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Post by valorius on Mar 12, 2021 9:29:07 GMT
On the organic LOGTRAIN transport- Input price is 8, so initial price would be 8x 12- or 96 production for the organic logistics train and tank carriers.
The multiplier of base cost is affected by how new the unit is too, of course. As a unit becomes older it gradually drops in price to the input price. Which again in this case, is 8.
So if you buy, say, a 400 (rounded off) production Tiger unit, for another 96 production you can equip it with it's own logistics tail which gives it 80 fuel and the ability to travel at (up to) 8 speed on roads. Since the logtrain unit is wheeled, it is only useful to boost transport speed on roads. This is helpful when youre driving through roads that have shattered rail networks. And of course an 80 fuel tiger unit has tremendous operational mobility.
The penalty is that repairing it once it's shot up costs a whole lot more money too- and it costs much more fuel to resupply it. And if that unit gets caught on a road and ambushed/hit with artillery or strafed, there goes your valuable tiger unit up in flames.
So there is no "Free lunch" as they say.
The unit is most valuable for recon units, as it gives them outstanding range without refueling, and for heavy SP guns, which tend to have a very low onboard ammunition count.
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Post by teophrastusbombastus on Mar 12, 2021 14:17:48 GMT
On the organic LOGTRAIN transport- Input price is 8, so initial price would be 8x 12- or 96 production for the organic logistics train and tank carriers. The multiplier of base cost is affected by how new the unit is too, of course. As a unit becomes older it gradually drops in price to the input price. Which again in this case, is 8. So if you buy, say, a 400 (rounded off) production Tiger unit, for another 96 production you can equip it with it's own logistics tail which gives it 80 fuel and the ability to travel at (up to) 8 speed on roads. Since the logtrain unit is wheeled, it is only useful to boost transport speed on roads. This is helpful when youre driving through roads that have shattered rail networks. And of course an 80 fuel tiger unit has tremendous operational mobility. The penalty is that repairing it once it's shot up costs a whole lot more money too- and it costs much more fuel to resupply it. And if that unit gets caught on a road and ambushed/hit with artillery or strafed, there goes your valuable tiger unit up in flames. So there is no "Free lunch" as they say. The unit is most valuable for recon units, as it gives them outstanding range without refueling, and for heavy SP guns, which tend to have a very low onboard ammunition count. From the experience of playing more frequently - albeit not exclusively - Axis, against enemy air superiority from the very start, with Heavy AD tending to be high cost, that seems a good way of feeding the Allied plane's appetite. As an Axis player maybe I'd have one or two for specific situations, if they were "stay on map" / "independent" transports instead of organic. And four 8.8 FlaKs to keep two behind and two ahead each one. There goes production... For the Allies, and most of all, a US player, I believe it can be a much better option. Reeling back a bit. What's the unit parameter for defining maximum number of factors allowed in by a Carrier? Capacity I think it is. Is it hard linked to Carrier class or limited so the "Passenger" must be an air unit? If not and not it should be possible to create Land Carriers with the Equipment editor. The probable downside is that they would be able to carry anything (at least anything "landish"), not just what we may want. All this in contravention with the fact there isn't a "Passenger Type Land". Although "stay on map" Trains are "Land Carriers". By the way the explanatory flag that appears in the Equipment editor when hovering "Passenger Type" says: 0=not transportable 1=Naval 2=Naval One of the two Naval must be really Air... I bet on number 2.
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Post by valorius on Mar 12, 2021 21:40:28 GMT
You dont ever have to actually embark the unit in the LOGTRAIN transport to still get benefit from it. For instace, if you have a Sig 1B 155m gun, it normally has an onboard ammo count of 3. WIth the dedicated logtrain it has fuel 80 and 8 rds of ammo. So even if you never take advantage of the onroad mobility boost, you still get a huge benefit. As is always the case when a unit has it's own dedicated logistics train (US ACRs are an example of a real world unit that has this feature).
When I play i put overwhelming importance into winning air supremacy. To the point i will stay completely on defense until i wipe the skies of the enemy airforce, gaining local air superiority at the least. As i was saying in a previous post, using German Fk18 ATG's and AD units backed by heavy artillery makes it very easy to defend the german frontier while you R&D and then build your airforce.
Under the current configuration of PGX, i would stay completely on defense and go pure R&D until Fw190s were available for 360 prestige or less, then build my AF, then wipe the allies from the sky, then build my panzer force to attackI
For the US i do the same until the P40F (Rolls Royce Merlin equipped warhawk) comes online, and for the Allies i stay on defense until the SPitfire IX comes online.
Once i have at least 12 fighters with 6 initiative, i go on the offense.
Btw you can disband garrison units with experience before buying your fighters (or anything else) and most of the XP will transfer to the fighters (or whatever) when you buy them. Very handy.
For this reason it is a good idea to drop as many inexpensive garrison units in your home cities as possible from the start of the game.
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Post by valorius on Mar 12, 2021 21:46:57 GMT
"Capacity" is what controls the number of fighters a carrier can embark.
I have two types of carriers in my eqp file. Escort, and Fleet. Escort carriers can embark 60 units, and Fleet carriers can embark 90. Pacific general uses 30 for fleet and 20 for escort carriers. I use bigger hangars so i have fewer ships to move around the map, and because it makes life much easier on the AI too. Fuel capacity in my version for a fleet carrier is 999, and 666 for an escort carrier. I upped the price of carriers to something like 30 and 35, IIRC.
This makes these EXTREMELY high value assets, as sinking a carrier can theoretically wipe out up to 9x 10 strength air units, or 6x 5 star 15 strength units.
Of course you or anyone else can put in any values you prefer.
JEFF: There is a check box in eqp editor for air units that says "carrier based" but it seems like all fighters and tactical bombers can embark on carriers anyway. It would be cool if that worked.
I added the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, F4U corsair, Dauntless and Helldiver (i dont mess with US torpedo bombers much) into my eqp file, based on their pacific general stats. I only use those on carriers.
The AI of course will use any fighter or tac bomber on its carriers.
If the "carrier based" button worked i'd ad naval specific fighters like the Seafire, etc, for all nations with carriers.
I still have not messed with the "land based carrier" suggestion yet, but it's on my to do list.
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Post by valorius on Mar 12, 2021 23:13:57 GMT
The roles of Fighter and Tac bomber are a bit crazy too. They could almost be merged, or changed per turn. Tac being the only air unit allowed to attack Subs ? Many anti sub aircraft in WWII were actually planes classed as level bombers in the game. B-24's, B-17's. I guess I am just so fond of the old game, I am hesitant to change many of it's old quirks so readily. Ha Ha. But, I'm getting there. Hmmm, I kind of just gave myself an idea. Changing a units class. Changing a Fighter to a TAC, or even Level Bomber. Theoretically the Strategic bombing campaign could have been carried out by bomb carrying P-47's ? Probably not a good idea. The Germans used Bf-109's to bomb England late in the war. More of nuisance, but it could be considered a strategic bombing campaign ? Hey, I'll go check the memory loss thing now. P38 lightnings had such long range and payload that they did actually perform deep strategic strikes, most famously against Ploesti in Romania, flying from North Africa. There was also a glazed nose "Droop snoop" version of the lightning designed to act as a pathfinder for bomber formations. When it was first introduced in 1940 the production P38F could exceed 400mph and had range superior to early models of the B17, with an astounding 3300fpm climb rate. The first USAAF daylight bomber missions to Berlin were escorted by Lightnings. Even with the shortcomings of the early model lightnings, Bomber losses plummeted when escorted by P38s. Another fun fact about the lightning, since it's guns were all nose mounted they did not have a convergence range, so Lightnings were able to score hits in actual combat at ranges up to 1000yds....many times farther than aircraft with converging guns, like the P47, P51, Spitfire, etc, etc. For this reason i give the p38 lightning a range 1 in my eqp files. (Same is true for all aircraft in PGX with all guns arrayed in the nose) The P38 was so fast in a dive it actually suffered from control surface compression, an issue that engineers were unaware of when it was designed. Eventually dive tabs were introduced to keep the speed under control. Early lightnings had a terrible initial roll rate, but the P38J introduced powered ailerons which gave it a tremendous initial roll rate. The P38L had a ferry range of 3300 miles, a bomb load in excess of the original B17E, could reach 420+ mph, had a climb rate that crushed the Merlin powered Mustang, and a roll rate as good or better than the P51D. The P38 is easily the most poorly modeled game in the general series, when in reality the P38J/L was arguably the greatest piston engine fighter of WWII. And certainly the greatest land based US piston engine fighter of WWII. P38J-38 Lightning (first model equipped with dive tabs and powered ailerons) eqp file stats: Available: 6-44 Cost: 26 Initiative: 7 (shared by Fw190D, P51D, Centaur, Spitfire X+, jet fighters are init 8 in my eqp file) SA: 7 HA: 6 AA: 17 (considering but have not yet implemented a 25% dmg bonus for air units that have all guns clustered in nose) NA: 6 RANGE: 1 GD: 11 (liquid cooled base 7, +1 for armor, +1 for self sealing fuel tanks, +1 for twin engine, +1 for 400+ mph speed) AD: 14 (liquid cooled base 10, +4 for above bonuses) Fuel: 208 (charles lindbergh flew 50 combat missions in p38s and taught pilots how to extend their range by an astounding 30% just by changing their prop RPMs!) Ammo: 7 FUN FACT: The first Japanese confirmed "air to air" kill by a P38 occurred when a Japanese pilot flew through the water geysers created when the Lightning jettisoned it's bombs into the ocean in preparation for air to air combat with the enemy fighter! Fantastically indepth article on the P-38: nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/workhorse-how-p-38-lightning-won-world-war-ii-169714
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Post by valorius on Mar 12, 2021 23:44:42 GMT
JEFF: Btw, still getting "out of memory" issues. I am running windows 10 with 8 gb of ram and 8gb of virtual memory. Question: Does fighter speed have any effect in game other than fuel consumption in PGX? If not im going to set all aircraft to a default speed of 10 to make range:fuel ratio uniform.
BTW, I've only ever actually beat PGX one time, where i conquered every single city and airfield hex in the game (I usually restart once it's obvious i've won). When i did i was disappointed to see there was no end game screen or movie, or whatever. Any chance we could have a mp3 file showing a victory screen or something? Just a suggestion. BTW, it takes an air unit with 160 range to reach berlin and return to the eastern most airbase in the UK. The P51B and up has a historical range of 1650 miles- which I have set in game to a fuel capacity of 165- this allows the P51 to fly to the eastern suburbs of Berlin and back on a tank of gas, or fly to berlin and spend a turn or two there escorting bombers. (though you better suppress the heck out of AD once over berlin with your level bombers, because even short range AD guns will tear P51s to pieces given their low air defense values, and their inability to select "high altitude"). Which leads to a SUGGESTION: Is it possible to code in low-medium-high altitude for fighters like youve done for level bombers? This would let escort fighters at high altitude escort bombers over highly defended areas without getting thrashed by short range 20 and 40mm AD guns, and would also prevent escort fighters set to "high altitude" from attacking ground targets while on escort duty. I feel this would GREATLY improve the realism and game play of PGX. You can of course get around this by suppressing the heck out of enemy AD with level bombers but that means you end up sending most of your level bombers to suppress air defenses instead of hitting strategic targets. In any case, if a player is sticking with the factory or konzev eqp files, I reccomend adjusting fuel capacity for the B17's, B24's, Lancasters, P51s and P38 to reflect this value. These increased should probably be altered and included in all subsequent versions of PGX, because they are far far more realistic.
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Post by valorius on Mar 13, 2021 8:07:20 GMT
JEFF:
The more i think of it, the high/med/low/night option that you coded for level bombers would be TREMENDOUS for fighters.
The way you have that option, it adjusts damage to enemy units AND damage to your own unit.
This would represent a high altitude fighter just having guns, and being hard to hit with flak on "HIGH" and a low altitude fighter being used in a ground attack role, doing maximum damage, but being more exposed to enemy flak damage or interception.
The night setting for a fighter would be intruder mode, attacking enemy air units or ground units with radar/search lights, doing commensurately lower damage but being much harder to hit.
I think this would REALLY add to the game.
In fact of all the suggestions i made, this would probably be the best.
If we had that i could adjust the eqp file to make ONLY aircraft that had no historic air to air role tactical bombers, while still getting the real world effect of fighter bombers like the P38L, Fw190, Typhoon, P47D, etc.
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Post by jeff on Mar 17, 2021 13:55:39 GMT
The upgrade cost of '1' is probably a math glitch. I think I divide the cost of the unit by 10, then multiply the result by how many attributes are higher than the original unit. I will post the code to let you guys look at it. Some attributes 1 to 30 are absolutely useless improvements. Like 23 I think. (Icon number.) So, this helps the R/D from getting too helpful.
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Post by teophrastusbombastus on Mar 17, 2021 18:20:36 GMT
The upgrade cost of '1' is probably a math glitch. I think I divide the cost of the unit by 10, then multiply the result by how many attributes are higher than the original unit. I will post the code to let you guys look at it. Some attributes 1 to 30 are absolutely useless improvements. Like 23 I think. (Icon number.) So, this helps the R/D from getting too helpful. IT 47mmATG cost 12 (K-eqp) 12/10=1,2 1 bonus Air Def 1,2X1=1,2 but game works not with fractions so 1 My point was that I upgraded on turn X and again on turn X+1. I mean the order is accepted a second time, to upgrade to what is already upgraded to. I've just tried it again because I wasn't sure it is charging the second time and yes it is. 1 production discounted for the second time. If I'm not mistaken, normally we can select the same equipment we already have but cost is indicated as 0. What I cannot tell is if this is just with this unit. So far its the only one I have with bonus. I suspect it may be linked with the fact that the "Mk-1" isn't being written in this unit's name. Although it appears in the "upgrade to" name on the upgrade board it doesn't appear later in the already upgraded unit's name. The +1 AD bonus appears first time upgrade order is accepted and does not add in subsequent times. So, no issue on this detail.
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Post by valorius on Mar 18, 2021 18:06:51 GMT
Turn 137, Allies: "RUN TIME ERROR 11: Division by Zero"
Game crashes, Allies cannot progress beyond this point under AI control.
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Post by teophrastusbombastus on Mar 19, 2021 18:11:40 GMT
v768 Match 1 Turn 61
(somewhat slow pace as I re enlisted as voluntary translator with that site I mention in Section H, The Serpent's Wall post)
USSR has meanwhile declared war on Latvia and Lithuania. Generally speaking the Axis has made some promising advances.
Germany: Occupation of Poland completed but partisans on the rise. Supporting Romanian and Lithuanian lines. No significant changes elsewhere.
Turkey: Athens occupied. Finally, a breakthrough at the western USSR approach.
Spain: Still the same two frontier battles against France.
Finland: Amazingly there are still some units yet to be attacked.
Romania: Checking Soviet attempts.
Italy: Toulon captured. Generally advancing elsewhere.
Netherlands: Quiet.
Estonia: Losing but slowly.
Latvia: Holding and even sending light explorer units out.
Lithuania: Holding.
No R/D changes.
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Post by valorius on Mar 20, 2021 3:15:37 GMT
The upgrade cost of '1' is probably a math glitch. I think I divide the cost of the unit by 10, then multiply the result by how many attributes are higher than the original unit. I will post the code to let you guys look at it. Some attributes 1 to 30 are absolutely useless improvements. Like 23 I think. (Icon number.) So, this helps the R/D from getting too helpful. I really dont know anything about code, so ill have to trust you. You seem to be very competent at what you're doing. I'll tell you, without a truly massive fleet of level bombers and total air supremacy, the Soviet AI you built would be nigh unbeatable. It is extremely challenging. So kudos to you sir! 5 point units are still the bane of my existence though, not in a good way. Please recode the ability on the game options screen to disallow them. I did note that while the allies and axis are using them like crazy, the Soviets are not. So that's very good. I think it might be best to remove the reduced cost R&D upgrade entirely, so you dont have to worry about that at all, maybe?
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Post by valorius on Mar 20, 2021 4:22:11 GMT
GAME UPDATE: turn 142, US.
Actual game calender: April 1940 R&D Calender: January 1962
Total points of R&D invested: 2550 (representing 255000 production invested) Available Production: 2,634,311 Available fuel: 3,177,213 Available ammo: 1,570,016
Those are not typos.
I believe the US made over 2 MILLION production in the last turn alone.
The R&D feature is, shall we say.....generous.
Using the US, and spending your first 40 or so turns on nothing but R&D, you set yourself on an absolutely unbeatable trajectory.
The US is fielding the following units:
Land based Fighter: F84E Thunderjets Naval Fighters: F4U-4C Corsairs Tactical Bombers: P47N Thunderbolts Level Bombers: B36A Peacemakers and B47A Stratojets
If i had modeled US tanks past the M47, they'd be on the M48A3 right now.
Basically, the US is 15 years into the cold war, and leaving the AI to it's own devices, they are all in early 1941 on the R&D scale.
It might be a good idea to cap maximum calendar advance via R&D at 1 year, and maximum production at +100% baseline.
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Post by valorius on Mar 20, 2021 4:54:59 GMT
Is there a maximum number of units that can be in the eqp file? There are enough cheap repurposeable units in the existing file to model the major powers well into the 1950s even as it is. That would allow for some neat cold war scenarios. In Jan 1962, the calender date the US is at now, the USN had just fielded the mach 2 F-4A Phantom carrier based fighter and radar guided over the horizon sparrow missile. (These are not modeled in my eqp file- i stopped at the F84E thunderjet and B47 stratojet because i ran out of cheap/redundant units to convert into useful things) I've been toying with the idea of modeling hydrogen bomb equipped B36's and B47s and Russian TU-4s and TU-95 Bear bombers just for the hell of it- damage can be set as high as 999. (A Tallboy equipped level bomber is 10sa, 10ha, 10na in my eqp file, and a grand slam is 20, 20, 20- powerful yes, but remember even a near miss with a grandslam was capable of crippling a full sized battleship or crushing the most heavily fortified structures) With the amount of production i have, if i sat there for an hour clicking the R&D button, i could probably hit my real world enlistment date in the late Reagan Era on the next turn. LOL. The turn after that i could probably be fielding F-22s and B2s, if i had them modeled. Definitely need some sort of a cap on the R&D feature. As it is configured now, i think you could put every country in the game into the axis, have the US alone represent the allies, and the US could still take them all on at the same time. Sounds like fun, actually.
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Post by teophrastusbombastus on Mar 20, 2021 9:46:33 GMT
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