Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004 From: Austria Status: offline
Hi
Not a flame thread and not meant personal to start with.
I´ve complained in my AAR a couple of times already and have noticed that other players seem to experience the same. IJN patrols rarely are operational due to their service rating while Allied patrols keep on flying. The problem with flying is the fact that they crash all the time. In my PBEM, flying naval search is far more dangerous than attacking a Capped base with heavy bombers. My PBYs crash at a rate that is higher than my replacements and it is more than just annoying because the only thing I can do is keeping them grounded it seems. Same goes for bombers, the ones you could make good use of are the ones with radar (Hudson III for example - radar and nice range) but if you do, they drop out of the sky all the time, so it´s not just related to the PBYs. Naval search is deadly and every pilot being sent to a naval search squadron has a good chance to die.
Why is it this way in AE? We´re talking about one and a halve dozen replacements per month and the way they die, I´ve got no chance to fill up existing squadrons, let alone thinking about filling up newly arrived ones. As it stands now, I could maintain four or five squadrons at full strenght.
Posts: 4776
Joined: 1/26/2003 From: Vienna, Austria Status: offline
Maybe those affected by such extreme op losses use a combination of high percentage and max range search missions with their squads. In those cases some pilots fly max range missions every single day. Your PBY-5 losses look really ugly.
I limit my search range depending on what I want to cover and have not experienced these extreme results yet.
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Joined: 8/23/2004 From: Austria Status: offline
Here are the pilots of a PBY squadron. All my squadrons are looking like this, the pilots are by far not overfatigued, which could be one of the main issues for them crashing "all the time". Using a fighter squadron (with 30% more pilots than fighters) at 50% Cap results in usually 30-50 fatigue for example. Yet when looking at all the fighters in the air with overfatigued pilots (somewhere you should draw the line between playability and realism, I can´t adjust my fighter squadrons daily) the loss rate of the fighters is by far not as high as the PBY squadrons´ loss rate. Usually the Cats are lost in a landing accident. And losing more than you get is a pretty hard task to maintain at least some search.
It seems to be the naval search mission itselve that is so dangerous as I´m losing also "a lot" of bombers when being set to nav search.
Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004 From: Austria Status: offline
quote:
ORIGINAL: LoBaron
Maybe those affected by such extreme op losses use a combination of high percentage and max range search missions with their squads. In those cases some pilots fly max range missions every single day. Your PBY-5 losses look really ugly.
I limit my search range depending on what I want to cover and have not experienced these extreme results yet.
this should result in high fatigue, but as you can see my nav search missions don´t result in high fatigue so I can´t really see this as the reason for it.
and yes, the losses really are uggly. Not that it would make any difference when I´ve run out of Cats as they can´t spot anything anyway...
Posts: 3206
Joined: 3/6/2001 From: Virginia, USA Status: offline
I wonder if it might be the range you are using? Not sure what the range is on PBYs. I set my Mavis's to 20 (max range of 24) and seem to be OK, generally. (Except half of them are almost always grounded for maintenance.)
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Joined: 1/26/2003 From: Vienna, Austria Status: offline
quote:
ORIGINAL: castor troy
quote:
ORIGINAL: LoBaron
Maybe those affected by such extreme op losses use a combination of high percentage and max range search missions with their squads. In those cases some pilots fly max range missions every single day. Your PBY-5 losses look really ugly.
I limit my search range depending on what I want to cover and have not experienced these extreme results yet.
this should result in high fatigue, but as you can see my nav search missions don´t result in high fatigue so I can´t really see this as the reason for it.
and yes, the losses really are uggly. Not that it would make any difference when I´ve run out of Cats as they can´t spot anything anyway...
Didn´t mean pilot fatigue was the reason.
I guess every plane has a chance to have an engine failure or weather issue per hex covered. This could be a similar dice roll as the accumulated sys damage for ships when they move x numbers of hex fields.
Add to this a possible op loss on landing and when you fly maximum range missions every day youd also maximize your chances for an op loss. This could also be the reason for the Japanes players have issues with maintenance. Their planes crash less often because the higher average experience but return damaged by the same reasons.
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Joined: 9/11/2007 From: new milford, ct Status: offline
I had problems until I reduced the amount of planes on patrol to 40% and reduced their range by 20%. Now I just dont have losses unless they are shot down. I also overstock with pilots and have some training going on at the same time. IRL patrols/combat missions rarely flew 100% of the time for 100% of the range.
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Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004 From: Austria Status: offline
quote:
ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown
I wonder if it might be the range you are using? Not sure what the range is on PBYs. I set my Mavis's to 20 (max range of 24) and seem to be OK, generally. (Except half of them are almost always grounded for maintenance.)
ranges between 15 and 19 hexes. The only difference I´ve noticed in using less range was less fatigue though and fatigue seems not to be the problem when you look at the pilots. Watched my patrol squadrons quite some time already but couldn´t figure out what to do other than standing them down.
Posts: 14330
Joined: 8/23/2004 From: Austria Status: offline
quote:
ORIGINAL: String
check if your search sectors overlap enemy bases, that seems to increase op losses.
no enemy bases in the Pacific that are in range of my PBYs and most of the PBYs are stationed in the Pacific. Two squadrons in Australia that could be in range of enemy Cap but those two don´t suffer any notable losses more than other squadrons.
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Joined: 8/23/2004 From: Austria Status: offline
quote:
ORIGINAL: khyberbill
I had problems until I reduced the amount of planes on patrol to 40% and reduced their range by 20%. Now I just dont have losses unless they are shot down. I also overstock with pilots and have some training going on at the same time. IRL patrols/combat missions rarely flew 100% of the time for 100% of the range.
I tried this extensively in my AI test game, the result wasn´t really surprising to me. With the reduction of planes in the air, the op losses went down in the same ratio. So with 40% search, only 40% of the losses compared to 100% search. This isn´t really helping IMO as 40% leaves you with 5 Cats in a usual PBY squadron. 5 patrol ac isn´t a lot and not even enough when I use search arcs (which I do more or less 100% of the time). Usually I´ve got them at 70%. But again, flying alot should primarily increase pilot fat, but this doesn´t seem to be a problem. And with the excellent service rating the ac do quite well. When I use bombers on nav search then it seems to be more dangerous than sending them in against an enemy base with fighters and flak.
Restrict PBYs to 10 hexes, 40 % search, 10-20% training, and 50-40% rest and your ops losses will go way down. Also when transferring long flights run the risk of ops losses as well.
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Posts: 3206
Joined: 3/6/2001 From: Virginia, USA Status: offline
Where is this screen and how do I get it?!!
Castor, it looks like plane fatigue may be the problem. Since Mavis's are down all the time, they don't suffer the losses that the Cat's do since they seem to fly continuously.
Just look at the current wars, almost all army, navy, air forces loses are non-combat! Lots of fast flying low to the ground, fly in all sorts of weather, things break, wear out, pilots make mistakes, etc.
Didn't we have this conversation when the game came out? I find that using Sharks method helped. I also find that doing that with extra support on the base keeps the planes better maintained.
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