Matrix Games Forums

Its early 1944 and I find my operational carriers with system damage between 5-15 percent. Likely similar to the situation the IJN faces in early 1942. Over the last 60 turns, I have found repair rate of my carriers in my shipyard ports and other level 9 ports to be discouraging. So the competing problem use the CVs now and deal with system damage later, or leave them in repair and limit action to where I can have land base air cover.

How much damage is too much to keep them operational.

As I never play IJN, how does the IJN player deal with it in the early game? Also explains why the IJN carriers disappear from time to time.

My experience is limited to two different players.

I like to use my carriers until they have 11 sys dmg. I then station them at lvl 9 ports with shipyard.
I'm very conservative I suppose.

Operational needs will always change your plans.

I tend to try and keep sys damage as low as possible. I rarely let my ships hit 10 because comes combat damage the sys damage can add up quickly so why give it a head start? Remember that the higher the sys the less capable a ship is at fighting fires and flooding. Also CVs become useless when damage hits 40 as a total of sys, flooding and fires. Did I mention that a damaged ship is a beacon to the enemy, especially at night, as the dl increases due to said damage (smoke, etc.).

By 1944 the Allies usually have a lot of ships up for repair so I usually keep a major repair yard clear for high priority repairs like carriers with all the usual precautions:
- Level 9 Port
- Repair yard with few if any damaged ships so you can accumulate 4 days of repair points
- Naval HQ to boost effective port size by 3
- Naval HQ CO should have above average Admin capability
- 3 AR's in port to boost effective port size by 3

As far as practical guidelines, I don't like to start operations with average system damage above 3 and usually pack it in based on routine damage if I have carriers exceeding 10 system damage. However, circumstances always trump guidelines. By 1944 the US usually has enough carriers that if you have one or two carriers with significant damage you can afford to have them sit out an operation to catch up on repairs while the rest of the fast carriers deploy.

But do ARs and Naval HQs improve repair prospects if the ship is in a size 9 port? The descriptions I've seen of what they do are all about adding apparent port size. Does that go beyond 9? So if I put an AR in a size 9 port, would the repair prospects of a damaged ship in that port be better?

Do repair prospects continue to improve beyond an apparent port size of 9?

(More succinct, after my internet connection went down, but apparently not until it sent the previous message.)

Yes, they do in my experience. Having an AD, AS, and AGP (if you PT's on local patrol) is a good idea, too, since these tenders also accelerate the repair of destroyers, subs, and PT's, respectively.

the West Coast, Pearl, and Sydney/Melbourne are a long way from the front. Had a BB with 11 damage go down to 5 damage after spending 5 months at Sydney, most of the time as the only ship. its July 1944 now. Cant have my 10 point camage CVs sail 6 weeks to the west coast and sit there for 5 months, then 6 weeks to get back to the action. they gain about 5 points of damage just sailing to and from the west coast.

Sydney repair yard might be too small for a battleship, in which case it's only large port.
Using cruise speed rather than mission speed helps avoid system damage from sailing around.