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Allied Replacement pilot experience - 12/6/2002 1:35:15 AM   
bobman5352

 

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/18/2002
Status: offline 		Not sure if this is a bug or not...

I've been seeing extremely low experience for some of my replacement pilots, playing as Allies, 6/42, Scen 17. A lot of my squads have been getting a few pilots with experience in the 20s. Is this supposed to be the case? I thought allies had decent training programs...
Post #: 1
- 12/6/2002 1:46:51 AM   
dulsin

 

Posts: 10
Joined: 11/26/2002
Status: offline 		OUCH!

I haven't seen that yet in my game but it doesn't surprise me. The Allies were scraping the barrel in '42.

When you see alot of wet nosed pilots showing up put them on training. Once they get to about 50 you can bring them back into service and your experianced pilots probably need the rest.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 2
Re: Allied Replacement pilot experience - 12/6/2002 3:09:22 AM   
Von_Frag

 

Posts: 105
Joined: 5/7/2002
From: Dallas, Texas
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by bobman5352
[B]Not sure if this is a bug or not...

I've been seeing extremely low experience for some of my replacement pilots, playing as Allies, 6/42, Scen 17. A lot of my squads have been getting a few pilots with experience in the 20s. Is this supposed to be the case? I thought allies had decent training programs... [/B][/QUOTE]

I too was going to post about this. My replacement Army pilots seem ok, but the Navy pilots I am getting are experience 20 to 30. I have to do a lot of training and watch those guys chew up the carrier decks. :D

Von Frag

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 3
- 12/6/2002 3:54:20 AM   
Yamamoto

 

Posts: 743
Joined: 11/21/2001
From: Miami, Fl. U.S.A.
Status: offline 		20s is typical for me as the Japanese. 30s are good numbers to get. Often my pilots have skill below the 20s.

I think both sides should start ALL replacements with skill around 20 or so. It would be up to the player to decide how long to train them up before putting them into combat.

Yamamoto

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 4
- 12/6/2002 8:03:27 AM   
Von_Frag

 

Posts: 105
Joined: 5/7/2002
From: Dallas, Texas
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Yamamoto
[B]20s is typical for me as the Japanese. 30s are good numbers to get. Often my pilots have skill below the 20s.

I think both sides should start ALL replacements with skill around 20 or so. It would be up to the player to decide how long to train them up before putting them into combat.

Yamamoto [/B][/QUOTE]

The only problem with this is the newbies tend to die in large numbers during training only to be replaced by equally low experience pilots, thus continuing the vicious cycle. :rolleyes:

Von Frag

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 5
Re: Allied Replacement pilot experience - 12/6/2002 8:56:30 AM   
Pawlock

 

Posts: 1041
Joined: 9/18/2002
From: U.K.
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by bobman5352
[B]Not sure if this is a bug or not...

I've been seeing extremely low experience for some of my replacement pilots, playing as Allies, 6/42, Scen 17. A lot of my squads have been getting a few pilots with experience in the 20s. Is this supposed to be the case? I thought allies had decent training programs... [/B][/QUOTE]

Even the Allied training pool is not a bottomless pit, I would hazard a guess you have had some large losses recently? In which if that is the case then your demand on new pilots is outstripping the supply hence this is modelled by a lower initial level.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 6
Re: Re: Allied Replacement pilot experience - 12/6/2002 9:04:26 PM   
Mike Wood


Posts: 2095
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Oakland, California
Status: offline 		Hello...

The game actually tracks the number of each kind of pilot in training and if you need more new pilots than are being properly trained you get some that have not been properly trained. The training values change over time and by 1943, it gets worse for the Japanese.

In the next patch, we have doubled up on the training values. You will be taking pilots out of other commands (Central Pacific, for instance). This will allow more fully trained pilots into theater. It is still wise to conserve your pilots, who are actually more rare than some aircraft. Don't fly them, if they are fatigued. Fly missions from the closest base available. Do not fly off rough airfields. Do not let enemy bombers bomb your airfield. Use tough aircraft with a lot of firepower, like the Nick, against enemy bombers. Pull the group out of combat and train them, if you have more rookies than you can get by with. These things will keep your pilots alive, so they do not have to be replaced with pilots who have only had 2 hours of flight training. I know it is hard to do all these things and some are mutually exclusive. But, the decisions are yours.

Hope this Helps...

Michael Wood

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 7
- 12/6/2002 9:51:29 PM   
Yamamoto

 

Posts: 743
Joined: 11/21/2001
From: Miami, Fl. U.S.A.
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Von_Frag
[B]

The only problem with this is the newbies tend to die in large numbers during training only to be replaced by equally low experience pilots, thus continuing the vicious cycle. :rolleyes:

Von Frag [/B][/QUOTE]

Yeah, that's what I was complaining about months ago. Someone here posted a solution: set the groups to training with 0% training. The pilots will still gain skill (ground school, I guess) and suffer no chance of dying. I tried it and it works.

When I got my pilot's license I know there is a lot you learn on the ground before you ever fly the plane solo. I guess guys with experience below 50 haven't even done the ground school stuff yet.

I'm glad to hear the number of pilots in the pools will be doubled in the next patch. Although, as the Japanese, I've learned to deal with the problem already. Umm... BOTH Japanese and American pools are being doubled in the next patch, right?

Yamamoto

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 8
Re: Re: Re: Allied Replacement pilot experience - 12/6/2002 9:58:40 PM   
Pawlock

 

Posts: 1041
Joined: 9/18/2002
From: U.K.
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mike Wood
[B]Hello...

The game actually tracks the number of each kind of pilot in training and if you need more new pilots than are being properly trained you get some that have not been properly trained. The training values change over time and by 1943, it gets worse for the Japanese.

In the next patch, we have doubled up on the training values. You will be taking pilots out of other commands (Central Pacific, for instance). This will allow more fully trained pilots into theater. It is still wise to conserve your pilots, who are actually more rare than some aircraft. Don't fly them, if they are fatigued. Fly missions from the closest base available. Do not fly off rough airfields. Do not let enemy bombers bomb your airfield. Use tough aircraft with a lot of firepower, like the Nick, against enemy bombers. Pull the group out of combat and train them, if you have more rookies than you can get by with. These things will keep your pilots alive, so they do not have to be replaced with pilots who have only had 2 hours of flight training. I know it is hard to do all these things and some are mutually exclusive. But, the decisions are yours.

Hope this Helps...

Michael Wood [/B][/QUOTE]

Is this proposed change applicable to both sides? even if it is you are immediatly doing away of a valuable Allied strataegy of attrition on the Jap airforce. This is one of my major strategies when playing USN.

This although has been mentioned before about quality pilots, especially IJN in later game, I did'nt think it was much of a problem insomuch as this was the way it was then in the war?

Ok , now maybe Im getting paranoid, maybe your getting more private mails on issues not debated in these forums here,but I am getting pretty dissillusioned by the way some things are mentioned a few times and a remodelling of some system is undertaken. What I want to know is , considering all the play changes introduced during say the last 3 patches ,how can you be sure play balance still exists? This is something I would imagine took the original alpha and beta testers many,many months to establish, yet a multitude of major changes have been introduced within a few months.

Now I appreciate you are doing this with best intentions towards your customer base, but just fear you are jumping to quick on some big issues, and in doing so are altering the game I love at the moment to a mere shell of what it was.

Anyway ,had to get that off my chest, its been bugging(no pun intended) me for a while now.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 9
- 12/6/2002 10:08:35 PM   
mdiehl

 

Posts: 5998
Joined: 10/21/2000
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]The Allies were scraping the barrel in '42. [/QUOTE]

A meaningless assessment. Allied pilots in 1942 were not released to combat with substandard training, and, unlike in the IJNAF, the training standards for pilot qualification in the USN/USMC were not lowered at any time during the war.

Much more accurate to start new USN pilots at the same EXP levels seen on the at-start CVs. One might drop USMC units a couple points, at most, because they spent little time training in carrier landings in those days.

If you're seeing new USN/USMC pilots with more than 10% difference from the 1941 Kido Butai pilots, the model's wrong.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 10
- 12/6/2002 11:16:29 PM   
Yamamoto

 

Posts: 743
Joined: 11/21/2001
From: Miami, Fl. U.S.A.
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]
Much more accurate to start new USN pilots at the same EXP levels seen on the at-start CVs. [/B][/QUOTE]

You can't say this because in this game, as opposed to real life, there is an unlimited supply of pilots whenever you need them. In a real life training program there would only be X number of pilots in training. In this game a pilot is generated whenver you need one. Matrix has modeled this very well. They give X number of pilots at historical levels and then give you unlimited more based on a projected scale of lesser experience. To model the real world situation you would never get these extra pilots. You would get X at historical and then get no more until one of the 'extras' got his experience up to historical levels. Far better to get him into the game at a lower experience than not get him at all.

Yamamoto

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 11
- 12/7/2002 12:08:33 AM   
Howard Mitchell


Posts: 449
Joined: 6/3/2002
From: Blighty
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]
Much more accurate to start new USN pilots at the same EXP levels seen on the at-start CVs. [/B][/QUOTE]

Many of those pre-war pilots would presumably have had lengthy peacetime careers to develop their skills on top of their basic training, something which wartime pilots would not have had the luxury of.

_____________________________

While the battles the British fight may differ in the widest possible ways, they invariably have two common characteristics – they are always fought uphill and always at the junction of two or more map sheets.

General Sir William Slim

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 12
- 12/7/2002 10:41:05 AM   
Mike Wood


Posts: 2095
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Oakland, California
Status: offline 		Hello...

Yes, the increase applies to both Allies and Japanese forces. Please note, that even doubled, the Japanese program produces few trained pilots.

Bye...

Michael Wood

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 13
Re: Re: Re: Allied Replacement pilot experience - 12/7/2002 10:33:29 PM   
Von_Frag

 

Posts: 105
Joined: 5/7/2002
From: Dallas, Texas
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mike Wood
[B]Hello...

The game actually tracks the number of each kind of pilot in training and if you need more new pilots than are being properly trained you get some that have not been properly trained. The training values change over time and by 1943, it gets worse for the Japanese.

In the next patch, we have doubled up on the training values. You will be taking pilots out of other commands (Central Pacific, for instance). This will allow more fully trained pilots into theater. It is still wise to conserve your pilots, who are actually more rare than some aircraft. Don't fly them, if they are fatigued. Fly missions from the closest base available. Do not fly off rough airfields. Do not let enemy bombers bomb your airfield. Use tough aircraft with a lot of firepower, like the Nick, against enemy bombers. Pull the group out of combat and train them, if you have more rookies than you can get by with. These things will keep your pilots alive, so they do not have to be replaced with pilots who have only had 2 hours of flight training. I know it is hard to do all these things and some are mutually exclusive. But, the decisions are yours.

Hope this Helps...

Michael Wood [/B][/QUOTE]

That is detail indeed. I did notice that if you let the squadron sit for awhile without training that the rookies experience will climb to 50 or so. I did this with a PBY squadron that had 4 pilots with good experience and the rest were in the 20's and 30's. I put them on training but got tired of losing PBY's when the front line units needed them. I put them on ice until my reserve of PBY's built up. In about 3 weeks when I had ample PBY's, I went back to activate this unit and found the rookies experience was aproaching 50 and was at 50 in most cases. Now this squadron is doing fine.

Von Frag

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 14
Yamato, Howard - 12/8/2002 12:11:03 AM   
mdiehl

 

Posts: 5998
Joined: 10/21/2000
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]You can't say this because in this game, as opposed to real life, there is an unlimited supply of pilots whenever you need them. In a real life training program there would only be X number of pilots in training.[/QUOTE]

Well, maybe the game should not generate an unlimited number of pilots. Typically VMF and VF groups in 1942 had (IIRC) 1.5 pilots per plane approximately. When an Allied group gets shot up too badly, perhaps the CPU should just withdraw the group for some fixed interval. The Japanese, on the other hand, should be allowed to deplete their pilot pool in forward deploed units.

[QUOTE]Many of those pre-war pilots would presumably have had lengthy peacetime careers to develop their skills on top of their basic training, something which wartime pilots would not have had the luxury of.[/QUOTE]

Very true. There were, nevertheless, minimum standards below which the US would in general never have allowed a pilot into combat. Although the US in 1942 had many pilots in the pipeline (past elementary pilot training, I'm talking about guys graduated in mid-late 1941), and many available airframes, the dearth of front-line pilots was largely because the US simply refused to deploy them until the pilots were deemed ready. But *if* you assume that a pilot is deployed to a VF group in particular, then you *must* assume a level of training intensity and airtime that is rather high, because the mere act of taking off from or landing on a carrier requires much more training than taking off or landing from a runway.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 15
Bumping this one back up...... - 2/26/2003 9:34:18 AM   
JohnK

 

Posts: 285
Joined: 2/8/2001
Status: offline 		Ummm....

I'm playing a PBEM game (Scen 12) as the Allies and have made it to the end of May without a CV battle.

Overall, I've lost something like a TOTAL of 2-3 Wildcats from BOTH of my CVs.

I finally got enough F4F-4s in the pool so that the 21 F4F-3s on Lexington that it starts the scenario with were traded in for 36 F-4F-4s.

So on the next turn when I got the 15 additional pilots, ALL of them showed up with 30 experience...

I mean, it's one thing to get barely trained pilots after you've had massive attrition, but getting EXP 30 pilots merely because of a plane trade in? I realize it's a slug of pilots at once but in the previous month I've barely used any naval replacement pilots at all.

The F4F-3s traded in have now been assigned to the Yorktown, of course, bringing it's 16 planes to 36, and I assume all 20 of the replacement pilots I get for it next turn will be at an execrable 30 EXP as well.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 16
- 2/26/2003 10:30:08 AM   
Mr.Frag


Posts: 13410
Joined: 12/18/2002
From: Purgatory
Status: offline 		The problem with the CV F4F-3 to F4F-4 upgrade is you go from 21 F4F-3 pilots on one CV and 21 F4F-3 pilots on the other CV to a full group of 36 F4F-4's and a full group of 36 F4F-3's all at once.

This is a hit on naval pilots of 30 in one turn, which completely strips supply and gets you some really low skilled pilots dropped in your laps ... Keep a very close eye on your replacements pool for when you are getting close to the upgrade and make sure you are in a position to stand down your CV's for a bit until you get past this new group of misfits onboard.

Had your pilots trickled in bit by bit over time back up to the full crew, this would not happen, but since you get no F4F-3's at all, this doesn't happen until there are enough F4F-4's to completely replace the one squadron which causes this harshness.

This same thing happens anytime you get a depleted sqaudron dropping in and you have the planes in the pool to bring it up to full strength. This hits the fighter squadrons worst, as they are the largest group size. As long as you know whats happening, you can stand them down until they recover ...

This sounds like it will be somewhat fixed in 2.30 with this upgrade only happening when you go back to port with your CV's so it's no longer going to happen at dangerous times like in the middle of your CV vs CV battle :rolleyes:

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 17
- 2/26/2003 10:45:07 AM   
JohnK

 

Posts: 285
Joined: 2/8/2001
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mr.Frag
[B]The problem with the CV F4F-3 to F4F-4 upgrade is you go from 21 F4F-3 pilots on one CV and 21 F4F-3 pilots on the other CV to a full group of 36 F4F-4's and a full group of 36 F4F-3's all at once.[/B][/QUOTE]

No, actually, it wasn't all at once; the 2nd CV has gotten the planes but not the pilots.

So, basically, even including Dauntlesses and Devastors the number of naval pilots I've used so far in the game prior to the F4F-4 replacement could have been counted on one hand.

Then just to get a slug of 15 pilots, they're all basically trained to the level where they can't land on a carrier without dying.

And no, I can't exactly "stand my carriers down" as I'm about to send a landing force to Irau, I haven't had a CV battle yet, and given I'm also about to get Enterprise early this may be the only CV battle chance with decent odds the whole game.

The CVs are IN Noumea at the moment. Doesn't look like 2.30 will help at all.

Basically, all I'm saying is that this doesn't happen solely because people have huge losses...it simply happens when the original micro-fighter groups on the US CVs expand to their full size.

It would be one thing if they were 50 EXP pilots...even though they'll get slaughtered in battle, they can actually train. 30 EXP is so bad they are very close to dying faster in training than they can be trained up.

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 18
- 2/26/2003 12:37:54 PM   
CapAndGown


Posts: 3206
Joined: 3/6/2001
From: Virginia, USA
Status: offline 		[QUOTE]Originally posted by JohnK
[B]No, actually, it wasn't all at once; the 2nd CV has gotten the planes but not the pilots.
[/B][/QUOTE]

As soon as the planes are repaired, the pilots will appear. It may be, however, that they will be better than the ones that filled out the F4F-4 squadron. At least this is what I found.

I wonder if there might be a bug associated with pilot allocation and upgrades? The difference between what happens with -4 squadron, which recieves all its planes in working order, and the -3 squadron, which recieves it planes as needing repair, is the number of pilots allocated at one go. If the pilots dribble in, you usually don't have a problem. But if you get a big allocation all at once, they tend to be worse.

You might want to test this out and if it is repeatable send the save to Matrix.


[B][QUOTE]
And no, I can't exactly "stand my carriers down" as I'm about to send a landing force to Irau, I haven't had a CV battle yet, and given I'm also about to get Enterprise early this may be the only CV battle chance with decent odds the whole game.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Bad move. Why are USN players so impatient? I just love it when the USN gets all John Wayne early on when I am playing the IJN. I can't think of a better way to hand your opponent a victory. PATIENCE GRASSHOPPER!

(in reply to bobman5352)
Post #: 19
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