|
Post by dia on Sept 6, 2020 11:42:34 GMT -6
I don't see why aircraft size has to change so drastically that you'd be micromanaging air wings that often. If you keep the size scale small, say 1-5 over the course of the game to represent biplanes, monoplanes, jets, etc, I think it's workable. Also if you allow air wings to be edited class-wide would help. The game already changes the weight of aircraft, without telling the player, and causes carriers to become overweight when they go in for a rebuild. Personally I find carriers to be too simplistic and one of the more poorly implemented aspects of RtW2 so I'm more inclined to these new ideas.
Coincidentally, basing aircraft compliment on size might actually make deck park usable.
|
|
|
Post by noshurviverse on Sept 6, 2020 15:12:50 GMT -6
For those concerned about the potential increase in micromanagement such as aeson and dorn , I would propose a few things that would alleviate such issues. The first would be to have, instead of specific templates, carriers automatically adjust airgroups to maintain the same ratio of aircraft as was assigned to them. So if I have an aircraft carrier with a "volume" of 400, equipped with 80 planes at 5 "size" each for a total of 80 aircraft (20F,20TB, 40DB) and I get a new torpedo bomber that's size 6, the carrier would automatically adjust these airgroups to maintain the 1:1:2 ratio. This could be accompanied by a popup at turn start that says something like: I would also say that we could disregard different aircraft sizes for individual models, and instead tie it only to the march of time. This would limit the need to adjust aircraft squadrons to a few times a game, while also avoiding the oddity that a 10,000t CVL can operate 1950 30 jet aircraft just as well as when it was commissioned and operated biplanes in 1920. Of course, even if we want to scrap aircraft sizes altogether, I feel the other suggestions I provided are still workable, such as the inclusion of elevators and other reworked mechanics.
|
|
seawolf
NWS Team
Posts: 1,406
Member is Online
|
Post by seawolf on Sept 6, 2020 17:53:15 GMT -6
For those concerned about the potential increase in micromanagement such as aeson and dorn , I would propose a few things that would alleviate such issues. The first would be to have, instead of specific templates, carriers automatically adjust airgroups to maintain the same ratio of aircraft as was assigned to them. So if I have an aircraft carrier with a "volume" of 400, equipped with 80 planes at 5 "size" each for a total of 80 aircraft (20F,20TB, 40DB) and I get a new torpedo bomber that's size 6, the carrier would automatically adjust these airgroups to maintain the 1:1:2 ratio. This could be accompanied by a popup at turn start that says something like: I would also say that we could disregard different aircraft sizes for individual models, and instead tie it only to the march of time. This would limit the need to adjust aircraft squadrons to a few times a game, while also avoiding the oddity that a 10,000t CVL can operate 1950 30 jet aircraft just as well as when it was commissioned and operated biplanes in 1920. Of course, even if we want to scrap aircraft sizes altogether, I feel the other suggestions I provided are still workable, such as the inclusion of elevators and other reworked mechanics. Really solid point. I would really like a system where you define each squadron by a percentage of the capacity.
|
|
|
Post by aeson on Sept 6, 2020 22:23:50 GMT -6
Defining squadrons by percentage of available capacity has problems: - It unnecessarily obfuscates the actual number of aircraft being assigned to the carrier. You don't care what the percentage of fighters in the air group is, you care that you have a number of fighters that you consider adequate for your CAP and escort requirements. Is two "20% of maximum capacity" fighter squadrons "adequate?" I don't know, but if it's less than 30 planes on a CV then I'd be very strongly inclined to say "no" unless it's early enough that fighters aren't really that relevant.
- It creates problems for transferring squadrons between carriers. What happens when a 20% Lexington squadron transfers to Yorktown, given that Lexington and Yorktown do not have the same "size?" Does it remain a "20%" squadron and have aircraft vanish into the ether on moving to a smaller Yorktown / become understrength on transferring to a larger Yorktown / magically draw aircraft from nowhere because it was full-strength when it left the smaller Lexington and so is full strength when it arrives on the larger Yorktown / retain its original number of aircraft and become e.g. a 22% Yorktown squadron? How do any such size changes affect squadron quality?
- There is a 20-plane limit on squadron size. What percentage is "20 planes?" How does this interact with squadron-size-as-percentage when transferring between carriers? Except that that there is no resizing algorithm that is universally ideal, because different players do not necessarily put the same importance on each type of aircraft or at every point in the game or for all carriers equally and they especially do not necessarily consider the ratio of one aircraft type to another to be the important thing about the air group. I, for example, would not want to sacrifice the fighter complement to preserve bomber numbers on a big carrier at any point after perhaps the mid-'30s, because fighters are more important to me - they're well on their way to becoming by far the best protection the carrier has against enemy air attack, they protect your air strikes against enemy air defenses, and they're soon to become reasonably effective strike units in their own right, so if something has to go to then the bombers can go first - but earlier in the game when fighters are rather less useful (or on a late-game light carrier with a small bomber group) I might sooner sacrifice them than the (torpedo) bombers, which are more useful than the fighters as reconnaissance assets and are at least theoretically potent strike units even if they haven't yet matured enough to to more than show glimmers of their potential.
Also, this isn't some once-in-a-blue-moon pop-up; it's something that happens now for your carrier that just got equipped with the new torpedo bomber, again next month for the next carrier to be equipped with the new torpedo bomber, and so on until all of your dozen-plus carriers have reequipped their air groups, and then the cycle starts again six or eight months down the road when your new size-6 dive bomber starts entering service - except you get that pop-up up to twice per carrier since you've got two dive bomber squadrons which don't necessarily reequip at the same time - and again a year after that when your new size-6 fighter starts entering service.
Beyond that, this is supposed to be a suggestion to improve 'realism' ... but carrier air group sizes remained relatively stable more or less until the transition to jet aircraft started, when you suddenly see even big carriers like the Midways losing (ultimately) roughly a third or a half of their aircraft complement by number carried, so you have, what, a system that does approximately nothing for the first thirty years or so of the game where aviation is relevant and then suddenly becomes very significant for the last ten years or so of the game? A less complicated way to get essentially the same effect would be to have a binary check for jet operability.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 7, 2020 7:31:26 GMT -6
Defining squadrons by percentage of available capacity has problems: - It unnecessarily obfuscates the actual number of aircraft being assigned to the carrier. You don't care what the percentage of fighters in the air group is, you care that you have a number of fighters that you consider adequate for your CAP and escort requirements. Is two "20% of maximum capacity" fighter squadrons "adequate?" I don't know, but if it's less than 30 planes on a CV then I'd be very strongly inclined to say "no" unless it's early enough that fighters aren't really that relevant.
- It creates problems for transferring squadrons between carriers. What happens when a 20% Lexington squadron transfers to Yorktown, given that Lexington and Yorktown do not have the same "size?" Does it remain a "20%" squadron and have aircraft vanish into the ether on moving to a smaller Yorktown / become understrength on transferring to a larger Yorktown / magically draw aircraft from nowhere because it was full-strength when it left the smaller Lexington and so is full strength when it arrives on the larger Yorktown / retain its original number of aircraft and become e.g. a 22% Yorktown squadron? How do any such size changes affect squadron quality?
- There is a 20-plane limit on squadron size. What percentage is "20 planes?" How does this interact with squadron-size-as-percentage when transferring between carriers? Except that that there is no resizing algorithm that is universally ideal, because different players do not necessarily put the same importance on each type of aircraft or at every point in the game or for all carriers equally and they especially do not necessarily consider the ratio of one aircraft type to another to be the important thing about the air group. I, for example, would not want to sacrifice the fighter complement to preserve bomber numbers on a big carrier at any point after perhaps the mid-'30s, because fighters are more important to me - they're well on their way to becoming by far the best protection the carrier has against enemy air attack, they protect your air strikes against enemy air defenses, and they're soon to become reasonably effective strike units in their own right, so if something has to go to then the bombers can go first - but earlier in the game when fighters are rather less useful (or on a late-game light carrier with a small bomber group) I might sooner sacrifice them than the (torpedo) bombers, which are more useful than the fighters as reconnaissance assets and are at least theoretically potent strike units even if they haven't yet matured enough to to more than show glimmers of their potential.
Also, this isn't some once-in-a-blue-moon pop-up; it's something that happens now for your carrier that just got equipped with the new torpedo bomber, again next month for the next carrier to be equipped with the new torpedo bomber, and so on until all of your dozen-plus carriers have reequipped their air groups, and then the cycle starts again six or eight months down the road when your new size-6 dive bomber starts entering service - except you get that pop-up up to twice per carrier since you've got two dive bomber squadrons which don't necessarily reequip at the same time - and again a year after that when your new size-6 fighter starts entering service.
Beyond that, this is supposed to be a suggestion to improve 'realism' ... but carrier air group sizes remained relatively stable more or less until the transition to jet aircraft started, when you suddenly see even big carriers like the Midways losing (ultimately) roughly a third or a half of their aircraft complement by number carried, so you have, what, a system that does approximately nothing for the first thirty years or so of the game where aviation is relevant and then suddenly becomes very significant for the last ten years or so of the game? A less complicated way to get essentially the same effect would be to have a binary check for jet operability. I support your position. The Midway during the 1940s to 1950s carried about 100 aircraft although she was theoretically capable of carrying 137. However, during Vietnam, she only carried 70. Why? The size of the newer aircraft prevented any more aircraft on board. The air wing composition should be based on the number aircraft in a squadron. if you put 18 aircraft in squadron, then two squadrons of fighters depending on the number squadrons per aircraft type. So, the squadron size and number of squadrons should be basic method of outfitting your air wing. Now over time, the carriers will increase in size therefore more aircraft can be carried. However, aircraft get larger as we would expect. Example is the F4F versus the F6F. The first weighed 7423 lbs. whereas the second weighed 12598 lbs. For the Japanese A6M2 Type 21, it weighed 6164 lbs. but the A6M3 type 32 weighed in at 6331 lbs. As you can see, the weight went up on all but the Japanese had a different philosophy of building aircraft. The key is weight because that is what determines the load that can be landed and launched. With folding wings, all aircraft can be reduced in width. Needless to say, designing and configuring a carrier was not simple but complex and there is, in my opinion, no way to get the game to be exact.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 7, 2020 11:51:55 GMT -6
Just some information from one of my sources about maximum and practical aircraft numbers on a carrier.
On an Essex class carrier, using deck parks, the flight deck had room for about 22 rows of five planes each. On the hangar deck, there was room for about 13 rows of four planes each. In total, there was room for about 174 planes. This is with everybody jammed in with wings folded and with no room to move, much less operate. A more realistic capacity would be 60 on the flight deck and 40–50 in the hangar. In the raids on the Japanese home islands in July 1945, the Bennington carried 37 Corsairs, 37 Hellcats, 15 Helldivers, and 15 Avengers for a total of 105 planes which was close to the maximum an Essex carried during the war. By this time there was less need for deck-load strikes and it was mostly a question of keeping a large number of fighters on station doing ground support and/or CAP.
Celander, Lars. How Carriers Fought: Carrier Operations in World War II (p. 46). Casemate Publishers (Ignition). Kindle Edition.
|
|
|
Post by potrero on Sept 7, 2020 19:53:13 GMT -6
I like this idea, and I think folding wings should figure into it as well. Folding wings would reduce the effective size value of a plane, allowing more and larger planes on the ship, at slight penalty in aircraft performance (heavier weight) and a larger one in cost per airframe. Make it a selectable option when requesting a new design, so players can potentially have one type in a given category for carrier use and another for land-based air.
|
|
|
Post by generalvikus on Sept 8, 2020 2:03:17 GMT -6
[1] Defining squadrons by percentage of available capacity has problems: - It unnecessarily obfuscates the actual number of aircraft being assigned to the carrier. You don't care what the percentage of fighters in the air group is, you care that you have a number of fighters that you consider adequate for your CAP and escort requirements. Is two "20% of maximum capacity" fighter squadrons "adequate?" I don't know, but if it's less than 30 planes on a CV then I'd be very strongly inclined to say "no" unless it's early enough that fighters aren't really that relevant.
...
[2] Except that that there is no resizing algorithm that is universally ideal, because different players do not necessarily put the same importance on each type of aircraft or at every point in the game or for all carriers equally and they especially do not necessarily consider the ratio of one aircraft type to another to be the important thing about the air group. I, for example, would not want to sacrifice the fighter complement to preserve bomber numbers on a big carrier at any point after perhaps the mid-'30s, because fighters are more important to me - they're well on their way to becoming by far the best protection the carrier has against enemy air attack, they protect your air strikes against enemy air defenses, and they're soon to become reasonably effective strike units in their own right, so if something has to go to then the bombers can go first - but earlier in the game when fighters are rather less useful (or on a late-game light carrier with a small bomber group) I might sooner sacrifice them than the (torpedo) bombers, which are more useful than the fighters as reconnaissance assets and are at least theoretically potent strike units even if they haven't yet matured enough to to more than show glimmers of their potential.
[3] Also, this isn't some once-in-a-blue-moon pop-up; it's something that happens now for your carrier that just got equipped with the new torpedo bomber, again next month for the next carrier to be equipped with the new torpedo bomber, and so on until all of your dozen-plus carriers have reequipped their air groups, and then the cycle starts again six or eight months down the road when your new size-6 dive bomber starts entering service - except you get that pop-up up to twice per carrier since you've got two dive bomber squadrons which don't necessarily reequip at the same time - and again a year after that when your new size-6 fighter starts entering service.
[4] Beyond that, this is supposed to be a suggestion to improve 'realism' ... but carrier air group sizes remained relatively stable more or less until the transition to jet aircraft started, when you suddenly see even big carriers like the Midways losing (ultimately) roughly a third or a half of their aircraft complement by number carried, so you have, what, a system that does approximately nothing for the first thirty years or so of the game where aviation is relevant and then suddenly becomes very significant for the last ten years or so of the game? A less complicated way to get essentially the same effect would be to have a binary check for jet operability. I agree with your point that transferring squadrons between carriers becomes a problem with the proportional solution, but I don't understand the objections that I have quoted above. 1. I don't think that anyone is suggesting that squadrons should not display the number of aircraft. In the proportional solution, I think it goes without saying that when you adjust squadron size, you should get a popup which displays on one side the proportion of the air group and on the other the number of aircraft assigned to that squadron. 2. I don't think that anyone assumed that this feature ought to allow the algorithm to 'take care' of each carrier's air wing from the time it is constructed until the end of the game. Neither does the current system. A proportional system would allow the player to adjust the proportions of aircraft over time according to changing mission requirements; as does the current system based on absolute numbers of aircraft. There would be no difference to the player's ability to influence aircraft complements, or the necessity of doing so. 3. Why does there need to be any popup at all to notify the player when the size of a squadron is automatically changed? When an 'algorithm' was suggested, was it not implied that the process would be behind the scenes? 4. I am not well versed in this topic, but I think there may be two different historical trends at play here - on one hand, hangar height, which affected the types of aircraft which could be operated but not necessarily their number during the interwar years, and on the other, hangar space, which came into play mostly at the turn of the jet age. I disagree that this age is unimportant because it encompasses the 'last 10 years of the game.' SAMs and SSMs having now been added, extends the time period covered by the game, and with the more detailed treatment which the devs have suggested for a DLC, will extend it further. Naval aviation needs to catch up.
|
|
|
Post by noshurviverse on Sept 9, 2020 2:04:22 GMT -6
There seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding aeson , which rereading my post may have been caused by my slightly ambiguous wording. It was never my intention to suggest that you would define a carrier's air groups by a role ratio, rather I was suggesting that a carrier's airgroups (created in the same manner as they are now) would be adjusted in response to an increase in aircraft sizes to maintain the same ratio they had before. So to explain my example more clearly. Step 1: carrier is commissioned, air volume 400 Step 2: squadrons are assigned as normal, 20F squadron, 20TB squadron, 20DB squadron, 20DB squadron. All planes size 5 Step 3: new TB of size 6 introduced Step 4: carrier automatically adjusts airgroups to 19F squadron, 19TB squadron, 19DB squadron, 19DB squadron (or 18DB squadron, 20DB squadron) Later on you seem to be under the impression I want to remove the ability for the player to adjust air group dispositions, quite frankly I'm not sure how you got that impression. - There is a 20-plane limit on squadron size. That limit is arbitrary and the game seems to work fine even when it is violated. I suspect it was put in place largely to act as a cutoff point, to avoid awkwardly large airgroups (protecting the player from themselves) and perhaps to reflect historical sizes. The constant popups of "A new [nation] [aircraft] is entering service, faster than our model" is quite annoying, I will certainly agree with that. With that being said however, such a message could also be moved to a simple turn message as these are, rather than being a popup window. This is a subject that I would have to do some looking into and so far I've ran into difficulty coming to a strong conclusion on this. While a casual look seems to indicate this, I'm uncertain if many of these numbers are influenced by innovations such as deck parking or if there existed a period when shifts from biplanes to monoplane caused a difference that was offset by folding wings. In any case, while a carriers airgroup may possibly have remained somewhat steady, there are many examples of carriers having difficulties operating larger/heavier aircraft for such reasons, such as Junyō and Ryūjō mentioned in my OP. generalvikus largely responded in a manner I would have, addressing some of the points I feel were misinterpreted as well. I would also be curious to know people's perspectives on the other changes I listed off.
|
|
|
Post by nimrod on Sept 10, 2020 8:46:03 GMT -6
Nosh, I agree with your thoughts outside of the open hanger vs closed hanger. I think, as you noted that, it gets a bit muddled in history as well as potential game mechanics. A few alternative ways of accomplishing the ageing of carries - 1. Speed of the carrier affecting max weapon load rather than spotting capacity. For example once an aircraft has a size of 6, it can't take off with a 1000lb weapon load unless catapults are used or carrier speed is 28 knots. It could take off with fuel for its short range endurance and a 250lb bomb though as long as carrier speed is 23 knots. A fighter with a size of 3 would not be limited due to its lack of a weapon load and to mimic it being a biplane with low wing loading / greater lift than a mono-plane. 2. I would suggest having two or three different models of each type of AC available to be in production / service. This would allow you to keep the CVL's and smaller CV's outfitted with suitable numbers of smaller AC - especially if they have good trade protection and or sub hunting capabilities. Honestly their was nothing wrong with A-4 Skyraiders in Vietnam.
I'm thinking of but in no way pushing for the following sizes. One would expect representative aircraft to be + or - 1 or 1.5 on the below scale due to technology differences and or performance differences - for example the HE-162 or ME-163 would physically fit in at a size 4 or 5 while a F9F would I think fit nicely at size 6. All three being non-props would have special fuel, maintenance equipment / parts and other specifics which could move them into the size 6 range. Same would apply with floatplanes - special maintenance requirements might push for uniform sizes.
1. small missile 2. medium missile / small biplane 3. large missile / medium biplane / small floatplane / small helicopter 4. large biplane / medium floatplane/ small mono-wing plane.
5. medium mono-wing plane and helicopter 6. large mono-wing plane (may have radar or other technologies) and helicopter / small or early jet fighter 7. multi-role jets 8-9. large jets (have all the bells and whistles like ASM, AAM, radar) 10. non-hangarable planes, historical examples are B-25, E-2 Hawkeye or extremely large missiles per Operation Sandy. I would also toss in large floatplanes / seaplanes - see 3B below.
3. A. CVL's might not require elevators and some early lets say pre-1929 CV's might not require them until you put lets say size 5 aircraft on them. A number of early carriers experimented with two or even flight decks to get around aircraft handling issues and increase flight tempo. Also some escort / jeep carriers (Boque class comes to mind) did not using elevators due to cost and their support mission which warranted a small air-group. For an in game example elevators would be required on a 9000 ton CVL once you use more than 80 total AC size points or 10000 ton CVL with 90 total AC size. Regular inline flight deck elevators would be limited to conversion to CVL or CV or for new designs while I think deck edge lift elevators should be able to be retrofitted at any time once the tech is researched. Tying elevator tech into size of AC I think is really smart; might make sense to represent elevators by the max size of AC they can handle - i.e. elevator 4, elevator 7 (which could handle 2 size 3 AC), elevator 10 (which could handle 2 size 4 AC or 1 size 10 AC)... This could also allow a little bit of randomness in that by the 50's you might have size 10 elevators but max AC size of 8. Planners were starting to think in terms of 10 years out in regards to AC development and ship designs - specifically catapult max weights, strengthening the deck for higher landing weights and jet exhausts and hanger / elevator sizes.
B. When taken together with 2 - this could allow for some interesting mods and or combinations such as helicopter CVL's, SRBM or MRBM carriers per Operation Sandy and or Kirov BC's types. CVLs could also potentially become sea plane tenders...
|
|