Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfrake

The patch note list pilot distribution when dividing an airgroup as fixed. In my game it is not. I still find occasional Japanese airgroups that don't split pilots and planes correctly when divided. For example, every fraction of 27 gets 9 planes, but pilots go 12, 8 and 7. Rebuilt and split again, numbers randomize.

• Pilots are assigned to specific aircraft when needed. At any given time an aircraft may or may not have a pilot, depending of it’s recent history (flying missions, new replacement aircraft, newly repaired aircraft, even pilot killed on ground in bombing attack).
  
• There are three sub-groups of aircraft in the airgroup: ready, damaged, and reserved.
  
• A simple divide-by-three-and-ignore-the-remainder is used for the initial allocation.
  

1. The number of ready aircraft is divided by 3 (remainder temporarily ignored).
   
2. This number of planes (AND PILOTS if the planes have pilots) are allocated to each of the three new sub-groups.
   
3. The remainder from step#1 (including pilots) is allocated to sub-group “A”.
   
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for damaged aircraft.
   
5. Repeat steps 1-3 for reserve aircraft.
   
6. Remaining pilot allocation. Prior to Version 1.8, all remaining pilots were assigned to the “A” sub-group. Version 1.8 changed this to split the pilots between the three groups in a process like steps 1 plus 3. There is also considerable additional complication with historical pilots assigned to the airgroup. These are pilots assigned to the squadron in the editor but whose delay has not yet expired. They are linked to the squadron and must be allocated but are not yet available for use. This work was added in Version 1.8 but is not apparent at time of airgroup divide.
   

1. Since aircraft may or may not have pilots, an even allocation of aircraft to different sub-units may not result in a similarly even allocation of pilots and the allocation might not be consistent from one divide to another.
   
2. The “remainder to A” process means that the “A” sub-group may have up to 6 more aircraft and up to 8 more pilots than the other two. This would be:
   
   
   
   • Up to 2 ready aircraft with up to 2 pilots.
     
   • Up to 2 damaged aircraft with up to 2 pilots.
     
   • Up to 2 reserve aircraft with up to 2 pilots.
     
   • Up to 2 additional unassigned pilots.
     
   • Additional handling of historical pilots may also result in “B” sub-group having one more pilot than the “C” sub-group.
     
   
   

quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

One thing to keep in mind.

If in real life ... a fighter group dispersed its squadrons to three different bases, for example ... does anyone think all pilots and aircraft would've been distributed exactly evenly between the squadrons ? I would humbly submit that a squadron is a squadron, whether it is housed with the group or not. And at least in US service, they would be unlikely to be exactly balanced at any given point in time.
Upon division and subsequent extended operation as independent squadrons, they will tend to their natural equivalence. Personally, given that the system "penalizes" the larger groups in terms of damaged aircraft repair, I suspect that having the groups pre-broken down, as in most of the mods, will ultimately be adopted as standard.

quote:

ORIGINAL: alfrake

A more detailed example:
6/1/42, PBEM game started with stock scen 15 before program version 1.8.
74th Heavy Sentai with 27 Helens and 27 pilots at Soerebaja flying 70% ASW. All airplanes repaired, all pilots have been around, nothing interested has happened for at least a day, probably 3+.

Click divide group. A gets 9 planes and 8 pilots. B gets 9 and 9. C gets 9 and 10.
Click rebuild. Click divide. A gets 9 planes and 10 pilots. B gets 9 and 9. C gets 9 and 8.

Repeating the divide/rebuilt gives either allocation, and both are clearly wrong. I have seen other units do it more extremely, up to perhaps 13 pilots with 9 aircraft. All units that divide wrong have a clear pattern of only certain possible outcomes. Perhaps as many as 4 possible distributions, but those distributions will consistently repeat no matter how many divide/rebuild repetitions are done (at least on the same turn). These are all with perfectly full units, I have not paid attention to non-full units. I believe the aircraft always split correctly (9-9-9).