Realistic Japanese's Aircraft range

[Daelyn75]

Tailored using the variant system. Not the base tech.

Please re-read my last post.

 

[potski]

The devs have said this exactly however, that a German 1936 tank will be identical to a British 1936 tank, and that if they tried to give them "historical stats" for base models it would drive them and the players crazy.

(http://youtu.be/hwFvVM_zZxQ?t=5m30s).

Thanks for the video, which I had not seen. This is what is said at 5-6:00 minutes in:

Q. WWII had tons of different models of tanks and planes. How do you ever choose . You can't possibly have everything

A. It's a mix between what people want to see... Panzer, Sherman...

Q. Will the models be purely aesthetic difference, or will there be a gameplay difference, say between German and..

A. The intial tank levels, so if you are comparing 1941 tank for Germany and Britain - that on the base line is the exact same tank. It's only flavour, this is an abstraction. We and the players would go crazy if all the stats are totally different. But there are things that will happen with each nation. That ... I haven't actually announced how that will work yet. We will be talking about that diary coming up in the future. You will have different stats on them. When the tech is done there that will be a base line for everyone. I don't want to talk too much...

Take out of that what you want. If you believe that Panzers will be the same as Shermans then that's your opinion.

I think the medium tank chassis will have the same stats for Germany and USA, but that each country will nearly always be applying a different variant to that base tech level. And you BUILD different tanks. And you EQUIP your Divs with different tanks.

Real difference in stats on the battlefield, not just a flavour name.

1. Your engineers/scientists develop the base tech chassis
2. your general staff decide on the finished design which will go into production
3. the economics ministry allocate factories to build the design
4. the factories produced the finished tanks which go into an equipment pool then gets allocated to Divs
5. the Divs go into combat with the new tanks and this generates combat experience
6. the generals in the field ask for changes to the design
7. go back to 2

It seems to provide a quite realistic model to me. Without the devs going crazy trying to change the base tech for each country, even though we know the chassis and airframes etc. were in real life different. For Germany read Guderian about the development of the new tanks in 1943. There were various models presented to the general staff and they could choose between them, or even ask the designers to make modifications.

So I come back again to the OP. Japan can build Zero's which have a much larger range than their equivalent at the same tech level which are produced by the Allies. And not by artificially researching drop tanks that boost every single plane they produce say 20% regardless of type/model. They can produce some ground-based twin-engine fighters with no intention of ever using them in long-range missions and have no drop tank tech or other range boosting method applied. Instead they can beef up their armaments to use them as interceptors to defend the home islands from strategic bombing.

My only change of stance comes from what might Podcat announce. Maybe they won't carry forward the variants from one tech level to the next. Maybe Japan will have a Mitsubishi tech team that just knows that the ideal thing for JAP's Pacific strategy will be to present to the Naval Ministry plans for long-range carrier capable fighters. And another tech team will offer you something else and you get to choose. I like that idea even more. Guderian gets offered choices between tanks from different manufacturers and he goes with the more complicated design with great armour and gun, puts it into production too late to get many on the battlefield, and then they are not very reliable and breakdown, so the Pz.Divs are still largely attacking with outdated tanks that can't possibly resist when the SOV counteroffensive starts.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

One last time:

"There is no reason to believe that the devs would give every country 0/0/0/0 on the four variables that give rise to the variants. Why would they do that other than perhaps for minors? If you can reflect the historic difference between UK and GER BB, JAP and ITA CV, USA and SOV light tanks, POL and GER fighters, then you would do that surely?

This is not a game where you have to ensure balance between different countries."

Read that again - the four variables that give rise to the variants. He believed that the tech once researched would automatically tailor to that nation.

Nowhere in the quote did he use the word "tech". In fact, it's consistent with what you argued:

This is not to say that in 1936 or any other scenario that you will not already start out with a variant as per the OOB.

You're insisting there's a disagreement where there is none. I don't see where anybody on the last page has said anything other than:

1. At bookmarks, nations may have historical variants defined.
2. Base stats depend only on tech.
3. Variants created after game start depend only on investment of experience. (Or at least mostly---maybe models will come with some "free" variant points, but I don't think anybody here would argue for that being more than speculation.)

 

[Daelyn75]

One last time:



Nowhere in the quote did he use the word "tech". In fact, it's consistent with what you argued:



You're insisting there's a disagreement where there is none. I don't see where anybody on the last page has said anything other than:

1. At bookmarks, nations may have historical variants defined.
2. Base stats depend only on tech.
3. Variants created after game start depend only on investment of experience. (Or at least mostly---maybe models will come with some "free" variant points, but I don't think anybody here would argue for that being more than speculation.)

I'm sorry, but where can you find that he doesn't say that there is no 1936 Fighter? That is a tech to research. He then went on saying that surely the devs wouldn't make everything the same. Yes they are the same, until you make a variant of it. I see it quite clearly, and I do not understand why you don't. Go back and read his first post up to now please.

 

[Daelyn75]

I think the medium tank chassis will have the same stats for Germany and USA, but that each country will nearly always be applying a different variant to that base tech level. And you BUILD different tanks. And you EQUIP your Divs with different tanks.

Real difference in stats on the battlefield, not just a flavour name.

Yes, once each nation can do so, I am sure they will apply a new variant to each base tech to improve on it.

 

[Jazumir]

And that is the crux of this whole discussion: When will they be able to change a new base tech with a variant? Will there be any sort of carry-over/bonus for what has already been unlocked on the previous base-model? That is what the confusion in this thread derives from.

 

[Secret Master]

And that is the crux of this whole discussion: When will they be able to change a new base tech with a variant? Will there be any sort of carry-over/bonus for what has already been unlocked on the previous base-model? That is what the confusion in this thread derives from.

We also don't know if proper procedure will be to unlock new model X, but not build any until you spend some XP on it to get the variant you want. It occurs to me that maybe unlocking a new model may not be the start of the production process. There might be some additional steps players will perform between unlocking new models and putting some actual units into production. Hell, you might even get a special XP boost for reaching the "First 50 produced" milestone, so the plan might be:

1) Unlock new model
2) Build a few.
3) Take XP and make a super awesome variant
4) Mass produce

I will be happy if the system lets me get some historical results by fiddling with variants, even if the name of the variant or model is sometimes goofy or wrong.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

That does raise the question of whether XP is tied to particular base, families, or shared among all air units, in addition to the question of whether XP is consumed when you make a new variant (and variant points are not carried over between variants). Non-consumed, per-base XP seems the cleanest system to me. Consumed XP without carryover discourages iterative development, but non-consumed XP might get out of hand if it is shared too widely over families and time.

 

[Daelyn75]

That does raise the question of whether XP is tied to particular base, families, or shared among all air units, in addition to the question of whether XP is consumed when you make a new variant (and variant points are not carried over between variants). Non-consumed, per-base XP seems the cleanest system to me. Consumed XP without carryover discourages iterative development, but non-consumed XP might get out of hand if it is shared too widely over families and time.

This is much like the point of the thread that I started about Progressive Variants.

So far all we heard when we asked if there was one experience pool for all branches of the military, is that there will be separate experience for the airforce, navy, and army. Of course that could change. Also, seperating it further into individual fields like with fighters and bombers might be interesting as well. I suppose we`ll have to hear from the devs about that.

 

[Jazumir]

We also don't know if proper procedure will be to unlock new model X, but not build any until you spend some XP on it to get the variant you want. It occurs to me that maybe unlocking a new model may not be the start of the production process. There might be some additional steps players will perform between unlocking new models and putting some actual units into production. Hell, you might even get a special XP boost for reaching the "First 50 produced" milestone, so the plan might be:

1) Unlock new model
2) Build a few.
3) Take XP and make a super awesome variant
4) Mass produce

I will be happy if the system lets me get some historical results by fiddling with variants, even if the name of the variant or model is sometimes goofy or wrong.

hmm, i´d think that by 21st century gaming-standard, that would be called ´micro-hell´ or something. But seriously, the first two steps seem rather unneccessary and sort of bloaty, imho. Maybe you should get some xp for unlocking a new base-model, so that you can come up with a variant right away, though.

 

[scroggin]

We also don't know if proper procedure will be to unlock new model X, but not build any until you spend some XP on it to get the variant you want. It occurs to me that maybe unlocking a new model may not be the start of the production process. There might be some additional steps players will perform between unlocking new models and putting some actual units into production. Hell, you might even get a special XP boost for reaching the "First 50 produced" milestone, so the plan might be:

1) Unlock new model
2) Build a few.
3) Take XP and make a super awesome variant
4) Mass produce

I will be happy if the system lets me get some historical results by fiddling with variants, even if the name of the variant or model is sometimes goofy or wrong.

I actually really like the Idea of having an XP boost for the first 50 produced. Otherwise there will be no need to produce panthers or use them in battle in order to come up with improved variants, we will just use XP gained on our PZIV to improve the PZVI.

 

[Secret Master]

hmm, i´d think that by 21st century gaming-standard, that would be called ´micro-hell´ or something. But seriously, the first two steps seem rather unneccessary and sort of bloaty, imho. Maybe you should get some xp for unlocking a new base-model, so that you can come up with a variant right away, though.

Well, I don't disagree that it is a micromanagement problem. I'm just positing scenarios on how it could work. There are a dozen ways it could work, and we don't know yet.

 

[potski]

That does raise the question of whether XP is tied to particular base, families, or shared among all air units, in addition to the question of whether XP is consumed when you make a new variant (and variant points are not carried over between variants). Non-consumed, per-base XP seems the cleanest system to me. Consumed XP without carryover discourages iterative development, but non-consumed XP might get out of hand if it is shared too widely over families and time.

Shared among all air units. There is a danger that some countries are able to gain enough combat experience that they can create super-variants across all of the different models. We don't want to get to the same situation as HOI3 where all the majors had enough leadership to research everything and have plenty of officers.

My biggest concern would be JAP in continuous combat from 1937. But gamey behaviour by ITA of staying in combat with Ethiopia for years might have very ahistoric results. I think the devs will not split between experience gained by fighters and bombers (how would it work with twin engines fighter/bombers?) and that means that continuous bombing raids even with no fighter escort can gain experience to be able to develop better fighters.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

Yeah, the DDs do seem to imply the opposite to what I would have expected otherwise.

I think the devs will not split between experience gained by fighters and bombers (how would it work with twin engines fighter/bombers?)

In the production lines DD they did mention they have a concept of "family" with respect to production efficiency. I would guess that this means production efficiency transfers along prerequisite links, so there's no reason something similar couldn't be done with XP as well. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean they will do such a thing.

But gamey behaviour by ITA of staying in combat with Ethiopia for years might have very ahistoric results.

That does bring up the question of XP scaling to air force size. If XP gain is literally divided by air force size, we might see ITA players paring their air force down to a single TAC and bombing Ethiopia for four years, only this time in addition to having the top air commanders in the world by the start of WW2 proper they would also produce the best aircraft in the world. Then there's also the question of how army/air force size will be computed for purposes of XP gain. It seems perverse for spare guns/tanks/planes to reduce your XP gain. Basing it on unit count might not be as bad, though it would encourage disbanding units that are not currently being used, which has potential to be tedious.