Some questions (newby)

[seik]

Hi there,

just playing the game for a couple of days and now have some questions:

1. Base damage:
Last night one of my bases was bombarded by an IJN TF - taking 114 hits on runway, 1 supply hit, 1 port hit and some planes destroyed!
Where can I see the damage level of my bases and what happens if a base got damaged? All I can see is lost of supply.


2. max aircraft:
Where can I see what the max a/c of an air-squad is?
expl.: an air-squad starts with 18 planes. After some fights only 9 planes left - where can I see that this squad has a max. of 18 planes - if I can t remember?


3. Carrier planes:
Most CVs start a scenario without the max. possible aircraft onboard. Because I think CVs are the most valuable ships I transfer air-squads to get max a/c onboard but than I ve got frustrating battle results (read about it here in the forum also).
What can I do to max my CV-planes? What to do if they lost a lot of planes?


4. Barge hub:
you can set a base to barge hub - what does it mean?


5. Hunting down other TFs:
My CV-TF is escorted by two strong surface-TFs (follow CV-TF). Ingame I ve found a lonely enemy CV-TF: now I want to hunt that enemy TF with my two surface TFs. How? Never mind what I did there was never a naval battle! More than ones the enemy and my TFs changed their positions or I found my surface TFs totally crippled by enemy planes and so on ...
Is it only luck or may be I m to stupid?


Sorry, if most of that questions allready be asked (I ve tried to search)!

Thanks and greetings
Seik

[BlackVoid]

1. Click on the base, it will list you the dmg on the main base screen both to port and airfield.

2. AFAIK, the only way is to look for an identical squadron in the aircraft reinforcement screen or by experience.
Or like this:
If you have replacement for that paricular type, have a squadron within flying distance of the reinforcement hexes, order them to stand down and wait a week or so. They should fill up to maximum.

3. Leave them docked at Truk/Brisbane/Noumea. I usually disband them as well, as this seems to deny enemy recon.

4. You can make barges if you have barges available (ship availability screen) from supply loaded Truk/Brisbane/Noumea. These are small transports that load up at the barge hub.

5. That is not possible on the open sea unfortunately. A surface TF is only good for bait on the open sea. Before you ask: this is not ahistorical, the Japanes have adopted this tactic after Midway.

[Toro]

A further note on BV's answer to #5: CVs had the added advantage of being able to more easily track enemy surface TFs -- and then avoid them. Very hard to catch a CVTF unawares and engage with surface.

[BPRE]

Hi seik,

2. max aircraft:
Where can I see what the max a/c of an air-squad is?
expl.: an air-squad starts with 18 planes. After some fights only 9 planes left - where can I see that this squad has a max. of 18 planes - if I can t remember?

If you open the information screen for an air squadron and look in the upper left corner you can see a figure within parenthesis. For example:

DII-1 Daitai
Daitai - IJ Navy (17)

This means that the maximum no of aircraft in DII-1 Daitai is 17.

4. Barge hub:
you can set a base to barge hub - what does it mean?

You can create barges in other ports, or even the open sea I believe, than the ones designated as barge hubs but a Transport TF of barges with it's home base set to a barge hub will run routine convoys if they are placed under computer control.

5. Hunting down other TFs:
My CV-TF is escorted by two strong surface-TFs (follow CV-TF). Ingame I ve found a lonely enemy CV-TF: now I want to hunt that enemy TF with my two surface TFs. How? Never mind what I did there was never a naval battle! More than ones the enemy and my TFs changed their positions or I found my surface TFs totally crippled by enemy planes and so on ...
Is it only luck or may be I m to stupid?

Just like BlackVoid says the chances of you finding a normal CV TF are probably very small and even if you do I suspect that you will most likely fight it out with the escorts only.
If there's only a badly hurt CV together with a DD struggling to get back to base it is possible that you might find them with a surface TF though.
I managed to do that recently two turns in a row.
The first turn I just managed to bounce a couple of hits of the flight deck (I thought they were made of wood!!). The second turn I found them again but before I managed to hit the CV it sunk anyway from the previous hits (3 torpedoes probably) so my cruisers pounded the unhappy DD instead.
With all the effort I've made to track the CV down and sent subs and this surface TF after it it was a bit of an anticlimax when it sunk on it's own.

Welcome to UV
BPRE

[Philwd]

If you go back through some old posts you will find several players have had great luck hunting down or ambushing healthy CV TF and even putting 16 in shells into them!! So don't give up trying. It takes the knowledge of how fast can they move and some common sense as to where they may be going.

Of course if you guess wrong in clear weather .

Quark

[seik]

Thanks to you all - this game is really complicated but also very amusing ...

I think I ve try and try and try to learn it

Thanks
Seik

[mdiehl]

My problem right now is TF loading. In the precurser (GGPW) one simply had an autoload function. You picked units and had the AI requisition APs and cargo ships as needed.

Now, however, with individual ships, I don't really have any sense of how many APs, AKs for how much cargo and how many units etc etc. Also I can't figure out how much time is required to get ships loaded.

Anyone got a primer on this?

Also, how does one add aircraft support points and base support points? I see that the OOB now includes base support units and I suppose these are part of the equation. But how many are needed?

[mogami]

Hi, Loading is a product of port size. The larger the port the faster you load or unload. AK loads and unloads supply faster then troops. AP loads and unloads troops faster then supply. I think spooky's fan site has a table but I'm not sure I know I've seen one posted before.
Each aircraft requires one avaition support point. Multiply airfield size by 50 to get max number of ac that can be based there. 250 AV points will support any number of ac. (so once a airfield gets to size 5 you never need more then 250 av points. ) Support points for combat units come from HQ units. It's only important to have the base total higher then the required. If the base support is white you have enough. Red means you need more. Support makes units more effective and they recover from fatigue and disruption faster. (Also base size and amount of supply present helps)

[mdiehl]

A couple more details then:

1. How do I know how many APs will be required for a given number of troops?
2. How do I know how many supplies to send with them?
3. Is the loading process one applied by SHIP or by TF?

Bear in mind it's my first go through with these things. In GGPW you just clicked on the unit and the requisite number of APs and cargo ships with supplies were provided, and you clicked on the TF and said "laod" and they filled up. I tried loading up stuff at Lunga for Op. Watchtower and the whole process was bollocks. Had ships not loading anything, AKs loading troops, APs loading cargo. (Something I knew from historical POV was not what I wanted to do), but could not figure out how to get these things loaded up. After two days, a bunch of them started UNLOADING (not sure why), so I abandoned the game. Had the impression I was running Lunga like an, err, musical chairs contest.

Thanks in advance.

[Mr.Frag]

Now, however, with individual ships, I don't really have any sense of how many APs, AKs for how much cargo and how many units etc etc. Also I can't figure out how much time is required to get ships loaded.

Time is variable based on port size factored by damage. Until you get used to unit sizes, just throw more then you need into the TF then split out the remains once done. Memory serves, someone worked out the speeds and posted a nice table based on port sizes on Spooky's site. One of the learned skills is using the smaller AP's simply because it takes them less time to load/unload based on capacity. For example, 6 1500 AP's will load/unload faster then 3 3000 AP's even though they carry exactly the same goods. Consider the smaller ships your combat ships until the LC's show up later in the game. The smaller they are, the less time they stay unloading before running away. Remember, an attack is always considered port size 0 when looking at the speeds. Supply takes FOREVER to unload over the beach so plan for overwhelming landings where the base will fall very quickly rendering supply a non-issue. Just one of those lessons learned things...

Also, how does one add aircraft support points and base support points? I see that the OOB now includes base support units and I suppose these are part of the equation. But how many are needed?

Each unit has a support requirement. Each unit may have support embedded that it gives up to supporting fellow units in a base. Aviation support is similar in nature, various units will have embedded support that they donate to the base when there for use by aircraft. The sum of all units in the base gives you the base totals.

[mogami]

Hi, In the lower left corner of the screen when looking at a combat unit you get load value. Also when you are looking at a base and click ground units you get load cost and assault value. So say you wish to load a RCT from the Americal Divison. I think they are around 4050 load points. You would need to assign at least 3 1.5k AP to the TF. (4 would be better) If you use "load troops" supply will also be loaded into excess space. If you use "Load troops only" supply will not be loaded. This allows you to use fewer transports and unload faster.
By checking the unit before you load it you will see it's supply required per day.
Use this and load an AK (or AK's) to move supply according to what you believe will be needed before reqular supply convoy can arrive. When I make an invasion I make a TF for each ground unit. Then I make another TF with AK and supply. For the first night of the landing I send a fast transport TF with supply.
It is best to unload as much as possible as fast as possible. Because of this the 3k AP are poor invasion ships. (They are fine for moving troops between your own bases.)

[seik]

Estimated Loading / Unloading Rates PDF-File:

You can find it also in your UV/manuals folder.

Greetings
Seik

[mdiehl]

It takes a while for me to print out the manuals. Color Inkjet and all that. Those things never print as fast with real files as they do with the demo images in stores. Anyhow, another question:

If I make a TF that has both APs and AKs and AOs, and there is sufficient capacity (and then some) in the APs that I want to load, and if I select "Load Troops" (and select the units that I want and so forth), will the TF load optimally with the other supplies that I also want to send with the troops. In effect, will the AKs load with cargo and the AOs load with fuel?

The TF creation and loading interface IMO need ALOT of work. It is not particularly user friendly as I seem unable to get TFs to do things I want them to do. I think the presumption for WitP should be that a TF loads optimally by ship type. A "second best" solution would be in each transport TF to click on each ship and select from "load supplies, load troops, load fuel" with an option for "combat" loading vs. non-combat loading.