Matrix Games

quote:

ORIGINAL: michaelm

Aviation Support at a base was capped at 250 in WITP as outlined in Air Supply section of that manual.

This cap was removed in AE and is not mentioned in the manual (except for the AI).
Somehow it has crept back into the code, and was obvious from the large-scale single raid air attacks (300AV supporting 2500 planes at a single base).

Don't expect this condition to always be so.

quote:

ORIGINAL: michaelm
Aviation Support at a base was capped at 250 in WITP as outlined in Air Supply section of that manual.

This cap was removed in AE and is not mentioned in the manual (except for the AI).
Somehow it has crept back into the code, and was obvious from the large-scale single raid air attacks (300AV supporting 2500 planes at a single base).

Don't expect this condition to always be so.

quote:

ORIGINAL: khyberbill

What change(s) are you considering? A higher cap? Please keep in mind that the Tinian Airfield at the end of WW2 was called by some the largest in the world but in AE it is restricted to a lvl 7. Changing the cap rules may adversely affect the use of the B-29 in the game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: michaelm
Aviation Support at a base was capped at 250 in WITP as outlined in Air Supply section of that manual.

This cap was removed in AE and is not mentioned in the manual (except for the AI).
Somehow it has crept back into the code, and was obvious from the large-scale single raid air attacks (300AV supporting 2500 planes at a single base).

Don't expect this condition to always be so.

I do recall this from my old notes. Um, it sneaks in at two places. The main one comes from a place far, far away, from a time long, long ago. GG's original paradigm let the AI increase AvSup for units having Type=10 (Eng) with suffix 109=(Base Force) to acommodate all airgroups present in a hex with that BF. There was a growth cut-off at 250 AvSup.

Because of this, there was a support cut-off, where once you got to 250 AvSup, nothing more was needed, no matter how many planes you had, because nobody woulda thunk of 2500 planes at a base in the first place.

I would like to see a cut-off of 250 AvSup retained for the AI. That's what it's always been, and I accept that.

I would like to see all support cut-offs removed. If some person wants to put 2500 planes at a base, he better have 2500 AvSup to support them. I do not accept freebies for anyone. This is something that oozed through the cracks and needs to be caulked.

Actually, I kinda like the idea of a hard limit for AvSup no matter what the stinking base size is, but that is another discussion.

quote:

You will need enough AV at a base to support the planes there.

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy

aren't there more aircraft (engines) around than total av support? Speaking about mid 44 or so.

quote:

ORIGINAL: michaelm

Aviation Support at a base was capped at 250 in WITP as outlined in Air Supply section of that manual.

This cap was removed in AE and is not mentioned in the manual (except for the AI).
Somehow it has crept back into the code, and was obvious from the large-scale single raid air attacks (300AV supporting 2500 planes at a single base).

Don't expect this condition to always be so.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

...While you are at it, could you install the cap on the maximum number of engineer squads that can work on a base in a given turn? IIRC, we intended the cap in development, but it never quite made it past the finish line.

quote:

ORIGINAL: michaelm
Don't expect this condition to always be so.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

...While you are at it, could you install the cap on the maximum number of engineer squads that can work on a base in a given turn? IIRC, we intended the cap in development, but it never quite made it past the finish line.

What number is the proposal here? It needs to be a reasonably high number for the allies to achieve an appropriate tempo.

EDIT PS: completely agree with the AV support proposal, both the no-cap for the HUM and the cap for the AI.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: michaelm
Aviation Support at a base was capped at 250 in WITP as outlined in Air Supply section of that manual.

This cap was removed in AE and is not mentioned in the manual (except for the AI).
Somehow it has crept back into the code, and was obvious from the large-scale single raid air attacks (300AV supporting 2500 planes at a single base).

Don't expect this condition to always be so.

I do recall this from my old notes. Um, it sneaks in at two places. The main one comes from a place far, far away, from a time long, long ago. GG's original paradigm let the AI increase AvSup for units having Type=10 (Eng) with suffix 109=(Base Force) to acommodate all airgroups present in a hex with that BF. There was a growth cut-off at 250 AvSup.

Because of this, there was a support cut-off, where once you got to 250 AvSup, nothing more was needed, no matter how many planes you had, because nobody woulda thunk of 2500 planes at a base in the first place.

I would like to see a cut-off of 250 AvSup retained for the AI. That's what it's always been, and I accept that.

I would like to see all support cut-offs removed. If some person wants to put 2500 planes at a base, he better have 2500 AvSup to support them. I do not accept freebies for anyone. This is something that oozed through the cracks and needs to be caulked.

Actually, I kinda like the idea of a hard limit for AvSup no matter what the stinking base size is, but that is another discussion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
What number is the proposal here? It needs to be a reasonably high number for the allies to achieve an appropriate tempo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs
Skeptical of the notion of a construction-engineer limit, insofar as it needs to be large and smartly balanced. A whole lotta working guys can work on a base at one time, and as the base gets bigger maybe even more can fit around the perimeter working on expansion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse
I work in the US Department of Transportation. As my highway engineer pals constantly remind me, you can triple the number of engineers working on a road or bridge project, but that will not get the bridge built three times faster in real life. In AE, it does.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse
I work in the US Department of Transportation. As my highway engineer pals constantly remind me, you can triple the number of engineers working on a road or bridge project, but that will not get the bridge built three times faster in real life. In AE, it does.

I'm so sorry to hear that an honest cavalryman, such as yourself, would work for DOT. That's what the robots from the Corps of Engineers do. To be honest, I do feel like a slut everytime I get a check from DOD. What happened to us, bro? We were soldiers once, and young.

Game treats Eng units the same, but there lots of different ways of slicing and dicing Eng units. Babes has Japanese Eng units with tons of termite manpower, but squat for game construction purposes. There's units that can build and fight like hell but can't demo forts. There's units that can demo forts, but don't fight all that great. There's units that can build like army ants but can't fight. There's units that can play "stevedore" but not much else. The engine allows all these possibilities.

Modders make this happen. We know how to do it. Please, do not ask michael to tweak the Eng thing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs
Skeptical of the notion of a construction-engineer limit, insofar as it needs to be large and smartly balanced. A whole lotta working guys can work on a base at one time, and as the base gets bigger maybe even more can fit around the perimeter working on expansion.

I am also skeptical that a limit can be 'smartly done'. If it was easy to do, it would have been in the original release. But michaelm and the Babes Dev team have each been pulling off other minor miracles, so I figure that there is no harm in asking.

I work in the US Department of Transportation. As my highway engineer pals constantly remind me, you can triple the number of engineers working on a road or bridge project, but that will not get the bridge built three times faster in real life. In AE, it does.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
What number is the proposal here? It needs to be a reasonably high number for the allies to achieve an appropriate tempo.

Agreed -- but not so unlimited as to allow Level 9 airfields to be built from scratch in a week or two. It's not really an issue before 1943, when the trickle of Allied engineer units turns into a flow, then a flood in 1944 and a Tsunami in 1945.

Ideally, we would have a sliding scale, with each extra engineer unit providing less added benefit. That's probably not practical. If we used a hard cap, I'd suggest a limit in the 750-800 point range. Each engineer vehicle = 5 points, each squad = 1. The way the game engine values engineer points, that would still allow ports and airfields to be built much faster than IRL, but would somewhat limit the late-war fantasy one-level-per-day that we've seen in some AARs.

If a sliding cap were practical, I'd envision something along the lines of, the first 300 Engineer points = 100% benefit; 301-600 points = 50% benefit, 601-900 points = 25% benefit. 901+ = 10% benefit. With the actual #s subject to playtesting first, of course.

Large US Engineer Units:
Each Naval Construction Regiment (x3 Seabee Bns) has 174 engineer points. They arrive throughout 1943.
In early 1944, Engineer Aviation Brigades (x4 EAB Bns each) with 368 engineer points begin to arrive, one for each Air Force HQ in the Pacific.
Also in 1944 there are four Engineer Construction Brigades (x4 Bns) with 344 engineer points each.
And in 1945, one Combat Engineer Regiment (x4 Bns) arrives per Corps HQ. Each CER has 400 engineer points.

quote:

I work in the US Department of Transportation. As my highway engineer pals constantly remind me, you can triple the number of engineers working on a road or bridge project, but that will not get the bridge built three times faster in real life. In AE, it does.

quote:

ORIGINAL: dwg


OTOH there's a point that people seem to be forgetting in this discussion, which is that we have two separate issues: 'how many people can you usefully put on aviation support, or airfield construction, at a single airbase?', and 'how many people can you usefully put on aviation support, or airfield construction, in a complex of airbases stretching over a 40 mile hex'. I live in Kent, pretty much the whole county will fit in a WITP hex, and there are something like 70 active or historical strips in the county.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

I do like diminishing returns, though. A possible way to model diminishing returns without doing violence to the engineer abstract might be to make it depend on airfield size. The algorithm adds up all the effective 'squad equivalents' anyway, so perhaps divide the total by the present size of the airfield (making sure to check, If Size=0, Then Size=1)?

If you put 30 Eng squads in a hex, and AF=0, or 1, then they work like 30, and one can get from 0 to 1 and then to 2 pretty quick. Once you hit AF=2, they work like 15, so getting to 3 is harder (slower), unless you add more. Once you hit AF=3, they work like 10, so more are needed to keep up the tempo.

quote:


So this way, one can put 600 Eng squads in a hex, and get to AF=4 pretty quick, but to get to 5, there's only 150 effectively working, and only 100 effectively working to get from 6 to 7. Recall that 600 Eng squads need 600 Sup squads, and that totals out to 18,000 troops. Not sustainable at places with troop caps. And then 300 AvSup is about 5,000 more troops, so things tend to get crowded. Makes the choice of AF build locations a skoosh more reasonable.

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[ed] I did want to keep it simple, because these cavalry guys can't seem to deal with anything more complicated than "the feed bag goes in the front, the shovel goes in the back."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

quote:

ORIGINAL: dwg


OTOH there's a point that people seem to be forgetting in this discussion, which is that we have two separate issues: 'how many people can you usefully put on aviation support, or airfield construction, at a single airbase?', and 'how many people can you usefully put on aviation support, or airfield construction, in a complex of airbases stretching over a 40 mile hex'. I live in Kent, pretty much the whole county will fit in a WITP hex, and there are something like 70 active or historical strips in the county.

I haven't forgotten that point.

I absolutely recognize that in most AE hexes, engineers could be working on multiple airfields, plus port improvements, plus forts. But even allowing for that, the game engine allows the player to "level up" much faster in game than in real life. The US put the better part of 100,000 engineers on Okinawa in 1945, but even they couldn't build out all the airfields on the island in less than a week. In AE, a player can.