US Naval Campaign delta test

[Erik2]

Update link v0.93 in first post.

General:
Added back original fuel/number of turns in-air. This suits the large maps better.
Restricted search/combat distances to 1/2 of each map size in hope of better AI performance.

Pearl:
Fixed sec objs.
Fixed Japanese carrier grp orders.
Added Japanese exits if things go badly.
Reduced US battleship at start strength by 1.

Wake:
Fixed pri obj.
Increased Japanese unit exp by 1.
Pre-placed BCV San Fransisco and air unit.
Added Japanese exits if things go badly.

Coral:
Inceased US aux unit exp by 1.

[Admiral_Horthy]

Thanks!! I get to it tomorrow, with fresh start. I skipped 0.92 altogether.

[Bobster66]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Finally got around to playing Midway and it was an automatic instant Minor Victory, this was the original version. But I just downloaded v0.93 and #igotnukes to Midway and same result. I'll replay Pearl now to see how the improvements worked out.

Update: Ok, tried the new Pearl Harbor at Captain difficulty and couldn't prevent the loss of 3 BB so it was all over with a Major Defeat on turn 6. Will have to come up with a new game plan and try again.

[Mascarenhas]

Naaah, after 80 minutes of Jap thinking in the first round, boom! Back to desktop.

[robertahyuk]

Naaah, after 80 minutes of Jap thinking in the first round, boom! Back to desktop.

I have to agree with this. Decent game but way too many units again and the wait times turned me away.
Nice try Erik but still needs a lot of polishing.

[Erik2]

Long AI times are boring indeed.
I'm timing the first AI turn of each scenario. I'm not getting anything near the reported times.
This is what I have so far (these are editet 0.93 scenarios).

Pearl: 7'30
Wake: 1'00
Midway: 1'50

[GabeKnight]

Long AI times are boring indeed.
I'm timing the first AI turn of each scenario. I'm not getting anything near the reported times.
Pearl: 7'30

Yeah, about 4-5min for me on the first turn. I don't think one can do something about that other than reducing map size and unit count. And get a faster PC...

[Mascarenhas]

If I don't scrap v.0,93 down to Gabe's content suggestion, I can't even try to deploy reserve naval ( carriers and escorts) and air units, without crashing the game. Mod launching time (from start image): 5' 24. From the crash report: "Graphics hardware encountered an error and was reset"

[Mascarenhas]

After deleting unnecessary files, as suggested by GK; Mod loading time reduced to 1'23, Pearl scen load to 1'20. No crash, map movable. Deployed carriers ( 2 at side ports, 1 at deep-sea) -differently from my first attempt - which worked as reported; when I put all of them at the farthest possible distance from the island). Saved and restarted. Load save 1'22. Pressed play to start Jap AI processing time: 10' to the first air attack. Back to processing ...
Some thoughts after 47 minutes of processing time: I guess the strategic considerations for the AI side facing an alternative condition, meaning the presence of the carriers on a combative condition, may impose some dilemmas to the AI which it can't handle easily. On the other hand, since this is a "what-if" situation, and presume an information-action scenario which would allow players' side an effective response to the attack - in other words, if AI would "lost" the surprise element which was present in real the event, its course of action would need a change form its planned path that I'm afraid it can't deal with.
May it be a possible explanation for the "thinking" phenomenon?

[Mascarenhas]

Crash after 1 20'27''.

[Erik2]

Updated to version 0.94 in first post. I think my editor tool-box is now empty unless someone has a tip or two.

General:
Cropped the maps.
Reduced search/attack distance to half of max map side.

Pearl: 7'30
Removed Allied land units
Random placement of Japanese carrier group.

Midway: 1'50
Fixed and added pri obj.

[Mascarenhas]

I'm embarassed, Erik, but, again, no good. Same thing.

[robertahyuk]

I'm embarassed, Erik, but, again, no good. Same thing.

I am also as it's still slow. My PC usually handles these just fine but sure has trouble with this one. Almost exactly like your first Naval campaign. Same issues plus it fills the "save" file with a lot of things I have no idea what they are.

[Erik2]

Checking Autosave will save and keep each turn in a campaign.

autosave.jpg (57.86 KiB) Viewed 2661 times

[Bobster66]

Still on v0.93, I figured out Pearl Harbor and everything seems to have worked out correctly including all Objectives. It was pretty darn close and perhaps a bit of luck as there were opportunities to sink a crippled BB but the Japanese bombers chose another target instead. I didn't time any turns but since my tactic this time was the preservation of the US air forces it was the US Blue Team that ended up taking the longest turns, not the IJN. One odd thing I noticed was that the Japanese scout planes would not actually go out and scout, they just followed the IJN BBs around.

On to Wake - Since none of the BB surviving Pearl were deemed seaworthy and there are no RPs available to repair them, the objective to not lose any was as easy as not deploying any. All the Secondary Objectives worked correctly, but unfortunately the Primary Obj to not lose any carriers remained a question mark so it ended in a draw. This scenario should probably have the number of turns cut in half (but double the RPs per turn, we still need these!).

The upgrade option for the undermanned ships is prohibitively expensive so I disbanded them. Couldn't these be assigned a discounted rate to upgrade to fully operational?

[Bobster66]

Took a crack at Pearl with v0.94. Certainly a different experience as I was caught off guard and almost lost a carrier, good fun. AI turn speed was much improved.

I'm getting a bug on the first turn. There is no visibility from any of the ships at Pearl Harbor and the first Japanese turn ends without seeing any of the action, the ships just magically lose strength points. At the start of the player's turn you still can't see anything but if you click on a ships AA button and move the cursor around you can see the bullseye highlight potential targets, you just can't see what they are. Once you move a ship, you then get visibility from it.

In the end, the game only counted 2 BB having exited the map and not all 5, so there is a problem with that objective.

[Erik2]

I just checked, 'my' Japanese planes do attack on the first turn. But sometimes the torpedo planes use MG fire instead of torpedoes.
The exit counter looks ok, but I found an issue with the corresponding Jap pri obj.

All US BBs start understrength to simulate the surprise attack. I've added a note about this in the briefing.

Setting up air patrol is not very functional since you have to add fixed patrol points for the duration of the scenario.
So I'm experimenting with 'air destroy' orders and using specific unit type targets to see if the recon would follow ie a carrier. Initially I set the aggression to zero, but I think I need something higher.

[Bobster66]

Setting up air patrol is not very functional since you have to add fixed patrol points for the duration of the scenario.
So I'm experimenting with 'air destroy' orders and using specific unit type targets to see if the recon would follow ie a carrier. Initially I set the aggression to zero, but I think I need something higher.

In v0.94 the scout planes were following my carrier as it tried to escape destruction from the IJN task force, so I think that works very well. It may be that they didn't start following the carrier until it was already spotted though.

[Erik2]

Aha, good. That means recon is doing their job. And that they will continue shadowing their target.

[Bobster66]

More on v0.94:

Wake, all secondary objectives worked fine but the primary objective to not lose any carriers remained a question mark resulting in a Draw. Still needs number of turns cut in half.

Coral Sea, during the setup phase the primary objective is showing as failed, Port Moresby already has a Japanese flag. The British/Aussie AI turn went on for 10 minutes without anything happening which is odd since all their units that used to be at Moresby no longer exist, so I shut it down.