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Post by mobeer on Jun 10, 2019 13:27:59 GMT -6
One thing that seems to be missing in this analysis is the availability rate of aircraft. It seems as if in each battle 100% of the aircraft available are ready for action. In reality this might be much lower; for example if real readiness was 40% then to launch 20 planes from a base would need to have a strength of 50 in total.
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Post by ramjb on Jun 10, 2019 13:29:59 GMT -6
Jun 10, 2019 21:21:08 GMT 2 alsadius said:
Then let's look at WW1
We should get a proper tonnage count by 1918, or the number of enlisted men of the RN in 1921 to do a proper analysis that way - after WW1 many british ships were paid off (including a very large number of armored cruisers, predreds and even some dreadnoughts), and a good number of enlisted men obviously left the RN after the war was over. Comparing 1921 tonnage numbers with 1918 enlisted numbers makes very little sense as a result.
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Post by alsadius on Jun 10, 2019 14:01:33 GMT -6
Jun 10, 2019 21:21:08 GMT 2 alsadius said:
Then let's look at WW1We should get a proper tonnage count by 1918, or the number of enlisted men of the RN in 1921 to do a proper analysis that way - after WW1 many british ships were paid off (including a very large number of armored cruisers, predreds and even some dreadnoughts), and a good number of enlisted men obviously left the RN after the war was over. Comparing 1921 tonnage numbers with 1918 enlisted numbers makes very little sense as a result. Agreed, but I can't find good numbers on that. I'm surprised to have even gotten a hard personnel number. I'd love to see them, if you know of any good places to dig such values up.
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Post by tortugapower on Jun 10, 2019 15:57:51 GMT -6
Here's a different way of analyzing the relative costs of ships and planes in the game and historically. Here's a quote from: American and British Carrier Development 1919-1940, Hone, Friedman and Mandeles, p. 161. "In 1931 the General Board estimated that replacing a carrier's air wing every three years would, over the carrier's lifetime, cost as much as the carrier itself."
Using this reference as a guide I decided to analyse the respective costs of a carrier and its air group in RTW2. <snip! analysis follows> Thanks a lot for the reference and analysis! When I first read the quote in blue, I interpreted "the cost of the carrier itself" to be the initial/purchase cost. You interpreted as the purchase cost plus its maintenance. Is there another state in context that shows it means the carrier plus its maintenance? If it's a comparison with the carrier including maintenance, it seems about right. If it's only supposed to be a comparison with purchase cost, it's 2x higher.
There is another way of viewing things here. Maybe the maintenance of land-based aircraft can be somehow less, shared somehow with army. I'd say the problem is having all the aircraft on land (carrier squadrons alone are very reasonable, both management and cost). The land-based aircraft are not under player control, so it's not a big deal if we abstract it a bit more. Has serious consideration on the design team been given to reducing the complexity of the system? Namely, aside from spawning aircraft to influence the ship battles themselves, what if more things are shifted to the strategic layer? Medium bombers would fit better there, akin to submarine action, and we can have events like bombing ports (which are currently absent, aren't they?) This is a horrible thing to suggest, as I'm basically saying "you know all that nice coding Fredrik did? what if we just don't use it." But maybe naval air bases are having too much influence on the game. I personally sit neutral on this right now, but when I see people saying "I don't play in the Mediterranean to avoid the land-based aircraft dominating there", it begs the question.
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 10, 2019 16:08:26 GMT -6
Here's a different way of analyzing the relative costs of ships and planes in the game and historically. Here's a quote from: American and British Carrier Development 1919-1940, Hone, Friedman and Mandeles, p. 161. "In 1931 the General Board estimated that replacing a carrier's air wing every three years would, over the carrier's lifetime, cost as much as the carrier itself."
Using this reference as a guide I decided to analyse the respective costs of a carrier and its air group in RTW2. <snip! analysis follows> Thanks a lot for the reference and analysis! When I first read the quote in blue, I interpreted "the cost of the carrier itself" to be the initial/purchase cost. You interpreted as the purchase cost plus its maintenance. Is there another state in context that shows it means the carrier plus its maintenance? If it's a comparison with the carrier including maintenance, it seems about right. If it's only supposed to be a comparison with purchase cost, it's 2x higher.
There is another way of viewing things here. Maybe the maintenance of land-based aircraft can be somehow less, shared somehow with army. I'd say the problem is having all the aircraft on land (carrier squadrons alone are very reasonable, both management and cost). The land-based aircraft are not under player control, so it's not a big deal if we abstract it a bit more. Has serious consideration on the design team been given to reducing the complexity of the system? Namely, aside from spawning aircraft to influence the ship battles themselves, what if more things are shifted to the strategic layer? Medium bombers would fit better there, akin to submarine action, and we can have events like bombing ports (which are currently absent, aren't they?) This is a horrible thing to suggest, as I'm basically saying "you know all that nice coding Fredrik did? what if we just don't use it." But maybe naval air bases are having too much influence on the game. I personally sit neutral on this right now, but when I see people saying "I don't play in the Mediterranean to avoid the land-based aircraft dominating there", it begs the question. The issue with landbased air seems to be steadily improving with patch 1.03, and I never had a gamebreaking experience with it to begin with. That said, I feel better management of reserving/mothballing airforce in general also serves to remedy the OP landbase air problem. If both player and AI can be incentivized to mothball their airforce at peace time to save cost for fleet, we will see a weaker/smaller airforce when war come compared to the full cost, high alert airforce in the current game. So I don't think land based air needs to scrapped completely, just toned down and made easier to manage will go a long way. I am also all for these QoL changes like one key reserve/mothball of air squadrons, RtW did a good job optimizing ship managements, and I have high hopes that the air side of things will continue to improve.
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Post by ramjb on Jun 10, 2019 16:15:31 GMT -6
Maybe the maintenance of land-based aircraft can be somehow less, shared somehow with army. This was suggested some time ago (or something along the lines) but...let me put it this way, if there's an invariable fact about military organizations is that the Navy and the Army can't stand each other. And when it's Navy vs Air Forces the interservice rivalries seen in history are beyond epic; from behind the scenes whispering backstabbing to openly discretiing each other in front of budgetary authorities, there's always been VERY little love lost between those branches in almost every nation of the world. This has been the case in any nation I can think of . And was the reason why Naval Aviation is in most nations was completely under control and responsability of the Navy. And in the only nation where it wasn't the case (Germany) it was because Göring was adamants that HIS planes were...well, HIS, and he saw that no dude in a navy blue uniform would ever dare to tell any of HIS pilots what they should do or not do, or how, for those pilots were HIS ,and only HIS, to command. (all of which obviously didn't fare very well for the german naval effort). In every other case other than that particular exception, Whatever planes the navy operated was the business of the Navy; and the Army (or Air Force, depends on the era and nation) would want to have nothing to do with it. Other than maybe claiming that those planes the Navy controls should be under THEIR control, that is XD. Other than that the navy and air forces were completely unrelated. They even had different designations to the same weapons...and in some cases weapons exclusive to each service (which complicated industrial effort quite a bit, see the Japanese case). And certainly the Air Force wouln't be paying for Navy planes, much less for their maintenaince. Land based aircraft in the game are not under direct player control (for several good reasons, actually, even if it can be annoying at times), but still are navy ownership and managed by the player, even if he doesn't directly command them in battle. The Air Force will look elsewhere and whistle a merry song acting as if they didn't hear you if you even suggested them to pay for their maintenaince XD. As for the strategic considerations, well, Naval aircraft had very limited strategic roles to cover in this timeframe. All the strategic stuff belonged to the Air Forces (Wether independent as in Germany or UK, or Army-dependent as in the USA or japan). Naval planes were used with tactical/operational level in mind and I think in general terms they're correctly implemented in the game and represent naval aviation of the time very well (not perfectly as obviously some things could be improved). To say it in other words Navy Harpoons or Privateers never engaged in level bombing strategic missions (the air force would've lost their mind had they done so)...they were used for air recon, naval attack, and to attack enemy air bases. All of that land based planes do too in the game, and I don't see any sensible reason why that should change in any way . As for "I don't play in the mediterranean to avoid the land-based aircraft dominating there"...well, it's actually a very correct thing to keep in mind...as historically getting into the mediterranean was quite the enormous headache back in WW2 just because of that reason. Some navies as the UK centered their whole carrier design doctrine around the fact that they knew those ships would have to be operated in an environment where land based airpower would be opressive to the extreme... and when the time came for the fights to be fought, indeed, land based air power turned to be extremely opressive. As I said, I think the game replicates it very well at face value but some things need to be considered on that end as I think that pilot attrition and plane loss attrition over time don't extract the same kind of toll in game as it did in real life (reason why in 1942 the Mediterranean was a very dangerous place for allied shipping but by 1943 the picture was very different). I don't think that land based air power being extremely powerful has to go - because it was part of the time's realities. But the problem is not in the fact itself that land power is extremely powerful - is that there were ways to blunt that power over time in real life that in game don't work or don't work as well. That's the part that needs to be adjusted - the rest actually I think the devs got if not spot on in the game; certainly it replicates the operative dangers of sending ships into areas like that which should be part of the experience on a game like this.
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Post by jorgencab on Jun 10, 2019 16:18:06 GMT -6
Why does not air squadron just work like reserve and mothballing for ships in that planes get less maintenance and flight hours during peace to save costs. You would then select and put them in its current status. Planes on ships would just follow the status of the ship. If the ship is in reserve then the planes on the ship is also in reserve.
You can likewise put the entire airbase either in reserve or mothballing it (and the planes on it), which means you save money but there is a warming up period where operations on that airfield treat all planes as having a much worse reliability or something to that effect.
This would be a nice abstraction and easy way to handle the air-force during peace times.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jun 10, 2019 16:36:11 GMT -6
This is a horrible thing to suggest, as I'm basically saying "you know all that nice coding Fredrik did? what if we just don't use it." But maybe naval air bases are having too much influence on the game. I personally sit neutral on this right now, but when I see people saying "I don't play in the Mediterranean to avoid the land-based aircraft dominating there", it begs the question. And the Devil's Advocate response might very well be, "Isn't this a valid strategic issue that is being dutifully presented to the player to resolve?"
We went round and round on land-based-air, and without talking too much about the ingredients in the soup, I have to say I am delighted with the system that Fredrik landed upon. Which is not to invalidate your opinion, only to state mine. :]
EDIT: ramjb said it first, for point of order.
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Post by tortugapower on Jun 10, 2019 16:46:49 GMT -6
I think the current system can/should stay myself. However, I have to say it's an often-overlooked part of problem-solving to "cut your losses" so-to-speak, basically take a lot of work you've done and just toss it out, but that can lead to a better solution sometimes.
The big thing was allowing the air battles to continue in the background of a battle without pausing the game or slowing down to Fast (from Ultra Fast). Having resolved that, I don't think there will be justification for tossing all the simulated aircraft out the window.
That said, I think port bombing strategic events should still make their way in!
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jun 10, 2019 16:53:38 GMT -6
That said, I think port bombing strategic events should still make their way in! I heartily concur, and that is all I can currently say about that. :]
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Post by mycophobia on Jun 10, 2019 16:59:00 GMT -6
That said, I think port bombing strategic events should still make their way in! I heartily concur, and that is all I can currently say about that. :] This can, sort of happen if you ran into a port surprise attack mission with your carriers, but decided to let your landbased medium bomber do the work insteaed ;P They suck tho, at least in 1930 x.x
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Post by tortugapower on Jun 10, 2019 17:20:09 GMT -6
That said, I think port bombing strategic events should still make their way in! I heartily concur, and that is all I can currently say about that. :] Man, you guys have already thought of everything! Similar to the British intelligence who came up with great new inventions, and then couldn't discuss them even after the public had innovated them later, in parallel.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jun 10, 2019 17:32:00 GMT -6
"You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."
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Post by JagdFlanker on Jun 11, 2019 2:06:32 GMT -6
a lot of the issues with land airbases might be resolved by airbases only receiving 10-12 capacity per tech level instead of 20, if only to keep the total numbers down.
perhaps the player can choose airbase capacity per level at game start - perhaps they might want to keep it at 6 aircraft capacity per level to simplify the land based portion of the game (and keep the ai from spending so much budget on airbases/aircraft)
don't know if this wrecks balance with CVs though, as you can build 100 capacity CVs rather quickly in game once you get CV tech - perhaps a corresponding increase in weight per plane for CV/CVL capacity to balance? if it costs 120t per aircraft capacity on a CV with the current 20 land-based capacity per tech level, maybe double CV capacity cost to 240t per aircraft when you reduce land based capacity by half to 10 capacity per tech level, etc
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Post by dorn on Jun 11, 2019 2:39:38 GMT -6
a lot of the issues with land airbases might be resolved by airbases only receiving 10-12 capacity per tech level instead of 20, if only to keep the total numbers down. perhaps the player can choose airbase capacity per level at game start - perhaps they might want to keep it at 6 aircraft capacity per level to simplify the land based portion of the game (and keep the ai from spending so much budget on airbases/aircraft) don't know if this wrecks balance with CVs though, as you can build 100 capacity CVs rather quickly in game once you get CV tech - perhaps a corresponding increase in weight per plane for CV/CVL capacity to balance? if it costs 120t per aircraft capacity on a CV with the current 20 land-based capacity per tech level, maybe double CV capacity cost to 240t per aircraft when you reduce land based capacity by half to 10 capacity per tech level, etc But I think that operating in areas where enemy airbases are present should be very difficult.
On other hand missions in these areas should be limited and if some happens it should be well protected by carrier force. You can have convoy mission in the Mediterranean or bombardment of cost or destroying land target but in all these type of mission it should not be deep in enemy area. And your carrier force should be present or it should be during night, you will not commence such mission without carrier force or at night.
I played UK vs. Russia in Baltic and starting position is too close to target as I can reach bombardment target with heavy load bombers. I should start at edge of my range or even better on edge of enemy range and decide how to proceed.
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