Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I used it a bit in my first campaign and it did work. The most important thing is that you have to designate ships for the purpose. Other than that I will have to refer you to the manual as I have not used it in years. It was OK for supplying small out of danger ports in the US half of the map. But in the end, I found it just as easy to set up the convoys manually. Better to use supply TFs with the "CS" mission status and shuttle it directly between major ports. It is pretty much a click and forget thing and works very well.

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpaemail

Most old school players wouldnt trust the auto-convoy system. I for one have never even tried it (and I was a playtester I dont think any of us tried it - if memory serves it wasnt installed if I recall correcty, I could be wrong - Im old). Only problem with CS convoys is sometimes ships will bump into one another. While the damage may not be enough to detach the damaged ships from the TF, they can slow it down considerably.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpaemail

Most old school players wouldnt trust the auto-convoy system. I for one have never even tried it (and I was a playtester I dont think any of us tried it - if memory serves it wasnt installed if I recall correcty, I could be wrong - Im old). Only problem with CS convoys is sometimes ships will bump into one another. While the damage may not be enough to detach the damaged ships from the TF, they can slow it down considerably.

A good reason why the admonition above to check them for damage occasionally makes good sense.

Any automated system needs attention now and then.

Take ACMs for instance. They function to maintain minefields while disbanded in the ports.
This makes them something the player has a tendency to deploy and forget about.
However, they burn fuel for the minefield maintenance effort, so forgetting about them for too long can lead to them stop functioning from being out of fuel.
Once every two weeks or so I make a habit of inspecting all ports with minefields and ACMs and hitting the 'refuel' ships in port button.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jcjordan

I've started using it in my Allied vs IJ AI & it seems to work ok but seems to send way too many TK to out of the way bases that have no need for fuel & no requests for it either nor never will & only sends 1 supply ship at a time & seems like it only focuses repeatedly on the bigger ports that don't even need supply while the smaller out of the way bases that are calling for it never get it unless done manually. It also seems to put escorts in TF that don't need them but not in ones that do - logic seems to be on the escorts that the more dangerous the destination the less likely to have escort as the escorts are worth more points so can't risk them so in essence reverse logic by AI.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

quote:

ORIGINAL: jcjordan

I've started using it in my Allied vs IJ AI & it seems to work ok but seems to send way too many TK to out of the way bases that have no need for fuel & no requests for it either nor never will & only sends 1 supply ship at a time & seems like it only focuses repeatedly on the bigger ports that don't even need supply while the smaller out of the way bases that are calling for it never get it unless done manually. It also seems to put escorts in TF that don't need them but not in ones that do - logic seems to be on the escorts that the more dangerous the destination the less likely to have escort as the escorts are worth more points so can't risk them so in essence reverse logic by AI.

The convoy system DOES send ships where there is demand. That's how it works and its biggest advantage over CS. CS sends and sends and sends until you stop it. If you don't notice it will overflow into spoilage ranges and your stuff will rot. You also put ships at risk of sub or other attack unnecessarily. Auto-convoy sends only the demanded number based on what is at the base or attached to it. Then it stops. There's a little lag as it doesn't forward predict that I have seen, but generally those smaller bases you don't want to hand service get their groceries. It's not meant to build piles or make hubs for hub and spoke systems. But for what it's designed to do it does it well, even better after Michael added capability, such as splitting the world into demand spheres so the proper Allied source feeds the base.

If you have bases in auto-demand that never get serviced you need to add ships to the pool. It can't send what it doesn't own. It also has no logic for "dangerous" routes. If the base is dangerous you shouldn't be using auto-convoy to feed it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpaemail

Most old school players wouldnt trust the auto-convoy system. I for one have never even tried it (and I was a playtester I dont think any of us tried it - if memory serves it wasnt installed if I recall correcty, I could be wrong - Im old). Only problem with CS convoys is sometimes ships will bump into one another. While the damage may not be enough to detach the damaged ships from the TF, they can slow it down considerably.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred


Read my post in this thread

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3697364

for how demand for fuel is determined. The demand quantum is the aggregation of permanent and temporary demand. Players regularly fail to take into account how the code determines the permanent demand quantum.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


[...I do use auto-convoy for supply and it reduces workload. A lot of Allied players have never played 1944-45 and don't understand how great that workload becomes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


Key difference for me is CS can allow you to build up a LARGE pool of supply at a location, auto-convoy will never do that. If you want/need a 1M supply depot, you cannot use auto convoy to get there.

Right. I said that above.

_____________________________

The Moose

(in reply to PaxMondo)