Grooming The Tennos Eagles ...

[vonSchnitter]

Well this is from an older game - patches to the latest beta.

The beta became available somewhere in mid June 42 and I decided to just monitor.
I made a number of changes due July 1 according to my guts and left the airgroups in question as they where to July 15th - the current date of reports - planning on running them as is till end of July 42.
To back things up - saves are available.

As far as I can tell, any unit in training mode only - i.e. without a specific mission - is going to advance pilots in three categories:
Exp. - the Specialty (air for fighters, ASW etc) - plus defence.
Any unit "on duty" - i.e. a specific task - is not likely to see advances in "def". I thought the latter to be a GUI issue - by now I think it is not

Training groups may be better in the specialty and def while less efficient on EXP. compared to groups on training only.

[Rob Brennan UK]

I was mucking about with patch 2 and i definately found that search planes and bombers got +Def when training for Search/bombing. yes +def also came from basic training but it was nice to see it get better on more focused trining too.

this is with a v small test sample and only ran a few weeks.

[vonSchnitter]

Well,

finally I got to some "testing"

Ran Scen 1 from Dec 7 (no historical) to Dec. 18th about 10 turns.
Using the air groups at Ominato, Tokyo, Yokohama and Chiba as the "main sample" as follows:
Units set to 70% training only.
All experienced pilots higher than 59 exp returned to the reserves and the units replenished from the training pool except form some units with 2 pilots in the 70s range.

Pretty much all other units on the map left unchanged for the duration - except for some adjustments to check on findings as things evolved.

btw. I can provide saves.

The easy part:

Pilots in units on training with neither highly trained pilots (in the 70s +) nor a crack CO (Leader/Inspiration in the fifties) did gain skill points of their respective training (say Air for fighters, Search etc) plus defensive quite regularly.
As far as I can tell, advancements in defense went ahead regardles of primary skill.

However - not a single pilot in those units gained a single point in the EXP category.
This is not to say they never may under the circumstances, but clearly, this setup is not the way to go.

Just to get it out of the way:

In any training only unit not a single pilot or AC was lost (according to the in-game stats), nor did any pilot get credit for a single flying mission.

With 70% training, fatigue stayed below 20 - regardless of CO traits.

[vonSchnitter]

Now for units with good pilots (above 70 exp) on the roster

As an aside: I am not going into the training/Crack CO issue - for reasons mentioned in the top post

I set up a few units with two good pilots (exp 70+) and the rest being replacements.
The rest same as above (some with crack, some with mediocre COs for good measure)

The gains in skill levels are about the same as in above (specialty plus def), but there are gains in EXP !
Now that is something, right ?

However - it does not look like the skill training profits much from the presence of experienced pilots.

How to optimize the process is another question. Since this question presented itself only at the end of the test-run I have very little hard data to go by.

However - by trustings my guts:
The number of AC in a training only unit matters most. (with regard to EXP gain)
The number of high EXP pilots (beyond 2) is not very important (deminishing returns)
The COs traits may make a difference, if a training level beyond 70% (fatigue suppression) is aimed at.
Does the skill/exp level between trainers and trainees make a difference ? No clue - but likely due to the wording in the manual/addendum.

More to come ..

[vonSchnitter]

Up to this point things with patch 2 looked pretty much like advertised, and I can imagine some folks had the "So what ?" thing ready - but where to polite to post it. [;)]

And here we go: Units on active duty.

The issue - to my lights (dim or not) - presented itself after a few turns.

The question was: How do active units fare on the training thing - remember: I left them as is outside Japan proper.

The first clue came to me when checking on the Formosa Zero units after five turns:
Only pilots credited with a "kill" received an advance in EXP (below 70), but no air or defense skill points.
This proved to be consistant with any other fighter unit on the map on escort or sweep.
Well, since most of the Fighter units are pretty high on exp - small wonder, right ?

And then I stumbled upon 59th Sentai out of Kompong Trach ....

[vonSchnitter]

Well,

since the suspense I tried to impose, did not solicit any posts to interrupt my musings ...

The findings on 59th Sentai

This unit starts out with the lousiest Oscar available (MK Ia) but ends with the highest gain in EXP in any Fighter group on the map (IJA or IJN) - during my "Test"

The point is. This unit is on AF attack ! It gains in EXP and GrndAttack.

While ground attack is not the first priority for fighters, the disproportionate gain in EXP still is there.

Any takers ? [:D]

[stuman]

Interesting.

[vonSchnitter]

Well stuman,

just between you and me - since the others are not listening - the whole thing is well ...

Simple.

Once I found the 59th, I started checking on bomber groups.

Correlating the various fighter groups (kills) with the ground attack units, this is what I found:

Condition a: A pilot on active duty (not on training etc) needs to take part in a sucessful attack/flight/patrol - whatever - sortie.
Condition b: A pilot on active duty and on a mission (see a) is eligible for have taken an aktive part in a sortie of type a - (exp, skill issues ?)
Condition c: if a and b are true he may be credited with part of the success (a kill or hitting something on the ground) and gains EXP and/or skill points or just EXP - as things go.

The point is: taking an active part (or geting credit for taking part) in a successfull mission - or else.

[Kitakami]

vonSchitter,
 
Interesting finds. Only stuman may have posted before... but others are definitely reading...