Cap

[deilthedog]

how do i get 50% of my fighter on CAP and the other 50% to rest? if i set the CAP level any lower than 100% it changes to sweep and then i have fighters stafing airfields

[U2]

Originally posted by deilthedog
how do i get 50% of my fighter on CAP and the other 50% to rest? if i set the CAP level any lower than 100% it changes to sweep and then i have fighters stafing airfields

Hi!

Good question. If I get this right the 50% will do CAP weather or not any enemy planes show up. The rest ( 50% ) will do escort for your bombers if needed. So if there are no escort missions to perform they should rest. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Dan

[johnmac]

I've been assuming that we're not expected to micromanage each squadron, so if you set CAP to 50%, and no escort missions are flown, then indeed, 50% of your pilots should be resting.

If this assumption of mine is incorrect, that would be awful...talk about micromanagement hell!

[Ross Moorhouse]

Originally posted by U2


Hi!

Good question. If I get this right the 50% will do CAP weather or not any enemy planes show up. The rest ( 50% ) will do escort for your bombers if needed. So if there are no escort missions to perform they should rest. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Dan

Do you have the game yet ???

[U2]

Originally posted by Ross Moorhouse


Do you have the game yet ???

Yes! Did I write something wrong?

Ah now I know what you mean. I wrote that 50% will fly CAP weather or not any enemy planes show up because he mentioned 50%. I do know that I can set it between 10-90% CAP or set air units to perform other duties. I was just helping him with his question about what will happen with the other 50% that is not flying CAP if he sets a fighter unit to fly 50% CAP. Do you understand now Ross?

Dan

[deilthedog]

so to confrim, if i set CAP level betweeen 10% and 90% i then must set mission to escort and have no bombers fly to get the rest of my fighters to rest
please confirm

[U2]

Originally posted by deilthedog
so to confrim, if i set CAP level betweeen 10% and 90% i then must set mission to escort and have no bombers fly to get the rest of my fighters to rest
please confirm

Hi!

Yes, that is basically what I am saying. I was hoping that a Matrix crew could confirm.

Dan

[dgaad]

If you have the fighters set to escort at 50% cap, and no naval missions are flown by the bombers, then 50% of that squadron will rest. However, the other 50% will fly, even in thunderstorms.

Be careful with this. Cap and carrier group operations aren't "fire and forget" type of things. The 50% of pilots in this scenario that are flying cap tend to be the SAME 50% that flew it the day before. Within three days or so, fatigue levels go up to 50+. Also a fighter set on Cap will fly 2 missions a day at least.

Best policy is to time the use of your carriers so that, at best, you have the need for full readiness and action preparedness only for about 3-5 days. Engagements are best fought when all pilots are fully rested. I never have my carriers out of port more than 10 days, regardless of refuelling.

[U2]

Hi!

Well said DGAAD. I always suspected that they rested unless they flew escort missons. Your idea about Carrier warfare is also very good. I never let the boys stay out for very long because I need an effective and well rested CAP. However I do tend to let my land based fighter units at 50% all the time. I have not noticed any drawbacks on this and my game agains the AI as Japanese is going very well indeed. Higher than 50% for a long time is NOT recommended.

Dan

[Hartmann]

Is it really so that if I set CAP on say 20%, then always the same guys do fly and build up fatigue? If yes, I think this should be changed to prevent having to micromanage things too much. They should switch shifts by themselves as would be only reasonable.

If the setting means that 80% of the crew have their daily "day out" while 20% are ordered to do all the work all the time, this would be a possible cause for mutiny, I guess.

Hartmann

[dgaad]

Originally posted by Hartmann
Is it really so that if I set CAP on say 20%, then always the same guys do fly and build up fatigue? If yes, I think this should be changed to prevent having to micromanage things too much. They should switch shifts by themselves as would be only reasonable.

If the setting means that 80% of the crew have their daily "day out" while 20% are ordered to do all the work all the time, this would be a possible cause for mutiny, I guess.

Hartmann

I totally agree Hartman. It sort of defeats the purpose of training missions as well. The fatigued pilots should be rotated like any commander of an air wing would do.

[ratster]

I've been playing an allied long campaign and keep all my fighter sqaudrons at 90% cap all the time in order to provide maximum protection to a base(Port Moresby in this case), with the mission set to escort.

This is the only way I've found to get maximum cap over the base, which makes a big difference when those 80-100 plane Jap raids come in.

Anyway, no pilot's fatigue has ever gone above 40 with this setting, and the average pilot fatigue is about 15-20. This is with the base adequately supplied, and with adequate aviation support. So I suspect there must be some rotation/resting going on regardless of mission/CAP level.

If you want to rest pilots its better to rest the whole squadron at once, put them on a training mission with a low level(10-20), or even 0.

[Erik Rutins]

There is some pilot rotation, but it's not ideal - too many of the best pilots still get mission after mission while the less experienced pilots rest. My understanding is that this is on the list of items to be looked at in the patch.

Regards,

- Erik

[dgaad]

Originally posted by Erik Rutins
There is some pilot rotation, but it's not ideal - too many of the best pilots still get mission after mission while the less experienced pilots rest. My understanding is that this is on the list of items to be looked at in the patch.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik : probably what should happen is that there should be couple of different algorithim to determine which pilots get selected for missions.

The reason you want different algorithims is because players have different needs when selecting different missions.

On some missions, you want even highly fatigued, but good, pilots working. On others, you want to make sure the good pilots get rest.

Training missions for example, should use the least fatigued and the least experienced pilots at least every other day, but at least one or two of the most experienced pilots (this is how squadron training actually works). The only way to truely rest a whole squadron is to set a training mission with zero committment.

You guys at Matrix will figure out a good solution, I'm sure.

[Hartmann]

I would already be happy if the algorithm would make the fatigue level weigh more in the decision of who to assign to CAP so that there are not these big differences (ranging from no fatigue to totally overworked among the members of one squad).

Hartmann

[Paul Vebber]

That is the Navy Way thogh, those who prove they "Can DO" always get more worked piled on them while the Schmuckatelly's skate...

There is attention being paid to pilot rotations for the patch.

[Nikademus]

What is everyone's initial impressions of the CAP routines in general? particularily for carrier TF's?

I'm often finding that even large numbered CAP groups fail to make any appreciable impression on incoming strikes, even sparcely defended or undefended ones! Flak ends up saving my bacon more than anything else (though i realize that even without a 'damaged' or 'destroyed' a CAP can still cause valuable disruption to a strike

Case in point....just last night i had a two carrier (CV and a CVL) jumped by 12 unescorted A-24 Dauntlesses in clear weather but were intercepted by my vigilant CAP of 30 Zeros.

The toll:

2 damaged, 1 destroyed. leaving 9 dive bombers to brave the flak and proceed to hit both carriers with one 1000ILB each

Now both have to go back to Truk (and then to Japan) for extended repairs. arrrrg

Now of course i realize that such things are possible in war, but this example was merely the most graphic. CAP attacks in general that i have observed so far seem to be woefully pathetic though it is admitedly hard to tell since with the land ops, distance and fatique are definately factoring in so i'm not frowning too much there.

But the carrier CAP's though.....i tend to expect them to be a little tighter, a little more vigilent. I even tried the Eastern Solomons scenerio as the Americans to see how a later war, radar equipped and fighter heavy TF can do in the face of incoming attack

Pretty much the same results.......very few kills despite the presence of only a few escorts (the AI seems to prefer using fighters for it's own CAP's apparantly)

thoughts, impressions on this?

[U2]

Originally posted by Nikademus
What is everyone's initial impressions of the CAP routines in general? particularily for carrier TF's?


Case in point....just last night i had a two carrier (CV and a CVL) jumped by 12 unescorted A-24 Dauntlesses in clear weather but were intercepted by my vigilant CAP of 30 Zeros.

The toll:

2 damaged, 1 destroyed. leaving 9 dive bombers to brave the flak and proceed to hit both carriers with one 1000ILB each

thoughts, impressions on this?

That was my first impression of carrier CAP too. Surely 30 Zeros should have managed. I guess this is something for the patch to fix. For now you will have to live with it.
Dan