ORIGINAL: Tomcat
The training command looks like an exciting addition to the game that I will want to take full advantage of, but I think the manual does not adequately explain it. Given the time it takes to set up a game and properly execute each turn we could easily be hundreds of hours into a game only to find out that there was something about the training command we guessed wrong on.
Possibly. Remember, first and foremost it is a sanctuary (think R&R) for your elite pilots. Secondarily it was thought that there should be SOME benefit to taking elite pilots of combat orders, but we don't want to skew their benefits so much as to make it a cheat or a loophole for drastically altering reality.
Let me ask a few of the questions that have been on my mind in the hope of not having to understand training command through hundreds of hours of learning by trial and error:
ok...
1) can I take an ordinary unit, say a stateside based air unit, and turn it into a training command? If not, how do I create training units?
No. The training command, as an AE Feature, is not an air unit. It is a holding pen. You can view TC pilots in the reserve pool. Their status will list them as TC pilots. You will always have the old WitP on-map training possibility, but this uses supply and subjects pilots to ops losses or even accidental combat encounters.
2) should I establish a training command for each type of air mission since the pilots seem to be trained for specific types of planes and missions? That is, a training command for level bombers, one for fighters, one for torpedo bombers, etc.
This is not necessary as the TC pilots only affect trainees at their national average. The training they are getting is the same EXP gain that they got in the old replacement feature in WitP. The ONLY difference is that these pilots are broken out BEFORE they finish training as different classes in a 12 month curriculum. I wanted to do this so the degradation of IJN and IJAAF pilots over the course of the war might be more graduated rather than the sheer cliff we had before. It also gives the player an I dea how deeply he is cutting into the training of new pilots when he fills out combat units.
Is isn't NECESSARY to add pilots to the TC as instructors. Replacements will still get their national average training, how ever the pace at which this occurs is static. It is only when the need of replacements outweighs the pace at which they are created that it is necessary to add Instructors to the pool to help accelerate the training and shore up the end product's EXP.
3) How do I get pilots into a specific training command? If I click on something like "get replacement pilots" then presumably I would get pilots already in the reserve pool first, followed by pilots that are trained, etc. which is not what I want. I would like to select pilots in training or who are trained or perhaps even pilots in the replacement pool that are at a low level.
This is not a valid question as there is no specific training command. Only the TRAINING COMMAND. Replacements benefit only to their expected National average, and specific mission training is not trainable until they reach their operation units. THis is how the Japanese System worked.
4) How do I know when a pilot in a training command is sufficiently trained? Do I simply monitor the status of each pilot in a training command unit? Does the game give me an option to return a pilot to the replacement pool when he reaches a set level?
They will be added to the replacement pilot pool as generic, named pilots. They will not be fighter pilots or bomber pilots yet, just RPs....you do not control the delivery of RPs to the Replacement pool. You only control whether they are drawn straight from their class BEFORE completion of training and sent directly to the operation unit in question.
If there are no pilots in the reserve pool of the type you are requesting(Veterans orphaned in combat or rotated to the TC and ready to reutrn), no pilots in the replacement pool (new trained replacement pilots), then your clicking of the get pilot button will pull your pilot from the most senior class of pilots STILL in training. Ie. EARLY, and likely under-trained.
5) In the screenshot of the replacement pool on page 260 of the manual (sec. 16.3) I see a soviet pilot along with several US pilots. Can I have a training command unit train allied pilots as well as US pilots? Or, do I need seperate training commands for each nation?
That is likely a function of the fact that the Allies are the Allies and the Japs are the Japs. There can be no distinction due to the nature of the code. But the pilots and the nationalities will still train to their national average, no higher.
6) since the algorithm for automatically fetching pilots described on p. 260 seems to bypass the training command does this mean that pilots in a training command are ignored, even if it means that replacement pilots with lower skill levels are automatically selected when a group needs a pilot? I would like to think that I can use training commands as a sort of "grad school" with the understanding that pilots from there would be selected before the game fetches pilots out of lower training classes or pools.
Not at this time. Instructors are instructors, not combat pilots. When they finish their "tour" as an IP they may be returned to combat units as replacements. This is a delicate balance. My recommendation is that you do not front load you TC instructors too heavily as you my induce your own shortage of fully trained pilots. Remember that initially you do not HAVE to add pilots to the TC as instructors as you have a healthy, functioning TC at game start. It is only as a preemtive measure that you might consider building an core of elite pilots as a reserve force, or a reactive measure when you have a catastrophic loss like a Midway or Marianas Turkey shoot.
Note: This feature came to fruition late in the design phase. As such it did not get a the best treatment in the manual. I will provide information at a later date. Just remember that this is a supplementary, or optional feature and is not critical to the war effort. It is chrome with an effect, but you could conceivably play the game for years ad never need or want to touch it.
