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Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work

 
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Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 2:36:09 AM   
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esteban
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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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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 4:58:24 AM   
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HawaiiFive-O
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quote:

ORIGINAL: esteban

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.



One thought, how many ARs/AVs/ASs did you convert? These ships cost Merchant points to build out. AVs = 20, ARs = 22, dunno about ASs (never converted any).

MLEs in theory would cost as well, but they are currently bugged and never count down.

Might this explain the amount of merchant shipyard points consumed?

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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 5:33:13 AM   
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esteban
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quote:

ORIGINAL: HawaiiFive-O

quote:

ORIGINAL: esteban

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.



One thought, how many ARs/AVs/ASs did you convert? These ships cost Merchant points to build out. AVs = 20, ARs = 22, dunno about ASs (never converted any).

MLEs in theory would cost as well, but they are currently bugged and never count down.

Might this explain the amount of merchant shipyard points consumed?


No, the 790 number I had included accelerated construction on 5 AK/AR conversions at a normal cost of 22 points per turn each, 44 points when accelertated. I also accelerated construction on the 3-4 tankers on the production list, and a couple minesweepers for more escorts, and the CS Nisshin and the one AV on the build list. Pretty much all he CVEs, AKs and APs I left at normal build rate.

(in reply to HawaiiFive-O)
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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 5:43:29 AM   
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HawaiiFive-O
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Ahh, OK. This might be it.

Acceleration costs triple, pg. 184 in the manual.

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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 5:57:06 AM   
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esteban
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quote:

ORIGINAL: HawaiiFive-O

Ahh, OK. This might be it.

Acceleration costs triple, pg. 184 in the manual.


Ah, ok. I read that as simply 2X cost for 2X the build speed. Re-reading that, I can see where the extra points are going. Thats actually good. I thought that 2X for 2 days was a little too generous to the Japanese.

Thanks!

Does anyone know anything about the pilot/aircraft replacement issue that I mentioned? I simply cannot get pilot/aircraft replacements to my LRA squadrons to turn off, no matter what I do.

(in reply to HawaiiFive-O)
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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 6:06:49 AM   
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HawaiiFive-O
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No worries, glad to help.

I don't think I can help you on the other thing, I haven't experienced the problem you are having.

The excess damaged Bettys/Nells do suck out my replacement pilots, but I've never had plane replacements go to a squadron I've set 'No Replacements' on.

For the pilot thing, I follow the 'Mogami Training School' method. I disband the Chutais into the Daitais, creating 'super groups' with more pilots than I need. Then the rate of combat attrition/damage suffices to keep the number of pilots > number of ready planes, meaning these squadrons no longer draw pilots (unless they don't see combat for awhile).

After I stock up KB, I actually want to draw down the pool as soon as possible so I can rapidly stock up all the deficient float plane groups with crap pilots that can OJT by Naval Searching for awhile. Then I lock down replacements and let the good pilots build up to fill out my combat squadrons as needed (though there's never enough, but using the 'Mogami Method' you essentially cannibalize existing Daitais for parts to keep the 4-5 squadrons on the active front at the ready).

Works for me, but I understand your frustration.

< Message edited by HawaiiFive-O -- 8/19/2004 8:07:43 PM >


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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 10:53:40 AM   
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esteban
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quote:

ORIGINAL: HawaiiFive-O

No worries, glad to help.

I don't think I can help you on the other thing, I haven't experienced the problem you are having.

The excess damaged Bettys/Nells do suck out my replacement pilots, but I've never had plane replacements go to a squadron I've set 'No Replacements' on.

For the pilot thing, I follow the 'Mogami Training School' method. I disband the Chutais into the Daitais, creating 'super groups' with more pilots than I need. Then the rate of combat attrition/damage suffices to keep the number of pilots > number of ready planes, meaning these squadrons no longer draw pilots (unless they don't see combat for awhile).

After I stock up KB, I actually want to draw down the pool as soon as possible so I can rapidly stock up all the deficient float plane groups with crap pilots that can OJT by Naval Searching for awhile. Then I lock down replacements and let the good pilots build up to fill out my combat squadrons as needed (though there's never enough, but using the 'Mogami Method' you essentially cannibalize existing Daitais for parts to keep the 4-5 squadrons on the active front at the ready).

Works for me, but I understand your frustration.


I was trying the "mogami method" as well. Largely using my land based Kates, Vals and Zeros to fill out those carrier-based squadrons that had lost more than 4 planes. Also, I merged several of my understrength recon and Mavis squadrons. The idea was that I would let these land-based squadrons come back, and blitz the drained replacement pool to refill them with low quality pilots that I would train up again. Then I would turn replacements off again, and let the pool refill with normal quality replacements.

I definitely wanted to avoid a situation where I had pilots with 30-40 experience in units that had lots of higher quality pilots in them as well. In these cases, the squadron takes lots of operating losses, as the lower quality pilots crash a lot going out on combat missions, and almost never hit anything if they don't crash.

The idea was that I would create training squadrons, and either send these back into the front lines when they got to 55-60 exp, or disband them again if I needed to conserve normal replacements.

However, I did not break down my Betty and Nell squadrons, and these were the guys who were sucking up my replacements. Even though I started the game with all replacements off, and repeatedly made sure that the Betty and Nell squadrons had replacements off, they kept taking replacements. By the time I quit the PBEM game on December 26, I had lost about 40 Nells and Bettys. All those were replaced, despite the settings. Then, whenever I would move a squadron to a new base, it would leave behind 1-3 damaged or in reserve aircraft, and then those would draw pilots from the replacement pool so they could fly to the new base. Except for the couple of squadrons that started in the Marshalls, all my Nell and Betty squadrons were overstrength in terms of pilots and aircraft. As I said, a couple of the squadrons had worked their way up to 35 aircraft and pilots each. So even if I did have replacements on, these squadrons should not have been drawing more planes/pilots.

So after having moved 3 squadrons to Kuching, two to Truk, a couple to Cagayan, a couple to Loagg, one or two to Khota Bharu, plus moving the two Southern Area Army Nell squadrons out of Japan, I found that these moves drew down another 30+ pilots from the pool. That only left about 30 replacement pilots to fill out my carrier squadrons. 6 of those went to the Zuiho on turn one pretty much, to fill out it's fighter wing. Then there were numerous other carrier squadrons that needed 1-4 pilots out of the replacement pool to fill out combat losses that could not be replaced from disbanding land-based units.

So poof, even though I tried to conserve my trained replacements I ran out of them in less than 3 weeks of game time. When I saw experience 30-40 pilots showing up in my otherwise crack carrier-based squadrons, and having exhausted all my ideas to stop the unwanted and unproductive addition of replacement aircraft and pilots to my LRA squadrons, I decided to concede the game. There was no way that the problem was going to get any better.

The Nell and Betty squadrons showed no signs of stopping their unintentional growth. In fact, if I had waited another 1-2 turns, I am sure I would have seen low experience replacement pilots appear in the Nell and Betty squadrons, which I neither asked for nor wanted ANY replacements to go to, much less low quality ones that are going to crash their expensive 2 engine bombers.

This issue needs to be fixed. I think the problem is related to the LRA squadrons starting with 3 extra "reserve" aircraft. This is the only thing that separates these squadrons from the other land-based Japanese naval squadrons, and I had no problems with those non-LRA or the carrier-based squadrons unintentionally adding planes and pilots.

So, can we get this patched, or at least get a scenario 15 where the reserve aircraft that start in the LRA squadrons are removed, and put back into the replacement pools for those models? These reserve aircraft come with no extra pilots, so they can't be used anyway, unless you tap the replacement pilot pool. Please put them into the aircraft replacement pools, and let the players decide if they want to send replacements out to their LRA units.

(in reply to HawaiiFive-O)
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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 11:01:47 AM   
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HawaiiFive-O
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Sounds like you did exactly the same thing I did. Perhaps I got lucky.

Regardless, I agree that the 'extra' damaged planes in the starting Nell/Betty groups are annoying and create more micromanagement than I would prefer. I'd be happy if these spare planes were removed, or more pilots were added to each group to balance out the 'brain drain' effect.

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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 12:01:16 PM   
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2ndACR
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Got to say, I have also seen the "pilot drain" in my PBEM. In one of them I only have 35 pilots left on 19 Dec 1941.
And this is Lemurs' scenario that gives 25 extra pilots to help compensate for the drain. I will have to watch for the continue
getting replacments. I can say that one of my fighter groups (I have been watching this one) does not get replacements with
the setting on "Do not recieve".

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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 12:18:15 PM   
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Captain Cruft
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Since the game mechanisms are highly unlikely to change the only thing you can do with the Nell/Betty pilot drain thing is to fix it via the editor. Just set the number of damaged/reserve planes to 0.

As an aside, is there a list anywhere of which types of ship require merchant/naval shipyards? I had been assuming that only AK/AP/TK/AOs used merchant shipyards.

(in reply to 2ndACR)
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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 5:50:28 PM   
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esteban
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Since the game mechanisms are highly unlikely to change the only thing you can do with the Nell/Betty pilot drain thing is to fix it via the editor. Just set the number of damaged/reserve planes to 0.

As an aside, is there a list anywhere of which types of ship require merchant/naval shipyards? I had been assuming that only AK/AP/TK/AOs used merchant shipyards.


Minesweepers, CS, AV, all your tenders and repair ships, and CVEs use the merchant ship yards, as well as the AK/AP/TK/AOs.

(in reply to Captain Cruft)
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RE: Things that need to be fixed before PBEM can work - 8/20/2004 5:53:54 PM   
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esteban
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quote:

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Got to say, I have also seen the "pilot drain" in my PBEM. In one of them I only have 35 pilots left on 19 Dec 1941.
And this is Lemurs' scenario that gives 25 extra pilots to help compensate for the drain. I will have to watch for the continue
getting replacments. I can say that one of my fighter groups (I have been watching this one) does not get replacements with
the setting on "Do not recieve".


Like I said, I have had no problems with my carrier based squadrons, and all my non-LRA land squadrons, taking pilot and aircraft replacements when I did not want them to. Only the Betty and Nell squadrons were doing this.

I guess I will have to fool around with the editor, and see if this ends the problem.

I wish you luck in your PBEM game. I couldn't find a way to get these LRA squadrons to stop sucking up the replacement pool pilots.

(in reply to 2ndACR)
Post #: 12
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