Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

I would go a little higher with the Fat level, the pilots are going to get tired, they suppost to, as long as it is massive amounts, they should still do okay

some units, will have more pilots, either more pilots were known, more pilots got lost, so more pilots were known (where it can be a pain, say JG 134 is due to get 5 real pilots on day 5, on day 3, they lose 10 pilots, the AI will try and give them the 10 pilots they need, and the next day, the real pilots will show up)

most times, the AI will pick/assign, the best pilots, highest rank, highest exp first, so if only a few planes fly, the best pilots will fly a lot

for the recon, if only one guy is flying, are you only flying one mission ?

HS;

Now we a seeing a problem with why commanders and high experience pilots get lost. I remember this being a problem in TOH.

In TOH!!! I was using the detach exploit to double fill a unit -- the idea was to see if you could increase operations with "fresh" pilots -- but just over half of the pilots seem to get to fly. I later gave this up! [;)]

But, late in the war as WIA's begin returning to units, there is an excess of pilots which potentionally grounds what could be "good experienced" pilots.

No! I don't have a good suggestion, only some half-thought out ideas. For the moment!

TS

ORIGINAL: Tuk

Thanks, I'll try pushing the fat a bit, though I did notice an increase in crashes which seemed to coincide with higher fat levels.
 
for the recon, if only one guy is flying, are you only flying one mission ?
 
Yes. Is there a way to fly more than one a day?

Tuk;

I'm not certain if I'm falling of a joke...

Recon units will have 12 a/c ready maximum. You can assign up to 12 missions per day to individual units. The game will take care of the crew/plane selection.

BTW: Higher fatigue will result in more crashes.

TS

I'm not certain if I'm falling of a joke...

Uh? No joke.  I just see a reduction of one unit from the 'ready' list and the formation changes colour in the list, like it was 'used'. Not sure if I ever tried clicking again, maybe I assumed another click would de-select. I'll have to check that.

ORIGINAL: Tuk

I'm not certain if I'm falling of a joke...

Uh? No joke.  I just see a reduction of one unit from the 'ready' list and the formation changes colour in the list, like it was 'used'. Not sure if I ever tried clicking again, maybe I assumed another click would de-select. I'll have to check that.

Clicking a second time will deselect the plane you just selected. You have to create another recon mission, and then you can select the same unit as before (as long as there are available planes).

Well, HS is the master of this game and if he likes to fly with fatigued units then it must be OK... but...

This is one of the tradeoffs that make the game interesting and make me want to find ways to make it more accessible.
I plot the morale of all my heavy units each turn. Really, really dull. But from it I can say that a unit will have recovered from fatigue the third day after a raid generally (two days rest). However, morale is not fully recovered. Anyway, when I am really pushing on the LW, I will fly them every third day or possibly even on second for a short period, and will fly escorts every 2nd day as long as their morale holds up. But the performance of fatigued units even with low morale is not close to as good as for rested units.

Thus, I try to fly BGs every FOURTH day with the expectation of somewhat better bombing performance, and try to put up about a third of my units a day. Yeah, the math doesn't work out but the weather usually forces a day off somewhere in there - or I fly a light day. The LW AI will put up the same number of interceptors more or less, no matter how many big raids I put out for them to respond to. Thus for shooting down the LW more raids doesn't mean much but it is of course good for getting SB up. I don't cut back on escorts and try to always be excessive with them since I don't want to miss a chance at a target if one is going to show up. Escorts can definityly fly every third day and for short periods on second.

That long blather is my way of saying that I do it differently from Sarge somewhat in the FAT realm. I like rested units. Of course on the first day after a bad weather spell I'll throw a lot more raids out.

Which comes back to why I think that "Days Since Last Raid" (DSLR) would be a better column for the Allied player to use than "FAT."

First FAT: If you look in your units, as Sarge points out, you will see different numbers of pilots. In some units they far outnumber the number of flying pilots. So what FAT value would I want? Average? No, that won't work at all. Max? No, when some newbs are in the unit they'll thrown it way off. [note: I won't delay the flying rotation of a unit for fatigued newbs] Mode (most common value)? This has promise but doesn't really add all that much for me.

If DSLR is added, now I have EXP, MOR, and DSLR all on screen at once. I can immediately sort all the units with the most rest right to the top for selection. Having done that I can look at the MOR and if it is low, then perhaps look more closely into that single unit. Low MOR units to get a soft ride while I beat up my other formations and need to fly just as often. For about 95% of what I use for mission planning I could now get by without the need for keeping separate paper track of things! I can throw away three of my five tracking sheets and just do it off of the game information. I'm drooling on myself right now, I want this soooo bad!

BTW, the other two sheets are: Day by day record of seven fields from Campaign Summary. Not really necessary but easy to keep and I like to see day to day progress in SB, TB and losses. The other sheet is location of NF airfields. I just keep listing them and put an X in a box on a night when I see them launch so I'll know where to target next turn. When the time comes I also track AFs with jets and 152s so that they can get "special" attention.

Anyway, it sounds like Harley is thinking about giving us DSLR (Escorts too, please!!) for which I will put a big Thank You into escrow for him to cash when it comes out.[:)][:)]

Carlos

Hey Guys <S>

Some very good points here. You all bring up many great things to look at that will greatly enhance play. I am going to look deeper into these and work them into my Strategy. Sounds very promising to me.

Great Insight !!

Later,
KayBay [8D]

Bear;

Great thesis! I'm going to steal some of this.

I track the same basic data. I've gotten it down to two sheets, (actually one double sided), one for Italy and one for Britian. I don't follow the night fighter airfields as closely, and I write some of the campaign information in the bottom margins at the end of the turn.

In truth, using the windowed version of BtR, I'm experimenting with putting the data in an Excel or Word document.
A large high resolution monitor is a plus.

TS

ORIGINAL: JapLance

Clicking a second time will deselect the plane you just selected. You have to create another recon mission, and then you can select the same unit as before (as long as there are available planes).

Oh yes! I shall never want for intel again! Thanks all.

Regarding fat, I go back to the common appearance of new pilots in a group. This would pass under the radar of a 'days since last flight column' but surely anyone wanting to avoid flying overly fatigued pilots would not want to fly such a unit. Perhaps if there were alterable game settings this could be overcome. You could flag in a different colour, any unit fatigued over a limit of your choice. You could determine degree of fatigue and number of pilots suffering that changes the units listing colour?


That said, having just turned my hand to BtR I can see that the LW doesn't have the same choices, probably the RAF too, in ED. I regularly fly intercept missions with fat of 30+. I also notice that interceptors lose fatigue differently. Even units far inland, nowhere near enemy raids and not flying missions, don't lose fat until you change their airfield. Any explanation?

ORIGINAL: Tuk

Regarding fat, I go back to the common appearance of new pilots in a group. This would pass under the radar of a 'days since last flight column' but surely anyone wanting to avoid flying overly fatigued pilots would not want to fly such a unit. Perhaps if there were alterable game settings this could be overcome. You could flag in a different colour, any unit fatigued over a limit of your choice. You could determine degree of fatigue and number of pilots suffering that changes the units listing colour?

As I said, I won't stop a unit from flying on schedule because of these newbs. They are a minor issue in the entire thing.

Part of the reason that I suggest DSLM is that it should be relatively easier to implement than some FAT based thing.

As a second new field, since I am fantasizing, MORALE should be modified so that it looks like "67(+4)" or "59(-2)" along with the addition of DSLM. This will help you spot a disaster so that you can flag it for attention.


Carl