Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: olorin42

Mission speed is the default. We all know there are times to use Full Speed. Cruise Speed helps reduce incidental damage and is especially wise to use when getting that crippled ship back to port for repairs. So why use Mission Speed at all? By my observation, it's not faster than Cruise but causes more wear and tear - so why use Mission Speed at all?

you got prove that mission speed cauces more wear and tear than cruise speed? I have been using mission speed for roughly 15000 turns so far (WITP included) and never have had a problem with it. I've got convoys going back and forth for a year without pause on mission speed and they don't even accumulate 15 points of sys damage. Now tell me what cruise speed would cause. To me, this is just rumor that I could never work out in any of my games.

I am with CT, three years of playing tells me that mission speed is fine and I use it 95% of the time. I should say that this is playing as the Allies. If you can save a little fuel as the Japanese then I suspect it is worth it.

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Playing as IJ, I almost always set Task forces to cruise ... my general rule is I can afford the ship lost better than I can the fuel use of full speed, particularly for xAK's, and whatever triggered the Full speed (SS or ac spotting) Full speed won't make much difference on the outcome anyway. I wish there was a way to make cruise the default when you form a TF ...

It kind of is default already because with mission speed 99.99% of the total distance travelled by your Navy will be at cruise speed. I wouldn't do all the additional clicks for 0.01%.

Sorry, my testing contradicts this. Anytime a patrol flies overhead or a sub shows itself a TF will move to Full ... for allies, not an issue. For IJ where you are looking at every ton of fuel, it is different. I save ~20% on every convoy run in early '42. From mid '42 on, it rapidly approaches 50% simply due to increased patrol activity.

My opponent, Andy AI, is both very diligent with his patrols and uses most of his assets. Any point within Catalina range, which is impressive, is patroled and of course those Buka's are everywhere and countless.

YMMV.

A TF sure doesn't go on full speed when spotted by a patrol because that would mean all my surface combat or carrier TF would warp around the map. Same for my subs, they would warp because that would mean moving at 6 hexes instead of 3 per phase and that would be more than notable. My fast SC TFs don't show up 18 hexes away because they were spotted and sprint out at full speed, they just move on at the usual 4 hexes per phase. It just doesn't matter. The only time your TFs default from mission to full speed is when they actually should do that, when they are in position to start the bombardment run, an attempt to attack enemy shipping or reacting to other carriers for example.

And where do you get the 50% fuel increase from? Because of patrols spotting your convoys? Wow

TF reaction is not triggered by enemy subs or patrol planes AFAIK.
 
The only influence a patrol plane has on fuel consumptions is when a plane spots/attacks a sub.
The game simulates the subs evasive mvr and crash dive by upping the subs fuel consumption
(probably by calculating full speed consumption, but it might even be a separate calculation).
 
Besides TF/mission specific triggers, only the presence of spotted enemy surface combatants, or the
change of air superiority value in the face of enemy CVs triggers a full speed reaction away from the
threat (with 'Mission Speed' setting). You will be notified of this by a message when watching the turn,
and it is logged in the op report.
 
As for minor dmg tolerance, it very much depends on general ship availability, strategic/tactical
situation and resulting mission urgency. I do not disband TFs, but usually exchange ships with certain
amounts of damage.
For long range transports, since I play Allies, I got an overabundance. There, as a rule of thumb,
I never exceed 5sys/2eng dmg (to avoid potential convoy slowdown), and always repair ships with flotation
dmg.
For combat ships it varies very much. When preparing large ops though I will always attempt to reduce
damage to 0 on all ships to ensure maximum mission endurance.
When things look grave and there are important missions to accomplish and timing is critical, I have no
issue to deploy combat ships with sys damage > 10 and eng dmg > 5 though.
 
As with all things in WitP there is no standard rule. The situation dictates what risks you need to take.
 
 
@jmalter: I do not have the manual with me right now, but I will come back to you on this.
It is not really a threat table, but a table describing TF behaviour depending on mission type and
retirement allowed/remain on station settings.

ORIGINAL: olorin42

Mission speed is the default. We all know there are times to use Full Speed. Cruise Speed helps reduce incidental damage and is especially wise to use when getting that crippled ship back to port for repairs. So why use Mission Speed at all? By my observation, it's not faster than Cruise but causes more wear and tear - so why use Mission Speed at all?

Actually it isn't for all TF, it's cruise for CS missions.

He-He. Guys, y'all play allies too much with way too much intel. The only time I know I've been spotted by a patrol or a sub is when they shoot at me. Ergo, every time I am spotted, my TF's react. And those d____ Dorniers of Andy's are not only deadly, they shoot all the time.

Castor, I do simple math. Miri oil run to the coast is a 3 day run. If my TF reacts in a phase it will use 3x the fuel. 6 phases of fuel versus 9 phases of fuel for the same run = 50% increase for me. You can do your math however you like. I keep mine simple. [;)]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Do you get more hits from attacks by nav searching planes?

Seems you should if you are ordering your captains to stand firm as suitable targets by not engaging in avoidance.

The more ships he has sunk, the less fuel his navy needs... [;)]

Well ... maybe.

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

He-He. Guys, y'all play allies too much with way too much intel. The only time I know I've been spotted by a patrol or a sub is when they shoot at me. Ergo, every time I am spotted, my TF's react. And those d____ Dorniers of Andy's are not only deadly, they shoot all the time.

Castor, I do simple math. Miri oil run to the coast is a 3 day run. If my TF reacts in a phase it will use 3x the fuel. 6 phases of fuel versus 9 phases of fuel for the same run = 50% increase for me. You can do your math however you like. I keep mine simple. [;)]

Are the opposing sides really structured so differently?

For the Allies The entire first half of both air phases is full of nothing but reports of spotting and being spotted.

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

He-He. Guys, y'all play allies too much with way too much intel. The only time I know I've been spotted by a patrol or a sub is when they shoot at me. Ergo, every time I am spotted, my TF's react. And those d____ Dorniers of Andy's are not only deadly, they shoot all the time.

Castor, I do simple math. Miri oil run to the coast is a 3 day run. If my TF reacts in a phase it will use 3x the fuel. 6 phases of fuel versus 9 phases of fuel for the same run = 50% increase for me. You can do your math however you like. I keep mine simple. [;)]

yes, too simple as that just doesn't show the picture of your whole Navy when using setting "cruise" or "mission" speed. As said above, your TFs do nothing when being spotted by enemy patrols, they just move on as if nothing else happened. And you get the same messages as the Allied when your TFs are spotted. Saying cruise safes 50% of your Navy's fuel consumption compared to mission speed is simply not true, sorry.

It would only be true if all your Navy would move at full speed all the time and that just doesn't happen at all when being put on mission speed. I dare to say you would not even notice the difference at all, no matter how easy or difficult you do your math.

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

He-He. Guys, y'all play allies too much with way too much intel. The only time I know I've been spotted by a patrol or a sub is when they shoot at me. Ergo, every time I am spotted, my TF's react. And those d____ Dorniers of Andy's are not only deadly, they shoot all the time.

Castor, I do simple math. Miri oil run to the coast is a 3 day run. If my TF reacts in a phase it will use 3x the fuel. 6 phases of fuel versus 9 phases of fuel for the same run = 50% increase for me. You can do your math however you like. I keep mine simple. [;)]

We Allied players never worry about gas. In fact we our surplus to power our ice cream makers and golf carts...

DELETED.

Not worth the reply ....

ORIGINAL: crsutton
We Allied players never worry about gas. In fact we our surplus to power our ice cream makers and golf carts...

I know ... 1275's AAR is full of the fuel issues ... he is always short of fuel, struggling to get his fleet in position ... very typical IJ issue. AND, so very much like the reality that was faced ...

ORIGINAL: jmalter
LoBaron, I was looking for that 'threat table' in the manual last night, couldn't find it, can you give me a Ch# or page#?

I did not find it either. Is it possible that there was one in the old WitP manual?

Anyways, the closest match to what I was describing is Chapter 6.2.4 "PATROL/RETREAT AND MAX REACT RANGE", and the ongoing chapters.

Weird, I was sure there was some pretty detailed table. [&:]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

We Allied players never worry about gas. In fact we our surplus to power our ice cream makers and golf carts...

Not at the start in southpac we don't... I seem to spend the first year and most my USN tankers moving fuel into the Southern Pacific. [&:]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: jmalter
LoBaron, I was looking for that 'threat table' in the manual last night, couldn't find it, can you give me a Ch# or page#?

I did not find it either. Is it possible that there was one in the old WitP manual?

Anyways, the closest match to what I was describing is Chapter 6.2.4 "PATROL/RETREAT AND MAX REACT RANGE", and the ongoing chapters.

Weird, I was sure there was some pretty detailed table. [&:]

in the manual or not, TFs don't move at full speed when being set on mission speed and being spotted. Until just recently I've never heard this before (amazingly in all these years) and it's just wrong.

Noone playing Allied or Japanese will notice any difference in fuel consumption. I've just tried to run a convoy for ten turns, mission speed, then gone back to turn 1 and ran the same convoy to the same target for ten turns. Head to head, there were three PBY squadrons spotting the convoy EACH turn SEVERAL times. Guess what, after ten turns, 100% the same.

Rumors, nothing else. Ppl can believe what ever they like, I'm fine with if they think their neighbour is an Alien.

edit: latest offical patch

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: crsutton
We Allied players never worry about gas. In fact we our surplus to power our ice cream makers and golf carts...

I know ... 1275's AAR is full of the fuel issues ... he is always short of fuel, struggling to get his fleet in position ... very typical IJ issue. AND, so very much like the reality that was faced ...

if he has fuel issues then be it, but for sure not because he rans his Navy on mission or cruise speed.