Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

Moderators: wdolson, MOD_War-in-the-Pacific-Admirals-Edition

Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

Currently reconnaissance aircraft are seldom or even intercepted by fighters, only AA seems to make damage, that is an oversight since there even have been fighters modifications build to intercept very high reconnaissance aircraft like Spitfire.
So the idea is to change their type to Patrol. But it seems per manual that Reconnaissance aircraft have more detection level than Patrol. Is this still true? giving a Camera equipment with >0 value to Patrol can somewhat attenuate that advantage.
User avatar
BBfanboy
Posts: 19692
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2010 5:36 pm
Location: Winnipeg, MB
Contact:

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: Dili

Currently reconnaissance aircraft are seldom or even intercepted by fighters, only AA seems to make damage, that is an oversight since there even have been fighters modifications build to intercept very high reconnaissance aircraft like Spitfire.
So the idea is to change their type to Patrol. But it seems per manual that Reconnaissance aircraft have more detection level than Patrol. Is this still true? giving a Camera equipment with >0 value to Patrol can somewhat attenuate that advantage.
Not sure what you are wanting to discuss - recon aircraft not getting shot down by fighters or recon vs. patrol aircraft for recon missions?

Recon aircraft are generally stripped of all defensive armament to accommodate cameras and fly higher/farther/faster than their armed counterparts. The Allied ones at least would likely have two cameras to take dual pictures that can be viewed on stereoscopic equipment. This often reveals details that would not stand out in a single photo.

Patrol aircraft OTOH usually start without cameras at all and can only report what the Mark 1 Eyeball sees, and the Mark 0 brain remembers.
Later models get cameras and radar but I think the cameras are singular, not designed to take the dual pics needed for stereoscopic viewing. Thus their recon detection value should be less than a real recon aircraft.
The biggest problem with patrol aircraft for recon is that they are designed to fly at slow speeds and lower altitudes to do search and ASW type duties so they are more vulnerable to flak and fighters.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

Reconnaissance aircraft not being shot down by fighters there is not much to discuss is a fact i think that we can't anything about. So it is the discussion of replacing that type with Patrol type.


Are you sure that a reconnaissance mission by a Patrol type implies that it flow slow? i think there is not much sense that a F-4 Lightning qualified as a patrol would fly slow in a reconnaissance mission. Neither low if i put it to fly at 30000ft.


Your information about dual cameras made me think if more than one can put in patrol aircraft and that way having Detection levels like a proper reconnaissance
User avatar
kbfchicago
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:46 pm
Location: NC, USA
Contact:

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by kbfchicago »

ok...so Dili what your proposing is use the editor to add camera(s) to patrol versions of AC and not use the recon versions? So they will occasionally get shot down?

- In my experience. You get a high attrition rate on recon AC, so even if they are not being shot down in the game (by enemy fighters), you are losing them. So this seems like allot of non-historical effort, for no gain.

- I like to play as close to historical as possible. So that would mean when putting in two cameras as you noted above, which means you would need to "historically" remove the weapons. Of course this assumes the game code is giving you a boost for having two cameras vs. being a purpose built recon version. About those cameras...we are not talking pocket digital cameras here...the cameras for photo recon in these planes were not small. Unless you ignore the physics of space you have to remove the weapons (in the case of most versions -e.g. the Lightnings you mention above). This is why there were recon versions in the first place...

my 2 cents. Nice thought, but lots of effort for essentially no change or more likely unintended consequences to game mechanics.

However...feel free to mod and let us know how that works out. Suspect you will actually get very little use from recon as there is likely facets of the code that are already reflecting what you are looking to achieve (attrition of recon planes).

Kevin
MacBook Pro / WITP-AE running in Parallels v15.x
User avatar
BBfanboy
Posts: 19692
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2010 5:36 pm
Location: Winnipeg, MB
Contact:

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: Dili

Reconnaissance aircraft not being shot down by fighters there is not much to discuss is a fact i think that we can't anything about. So it is the discussion of replacing that type with Patrol type.


Are you sure that a reconnaissance mission by a Patrol type implies that it flow slow? i think there is not much sense that a F-4 Lightning qualified as a patrol would fly slow in a reconnaissance mission. Neither low if i put it to fly at 30000ft.


Your information about dual cameras made me think if more than one can put in patrol aircraft and that way having Detection levels like a proper reconnaissance
You have confused me by talking about "patrol aircraft" where you really mean other types of aircraft put on patrol or trained to do patrol duties.
You are talking about F-4 Lightnings (without mentioning the aircraft designation) as if they are a patrol type aircraft ; they are not, they are Recon aircraft type. In the game "patrol" applied to aircraft means flying boat type of long range (and slow) aircraft. If you want to take a fast Recon aircraft type and put it on a Naval Search mission, you can certainly do so. They are not as good at search because they do not have a crew of observers like a PBY patrol aircraft would and they fly too fast to allow careful scanning of the ocean for things as small as periscopes or sub conning towers.
I don't think you can assign them to other patrol missions like ASW because recon aircraft carry no weapons.
Flying boat type patrol aircraft can fly Reconnaissance missions and some models have a camera.

You could use the scenario editor to add a camera to the Patrol aircraft type (F-4s will already have cameras) but I am not sure you can give the same camera device as the dedicated Recon aircraft carry, so you may not get the same detection level on the target from their recon.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
User avatar
witpqs
Posts: 26376
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:48 pm
Location: Argleton

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by witpqs »

Dili, your claim that recon types are not intercepted by CAP is false.

Tracker of my current PBM. Because heavy IJ CAP has coincided with much higher ops losses, I believe that a great many of the ops losses noted for Allied recon were also due to damage from CAP.

Image
Attachments
19441101..esrecon.jpg
19441101..esrecon.jpg (366.53 KiB) Viewed 148 times
Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

ok...so Dili what your proposing is use the editor to add camera(s) to patrol versions of AC and not use the recon versions? So they will occasionally get shot down?

Yes. Shot dowm by fighters, they are already well shot by AAA.

@BBfanboy i don't think you understand my idea.

Problem= Recon planes aren't downed by figthers .
Possible solution= lets change all recon aircraft to patrol aircraft.
Discussion= What are the implications of this solution and if is it a bad move that gives more problems than it fixes.

@witpqs that also appears in the ingame casualities screen? do you also have a game against AI that you can check.
User avatar
witpqs
Posts: 26376
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:48 pm
Location: Argleton

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Dili

@witpqs that also appears in the ingame casualities screen? do you also have a game against AI that you can check.
Yes, it does. I did a spot check. I did the screen capture of Tracker because in-game you can't filter or sort on type (Recon).

I don't have an AI game running to check.

Later (have to run) I'll post a query to MichaelM - I wonder if a player's own recon types that are shot down A2A show up as ops losses (as an idiosyncrasy of the code)?

There are also aircraft differences. I'm pretty sure that most of the Allied recon types are faster than the IJ recon types. I do still expect to see some Allied recon outright shot down A2A, though. Not sure why the stats show none for Allied.
Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

Thanks. Yes i noticed that.
User avatar
witpqs
Posts: 26376
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:48 pm
Location: Argleton

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by witpqs »

OK, posted the link to here and the same screen pic for Michael, along with the question.
Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

Thanks witpqs.
User avatar
geofflambert
Posts: 14887
Joined: Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:18 pm
Location: St. Louis

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by geofflambert »

witpqs, is your opponent aware of this thread? I'm presuming you didn't ask him to reveal what his info is. He might be willing to do a spot check with you of both sides of it.

User avatar
geofflambert
Posts: 14887
Joined: Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:18 pm
Location: St. Louis

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by geofflambert »

You can ask him to listen to Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now", those ice cream castles in the air get in the way sometimes.

User avatar
witpqs
Posts: 26376
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:48 pm
Location: Argleton

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

witpqs, is your opponent aware of this thread? I'm presuming you didn't ask him to reveal what his info is. He might be willing to do a spot check with you of both sides of it.
He's busy so I thought I would wait until the next turn I receive.
Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

Btw the Ki-46 isn't a slow plane.
Andav
Posts: 484
Joined: Tue May 08, 2007 7:48 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Andav »

Here is from the IJN side of the game with witpqs. I use my recon groups for search as well which accounts for a lot of the A2A losses.

Wa

Image
Attachments
ReconLosses.jpg
ReconLosses.jpg (95.46 KiB) Viewed 147 times
User avatar
witpqs
Posts: 26376
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:48 pm
Location: Argleton

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by witpqs »

Ah - I don't use recon types for search. Haven't in this PBM as far as I recall. Maybe Dili is on to something?
User avatar
Lowpe
Posts: 24063
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:25 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Lowpe »

I have lost lots of planes flying recon, but they aren't always recon planes.

Did that make sense? I use Sonias in that role and they simply can't fly high enough.

I believe I have lost quite a few Babs, but the Dinah does better, much better. Still, flying recon over heavily capped bases I get losses no matter what the plane.

I will look more into it...but I do feel that losses are highest flying into the Deathstar CAP. They are really protective with lots of great radar...which I always attributed the greater losses to.

Dili
Posts: 4713
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:33 pm

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by Dili »

If the problem is the mission type then changing the aircraft from recon to patrol will not fix it.
User avatar
witpqs
Posts: 26376
Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 7:48 pm
Location: Argleton

RE: Replace Reconnaissance Aircraft type with Patrol type?

Post by witpqs »

ORIGINAL: Dili

If the problem is the mission type then changing the aircraft from recon to patrol will not fix it.
I agree. But if the problem is only how the air to air losses are counted (if counted as ops losses instead of as air to air losses), then it's not a game play problem, just an issue of which stat you look at.
Post Reply

Return to “War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition”