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The manual states:

6.3.7 SHAKEDOWN CRUISES
"It can be useful to run a week or two long shakedown cruise, when a ship is first commissioned. Many ships come into the game with very small combat experience." [p. 129].

Do you do this and does it make much of a difference?

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[pic] USS Missouri (BB-63) rRecovering a Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplane, during the ship's shakedown cruise, circa August 1944.

Playing as Allied exclusively, I do it for combatant ships (DEs and above?) that have day/night XP below 55 which is what most of 'em start out as in the early part of the war. It's also particularly helpful for the corvettes and subchasers (these go up to 45 if you place them on shakedown cruises) as most of these start out with XP in the 20s and you need all the help you can get as Allied in early war sub ops. It's mostly for the USN though, the commonwealth navies tend to have xp levels above the caps.

As to how you do these cruises, just create a TF and park 'em in a port, as long as they're in a TF they'll start racking up the XP so there really isn't a reason not to. The WitE manual doesn't have the numbers but the WitP manual gives a 1 in 5 chance of day XP increasing by 1 and a 1 in 7 chance of night XP increasing by one for every day the ship in question is below the xp cap that can be gained outside of combat.

Thanks - I did not know that just putting them in a stationary TF will generate XP.

Side Note: According to a forum post, a TF commander's Leadership rating influences how rapidly the ships in the TF gain experience.

Well, I just put them to work. They will gain exp soon enough. I find as the Allied player there is not many ships to spare in 42. By 43 they come with enough exp.

Sailing from SF or the PC to PH usually takes a week, isnt this enough?

I'm particularly interested in views from the Japanese side.

They would arrive with 75/75 ratings and not need a shakedown.

Yeah, I read that too in the manual and thought to myself "another great gimmick".  AE really shines with such eye for detail.  I tried a couple of times with new capital ships to see whether it makes a difference, but honestly didn't see any.  Maybe there is a small probability of some kind of fault implemented for the first cruise, that maybe gives you some SYS damage, but I would have yet to be surprised...

As a JFB, I am usually counting the days to my next ship reinforcement. A shakedown cruise is the last thing on my mind. I guess when you put a small craft in an ASW TF and give it it's mission for the next year, you can call that a shakedown cruise.....

ORIGINAL: Knyvet

I'm particularly interested in views from the Japanese side.

Regarding poorly trained allied ships: the view looks just fine [:D]

Sorry - I couldn't resist that 'scope pic. [:D]

Playing the side of Japan, larger surface combat ships I did do the shake-down cruise because I could. Also, BBs & CAs, if you take them out for a couple of soft bombardment missions the experience starts climbing reasonably for your ship crews.

I think crsutton has it right that experience is the best modifier. I did try assigning a TF leader with high Naval and Admin skills for my BBs when I set them in a "shake down cruise." While I did see somewhat better attribute increases then the 1-5 & 1-7 as referenced in this thread, I'm unsure which of the skill sets I had selected in my TF leader might have impacted the experience level increases...

TTFN,


Mike

It depends really.

Most of the time with the escort types, I so desperately need warm bodies to fill up my convoy TFs that they get on the job training (IE the get better or sink method).

Surface ships generally get a round trip to Wenchow (early in the war) and a chance to fire their guns at something that can't shoot back (Wenchow's garrison). Seems pretty effective. [;)]

I've never really bothered with shakedown cruises, I just put my ships to work. Subchasers, and escorts form up as soon as I get them into asw groups and then learn on the job. I don't think anything bigger then those actually come with low enough experience to gain xp outside of combat.

I figure sailing ships from the Home Islands to Truk, Singapore, or whatever other base they'll operate from counts as the shakedown. Usually takes a week to make these re-deployments.

+1 to Cribtop for the JFBs

+2 from the JFB

Nashvillen: I've asked before but lost the site where you got the art for you picture above? Great shot with the Kate and Akagi (I assume)!

Ships don't have to move to qualify for the shakedown die rolls, only ships disbanded in a port don't get the die roll. If Pearl Harbour is surrounded by Japanese subs and you don't want to risk going to sea for only a shakedown cruise you don't have to move. Just form a TF and stay in the hex. Or your escorts can stay in SF while the transports load up and are getting shakedown die rolls, you don't have to wriggle them one hex out and back again. Probably uses less fuel as well. Fighting warships max out at 45 exp points and minesweeper types max out at 25 and transport/non- fighting ships max out at 15.

@Johnrd: http://www.flickr.com/photos/36758831@N04/4823883426/