Air combat TF and the follow command

[CapAndGown]

With the latest version (2.11) Air combat TF's with a follow command are not supposed to react at all to enemy carriers. This was introduced because players were complaining that the air combat TFs would then uncover the transports they were protecting. Unfortunately, this change has a side effect that seriously impacts carrier battles.

For those of us that believe it is better to split our carriers up into seperate groups rather than having one mega-carrier force, this change means that the air combat TF's no longer stay together. Instead, one air combat TF reacts, while the other stays in the hex it was in. Now, instead of having a unified CAP, it is split up.

This is not a bug per se. But it dramatically effects the behaviour of air combat TF's when engaging in carrier battles. And I don't believe that this side effect was foreseen. If left the way it is, we are going to have these mega-carrier groups as the default way to go, which I don't think is historical, since carriers operated in pairs for both the IJN and, after 1942, for the USN.

[U2]

Hi

I believe in splitting my CVs into different TFs and have had 4-5 such TFs protecting AP/AK TFs and remained in that hex while carrier battles took place. Before the patch they would all react one hex and thus leave the transports. So far I've not had any CV TFs leave the hex they are suppose to be in (protecting the APs) and I use that tactic daily in my PBEMs.

Dan

[CapAndGown]

I believe you misunderstood the situation:

One air combat TF is set to follow another. The one that is set to follow does not react and stays in the hex it was in. The one that is not set to follow does react one hex. Now the two TFs are split.

[U2]

Originally posted by cap_and_gown
I believe you misunderstood the situation:

One air combat TF is set to follow another. The one that is set to follow does not react and stays in the hex it was in. The one that is not set to follow does react one hex. Now the two TFs are split.

Hi Cap and gown

I understood you perfectly:) Its just that my CV TFs do not split (so far).

This is the way I do it

TF 21 (transport)

TF 25 CV follow TF 21 do not react/ do not retire
TF 26 CV follow TF 25 -----------"--------------
TF 27 CV follow TF 25 -----------"------------

I'll set up some tests this evening and post them here.

Dan

[CapAndGown]

Your sample shows you *did* misunderstand. This is what I mean:

TF 1: AC, no react/no retire
TF 2: AC, no react/no retire, follow TF 1

In other words, one TF 1 is not following any TF at all. This is the one that reacts. Meanwhile, TF 2 stays in place. Now the carriers are split.

[U2]

Originally posted by cap_and_gown
Your sample shows you *did* misunderstand. This is what I mean:

TF 1: AC, no react/no retire
TF 2: AC, no react/no retire, follow TF 1

In other words, one TF 1 is not following any TF at all. This is the one that reacts. Meanwhile, TF 2 stays in place. Now the carriers are split.

Yes I did understand I just wanted to show how I do it:) I'll set up such tests that you have explained.

Dan

[U2]

Hi cap and gown

I did such a test between two IJN TFs and two USN TFs and one of the USN TFs did indeed jump one hex while the other stayed thus taking away the bonus of combining CAP. I was very surprised by this since I have been playing with 5 CV USN TFs like this for the past 30 days in my PBEM against Mogami and they never split (thank God)

Oh the commander of the USN TF was highely agressive.

I have saved the save:)

Dan

[EricLarsen]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by cap_and_gown
Your sample shows you *did* misunderstand. This is what I mean:

TF 1: AC, no react/no retire
TF 2: AC, no react/no retire, follow TF 1

In other words, one TF 1 is not following any TF at all. This is the one that reacts. Meanwhile, TF 2 stays in place. Now the carriers are split.

cap-and-gown,
It seems you misunderstood as you did not have your first air combat tf follow some other tf. The new change states clearly to have the air combat tf's follow other tf's so that they don't react.
Eric Larsen

[U2]

Originally posted by EricLarsen

Originally posted by cap_and_gown
Your sample shows you *did* misunderstand. This is what I mean:

TF 1: AC, no react/no retire
TF 2: AC, no react/no retire, follow TF 1

In other words, one TF 1 is not following any TF at all. This is the one that reacts. Meanwhile, TF 2 stays in place. Now the carriers are split.

cap-and-gown,
It seems you misunderstood as you did not have your first air combat tf follow some other tf. The new change states clearly to have the air combat tf's follow other tf's so that they don't react.
Eric Larsen

Hi Eric

You are correct but cap-and-gown was complaining about another situation. What you explained has indeed been fixed.

Dan

[CapAndGown]

Could this be fixed by having the following forces *always* follow the main force, whether it is reacting or not? Covering transports should still work, since the would or would not react to enemy carriers based on their setting and the carriers would continue to follow them. If it were two AC TF's, the non-following TF could react one hex and the other TF would "follow" it. I emphasize "follow" because this is not the same as "react" which was what the change was designed to address. They are two seperate issues.

[CapAndGown]

Here is what I think is happening and why I believe the system is not working like it was before (and it has nothing to do with the agressiveness of the TF commanders):

During normal movement, each TF is checked to see if it has a destination. If so, then the program moves it towards that destination. If, instead, the TF has a follow command, then the program tries to move it to follow the assigned TF.

Movement during the reaction phase is different. For Air Combat reaction, each Air Combat TF is checked to see if it will react, and how much (i.e. a TF with "no react" set will only react one hex).

It used to be that this check would mean that an Air Combat TF would then uncover the transports it was following. With the new change, however, if the Air combat TF has a follow order, it will not react.

Previsously, I believe what we were seeing was that a AC TF following another did not "follow" the other TF to the new hex. Rather, both TF's reacted the same way and so ended up in the new hex.

In other words, the follow command was not applicable during the reaction phase.

It seems to me there are two ways to change this to get air combat TF's to follow each other: eliminate the "react one hex" behaviour when set to "do not react". The other would be to add in code that would have TF's follow each other during the reaction phase.

This last part might be a little tricky since it is possible that TF's could excede their movement capability when doing this. Do air combat TF's that have moved their full amount then react? Or do they exceed their movement allowance when reacting? Could this be gamed in a way to allow slow ships (like transports) to move further than otherwise possible in one turn?

Anyway, I think this actually does qualify as a bug and would appreciate it if Matrix could fix it so that our carriers do not get split up when following each other.

[Erik Rutins]

FWIW, I know exactly what Cap and Gown is talking about. I had this unpleasant surprise in a recent test against Mogami, which led to my carrier TFs meeting an untimely end.

Believe me, tweaking the routine to eliminate this issue certainly has my vote!

Regards,

- Erik