What's up with the TBD Devastator?

[FroBodine]

It has no attack against air, no attack against ships, no attack against land, and no torpedoes.

Is it bugged?

[zakblood]

have you fired it's weapons once?

[FroBodine]

Possibly. Does it only have one shot? I guess that's true. It had one bomb/torpedo underneath, right?

[zakblood]

yes, so some may need to re arm, while others have a cooling off period before they can bomb again, not sure which for that plane m8

nuke bomber is a one shot weapon only as well, so Kull is more correct with his reply

[Kull]

It has no attack against air, no attack against ships, no attack against land, and no torpedoes.

Is it bugged?

No, it takes 2 turns to reload after using the torpedoes. Or just return to the carrier immediately (usually that takes longer, though). You'll see there's a little number that counts down from 2-to-1-to-gone.

[Deja Bru]

It has no attack against air, no attack against ships, no attack against land, and no torpedoes.

Is it bugged?

I don't know about the "no torpedoes" part but I wonder if he was really asking about what we see in the unit panel for torpedo planes: either null or very low naval attack numbers (like 1 or 2; strafing?) whereas dive bombers show healthy ratings. Yet, I know from recent experience that this TBD Devastator (T) packs a heck of a wallop, having finished off an enemy battleship in spectacular fashion.

Screenshot 1.jpg (44.24 KiB) Viewed 3795 times

Is it that the game mechanism is to show that a dive bomber attacks a unit in the target hex directly while the torpedo plane does not, instead indirectly launching its torpedo from an adjoining hex? Otherwise it has very little or no direct attacking capability at all?

Screenshot 2.jpg (44.01 KiB) Viewed 3795 times

[bebro]

I looked into the slightly older v6.1.3. briefly, and there the prob extends to several US airplanes (T), but not for example to Japanese torpedo planes. IIRC it was never a prob to use most torpedo versions earlier, so it looks like something got broken, is this (OP) from the most recent version?

[Deja Bru]

Here's the story: I went to purchase a TBD Devastator and noticed for the first time - don't ask me why; I am a terrible OOB player - that it had no naval attack values. I went ahead anyway because I had used this plane in the past to good effect and sure enough, it accomplished the task that I put it to as mentioned above.

But I got to thinking, why did it not have any listings for attack value? I searched the forum and found this thread (notice, it's from 2015) which started me on more thinking.

I don't think there is a problem per se but I am looking for confirmation that this is normal and is handled in this manner for torpedo planes as described above. To support my theory, I filtered units.csv for planes that had data in the "torpedo" column and I reproduced the list here.

None of these torpedo planes has anything above a 1 or 2 in naval attack values and most have none at all. Yet they are highly effective in what they do, which is attacking indirectly with torpedoes despite having no direct attack capabilities.

Capture988.jpg (584.77 KiB) Viewed 3759 times

Do you agree?

[CoolDTA]

You can use the ones with attack values for strafing. I remember using Kates in the Pearl Harbour scenario to fire at the fuel tanks during the torpedo "cooldown" period. But it seems odd that not all torp bombers have an attack value (even a small one). Most had an mg or two in the wings.

[bebro]

Here's the story: I went to purchase a TBD Devastator and noticed for the first time - don't ask me why; I am a terrible OOB player - that it had no naval attack values. I went ahead anyway because I had used this plane in the past to good effect and sure enough, it accomplished the task that I put it to as mentioned above.

So, do I understand you correctly that using torpedo planes (=their dedicated torpedo attack) is working fine with Devastator et al. for you? Because I can't test it right now on the most recent version and FroBodine sounded as if he wasn't sure if it worked correctly for him.

If it works then what you said seems WAD (I'd have to ask Ad for the details, I guess he's busy with patch stuff).

[Deja Bru]

Here's the story: I went to purchase a TBD Devastator and noticed for the first time - don't ask me why; I am a terrible OOB player - that it had no naval attack values. I went ahead anyway because I had used this plane in the past to good effect and sure enough, it accomplished the task that I put it to as mentioned above.

So, do I understand you correctly that using torpedo planes (=their dedicated torpedo attack) is working fine with Devastator et al. for you? Because I can't test it right now on the most recent version and FroBodine sounded as if he wasn't sure if it worked correctly for him.

If it works then what you said seems WAD (I'd have to ask Ad for the details, I guess he's busy with patch stuff).

bebro, the more I look at this, the more I think that it is indeed WAD. Yes, again, the Devastor is . . . devastating . . . even though it looks like it does nothing in the unit panel. One must trust in its effectiveness because the torpedo ratings do not appear and that is what does the damage. The plane itself is rated to be just the torpedo's launcher.

As CoolDTA mentions, the Devastator could have some strafing if it did have mg's in the wings - I am not familiar with it - and it does have some punch back when attacked by fighters. But I think zero naval attack rating is the way that the game is designed for a torpedo plane.

So does anybody know what the hidden torpedo ratings represent: 3, 1, 17?

[Shards]

Reload, range, damage I believe?

[GabeKnight]

Reload, range, damage I believe?

Yep.

[Deja Bru]

Thanks, guys, everybody who responded. It's great to be able to learn about the game in this manner.

[CoolDTA]

The primary attack of torpedo bombers certainly is WAD, but the other attack values are inconsistent. For instance B5N2(Kanko/Kate) has ground and naval att values even tho it didn't have forward firing armament. TBF Avenger had two 0.50 inch mgs in the wings, yet it has no att values. B7A (Ryusei/Grace) had a 20 mm gun in both wings and has ground and naval att values. SB2C Helldiver and BTD Destroyer also had 20 mm guns in the wings, but no att values.

To be consistent either none of the torpedo bombers should have ground and naval att values or all of them should have (provided the plane in question has forward firing armament).

[GabeKnight]

To be consistent either none of the torpedo bombers should have ground and naval att values or all of them should have (provided the plane in question has forward firing armament).

Agree. But this can not be considered a bug, rather a refinement of existing unit's stats. Is there a suggestions thread somewhere?

And I don't know if this would be moddable as easy as one thinks. I guess there could be problems with the attack/firing sequences with some planes, if not implemented in the model.

[CoolDTA]

And I don't know if this would be moddable as easy as one thinks. I guess there could be problems with the attack/firing sequences with some planes, if not implemented in the model.

I think you are right. Iirc when using Kates to strafe in Pearl Harbour they had to fire from an adjacent hex i.e. the same way all torpedo planes fire their torpedoes. Since only the Japanese torp planes from the first OoB (back when it was OoB Pacific) have ground and naval att values, it seems their stats were made first, then it was decided not to give such attack values to torp planes at all, but it was forgotten to fix the stats for these planes. Maybe in the next patch...?