Will we NOT have the superstacks?

[uther4117]

This whole thing that is been discussed here is due to the AI s incapablity of reacting situations which imho should be improved. An AI that an spread out for vast operations and use task forces and can react to a player who stacks its fleet is the AI that's complete and not lacking. I really hate the fact that before hoi4 released we are trying to cover up for AI stupidity already. It was a nightmare on hoi3 and this has to change.. The focus tree is absolutely fascinating to make AI more dynamic in a sense the way it will follow. It can "tend to" spread out its fleet or combine it but either way it should react to the player movements or else it's the same thing as playing against a 5 year old.. And it is boring.. If pdx wants the replayibility, they need a dynamic AI Coz unless it's achieved it won't matter what you do with the whole different choices since you will basically always win and play against the same 5 year old kid.. I'm aware the AI part is the hardest of all to make perfect but it shouldn't left at all under considered because some silly reasons like player don't want an AI he can't beat.. Player always and always need a challenging AI and on the process of creating one I'm sure it's abilities can be adjusted and capabilities can be restricted if at all one ever be made..

So, @podcat
Please for the reasons I sited above, AI needs constant improving. With pdx s dlc strategy, is good to add more and more dynamics to AI constantly. It takes time and it will never be perfect but in time it can "always" improved more and more.. So not another hoi3 please,, it's 2016 and pdx writing the history now..

 

[klucz13]

carriers aircraft are stacking penalized because of the tight airspace inside naval combat. Past 4 carriers worth of planes efficiency will go down a lot.

The question is which year carrier worth of planes? I would assume late war carriers can carry a lot more planes than early ones.

 

[Alex_brunius]

You are talking like those planes aren't piloted by trained soldiers. "We can get more pilots" worked very poorly for Japan, and the Marianas Turkey Shoot was a work of planes as much as of ship AA (one battleship - might have been New Jersey, but I'm not sure - shot down several planes on her own). A carrier has her own air wing, and when that is shot down it needs to get more planes and more pilots. The Pacific War showed that a good AA umbrella made impossible for enemy carriers to do anything at all, especially if there are more carriers to help keeping air superiority.

I'll also quote "Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns and Gunnery":

Actually that comparison is a bit unfair because we are comparing badly trained Japanese latewar pilots, in very fragile planes to the most effective radar controlled AA that existed during WW2, attacking the biggest fleet and ship concentration that existed during WW2.

Another source claims US-AA shot down 22% of non-suicide attackers at Okinawa ( 1945 ) and 15% of non-suicide attackers at Philippines ( 1944 ).

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Kamikaze/AAA-Summary-1045/

For trained pilots, in sturdy planes, attacking ships with less advanced AA and attacking in greater number the amounts of losses to AA were closer to 2-4% of the planes.

Judging from these numbers average AA efficiency of equal opponents early in the war was probably on average only 1-2%, while late war it could go up to 3-10% depending on circumstances.

Interception on the other hand was way more effective and could kill between 30-60% of attacking airplanes, the latter thanks to radar and superior numbers.

 

[ingwe]

To me the bigger balance aspect should not be the stacking penalty but should be the inability for older carriers to use newer planes. So maybe you keep a production or large stockpile of aircraft for your 2 1936 carriers and another for your 2 1938 and so on. This is a drain on your production or at least requires you to play inefficiently (stockpiling of old stuff isn't very efficient). The other aspect is that if you want to have a doom stack of 8 carriers, then they will probably end up being 2 1943 models, 2 1941 models, 2 1938 models, and 2 1936 models each using the planes from that year. If you want a doom stack of 8 carriers with 1943 planes, then you should have to have 8 1943 carriers, which would obviously be difficult (much less so for the US though). That should serve as the real inhibitor to having a doom stack of new stuff.

 

[Alex_brunius]

To me the bigger balance aspect should not be the stacking penalty but should be the inability for older carriers to use newer planes.

Why Limit that? It has no basis in history...

The USS Enterprise for example was laid down in 1934 and near the end of the war was using F6F-5 fighters ( start of production April 1944 ) and TBM-3D Avengers ( start of production mid 1944 and equipped with centimetric radars ).

 

[JuicedGoose]

IIRC, the Japanese B6N was too large to be used on the then remaining light and escort carriers. It seems like making escort carriers limited on what they could carry would be somewhat appropriate.

 

[Axe99]

IIRC, the Japanese B6N was too large to be used on the then remaining light and escort carriers. It seems like making escort carriers limited on what they could carry would be somewhat appropriate.

Escort carriers aren't in the game (beyond a doctrine boost to convoy efficiency) so that dodges that bullet . Some of the older CVLs would have had problems with larger aircraft, but my understanding is that it was mainly CVEs that faced the restrictions on the aircraft they could carry. Some of the CVs laid down in the late 1930s were later even able to carry jets.