and Betty squadrons do not adhere to their supposed maximum plane numbers allowed in the squadron. For most of these units, that number is either 27 aircraft, or 9 aircraft. However, even with replacements off, and battle losses, I now have a couple LRA squadrons that have 35 or so Betties or Nells, with pilots, in them. Nearly all my Betty and Nell squadrons are now over their supposed maximum aircraft/pilot number. These squadrons can still only fly a maximum of 9 or 27 aircraft, but they hold the additional aircraft in reserve or in damaged condition. I have noticed that this problem does not occur with my other land based naval squadrons, or my carrier squadrons. I think that the issue is tied to the fact that most Betty and Nell squadrons begin the game with extra, surplus aircraft in them. Somehow this has thrown off the replacement rules for these units. Other than that, I do not see why these LRA squadrons should have this issue, and all the other naval squadrons, which start with a normal number of aircraft with none in reserve, should not. A similar thing seems to be happening in some of my Japanese army LRA squadrons, but it is tougher to see there, and I have been alternating between feeding replacements to these squadrons and not doing so. Also, a clarification on what happens when your pilot pool drains would be nice. I had my pool drain this last turn, and the first two "non-trained" naval pilots I got out of the pool were experience 40 and 29. I thought the dropoff was much less steep than that, going from the 70 experience base, to the mid-60s, and then down one or two points per additional replacement pilot. 2) Japanese production system problems. Specifically, I am having serious problems with my merchant shipping yards. I am running these yards flat out, I even expanded them just a little (only 2 points), and it still seems that I am running 200-300 merchant shipyard points behind where I should be. The Japanese start the game needing about 510 points to produce what they have in the merchant shipyard production cue (AKs, APs, tankers, AOs, CVEs, CS, AV, MSW), so I accelerated the construction of numerous ships. However, the construction is not accelerating, nor am I seeing large pools of unused merchant shipyard points showing up unused. I have been back and forth over my production list, and with what I have at both normal and accelerated construction, I should be using about 790 merchant shipyard points per turn. However, even with all 1002 points of my merchant capacity going, numerous ships that should be accelerated are not being accelerated. Additionally, I should see hundreds of merchant shipyard points appearing in my pools at the end of each turn, but I am only seeing 20 points or so per turn. For example, the tanker Ceram Maru just came on the production list a few days ago. At durability 26, it should take 260 days to produce at normal speed. However, even with it set to accelerated production for the last couple turns, it is still stuck at 259 days until arrival. I am not sure what is going on here. I have checked all my merchant yards repeatedly, and none of them have had production halted. My naval construction yards are operating fine, and I have expanded them significantly, from about 1174 at the start, to about 1250-1260 now. I halt production at individual naval yards, to conserve HI, and then restart these yards a turn or two later, as I need their output for specific ships I am building, and it works just fine. I see the number of naval shipyard points in the pool that I expect, my accelerated naval construction advances at the correct, doubled pace, and the ships I halt work on do not progress at all. The problem is not a lack of heavy industry either. My HI point pool has been growing every turn since the start of the game, so I know there are enough HI points to run the merchant yards. Other stuff that would be a great help: 1) Convoy loading. The current system is bugged, as you know. This makes loading convoys a pain, because realistically, you have to load each unit individually. This is VERY time consuming for the Japanese player at the start of the game. After you get past the first week or so of game time, the number of convoys you are loading drops off. Still, this needs to be fixed. I would bet that later in the game, as the Allied player moves more units around, this would become a royal pain for him as well. 2) OOB changes. It's been argued that the Allies start with a couple divisions that they shouldn't start with. It would be nice to have them appear at a more historical time. 3) The map. The ahistorical North Australia railroad really should go. It makes it way too easy for the Allies to operate in the SRA.
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