The US is still using Biplane Carrier Fighters in 1942

[Daelyn75]

I reported this a few months back and I thought it would be fixed for 1.4, but it's still in!

Its really important that both Japan and the US research and manufacture the best and most modern aircraft for their carriers or the Pacific war is a joke.

It's August 21st, 1942 and my A6M Zero-sen MK2s are going up against the FF 'Fifi' which is a 1933 biplane fighter. At least the US carriers are using the 1936 carrier naval bombers and CAS, but then those are the first to research in those categories.

I should be up against 1940 F4F carrier fighters, the 1940 Avenger carrier naval bombers, and the 1940 Dauntless carrier CAS.

So I suppose this pacific war with the US will be ridiculously easy again.

What the hell, paradox? This was reported and ignored? Come on guys, get with it!

 

[Thumping_Fox]

Same issue with me, ruins the pacific 'war'

 

[Louella]

I suspect something has been done to the research priority, esp. for major countries aircraft.

the US and Japan are supposed to make researching carrier aircraft a priority.

do any of the minor countries have more advanced aircraft researched than the major countries ?

 

[Daelyn75]

do any of the minor countries have more advanced aircraft researched than the major countries ?

I'm in an ironman game so I cannot verify this. Can anyone else with their game?

 

[Secret Master]

Whoa, guys. Before you say that the US AI isn't researching and producing better carrier planes, we need to check some things.

1) Did you actually look at the US in multiple save games?

2) Are you seeing crappy CV planes after winning some naval battles against the USN?

This last one is really important. It turns out that air combat between carrier aircraft can be pretty damn bloody. As a human player, I've run into situations before where all my good carrier aircraft are wiped out, leaving me with the crappy planes in the stockpile. I'm not trying to bomb the Regia Marina with bi-planes in 1941, but that's what I've got thanks to some limited production of CV planes before I got the better tech.

If your save games show the US researching and producing better planes by 1940, but you are facing crappy bi-planes in 1942, sounds like you've just been killing their better planes, leaving them with the reserve aircraft. If not, then post a bug in the bug forum.

 

[Daelyn75]

Whoa, guys. Before you say that the US AI isn't researching and producing better carrier planes, we need to check some things.

1) Did you actually look at the US in multiple save games?

2) Are you seeing crappy CV planes after winning some naval battles against the USN?

This last one is really important. It turns out that air combat between carrier aircraft can be pretty damn bloody. As a human player, I've run into situations before where all my good carrier aircraft are wiped out, leaving me with the crappy planes in the stockpile. I'm not trying to bomb the Regia Marina with bi-planes in 1941, but that's what I've got thanks to some limited production of CV planes before I got the better tech.

If your save games show the US researching and producing better planes by 1940, but you are facing crappy bi-planes in 1942, sounds like you've just been killing their better planes, leaving them with the reserve aircraft. If not, then post a bug in the bug forum.

The way I play Japan, it always turns out that I just start making carrier aircraft in 1940, and basically all I have to start the war with in 1941 are a handful of new planes with low production for 1940 and a little better in 1941. It's not until 1942 that my carrier airplanes are off to a good production and my carriers get filled up with updated airplanes. I use my carriers in 1941 if I find myself at war, but the carrier aircraft don't get replaced very fast and are 3/4ths old airplanes. Once those get used up in battles, I harbor my carriers literally until they are filled back up with airplanes again. So out I went to fight the Americans in the middle of 1942 brimming with new and updated carrier aircraft, and what I ran into was one US carrier filled with the 1933 biplane fighters and the other planes I mentioned.

However, I have been seeing their carriers in many fights for about a year in the game and when you click on details you can see what planes were shot down. In every case, the US has used the same old outdated airplanes with their carriers. My naval bombers have been harassing them all 1942 long to late August. The US went to war with me in the middle of 1941, so it's been over a year.

I can honestly attest to the fact that I've only had one real carrier battle with the US in August of 1942, and they were using the aircraft that I wrote about in the first post. So no, they haven't been whittled down to just their old planes. Their carrier aircraft losses so far have been really light. Other than the carrier battle, they probably lost less than 50 in a years time on my end.

 

[Secret Master]

Yes, I understand all of that.

But if this is an actual bug, it would be helpful to load up as the US (preferably at multiple points in your game) and see what they have been researching and producing.

If they never research 1940 CV fighters, that's one kind of bug.
If they never produce 1940 CV fighters, but have researched them, that's a different kind of bug.
If they have been producing and researching, but you keep encountering bi-planes, then it's time to go looking through land-based wings. Maybe the AI is putting 1940 CV fighters on land duty. That would be a third kind of bug.

 

[Meglok]

Yes, I understand all of that.

But if this is an actual bug, it would be helpful to load up as the US (preferably at multiple points in your game) and see what they have been researching and producing.

If they never research 1940 CV fighters, that's one kind of bug.
If they never produce 1940 CV fighters, but have researched them, that's a different kind of bug.
If they have been producing and researching, but you keep encountering bi-planes, then it's time to go looking through land-based wings. Maybe the AI is putting 1940 CV fighters on land duty. That would be a third kind of bug.

I have reported this in a 1.4 bug report. The ai hasn't been researching CV fighters for quite some time, was reported back in 1.3.3 and is still there. It just stays at interwar CV fighters for some reason.
There is also a new issue concerning research priority in 1.4 where the ai is delaying the research of all aircraft until well after they are available to be researched. This is a definite issue concerning ai fighters hen it is 1941 and none of the Axis has even started researching 1940 fighters or anything else.

 

[Von Thoma]

I think one problem is that there are always some idiotic old airplanes and stuff in the stockpile ... so if a airwing loose some planes the automatic routine put that damn old airplanes back into the airwing , so the whole wing is worthless .
It should go away when the overproduction of better planes would start ...
but any AI nation which has areas around the whole world and therefore "hundreds" of airwings, will always have free space for that damn old airplans !

So WE and the AI need a possibility to SCRAP THAT worthless stuff through

scrapping
upgrading
or recycling

BUT PARADOX didn't like that, so we have hundred of worthless stuff in our stockpile and have to shit micromanage our wings and divisions.

But because of that the AI is fuc... up also

 

[Admiral Piett]

I don't think I have ever seen modern AI naval fighters.

 

[Secret Master]

BUT PARADOX didn't like that, so we have hundred of worthless stuff in our stockpile and have to shit micromanage our wings and divisions.

If the AI is losing planes, the extras in the stockpile aren't worthless. Any air resistance is better than no resistance.

I have no idea how this idea that "low tech planes are worse than high tech planes" got started, but it would only make the AI worse.

Even in the current example, bi-planes are better than no planes. Have you seen the IJN try to fight with no planes before? I have. After shooting them all down, their fleets melt into irrelevance. If Japan has even 200 extra low tech planes to put on those carriers, it would survive another week.

This doesn't even address defending Europe from an Allied bombing campaign. I'm sure my current opponents in MP would take every single one of these planes you want to delete as I continue to scourge the Ruhr and Berlin with strategic bombers.

 

[Daelyn75]

Yes, I understand all of that.

But if this is an actual bug, it would be helpful to load up as the US (preferably at multiple points in your game) and see what they have been researching and producing.

If they never research 1940 CV fighters, that's one kind of bug.
If they never produce 1940 CV fighters, but have researched them, that's a different kind of bug.
If they have been producing and researching, but you keep encountering bi-planes, then it's time to go looking through land-based wings. Maybe the AI is putting 1940 CV fighters on land duty. That would be a third kind of bug.

Of course this happens when I play on an ironman! I cannot load up on any other nation. Like I wrote, someone else will have to do it.

 

[Daelyn75]

I have reported this in a 1.4 bug report. The ai hasn't been researching CV fighters for quite some time, was reported back in 1.3.3 and is still there. It just stays at interwar CV fighters for some reason.
There is also a new issue concerning research priority in 1.4 where the ai is delaying the research of all aircraft until well after they are available to be researched. This is a definite issue concerning ai fighters hen it is 1941 and none of the Axis has even started researching 1940 fighters or anything else.

I am also encountering 1933 and 1936 Soviet fighters in 1942, while invading from the east as Japan. I thought they were just shuffling their older aircraft to face me, but from the sound of it no AI is researching up to date aircraft.

 

[Daelyn75]

If the AI is losing planes, the extras in the stockpile aren't worthless. Any air resistance is better than no resistance.

I have no idea how this idea that "low tech planes are worse than high tech planes" got started, but it would only make the AI worse.

Even in the current example, bi-planes are better than no planes. Have you seen the IJN try to fight with no planes before? I have. After shooting them all down, their fleets melt into irrelevance. If Japan has even 200 extra low tech planes to put on those carriers, it would survive another week.

This doesn't even address defending Europe from an Allied bombing campaign. I'm sure my current opponents in MP would take every single one of these planes you want to delete as I continue to scourge the Ruhr and Berlin with strategic bombers.

On the other hand, I was getting Soviet naval bombers hitting the Sea of Japan, and getting Soviet tacticals industrially bombing Japan. I have never had that from vanilla AI before.

I've been hit with naval bombers in previous versions of the game, and by the UK, and the US, but never by the Soviets.

The AI I find is countering my advance into India, and into the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines with a lot of fighters and CAS hitting both the sea and the land. All good stuff, but now we need up to date aircraft researched manufactured, and deployed. That is also a new thing, since I cannot remember the UK, India, or the Dutch ever doing that to me.

 

[VLV]

I have no idea how this idea that "low tech planes are worse than high tech planes" got started, but it would only make the AI worse.

From my experience, AI tries to use all equipment and as much manpower as possible, always. So it never takes obsolete equipment back to stockpile. Which makes all divisions less manpower-efficient. AI doesn't use elite-reserve modifier thing on units either, so front line divisions are using stuff only reserve or militias would be using.

 

[VLV]

Of course this happens when I play on an ironman! I cannot load up on any other nation. Like I wrote, someone else will have to do it.

pretty sure ironman savegames can be decompressed, and the ironman flag removed so that it can be done

 

[Secret Master]

From my experience, AI tries to use all equipment and as much manpower as possible, always. So it never takes obsolete equipment back to stockpile. Which makes all divisions less manpower-efficient. AI doesn't use elite-reserve modifier thing on units either, so front line divisions are using stuff only reserve or militias would be using.

Yes, but how does that make people think that no planes are better than low tech planes in any contested air region? We're not talking about divisions here.

 

[Alex_brunius]

If they never research 1940 CV fighters, that's one kind of bug.
If they never produce 1940 CV fighters, but have researched them, that's a different kind of bug.
If they have been producing and researching, but you keep encountering bi-planes, then it's time to go looking through land-based wings. Maybe the AI is putting 1940 CV fighters on land duty. That would be a third kind of bug.

From my observation of AI handsoff behavior it's a little bit off all of the 3 above.

Another thing to point out is that USA also is pretty stretched for research until they have been at war for 1-2 years and gotten the NFs to unlock all their slots so they can start catch up ( being stuck with some of the worst starting techs of any majors + locked to 4 slots until high world tension ).

They are also pretty stretched for industry to actual build those planes until they have been at war for 1-2 years and been able to properly mobilize.

 

[Secret Master]

Another thing to point out is that USA also is pretty stretched for research until they have been at war for 1-2 years and gotten the NFs to unlock all their slots so they can start catch up ( being stuck with some of the worst starting techs of any majors + locked to 4 slots until high world tension ).

Might be time to tell the US to prioritize 1936 fighters and CV fighters.

I understand the US is stretched (I've spent an informative four days playing the US from positions to test some stuff), but if it's going to build carriers, it might want to at least get to 1936 planes.

They are also pretty stretched for industry to actual build those planes until they have been at war for 1-2 years and been able to properly mobilize.

Yeah. That's why I asked about looking through the save. If it's trying to produce the right kind of planes, and Tizard hasn't fired yet (bonus to fighter research), it might just be stuck with mediocre planes that keep getting wiped, leaving it with left overs. That's not a bug, so much as "The US really hasn't gotten into gear yet."

It even happens to me sometimes.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the US can be screwed economically if the Soviets close their trade at the wrong time. There might be shortages of steel and aluminum hurting the US, because she doesn't have the PP to close her own trade.

 

[Axe99]

I actually think there's an issue with the fundamental design of tech progression. If we fix carrier fighters, then it'll put tanks out. If we fix tanks, then ships are out of whack, and so on.

The ahead-of-time penalty combined with the pattern of years and which techs are available when, combined with the number of tech slots available for particular nations at particular times and the lack of 'contextuality' (I'm buggered, can't think of a better word, or I suspect, an actual word ) to research (so, for example, it's just as hard for the US, with some of the best naval architects and engineers in the world, to research CV_2 as it is Bhutan - even if Bhutan never actually has a coastline - I'm not talking gearing from HoI3 - but more that nations with comparative advantages would have a comparative advantage in some areas - something like this would help the US, Japan and Britain cope with their extra naval/naval doctrine/carrier fighter research burden compared with other nations that don't have to worry about this) mean we're always going to get some odd results. It can be balanced to some degree (better pacing of when techs become available, and better tuning of tech slots to 'historically plausible research progress'), but I don't think tweaking priorities for one thing over another is going to do any more than change the topic of the threads from "why is the US still using biplane carrier fighters in 1942" to "why is the US still using 1939 infantry equipment in 1944" or similar.

As always, not having a go at the devs (I think the team and game are both tops ) - HoI4 is a very complex game to make, and it's only possible to do so much at any particular point, and the tech system is good enough such that it makes more sense focussing on other things at the moment.

I don't think I have ever seen modern AI naval fighters.

I've seen them, but only in games where I'm playing a minor that go until the second half of the 1940s. Once the game gets past about 1945, the research 'bump' is pretty much washed out, and most countries have most normal things again.