[WIP] Air Layer

[CaptainHaplo]

Thanks Tater. We were hoping for a way to limit all the various planes - regardless of range - to one specific search radius. Not sure its possible. Thanks though!

[AkbarGulag]

So you know Tater, we decided that maximum ranges of aircraft as seen in things like Wiki-pedia are generally for an unloaded plane. It's a different story to load a plane full of bomb and charges then fly 2500km thus, planes with weapons will have less range than planes that search.

As far as the Zero fighter is concerned, I really don't think you would ever have seen this more than several hundred Kilometres for an airfield. And the game does not require fighter escorts for bombing historic land targets. I think a range of about 300-400km is ample for those. (even though it's range was far greater)

A lot of what you mentioned is between our teeth right now.

As to cloning the planes and bases, we wil not be using any of the traditional airbases and all planes used in our alpha tests are clones.

Your right about the airfields and placement also, it's pretty much going to have to be done by hand.

And Luke, I still don't know how the game decides these things should fly in pairs, for example. Even if I give a base, say, two sqaudrons with for example 20 planes each, it will still send individual planes. But if I assisgn 2 planes to a squadron, it may patrol with them both The only way around this would be to create a lot more airbases... We are going to have to find some balance here on what is actually able to be done and what will take far to long and be far to complicated.

[tater]

I never could find that file (whatever cause them to fly in 1 or 2s).

The only way I thought of was to only use "airstrike" planes (airfields and airgroups) that might be seen in pairs (the japanese flew in 3s, actually, not pairs).

So you'd only put planes with the ranges dropped a lot on the air bases. The maritime patrol planes could be added by hand.

One thing to remember as well is follow up attacks. Those could be in pairs.

So you make the H6Ks, H8Ks, and G4Ms fly search pattern waypoints. You then have airbases with those planes in them, and even long ranges---but you set the airstrike probability to near zero.

Then you set the % modifier based on being already detected to very high.

Now your waypoint flying planes do the detection, and the airgroups can followup.

tater

[tater]

Yeah, I know, my PM box is full. It's just that all the stuff in there is USEFUL, lol.

[AkbarGulag]

Originally Posted by tater

Yeah, I know, my PM box is full. It's just that all the stuff in there is USEFUL, lol.

Tell me about it... up to about 80 messages... but what to delete!

I think I get what your saying... thats what testing is for ^^

To start with we just used the H6K's to run searches. I also wanted to reduce the use of betty's by the time the americans roll up to guam etc.

Does anyone know how prolific float bases were during WWII?

Also, thanks for the starter notes you gave us Tater, some of the small slivers of information we got from you formed the backbone of this MOD

Goes to prove, it's not the volume of information that counts, its the accuracy of that information. Tater = GOLD

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Check here for some specs and ranges of Japanese planes.

http://www.aircraftaces.com/ww2-aircraft-japan.htm

[Digital_Trucker]

Originally Posted by AkbarGulag

Tell me about it... up to about 80 messages... but what to delete!

Why delete any of them? If you want to keep them, just check the box next to the one to keep, select the type of file on your computer that you want to store it in (in the selection box where you select delete) and click "go". Then you don't even have to be on the site to look through them.

[AkbarGulag]

Thanks for the resource Davy. And thanks for the tip Trucker ^^

Air MOD update. We have nailed something that has held us up for a lot of time. Moving now onto another aspect of the MOD.

[JimRat]

The Japanese relied HEAVILY on float and Seaplanes during the war for recon work. this was one of the reasons for their defeat at Midway. One of the float planes from the Cruiser Tone was let getting airborne and sighted the US fleet too late for Nagumo to attack it efficiently. As for where their main seaplane bases and such were located, I will have to get back to you on that.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by Digital_Trucker

Why delete any of them? If you want to keep them, just check the box next to the one to keep, select the type of file on your computer that you want to store it in (in the selection box where you select delete) and click "go". Then you don't even have to be on the site to look through them.

Nice tip DT


RDP

[AkbarGulag]

Just to keep people interested, this project is moving along.. here are some changes. All work is subject to change... no beta test release is planned yet. Indeed, no release date is even being considered at this stage.



Compiled by AkbarGulag, Donut, Digital_Trucker and Captain_Haplo

0.1 Alpha
---------

-Removed 'un-needed' files.
-Added the SingleMission 'Sanbox_Alpha' for testing purposes.
-Added the 'MOD_H6K_Alpha' Aircraft. This was cloned from the 'H6K'.
-Added the 'MOD_FloatPlaneBase_Alpha' This was cloned from the 'LAB_SmallFloatplaneBaseJP'.


0.2 Alpha
---------

-Removed more 'un-needed' files.
-Added the 'MOD_StrikeBase_Alpha' This was cloned from the LAB_LargeAirbaseJP.
-Added the 'XXXXXXXXX' File. This has not been implemented, but is within the file structure.
-Changes to ALL Japanese Aircraft except the Zero (due to its use as a fighter) to historic ranges. Initial Range number calculated in KiloMetres.(all are Radius, not one way flight ranges)
-Initiated Airstrike.cfg Changes.

0.3 Alpha
----------

-Removed ALL bombs on search planes. Retained a limited number of depth charges to make diving to escape difficult. (to be reviewed).
-Changes to the Airstrike.cfg file.
-Changes to ALL Japanese Aircraft Ranges. Due to game limitations and controls, historic ranges are often not obtainable without disrupting game balance.
-Renamed 'MOD_FloatPlaneBase_Alpha' to 'FloatPlaneBase'.
-Renamed 'MOD_H6K_Alpha' to 'ASW_H6K'

0.3b Alpha
----------

-Removed more 'un-needed' files.
-Cleaned up all Base and Search Plane Names. Includes ASW_H6K, ASW_H8K also StrikebaseJP and FloatPlaneBaseJP.
-Retweaked plane ranges to take into account game limitations in scripting.
-Changes to the Airstrike.cfg file.
-Completed Aircraft Entry Dates. Planes should now become available at historic periods.

0.4 Alpha
---------

-Added Jap_AirCover.mis
-Modified Jap_AirCover.mis, this includes replacing all original bases with the new StrikeBaseJP and adding 4 new FloatPlaneBaseJP.
-Corrected Airbase Date End of Rabaul to Feb 14 1944 (last operational aircraft removed to Truk)
-Corrected Airbase Date End of Wake to Oct 5 1943 (last operational aircraft destroyed in carrier raid?)

[tater]

Thanks, DT, never saw that. Doh!

Regarding the Tone's float plane, Shattered Sword sort of debunked that. They looked at the timing of the float planes, and it would have not made any difference. Contrary to myth, the Kido Butai was not moments away from launching their planes. All the planes were still in the hanger spaces when the SBDs came (the CVs had done landing ops within a few minutes of spent CAP planes). It took maybe 30 minutes to strike the planes on deck just for one wave (the IJN launched in 2 waves usually). That would be under ideal conditions. While wildly maneuvering during air attack, it would take longer.

They did use floats for recon, however, the trick is understanding what they were looking for. NOT submarines. Launching the cat floats off the CAs is easy, recovering them is not. As a result, they were used to scout for the enemy fleet when it was considered possible that one might be about, but they were not routinely in the air for patrol.

Any realistic air mod should have few (if any) ship borne aircraft, IMO, due to the poor way the sim deals with such air groups.

[CaptainHaplo]

Tater - we are not yet at the point of modding the carrier born air cover - but I do think we will go with a very short "range" cap if at all possible - and that would be fighter aircraft, not search and strike craft. At least we hope so!

[AkbarGulag]

Originally Posted by tater

Any realistic air mod should have few (if any) ship borne aircraft, IMO, due to the poor way the sim deals with such air groups.

The float planes launched from CA's, as you say, are a cumbersome recon craft. It appears the F1M Pete is the one used mainly in the SH4 game. After pondering this for a while, it was decided the Pete would not feature in any increased role for the MOD and has not been added to any of the float bases. (try and find a photo of one )

Unforunately we have not found a way to dictate how a base defines an aircraft range. The game engine seems to be limiting and has frustrated efforts to create 'good' balance. Effectively, so far it looks like Zero fighters will be limited to 250km. Even the Val and Kate have some reductions, though you will still see them much further out than a Zero. Betty bombers will naturally be seen far from any airbase, but will be individual. Don't expect to see them ganging up on you

The betty will now appear more of a lone transport moving between airfields. I realise they were used heavily in anti-naval operations(?) as in the sinking of The Prince of Wales etc.. but not sure how they progressed in this to the end of the war.

We are still learning here though, regardless of my doubts of making this seemlessly balanced, if new information helps us to this end, we will be falling over ourselves to incorporate it.

[tater]

The PLANE range is the range.

Change the Betty range to 100km. Make an airbase with just the Betty. load the mod and open the air layer. Look at the circles, they'll be 100km for the betty airbase.

The range in the Air/Aircraft_type/Aircraft_type.cfg is the plane range, and the airbases are populated with planes. The circle they use for airstrike %s is based on the planes inside the airbase airgroup.

If you have mixed air bases with one plane range at 1000km and another at 10km, the circle shows the longest range.

It's that simple.

I broke the bases down to bases with fighters, bomber squadrons, etc., and just overlapped them. So one airfield might have 1 fighter squadron and 1 bomber, each with different ranges.

As for floats, I would certainly add floatplane bases, they were common. The fact that the Pete is it doesn't matter, it is the stand in for other floats, so what?

Tulagi (before the US invasion) etc.

Given short ranges for the patrol areas they might actually be expected to have they are fine, IMO.