Is this a bug or WAD, follow TF order cause both two TFs remains on station

[Tcao]

EDIT:
Sorry for my poor English. I am a new player, I have a hard time to describe some of the action in a proper way so that the original post caused some of the confusion.

Here is what happened
May 7th
TF 14 CV Lexington Air combat group locates at Hex 101, 138
TF 18 CA Australia Surface combat group locates at Hex 101, 138

TF 16 CV Yorktown Air combat group locates at Hex 102, 138



order issued
1, TF 14 CV Lexington goes to Hex 105, 148
2, TF 18 CA Australia follow TF 14

3, TF 16 CV Yorktown goes to Hex 106, 148

on May 8th
TF 14 and TF 18 refused to move, they stayed at Hex 101, 138

TF 16 moved toward hex 106,148






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A question from a WITP AE newbie

Tiny scenario Coral sea, played from Allied side. TF11 and TF17 both issued order to rendezvous with AOs, TF18 follow with TF11. Then I hit execute the order. The next day cycle I found out the TF17 set sail without any problem, but both TF11 and TF18 stay on station (and they were attacked by IJN CVs)

[Tcao]

TF 18's order

[Tcao]

and here is what happened next day on May 8th

[dcpollay]

ORIGINAL: Tcao

TF 18's order

It looks like TF 18 is set to follow TF 14. Who is TF 14? Is that the AO group? Perhaps they did not complete refueling, and so remained with the AO group to finish?

[Nomad]

Tcao, I assume that English is not your mother tongue. I am having some trouble following what you did and what is the problem.

[Tcao]

ORIGINAL: dcpollay

It looks like TF 18 is set to follow TF 14. Who is TF 14? Is that the AO group? Perhaps they did not complete refueling, and so remained with the AO group to finish?

ahhhh, just noticed that each of the Task Groups on the map has two different names. I got confused by these TF numbers now.

US Navy TF 14 (Air combat group with CV Lexington) has a different group name as TF 11
Australian TF 18 (Surface combat group) has a different group name called TF 44
the flattop group 1 hex away on the right is US Navy TF 16 (also called TF 17)

So the order issued to Australian TF 18 is to follow with US Navy TF 14. AO groups are 10 hex away. More details will follow below

ORIGINAL: Nomad

Tcao, I assume that English is not your mother tongue. I am having some trouble following what you did and what is the problem.

Nomad, yes, you are right. English is not my first language. I was also distracted by kids when I was typing
Let me put this simple.

on May 7th order phase
Both US Navy TF 14 and Australian TF 18 are in Hex 101, 138
order issued as:
1, US Navy TF 14 goes to Hex 105,148
2, Australian TF 18 follow with US Navy TF 14

on May 8th, they are still at hex 101,138 . I don't understand why they refused to move.

[btd64]

If TF14 has remain on station orders then TF18, with follow orders, will stay with 14 because that's the lead task force....GP

[ishtarin]

I've also encountered this bug twice, though unfortunately I did not keep a save file around. The first time was a naval resupply of India with two troop transport task forces, an air transport group and three carrier task forces. There were no oilers involved but the group would stall north of Singapore for multiple days. I eventually fixed it by setting Chittagong as their home port and telling them all to return. The second time involved a resupply force of one troop and one supply task force with three carrier divisions and an oiler TF. I sent the supply force on its own mission as it was too slow to keep up with the other task forces, but it ended up being the only one moving. I had to resort to sending all of the forces on their own paths instead of following each other. The convoluted orders I sent may have been the issue, but the orders were quite clear. Two carrier divisions followed a third which was in turn followed by the replenishment. The carrier division being followed would follow the amphibious forces, while in the first scenario two of the transports followed the air transport.

[RangerJoe]

Never have a TF 1 followed by a TF 2 followed by a TF 3 and so on. Have one lead TF and then have all of the rest follow that one. If something happens to one TF then the chain is broken and bad things can happen.

[jdsrae]

TF14 may have been out of ops points

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: ishtarin

I've also encountered this bug twice, though unfortunately I did not keep a save file around. The first time was a naval resupply of India with two troop transport task forces, an air transport group and three carrier task forces. There were no oilers involved but the group would stall north of Singapore for multiple days. I eventually fixed it by setting Chittagong as their home port and telling them all to return. The second time involved a resupply force of one troop and one supply task force with three carrier divisions and an oiler TF. I sent the supply force on its own mission as it was too slow to keep up with the other task forces, but it ended up being the only one moving. I had to resort to sending all of the forces on their own paths instead of following each other. The convoluted orders I sent may have been the issue, but the orders were quite clear. Two carrier divisions followed a third which was in turn followed by the replenishment. The carrier division being followed would follow the amphibious forces, while in the first scenario two of the transports followed the air transport.

It's not a bug - if you have a daisy chain of task forces following one another things get FUBAR. have a look at the proposed path of a following TF - it usually only runs a few hexes, although the lead TF has the whole path displayed. Then daisy chain something following the follower, and have a look at its proposed movement path. If you have enough daisies in the chain the last one won't have any proposed movement path. What all that means in terms of coding has not been disclosed, but the developer comment was 'don't do that'.

Also, if you have a lead TF, followed by others, you need to make sure none of the followers are set to remain on station - this can also cause things to go FUBAR, IME. The lead TF's "remain on station" order will be followed by the others, with one well known exception - surface combat/bombardment TF's that expend ammo and are at winchester state reset their orders to RTB.

Another FUBAR provocation is having a TF really low on fuel in the group, causing it to take fuel from another in the hex, expending operations points and slowing everyone down.

[HansBolter]

You might want to consider the confusion caused for us and yourself by using player created TF names with number designations different than the game assigned TF numbers.

I assign names (using acronyms) that make some semblance of sense to me such as:

USN Car Div 1 (carrier division)

USN Bat Div 1 (battleship division)

USN Cru Div 1 (cruiser division)

USN Des Ron 1 (destroyer division)

USN Rep Div 1 (replenishment fuel oiler TF)

USN Rep Car Div 1 (replenishment carrier division)

Pearl Supply (Continuous Supply TF tasked to Pearl)

Pearl Fuel (Continuous Supply tanker TF tasked to Pearl)

[BBfanboy]

There is another possibility here - the Carrier React feature.

Regardless of the react setting in the lower right side of the TF screen, Air Combat TFs (ACTF) with an aggressive leader can decide to move toward detected enemy ships. In your case, since one TF moved toward the AOs and the other did not, the difference could have been in the leader, or even their fuel state (TFs will retire when low on fuel or ammunition).

There could also be a problem with meeting the AO TF if it is set to "Patrol" in its area. The game tries to predict where the target TF will be so it can send others to meet it, but if the TF is on patrol orders it may be constantly moving and the game does not read the patrol orders to figure out where it will be. When I try to get ships to join a patrolling TF, they usually just sit there with no movement toward the target TF patrol zone.

These kinds of "strange behaviour" are the reasons to play these scenarios and find out how your settings in game affect the forces you are commanding. If you are playing against the Computer Japanese, just go back to the start of the last turn and change those movment orders for your TFs to see what happens. And as Hans suggested, rename your TFs to something that describes their purpose - for example I would call one ACTF CV Lexington TF and the other CV Yorktown TF.

[Tcao]

Thanks all. Sorry for my poor English. I am a new player, I have a hard time to describe some of the action in a proper way so that it increases the confusion.

Here is what happened
May 7th
TF 14 CV Lexington Air combat group locates at Hex 101, 138
TF 18 CA Australia Surface combat group locates at Hex 101, 138

TF 16 CV Yorktown Air combat group locates at Hex 102, 138



order issued
TF 14 CV Lexington goes to Hex 105, 148
TF 18 CA Australia follow TF 14

TF 16 CV Yorktown goes to Hex 106, 148

As you can see the pic below, neither TF 14 nor TF 18 are out of ops points. They also have good fuel status.






on May 8th
TF 14 and TF 18 refused to move, they stayed at Hex 101, 138

TF 16 moved without any problem

Here is the save file

https://www.dropbox.com/s/72wzrlyfsgk0wl7/wpae025.pws?dl=0

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

There is another possibility here - the Carrier React feature.

Regardless of the react setting in the lower right side of the TF screen, Air Combat TFs (ACTF) with an aggressive leader can decide to move toward detected enemy ships. In your case, since one TF moved toward the AOs and the other did not, the difference could have been in the leader, or even their fuel state (TFs will retire when low on fuel or ammunition).

I thought about this too, so I did a testing. Changed the TF 14 CV Lexington 's reaction range to 0. But unfortunately the result is the same. TF 14 and TF 18 refused to move.





I am doing several other tests now, change the order to follow other groups. At this moment, all I can say is, the results are absolutely weird. I will summarize and send a report tomorrow.

[BBfanboy]

As I mentioned, Carrier React is a different thing than the setting on the TF Screen. That one applies to other types of patrolling TFs like Surface Combat. I guess the programmers didn't want to make a new TF screen for an Air Combat TF with the react setting removed. There is no setting for Carrier React - the game engine decides whether to react to the enemy based on various factors including estimated strength of the enemy.

When I suggested changing settings I was thinking of changing your follow orders. Also, make your TF Routing screen settings 'Direct' and 'Absolute' to help increase chances the orders will be followed.

[Nomad]

I downloaded the file and yes it does not seem to be working right. I ran it a few times changing things and it worked as you wanted.
I had the SCTF follow the ACTF and gave the ACTF orders to go to the hex the AO was in and they moved properly.

I also set both TFs to move independently to the AO and they both moved.

I do not understand why they did not move properly. I will look at the situation again a bit later.

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I downloaded the file and yes it does not seem to be working right. I ran it a few times changing things and it worked as you wanted.
I had the SCTF follow the ACTF and gave the ACTF orders to go to the hex the AO was in and they moved properly.

I also set both TFs to move independently to the AO and they both moved.

I do not understand why they did not move properly. I will look at the situation again a bit later.

I haven't had a chance to open the save - what are the retirement, and threat tolerance settings (if any) on the SCTF?

[Nomad]

The two TFs in question had basically normal settings. Note that I did not change any other settings
for them except to reverse the follow orders and things worked like I would expect.

[Nomad]

As a further test, I only changed the SCTF. I removed the follow command and set it to go to the same hex as the ACTF.
When I ran the turn both TFs moved. To me that indicates that the problem is with the SCTF and not the ACTF.

I would have to say that this is a bug but I have no idea why it is happening. It falls under one of those "who knows?" things.

BTW, the SCTF has react of 0, normal threat tolerance, mission speed, follow the ACTF
at 0 distance.
When you select the SCTF, it shows a movement thread of 3 hexes just like it should, it just doesn't move during the turn.

Both TFs show 0 ops expended. Neither is short on fuel. Neither has remain on station selected.

[Ian R]

I'm not convinced it's a bug. If by "normal" settings, you mean threat tolerance normal, is it possible the lacklustre Admiral Crace is failing a die roll or something?