Observations by SAS-newbie

[richmi]

Hi guys,
I'm richmi, and I'm fairly new to NWS forums and SAS.
I have the SAS CD just for few days now and spent only few hours inside the game. The concept of SAS is a must-have kind of stuff for me. There are many things I enjoy in the game like ship design/building, allocating a/c to CVs, forming TFs, infrastructure enhancement - shortly the "setup" for the action. (Which took me more time than the actual run of the turn, but i like it). There are also some things that bring questions to my mind and some I feel a bit dissapointed about. I know that I haven't explored all the possibilites and sides of the game, so maybe lot of things will explain themselves with time as I "dig deeper".

But there are few observations I'd like to share right now:

1) Sometimes the buttons after click just don't do anytning (on the blackboard, in the menus) and work only after several clicks or the correct lenght of the click :eek:. Maybe some of the actions caused by the click require the PC to "work" so thre is a delay, no problem, but how can I tell? there is no sand-glass and i just wonder if the game hear my clicks... Is it standard behaviour of the program?
- getting used to it

2) In the Build - infrastructure menu regardless of having 2IC invest the RP's for me or working with clean list, I cannot enter any values into the fields that stay there! :confused: if i try to change 2IC's values it jumps to 0, if from clean sheet, it just stays 0. No matter if i use num keyboard or standard. With numerical i see that one character i press at that time and when i release the button it jumps to "0", with classic kbd i see the whole number but then it also jumps back to "0", no matter how big or small the amount I want to invest is...
- already settled

3) The strategic map during a turn calculatuion lives its own life. When paused and I try to click on TF icon scarcely get a window with the TF info. More likely the game just jumps another hour ahead. Not even speaking of 2 TF's close together. So the whole control turns into frustrated clicking and later I just sit back and watch my navy to do what i not always want it to. And all the fun is gone :cool:. Definitely I must be missing something important here...
- now i know what to do and do not, so generally better

4) I've got few veird AAR's after the only turn I've literaly survived to an end. Something like: Airstrike on an enemy TF formed by 14 wildcats (why only fighters?) lost 14 avengers (now here they are!) to 3 zeros...
- now better able to extract the info i seek, but still having some strange battle results some times

5) In the ship building/designing section, i wonder if primary guns on DD's/CL's also count for AA defense as i wanted to create a specialised AA CL something like Juneau was (lot of small caliber guns). But the the AA specialisation is only available with destroyers (here with the same question regarding primary guns).
- still wonder if primary guns of small caliber, lets say up to 5", do count as a AAA?

6) The visual side of windows and tables is, well, a bit messy, every table has different visual style, color, order, on some windows there is even no [x] to close it... a little bit of unification and "visual polishing" would help the game to be better recieved by more than Hardcore strategists. That is just my feeling. :o
- got used to it, the +++ of this game are elsewhere

That is all for now, please understand, that everything is ment in a way of constructive suggestions/questions, for me to better understand (and maybe to improve for you) this game of huge potential, but in my opinion still with some issues that hold it back.

regards
richmi :)

PC's I've tried SAS v 1,16 on:
C2D 2,6GHz, 4GB RAM, Win7x64
TurionX2 2,2GHz 2GB RAM, WinXP_pro

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi guys,
I'm richmi, and I'm fairly new to NWS forums and SAS.
I have the SAS CD just for few days now and spent only few hours inside the game. The concept of SAS is a must-have kind of stuff for me. There are many things I enjoy in the game like ship design/building, allocating a/c to CVs, forming TFs, infrastructure enhancement - shortly the "setup" for the action. (Which took me more time than the actual run of the turn, but i like it). There are also some things that bring questions to my mind and some I feel a bit dissapointed about. I know that I haven't explored all the possibilites and sides of the game, so maybe lot of things will explain themselves with time as I "dig deeper".

But there are few observations I'd like to share right now:

1) Sometimes the buttons after click just don't do anytning (on the blackboard, in the menus) and work only after several clicks or the correct lenght of the click :eek:. Maybe some of the actions caused by the click require the PC to "work" so thre is a delay, no problem, but how can I tell? there is no sand-glass and i just wonder if the game hear my clicks... Is it standard behaviour of the program?

2) In the Build - infrastructure menu regardless of having 2IC invest the RP's for me or working with clean list, I cannot enter any values into the fields that stay there! :confused: if i try to change 2IC's values it jumps to 0, if from clean sheet, it just stays 0. No matter if i use num keyboard or standard. With numerical i see that one character i press at that time and when i release the button it jumps to "0", with classic kbd i see the whole number but then it also jumps back to "0", no matter how big or small the amount I want to invest is...
- already settled

3) The strategic map during a turn calculatuion lives its own life. When paused and I try to click on TF icon scarcely get a window with the TF info. More likely the game just jumps another hour ahead. Not even speaking of 2 TF's close together. So the whole control turns into frustrated clicking and later I just sit back and watch my navy to do what i not always want it to. And all the fun is gone :cool:. Definitely I must be missing something important here...

4) I've got few veird AAR's after the only turn I've literaly survived to an end. Something like: Airstrike on an enemy TF formed by 14 wildcats (why only fighters?) lost 14 avengers (now here they are!) to 3 zeros...

5) In the ship building/designing section, i wonder if primary guns on DD's/CL's also count for AA defense as i wanted to create a specialised AA CL something like Juneau was (lot of small caliber guns). But the the AA specialisation is only available with destroyers (here with the same question regarding primary guns).

6) The visual side of windows and tables is, well, a bit messy, every table has different visual style, color, order, on some windows there is even no [x] to close it... a little bit of unification and "visual polishing" would help the game to be better recieved by more than Hardcore strategists. That is just my feeling. :o

That is all for now, please understand, that everything is ment in a way of constructive suggestions/questions, for me to better understand (and maybe to improve for you) this game of huge potential, but in my opinion still with some issues that hold it back.

regards
richmi :)

PC's I've tried SAS v 1,16 on:
C2D 2,6GHz, 4GB RAM, Win7x64
TurionX2 2,2GHz 2GB RAM, WinXP_pro

Richmi - first, sincere thanks for the feedback.

I am debugging the next release (1.17) and after that is out I want to take stock and so your comments are all very helpful.

[tony_glazebrook]

Richmi - one quick suggestion - re the issue of the hex assets info popup not coming up properly when you click on the map, I suggest you:
a. Turn hexes on, to ensure your mouse is positioned in the right hex
b. Zoom in if necessary
c. Always wait for the popup to show automatically, before clicking - the popup will always appear automatoically when you have the 'mouse over fleets...' feature enabled. The appearance of the popup tells you you must be in the right hex. Then click, to anchor the popup for use.

[richmi]

Hi Tony, guys...
First of all, thanx for suggestions Tony. I took a deep breath and jumped, well, sit into the Admirals chair few times again, handled the turn and map with patience and...it was much better :). Let me write down some more things i ran into, not in any order, just as they'll come to my mind:

1) Shipbuilding
If fine-tuning ship construction plan that 2IC prepared, after first ship scrapped, the others in the list in many cases doesn't stand for the type they shoul be - the class/name in the list doesn't equal the class in the build/design part of the window. So if i scrap another ship it often scraps completely different ship from the list if Im not cautious and double check every time. The only workaround is to finish and then enter the shipbuilding screen again after each change. This also fixes the remaining tonnage counter to show correct remaining tonnage.

2) Replenishing AC onboard CVs if they are not in port at the end of the turn. Human player can do this, AI does this. I saw Japan CVs looking for death near San Francisco, damaged and out of AC, fully equipped at the beginning of the next turn.

3) Pending missions from ground airbases. I've set the "scissors" to see exactly the proposed composition of AC for the attack, and when i didn't wanted the strike to be conducted I thought that the "Abort" buttons would do it. Surprisingly it does not. Many planes lost on low survivability or aborted missions.
- found a workaround, clearing the strike of all AC an then sending it...

4) During the actual turn I've set up to stop the game for nearly everything to see what is happening and why. But some things just "doesn't compute", for example 2IC sending last few fighters of the base for a sweep over enemy base with much stronger CAP, again and again until all are shot down, the same for poorly or unprotected bombers. - airstrike preferences on default.

And few more things, but those I want to explore more before spamming the board here with issues that may be easily solved by experience or manual :o.

thanx
richmi

P.S. the more turns I suffer through the more I like the game, yet... ;)

[richmi]

Hi, your favourite spamming junior member is back with more :p...

I finally got through to turn 9 or 10, and what is great, I'm not frustrated by the play anymore :D. I cannot wait to get back to it. (Well maybe partly because I have the upper hand at the moment). Hats off Mr. Tony, the game is earning my sympathy more and more!

but...
I have 3 points regarding AC build, deployment and air combat results:

1) AC build)
Is it possible to remove some types of AC from the build list if I'm 100% positive I don't want to build them anymore?

2) AC Deployment)
I know that this is probably going to be one of the "topics" of 1.18, so maybe I shouldn't worry anymore... anyway, I like to manually assign AC to all airfields and CVs, but at the beginning of each next turn the I2C re-does it in his way, so i have to manually "build" the airforce again. Very time consuming and annoying. Could that be an option? "manual/2IC airplane allocation"?

Some "replenish" button to reinforce to previous turn strenghts of airbases would be nice...

3) Air combat results)
Althouhg most of the air combat results looks quite realistic, sometimes the fighters against bombers seem to be to much powerfull. Example: 24 Zeros shot down 84 out of 110 B-24s without loosing a single fighter! That is a little bit too much i think, when talking about lightly/unarmored fighters against a group of Liberators... or 6 Zeros taking down 25 Mitchells... 3 Zeros 13 Avengers...

thanx
richmi

P.S: going to install 1.17 today :) thank you Mr. Tony

[Christian Schwietzke]

I think these are good points.

[tony_glazebrook]

Richmi can u pls give me as much info as u can including screen shots when aerial battle results look out of whack?

Thanks

[richmi]

Hi Tony,
this is the only one I could retrieve, but probably the most arguable.

info:
Attack wave from Townswille returning from pounding Rabaul, intercepted by a CAP from Truk. See the attachment.
Turn 7, two-week turn length, intro campaign, v 1.16...
Just tell me what more info could be usefull...
Will post more if encounter some.

I've forgot about one thing I wanted to mention in previous post:
Why ships that are not in any TF, but still are anchored in that port, doesn't get any damage/cannot be attacked by surface or aerial bombardment? I've found a damaged major warship I wanted to finish off, but since it was not a part of any TF, all the ACs attack only land facilities, and TFs can be ordered to attack only TF or bombard...

thanx
richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

Thanks Richmi. And I will review how ships in port are affectedby bombarmemt (surface and aerial)

Cheers

[richmi]

Hi,
airfields probably choose "the best in class" AC for the CAP first, so instead of saving P-38s for bomber escorts, they fly CAP and shorter range P-40s or P-39s just sit on the runway. Promotable strikes suffer from inadequate fighter escorts available.

richmi

[richmi]

Hi again,

what are the possible reasons for CVs for not launching a strike? I have had 3 fully equipped unharmed carriers, dancing around an enemy TF for a whole turn, not launching a single strike. All AC stated lauch "OK", short distance...nothing... frustrating! :( . How can I plan an action if the point of it, the actual strike does not happen? In the US carriers were launching air strikes in the intro campaign ok, but the japaneese (also intro) are very passive.

sorted, "enable(d) fighter mins vs shipping" was the problem. My bad.

P.S." How it is possible that I have encountered the ships I have designed in the intro campaign while playing the other side? :eek:

richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi,
airfields probably choose "the best in class" AC for the CAP first, so instead of saving P-38s for bomber escorts, they fly CAP and shorter range P-40s or P-39s just sit on the runway. Promotable strikes suffer from inadequate fighter escorts available.

richmi

Hmmm, good point, hadn't considered giving preference to shorter range fighters for CAP. Will put this on the list

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi again,

what are the possible reasons for CVs for not launching a strike? I have had 3 fully equipped unharmed carriers, dancing around an enemy TF for a whole turn, not launching a single strike. All AC stated lauch "OK", short distance...nothing... frustrating! :( . How can I plan an action if the point of it, the actual strike does not happen? In the US carriers were launching air strikes in the intro campaign ok, but the japaneese (also intro) are very passive.

P.S." How it is possible that I have encountered the ships I have designed in the intro campaign while playing the other side? :eek:

richmi

Make sure you enable control of carriers and airfields you ate interested in and then also enable view promotable and invalid strikes so you can see all the reasons the AI is considering. The 'OK to launch' is just a very basic message indicating only if the carrier is physically able to launch given damage and visibility.

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi again,

what are the possible reasons for CVs for not launching a strike? I have had 3 fully equipped unharmed carriers, dancing around an enemy TF for a whole turn, not launching a single strike. All AC stated lauch "OK", short distance...nothing... frustrating! :( . How can I plan an action if the point of it, the actual strike does not happen? In the US carriers were launching air strikes in the intro campaign ok, but the japaneese (also intro) are very passive.

P.S." How it is possible that I have encountered the ships I have designed in the intro campaign while playing the other side? :eek:

richmi

PS, not clear what the issue is with the ship designs, I'll need more info

[richmi]

PS, not clear what the issue is with the ship designs, I'll need more info

I've played the intro for US side and designed some of the ships. But as the campaign ended after cca 12-14 turns I wanted to practice more before full play. So I started new intro for IJN. The first thing was that the Infra, ships, troops and AC for the first turn were already built. Pity, for I wanted to build the forces from scratch but OK. But during the play, the AI - US side was using the ships I've designed in the US intro campaign (can tell by the name/class)... Not a problem but surprising.

[Christian Schwietzke]

I think the problem here is that the Intro campaign is designed to be played by US human versus Japanese AI.

I noticed that, if you play a campaign which was built with one side as AI from that side, weird things can happen, especially if you previously played the same campaign from the "right" side.

[Saffron]

So does the AI draw upon a database of custom ships to use? If I build custom ships for the Japanese, for instance, will the AI use them in the next campaign if I play the US?

I haven't gotten into custom ship designs ... yet ... since I'm re-learning the game. But I think it would be a fabulous idea if this is true. I've wondered if the AI would always be limited in only historical ships even if I'm able to build far larger and more advanced ships. Seems like it would be an unfair advantage to the human player.

[richmi]

I think the problem here is that the Intro campaign is designed to be played by US human versus Japanese AI.

I noticed that, if you play a campaign which was built with one side as AI from that side, weird things can happen, especially if you previously played the same campaign from the "right" side.

Ok, that should explain it. I didn't know that the intro is ment to be played for the US only.

[Christian Schwietzke]

Ok, that should explain it. I didn't know that the intro is ment to be played for the US only.

I think if you checked you would find out that the AI built exactly the same ships as you did the previous time, formed exactly the same fleets and gave them exactly the same orders. That´s what happened the last time I did that.

[richmi]

Make sure you enable control of carriers and airfields you ate interested in and then also enable view promotable and invalid strikes so you can see all the reasons the AI is considering. The 'OK to launch' is just a very basic message indicating only if the carrier is physically able to launch given damage and visibility.

The invalid strikes table says "cant get any bombers" and yes there are many of them, on carriers, at airfields, enough fighters for escort... not a single even promotable strike for several turns... :(. I dont get it :confused:

Already figured out, so i got it now...

richmi

[richmi]

The 2IC is deploying aircraft over the capacity of airbases and carriers.

richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

I will look at this as part of 1.18

[richmi]

How come that from shipping raw materials came no RPs? I still donť fully understand the industry concept athough bin through it in the manual.

So as i see it, ways the RPs are being "created" are:

1) DMI and domestic industry levels produce RPs.
2) EMI and export industry levels produce RPs.
3) RAW materials convoyed in, EMI of the port of originand export industry levels at home base produce RPs? (see attachments)
4) Supplies convoyed directly transfer RPs

Am I right?

Are the amounts of RAW materials available to convoy to home port somehow limited by the port of their origin? Amount not, but the EMI sets the value.

thanx
richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

richmi, sorry about the delay in responding. I'll respond properly on the weekend.

[richmi]

No problem Tony.

[ksbearski]

I will look at this as part of 1.18
Hi tony-

Yes, I'd prefer that the 2IC not overload my plane carrying ships with over production, but store them atthe central depot.

Thanks,

Barry

[richmi]

Hi,
out of a sudden, for a whole turn there was no even promotable strikes from Gibraltar, athough two italian TFs were no doubt in range. With invalid strikes turned on it says "can't ger any bombers" - see attachment there were plenty of them.
Other thing from the snapshot - the fleet TF1 is reported 8hrs ago at Iraklion, but before 8hrs it was involved in a surface battle south of Baleares... :confused:

richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

How come that from shipping raw materials came no RPs? I still donť fully understand the industry concept athough bin through it in the manual.

So as i see it, ways the RPs are being "created" are:

1) DMI and domestic industry levels produce RPs.
2) EMI and export industry levels produce RPs.
3) RAW materials convoyed in, EMI of the port of originand export industry levels at home base produce RPs? (see attachments)
4) Supplies convoyed directly transfer RPs

Am I right?

Are the amounts of RAW materials available to convoy to home port somehow limited by the port of their origin? Amount not, but the EMI sets the value.

thanx
richmi

Some quick responses:
1. yes
2. yes
3. yes, but ANY port that receives raw materials and has an export industry 0 will produce some RPs - the number produced depends on the level of the industry, the amount of the material, and the average value of the material (based on the emi of the ports from which the stuff came, weighted to reflect the proportions of the total load coming from those ports)

PS - there is a big in the way the situation report report summarises RPs gained from trade - on my to do list for 1.18

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi,
out of a sudden, for a whole turn there was no even promotable strikes from Gibraltar, athough two italian TFs were no doubt in range. With invalid strikes turned on it says "can't ger any bombers" - see attachment there were plenty of them.
Other thing from the snapshot - the fleet TF1 is reported 8hrs ago at Iraklion, but before 8hrs it was involved in a surface battle south of Baleares... :confused:

richmi

The attached image tells me that no bombers could be found because the fleet TF1 was outside max attack range - remember that the list at the top only has space to show one reason of invalidity. But selecting a line will populate the lower section ad there all invalidity reasons are shown.

Not sure what you are saying in your last point. What do you mean by "before 8 hours"? Was the most recent sighting the one near Iraklion or Baleares? There is a built in delay in the processing of intel which may be what you are seeing. Eg, if an enemy fleet is shown in a surface battle but the general enemy fleet intel still says it is somewhere else this will be the reason. Here, I was caught between the need to model FOW and realistic SNAFUs with the need to give players info that sort of made sense. When you get surface battle reports, they will correctly tell you the fleet names involved. But as I said, the processing of this info by the AI can be delayed, so your own other fleets and planes may still thnk the enemy fleet is somewhere else, until the plot has been updated. This may be causing what you are seeing.

I have a module in SAS (not finished) that extends the FOW concept by including human factors - your 2IC has about 20 key subordinates, with personality traits sort of matching what is needed for the job, but randomness can mean for example that your naval intel chief is smart but lazy so key reports can take quite a while to get assessed. Perhaps thankfully I never got round to finishing and turning on this module - otherwise you would be even more scratching your head!

[richmi]

Not sure what you are saying in your last point. What do you mean by "before 8 hours"? Was the most recent sighting the one near Iraklion or Baleares? There is a built in delay in the processing of intel which may be what you are seeing. Eg, if an enemy fleet is shown in a surface battle but the general enemy fleet intel still says it is somewhere else this will be the reason...


I haven't probably explained good enough, I' sorry. The main point is that the Gibraltar airfield was like that it was not even there - lot of promotable strikes at crazy distances in the turns before, but suddenly not even one. Sadly it happened just in the turn when the airforce could be very useful - 2 enemy Fleets were repeatedly reported inside the "air power" range of bombers. And that the intel was good was confirmed by surface battle. The battle that TF1 was involved in - the same TF1 that is reported at Iraklion several hours later in the screeshot... I hope it's understandable now.

...maybe the TF1 changed its name to EF after depleting ammo in the battle... don't know

richmi

[Major SNAFU]

I think these are good points.

I second that.

[richmi]

Hi guys, again I've bumped into some things I'm scratching my head about.

1) The first one is another example of not being able to lauch an attack on enemy TF - see attachment. The stated reasons for not being able to launch (fighter cover, no bombers) are wrong, and honestly who cares about some strike profile when there is enemy CV TF next hex :D. - I suspect this happens (from more examples) when there are no torpedo capable bombers at the base.
Another thing is the reported position and position written in the strike summary...?

2) Some intel on enemy TFs stays on the map just too long (2 turns) and even its clear that the TF is not there anymore - and I'm given promotable or even pending strikes at that TF again and again.

3) On the contrary I'm not given a single oportunity to strike Messina from Malta, fighter sweep, nothing, unles there is an enemy TF harbored there and then the strike affects only the TF of course. Taranto, Palermo, Tripoli, Naples - all those ports can be attacked, Messina not, why?

4) Many times ships just seem to be too durable, one example for all - I was trying to sink Littorio in a port for 3! turns and it took more than 30 torpedo and 25 bomb hits (1/3 penetrating) before it sunk and it was already damaged before. OK it was a modern built warship, but 30 torps?

5) When the target is port, not a TF, Torpedo-primary bombers are still on default equipped with torpedos.

richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

Hi guys, again I've bumped into some things I'm scratching my head about.

1) The first one is another example of not being able to lauch an attack on enemy TF - see attachment. The stated reasons for not being able to launch (fighter cover, no bombers) are wrong, and honestly who cares about some strike profile when there is enemy CV TF next hex :D. - I suspect this happens (from more examples) when there are no torpedo capable bombers at the base.
Another thing is the reported position and position written in the strike summary...?

2) Some intel on enemy TFs stays on the map just too long (2 turns) and even its clear that the TF is not there anymore - and I'm given promotable or even pending strikes at that TF again and again.

3) On the contrary I'm not given a single oportunity to strike Messina from Malta, fighter sweep, nothing, unles there is an enemy TF harbored there and then the strike affects only the TF of course. Taranto, Palermo, Tripoli, Naples - all those ports can be attacked, Messina not, why?

4) Many times ships just seem to be too durable, one example for all - I was trying to sink Littorio in a port for 3! turns and it took more than 30 torpedo and 25 bomb hits (1/3 penetrating) before it sunk and it was already damaged before. OK it was a modern built warship, but 30 torps?

5) When the target is port, not a TF, Torpedo-primary bombers are still on default equipped with torpedos.

richmi

richmi:

I'll have a look at 1)

Re 2) I'll consider adding a max intel age cut off, after which enemy fleets effectively dissapear

Re 3) The reason that occurs to me is that without a fleet in port Messina may have too low a target value, although it still should appear as a promotable, unless there is some other problem. I will review the code regarding how ports without ships are rated as targets

Re 4) I agree - I have thought for a while that I over compensated a while ago when I reduced the power of aerial torpedoes and bombs. You can adjust these values in game but I will be doing playtesting of 1.18 and will tweak this

Re 5) - It shouldn't be - will check as part of 1.18

Cheers

[richmi]

Hi again! :)

First of all, thanks for 1.18 Tony!

I'm now something about 30 turns into Med scenario and would like to discuss few things.

1) Still cannot figure out the right combination of settings and deployed AC to be given at least promotable strikes at the targets I want to. I've had Malta, Caligari and Gibraltar airfields fully developed and manualy AC equipped for putting LaSpezia out of commission. Enemy air defences wiped out. Frustratingly I'm able to strike only from Caligari (only sometimes when changed the AC composition from Malta and Gibraltar). So the work had to be done by carriers in several turns instead. To put it simple: have AC with sufficient range, cannot use them, why? :confused: How are the Airfields evaluated to be atrike-able?

2) After wiping out Everything at La Spezia (but not just it), the target value remains at the same high level - Im given pending strikes that repeatedly do not have anything to attack. Or the value is low under the minimum level set, but still have pending strikes that attack already useles ports.

3) Sometimes pending airstrike from CVs when I want to change the target so I ad another from promotables and set the "scissors" to trim, it still launches at the first pending target. Can the pending strike be removed somehow from the queue?

4) Aircraft target priorities are strange, I do not understand why so many planes attack a single merchant in port, hitting it with 10 torpedoes, when there is a warship next to it even if it is already damaged. Next thing to this is how can ship have "sinking" status for several turns?

5) After renaming fleets, in some windows there appears the new name and on the map for example remains the old name.

That is it for now, uff. I'm sorry if some of the explanations are clumsy.

richmi

[tony_glazebrook]

Richmi, I Am reviewing the port targetting code among other things. I will have a response when this is finished. I want to do this thoroughly so it will take a little while.

Cheers

[richmi]

Thank you Good sir, I realy appreciate your approach.

[richmi]

Hi guys!
I've played a little with Excel, so if anybody should find Resource Points and Escort ship calculator usefull, here you go.

www.sweb.cz/richmi/calc/calc.zip (http://www.sweb.cz/richmi/calc/calc.zip)

richmi

[richmi]

Hi, I have some interesting screeshots.

1) "research.jpg" some research info obviously missing, like what was researched...
2) "economy.jpg" nice economic result, probably just because of dividing by a near zero number.
3) "subs.jpg" and "tonnage.jpg" giant subs, cruiser-size destroyer, negative tonnage cruiser...

By the way, those ex-It megasubmarines cost me lot of RPS on repairs and refit because they could not be scrapped. Why I cannot scrap captured ships?

richmi

[richmi]

Hi everybody.
I've let the 2IC to handle several turns of nearly won Med scenario, just to see how he would be doing. Long story short, he is not realy able to take over a game played for 25 turns by a human. Most of the fleet ended stuck on Malta that obviously cannot support them, which led into leting the malta garrison starve to death. No supply convoys planned neither to supply malta, nor Gib to gain RPs. Just some useles troop transfers and a lot of unnecessary big ship patrol missions consuming prescious RPs. Plane allocation to succesfully hit remaining enemy ports also not very good. After how good the 2IC is promissed to work at the beginning of the scenario, this was a bit dissapointing for me.

P.S.: if Tony can comment the screenshots above... thank you.

richmi

[tombo]

richmi

how did the AI handle the first 25 turns? i assume u played againt AI.

i tried playing both sides by saving turns and switching sides and found ai performed same as your comment above but early in game.

[tony_glazebrook]

Richmi, sorry for taking this long to reply. The outcome of campaigns and the strategic options available at any point are all very sensitive to RP levels, and this in turn is very sensitive to how production vs trade works out and in the case of production, to initial campaign settings.

In short, the AI in SAS is different in not following scripted options, but the interplay of initial settings with game play can produce situations the AI does struggle with to come to the 'right'decisipns, or at least to those resembling what a player might choose.

Before I put work into analyzing and perhaps coding I'd appreciate you sending me your campaign files at the point you wanted the AI to do it's thing, and then with it a summary of the decisions you expected it should make given the constraints it faced. If you can do this I have something concrete to work on.

Regards

[richmi]

richmi

how did the AI handle the first 25 turns? i assume u played againt AI.

i tried playing both sides by saving turns and switching sides and found ai performed same as your comment above but early in game.

Hi tombo,
well how to say it, as for "how it works learning purposes" the AI opponent was ok. But overall, the game was decided after cca 15 turns. The result might have been different by playing "PBEM style", but here I was trying to control the action through the turns.

richmi :)

[richmi]

Richmi, sorry for taking this long to reply. The outcome of campaigns and the strategic options available at any point are all very sensitive to RP levels, and this in turn is very sensitive to how production vs trade works out and in the case of production, to initial campaign settings.

In short, the AI in SAS is different in not following scripted options, but the interplay of initial settings with game play can produce situations the AI does struggle with to come to the 'right'decisipns, or at least to those resembling what a player might choose.

Before I put work into analyzing and perhaps coding I'd appreciate you sending me your campaign files at the point you wanted the AI to do it's thing, and then with it a summary of the decisions you expected it should make given the constraints it faced. If you can do this I have something concrete to work on.

Regards

Hi Tony

Unfortunately the situation I've described, is from a game more than 3 months ago and I do not have the campaign files anymore. When I'll have enough time to start a new game, I'll send you the files with comments on what I expected the AI to do if it fails to do sensible. Right now I can just give a "what i remember summary" of the situation. If that would be usefull.

richmi :)

[tony_glazebrook]

If you could Richmi, I'll see what I canmake out of it.

[richmi]

Hi Tony, guys,
I was checking out what's new and saw I've forgot to post the promised summary.
Well, whether it's usefull or not and after several months now, but from what i remember: Most african bases, Greece, Turkey, Malta and Corsica controlled by HI (human, kind of, intelligence). Economy from Alexandria - Gibr. convoys and Gibr. industry working well, nearly total air superiority, remains of italian (AI) fleet hidden at northern bases. One invasion ongoing in Africa. Left control to 2IC to see how's he gonna carry on. Result after few turns - Most of warships stuck on Malta, unable to resupply = malta garrison starving, merchant fleet doing useles infantry transfers, bases not being resupplied, invasion lost due to no reinforcements, income from convoys lost. TF's cruising italian waters hitting mines and being airstriked without delivering any kind of punch... Not even a stagnation on a already won war.

[tony_glazebrook]

Richmi, much food for thought in your post.

I have been aware for a while that needing to run convoys to maintain RP levels can lead to unrealistic RP starvation, which can leave ships marooned, which then becomes a cascading problem.

This is one of the issues you mentioned but lies at the heart of many others.

Fortunately, i have a solution in mind :)

I have some good dev time scheduled on SAS srarting very soonand i am keen to implement a fix for this.

Stay tuned.

Cheers

[Piteas]

Hi,

I just want to greet the creators of this good game and to encourage them for next updates and not to forget their great work.
Your game is really great!
Maybe this game isn´t a best seller but it has very good ideas and it is plenty of love for the small details. A "must have" for hard o soft wargamers.
It was a nice surprise for me to find news about SAS while I was reading spanish forums about wargames. I was looking for a good naval strategic game and then I bought SAS with some skeptic thought, but now I am delighted with it. It is a pleasure for me to play it and learning slowly his not difficult but deep gameplay.
Thanks for your effort and sorry for my horrible english grammar.

[Warship NWS]

To Piteas,

Thanks for the support! We are happy to hear you are enjoying SAS. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Take care friend.

[tony_glazebrook]

Many thanks Piteas for your generous words.

And your english is a hundred fold better than my Spanish!

SAS will continue to see improvements. I really like knowing my game has a following and being able to get players' ideas and respond positively wirh updates is a lot of fun for me.

All the best!