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Post by generalvikus on May 3, 2024 9:47:26 GMT -6
generalvikus I've now finished running your original posted save through 23 months of gameplay and have not noted any significant issues, including also renaming a number of new ships with no issue. We don't see many reports of corrupted games; I would first recommend that you run a scan on your drives for errors, see if they are ok. If that is not an issue, then we can look at some other possible factors. What exactly do I need to do? I have never done it before, so it might do me some good.
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Post by generalvikus on May 3, 2024 9:20:03 GMT -6
It may be worth mentioning that the same save is now completely lost for a seemingly unrelated reason (see my other bug report.) When the air wing switching issue happened, I was able to reload the save and the issue simply didn't repeat. On this occasion, I had just overwritten my backup save, so I couldn't recover it. I continued to get shipnameisused whenever trying to save a design, but it wasn't gamebreaking. Like I said, I've played maybe ten saves in RTW3 since release - all were corrupted, and all but the first one didn't last longer than one war. I don't know if others are experiencing bugs as severe as mine, but I suspect the Steam reviews would be far worse if that were the case. I wonder if it has something to do with the save location, since it seems to be different to others. Is there a way to change the save directory?
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Post by generalvikus on May 3, 2024 7:57:23 GMT -6
Straying too far from the line of sight of a visually guided bomb will lower the hit percentage dramatically. Some maneuvering to be less vulnerable to AAA is one thing, but launching a Bullpup from high altitude and then descending to low altitude means the pilot isn't going to provide any effective guidance. Especially when launching from long range, hit rates will be abysmally low. That is how I understood Bullpup usage as well. I thought it was a high altitude only weapon.
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Post by generalvikus on May 3, 2024 2:25:43 GMT -6
Steam.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 22:14:59 GMT -6
Regarding my comment on the likelihood of LABS bombing being used as an anti - ship weapon; it's occurred to me that such a tactic would impose a dilemma on the enemy, as surface formations of the early Cold War era would, presumably, otherwise be very tight to maximise AAA firepower, and such tight formations would be more profitable targets for LABS attacks.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 17:08:35 GMT -6
As noted by larcrivereagle in the parent post, in game, JAs using bombs will indeed nuke surface ships, as you suggest they should. However, I think there are some problems with your examples on ASMs. First, as noted in this thread and elsewhere, the real life USN in the 60s was not really using the ASMs available to the player in game, but rather focusing on iron bombs with some use of marginal ASMs like Bullpup. If the player focuses on missiles and JAs, the player is doing something that the USN did not do in real life. In that case, the game seems to be modeling the use of much longer ranged, more survivable missiles: the Soviets had ASMs with 100km range in the 50s. So I do not believe the relatively low in game loss rates for missile focused JAs are inappropriate, because it's simulating them firing Kelts from over the horizon. Second, perhaps we should be skeptical of the Falklands example. The problem for the loss rates you cite showing more SAM than AAA losses in 1982 is that in RTW3 terms, the Royal Navy in the Falklands basically wasn't using AAA at all! I would translate the 1982 anti-air suite of poor HMS Antelope for example into RTW3 terms as 1x quad LSAM (and a bad LSAM at that), 1x 4" autoloaded DP, and a couple of LAA. That's it: no radar guided MAA at all. If the British had been using copious radar directed 57mm as the Soviets did IRL in the RTW3 late game period, I'd bet a lot more Argentine A-4s would have gone down to AAA than to SAMs. Fair point about the Falklands. As for ASMs - of course there were heavy, long ranged ASMs from the 1950s onwards, but these were carried by medium and heavy bombers, not carrier based aircraft. An A-6 obviously could not carry an AS-1 or AS-4 or AS-5. Were there any Soviet anti - ship missiles designed for use by small tactical aircraft? I can't think of any. It stands to reason that the USN did not put dedicated ASMs on CV based aircraft for anti - ship duties because they would have been less effective than iron bombs, which had a far higher hit rate and lethality, and an acceptable risk to the attacking aircraft. Also, I believe I read somewhere that LABS bombing was to be used against ships, although I'm somewhat skeptical, because nuclear magazines on CVAs were not very deep; and warships, unlike ground targets, are very susceptible to HE. Does anyone have any sources on this?
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 16:54:51 GMT -6
On the IRL topic i think its important to remember that missiles like bullpups can effectively be fired during a pop up, at longer range, and fly to the target while the pilot descends to low altitude, combined with giving enough stand off range to effectively launch outside of Sam range at altitude. Its worth keeping in mind before the schtorm missile in 1969, the S-125 was the soviets only SAM system in widespread use, and it has rather limited range and capability. Its worth noting that the bullpups can glide quite far, and go quite far under rocket power on their own. It is also rail launched, which means when launched at high speed at low altitude the missile will loose very little altitude when being fired, so can effectively be used at low altitude. A good way of thinking about it is that its a stick guided rocket powered bomb, essentially what you can do is pitch up slightly, launch, descend and level off, then guide the missile onto the target. More experienced pilots who were experienced enough could also initiate a left/right bank to "turn away" from the target at a long range, while they guided the missile in, though this was exceedingly difficult as the plane had to be kept in the bank at low altitude without crashing, and while the pilot guided the missile on target and kept visual, if this was done it was usually at high altitude. but it is true that low level "dumb" strikes remained very effective, as seen in the Falkland's war, although the argentines experienced a high rate of duds due to improperly fused bombs, and lacking high drag bombs. Very interesting. Do you have a source on the use of these and other novel tactics for anti - ship attacks? I'd love to read about it.
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Post by generalvikus on May 2, 2024 2:54:37 GMT -6
I have two comments to add. Firstly, I think it's obvious that the whole system for aircraft production is inadequate and should be replaced. In all likelihood, production should simply be based on authorized strength, with the production of a given model increasing and the unit cost decreasing over time until the unit cost reaches a certain minimum. If you really wanted to have an absolute maximum aircraft production capacity, it should be something you can increase with investment, just the same as dock size. And obviously, there should be a shared production pool for all aircraft; because the fact that producing more types of aircraft increases overall production is the exact opposite of how it works in real life. Secondly, as for the survivability of aircraft; as I understand it, ASMs such as the Bullpup were intended for attacks on bridges and were not well suited for attacks on large ships - certainly not from the point of view of survivability. Their range was too short and their release altitude much too high to keep out of the engagement envelopes of heavy-duty naval SAMs. They were well suited for attacking smaller, less well - armed ships, since a single aircraft could attack two or more ships in a single sortie using ASMs. Against large surface combatants, pop-up attacks with iron bombs were used; and in 1967, the Snakeye greatly reduced the release height and thus improved survivability. Using these tactics in Command against various period Soviet vessels produces relatively low loss rates and very high kill rates; an aircraft that reaches the target will almost always hit with one or more bombs, and usually, two or three aircraft will produce a guaranteed kill on any surface vessel in a pop-up attack, losing on average one of their number at most. Furthermore, aircraft attacking with Snakeyes will suffer virtually no losses, so that a single aircraft will produce pretty much a guaranteed kill on any surface ship. digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2265&context=nwc-reviewThis source bears out the results in Command for the period between the introduction of Snakeyes in 1967 and the introduction of very low altitude naval SAMs in the late 1970s - early 1980s; the Chief of Staff of the 5th Eskardra during the Mediterranean Crisis reportedly said of his surface ships, '...it is unlikely anything will remain afloat after an air strike. We are kamikazes.' (p42) Obviously there are some qualifiers: as we all know, Command is far from perfect. Firstly, the target seemingly almost always instantly disappears in Command after reaching some arbitrary damage threshold, without the game waiting for it to actually sink. This raises the question of what exactly Command considers to be a 'kill.' Furthermore, I have always thought that CMO might seriously under - rate the effectiveness of AAA; but even if so, I do not expect the loss rates would be much different, given that SAMs accounted for more kills even in the Falklands War, when the Argentine pilots famously flew too low to arm their bombs for fear of SAMs. Whether or not the hit rate of iron bombs against surface vessels is also too high may be debatable - almost certainly not for advanced aircraft like the A-6, (which reportedly could hit the head of a pin on land at night in a thick fog,) but maybe for more primitive types like the A-4. Unfortunately I can't comment on effectiveness of jets against ships in RTW3, because I haven't yet had a save continue long enough to get there without corrupting itself. However, if effectiveness of carrier aircraft is too low, it should probably be the iron bombs and not the ASMs that are improved. High loss rates and / or low accuracy for aircraft attacking large enemy ships such as destroyers and above using ASMs seems pretty accurate to me.
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Post by generalvikus on May 1, 2024 20:55:28 GMT -6
An oldie but a goodie! Every time my ships are spotted by enemy aircraft, the game crashes. This happened before in an older version. I tried reloading several times, then loading an autosave using 'regenerate battle from starting parameters,' but the result was the same. The game version is the current live one, whatever that is. drive.google.com/file/d/1UdGL8IglPvxs0a7d-MGN-OPIN2tODzTb/view?usp=sharingIs there any chance of fixing the save?
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Post by generalvikus on May 1, 2024 10:38:28 GMT -6
Yes Jet capable does reduce the maximum number of planes you can carry, of any type including prop planes, however, you can only operate HJF and JA from Jet capable carriers with catapults and angled flight decks, so it is very worth it. So can you operate LJFs from non jet capable CVs?
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Post by generalvikus on May 1, 2024 9:35:42 GMT -6
I have finally, for the first time in any of my games, made it to the jet age - and found that converting a carrier to be jet capable reduces its air capacity by approximately 40%. Does that mean the carrier can now carry 40% fewer propeller aircraft, too, in exchange for being able to operate LJFs? That would seem to be exceedingly silly, and probably not worthwhile.
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Post by generalvikus on Apr 29, 2024 2:09:07 GMT -6
80% of kills in a war, taking data from the after war study of aircraft shot down Oh, well that may be inconsistent with the two above results, but it's not necessarily inconsistent with my understanding of the overall trend, which is merely that fighters are ineffective, not that they are less effective than AA.
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Post by generalvikus on Apr 29, 2024 0:47:58 GMT -6
1. What fighters are you running (they should be firepower 4+, which happens post 1935) 2. AA, especially LAA helps to prevent hits 3. Every other person I've talked to, especially on the RTW3 official-unofficial discord has stated that firepower 4+ fighters work to shoot down 4. AI ships don't run all bombers, so your fighters will be less overwhelmed against the actual opposition 5. I have never had fighters shoot down less than 80% of aircraft in a war Honestly very much a "every copy of RTW is unique" moment Really? You're sure that fighters shoot down 80% of enemy aircraft? Do you mean that 80% of aircraft kills are scored by fighters, or do you mean that 8 out of every 10 aircraft attacking your carrier are shot down by defending fighters? In the 1940s? Unfortunately, the saves are long dead. I do know that I've run the tests in more than one save, meaning that the fighters on average were, presumably, average. Additionally, my test results have always been approximately matched when facing the AI in actual battle, since the AI as you say also uses a mixed wing. I'm intrigued enough by this to definitely try testing again. Maybe the game has simply changed since I last tested. Could you also run a test and we'll compare?
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Post by generalvikus on Apr 28, 2024 12:06:44 GMT -6
Hey guys,
Has anybody made a study of the relative effectiveness of LAA, MAA, and HAA, and the change in relative effectiveness over time?
Please do not reply to tell me that, "MAA starts out less effective but becomes more effective over time," or "LAA and MAA defend the ship, whereas HAA defends other ships." I know this. The questions are, 'how effective, and how much more effective?'
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Post by generalvikus on Apr 28, 2024 9:25:44 GMT -6
I've noticed that my destroyers are constantly and unnecessarily manoeuvring at maximum speed, which leads to them always running out of fuel in long battles. They seem to be incapable of holding a straight course relative to the ships they are screening, and will run at their maximum speed of 34 knots even when the formation is doing only 18 knots and holding its course for hours at a time. It would be great if this could be improved.
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