Matrix Games Forums

Hi all!!

Bought the game at Gamestop a few days ago. I like it. Right now I am playimg #17 as the Allies. Not an easy thing to do for someone who prefers the offensive side:p

So far I have lost Buna and Gili Gili. Had hoped to save the latter when I caught the transports with the surface forces from Brisbane, but it was not to be.

My two carriers have launched several strikes on the enemy transport convoys, and my surface forces have caught a few as well. B-17s are busy hitting Rabaul and the air forces in PM.

But where are the Japanese carriers? I think they depleted their aircraft attacking PM. I pushed my own close enough to raid Shortlands. Of course they found other targets...

I have three questions at this moment.

1: To increase support at a base for ground/air units, is there a specific unit to move. I have read about this a few times, but am still scratching my head. I need an idiot's guide.

2: I have the Long Island, but have no idea what to do with it right now. It doesn't have an airgroup at the moment.

3: When the airunits of a carrier divert to a land base, what happens if I send the carrier back to PH? Does the carrier get a new set of planes? Do I have to disband the stranded air units so that happens? Or do I have, lets say, two complete airwings for the Saratoga?

Any help/comments/suggestions are welcome.

Welcome. Some answers:

1. Headquarter units are pure support units. At major bases you will need to have a couple there or you will be short of support, which cause long-term degradation in units.

2. The Long Island is used for ferrying airgroups over distances too far to do a flying transfer. In effect, it's a cargo ship for single engine planes, one squadron at a time. Suggest you don't use it as a carrier, as it has been known (by me, among others) to lose airgroups. As a transport, it works fine.

3. The carrier returns with the same planes (if any) that if left with. Sometimes part of the group will divert, part staying on the carrier. The fragment that diverted will stay a fragment (no replacements) until the carrier with the parent group returns. Then it will automatically re-join the carrier goup if in range.

Hi J30 and welcome aboard. Just to expand a little on your first question:

There is support for ground troops and support for aircraft. These are idenitified in the unit display as "support" and "aviation support" respectivly. While every land unit will have some intrinsic support, generally you get ground unit support from "HQ" units and air support from "Base force' engineer units.


Support For Ground Units

You can think of these as the officers, staff, medics, quartermasters, etc necessary to run a combat unit. As mentioned above, all ground units have intrinsic support but very few have enough. the unit window will tell you how much support the unit requires. HQ units are nearly all support, where combat units have a deficit of suppport, the HQ's have an excess. When calculating support for units in a hex, the sum of the required support is compared to the sum of support present for all units. Thus by placing HQ's in a base or hex along with combat units, sufficient support can be achieved. Units without sufficient support in thier hex will lose efficiency. Just click on any base and you will see the sums of these numbers, deficiencies are noted in red.

Support For Air Units

Aircraft on carriers always have enough support, its the land based air you need to worry about. You need 1 aviation support for each aircraft at an airbase. If there is insufficient aviation support, aircraft will gradually become damaged until the operational number of aircraft does not exceed the avaiable aviation support. Again these number can be checked in the base window, just click on an airbase. One other note, no airbase will ever require more than 250 aviation support regardless of the number of aircraft present.

Hope this helps and if its not clear, I'm sure others will fill in the gaps

Thanks guys.

In my current game, the Midway carriers have showed up, and the Japanese pretty much own the Slot. I have Saratoga, Lexington, Hornet, and Enterprise together. Yorktown is at Nomerau with 38 sys damage. I think the enemy LBA is increasing too.

I took a peek at the Japanese side. Shokaku has few planes. Shoho is unhurt. Zuikaku, however, is on its way to Japan with an empty flight deck.

Another question:

I know that ships sent to Pearl/Japan get upgraded. But I do not know what upgrades are available when. For example: If I want to upgrade the Saratoga, (my favorite carrier) to better AA guns and radar, what is the earliest it can be done .

In the meantime, I am having fun:D