Some Newbie Questions

[Artifex]

I've been playing UV for a couple of weeks now, and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I still have a few questions, though, and was wondering if anyone out there might have some help for me.

1. Pilot Morale
How do I increase the morale of my pilots? I've tried putting them on 0% training, and that decreases their fatigue, but it doesn't seem to have that much effect on morale. Also, how does their morale go down? I see from the manual that it can go down if they get their airbase attacked, but I just played a scenario where my bases never really got bombed, but the morale of some of the airgroups was getting low. Is it just from damage they take on missions? From flying too many missions without a rest?

2. Troop loading
I find that sometimes I can't load troops onto my transports. They just aren't available as an option from the load troops menu. So far, I've only played as Allies, and I seem to only have this trouble with units that have "Aus" in their names. At first, I thought that maybe they were home guard troops or something and couldn't be loaded, but sometimes I've been able to load them. For a while, I thought that the problem might be that the APs had to be based at Brisbane (I had a Transport TF based at Brisbane which was able to transport some of them), but that doesn't always seem to be the case. What's the deal?

3. Barges
According to the manual, if the scenario allows barges, you can create them from a Transport TF from Brisbane, Noumea or Truk. I was able to create the barges (they were LCVPs, and other landing craft. Are these barges?). But I couldn't get them to automatically resupply my bases. I set them to computer control, and set their home bases as my Barge Hubs, but they just sat there. Was it because I was low on supplies at those bases maybe?

4. Targetting TFs
I know that the game doesn't allow you to target TFs with airgroups. Does anyone know the thinking behind this design decision? It seems a little bizarre to me. Isn't that kind of the whole point of a Pacific War carrier-based game? You have to micromanage all the way down to individual pilots, and you can target your airgroups at any other kind of target; it seems odd that you can't control the thing you would most want to control. I also find that the AI makes some confusing naval targetting decisions. I've had a number of situations where I have an enemy combat TF threatening me, but my Naval Attack airgroups go for some out-of-the-way AGs or something. Why would the game be designed so I'd have to cross my fingers to hope my carriers attack the enemy carriers, and not some dumb transport or something.


Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. I'm starting to like this game, but it makes my brain hurt!

[pasternakski]

Congrats, my friend, on having bought what I consider to be the best computer war simulation game ever produced. I hope that I can be of some help in answering your questions, but searching these forums to get commentary from those who are far more experienced and knowledgeable than I will be far better.

1-Pilot morale is a very fragile thing. It is influenced by number of missions flown, inspiration rating of the squadron commander, location at a forward/primitive base, supply, and other factors. Fatigue is really more important in terms of day-to-day operations, but morale has a definite negative effect on squadron performance if below about 60, in my experience. Others have had somewhat different learning, so seek out what they have to say, as well.

2-Australian units assigned to "Northern Command" cannot be transported out of Australia proper (and so cannot be loaded onto troop transports). "Northern Command" HQ cannot be moved out of Australia, either.

3-Automatic resupply barge convoys (barges are, indeed, Japanese AGs and Allied LCVPs and LCMs) have to be formed, assigned a destination, then put under computer control in order to work properly, but beware! There are a couple of nasty little bugs in the programming that can cause these convoys to change destinations at whim or load troops instead of supplies despite your wishes. I don't use automatic convoys and accept the added burden of micromanaging so that I can keep track of who's going where and carrying what. UV is a big game, but there aren't so many bases in it that you can't keep track (it's a little tougher for the Japanese, who have huge numbers of barges).

4-Welcome to the feature that everybody hates about UV. Naval attack targeting has been a sore point for just about every UV player on these forums from day one. You have to resign yourself to the idea that "it's impossible to get good help these days." The artificial intelligence that works for you is better referred to as the artificial stupidity. Still, the game design is workable, and works better in a PBEM environment than it does when you are fighting the computer.

[BlackVoid]

Pilot morale:
When it is below 60 move the group to a large out of the way friendly base and set them to rest.
Morale goes up to max in about 5-15 days.

[Nomad]

There is a bug in the load troops operations. Some times the 'load troops' button is greyed out when it shouldn't be. The only solution I have found is to open the offending TF screen, click on create new TF and then select 1 ship from the old TF. See if that fixed the problem and if it does transfer all the ships from the old TF into your new TF. It seems that not all of the TF info is set right when they unload. I have found it bad when trying to rotate troops as IJN, you bring troops back using the 'load troops only' button and when they get to Truk you can't select 'load troops' to take both troops and suplies back to your forward bases.

[bradfordkay]

here is a bug in the load troops operations. Some times the 'load troops' button is greyed out when it shouldn't be. The only solution I have found is to open the offending TF screen, click on create new TF and then select 1 ship from the old TF.

I have found that when a TF has the "load troops" button greyed out (but not the "load only troops" button), I can click on the "stop unloading supplies/troops" button and then select the "load troops" button, in the same turn. This occurs even when the TF was empty and thus was not unloading anything.

[Nomad]

Except, that will un gray out the 'load troops' button but if you use it, the TF will do a load troops only and sail away without any supplies loaded.

[DoomedMantis]

if you click on load supplies you get the botton back and it works correctly then

[Artifex]

Thanks for all the help!

This is me: [&o]