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Gregor_SSG -> RE: Where's my CAP? (3/26/2008 1:34:24 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: jhfink
A major benefit not available in Uncommon Valor is the handling of weather. Each hex has a specific weather state [one of four different categories] and the weather moves across the map in systems. Task Forces can try to hide in these systems, and [I believe] they have some real effect on the outcome of enemy searches and attacks.
The most notable deficiency in Carriers at War is the handling of Combat Air Patrols [CAP] One can allocate fighters to CAP, but if they have any effect on incoming strikes, it is completely hidden from view. Moreover, one cannot allocate CAP to a different task force, or different hex.
As a single player game, it is quite promising. Scenarios are reletively short, but the lack of PBEM is a problem. Busy people with busy schedules located on different parts of the planet have to make a rendezvous in time to play this game together [always more challanging than against the AI] and this makes it much harder to find an opponent.
Jimf
The CAP, like the truth, is out there, trust us. It is not hidden from view, you can see it shooting down or damaging enemy planes as they attack your TG, and you would certainly notice the absence if you were unable or unwilling to fly any CAP at all.
Since this is WWII and your CAP has rudimentary fighter direction, using early radar systems and less than totally reliable radios, then that is about all the information that you should see. We are a long way from the data-linked realtime reporting of air combat today.
At the end of the game you can examine the reports for both sides which will give you a much clearer picture of what happened, down to details on the fate of each individual plane.
While it is true you can't explicitly allocate CAP to another hex or TG, the effective range of CAP increases with better radar and admin values. So by the time of Phillipine Sea, the US CAP is operating effectively at ranges up to 60 nm from its carrier, that is covering everything within 3 hexes. Even by the late war years, the US fighter direction was by no means perfect so again that level of coverage is about all you could reasonably expect.
As for PBEM, the game is simply not suited to PBEM play since both players can make critical decisions every 5 minutes. At least with the CAW design and interface, when you do find an opponent you can have a very exciting battle that only takes about 30 minutes to resolve.
Gregor
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