couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> War In The Pacific - Struggle Against Japan 1941 - 1945 >> couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes

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couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 5:06:15 AM

toonces

Posts: 71
Joined: 1/20/2006
Status: offline

hi all,
i'm very new to witp, but i'm enjoying it a ton so far.
i realize these questions have been beat to death, but a few pointers would be great.

i'm currently playing the southpac(h) scenario, which is my first time in this game. i have two questions.
first, re: land based bombers on naval strike. i have a ton of level bombers at port moresby, specifically, i have a whole squadron of about 40 b-26's as well as a mix of a-20's and others. i have more than a hundred fighters.
a couple of times the jap carrier force has moved well within the range of the b-26's. on the last turn, the jap force was 6 hexes away. i have all of the fighters on escort, and all of the level bombers on naval attack, nav search 10. i'm getting consistent spots, but nobody is attacking. there doesn't appear to be anything in the red (supplies, av support) to indicate there would be a problem, and there weren't any weather clouds at port moresby or on the enemy task force.
next question: i stationed 32 sbd's on guadalcanal to attack an enemy ak force landing troops on guadalcanal. i have 14,000 troops, japs have about 4000. airfield is level 1. my sbd's aren't launching on any strikes, although there are ak groups all over.

final question: i had a couple of surface engagements. during one, a jap cl had 115 shell hits. on the next, it had 33 more and was reported sunk in the battle animation. however, on the intel screen next turn it is not reported as sunk and i don't have any points for it.

thanks for the help. i'm working my way through the manual and trying different things to figure this game out. i'm looking forward to having the skill to play it like you all.

see ya,
toonces

Post #: 1

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 5:36:56 AM

dtravel

Posts: 4533
Joined: 7/7/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: toonces

hi all,
i'm very new to witp, but i'm enjoying it a ton so far.
i realize these questions have been beat to death, but a few pointers would be great.

i'm currently playing the southpac(h) scenario, which is my first time in this game. i have two questions.
first, re: land based bombers on naval strike. i have a ton of level bombers at port moresby, specifically, i have a whole squadron of about 40 b-26's as well as a mix of a-20's and others. i have more than a hundred fighters.
a couple of times the jap carrier force has moved well within the range of the b-26's. on the last turn, the jap force was 6 hexes away. i have all of the fighters on escort, and all of the level bombers on naval attack, nav search 10. i'm getting consistent spots, but nobody is attacking. there doesn't appear to be anything in the red (supplies, av support) to indicate there would be a problem, and there weren't any weather clouds at port moresby or on the enemy task force.
next question: i stationed 32 sbd's on guadalcanal to attack an enemy ak force landing troops on guadalcanal. i have 14,000 troops, japs have about 4000. airfield is level 1. my sbd's aren't launching on any strikes, although there are ak groups all over.

Here is a link to a checklist for air that I wrote a while back.
Land-Based Air Checklist
This is a place to start.

As for some specifics, were the carriers within range of your fighters? If not, then they couldn't escort the bombers and the bombers won't fly without escort against anything with CAP over it. (Which you can probably assume the carriers have.)

The SBDs are not launching because the airfield is only size 1. It has to be at least size 2 to launch offensive strikes.

quote:

final question: i had a couple of surface engagements. during one, a jap cl had 115 shell hits. on the next, it had 33 more and was reported sunk in the battle animation. however, on the intel screen next turn it is not reported as sunk and i don't have any points for it.

thanks for the help. i'm working my way through the manual and trying different things to figure this game out. i'm looking forward to having the skill to play it like you all.

see ya,
toonces

Sunken ships do not show up immediately in the Intelligence listing. There is a Fog-Of-War delay built in to the game. If you saw it sink in the animation and it is listed as sunk in the combat report, its gone and will eventually show up in the Sunk Ship listing.

_____________________________

This game does not have a learning curve. It has a learning cliff.

"Bomb early, bomb often, bomb everything." - Niceguy

Any bugs I report are always straight stock games.

(in reply to toonces)

Post #: 2

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 3:43:39 PM

toonces

Posts: 71
Joined: 1/20/2006
Status: offline

thanks, that answers my questions perfectly.
the carriers were not in range of the escorts, and i was wondering if that was the problem. it would have been worth losing the bombers to scratch a few flattops, so i was hoping there was a way to order them to do it whether they wanted to or not.

thanks for the info on the intel screen as well.

i'll check the link you posted.
see ya,
toonces

(in reply to toonces)

Post #: 3

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 4:24:33 PM

toonces

Posts: 71
Joined: 1/20/2006
Status: offline

wow, i just read that checklist. i can't believe any bombers ever fly with all of those rolls that have to get through. must be nice to have a "choice" of whether or not to fly a mission.

i'm sure this has been asked before, but it sure would be nice to have the game tell you why a group didn't launch, like: "71 raaf squadron fails morale check and does not launch"

(in reply to toonces)

Post #: 4

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 7:37:50 PM

dtravel

Posts: 4533
Joined: 7/7/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: toonces

wow, i just read that checklist. i can't believe any bombers ever fly with all of those rolls that have to get through. must be nice to have a "choice" of whether or not to fly a mission.

i'm sure this has been asked before, but it sure would be nice to have the game tell you why a group didn't launch, like: "71 raaf squadron fails morale check and does not launch"

Find Ron Saueracker and ask him about pilots choosing whether to fly or not.

The failed to fly feedback has been asked for and asked for and asked for and asked for.... The developers will not do it and won't say why.

_____________________________

This game does not have a learning curve. It has a learning cliff.

"Bomb early, bomb often, bomb everything." - Niceguy

Any bugs I report are always straight stock games.

(in reply to toonces)

Post #: 5

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 8:31:47 PM

Mr.Frag

Posts: 13410
Joined: 12/18/2002
From: Purgatory
Status: offline

quote:

The developers will not do it and won't say why.

Because it is not as simple as it sounds ... to understand why, you need an understanding on how the engine works.

Think like this:

The engine runs the section of the turn without any intervention or results being displayed.

During the execution, various variables are set with results.

And here comes the key part:

After the execution, the variables are read and the visual construction of what happened is played out before your eyes.

Since what you see is in the past, it becomes exceedingly difficult to introduce information display for stuff that was not already in the engine as there is nowhere to keep track of it.

A good example of this are when you see a whole bunch of aircraft show up to bomb a ship that has already sunk. The reconstruction of what happened (the part you see) is going through the variables that were set when the engine ran and doesn't know the ship has been sunk until it gets there so it looks like theyare attacking a sunk ship. In reality, they are not.

(in reply to dtravel)

Post #: 6

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 9:00:24 PM

moses

Posts: 2252
Joined: 7/7/2002
Status: offline

Plus what a terrible combat display it would be. Message after message of all the various checks.

"43 RAF fails test x"
"43 RAF fails test y"
"SS fails to attack due to.....
"TF 3 fails to react because of (insert 5 seperate messages here)
etc. etc for 25 pages.

The only way would be to somehow store the information so that it could be displayed when you requested the info for a specific unit.

(in reply to Mr.Frag)

Post #: 7

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/24/2006 10:55:22 PM

Berkut

Posts: 757
Joined: 5/16/2002
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: moses

he only way would be to somehow store the information so that it could be displayed when you requested the info for a specific unit.

Wow, what an incredible idea, storing the information *linked* to particular objects or events, rather than us simple text strings!

What a novel idea!

(in reply to moses)

Post #: 8

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/25/2006 3:49:15 AM

dtravel

Posts: 4533
Joined: 7/7/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: moses

Plus what a terrible combat display it would be. Message after message of all the various checks.

"43 RAF fails test x"
"43 RAF fails test y"
"SS fails to attack due to.....
"TF 3 fails to react because of (insert 5 seperate messages here)
etc. etc for 25 pages.

The only way would be to somehow store the information so that it could be displayed when you requested the info for a specific unit.

Or they could just write that information to the Operations Report file.

I understand what you are saying, Mr.Frag. I am just of the opinion that it is "less than optimal" code design. *insert recorded rant #327 here*

_____________________________

This game does not have a learning curve. It has a learning cliff.

"Bomb early, bomb often, bomb everything." - Niceguy

Any bugs I report are always straight stock games.

(in reply to moses)

Post #: 9

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/25/2006 5:31:04 AM

scout1

Posts: 2899
Joined: 8/24/2004
From: South Bend, In
Status: offline

quote:

Plus what a terrible combat display it would be. Message after message of all the various checks.

"43 RAF fails test x"
"43 RAF fails test y"
"SS fails to attack due to.....
"TF 3 fails to react because of (insert 5 seperate messages here)
etc. etc for 25 pages.

The only way would be to somehow store the information so that it could be displayed when you requested the info for a specific unit.

Another fine idea. Which could be sucked into Bodhi's tool for review. Once again, it really isn't an issue about all the stuff that we;re asking from the engine (this, that or the other thing), but merely to dump it out and let us run with it. Sorry Ray, but dumping to a txt or csv file has always been my pet peeve. I held off as long as I could.

(in reply to moses)

Post #: 10

RE: couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes - 1/25/2006 3:39:19 PM

toonces

Posts: 71
Joined: 1/20/2006
Status: offline

thanks for the info all.

i guess my question stems from simply not knowing why things are happening, and simple difficulty making sure all of the checks are done to get my forces to do what i want them to do tactically. i had this same problem with UV, and i pretty much gave up on that game in frustration. i have a bit more time now, and i'm making an investment in time to figure out how to play the game effectively.

i don't mind pressing the "i believe" button when a strike doesn't launch. but in this case, those bombers were covering that line of approach, and i needed them to hit those carriers when they were in range.

as far as knowing "why" groups are reacting or striking, i realize how this would be difficult to implement, but it makes figuring out why a group isn't launching very frustrating. for example, i play the operational art of war sometimes, and in that game the unit will get a yellow or orange band to let you know if there's a morale or supply problem. something that tells you why your stike didn't launch would be hugely useful. i don't care if it was 25 pages- in this case i'd scroll around until i found it. this happened twice, the first time i boosted the escorts, the second time i changed the b-26 leader to somebody with higher aggression. neither helped. i'm guessing it's because the enemy tf was out of range of the escorts.

anyway, thanks for the help.

(in reply to toonces)

Post #: 11

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> War In The Pacific - Struggle Against Japan 1941 - 1945 >> couple of newbie questions re: airstrikes

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