Pilot Training Automation Tool (PTAT)

[Sangeli]

How many of you are tired of spending hours each week managing pilots for your PBEM game? Probably a lot of you, especially those who play as the Allies. Certainly I am tired of it myself. Which is why last year I decided to make a program that can manage pilots by playing the game for you. Since that time I have made a lot of progress but there is still much work to be done. If you're curious then check out the video I made of the tool in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om5S7FX ... e=youtu.be

It's not quite as fast as a human yet but I'm making progress. It's implementing a very basic management algorithm but it only applies to a monotonic training group light fighter pilots which can all be trained the same. My greatest challenge is going to be to implement training algorithms for pilot groups that don't training monotonically (eg USN bomber training to be TB or DB pilots but not both). My idea was to create pilot classes within pilot pools. Each class would specify a minimum skill set to be considered such a pilot and a target skill set which determines when a pilot is done training. A pilot falls in three categories: unspecialized, specialized, or trained. A pilot is considered trained if it meets the target skill criteria for a pilot class. Alternatively, a pilot is considered unspecialized if it doesn't meet the minimum skill set of a any pilot class. Lastly, a pilot is considered specialized if he meets the minimum criteria for one or more pilot classes but not the target of any.

When adding pilots to a squadron, the program has to determine if a pilot is a fit for that particular training group. An unspecialized pilot would be added to any group training any skill. But for pilots who are specialized its a little more complicated. The program returns any pilot that is that doesn't require further (or any) training for the skill the group is training based off what pilot classes the pilot qualifies for based off the minimum skill set. For example, I might set the minimum skillset of TB pilots to be 50 NavT, 40 NavB, and 40 ASW. For DB pilots lets say I set minimum skill set to be 50 NavB, 40 NavS, and 40 Gnd. If I'm adding pilots to a group training NavT, I would return any pilots that don't meet the minimum skill of being a TB pilot but qualify as a DB pilot. If a pilot qualifies to be DB pilot and TB pilot it will stay and keep training.

What makes this algorithm most difficult to implement is that we can only draw pilots from the bottom of the pool of a specific skill into pilot groups. Picking pilots manually results in a delay which is to be avoided. There's no way to prevent pilots from going to a group they shouldn't when that happens they just need to be released. But since those pilots go right to the bottom of the pool where we drew them from, we either have to switch the skill to sort or move to another group training another skill.

Anyway, tell me what you think of my idea. I'm curious if people would be interested in using this for themselves eventually.

[witpaemail]

I cant imagine why someone would want something that "plays the game for them".

Have fun, this isnt something I would even be remotely interested in.

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: witpaemail
I cant imagine why someone would want something that "plays the game for them".

Have fun, this isnt something I would even be remotely interested in.

Play a year in a PBEM game as the Allies and get back to me on that [:D]

[mind_messing]

Anyway, tell me what you think of my idea. I'm curious if people would be interested in using this for themselves eventually.

I know I'd get a blast out of such a program as this, as managing pilot training is a massive slog.

Based on the video, would it be possible to set it up so that one all pilots are passed the skill threshold, they are sent to the reserve pool and replaced with replacement pilots? In other words, the tool checks if any fighter pilots are at the threshold. Those that are are sent to reserve, and they are replaced with new pilots drawn from the replacement pool rather than the reserve?

ORIGINAL: witpaemail

I cant imagine why someone would want something that "plays the game for them".

Have fun, this isnt something I would even be remotely interested in.

I don't know about you, but I bought "War in the Pacific", not "Flight School Manager in the Pacific".

[witpaemail]

ORIGINAL: Sangeli

ORIGINAL: witpaemail
I cant imagine why someone would want something that "plays the game for them".

Have fun, this isnt something I would even be remotely interested in.

Play a year in a PBEM game as the Allies and get back to me on that [:D]

I have played this game, and its fore-fathers for decades both PBM and against the AI. Going back to Grigsbys original "Guadalcanal Campaign" by SSI back in the 80s.

[witpaemail]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Anyway, tell me what you think of my idea. I'm curious if people would be interested in using this for themselves eventually.

I know I'd get a blast out of such a program as this, as managing pilot training is a massive slog.

Based on the video, would it be possible to set it up so that one all pilots are passed the skill threshold, they are sent to the reserve pool and replaced with replacement pilots? In other words, the tool checks if any fighter pilots are at the threshold. Those that are are sent to reserve, and they are replaced with new pilots drawn from the replacement pool rather than the reserve?

ORIGINAL: witpaemail

I cant imagine why someone would want something that "plays the game for them".

Have fun, this isnt something I would even be remotely interested in.

I don't know about you, but I bought "War in the Pacific", not "Flight School Manager in the Pacific".

The allies have countless squadrons that cant move from the west coast. Trust me, it is FAR easier training allied flight crews than Japs...

That being said, what is there to manage? You put squadrons on training in the rear and leave them. Theres only so many places you are going to have contact with the enemy anyways until later in the war so its not like you have to have every squadron on the front lines all the time.

[Sangeli]

ORIGINAL: witpaemail

The allies have countless squadrons that cant move from the west coast. Trust me, it is FAR easier training allied flight crews than Japs...

That being said, what is there to manage? You put squadrons on training in the rear and leave them. Theres only so many places you are going to have contact with the enemy anyways until later in the war so its not like you have to have every squadron on the front lines all the time.

As you say, the Allies have countless squadrons. You can put them in the rear training and leave them, but eventually you have to harvest your pilots or switch the mission when they have trained up a skill. Of course pilots don't train equally so either you wait until they are all at the target skill or switch it early; neither solution is very optimal. You can then manually trim pilots and add them to other groups but of course that is a very time consuming process. That is the purpose of the tool.

ORIGINAL: mind_messing
I know I'd get a blast out of such a program as this, as managing pilot training is a massive slog.

Based on the video, would it be possible to set it up so that one all pilots are passed the skill threshold, they are sent to the reserve pool and replaced with replacement pilots? In other words, the tool checks if any fighter pilots are at the threshold. Those that are are sent to reserve, and they are replaced with new pilots drawn from the replacement pool rather than the reserve?

It's already doing the one skill threshold check as you can see in the video. If you look carefully you see it trimming off pilots with Air >= 70. Sure I could draw pilots from the replacement pool but then each pilot would only train one skill. The reality is that any efficient pilot training program requires bringing pilots from the reserve pool into training groups as well. If all I wanted was replacement pilots then I'd pretty much already be done.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear ideas on how you guys manage what I call heterogeneous pilot pools by hand if you are one of those micro-managers who trims and adds pilots from training groups rather just switching missions and leaving pilots alone.

[witpaemail]

It just isnt that hard. Lets say you want some USAAC fighter pilots. You go to the air squadron screen, filter to US army anad fighters & fighter bombers only. Click the "experience" column to sort the list by most experienced pilots, go to the top "training" squadron on the list. Click "pilots", then sort the pilot list by air to air experience. Then move however many you want to move to the front to the reserve pool. You can move 1, 5, or 10 at a time. Want to move 40 pilots? 4 clicks of the move 10 button...

Click the squadron at the front you want to move the pilots to. Hit the fill er up button.

Go back to the training squadron and hit the fill er up button to re-fill the training squadron with rookies.

Takes 10 seconds once you know what you are doing, if that long...

[tbothy]

Hi witpaemail
Can you please detail what you do a lil further, Ive tried to doing what you have posted but I think I'm looking in the wrong screen

advance many thanks
tbothy

[Malagant]

I think you guys are talking Apples and Oranges.

witpaemail, you're talking about moving trained pilots to fighting groups.

I think what Sangeli is trying to automate is the intense micro-management that many players to do achieve certain sets of skills on pilots, not just a single skill.


Sangeli, to answer your question...I'm not terribly experienced player, but I find I do a whole "class" at a time in a squadron: i work one skill so they're all in the 70s range, then switch to the next skill. I don't micromanage each pilot, I just do a batch at a time and aim for 'pretty good', not perfect

[RogerJNeilson]

I play the allies and have yet to ever bother with this aspect of the game.... Am I really missing that much?

Roger

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I play the allies and have yet to ever bother with this aspect of the game.... Am I really missing that much?

Roger

From a competitive standpoint against a human opponent, yes!

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I play the allies and have yet to ever bother with this aspect of the game.... Am I really missing that much?

Roger

From a competitive standpoint against a human opponent, yes!

I have not had an opportunity to play a competitive game against another human since my UV days, but I still put much effort into managing pilot training.

As mentioned above leaving the training squadron on one skill will get that skill to 70 and overall experience perhaps to 50-55. In order to get overall experience up to 70 you need to switch training to another skill.

Most pilots need more than one skill. Training fighter pilots to 70 Air will get Experience to 50-55, but will only get Defense to about 45. Changing training to Sweep at 100 feet will spur increases in Strafing, Defense and Experience.

The same is true for bomber pilots. Once I have their primary bombing skill to 70 I switch to get their NavSearch or Recon skill up so they can find what I want them to bomb and push their experience higher than I can by only training the bombing skill.

My PBY pilots get Torpedo training as well as NavSearch.

To me all of this is simply good game play and should be developed as habit regardless of who your opponent is.

[Numdydar]

Please explain why this level of detailed pilot training can possibility matter to the Allies? In a PBEM or especially against the AI? The Allies are going to 'win' no matter what. It may take them longer than historical but so what? Of course how many games really get into '44/'45 anyway? PBEM especially.

Now if you like managing this aspect of the pilots in the game, then great. I just do basic training playing as Japan and still seem to have fun with the game. Maybe once a month look at how they are doing and switch things around. I figured that's good enough. I certainly do not go to the details that some seem to do as honestly, a) do not want to spend the time involved and b) not a 'fun' part of the game for me. Plus if you play against the AI, you need to give it all the help you can lol.

[RogerJNeilson]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I play the allies and have yet to ever bother with this aspect of the game.... Am I really missing that much?

Roger

From a competitive standpoint against a human opponent, yes!

Hmm, never played against the computer, not felt the need to do this level of detail, but respect your advice, will have a look when I get back from my little tour round Europe - this years' holiday.

Cheers

Roger

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

Please explain why this level of detailed pilot training can possibility matter to the Allies? In a PBEM or especially against the AI? The Allies are going to 'win' no matter what. It may take them longer than historical but so what? Of course how many games really get into '44/'45 anyway? PBEM especially.

Now if you like managing this aspect of the pilots in the game, then great. I just do basic training playing as Japan and still seem to have fun with the game. Maybe once a month look at how they are doing and switch things around. I figured that's good enough. I certainly do not go to the details that some seem to do as honestly, a) do not want to spend the time involved and b) not a 'fun' part of the game for me. Plus if you play against the AI, you need to give it all the help you can lol.

Why does anyone put up with the billions of mouse clicks necessary to play the game?
The same reason that anything in the game matters. The enjoyment of playing.
I enjoy knowing that I am doing things efficiently, even if the effort involved is a tedious one.
If one always equates enjoyment with action rather than outcome then I can see things from your point of view.
I don't mind tedious action to facilitate an enjoyable outcome.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I play the allies and have yet to ever bother with this aspect of the game.... Am I really missing that much?

Roger

From a competitive standpoint against a human opponent, yes!

Hmm, never played against the computer, not felt the need to do this level of detail, but respect your advice, will have a look when I get back from my little tour round Europe - this years' holiday.

Cheers

Roger

Do you mean to say you don't train pilots at all?

It's absolutely necessary as Japan, but still pretty critical as the Allies. I've just been playing around with Downfall, and the pilot starting skills are so abysmal I can't even learn from the set-up without spending a few months training pilots.

[Numdydar]

Sorry obvert but I have to respectfully disagree. I do not see pilot training as a 'critical' need in the game. For either side. Can it help in combat routines, sure. But again it is not worth it to me. In other words, 'the gain is not worth the pain' [:)]

I'll bet I could play as the Allies against any JFB (even though I have never played the Allies) and do minimal training and still win. Now if pilot training was so critical, then it should mean that the Allies could NOT win unless they did detailed pilot training. Since that is not the case, then pilot training is not a critical aspect of winning the game as the Allies. Or even Japan doing better than historical (for a lot of other reasons than pilot training).

In my first PBEM game as Japan, I did spend a lot of time training my pilots up, then as the game got into '44, I realized why bother as even with advanced plane types, my pilot levels did not make much of an impact.

But again, if you enjoy seeing your pilots level up and this is a fun part of the game for you as Hans said above, then it is nice the game gives us the options. So those of us that like the details of managing pilots can do so and feel the training levels matter while those of us that don't care and/or do not see that big of a difference can play our way too [:)]

[WriterNotViking]

This could be a wonderful tool for those who don't want to ignore this aspect of the game but balk at the sheer number of mouse clicks required to get results. It's a wonderful effort, and all such undertakings that aim to make this massive game a little more playable should be applauded.

As for those who see no use for this tool, I really have to wonder if that is enough reason to go out of your way to announce your disavowal. Regardless of your opinions, surely you can respect the amount of work that has gone into this?

EDIT: So the "fast reply" field automatically labels your post as replying to the last one before that. I did not know that.

[RogerJNeilson]

Purely for the record I merely commented in the thread because I was genuinely interested in whether or not I was missing a useful part of the game. I was not making any 'disavowal'. At present I let the guys learn from their buddies - or not as the case may be. Possibly I need to check this out, and anything that makes life easier is welcomed by me.

The video really doesn't help me at all, its pretty fast and I have no idea what is happening... A bit of audio explanation would help enormously.

Roger