Pilots: CAP and Fatigue

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

i'm glad some of you guys aren't negotiators or ambassadors...the red button would have been pushed a LONG time ago due to gross mis-communication...[X(]

don´t worry, it´s not that bad. There have been far worse threads and IMO this one is getting somewhere... [;)]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: CV2

Put 2 to 3 times the number of pilots to planes in the group and fatigue is no longer an issue (in the above example with a 16 plane group you should be sporting 30 to 40 pilots, not the 14 pictured). The only thing you have to worry about then is aircraft fatigue. While I have never actually tracked it, if you max out your reserve aircraft, this will go a long way toward solving that problem as well.

The max pilots this group will take is 21 with 16 aircraft, no reserves. (No reserves are possible.) You never have the option to put as many pilots in a group as you like.

well, you can. You can´t pull "replacement" pilots but you can draw as many pilots with the "get veteran". I never do it though, my squadrons are maxxed out with 1/3 more pilots than aircraft and that´s it. Don´t even know if this isn´t just a glitch if you can keep on drawing veterans into a squadron. Sometimes I miscount when filling up a squadron and due to the delay of the pilots showing up I realize it too late and then end up with more pilots than 1.33 the squadrons size so the pilots are sent back to reserve then.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: USS America

The examples sure illustrate how much more fatigue is caused by LRCAP than regular CAP. 

Castor, can you tell us what your ops losses have been like for units similar to your example, running 80% CAP/20% Rest?  Assuming they are acceptable (very subjective, I know) I may start bumping my normal CAP levels up a bit.

I ran a controlled test this afternoon with four fighter units. I'll post either tomorrow or Thursday. I think CT's results are all mixed up due to combat, KIA losses, replacements, etc. Look at the mission numbers and cross them to the fatigue numbers in his P-47 unit. Crazy. (19 misisons, 44 fat.; 276 misisons 24 fat.) He also doesn't say if his unit is in malaria-land (it's whited out.)

I ran my test at SF and PH, with no combat, with both over-manned and not-overmanned unts, same flight specs (alt, range, mostly with P-40Bs.) While I got fat. numbers in the 0-40 range more or less, I also got very different mission numbers, without replacements to explain it. So it appears the results he's reporting, and I saw without LRCAP, of 30ish fatigue over time, is because the game IS grounding pilots when they cross a fatigue trigger point that isn't shown, and might vary with CO specs or some other metric.

You can also get a couple of data points for OPs losses.

I'll post sceenies ASAP, but not tonight.

this is from my PBEM, you may understand that I whited out things that I don´t want my opponent to see. I´ve not whited them out to cheat on you. [:(]

It is a NON malaria base these guys are sitting BUT I can post enough squadrons that are sitting in a malaria base with just exactly the same fat and the same settings (well different alts perhaps).

Can only say it again, forget about the mission counts in these squadrons, if you want to see which pilots fly and which pilots got which fat then you have to start looking at this with a COMPLETE FRESH unit with all pilots starting at 0 (in words ZERO) missions. You can´t tell anything from the mission count of a squadron that has seen war for over a year with the pilots probably rotating through a coule of times.

Yeah and what did I say? You´ve get grounded pilots but with 1/3 more pilots than fighters you end up with all fighters being manned and able to fly and this still with the Cap setting I use. Do we get there? [:)]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: castor troy

and the pilots in detail of this squadron, note that only one is above 40, many are even below 20.

But look at the misison numbers, and compare them to the fat numbers. SOME pilots are being grounded, although it's impossible to say how many because you have combat losses and replacements gumming up the numbers. It's possible that 30-40 is the grounding number, unless LRCAP is included in the mix. I don't know. But your numbers are not linear in any way inside the same unit.

[:)] again, you can´t tell anything from the mission count of this squadron. Start with a new one with all having 0 missions. I bet you´re going to find out that some more or less always fly (until a fat point perhaps) to be replaced by someone else, while some stay lower in their mission count. That´s what I called the game´s habit of not spreading out the missions between the pilots. But I wouldn´t say that´s bad because the game usually picks the BETTER pilot for the mission. Probably until the pilot is replaced due to to high fat? Ok, now we need to know what the magic number is.

[CV2]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: CV2

Put 2 to 3 times the number of pilots to planes in the group and fatigue is no longer an issue (in the above example with a 16 plane group you should be sporting 30 to 40 pilots, not the 14 pictured). The only thing you have to worry about then is aircraft fatigue. While I have never actually tracked it, if you max out your reserve aircraft, this will go a long way toward solving that problem as well.

The max pilots this group will take is 21 with 16 aircraft, no reserves. (No reserves are possible.) You never have the option to put as many pilots in a group as you like.

well, you can. You can´t pull "replacement" pilots but you can draw as many pilots with the "get veteran". I never do it though, my squadrons are maxxed out with 1/3 more pilots than aircraft and that´s it. Don´t even know if this isn´t just a glitch if you can keep on drawing veterans into a squadron. Sometimes I miscount when filling up a squadron and due to the delay of the pilots showing up I realize it too late and then end up with more pilots than 1.33 the squadrons size so the pilots are sent back to reserve then.

You can also use the old "Mogami Method" from WitP and disband squadrons or pieces of squadrons into them. Pieces is easier and faster get veteran is more selective on the pilots you get. Here is an example on how to transfer a piece of a unit:

Take any given unit. In this case I am going to use a US P-39 squadron. Now if PDUs are on, its easy convert the squadron to another plane type and transfer this squadron (25 planes) to a base with a small number of AV support (can transfer it first if you like), like around 8. It will take a day for the unit to get there by rail and the next day or 2 a handful of planes will be repaired (in this example I will say 2 are repaired). Transfer these planes to another non-rail base or island. You now have a 23 plane fragment with 23 pilots in it. You can transfer another squadron to this base, or rail the fragment to the unit you want to absorb the excesses. After disbanding the fragment you can now expand the parent adding 23 pilots to it and the unit you disbanded into should now have 56 pilots for its 25 aircraft. You can build up the numbers of pilots in your training squadrons very quickly without all the endless clicks needed for moving pilots with get veteran.

If PDUs are off, you can still do it, you just either have to rail move the P-39 unit or pop it on a ship. You can pop it on and off a ship in the same turn. The goal being to damage all the aircraft and then repair as few as possible (the ideal would be 1 repaired).

The planes transferred with the fragment will become reserves when they are repaired (assuming the receiving squadron was at full air strength when you disbanded the fragment into it) and can be moved directly back into the pool for reuse or you can leave them in the unit if you desire.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

I think some people fail to realise any discussion in a civil forum is one of give and take. Perhaps Kwik dosnt understand that?

Edited to add, I frankly enjoy these discussions in which people stick to thier guns either way. Frankly I am of the opinion that as a RESULT of these types of discussions things get fixed, things that NEED fixing get identified.

And I was tired. Apologies to all.

I'm probably getting too close to all of this algorithm proctology. You really can't do it with the randoms unknown in frequency or magnitude, and making a testbed game to isolate a behavior is nice, but doesn't reflect how the game gets played. Despite all these "discussions" (I like a good argument; I was a half-decent HS debater once upon a time), in real life I don't rellly care about the inner workings of the game when I play. I take the output I get and I deal with it. I realize that some of the forum carping has IDed real bugs, and those players are valuable, but that kind of activity isn't really what makes me happy. I just like arguing. [:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

To see how the game really treats pilots on Cap shouldn´t be hard so. Just clear a squadron of all pilots and pull all new replacement pilots without any missions and set the squadron to Cap and just leave it for two months. This then gives a clear sight on what is going on but looking at such a squadron like we both have posted it doesn´t make sense because you just can´t tell what is going on with such a mission count. Should be easy though if all pilots start at 0 missions and are doing nothing else than flying CAP.

After running my tests yesterday where I set two maxed overmanned units to 80/20 (to give two data points), one to 60/40 ( maxed overmanned), and one, for about two weeks less to 80/20 (not overmanned), I got some sleep and woke up slapping my face realizing that what you say above is correct. So, I'm running a quick (not two months, but some) test with 100/0, not overmanned, "no replacements" on, no combat, no malaria, on one squadron at PH. I'll post that screenie.

The problem with an 80/20 test is unraveling the misison couint variances from those coming from Rest (when I don't know how the code decides who gets into the 20%), and those coming from over-fatigue grounding (when I don't know the trigger point, or even if it's a single fatigue number rather than a blended number using other stats like Air, Exp, the squadron CO's stats, or other.)

However, even with all that, the HUGE variance in misison counts set alongside the fatigue numbers are WAY higher than can be explained by the 20% Rest alone IMO. And if there is math whereby the, say, Exp number of a pilot slows down the rate of fatigue accumulantion (which has some RL truth as experienced workers in any job often get less tired than newbies doing the same work), then that math also must be pretty extreme to see multi-hundred-mission guys with less fatigue than guys with 20-30 missions.

I'm ignoring the chance they came from training with 30-40 fatigue already, because, well, that would just make my head explode.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Yeah and what did I say? You´ve get grounded pilots but with 1/3 more pilots than fighters you end up with all fighters being manned and able to fly and this still with the Cap setting I use. Do we get there? [:)]

What I saw in my non-combat 80/20 tests, with no rotations, run for about two months, was about what you say. Top fatigue in the low-40s, low fatigue in single digits. Very large variation in mission counts.

I'm running a 100% CAP test right now, and I just peeked in and won't need to run it for two months. Interesting results, but ones that don't support my overall contention very well.

On your "radar" issue, have you looked in any rigorous way at the Planes tabs to see if the pilots are ready, but the planes are down for maintenance? When less than 80% planes show up to meet a raid, is any of the variation due to not having planes ready rather than radar being broken?

[Bullwinkle58]

I terminated the 100% CAP test. Here, and on successive screens, are the results.

Methodology:

1) One Wildcat unit at PH, beginning on March 28, 1942, and ending on April 17, 1942.

2) 100% CAP, 0% Rest.

3) Not overmanned. Fifteen airframes at 100% repair at start. Fifteen pilots with 0-4 fatigue at start. No replacement of pilots or planes during test.

4) 15,000 feet. Range 4. No CO change from original. No malaria.

5) PH cleaned out of all but four fighter units. Airfield at 10(7), aviation support at 318 + 118, Aviation support required at 67.

Initial pilot screen:

[Bullwinkle58]

#2

Interim check-in on April 3, 1942:

1) No OPS losses
2) All planes still flying
3) Rapid fatigue accumulation

[Bullwinkle58]

#3

Pilot list from April 3, 1942 interim check-in:

1) Very high fatigue, but a lot of variation.
2) Every pilot has flown every mission. There have been no groundings despite fatigue as high as 87.
3) Fatigue does not appear to correlate well with other primary fighter pilot stats: Exp, Air, and Defn. For example, compare Maj. Bauer to FO DeLong. Same missions flown, similar experience and air ratings, widely variant fatigue.

[Bullwinkle58]

#4

End of test on April 17, 1942, unit screen:

1) No OPS losses.
2) All planes flying.
3) Morale at 16.
4) Average fatigue at 83.

[traskott]

So, in a non combat situation, an with a good airport and air support, a sqn can be at 100% for a month without losses...Good to know it. [:)].

Will you run more tests ??

[Bullwinkle58]

#5

End of test on April 17, 1942, Pilot List:

1) There have been some minor groundings, despite 100% CAP ordered. This could be from fatigue, or possibly interim airframe maintenance.
2) Despite fatigue of 90, many pilots have flown every mission. Not grounded.
3) Again, poor correlation with pilot stats and fatigue levels.
4) FO DeLong, despite having the lowest fatigue, flew the fewest missions.

[Bullwinkle58]

#6

End of test on April 17, 1942, Planes list:

1) This is an end-state list only. Possible interim maintenance happened during test.
2) However, given the low fatigue numbers and lack of any combat, it is possible that no interim maintainence took place, and the "missing missions" of a few pilots seen in previous screen did take place due to a grounding-due-to-fatigue code routine.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: traskott

So, in a non combat situation, an with a good airport and air support, a sqn can be at 100% for a month without losses...Good to know it. [:)].

Will you run more tests ??

I think I've beaten this to death enough. [:)]

Looking at my unposted results of units with some Rest, I don't see a very great difference between the 80/20 and the 60/40 unit fatigue results when both are at maximum overmanning. (Unless there is LRCAP, when fatigue swings wildly.) This will alter how I treat my front-line units. I have been babying them to some degree, and the Allies can't afford that with the few aircraft they get in the first place.

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Hi CT, judging from your screen it doesn't look like you place much emphasis on defensive ratings or are other factors at work?

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Yeah and what did I say? You´ve get grounded pilots but with 1/3 more pilots than fighters you end up with all fighters being manned and able to fly and this still with the Cap setting I use. Do we get there? [:)]

What I saw in my non-combat 80/20 tests, with no rotations, run for about two months, was about what you say. Top fatigue in the low-40s, low fatigue in single digits. Very large variation in mission counts.

I'm running a 100% CAP test right now, and I just peeked in and won't need to run it for two months. Interesting results, but ones that don't support my overall contention very well.

On your "radar" issue, have you looked in any rigorous way at the Planes tabs to see if the pilots are ready, but the planes are down for maintenance? When less than 80% planes show up to meet a raid, is any of the variation due to not having planes ready rather than radar being broken?

I´m glad you get the same results, otherwise I would end up with my "special castor troy edition" again.

Re the radar, yes, it´s due to missing pre warning time. With the pre warning time you get when for example your carriers are attacked, I usually get all available ac in the air. More or less, I really don´t do a bean count so when I see 400 fighters in the air I don´t go back one turn to count them up if 400, 408 or 412 were available. If I know that many aircraft aren´t ready, then I take a look at it of course, otherwise my units are at near 90-100% readiness state all the time.

thx for running the test btw

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

#5

End of test on April 17, 1942, Pilot List:

1) There have been some minor groundings, despite 100% CAP ordered. This could be from fatigue, or possibly interim airframe maintenance.
2) Despite fatigue of 90, many pilots have flown every mission. Not grounded.
3) Again, poor correlation with pilot stats and fatigue levels.
4) FO DeLong, despite having the lowest fatigue, flew the fewest missions.

holy crap, now that´s a fatigue level. Your test is pretty much in line with my (so far) gut feeling that I do quite well with 80 Cap 20 rest and having 1/3 more pilots than ac as this keeps the fat at "acceptable" levels. That pilots aren´t even grounded with 90 fat is also not that surprising to me as this is also what I´ve thought it would be when this thread started.

That two pilots are in total missing five missions could definetely be due to having five fighters maintained at some point. Leaves Quilter with also 60 missions but 27 less fatigue than the majority with 90, got no idea nor explanation for him. If DeLong was grounded due to no fighter available (maintenance) in the last one or two turns, he might have well dropped down to 58 while the majority kept on flying and staying at 90. All in all I´m glad with the outcome of your tests as it seems to absolutely confirm what I´ve thought anyway.

Again, thanks for doing this test.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Hi CT, judging from your screen it doesn't look like you place much emphasis on defensive ratings or are other factors at work?

primary skill for my fighter pilots is air and none of the replacement pilots is sent to a frontline squadron if below 70. Am already aiming at 73 air skill at the moment but I don´t know if it really is worth it (I doubt it), not many training squadrons are trying to bring up 70 skilled pilots to 73 as it seems to take as long to bring a 25 skilled pilot to 70 as it takes to bring a 70 skilled pilot to 73. At least that´s my gut feeling, no dedicated test. But I can assure you it takes an eternity. [:D] Second skill I aim for the fighter pilots is def but I started far too late with that one, so I´m only in the process to replace the 70 air <70 def pilots with 70 air 70 def pilots that are coming out of the training squadrons in the dozens now. It´s my first PBEM and I just didn´t really care about the def, so now I´ve got hundreds of USAAF 70 air skill pilots but these now have to go through something like a month training to reach 70 def too (using strafe training to increase def to 70) as they perhaps could also need strafing skill at some point, doubtfully but they rather need strafe at some point than grdB. What really stroke me is the fact how many 70 air skill pilots I had in my frontline units that only had 25 def skill, these are mostly faced out now and sent back to flight school.

If you look at 2LT Browning in the screenie, this is the perfect example of how a fighter pilot looks like that is sent to a frontline squadron now. If I would have started to care about def too (it is a must IMO so definately a fault on my part in this PBEM) a year ago I would have all squadrons full of 70 air 70 def pilots with something like 300 reserve pilots with 70/70 in the pool. As it stands now, I probably got 500 70 air <70 def in the reserve pool for the USAAF alone. Speaking about fighter pilots I will rather run out of pilots than fighters.