Japanese devices building via production regardless of available date

[tx_fella_2010]

Hello there,
Long term player and modder, but mainly a forum lurker.

I ran across something interesting recently, it seems that as long as a unit has a need for replacement devices, and replacements are on for the unit, that the Japanese production system will produce the device regardless of:

1) Whether “Can build” is yes or no in the editor, and
2) Most interestingly, regardless of the game date compared to the device availability date.

Seeing this behavior, I set up a test bed scenario to check this out and hopefully document so that maybe it could be fixed in the new patch being worked on.

Example case –
A Japanese unit on an island I created – Unit 3006 “1-1 Art Div” with a TOE (2001) and composition as follows:

Device 1481 – 20cm Short Gun – 5 in unit, TOE of 50. The device is Static, modded load cost to 1,000, changed available dates to 4506 to end 4509.
Device 786 – Type 4 SP-Gun – 0 in unit, TOE of 40. Device is available from 4501.
100,000 supplies in the unit, so it will draw replacements.

I have tried all the permutations of:
1) Can build – yes/no
2) Build rate – 0 or some number
3) In pool – 0 or some number

In all cases, the behavior is that the Production system builds a batch of the devices on the first day despite the game date being set to December 1, 1943. For example – on resolving the first day I find 40 short guns and 39 sp-guns built

See screenshots below.

screenshots.jpg (286.9 KiB) Viewed 404 times

[tx_fella_2010]

I think the thing that surprised me was that the system was building the devices regardless of the available dates.

[BBfanboy]

If you looked at the pools prior to running the first turn, you might not have gotten accurate info. All the administrative stuff like building things and setting initial quantities is done at the end of the turn. The best example of this is the reinforcement queue in the Intel report. The queue cannot be populated before the first turn because the game does not know what choice you will make for reinforcement arrival - fixed or variable.

Japan has a dual production system - monthly amounts that are designed to slowly increase the pools and immediate replacements which can be done using supply, manpower points, armament points, vehicle points, and HI/shipbuilding points. Even if there is a date at which formal production of the device is shown, any of that device that exists before that date (pre-production batches) can get replacements from the supply + other industry points system.

[tx_fella_2010]

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. Yep, I was thinking something like this too. I checked before and after and then just used WitploadAE to create a clean test bed scenario with only the one unit, etc. Pools were 0 unless I set them to something.

As long as replacements were turned off, no production took place (I am guessing the system looks at the TOEs and replacements required before producing). As soon as I turned on replacements, production happened - despite the availability dates of the two dates being not in range versus the game dates.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

[BBfanboy]

I am not sure what you mean by production not happening. Creation of devices for the pools and creation of replacement devices are both production. For the pools it happens at the set monthly rate divided by 30 to determine if production occurs each day. For replacements, of course you need to create the demand by turning replacements on. From there the same production system will use the same resources to create the replacement devices and calculate how long it will take to get to the unit. There are various limits to how many replacements a unit can take at one time. Base size, supply availability and even HQs affect that.

[tx_fella_2010]

Hi there,

Understood. I guess I wasn’t clear enough on what I was trying to point out - the issue in my mind is that devices are being produced that are not available according to the dates as defined in the devices tab.

Example - the game date is December 1943, the Type 4 Sp gun is not available until Jan 1945 but it is being produced. This appears to happen because there is a replacement need being generated by the unit so the device gets built by the production system (using manpower and vehicle points).

Same thing happens in the screenshots above for the 20cm short gun. I tried modding the available dates in both directions - eg as per the screenshot (in 1945), I also modded the end date to be Jan 1942 yet when I tested it, it would still be produced in December of 1943 if a unit had a need for 20cm short guns.

Any thoughts? I’m thinking this is a bug in the production system not checking device start/end dates for Japan.

Thanks for replying, sorry if I did not explain it well.

[tx_fella_2010]

After quite a few tests, here is what I've determined for the various switches:

1) Can build on = YES, game date in range of available date to end date of device, and build rate > 0 then:
Devices produced will be equal to the expected RATE/30 * DAYS (with some random)
NO costs will be incurred in arms, vehicles, or manpower

2) If there is a replacement need for a unit, regardless of device available/end date compared to game date, or the status of the can build switch then:
Devices will be produced based on some calculation of need in the TOEs for replacements
Costs in arms, vehicles, and manpower will be incurred relative to load cost of the device & type (arms or vehicles points use)

The two conditions above are not exclusive; they can both be active at the same time.

The question, or what I was hoping, is there a way to end a device being made by method #1?

I was trying to mod in a conversion of more Naval Guards units to upgrade to TOEs that used various CD/DP guns. The CD/DP guns were those removed from the various old cruisers, battleships (Armstrong guns, etc) in the 1920s/1930s and then were stockpiled in Japan and started to be emplaced & distributed towards the war's end. I was hoping to place these obsolete guns in a pool with a device end date prior to the war start. Then as the IJ player, you could move a Naval guard unit to a location and turn on upgrades, the TOE would upgrade, and then the unit could draw the old guns from the pool to fill out in an emplaced fashion (as often happened late in the war from my readings). However, the pool of guns would be limited because they obviously could not be produced anymore so you would only have what was available at start. Furthermore, this approach would require shipping the NG unit to the location you wanted, then enough supplies to have it draw replacements and would ultimately become static there as the guns would be static devices. I got the idea from one of Andy Mac's scenarios with the Indian Frontier Brigades converting their static devices to non-static, but in reverse

[BBfanboy]

I don't know enough about the editor and start/end dates to comment on that. But I do have a comment on your statement "NO costs will be incurred in arms, vehicles, or manpower"

Production of a device always entails the inputs defined to produce it. But if you are looking at the unit for supply usage for example, that is not where the supply comes from - it comes from a base near the factory that is producing the device. So it can be hard to track where the inputs are coming from. HI points, for example, are stockpiled universally and can be used anywhere there is a factory that needs them.

For devices already produced and in the pools, they are provided through a base which can be many hexes away from the receiving unit, as long as there is a good supply path for the device to follow. When that happens you get a message in the Ops Report saying " (device x) provided to (unit y) from (base z).

[tx_fella_2010]

With regards to inputs (arms, manpower, supplies) - I absolutely thought the same thing for years until I just now tested all the permutations of the available dates, can build flag, and build rate #.

It seems if devices are made from "Can Build = YES" and "Build rate > 0"; then they are "FREE", with the exception devices always cost supplies to deploy into a unit as you state.

See screenshot below of the test in this case. There are no factories or resource sites in this clean scenario (I zeroed all factories out as you can see from the IJ Industry Summary tab. I just created starting pools of ARMS, MAN, VEH, etc. to draw from.

There is one unit in the scenario that has 5 devices in it, replacements off, and seems to always draw 1 supply per day (note, also interesting as you would think it would draw randomly less than that - eg 5/30 tons per day).

Before & after screenshot on the right of the pools for the device 20cm Short Gun and the ARMS, MANPOWER. Note if I run this same test, but have build rate at 0 and create a demand for the Short Gun from the unit TOE vs Actuals then ARMS & MANPOWER are consumed as you would expect.

It's all rather interesting, and like I said, is different in actuality than I had assumed for almost 10 years now.

test result can build.jpg (300.45 KiB) Viewed 311 times

[BBfanboy]

Well that is news to me if there is no supply used in creating the devices. I suppose that could be changed by messing with the formula for production of a device (each device has a "cost" field that says what it takes to make it). For my part, I am not enough interested in that kind of modding to get into the details. Good luck with your mod!

[tx_fella_2010]

No worries, thanks for the exchange! I hope someone else knows if this is WAD with regards the regular Japanese production system (eg device available date does not matter, only unit demand).

On the supplies front, it's always been the same. Cost is defined by "Load". For a vehicle it is manpower + vehicle points; both equal to Load. For a weapon it is manpower + armament points; both equal to Load. For a squad it is manpower equal to load and I think armament points cost is one for a squad.

Supplies are only consumed when a device is added from the pool to a unit in the field. In this case, you are correct - supplies used are equal to "Load" of the device. And of course, supplies it seems can come from several different "sending" bases that have excess and are in supply range of the unit.