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#Post#: 4401--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: pilotofficerprune
Date: February 6, 2020, 4:23 am
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Do we need to cap the VPs that can be obtained from bombing the
ships? (i.e. no extra VPs after heavy damage?)
#Post#: 4404--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: Okmed
Date: February 6, 2020, 5:11 pm
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Capping VPs for bombing ships at Heavy yields a maximum of 24 VP
for all four targets. The Allies would have to achieve that and
come out 9 VP ahead in air combat to win. That could be tough,
especially if a B-17 gets potted by flak. Capping at Crippling
damage yields a max of 48 VP, which is plenty if the Allies can
achieve it. But this approach assumes going after both DDs,
which would probably yield more A/C losses to flak.
Thinking about it for now. Let's see how my last playing would
have come out with average flak and bombing dice rolls. I'll
comb the .vlogs and synthesize that.
#Post#: 4405--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: pilotofficerprune
Date: February 7, 2020, 12:48 am
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Let's ignore bombing for a moment and look at aircraft losses.
The outputs from the three tests so far are:
Gordon/Andrew 1 = Japanese losses 13 VP; US losses 13 VP
Dave 1 = Japanese losses 10 VP; US losses 9.5 VP
Dave 2 = Japanese losses 14 VP; US losses 11 VP
Based on this, the air exchange favours the US fractionally by a
mean of 1.16 VPs. The air exchange rate does not appear overly
swingy.
Let's pivot back to the bombing again. There are a number of
choices:
(a) Leave as-is. However, this could make the scenario very
swingy where bombing rolls are good.
(b) Cap bombing to Heavy damage level and adjust the victory
levels accordingly.
If we were to go with (b) how would that incentivise the player?
I believe at present the player could choose to go all-in on
some targets to farm maximum VP. Would capping VPs cause players
to spread their targets? Or might it introduce some perverse
incentive?
#Post#: 4406--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: pilotofficerprune
Date: February 7, 2020, 12:50 am
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FYI bombing outputs so far are:
Gordon/Andrew 1 = 33 US VPs
Dave 1 = 40 US VPs
Dave 2 = 52 US VPs
That's a significant swing on bombing, though I appreciate
success is partially dependent on such things as flak
suppression.
#Post#: 4408--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: Gordon Christie
Date: February 7, 2020, 11:32 am
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Historically both the Japanese Aux were fatally damaged,
together with one of the DDs at least heavily damaged in this
attack. I originally designed the VPs (from memory) based on
roughly equal losses ATA but the Allies need to cripple or
fatally damage the Aux targets which would be my metric for
historical success. The whole operation was about sinking the
merchant ships so I think that should be the focus of the
scenario. I’m encouraged that Dave managed this, albeit with hot
dice as I wondered if it might be a challenge based on Andrew &
my run. In alpha test terms it’s maybe not critical- the
scenario seems to work- but the correct balance needs to be
struck in beta if not before.
Cheers
Gordon
#Post#: 4410--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: Okmed
Date: February 8, 2020, 12:07 am
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--- Quote from: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood link ---
>
> (a) Leave as-is. However, this could make the scenario very
swingy where bombing rolls are good.
>
> (b) Cap bombing to Heavy damage level and adjust the victory
levels accordingly.
>
> If we were to go with (b) how would that incentivise the
player? I believe at present the player could choose to go
all-in on some targets to farm maximum VP. Would capping VPs
cause players to spread their targets? Or might it introduce
some perverse incentive?
>
--- End Quote ---
From what I've seen so far, and from looking at the VP numbers,
I can say option (b) would give a definite incentive to engage
all four ships. Right now the Allies can avoid the DD in H0 and
probably will. That DD can reach a supporting barrage into J0 to
make strafing / skip-bombing more dangerous there. You can argue
that making both destroyers serious considerations for the
Allies is a good thing and makes the scenario more interesting.
Flak suppression is not all that difficult. One bombing/strafing
run plus one other attack (level bombing or pure strafing) will
probably suppress a DD. The VP cap will make victory (with the
current point requirements) harder for the Allies and force them
to look for VPs wherever possible. That means surface targets
for the most part. It's true that P-38s munch A6M2 Zeroes like
popcorn, but cohesion rolls are likely to limit the VPs the
P-38s can harvest in air-to-air combat.
The most swingy effect probably arises from a good early bomb
run that suppresses flak so that the other bombers, especially
those B-17s and high B-25s, can attack with impunity.
Encouraging the Allies to go after both DDs will tend to
minimize that effect, since good early attacks on both DDs are
less likely. The advantage of the flak staying active is
twofold: the threat of knocking down 2 VP and 3 VP bombers and
the greater likelihood of putting negative bombing modifiers on
the attackers.
One other point: I put Veteran crews in all the bombers because
it looks like there's a bigger payoff from the surface targets
than from shooting down Zeroes. So that +1 on all bomb runs
underlies my comments about how easy it is to suppress the DDs
and max out the damage against ships.
#Post#: 4413--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: pilotofficerprune
Date: February 8, 2020, 8:51 am
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Okay, I'm going to look at adding the VP cap. However, I'll move
you off this scenario for now. Can you please move on to L14
Fall Polarfuchs, Dave?
#Post#: 4415--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: Okmed
Date: February 8, 2020, 10:44 am
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Yes, I was going to ask what you'd like me to try next.
#Post#: 4420--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: Okmed
Date: February 8, 2020, 3:39 pm
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I didn't include a summary of the flak and bombing results from
my log, which is otherwise long and crunchy to read.
1. Allied bombing was a bit better than average, with only one
extraordinarily good result (A-20s against the Aux).
2. Japanese flak was consistently ineffective, meaning it gained
no VPs for downed aircraft and inflicted next to no negative
bombing modifiers.
So luck went the Allies way, but not to a game-breaking extent.
#Post#: 4426--------------------------------------------------
Re: L10 Battle of the Bismarck Sea
DIR By: pilotofficerprune
Date: February 9, 2020, 2:01 am
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So, looking at Gordon's note upthread, I'm going to try capping
the bombing VPs. This should still incentivise attacks on the
Auxiliaries, but I'm setting the Allied victory level at 20 VPs
or more, and we'll see how this shakes out in beta.
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