Carriers turning into the wind

[thedoctorking]

I understand that modern carriers don't always have to be pointing straight into the wind to launch or recover aircraft. With a catapult, you can be facing pretty much any way and get the plane into the air, and for landing, the deck is angled some degrees off the centerline of the ship anyway. Maybe there could be a tech level adjustment to how close the CV has to turn to the wind (how far from its established course it has to maneuver) to operate aircraft.

This would go along with a control where the player (or the AI in admiral's mode ) can stop aircraft operations for a given carrier division if a turn to launch/retrieve planes would put it near gunnery/missile range from an enemy formation.

And, incidentally, an option where aircraft aiming to return to a carrier could be directed (presumably automatically, by the AI) to land ashore at a friendly base or on a different carrier if their own ship was unable to accommodate them for whatever reason (like enemy ships shooting at them, making them unwilling to turn towards those enemies if they happen to be upwind).

[thedoctorking]

Aircraft that land on the wrong base would probably not be able to fly any more missions in that battle but wouldn't be counted as casualties.

This would address the annoying feature of planes ditching in the open sea because they couldn't find the carrier at night even though a perfectly good friendly land base is only a few miles away.