Crazy experience gains - ships

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Yaab
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Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »


Happens in all grand campaign scenarios (scen033,scen100, scen28 DDB-c, scen102 RHS)

On turn 2 the day experience of several xAK/AK/support ships in Pearl Harbor jumped by 40 point, from the lows of 11/5 to 51-53/5. The ships do not need to be strafed or bombed, they just need to be disbanded in a port when the port is suffering air bombing. It only affects ships with initial day experience levels of 10-19 points. If exp is 20, ship gains 0 experience points.

This behaviour was first reported by fcharton in his AAR
tm.asp?m=3955133&mpage=4&key=�

BEGIN QUOTE

"While tending my damaged cargoes, I noticed something strange with the crew experience. In ....., a lot of my damaged cargoes have experience in the 50s, which is uncommon for merchants. Looking at it, I noticed that being attacked, and damaged, seems to have a huge effect on merchant ship experience. Today, xAKL Carroo went from 6/5 to 56/5, and xAK Mangola from 6/7 to 56/7.

The same seems true for other ships, and seems to happen even when they are not damaged. In ....., xAP President Madison was damaged on the first day of the war, and has been in the yard since. Her crew experience jumped (on the second day of the war) from 13/10 to 42/10, and the floating docks went from 15/11 to 51/11

On the other hand, ships which begin the game with ‘some’ experience (in the20s, I think) do not get the experience boost (in ...., Ethel Edwards was damaged on day one, and remained at 20/20)."

END QUOTE

I reported this to AndyMac here, thinking it was probably a dat file thing here tm.asp?m=4037697&mpage=2�

Here is a ship from my RHS game after the Pearl harbor attack. She suffered no damage at all, yet sport 50 exp
Image

Now, I do not mind exp gains in such situations, but 40 point gain is excessive. I guess gains of 5-10 point max would be enough.

Also, it really puts into question the rationale of port attack missions since in such situation they just serve to raise exp levels of enemy ships, just like arty bombardments raises exp of ground units.


EDIT: if you start any grand campaign as Allies and disable the historical December 7 attack, you will see that xAK Alchiba initial experience is 11/11.

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Yaab
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »

In December 8 start xAK Alchiba has 17/9 exp.

Consider how this behaviour may be exploited.

Allied player disbands all his inexperienced, unused xAKs/support ships in Sydney, say a 1000 of them. Jap player picks up radio transmissions in Sydney and decides to raid the place. He is met by weak CAP and damages scores of ships. Now their day exp jumps to 50 points. Jap player opts then for a surprising night attack. Ships are bombed again and now their night exp jumps to 50 points! Voila, a 1000 ships with exp 50/50.

Isn't that one of the reasons submarines are underperforming in WITP:AE? They may be facing hundreds of highly experienced merchant ships on both sides.

BTW, it is only Port Attack mission that raises experience. On December 7, Manila airfield and Hong Kong ground forces were bombed, but ships experience there remained the same.
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Yaab
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »


The plot thickens.

Here is xAKL Manini. At start the ship had day exp 20, thus it benefited 0 exp points in the Pearl Harbour attack on December 7, 1941. However, a day later, it gained 24 day exp points! I went through my campaign notes for that day and it seems that on December 8, 1941 the KB attacked Lihue and Pearl Harbor again.

Image

Thus, if your ships' day exp is 20+, then you have to survive two port attacks, then you gain half of what less experienced shipd had gained (40 point for AK Alchiba vs 24 points for the xAKL).

Once again, these gains seems excessive. Are shakedown cruises now obsolete for exp gathering?

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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by wdolson »

That sounds like that level of experience gain shouldn't happen, but a contributing factor is probably that ship's commander. He should be commanding a destroyer or a cruiser.

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Yaab
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »

The day exp gains are uniform across all classes - all low-experience xAK,AK,xAP,AM,AG and all non-combat support ships benefited from port attack. Heck, I guess if there had been a BB with exp 10/8, she would have also jumped to 50 day exp.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by btd64 »

That is strange. I haven't noticed it in Focus Pacific which has a lot of other mod work within....GP
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by michaelm75au »

Yes, every time a ship supplies flak it gets 1 experience. Bit over the top...I think it should be randomized so it only occasionally supplies the bonus.[:D]
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Yaab
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »

Thanks.

What about drydocks (ARD class) then? I have a drydock with no weapons at all and on each occasion her experience jumps to 51/5 after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Also, YO(yard oliers), added in DaBabes, expended between 27-37 op points on Dec 8 (I reckon this means they shot their AA weapons and reloaded the ammo from ports), but they post no exp gains at all. Are new ship classes, not present in stock, somehow not elligible for this exp gain?
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Thanks.

What about drydocks (ARD class) then? I have a drydock with no weapons at all and on each occasion her experience jumps to 51/5 after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Also, YO(yard oliers), added in DaBabes, expended between 27-37 op points on Dec 8 (I reckon this means they shot their AA weapons and reloaded the ammo from ports), but they post no exp gains at all. Are new ship classes, not present in stock, somehow not elligible for this exp gain?
Well, I read that at PH crews without access to weapons and ammo were throwing potatoes at low flying planes - which must have been an experience!

Throughout the game units that are shot at (or even reconned) by enemy aircraft gain experience from time to time. It is the amount of experience gained that is surprising here. It is almost like the developers gave a lot of points for crews being shocked out of their peacetime complacency.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Throughout the game units that are shot at (or even reconned) by enemy aircraft gain experience from time to time. It is the amount of experience gained that is surprising here. It is almost like the developers gave a lot of points for crews being shocked out of their peacetime complacency.

And they should have. It's a real thing.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by michaelm75au »

Basically the ships gain '1' exp each time it has AAA to fire at planes, up to the magical 50 exp level. Then it starts to get hard to gain the extra points as with other experience calculations.
My planned simple tuning will cover the pre-50 experience:
1. Firing of flak - combat ships have a better chance to gain experience than non-combat ships, and
2. The exp gained will be randomized to include 0. (which is 50/50 chance of getting the '1' point gain.)
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Yaab
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »

Excellent!

What about non-AA vessels like ARDs and their 50 exp gains? Seems like a bug.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by btd64 »

In three separate starts of Andy's scenario 102 I have seen the same thing. Never noticed it before in other scenarios....GP
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Yaab »

The thing that puzzles me is that such different ships as AV Curtiss (4 big DP guns and 16 x 40mm Bofors guns) and xAKL Hirondelle (two 0.303 cal MGs) provide equal numbers of flak rounds. Both reach exp 50.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: Yaab

The thing that puzzles me is that such different ships as AV Curtiss (4 big DP guns and 16 x 40mm Bofors guns) and xAKL Hirondelle (two 0.303 cal MGs) provide equal numbers of flak rounds. Both reach exp 50.
Curtiss would have a much bigger crew to get experienced. Maybe there is a proportionality happening in the abstracted model?
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by Lokasenna »

Remember that there is probably a random element to whether a ship in port fires at attacking aircraft at all.

Also keep in mind that really, by and large, experience gains for merchantmen mean almost nothing.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by michaelm75au »

The jump to 50 is quick; start off at exp 35 and fire AAA 15 times during the air phases in the turn, and you reach 50. Then it gets harder to gain exp.
Crew size does not matter to exp - it is fairly abstract.
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by michaelm75au »

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Excellent!

What about non-AA vessels like ARDs and their 50 exp gains? Seems like a bug.
I don't see any thing special here, but they will gain 1 a point (1 in 5 chance) each turn during the 'crew training' phase unto ship crew level (which is 40 for ARD).
Maybe they are getting benefit of the other ships in port firing???
[Yes it is being influenced by this. The ship experience is being gained if anyone fired flak, rather than the ship itself. Thus the ARD would be getting affected if there are other ships present shooting during air attacks. It should not be so.]
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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by PaxMondo »

Michael,


Thanks for all the continuing support ....

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RE: Crazy experience gains - ships

Post by BBfanboy »

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Remember that there is probably a random element to whether a ship in port fires at attacking aircraft at all.

Also keep in mind that really, by and large, experience gains for merchantmen mean almost nothing.
I am sure that crew experience figures into damage control calculations. It might mean the difference between going down or limping away.
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