Training effects on Pilot Skills

[Sredni]

ORIGINAL: inqistor

Even without planes, pilots seems to train without problems.

There is a noticable reduction in training speed in airgroups without max planes. I restarted the campaign a while ago and that was one of the things that jumped out at me from the start. For the first year of the war you don't have enough bombers to fill all of the bomber squadrons so you end up with many groups with just a couple planes. Those groups after 4 months of training were noticably lower xp and lower skill then the pilots in groups that had their full compliment of aircraft.

They still did train, but were around 10 xp lower then pilots in groups with planes at the 4 month mark. 40ish xp/60ish skill vs 50ish xp and 70ish skill. from a starting point of 30ish xp and 40ish skill I think.


Thank you to Chris H for posting these tests. Much appreciated. Any testing to see if admin, leadership, airskill, or aggression on the part of the group leader have any effect? Or is it just inspiration that does? I've always just picked squadron leaders as anyone with over 50 in admin, inspiration, and leadership.

[vinnie71]

But don't full airgroups nomally lead to increased fatigue and a constant drain on pilots? (even when left at 30% training regime) At least that's my impression...

[inqistor]

Well, 10 points is not much, but it is good to know, that actually filling group with planes have some advantages.

ORIGINAL: Offworlder

But don't full airgroups nomally lead to increased fatigue and a constant drain on pilots? (even when left at 30% training regime) At least that's my impression...

At 100% fatigue surely skyrocket, but I think it is kept at 20ish, when put lower. However it is only impression, I have not looked at it carefully.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder

But don't full airgroups nomally lead to increased fatigue and a constant drain on pilots? (even when left at 30% training regime) At least that's my impression...

Never tested anything other than a full group. At 30, 60, and 90 days the fatigue level for 20 a/c at range 0 to air HQ was 25,24,23 respectively. At range 2 it was 31,31,27. Hardly matters and this was at 100% training range 0. If you increase the patrol range at which you train then you will get more fatigue. I've seen figures as high as 46%

[vinnie71]

Hmmm... I took a different approach on this issue, though I can't say I tested it scientifically.

Most of the time I like to have depleted units and put them on as high training regimes as possible. It kind of avoids the fatigue problems and avoids pilot wastage at the same time while getting a decent pilot in the arc of 2 to 3 months. Problem is that I mostly use the fixed units on the west coast + Canadian units and some Indian and other commonwealth units for such purposes and basically at the end of each month I 'harvest' the best pilots and send them to the reserve while substituting them with either novices from the reserve or replacement.

One thing I noticed is that there is a difference between the training of full or depleted units in the sense that training upgrades tend to be constant for the former and uneven for the latter. A full unit's pilots' experience tends to go up in a constant fashion, with pilots having similar stats across boards. In the case of depleted units, pilots' stats go up in batches - a few improve immediately, then they level off at some point (around 60 usually) and then a second batch starts gaining experience and so on. Don't know if anyone noticed this or if this may be something I'm misinterpreting...

[Sredni]

Fatigue and morale arn't issues with training groups, nor are ops losses. I leave any group I have set to training at 10k alt, 100% training and zero range and forget about them. You might see one or two ops losses a year out of all of your training groups. Morale stays at 100%, and fatigue never really gets out of hand. I've got the 15th fighter group and the 18th (10 squadrons total) stationed in PH training army fighter pilots and fatigue for them hovers around 10%. They are 55+ xp level pilots though, I'm trying to get more pilots with high defense skill and it isn't really working out very well. 9 months into the war and still hovering at around 60 defense skill on 330 pilots. I don't think any of those groups have suffered any ops losses over those 9 months.

Fatigue levels for pilots fresh out of the pools does go higher, but again it isn't really a problem. I havn't really paid attention but I don't recall fatigue getting much above 20% ish. And even if it was to reach 100% meh, no ops losses anyways so let em suffer.

One of the things I always do is keep pilots grouped together with similar experience pilots. I never empty half a group and refill with noobs because the higher xp pilots seem to stop gaining any xp or skill until the noob pilots catch up. I might just be imagining this though I guess, I've never done any detailed studies on it.

[vinnie71]

Good to know actually
 
Well the defence skill is increased by using the indirect orders -  ex train fighter pilots using 'escort' rather than 'sweep' and later on using 'airfield attack' (sorry writing from memory) rather than 'ground attack'. It seems that (what I'm calling) indirect orders seem to split the time between the primary mission and improving defensive capabilities. What is also interesting is that in combat, the defensive trait seems to get better only over a lengthy period of time.
 
  
"One of the things I always do is keep pilots grouped together with similar experience pilots. I never empty half a group and refill with noobs because the higher xp pilots seem to stop gaining any xp or skill until the noob pilots catch up. I might just be imagining this though I guess, I've never done any detailed studies on it."
 
I agree, though not totally. The more experienced pilots do tend to kind of slow down their experiences gains but they do still gain experience over time. Also if you do the 'harvesting' once a month, the difference between the new arrivals and the others may not be that great. It becomes a gradual turnover exercise. (frankly I was very much forced into it because by April '42 most of the American, British and Anzac fighter squadrons were seriously understrength with rookies in front line units. By April '42 the expansion of the American Bomber forces also hits, draining the slim reserves I had and the pilots found in restricted squadrons.)

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder

Hmmm... I took a different approach on this issue, though I can't say I tested it scientifically.

Most of the time I like to have depleted units and put them on as high training regimes as possible. It kind of avoids the fatigue problems and avoids pilot wastage at the same time while getting a decent pilot in the arc of 2 to 3 months. Problem is that I mostly use the fixed units on the west coast + Canadian units and some Indian and other commonwealth units for such purposes and basically at the end of each month I 'harvest' the best pilots and send them to the reserve while substituting them with either novices from the reserve or replacement.

One thing I noticed is that there is a difference between the training of full or depleted units in the sense that training upgrades tend to be constant for the former and uneven for the latter. A full unit's pilots' experience tends to go up in a constant fashion, with pilots having similar stats across boards. In the case of depleted units, pilots' stats go up in batches - a few improve immediately, then they level off at some point (around 60 usually) and then a second batch starts gaining experience and so on. Don't know if anyone noticed this or if this may be something I'm misinterpreting...

When you say depleted are you talking about planes, pilots or both?

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Sredni

Fatigue and morale arn't issues with training groups, nor are ops losses. I leave any group I have set to training at 10k alt, 100% training and zero range and forget about them. You might see one or two ops losses a year out of all of your training groups. Morale stays at 100%, and fatigue never really gets out of hand. I've got the 15th fighter group and the 18th (10 squadrons total) stationed in PH training army fighter pilots and fatigue for them hovers around 10%. They are 55+ xp level pilots though, I'm trying to get more pilots with high defense skill and it isn't really working out very well. 9 months into the war and still hovering at around 60 defense skill on 330 pilots. I don't think any of those groups have suffered any ops losses over those 9 months.

Fatigue levels for pilots fresh out of the pools does go higher, but again it isn't really a problem. I havn't really paid attention but I don't recall fatigue getting much above 20% ish. And even if it was to reach 100% meh, no ops losses anyways so let em suffer.

I agree. If you increase the patrol range then fatigue does become an issue.

ORIGINAL: Sredni

One of the things I always do is keep pilots grouped together with similar experience pilots. I never empty half a group and refill with noobs because the higher xp pilots seem to stop gaining any xp or skill until the noob pilots catch up. I might just be imagining this though I guess, I've never done any detailed studies on it.

This is one of the things I've noticed. The games tries to keep pilots together in relationship to their skills, less skillful pilots fly more, nence more fatigue. I think this also applies to operations as well as training.

[inqistor]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder
Well the defence skill is increased by using the indirect orders -  ex train fighter pilots using 'escort' rather than 'sweep' and later on using 'airfield attack' (sorry writing from memory) rather than 'ground attack'.

ONEAMINUTE! I actually can train only Air skill, with setting to sweep?

Well that could come handy for rear area anti-bomber units. Does actually fighter uses Defense skill in fighting bombers?

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Chris H
• NavT training only occurs if the aircraft is actually carrying torpedoes.

Chris H:

Love the training workup! Thank you for your testing and continued efforts.

Just one nitpicky caveat from my end-NavT training will occur in aircraft that are toggled to torpedoes, even if the aircraft don't carry the torpedoes. I can get torpedo-capable aircraft trained on NavT even if there's no possible torpedo draw near them (e.g., an Air HQ), so that their torpedo toggle is 'red'.

Setting torpedo-capable aircraft to train with a torpedo is sufficient to train them, regardless of the presence or absence of a genuine torpedo on the airframe during training.