Japanese Airframe and R&D Upgrade Process

[Malagant]

Trying to understand Japanese Airframe upgrade process.

This aspect of the game has my brain completely numb. I’m hoping to write out how I think it works so you folks that are smarter than I can correct where I’ve got it wrong.

Let’s say I have at the start of the game an Airframe Factory (Happy Factory ‘A’) producing A6M2 planes. Assuming adequate engines, no user intervention, and no R&D, it will sit here happily producing A6M2 until Feb 44 when it will switch to A6M2 Sen Baku. This will result in no ‘damage’ to the factory as that is the upgrade path. In June of 44 it will switch to A6M5b, again no damage, and so on. If ‘Upgd’ is set to Off, this factory will not change the aircraft it is making, and will be perfectly content to make A6M2 until the Allies burn the place down.

Now add in an R&D factory (Happy Factory ‘B’), that’s ‘building’ A6M2 Sen Baku. I understand that it has to be completely repaired (which repair will only happen if Repair for that factory is not set to off) and that there is some random involved in how much effect it has, but it will move the upgrade date up. If Production is set to off, it will not generate any Research points.

When the ‘new’ Upgrade date is reached, the R&D Factory will immediately switch to a Production factory building the A6M2 Sen Baku, undamaged, and will happily produce those until Jun 44, when it will join Happy Factory ‘A’ in switching to the A6M5b, etc.

However, if Happy Factory ‘B’ has Upgrade to Off, it will not switch to a Production factory, but will instead continue its happy life as an R&D factory, but will begin researching the A6M5b. It will be undamaged, etc.

I can also manually switch Happy Factory ‘B’ to work on the A6M5b within one month of the current Availability Date without any damage to the Factory.

But for sake of argument let’s say I don’t want Happy Factory ‘A’ to switch to producing the Sen Baku because I want it to build something else…

If I switch Happy Factory ‘B’ to research the A6M3, it will be damaged. In 30 days it will be completely repaired and start potentially generating Research that will move up the Availability of that plane. As before, I now have a choice of either letting Happy Factory ‘B’ switch to Producing the Plane it had been producing, or to either manually or automatically let it move to researching the A6M3a.

Either way, once the A6M3 is Available, Happy Factory ‘A’ will NOT switch to producing that plane, as it is happily building A6M2 until the Sen Baku is available.

I could, however, manually switch Happy Factory ‘A’ to the A6M3 (yes, I know this would be bad, but this is just an example!). It would suffer damage (I believe this damage is semi-random, with more damage being likely the farther away from the current path it is switched to?) Then when the A6M3a is available, unless I stop it, Happy Factory ‘A’ will switch to the A6M3a without any damage and continue Happily producing those aircraft.

So then one more scenario…

Happy Factory ‘A’ is set to Upgrade off, happily making A6M2. Happy Factory ‘B’ is set to work on the A6M3. It switches to A6M3a, then the A6M5, the 5b, and then the 5c…

…and since the A6M5c is in the path of the A6M2, Happy Factory ‘A’ can be changed to building the A6M5c without any damage, and will continue happily building the 5c until the Allies burn it down.


So please let me know if I’m getting all this right. If so, it’s just a matter of choosing which planes I want to focus R&D on.

Also, I understand that having 500 engines used by the plane being researched will (can?) give a bonus, which consumes an engine.

Speaking of Engines, Engine R&D seems a whole other matter that’s not nearly as discussed…perhaps I’ll ask about Happy Engine Factories ‘1’ and ‘2’ later!

Thanks for any help provided!!

[rustysi]

If Production is set to off, it will not generate any Research points.

Don't have much time right now but I'll address this one first. Look at the thread in the main forum (I think you posted there too). 'Prod' on the R&D page doesn't effect whether research points are generated. Seems to me that once the R&D factory is fully 'repaired' research points will be generated normally no matter what you do with the 'prod' or 'upgr' toggles on the R&D section of the industrial screen.

Ok, gotta go, I'll be back tomorrow.

[cohimbra]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

If Production is set to off, it will not generate any Research points.

'Prod' on the R&D page doesn't effect whether research points are generated. Seems to me that once the R&D factory is fully 'repaired' research points will be generated normally no matter what you do with the 'prod' or 'upgr' toggles on the R&D section of the industrial screen.

+1, just in this days I checked it and I'm 100% sure about that.

[rustysi]

If I switch Happy Factory ‘B’ to research the A6M3, it will be damaged. In 30 days it will be completely repaired and start potentially generating Research that will move up the Availability of that plane.

No. R&D factories do not repair at the rate of one/day. There's a formula involved and the closer to the A/C's actual production date the more likely it will repair a point. There also must be >10000 supplies at the base for each factory point to be repaired. You can approximate the time an R&D factory will be fully repaired. The aforementioned formula works out to be ~63% (IIRC) of the time from when you set the level of production to the due date of the A/C in question. IOW if I set an R&D factory to a size of 30 and its due to be produced 10 months from now the factory will repair in ~6 months.

[rustysi]

So please let me know if I’m getting all this right. If so, it’s just a matter of choosing which planes I want to focus R&D on.

Also, I understand that having 500 engines used by the plane being researched will (can?) give a bonus, which consumes an engine.

Speaking of Engines, Engine R&D seems a whole other matter that’s not nearly as discussed…perhaps I’ll ask about Happy Engine Factories ‘1’ and ‘2’ later!

Thanks for any help provided!!

Seems OK. The engine bonus is an extra R&D point/day when an airframe R&D factory generates a point (I'm not sure but I seem to remember reading about a cap on this bonus, maybe someone else can confirm/deny this point). Keep one thing in mind, R&Ding engine factories is handled differently.[:D] These bad boys do repair at the rate of one/day as long as the base has >10000 supply.[8|]

Hope this helps. Good luck with it all, as I still don't know how I'll handle my R&D and production.[&:]

[Malagant]

Thanks so much for the help guys! I'm sorry if this was kind of a double-post, but I didn't want to spam someone else's threads with my dumb questions!

Speaking of which, I have a few more!

Do R&D factories consume HI?

Do R&D factories consume Supply when they make their 'roll' to Repair?

And can an R&D Factory be changed to an airframe farther up the chain of the current aircraft without damage? For example, could Happy Factory 'B' start on A6M3, then when fully repaired switch to A6M8 and the Factory would not be damaged at all?

[rustysi]

Do R&D factories consume HI?

You spend HI when setting the factory size (or expanding it), otherwise no.

Do R&D factories consume Supply when they make their 'roll' to Repair?

If the repair 'roll' is successful, yes.

And can an R&D Factory be changed to an airframe farther up the chain of the current aircraft without damage? For example, could Happy Factory 'B' start on A6M3, then when fully repaired switch to A6M8 and the Factory would not be damaged at all?

No.

[alimentary]

R&D factories can be upgraded within an upgrade chain with the caveat that you have to do the upgrades one step at a time. For instance, if you load scenario 1 and select the Ki49-Ia R&D factory in Yokohama you can upgrade to Ki49-IIa and then to Ki49-IIb and still have a 14(0) factory on turn 1. But if you try to skip directly to the Ki49-IIb, you'll have a 0(9) factory instead.