Air missions should use Fuel

[Captain Cruft]

Air missions should use Fuel as well as Supply

I fully realise that there are no future functional code changes planned to the game engine, but I'm still going to try anyway.

Hypothesis:-

If there is one single thing that this game needs it is for air missions to use fuel as well as supply.

Why? Well AvGas is a product of oil refineries, so it's factual. Secondly, it would drastically reduce the operational tempo in general and thirdly (most importantly) Japan would be faced in-game with what was it's most crucial problem in reality. Which as of right now it isn't. It can keep thousands of planes in the air right up to the finish.

I do not believe this would be massively difficult to code, and the effects would be very well contained, just confined to how many planes take off for XYZ air mission. There ought to be no bug leakage into other areas unless the code really is borked beyond belief.

Discuss ... [:)]

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Air missions should use Fuel as well as Supply

I fully realise that there are no future functional code changes planned to the game engine, but I'm still going to try anyway.

Hypothesis:-

If there is one single thing that this game needs it is for air missions to use fuel as well as supply.

Why? Well AvGas is a product of oil refineries, so it's factual. Secondly, it would drastically reduce the operational tempo in general and thirdly (most importantly) Japan would be faced in-game with what was it's most crucial problem in reality. Which as of right now it isn't. It can keep thousands of planes in the air right up to the finish.

I do not believe this would be massively difficult to code, and the effects would be very well contained, just confined to how many planes take off for XYZ air mission. There ought to be no bug leakage into other areas unless the code really is borked beyond belief.

Discuss ... [:)]

Cannot contemplate the game being playable if AvGas was added to things we needed to haul. You are absolutely correct but, IMHO, this is going too far.

[Captain Cruft]

What I am proposing is that air missions just use some of the existing thing called Fuel, which is an abstraction of oil refinery output. No AvGas as a separate item.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

What I am proposing is that air missions just use some of the existing thing called Fuel, which is an abstraction of oil refinery output. No AvGas as a separate item.

My mistake. Interesting concept. I know during I-Go, the US Tanker hit off Lunga was carrying AvGas that was being offloaded.

[Captain Cruft]

As it is now flying has no dependency on oil/fuel whatsoever. This seems like the simplest way to solve that anomaly.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

As it is now flying has no dependency on oil/fuel whatsoever. This seems like the simplest way to solve that anomaly.

It's a great concept, but it wouldn't be at all simple to implement. Air bases would need some form of organic fuel storage which would require lots and lots of data structure coding, especially those away from the coast. Air bases would also need to be modified to drag fuel toward themselves when there are no ships there, again, especially for inland sites.

If it could be done, however, it would be the single best tool to cut back on mega-raids while also adding a real tool for the Allies to execute historical economy degredation through resource destruction. Fuel needs merchants going hither and yon, and CAP and ASW need fuel to fly to protect said merchants, especially at leading edge bases. Just like real life.

Not to mention pilot training would no longer be "free", courtesy of essentially immune, deep-HI LI sites. Japanese players would have to trade off CAP and kamis for training time.

[Commander Stormwolf]

would rather have separate HI points for duralumin (aircraft) and steel (ships)

[Captain Cruft]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

As it is now flying has no dependency on oil/fuel whatsoever. This seems like the simplest way to solve that anomaly.

It's a great concept, but it wouldn't be at all simple to implement. Air bases would need some form of organic fuel storage which would require lots and lots of data structure coding, especially those away from the coast. Air bases would also need to be modified to drag fuel toward themselves when there are no ships there, again, especially for inland sites.

AFs can store Fuel now. Take a look at anywhere inland that has a refinery. They also have a "Fuel required" value just like Bases.

I don't think it would be that hard to do, but am always open to contradiction by devs of course.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

[Discuss ... [:)]

Not going to happen i'm afraid. And it'd be harder to code than you think. Its a huge morass in there and you can't just cut and paste into it. Michaelm has already gone above and beyond his official charter in continuing to work on bug fixes and other SNAFU's. Maybe in the next generation game.

[Captain Cruft]

Yes, but is it a good idea?

[Nikademus]

not within the framework of AE. The player already has enough workload dealing with supply, ship fuel, and industrial resources if Player one. A similar idea for breaking down 'supply' into 'combat' vs. 'logistical' supply also had it's good points from a realism standpoint but would well and truely turn the game into WitP....the Quartermaster General's struggle in the Pacific.

There are easier ways to slow pace without adding to the player workload IMO.

[Commander Stormwolf]

it is fine the way it is.


more logistics detail would only increase the headache of the player,
who is supposed to be a commander rather than quartermaster

more interested in improving the production / factory conversion system

[Captain Cruft]

You already have to provide ships with Supply & Fuel. Is having to do the same with aircraft really such an enormous additional chore?

The point is, with the current model there is essentially no way for any mod/scenario to realistically represent Japan's #1 problem. The IJN can all be at the bottom of the ocean but there can still be 12,000 planes flying over the Home Islands (as in the Downfall scen) purely because Resources->LI->Supply can keep filling up the tank with gas. This is just not right.

[Commander Stormwolf]

as long as it doesn't require a third resource (fuel/supply/avgas would be a headache)

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

You already have to provide ships with Supply & Fuel. Is having to do the same with aircraft really such an enormous additional chore?

The point is, with the current model there is essentially no way for any mod/scenario to realistically represent Japan's #1 problem. The IJN can all be at the bottom of the ocean but there can still be 12,000 planes flying over the Home Islands (as in the Downfall scen) purely because Resources->LI->Supply can keep filling up the tank with gas. This is just not right.

Yes, it is that hard a task. Bullwinkle has identified some of the problems.

To make it work also requires a lot of abstraction to be removed, a point I made in the Elf's thread last month. You would have to convert each plane into being able to track fuel consumption a la ship fuel usage. That immediately leads you to problems such as:

1. Is consumption of 1 fuel point by a ship equal to consumption of 1 fuel point by an airplane. Under the current legacy code the answer would be yes but think about it for a moment and the absurdity of the outcome of having the current view of what a single fuel point represents would become obvious.

2. Ships are abstracted to expend fuel at only 2 consumption rates. How many consumption rates should be factored into an aircraft. Here are a few, not exhaustive issues

How much flying into the wind or with the wind (totally absent from the game engine)?
How much flying at sea level, medium height or way up high where the atmosphere is thinner?
How much more should consumption be if engaged in combat? For how long did combat last?
How do you represent aircraft combat damage which might have resulted in a fuel tank springing a leak and thereby reducing available fuel load for that particular plane?
How to recalculate on the fly available fuel when a plane is forced to drop their drop tank?

3. Unlike ships there is no current mechanism to track on an individual aircraft basis the amount of fuel carried. All the issues identified in 2 above require fuel tracking.

4. Ships use Operation Points to refuel. The rate at which they refuel is also subject to the port capacity. Shouldn't the same apply to aircraft? Fighters on CAP are not all in the air. They come in to land and refuel. How would you factor in the time needed to refuel them? Aircraft expend no Operational Points. Would you rely upon the Aviation Support at the base?
But that introduces another variable and we know how 250 Aviation Support can maintain 5000 aircraft at the same base. Should bigger airfields have a larger refuel capacity akin to ports with ships?

5. If we go down the path of elevating fuel, should we also account for the different fuel quality between Allied and Japanese fuel which significantly impacted upon plane performance. For most people the current abstraction would suffice but you can rest assured some would complain.

If, at the very beginning of the game design process, fuel consumption by aircraft had been factored in, I would agree it would have been better. But it wasn't and incorporating it into the legacy code by the AE developers is not an easy task. Time and time again individuals who have no experience of the work entailed, claim that something should not be a difficult task to code. It is never easy and these claims are never made by people with real experience in undertaking this sort of work.

Alfred

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

As it is now flying has no dependency on oil/fuel whatsoever. This seems like the simplest way to solve that anomaly.

It's a great concept, but it wouldn't be at all simple to implement. Air bases would need some form of organic fuel storage which would require lots and lots of data structure coding, especially those away from the coast. Air bases would also need to be modified to drag fuel toward themselves when there are no ships there, again, especially for inland sites.

AFs can store Fuel now. Take a look at anywhere inland that has a refinery. They also have a "Fuel required" value just like Bases.

I don't think it would be that hard to do, but am always open to contradiction by devs of course.

They have the fuel bucket variable assigned, but it's always at zero unless the AF is also a port hex, or has HI factories. I can't find one pure air base in my game, even one with some planes, that's inland, has no HI factories, and has a non-zero fuel number. It's not impossible to add the capability, but you'd have to a new coded fuel pull to all air bases with planes, or maybe all inland air bases at all if you want to be able to move planes and fly them in less than up to a week. For islands the point is less code-driven; islands all have fuel capability now but in the new system the player would need to monitor and send fuel to fly from those islands. More logistic task overhead. I happen to agree with you that it would be worth it in order to maintain a more hisotrical economic vulnerability, but many disagree.

I'm not sure how the air base attack result code handles fuel either. I've never noticed if it's destroyed in non-port bases. I know supply is, but I've never noted fuel destruction.

A coder would also have to add some level of code for fuel consumption per engine, and whether that would be stair-step by engine number or if they'd go into actual consumption rates per hex or whatever. Potentially some picky math.

As is said up-thread this is all theoretical. It isn't going to happen in AE. But bottom-line I agree with your central ppoint that having the air war operationally divorced from petroleum is a major deformation to historical Allied strategy. In the real war once the tankers were sunk in 1944 the Japanese air effort was on life-support. In the game if there is a large HI bank the Japanese can fight in the air for years with nothing left of the petroleum underpinnings of the economic model.

[Commander Stormwolf]

but please made separate HI points for aircraft (duralumin) and ships (steel)

will fix japanese AC overproduction (ratio of 50 steel per 1 aluminum is about right) [:)]

[Captain Cruft]

Alfred and Bullwinkle, thank you for your useful comments.

How about something really simple like: If base has Fuel > 10 tons then all aircraft fly, else only 2 or 3 fly? Combine this with a very simple "give all inland bases 10 Fuel using overland draw if possible" function and it might be doable perhaps.

[Dili]

Not only airplanes. Land forces also need fuel.

[treespider]

All depends on what your definition of "Fuel" is...In my mod I added extra "Fuel" in Manchuria with the HR caveat that a player could only use xAK's to transport the "Fuel" to the Home Islands or refuel ships. This "Fuel" actually represented bunker coal.

Likewise what does the "HI" expended at the start of every month for pilots represent? One could say "Fuel". So cut off the HI production in the Home Islands which requires "Fuel" and pilot production grinds to a halt.