Zeke, Sorry for the long wait for a response to your question. I did alter the routine convoys, but I've now hopefully fixed the issue. See below!
Here's version 3.2.14 of PAC.EXE available for download. A list of ongoing fixes / modifications plus a new required file is also included in the zip file. You can download it here:
Pacific War Update Version 3.2.14
The latest version 3.2.14 EXE fixes / features are shown below. Note in particular item 64 and a
new file “eport.cbt” that you must now include in the same directory as the EXE for the game to work. The new file is included in the zip file.
57) Fixed a couple of bugs that occasionally caused game “freezing”. These include the freeze that occurred when pressing “shift-4” to look at Japanese merchant ship counts, and the freeze that occurred if the “gus” setting in the Dosbox config.sys file is set to “false”. Hopefully these fixes will eliminate Zeke’s replenishment routine freeze issues.
58) Removed previous change 24b whereby “The number of ships required in routine convoys is now affected by the distance from the source to the destination.” And “The maximum number of ships allowed in one routine convoy ship unit has been increased from 50 to 75 to help with this change.” In looking at AI performance, the Allied AI appeared to be severely handicapped by this change. I’ll look for less intrusive ways to properly show the impact of distance on routine convoy capabilities.
59) Made some more changes to the way the AI sets paths for Allied TFs. You should see a little less suicide moves into Japanese territory.
60) Altered the port flak modifier from 0.125 to 0.5. This increases flak effectiveness in port by a factor of 4, but it is still ½ as effective as TF flak. I tested this change on the Pearl Harbor attack; it doesn’t affect the outcome, but a few more Japanese aircraft are lost.
61) Altered TF flak to make it more effective against small air strikes and less effective against large air strikes. Currently, percentage aircraft losses against TF flak are the same whether the air strike is large or small. For example, a TF flak rating of 4000 will hit on average about 50% of the attacking aircraft. So a strike of 200 aircraft will have about 100 hit, and a strike of 20 aircraft will have about 10 hit. This doesn’t seem right to me. All that flak concentrating on a strike of 20 aircraft should hit a higher percentage. So I’ve change the code as follows: a strike of 80 aircraft remaining after CAP will lose the same number of aircraft as currently. A smaller strike will lose a larger percentage of its aircraft, approaching about 30% more than a strike of 80 as the number of aircraft is decreased linearly to zero. Likewise, a larger strike will lose a smaller percentage of its aircraft, approaching about 30% less than a strike of 80 as the number of aircraft is increased linearly to 240 aircraft.
62) Increased the flak value of LCUs. You should now take some aircraft losses against large LCU groupings.
63) Fixed code that was frequently isolating Adelaide. You should see this occur less frequently.
64) I’ve made my first foray into changing how the AI behaves related to setting HQ targets. You should now see some differences in the how the AI conducts its offensive moves. So far, the changes are all on the offensive side; so you will see changes mostly in the Japanese offensive period (Dec 41 to around Jan 43), and the Allied offensive period (Mid 43 to end of war). You’ll need a new file in your game directory, which I’ve included, “eport.cbt” (not report.cbt). The game won’t run properly if you don’t have this file in the game directory. I’d call this change still a work in progress, but I’d like you all to try some test games against the AI, with you on the defensive (Allies in early war, Japan in late war) and let me know what you think. This change should not affect human vs. human games.
65) Changed the civilian kill point divisor from 100 to 20. So losing 1000 civilians nets 50 victory points instead of 10 victory points. This puts civilian kill victory points equivalent to infantry losses: currently losing 100 squads = 1000 soldiers net 50 victory points.
As usual, please let me know if you find any issues / bugs.
Best Regards,
Rich