Reducing op losses

[ny59giants]

Currently, I have a PBEM game playing each side in '42. I have spent more time than in previous games clicking on the "Planes" on the bottom left of airgroups to see how much plane fatigue I have. I have kept some groups resting longer than before to get those numbers down as I've seen some planes have fatigue grow to over 100. Is this a wasted effort or does it help reduce op losses? As Allies, I know the C-47s are flying daily and they have major op losses. As Japan, its tough to keep those high SR patrol groups of Mavis and Emily flying. Would increasing the percentage on Rest help?

[n01487477]

Hi Michael - I did a test of this a while ago now, but from memory (it's getting fuzzy in my greying years) there was a threshold I found with not only rest but also range settings and arcs... Sorry I cant locate the data but let us know how it goes. I'll do some tests again after uni settles down ...

[BBfanboy]

I think damage over 100 indicates an aircraft taken offline for maintenance and getting a major overhaul.

Rest/lower pace of ops does help the ground crews keep up with maintenance work without pulling the plane off-line for a lengthy repair. And lower aircraft wear-and-tear does seem to help with reducing ops losses.

I have been monitoring my plane wear and tear and setting my patrol levels accordingly - e.g. on a unit of 12 PBYs I look at the plane fatigue and see six of them in the double digits I only set 40% to patrol or train. Next turn I check again to see if the number of aircraft in double digits has gone up or down. Note that I do not specify "Rest" for any %, I just leave a portion unassigned and let the maintenance guys figure it out. I only set a Rest % when I need to keep the squadron operating but pilots are getting fatigue in the double digits overall.

Caveat: I have the luxury to not run my aircraft hard because I am playing the AI and it does not have many assets left to throw at me. IRL and in most game players will need to accept higher levels of losses.

PS- it is tedious and time-consuming to do what I do so I only look at stuff about every three turns. It pays off - most of my ops losses are damaged aircraft not making it back to base rather than just failing to return from an uneventful patrol.

[crsutton]

You can pull up your entire list of squadrons and then rank them from lowest to highest morale. Any squadron moving below 75 morale I try to stand them down for a few days. You will find that this goes hand in had with aircraft fatigue in that when you rest a unit to recover morale planes will recover from fatigue as well. In fact, it works so well that I really do not pay much attention to plane fatigue. Just rest them when morale is low and it will take care of itself. A lot of players use the "rest setting" in the patrol menu and find it works just fine for them. However, I never set a percentage of my units to rest but just pull them out of the line and stand them down when needed. This need not be that complicated.[;)] I don't like to rest units in the front lines and it is not needed in the rear areas

[HansBolter]

I limit ops losses for squadrons flying daily nav search by never allocating more than 50% to the task and only searching out to normal range.

It's squads set to daily milk run bombings that I have to monitor occasionally and stand down due to plane fatigue.
Leave a squad bombing daily for three weeks straight and both planes and pilots will be in rough shape.

[GetAssista]

In my AI Ironman as Allies I put my transports flying The Hump (Ledo-Tsuyung) to 30% rest as well as maintained all groups fully stocked with reserve a/c (usually 4 per group) if possible and filled to the brim with pilots. Plane fatugue was manageable. Pilot fatigue was not an issue at all. There were still noticeable operational losses, but I can't say anything meaningful about how they would compare to other settings

[adarbrauner]

An intriguing question a bit related to this issue:

suppose you have an air unit composed of 1 airplane only ( such as float plane assigned to a ship); if I set a certain "rest" percentage", for example of 20%, shall this be interpreted by the system as to abort 20% of the fly mission (to rest)?

[MakeeLearn]

To reduce OP losses Ive been paying attention not only to pilot fatigue but also to the weather. Resting when the weather is too bad, i.e. extreme overcast. Especially if it's bad at both the home base and the target.

[cohimbra]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Currently, I have a PBEM game playing each side in '42. I have spent more time than in previous games clicking on the "Planes" on the bottom left of airgroups to see how much plane fatigue I have. I have kept some groups resting longer than before to get those numbers down as I've seen some planes have fatigue grow to over 100. Is this a wasted effort or does it help reduce op losses? As Allies, I know the C-47s are flying daily and they have major op losses. As Japan, its tough to keep those high SR patrol groups of Mavis and Emily flying. Would increasing the percentage on Rest help?

I found 50%/50% (NavS/Rest) plus search arcs the best combo to mantain pilot fatigue under control. It also work well without setting search arcs. Reducing range is helpful again, es. setting Mavis/Emily range to 18/20 (this reduce also planes fatigue/ops losses). Played 3 GC as japanese, last we're now in 08/'44, I run Mavis/Emily and Betty/Nell/Frances (also J1N1-C Irving & ki-46-III Dinah...you need A LOT of NavS, allied are everywhere) daily for months with this settings (with search arcs if there's a need to avoid heavy a2a losses over big ports with lot of TFs & cap...a/c tend to do more & more passages over this hexes if you don't set arcs. Without setting search arcs in 'free' patrol area). However trying & trying is always the best option IMO, but these settings can be a good point from starting your future experiments. Hope this help.

[rustysi]

The above suggestions will help. In addition to those if you can work it out keep more AS than needed at the base, keeps the A/C fatigue down.

[PaxMondo]

Something I monitor and work like a hawk. AB size, AV excess, rest, morale, plane fatigue, pilot fatigue, mission distance, mission type all factor into it and likely some more variables as well. My goal is to keep my ops losses to less than 20% of my total losses ... it can be done and it has a HUGE impact upon aircraft requirements, which in turn drives factory size, which is supply usage.

[Macclan5]

There was a thread conversation in Sardukars Newbie tutorial around "Range" as well. i.e. how range affects fatigue.

I am uncertain if the mechanics of the game specifically are aligned to it but it makes sense to me and I have adopted the practice where possible.

If Possible - reduce flights (Search/Recon/Supply) from maximum range missions by toggling down the range on aircraft.

i.e. Catalina from 20 hex search down to 16 hex.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Currently, I have a PBEM game playing each side in '42. I have spent more time than in previous games clicking on the "Planes" on the bottom left of airgroups to see how much plane fatigue I have. I have kept some groups resting longer than before to get those numbers down as I've seen some planes have fatigue grow to over 100. Is this a wasted effort or does it help reduce op losses? As Allies, I know the C-47s are flying daily and they have major op losses. As Japan, its tough to keep those high SR patrol groups of Mavis and Emily flying. Would increasing the percentage on Rest help?

Just got a very small piece of data on ops losses in my forts reduction test. I was flying C-47s to supply the Allies and Tabbys to the IJA.

After a year of turns I noticed the transports. One group of C-47s had 1 plane left from 36. The Tabby group had 13. The most glaring difference in the groups is pilot quality. I'd inadvertently added experts to Tabby group. Very normal average EXP pilots to the Allied group.

[obvert]

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