Matrix Games

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider
Problem with that approach Nik is it messes with unit Load Cost Algorithms...

With the route I'm choosing I change 5 numbers in Industry matrix the editor and add 800 resource centers to the existing 2100 in China/Manchuria.

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider

IIRC - The the 890 refinery points require 8900 oil points. Then the refinery produces 890 Supply and 8010 Fuel.

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ORIGINAL: oldman45

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

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ORIGINAL: treespider

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

I realize you are trying to get the economy more historic, but TBH, in all of my games I have never had a fuel shortage as Japan. It really comes down to proper management of your merchant fleet (which Japan failed at miserably) and not trying to sail all over the globe looking for fights with massive fleets. Probably need to talk to other IJN players to see if this holds true across the board.

On paper, the numbers are different than in practice in game is what I am saying.

Again the real problem with the merchant fleet sitting idle is two-fold:

1. A player isn't stupid. We aren't going to send out a convoy to a resource area carrying supplies and not utilize it to bring in resources on the return trip. Personally I use a system where small ships are used to bring the resource/oil to a central point, and from there a large convoy hauls it back to the HI.

Example: In the DEI, I might pick up from Singapore and Palembang. Instead of hauling the oil resources from Java all the way to Japan, I send it to Palembang where it is picked up with the Palembang production in a series of large convoys. You set up 4-6 of these large convoys, along with all the other stuff going to the main load point, and you can get a convoy arriving at Tokyo once a week etc. All of these carry suppleis back to their resource load points for the return trip. The Japanese didn't do that, but would have shipped the resource from Java in 2-3 ships going to Japan, and may not load supplies on the return trip etc.

In the above example, it hits on something else...every ship making constant long trips caused maintainence problems. Players don't have that issue either.

2. We also aren't going to send them out in 1s or 2s without escorts, so we don't suffer the losses the IJN did during the war. The end result is lots of tonnage un-used.

I guess what I'm saying is that the real problem isn't that we have too much fuel or too little resource, a lot of it has to do with the playing have 20/20 hindsight and not making the historical shipping decisions.

I think what people forget with the un-utilized tonnage in game is that we are not making the same decisions the IJN did. Still, the idea of trying to get the player to use more of the merchant fleet, and need to leave the merchant build queue on is commendable.

Unfortunately we can't modify the game itself to do what would be best, which is have refineries able to turn a small amount of resource (to represent the bulk coal) into bunker fuel. Your solution may be the best. Since it seems we need to increase the number of resources that need to be hauled back to Japan to get a closer to historic use of the Japanese merchant fleet.

All very true...but why not try and bring Resource aand petroleum transportation into line with historical levels?

Then once that is accomplished you can CHOOSE to address game play style through the mechanism of a House Rule - such as handicapping the Japanese with a simulation of their historic convoy practices or lack thereof. One way to do this would be to limit the Japanese Cargo TF running oil and resources to say 5 ships total.


Of course MOST players don't want to be saddled with historic doctrine or politics.

I can't imagine why...

I agree that a tweaking of the resource/oil inputs is probably called for, its just a matter of how much is too much. Right now its on the low extreme, you'll just need to do lots of testing to make sure that its not taken to the other extreme and make the game unplayable for the Japanese player. Balancing is always the hardest part of it.

Just pointing out as it stands, fuel is not the limiting factor for me in my games. Then again, other players who are more agressive than I am might have a different point of view on this issue.

Is balance what we are really looking for? I understand what your saying Shark, but WWII was never balanced at all. The cry for balance is what made some early changes that I have never liked but here we are. A game has to have a level of playablity but in this case, the Allied player can't hurt the Japanese industry with his subs. As you are aware in 44 the IJN was getting its fuel right from the NEI because;
1) it was sweet crude and they could run it in their boilers with some acceptable problems.
2) the US subs were sinking all the tankers they could find, and the Japanese were suffering for it.

The changes may just make it so the Japanese players will have to balance invasion needs with shipping needs and also think about how to protect its limited shipping. It will also cause the US player to rethink logistics and I like that. You see I don't want a balanced game, I want to feel the struggle as the Allies in 41/42, see light at the end of the tunnel in 43 but still have to juggle ships to meet my needs. I agree we need to make sure it doesn't make it unplayable for the Japanese, but balance should not play into the equation.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider
Problem with that approach Nik is it messes with unit Load Cost Algorithms...

With the route I'm choosing I change 5 numbers in Industry matrix the editor and add 800 resource centers to the existing 2100 in China/Manchuria.

in what way?

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RE: DaBigBabes Beta errata - 9/27/2010 12:59:51 PM

JWE
Matrix Legion of Merit

[quote}
ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
Any chance to get a "certainly-not-general-gaming-public-but-rather-harcore-realism-fanatic" version - maybe in connection with DaBigBabes?

And from Uncle Don.

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We did put in a number of features that should reduce cross loading. One is the "Temporary AP" conversion of Japanese Freighters. Another, far less obvious, is a preference for "normal" loading in the automatic load routines (including the AI and Human auto TF build and auto add-a-ship function).

So, for division size units:

USA Inf, 10929 troop LC, 11411 cargo LC, (incl min supply) 22340, tot LC
Mar Div, 12759 troop LC, 10868 cargo LC, (incl min supply) 23627, tot LC

Takes 12-14 6000 capacity ton xAKs (let’s say an ordinary EC2 Liberty) to transport an Army or Marine Division: 66,000 capacity tons for cross loaded troops (11,000 troops at 6x) and 11,400 capacity tons for weaps, vehs, and supply. Regardless of how they are “actually” distributed across individual ships, you could “rationalize” in terms of fitting 11,000 troops in 14 ships = 800 “men” per ship. And that ain’t bad. And you would need more ships for an Amph TF since they don’t load to 100% (80% iirc).

If ya use xAPs (let’s say a USAT converted EC2 Liberty) ya get 1500 troop cap and 2000 cargo cap, so you will need roughly 8 of these: 12,000 troop capacity for the 11,000 troops, and 16,000 cargo capacity for the 11,400 tons o’ stuff. In both cases, we’re assuming the (x) ships are simply transporting and people (and stuff) are packed in like weevils in a bread bag.

This also works pretty well for a division assault from AP/APAs. You will need 10. The “standard” MarDiv TransRon was about 12 ships in 3 TransDivs, each TransDiv carrying a combat assault Regt (+ attachments). TransDiv was usually 3x AP and 1x AK. So we’re in the ball park for these puppies too.

So cross loading isn’t quite the bad thing it seems to be. Has defects, but Babes make it better – next post.

quote:

ORIGINAL: dereck

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider

IIRC - The the 890 refinery points require 8900 oil points. Then the refinery produces 890 Supply and 8010 Fuel.

So if there were only 2,270 oil points the refinery would produce only 2,043 fuel and 227 supply?

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ORIGINAL: Local Yokel


Thanks! It did seem to me that something was amiss with what was coming out of Manchukuo and N. China in particular.

OK, now we have a basis for assessing what the impact on Japanese shipping might be.

An increase in Japan's daily resource imports of 16,000 points translates to about 3.42 extra Aden Maru class ships (loading 4,670 resources apiece) landing their Manchurian/N. Chinese cargoes in Japan each day. My Dairen-Moji shuttles seem to average a round trip in between 7 and 8 days inclusive of loading/unloading. Therefore, 3.42 extra ships times, say, 7.5 days = 25.65 rounded to 26 extra vessels being required to carry the additional resource load.

In my testbed variation of BabesLite (in which I've made no changes that would affect these calculations) I've been running 4 such shuttle convoys between Port Arthur (Dairen) and Moji(-Shimonoseki). Each contains an average of about 19 vessels (all Adens). I'm attaching a composite image from Tracker showing the 40 day history of resource stockholdings at Dairen and the sailing pattern of one of the shuttles - in this case DM-4. Damn, those Moji stevedores work like demons!

I think this may be an apposite image because from what I can tell every mainland resource point east of Hankow that doesn't get grabbed by local industry gets sucked remorselessly to Dairen by the game's land transport mechanism - hence Dairen, rightly or wrongly, is a really good place to observe what is happening to mainland resources. And the pattern seems to be that within 3 days of the campaign's start all surplus resources have congregated at Dairen for onward transport to Japan. The image suggests that, with 77 ships applied to that transport task in four convoys, the glut is being reduced at a rate such that no surplus will remain to be lifted within 10 to 20 days, after which I estimate that up to half the ships currently dedicated to this Dairen-Moji shuttle can be released to other duties (to the Marquesas, Brazil and beyond!). If that's an accurate assessment, then finding an additional 26 vessels to lift the extra 16,000 resources becomes something that my existing arrangements would simply take in their stride.

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The Japanese measure of vessel efficiency was a factor called "kakoritsu." This factor was computed by dividing actual cargo carried (in metric tons) in a given time period by the cargo-carrying capacity of ships in use during that period in that particular service.

- The War Against Japanese Transportation, USSBS Report 54, p.51

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ORIGINAL: treespider

quote:

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel


Thanks! It did seem to me that something was amiss with what was coming out of Manchukuo and N. China in particular.

OK, now we have a basis for assessing what the impact on Japanese shipping might be.

An increase in Japan's daily resource imports of 16,000 points translates to about 3.42 extra Aden Maru class ships (loading 4,670 resources apiece) landing their Manchurian/N. Chinese cargoes in Japan each day. My Dairen-Moji shuttles seem to average a round trip in between 7 and 8 days inclusive of loading/unloading. Therefore, 3.42 extra ships times, say, 7.5 days = 25.65 rounded to 26 extra vessels being required to carry the additional resource load.

In my testbed variation of BabesLite (in which I've made no changes that would affect these calculations) I've been running 4 such shuttle convoys between Port Arthur (Dairen) and Moji(-Shimonoseki). Each contains an average of about 19 vessels (all Adens). I'm attaching a composite image from Tracker showing the 40 day history of resource stockholdings at Dairen and the sailing pattern of one of the shuttles - in this case DM-4. Damn, those Moji stevedores work like demons!

I think this may be an apposite image because from what I can tell every mainland resource point east of Hankow that doesn't get grabbed by local industry gets sucked remorselessly to Dairen by the game's land transport mechanism - hence Dairen, rightly or wrongly, is a really good place to observe what is happening to mainland resources. And the pattern seems to be that within 3 days of the campaign's start all surplus resources have congregated at Dairen for onward transport to Japan. The image suggests that, with 77 ships applied to that transport task in four convoys, the glut is being reduced at a rate such that no surplus will remain to be lifted within 10 to 20 days, after which I estimate that up to half the ships currently dedicated to this Dairen-Moji shuttle can be released to other duties (to the Marquesas, Brazil and beyond!). If that's an accurate assessment, then finding an additional 26 vessels to lift the extra 16,000 resources becomes something that my existing arrangements would simply take in their stride.

Very... very... very... interesting....and as a result I think we now have the source of all EVIL...which causes me to go back to the drawing board.

So we have a Cargo TF with a "capacity of 93,400 "points" able to shuttle essentially 93,400 x 5 = 467,000 points between Manchuria and the Home Islands in a 30 day period based on Local Yokel's post.

quote:


The Japanese measure of vessel efficiency was a factor called "kakoritsu." This factor was computed by dividing actual cargo carried (in metric tons) in a given time period by the cargo-carrying capacity of ships in use during that period in that particular service.

- The War Against Japanese Transportation, USSBS Report 54, p.51

So from what I see the Kakoritsu factor for Japanese ships in game is essentially 5 on the Manchurian Run, meaning they can carry 5x there capacity in a given time frame.

The USSBS reference gives the Japanese a Kokritsu factor ranging from 1.4 in early 1942 to .8 by 1945.




So Local Yokel's ships are essentially 3.8 times more efficient than the IRL Japanese. On the assumption both Local Yokel's and the Japanese load ships in Manchuria and return empty to Manchuria.

Now that I feel I have the base line numbers accurate, Local Yokel's post and this reference will change the equation.

One alternative suggested is to reduce the Cargo capacity of ships to address this dynamic. I feel this messes with other routines...So my new solution is to redefine the Resource point.

As JWE likes to point out a resource point is a point or it could be a ton , or a bunch of stuff....all of my calculations were based on tons.

So lets include a shipping efficiency factor in the equation and redefine our resource point. From the above it appears that the Japanese are 3.8 times more efficient than their IRL counterparts.

To account for this the transition is very simple....Resource Centers produce 3x to 4x more stuff...and Industry consumes 3x to 4x more of the stuff. So depending on which factor you choose a resource point is now 1/3 to 1/4 of a ton...and your ships are no longer as efficient at using their true potential.

To "err" on the side of caution lets use 3 points. I'm going to triple resource center production...while at the same time triple Industry resource point consumption.

So copying my earlier analysis...

Stock AE:
LI Input - 15 RP
HI Input - 20 RP
LI Output - 1 Sup
HI Output - 2 Sup, 2 HI

Japanase Home Islands (Daily)
LI - 7900 - Req. 118500 RP - Produce 7900 Sup
HI - 6160 - Req. 123200 RP - Produce 12320 Sup
Total RP Req. = 241,700
Res Cntr - 9770 - produce 195400 RP
Shortfall = 46300 RP/day = 16,899,500 RP/yr
Total Supply produced in Home Islands = 20,220

My NEW suggested changes - where a reource point = 33% of a ton

As stated eliminate supply from refineries

EDIT: Because the Civilian Economy is encompassed by the economic model HI and LI should not be "shut off".

Mod AE:
LI Input - 60 RP
HI Input - 45 RP
LI Output - 2 Sup
HI Output - 0 Sup, 2 HI

Japanaese Home Islands (Daily)
LI - 7900 - Req. 474000 RP - Produce 15800 Sup
HI - 6160 - Req. 277200 RP - Produce 0 Sup
Total RP Req. = 751,200
Res Cntr - 9770 - produce 586200 RP
Shortfall = 165,000 RP/day = 60,225,000 RP/yr

You can make up the 4420 pt supply difference produced in the Home Islands with daily allotments if you feel these are necessary...

As a result of the change Japan would have to transport in roughly 3.5 times more resources...

So returning to Local Yokels TF ...it was bringing in 467,000 points every 30 days...Stock AE requires 46,300x30= 1,389,000 points every 30 days. With this change Japan needs 4,950,000 every thirty days...or 3.5 times more shipping capacity.

Wonder if the game engine can handle these numbers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

USSBS Report 54 makes for very interesting reading, and I had not previously come across the ‘kakoritsu’ as a Japanese measure of shipping efficiency. It is unfortunate that the report does not define the ‘given time period’ used as the basis of the kakoritsu factors tabulated, but it does seem reasonable to assume, as you have, that 30 days is the period used. The other thing the table doesn’t make clear is the route over which the factor is being calculated, though the obvious inference to draw is that it is a route between ports in the area specified in the column headings and Home Islands ports.

Though it doesn’t significantly alter your figures, I think there is a small error in your assumption that these ships had a capacity of 93,400 points because, although each vessel always took a full load of resources, no use was made of their troop capacity – 370 in the case of the Aden Maru class ships I dedicated to this run. Another way of looking at it, therefore, is to calculate the kakoritsu factor for an individual Aden Maru in this pattern. Adopting the slightly more pessimistic premise than my previous post that the round-trip time for this convoy is 8 full days, then:

30 days divided by 8 days per round trip = 3.75 round trips.

On each round trip each vessel lifts 4,670ths of its 5,040ths total capacity = 92.65% of such capacity

92.65% of 3.75 = an adjusted kakoritsu factor of 3.47

This is still a great deal more efficient than the performance actually achieved by the Japanese, and, looking for a clue in the data for what might account for it, my attention is increasingly drawn to the turn-round time at Moji-Shimonoseki. With the sole exception of turn 11, there’s not a single day that convoy DM-4 is to be found actually berthed in Shimonoseki, meaning that those demon stevedores have managed to turn these 21 ships round in less than 24 hours on every trip bar one. This might be the right measure of performance for today’s container ships, but I find it more than a bit rich for 1940’s cargo handling practice.

If you look at performance at the port of embarkation the picture is very different. At Dairen/Port Arthur turn-round time apparently spans one to three days, but the figures for turns 22 – 24 give a good indication that the convoy is actually taking two full days to load. Assuming we are dealing with coal, that a wagon hoist is available for each ship, and that each coal wagon to be loaded has a 10 ton capacity, an average tipping rate of about 3 minutes per wagon load is required to fill the ship to capacity on this basis – doesn’t look unreasonable.

I haven’t been able to find anything on the rate at which a 1940’s coal cargo could be unloaded, but it’s likely to have taken significantly longer, even if clam grab unloading techniques are adopted (just think of the manual effort needed shift the cargo to the centre of the hold where it can become accessible to the grab). My very uneducated guess is that unloading would have taken at least twice as long as loading: 4 days at Moji-Shimonoseki against 2 loading at Dairen/Port Arthur. If this is a ‘correct order of magnitude’ guess it means the addition of 3 days to the round trip time – up to 11 from 8. In kakoritsu terms that becomes:

30 days divided by 11 days per round trip = 2.72 round trips.

92.65% of 2.72 = an adjusted kakoritsu factor of 2.52 – still significantly better than the historical figure for the Manchuria-Honshu run.

The only apparent reason for Moji-Shimonoseki’s outstanding stevedoring performance seems to be the fact that it gets a cargo handling benefit from its 900 resource centres that is not diluted by the presence of substantial heavy industry, as is the case with nearby Fukuoka.

Given that Shimonoseki has to service only 20 HI and 80 LI centres it is, in game, probably the most efficient cargo-handling port in the entire Empire, and to use its exceptional performance as a baseline for game-wide changes in how resources are treated could therefore have an undesirable skewing effect. Any such skewing effect is likely to be all the more pronounced because it is derived from resource movement over a short distance. In the case of short-haul resource shifting the ratio of time on berth to time under way is significantly greater, thereby magnifying the effect upon the kakoritsu factor that any efficiency or inefficiency in cargo handling may have. Put another way, whilst treating each resource point from Port Arthur as giving only 25% to 45% of the ‘bang for the buck’ that it did before may more accurately represent mercantile traffic on the Manchuria-Honshu run, it may also lead to a substantial undervaluing of each resource point delivered to Honshu from further south e.g. anywhere in the SRA where the voyage time : berth time ratio is much greater.

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider

Unfortunately we can't change unload rates...we can only try to approximate historical usage....which brings me full circle.

Like I said a few pages back I don't know what I'll find until I get there... I think i'm getting close to getting there...let me explain.

In the end I may revert back to the existing game numbers of 16-17 million points for imports or my more stringent 20 million points.

The objective here is to cause the Japanese to use the Merchant Marine at something approaching historic levels...and the USSBS has some other useful facts and figures that can be used to good effect.

Looking at 1942, total Japanese imports of several different commodities from Manchuria, China and Korea amounted to 12,074,800 tons (Report 54, page 73, Fig 54).

Using the Kakoritsu factor for 1942 which averages about 1.26 during this time frame for this area means we divide 12,074,800 by 1.26 and we arrive at 9,583,174 tons of cargo capacity engaged on these routes in 1942.

Still doesn't help us on turn around times in individual ports...however we are trying to average out and abstract things, so if we can get the Japanese to use 9.5 million tons of capacity on this route for a year I'd say we're cooking with grease.

Using your in game calculations of an 8 day round trip we have 365/8 = 45.625 trips per year...that works out to 208,219 tons per trip based on the 9.5mil total...or 44-45 Aden Maru's (as rated in game) per convoy.

You have been using 19 Maru's to move 93400 points per trip. That equals 4,261,375 points per year. Thats approximately 44% of the calculated IRL imports using 43% of the calculated IRL shipping capacity..seems pretty close to me.

Interestingly if you consider Kakritsu is also a calculation of port delays and hence time the ships are not at sea...perhaps the game has has the merchant ships working too hard in terms of trips and numbers of ships to and from various ports...at least to me its close enough for government work.

Woof.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Herrbear

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider

Unfortunately we can't change unload rates...we can only try to approximate historical usage....which brings me full circle.

Like I said a few pages back I don't know what I'll find until I get there... I think i'm getting close to getting there...let me explain.

In the end I may revert back to the existing game numbers of 16-17 million points for imports or my more stringent 20 million points.

The objective here is to cause the Japanese to use the Merchant Marine at something approaching historic levels...and the USSBS has some other useful facts and figures that can be used to good effect.

Looking at 1942, total Japanese imports of several different commodities from Manchuria, China and Korea amounted to 12,074,800 tons (Report 54, page 73, Fig 54).

Using the Kakoritsu factor for 1942 which averages about 1.26 during this time frame for this area means we divide 12,074,800 by 1.26 and we arrive at 9,583,174 tons of cargo capacity engaged on these routes in 1942.

Still doesn't help us on turn around times in individual ports...however we are trying to average out and abstract things, so if we can get the Japanese to use 9.5 million tons of capacity on this route for a year I'd say we're cooking with grease.

Using your in game calculations of an 8 day round trip we have 365/8 = 45.625 trips per year...that works out to 208,219 tons per trip based on the 9.5mil total...or 44-45 Aden Maru's (as rated in game) per convoy.

You have been using 19 Maru's to move 93400 points per trip. That equals 4,261,375 points per year. Thats approximately 44% of the calculated IRL imports using 43% of the calculated IRL shipping capacity..seems pretty close to me.

Interestingly if you consider Kakritsu is also a calculation of port delays and hence time the ships are not at sea...perhaps the game has has the merchant ships working too hard in terms of trips and numbers of ships to and from various ports...at least to me its close enough for government work.

Woof.

I think you are saying that since it seems we are moving approx. 50% of the resource points with 50 % of the shipping? If that is so, don't we have 100% of the ships so we have 50% more ships to do other things?

Thank you for clarifying.

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider


Unfortunately we can't change unload rates...we can only try to approximate historical usage....which brings me full circle.

Like I said a few pages back I don't know what I'll find until I get there... I think i'm getting close to getting there...let me explain.

In the end I may revert back to the existing game numbers of 16-17 million points for imports or my more stringent 20 million points.

The objective here is to cause the Japanese to use the Merchant Marine at something approaching historic levels...and the USSBS has some other useful facts and figures that can be used to good effect.

Looking at 1942, total Japanese imports of several different commodities from Manchuria, China and Korea amounted to 12,074,800 tons (Report 54, page 73, Fig 54).

Using the Kakoritsu factor for 1942 which averages about 1.26 during this time frame for this area means we divide 12,074,800 by 1.26 and we arrive at 9,583,174 tons of cargo capacity engaged on these routes in 1942.

Still doesn't help us on turn around times in individual ports...however we are trying to average out and abstract things, so if we can get the Japanese to use 9.5 million tons of capacity on this route for a year I'd say we're cooking with grease.

Using your in game calculations of an 8 day round trip we have 365/8 = 45.625 trips per year...that works out to 208,219 tons per trip based on the 9.5mil total...or 44-45 Aden Maru's (as rated in game) per convoy.

You have been using 19 Maru's to move 93400 points per trip. That equals 4,261,375 points per year. Thats approximately 44% of the calculated IRL imports using 43% of the calculated IRL shipping capacity..seems pretty close to me.

Interestingly if you consider Kakritsu is also a calculation of port delays and hence time the ships are not at sea...perhaps the game has has the merchant ships working too hard in terms of trips and numbers of ships to and from various ports...at least to me its close enough for government work.

Woof.

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider


Unfortunately we can't change unload rates...we can only try to approximate historical usage....which brings me full circle.

Like I said a few pages back I don't know what I'll find until I get there... I think i'm getting close to getting there...let me explain.

In the end I may revert back to the existing game numbers of 16-17 million points for imports or my more stringent 20 million points.

The objective here is to cause the Japanese to use the Merchant Marine at something approaching historic levels...and the USSBS has some other useful facts and figures that can be used to good effect.

Looking at 1942, total Japanese imports of several different commodities from Manchuria, China and Korea amounted to 12,074,800 tons (Report 54, page 73, Fig 54).

Using the Kakoritsu factor for 1942 which averages about 1.26 during this time frame for this area means we divide 12,074,800 by 1.26 and we arrive at 9,583,174 tons of cargo capacity engaged on these routes in 1942.

Still doesn't help us on turn around times in individual ports...however we are trying to average out and abstract things, so if we can get the Japanese to use 9.5 million tons of capacity on this route for a year I'd say we're cooking with grease.

Using your in game calculations of an 8 day round trip we have 365/8 = 45.625 trips per year...that works out to 208,219 tons per trip based on the 9.5mil total...or 44-45 Aden Maru's (as rated in game) per convoy.

You have been using 19 Maru's to move 93400 points per trip. That equals 4,261,375 points per year. Thats approximately 44% of the calculated IRL imports using 43% of the calculated IRL shipping capacity..seems pretty close to me.

Interestingly if you consider Kakritsu is also a calculation of port delays and hence time the ships are not at sea...perhaps the game has has the merchant ships working too hard in terms of trips and numbers of ships to and from various ports...at least to me its close enough for government work.

Woof.

Something doesn't/didn't smell right ... let's look at turnaround time....recall the Japanese historically used 9.583 million tons of cargo capacity for the Man/China/Kor imports in 1942.

I used 8 days to come up with 45.625 trips per year... 365/8...

9583174/ 45.625 = 208219 tons of capacity per trip / 4670 per Maru = 44.5 Marus per transit tied up for 8 days

However if we arbitrarily increase turnaround time to 10 days....we now have 36.5 trips per year.

9583174/ 36.5 = 262552 tons per trip / 4670 per Maru = 56 Marus per transit tied up for 10 days

If increase turnaround time to 15 days ....we now have 24.3 trips per year

9583174/ 24.3 = 394369 tons per trip / 4670 per Maru = 84 Marus per transit tied up doing this for 15 days.


Notice how port efficiency multiplies the individual ship efficency.

A 8 day turn around time translates to (44.5 x8 ) = 356 Maru-days whereas...
A 15 day turn around time translates to (84 x 15) = 1260 Maru days.

So where do we stand...we need to find the IRL average turnaround time for this trip..

Then we have to factor it into the equation... or figure out a way to reduce port efficiency that does not mess with other routines.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

Trying to wrap a tired brain around some of the implications...

It may be a case of introducing additional friction into the loading/unloading part of the cycle. If you have only 20 coal hoists at a port then you can only use them to load 20 ships at a time. As soon as loading facilities are saturated by demand, ships start having to wait for a hoist to become free before they can start to load. The queue starts to back up. Every day spent waiting for a hoist/berth/labour party for unloading drives up the round-trip time and drives down the kakoritsu factor to something closer to the historical figure. Thus cargo handling efficiency may be the critical element, but one that's very difficult to get right.

If I am correct in my suspicion that the game's cargo handling is too efficient and that additional transhipment 'friction' needs to be introduced, then there's room to improve the position without a code change. I can see no good reason for Shimonoseki to get the cargo-handling bonus that 900 resource centres confers - what makes Yamaguchi Prefecture such a resource cornucopia anyway? If they were to be moved next door to Tokuyama, for example, the cargo handling bonus would be applied there instead, but to a port that starts at size 4. Try stuffing a succession of 19-ship convoys (c. 90,000 tonnage) through a port with a 48,000 capacity and some extra friction will soon set in, and round-trip times start to mount.

I think it would be dangerous to strive too hard to reduce Japanese shipping efficiency to historical kakoritsu factor levels. That would impose on the Japanese player equality of historical outcome rather than equality of historical opportunity. I would like to see the player burdened with the same hard choices as in history, but to have the opportunity of doing better than his historical counterparts (which shouldn't be hard, looking at the record).

I had latched onto tables 54 to 56 in the USSBS report even before you mentioned table 54, and they are quite eye-opening, revealing a doubling of import tonnage reaching Japan by the Tenka (Manchurian/Korean railway) routes between 1943 and 1944. Even so the 1944 figure represents only about 21% of the 1942 import tonnage from China/Korea/Manchukuo, so too much shouldn't be made of it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: vettim89

I want to go back and look at this chart. I lost my internet this weekend

First, the Japanese never extracted any where near what the 1940 Dutch numbers. I suspect this was a combination of a number of things: damage to the facilities, lack of technical expertise, and lack of spare parts. Looking at the numbers, Japanese production equaled

1942 46% (only held tha facilities part of the year and probably were repairing damage)
1943 76%
1944 61%
1945 10% (part of the year only - Aussies retook Borneo, RN bombed Palembang)

Second the Japanese were no where near as efficient at refining locally the way Royal Ducth Shell was. Probably the same reasons as above but perhaps the refineries were a little more fragile. Again by year

Dutch 98% refined locally
1942 53% refined locally
1943 47% refined locally
1944 67% refined locally (likely a bump up because of the sub war)
1945 68% refined locally

I wish there could be more than one kind of refinery: one for HI and one for SRA. If you could do that, I would make the HI ones take 10 oil and put out 3 fuel and 7 supply. The SRA ones would only pump out 3 fuel.

quote:



Regardless, I think there is justification here to lower the Refining Centers in the SRA by 50%. Perhaps make them 60% of current levels with a portion already damaged. I know this penalizes the Allied player too but we are only talking about 4-5 months of the war compared to 40 months in Japans hands.

quote:


On another note, perhaps fuel should be completely removed from the HI equation and the resource input just raised.

quote:

ORIGINAL: vettim89

I want to go back and look at this chart. I lost my internet this weekend

First, the Japanese never extracted any where near what the 1940 Dutch numbers. I suspect this was a combination of a number of things: damage to the facilities, lack of technical expertise, and lack of spare parts. Looking at the numbers, Japanese production equaled

1942 46% (only held tha facilities part of the year and probably were repairing damage)
1943 76%
1944 61%
1945 10% (part of the year only - Aussies retook Borneo, RN bombed Palembang)

Second the Japanese were no where near as efficient at refining locally the way Royal Ducth Shell was. Probably the same reasons as above but perhaps the refineries were a little more fragile. Again by year

Dutch 98% refined locally
1942 53% refined locally
1943 47% refined locally
1944 67% refined locally (likely a bump up because of the sub war)
1945 68% refined locally

I wish there could be more than one kind of refinery: one for HI and one for SRA. If you could do that, I would make the HI ones take 10 oil and put out 3 fuel and 7 supply. The SRA ones would only pump out 3 fuel. Regardless, I think there is justification here to lower the Refining Centers in the SRA by 50%. Perhaps make them 60% of current levels with a portion already damaged. I know this penalizes the Allied player too but we are only talking about 4-5 months of the war compared to 40 months in Japans hands.

On another note, perhaps fuel should be completely removed from the HI equation and the resource input just raised.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nomad

quote:

ORIGINAL: vettim89

I want to go back and look at this chart. I lost my internet this weekend

First, the Japanese never extracted any where near what the 1940 Dutch numbers. I suspect this was a combination of a number of things: damage to the facilities, lack of technical expertise, and lack of spare parts. Looking at the numbers, Japanese production equaled

1942 46% (only held tha facilities part of the year and probably were repairing damage)
1943 76%
1944 61%
1945 10% (part of the year only - Aussies retook Borneo, RN bombed Palembang)

Second the Japanese were no where near as efficient at refining locally the way Royal Ducth Shell was. Probably the same reasons as above but perhaps the refineries were a little more fragile. Again by year

Dutch 98% refined locally
1942 53% refined locally
1943 47% refined locally
1944 67% refined locally (likely a bump up because of the sub war)
1945 68% refined locally

I wish there could be more than one kind of refinery: one for HI and one for SRA. If you could do that, I would make the HI ones take 10 oil and put out 3 fuel and 7 supply. The SRA ones would only pump out 3 fuel. Regardless, I think there is justification here to lower the Refining Centers in the SRA by 50%. Perhaps make them 60% of current levels with a portion already damaged. I know this penalizes the Allied player too but we are only talking about 4-5 months of the war compared to 40 months in Japans hands.

On another note, perhaps fuel should be completely removed from the HI equation and the resource input just raised.

I read in Dunnnigan and Nofi that one of the transport ships sunk early in the war was carrying the refinery engineers and techs along with most of their equipment. Luck of war.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
I'm still of the mind that a quicker (albeit dirtier) and easier solution is to reduce transport capacities for the produced supply/resource/oil to account for it's abstract nature vs. trying to recalculate the entire Japanese industry + tweak the Allied industrial base. Such a reduction would require more tonnage/assets to do what players do now and make the assets needed to move them more scarce and vulnerable to interdiction.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
I'm still of the mind that a quicker (albeit dirtier) and easier solution is to reduce transport capacities for the produced supply/resource/oil to account for it's abstract nature vs. trying to recalculate the entire Japanese industry + tweak the Allied industrial base. Such a reduction would require more tonnage/assets to do what players do now and make the assets needed to move them more scarce and vulnerable to interdiction.

Me too.

Since a supply point is a Point, it can mean whatever we want it to mean, so long as it’s consistent, so … a supply point is = 1.5 metric tons. So … divide Cargo Capacity by 1.5. Leave liquid alone (that is independent, anyway) and leave troops alone (that’s independent too).

Tried this and the Load Cost does not break down. It’s actually a skoosh better, conceptually. One can still load same units on the same ships, but the excess cargo space (which people used to just fill up with excess supply) is significantly reduced; i.e., requires more follow up supply TFs.

It also helps make rearming a bit more normal. The Point requirement isn’t changed, but the good AKEs and AEs will still have enough (barely) to rearm a BB, but will have less Total Content, so will run out of 16” shells quicker and have to go to filling out smaller weapons; i.e., make people use more than 3 AKEs to rearm the Pacific Fleet.

Also helps the perception that supply use by units is much less than it should be. Units will still use the same amount of supply, it will just take longer to build up that monster stockpile; i.e., slow down the tempo a bit.

Haven’t seen a downside yet.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
I'm still of the mind that a quicker (albeit dirtier) and easier solution is to reduce transport capacities for the produced supply/resource/oil to account for it's abstract nature vs. trying to recalculate the entire Japanese industry + tweak the Allied industrial base. Such a reduction would require more tonnage/assets to do what players do now and make the assets needed to move them more scarce and vulnerable to interdiction.

Me too.

Since a supply point is a Point, it can mean whatever we want it to mean, so long as it’s consistent, so … a supply point is = 1.5 metric tons. So … divide Cargo Capacity by 1.5. Leave liquid alone (that is independent, anyway) and leave troops alone (that’s independent too).

Tried this and the Load Cost does not break down. It’s actually a skoosh better, conceptually. One can still load same units on the same ships, but the excess cargo space (which people used to just fill up with excess supply) is significantly reduced; i.e., requires more follow up supply TFs.

It also helps make rearming a bit more normal. The Point requirement isn’t changed, but the good AKEs and AEs will still have enough (barely) to rearm a BB, but will have less Total Content, so will run out of 16” shells quicker and have to go to filling out smaller weapons; i.e., make people use more than 3 AKEs to rearm the Pacific Fleet.

Also helps the perception that supply use by units is much less than it should be. Units will still use the same amount of supply, it will just take longer to build up that monster stockpile; i.e., slow down the tempo a bit.

Haven’t seen a downside yet.

quote:

ORIGINAL: vettim89
So you are telling me that what I said all those pages ago is now in line with your thinking? Credit to Brian ala BigB because he came up with the same idea for WiTP.

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider
I like it...especially if it doesn't mess with the unit load and rearm aspects. Its all an abstraction anyway....the bottom line is if we tie up an adequate amount of shipping over an extended period - objective achieved.

So to update (correct me if I miss something) -

1. Export the ship class file with witploadae.
2. Open WITPclsxxx.csv
3. Divide the data in the Bulk Capacity column by 1.5.
4. Save file
5. Import WITPclsxxx.csv with witploadae.

I assume the class file updates the capacities of all of the ships without the necessity of doing anything to the ship file.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider
I like it...especially if it doesn't mess with the unit load and rearm aspects. Its all an abstraction anyway....the bottom line is if we tie up an adequate amount of shipping over an extended period - objective achieved.

So to update (correct me if I miss something) -

1. Export the ship class file with witploadae.
2. Open WITPclsxxx.csv
3. Divide the data in the Bulk Capacity column by 1.5.
4. Save file
5. Import WITPclsxxx.csv with witploadae.

I assume the class file updates the capacities of all of the ships without the necessity of doing anything to the ship file.

I think that will do it. I would be careful with the smaller numbers though. Cargo cap is for ARD sizes too, and there's a bunch of barges, subs, and landing craft and even DDs that need to be looked at carefully.

Yep, cargo cap is automatic from class file.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

It also helps make rearming a bit more normal. The Point requirement isn’t changed, but the good AKEs and AEs will still have enough (barely) to rearm a BB, but will have less Total Content, so will run out of 16” shells quicker and have to go to filling out smaller weapons; i.e., make people use more than 3 AKEs to rearm the Pacific Fleet.

quote:

ORIGINAL: treespider

Does anyone know how resource centers impact load/unload rates at ports? (the manual indicates they do.)

Is it a 1 point per resource center adding 1 point of load/unload rate per ship relationship....or is their some additional math in the equation?