Best way to get a convoy running?

[lucasner]

I am converting one of the old Harpoon scenarios that involves a 40 ship convoy. I added them all to a group, and now need to set their course to 090. Do I need to edit the formation for the group for every ship to assign it's station within the formation?
Initially I didn't do that, I simply set a course and speed for the convoy. But as soon as I started the game, the only ship that turned to 090 was the group lead. Literally every other ship turned to a course of about 300 and started moving away. If I assigned them to stations, would that fix this?
Also, is there any way to turn each ship to 090 prior to the start of the game? I saw how you can rotate facilities, but is it possible to do this for ships/aircraft also when placing them?
Thanks,
Dave

[poaw]

Yeah, assigning them stations will fix that problem.

I've had exactly that happen to me in a few of my scenarios.

[mcp5500]

Place the ships as they would be placed as if they were heading on a course of 090 and then add all of them to a single group. Click on the group and plot the 090 course. Run the scenario until all the ships are at spread and course. Stop the scenario and then reset the date and time then finish building the scenario.

[Gunner98]

mcp5500 has the solution, but if you find that doing so will screw up everything else in the scenario you can do this:
-Set up a blank scenario.
-Set up the group and run it like mcp5500 explained
-export the group to a file
-go to your real scenario and import them. They will import at the saved status - so pointing in the right direction.
Its a bit of a PITA but unless you set up the group first you may need to do this especially if you have timed missions and AC set to reload times etc and running the 10 min of game time or so to get the new group sorted out might screw all of that other stuff up.

B

[SSN754planker]

The way i have found to counter messing up air missions and such that you dont want taking off yet is to build the scenario in layers. I do the surface groups first and get them positioned how i want them. Reset the time and add in the layer of air missions and related items. If you work on it like that, things are much easier.

[mcp5500]

Both great suggestions [:D]

[Gunner98]

ORIGINAL: SSN754planker

The way i have found to counter messing up air missions and such that you dont want taking off yet is to build the scenario in layers. I do the surface groups first and get them positioned how i want them. Reset the time and add in the layer of air missions and related items. If you work on it like that, things are much easier.

Unfortunately, that assumes a degree of organization that I have so far failed to achieve [:D]

B

[thewood1]

I think the export import idea is great. I never thought of that before and is a method I should use more often for a bunch of things.