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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: A few newbie questions (9/23/2010 2:11:39 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: brian800000
A few more questions:
15. It seems I can't go from the West Coast to Australia without running out of gas. The only major port between the two is PH. There is no way I should run all the west coast convoys to PH, right? The port would overload. Am I right in thinking I need to operate subsidiary ports in the Pacific to take the burden off PH?
16. Convoys between India and Australia seem to want to take a questionable rout along Java. If I reroute the convoys using waypoints, will the CS convoy led computers respect the waypoints on the way home?
17. Lets say I've set up a major distribution hub at Sydney. It is now awash in gas and supplies. I now set up subsidary hubs to the smaller bases. How do I keep those smaller bases from overloading with fuel and supplies?
18. Let me see if I understand Air Commands properly. Every base has an air command assigned. You see that when you click on the base. If you operate a plane from one air command from the base of another air command, you suffer a penalty. However, you can't even move the plane to that base if it is a part of a restricted Air Command. Then you need to transfer the plane to an unrestricted air command. The actual command units are useful as they provide support personnel. Is that about right?
19. For air units stuck in less combat likely commands (eg, the US), until I get the political points to transfer the units, they are really just training squadrons. I was planning on flying a little patrol/ASW, but mostly training and resting. Once the pilots get decent experience, I send them to the pilot pool. Is that the general idea?
20. The manual says that pilots over 80 experience can become trainers. Do I get any benefit from doing that?
15. Others have given you some good ideas here. I would add that you should, from the first week of the war, be cramming in supplies and fuel to PH. It's big enough that there won't be any spoilage. (See manual for those limits.) PH is the central hub of operations for the whole war, at least until mid-late 1944. Really fill it up with escorted CS convoys from your base of choice. I use SF, but you can mix up the start points. By 1944 you'll be hauling a couple of million tons of supplies and fuel every month westward to the front lines, and it's a shorter trip from PH than the WC. Fill PH up.
To answer you question, yes, using PH to refuel Oz-bound convoys is generally a good idea, although some combos of ships can make it without. As others have said, if you're getting red numbers, you can change the home base to an Oz base, but then you have to remember to send it back. You can use the Memo line at the top of the TF control screen to remind you ("Send me back to Pearl".) This little one-line memo space can be very useful as well when you're planning big invasions and need to keep dozens of TFs straight.
As far as PH overloading by re-fueling passing convoys, no, it won't, because a waypoint at PH with refuel set doesn't dock the convoy. It doesn't take pier space. There are fueling limits (See manual Section 9.3.3.2) but they're high for a large port like PH. I've never really harmed PH ops by having it refuel passing convoys. That extra fuel, going and coming, gives you about 4000 miles of slack range to use to route the convoy onto a safe path to Oz. In 1942 that can involve LONG doglegs to avoid Japanese islands.
As others have said, set the Refuel line in the TF to tell it what to do at the final destination. Early, you probably don't want to be Full refueling everything at Oz. Play with the different options. See manual section 6.2.13.1 for definitions of the various fueling options. Always realize that small ships can refuel in transit from big ships, so having some of your xAKs red when you leave is usually OK if there are others in green. You need to watch your ship mixes in the convoys partly with this in mind. Also, many of the early ASW escorts are very short-range. They'll have to suck fuel off their charges to get to Oz, which can make a waypoint at PH even more important.
16. Be careful with waypoints and auto-routing. Waypoints give you total control over where the ships go. The levels of auto-routing have limits. See manual section 6.1.2.1.2. The code only routes around KNOWN air threats. It doesn't avoid bases that might be packed with IJN surface raiders. Most importantly, it ONLY routes around known air threats. So, if you haven't reconned a base it's just a red base hex, and the AI will route as if there's no planes there, even if in reality it is a nest of Betties you don't know about yet. In particular, in 1942, be VERY careful of Tarawa, Baker, and Canton Islands. Waypoint FAR around them. If you set "Safer" for a convoy, and you haven't reconned those bases to see the planes almost certainly there, the AI will merrily drive your convoy right past them. Boomski.
Normal, Direct, Safer, and Safest can be very valuable labor-sving tools, but not in all cases. As you say, Java is another problem area. STAY AWAY from Java afer the AI captures it. There will be Betties and Nells everywhere. If you have to travel from India to western Oz, swing far out into the IO, and even then take escort, as the AI will carrier raid into the IO at random times under some AI scripts. If you have to go to Darwin from India, I'd make it two trips. India to Perth, Perth to Darwin. Don't try to cut the corner and go by Oosthaven, Batavia, Soerbaja, etc.
To observe waypoints in both directions, use the "Return Same Route y/n" radio button in the waypoint screen. When you do that, be sure the fuel budget still works to get them home.
17. Use the supply spinners to up or down the requested supplies. But fuel doesn't flow by itself, except for use by industry. You have to move it. Be aware that sticking a lot of fuel in Sydney will cause Sydney's heavy industry to suck on it to make supplies. You might want this in order to reduce how much supply you have to haul to Oz, or you might want the fuel there for naval ops. If the latter, you need to put fuel somewhere else. If it's in Oz, Sydney can take it for industry, generally speaking. You can put some in Tasmania, and a lot of players use New Zealand for a major fuel dump. Play with this too, and decide how you want to go. There's no one right answer, and that answer can be different in different game eras.
As far as overstocking small bases, review the spoilage rules at manual section 15.7. Tracker will give you daily spoilage numbers by base if you use it. The best way to avoid spoilage is to quickly build up ports and airfields at bases where you'll dump a lot of stuff.
18. Not sure what you're asking in this one. Be careful to distinguish Air Commands, which are HQ units with special powers, from garden variety base airfields, which support planes, but aren't air commands. Restricted versus unrestricted commands for aircraft is an important concept. Review the manual on that and play with it. Note there are permanent restricted commands (white) for planes and LCUs, and temporary restricted (yellow.) These you can change to unrestricted with PPs. So, some aircraft can't ever move out of their starting command, and others can be made deployable with PPs. The color tells you which.
19. Yes, that's the general idea. Play with this too, however. I use Range = 0 and 100% Training on training units, to keep fatigue down and max the skill and experience build rates. (But you have to watch fatigue every week or so.) On the WC, early, for those units which will be actually Searching and ASWing, and not just training, I still do 10% training. (This only is possible if you use search arcs, and we know now this week there are some code issues with those, so YMMV until the next patch.) Actually flying real missions builds up skills and experience very quickly, but you risk more Ops losses too. Trade offs.
20. Pilots over 80 can be transferred to TRACOM by clicking on the pilot's name when it turns yellow in the Pilot Replacement/Reserve Pool screen. TRACOM generally speeds up (a little) the training pipeline for pilots in school, which is normally a year. Generally (there are some pretty complex threads on this and I don't completely understand the mechanics) the pilots in the training schools don't get better, you just get them a little faster if you put a bunch of superstars in TRACOM. For the Allies this isn't really of much use. You'll be floating in nugget pilots throughout the war. You won't have enough planes for all of them, and you can't make more as the Allies. For the Japanese player, TRACOM can be more useful. For the Allies, it can safely be ignored. Some players stash really hot pilots there to save them for later-war, superior aircraft models. It's up to you. But TRACOM is not as big a deal as the General Reserve. That can be very useful for the Allied player to manage.
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