Training question

[kip1213]

Just want to thank you guys for all the help. Bought the game Thursday and it is still overwhelming. I have watched hours of videos and I read and look at the forum and game manual daily. I have started and restarted the game many times. I know I have to play the game through to learn. Anyways, a few questions. My planes on the west coast, other than the b-26's, should be used for training purposes? When I add pilots during the training, do I add them to my main forces later in the game by hitting the add vet pilot to my frontline planes? My next question is my supplies on the west coast, do the continullay produce supplies. Should I transfer those supplies to PH, and then transfer those supplies to the far east?

[crsutton]

Actually a lot of questions.

Any unit in the rear that you are not fighting with should be training pilots. As the Allies, you constantly need to be filling your reserve pools with new pilots. You will figure out what type you need as you get into the fight. Assuming that you are patched up to the latest beta (you should be) fill an empty squadron with new pilots by selecting them from the "replacements" pool, not the reserve or veteran pool. These will be low experienced but trained pilots. Set them to 100% training at the skill you want and then check you squadrons every two weeks of play time or so. Once they are trained, (50 exp and near 70 in your skill of choice) move them all to the reserve pool and then repeat the process with new pilots. You should have 1/4 to 1/3 of your air squadrons training new pilots all the time. When you are filling out your combat units, you will then pull pilots from your reserve pool. That is where your trained pilots will be.

The West Coast is the source of your fuel and supply, you will never run out there. You will need to move it to theaters as needed. Pearl is a good place to send spare fuel and supply. In the early months you will need to send it everywhere but the South Pacific and Australia take priority.

India and the Far East will produce enough supply. You will have plenty of fuel and some supply at Abadan (off map). Move the fuel to Karachi and it will feed Indian industry that will then create supply. Move it to Columbo to store it for offensive operations. Cape Town will start to get supply and you can move that to India as well. After the Suez Canal is free of the Nazi threat, you will start to get a flood of supply at Aden as well.

Welcome to the forum.

[kip1213]

Thank you. That info helped a lot. I am starting to get the hang of the game a little. I am still on my first turn and it has taken many an hour to do.thanks again.

[Yaab]

Many hours on first turn is what you spend on TF creation in Manila.

[Malagant]

LOL I'm doing first turn for first PBEM game, I've spent about 15 hours so far to do India, Burma, Malay, DEI, China, USSR, and PI. Have a LONG way to go. I'm worried my opponent is losing patience!

As to the initial question, I'm wondering what different the Auto or Manual 'toggle' makes when selecting pilots? I seem to get the same results, but admit to being more than a little overwhelmed!

[Yaab]

Manual is you choosing pilots from the following pool: Any, Replacement and TRACOM. Also you can Request Veteran.

[crsutton]

Yes, I don't think I have ever used auto. Manual only.

[geofflambert]

As the Allied player, pilot training should absorb more of your time than everything else combined. I'm not going to go into what specialties have what priority or which planes to use. I think there are two approaches to training. One would be to train pilots from one squadron on one of the skills needed, then switching to another skill set with the entire squadron. This has the drawback that individual pilots train up at different rates, based on their intrinsic talent. So, you would switch let's say TB crews from search to naval attack w/torpedoes once enough members (according to the requirements you come up with) are at level 70 in the current skill regimen to the next required skill. The slow learners would eventually be mediocre in all skills and not ready for front line duty. The method I (mostly use, especially as the Japanese player) is to use a particular squadron to train in one skill only. Once they reach my desired skill level (say in the 60s or 70) I graduate the individuals out of the squadron and into the reserve to await an opening in another squadron teaching another required skill. This can have the disadvantage (depending on where you draw new trainees from) of having a very wide range of skill levels within the training squadron. In my experience, let's say your target skill level is 70, air crews with a skill level of say sixty will slow down their learning rate in favor of trainees at level 40 or so. That's not really a good situation either. A solution might be using a particular squadron to train to middling skill level, say 50 - 60, then putting them in reserve to await an opportunity in a squadron training to an elite level.

I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I bet there's lots of opinions out there. For my part, playing the Japanese, I use single engine TB squadrons to train only in naval attack w/torpedoes, and 2 engine TBs in a mixture of that and naval search.

[RogerJNeilson]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Actually a lot of questions.

Any unit in the rear that you are not fighting with should be training pilots. As the Allies, you constantly need to be filling your reserve pools with new pilots. You will figure out what type you need as you get into the fight. Assuming that you are patched up to the latest beta (you should be) fill an empty squadron with new pilots by selecting them from the "replacements" pool, not the reserve or veteran pool. These will be low experienced but trained pilots. Set them to 100% training at the skill you want and then check you squadrons every two weeks of play time or so. Once they are trained, (50 exp and near 70 in your skill of choice) move them all to the reserve pool and then repeat the process with new pilots. You should have 1/4 to 1/3 of your air squadrons training new pilots all the time. When you are filling out your combat units, you will then pull pilots from your reserve pool. That is where your trained pilots will be.

The West Coast is the source of your fuel and supply, you will never run out there. You will need to move it to theaters as needed. Pearl is a good place to send spare fuel and supply. In the early months you will need to send it everywhere but the South Pacific and Australia take priority.

India and the Far East will produce enough supply. You will have plenty of fuel and some supply at Abadan (off map). Move the fuel to Karachi and it will feed Indian industry that will then create supply. Move it to Columbo to store it for offensive operations. Cape Town will start to get supply and you can move that to India as well. After the Suez Canal is free of the Nazi threat, you will start to get a flood of supply at Aden as well.

Welcome to the forum.

Make certain you also set their range to zero otherwise they will take a lot of ops losses as they learn to fly out at range and forget where they are.....

Roger

[Malagant]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Manual is you choosing pilots from the following pool: Any, Replacement and TRACOM. Also you can Request Veteran.

Sorry, I'm still not getting it. Whether or not I'm in Auto or Manual I got option for pilots to come from Any, Replacement, Reserve, or TRACOM.

Only difference I see is that when Auto is on I can choose a min Exp level, but I'm not sure I'm getting the results I'd expected with that.

Do you guys typically use Choose Veteran to pick the specific Pilot you want from the selected pool, or just let the program choose the guy for you?

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: Malagant

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Manual is you choosing pilots from the following pool: Any, Replacement and TRACOM. Also you can Request Veteran.

Sorry, I'm still not getting it. Whether or not I'm in Auto or Manual I got option for pilots to come from Any, Replacement, Reserve, or TRACOM.

Only difference I see is that when Auto is on I can choose a min Exp level, but I'm not sure I'm getting the results I'd expected with that.

Do you guys typically use Choose Veteran to pick the specific Pilot you want from the selected pool, or just let the program choose the guy for you?

This guy always does unless I need to advance some raw recruits. Training is a big job and a very important factor in whether you'll be successful or not.

[geofflambert]

In case I misunderstood the question, I never, ever bring in recruits into front line units. As for the options to pick from "any", that appears to me to be certifiably insane, I've never done it even once.

[Malagant]

I'm really having a mental block with this, forgive me guys. Thanks for your patience and help, but I need to have this broken down for me.

I want to train USAAF bomber pilots. I have a nice squadron of 20 bombers sitting out of the way. (On a tangent, it needs Air Support to fix planes that break during training, and supply to replace planes lost during training...does it need an HQa nearby?)

I pick one Veteran to be the boss. He should have high Inspiration and Admin?

I then toggle the Auto/Manual thingie to Manual. I cycle thru the "From..." thingie to Replacements, and fill up the roster with nuggets fresh from flight school.

I set the squadron to Train, Ground Attack, 100%, any altitude?, and 0 Range.

I leave it alone for awhile, check on it periodically. When a pilot is done (70 in the skill I want, 50 exp), I want to get him in to the Reserve Pool. I don't see a direct way to do that...I just have the release highest or lowest experience pilot of group of 5 pilots. I can toggle a pilot to not be released, which allows some control over who is released, but super click intensive. Is there an easier way? Clicking on a specific pilot only seems to allow toggling between active or inactive in the group?

Now I've got some trained pilots from my bomber squad in the Reserve pool. I go to a 'front-line' unit that needs newly trained pilots, I toggle the "From..." thingie to Reserve, and Get New Pilot? Or Get Veteran and toggle the Show Pool to Reserve and select the pilot(s) I'd just released?

Or is it easier to just toggle the Pilots in the training Squadron to Group Reserve, then going to the 'fighting' squadron, selecting Veteran, sorting by group to find the Training squadron, and selecting the pilot from there?

Again, thanks and sorry for being dense, but I just can't seem to get my head around this!

[geofflambert]

Don't worry about a boss or veterans or any of that. Never do anything "Auto", never ever. If you put pilots in TRACOM, take them out as soon as convenient. Most say the best alt for training is 5k with a range of 0. I agree with that, reduces op losses and fatigue. Decide what your priorities are for training and apply those decisions. You will need to develop fighter pilots, of course. They only need train in escort or sweep, makes no difference as far as I can tell. Carrier TB crews need to be proficient in Naval Attack w/torpedoes, Naval attack w/bombs, Naval Search and finally ASW. That's a lot. It's the most difficult task you face. Air crews you want for ground attack (that includes port and airfield attacks) should be trained for nothing else. That's easy. You should want to develop aircrews to be good at ASW. They need not train for anything else. Carrier DB crews naturally should be trained in Naval Attack using bombs (don't waste effort training crews to be proficient in both bombs and torpedoes unless they're going to be exclusively used on TBs. Those carrier DB crews could also use naval search training and ASW training but work it in when you can. You have a need for crews trained in recon, but nothing else, that's easy. As the Allied player early on, I recommend you train crews in both ground attack and naval search; I'm talking B-17 and B-24 crews in particular. While they need to be proficient in ground attack, you need those squadrons early on to be doing naval search, and it's much more important at that time than bombing ground targets (usually), intelligence is more important than disrupting a few squads on the ground, and you will never have enough PBYs. In my view the B-26 squadrons are best for ASW, the B-25 sqs. for naval and ground attack and possibly for local naval search. I just want to emphasize that ASW is very serious business and you need to train a bunch of crews for it and set aside a number of squadrons to do that and nothing else.

[Malagant]

Thanks Geoff, maybe I wasn't clear enough, the bomber squadron was an example.

I understand what skills need to be applied to what pilots for which job, it's the actual mechanic of getting them from the training squadron in to the front line squadron that's eluding me!

[geofflambert]

Just train them, dump them into the reserve pool, and when you need them draw them. Ask for a veteran. Things get more complicated than that. As the Japanese, for instance, I use transport squadrons to give further 'general training' to recruits and almost always feed them into the fighter schools when their general experience level reaches fifty. First of all, the Japanese have a lot of transport capacity that they don't need, and even if they did the aircraft they have are inadequate. I use them to give "general training" to get that experience level up to 50, but also to get their defense skill up to a respectable number before I put them in fighter school. Otherwise their skill set tends to be a bit unbalanced. I also use float plane squadrons to train in whatever skills I need from sweep to naval attack, the exception is torpedo attack, they can't do that. What I'm saying is when drawing pilots from the reserve, you may well be drawing fighter crews from the transport reserve and etc.. You can make big boo-boos if you're not careful, like assigning a well trained fighter pilot to a bomber training squadron.

[rustysi]

any altitude?

15k is fine.

I just have the release highest or lowest experience pilot of group of 5 pilots

Don't use this its not what you think.

Clicking on a specific pilot only seems to allow toggling between active or inactive in the group?

This is what you want, but you need to take it a step further. You click on the pilot once and make him inactive. He'll be grayed out. Then click on him again and you'll have an option to make him active[:-], or put him into the reserve, and that's what you do. Then guess what you can't get him for a while because he has to transit to the reserve. It takes from one to several days before he can be reassigned. Very detailed game.

Get Veteran and toggle the Show Pool to Reserve and select the pilot(s) I'd just released?

Once the pilot gets to the reserve pool you can reassign him to a front line unit. Guess what, it'll take him from one day to about a week to get there.[:D]

Or is it easier to just toggle the Pilots in the training Squadron to Group Reserve, then going to the 'fighting' squadron, selecting Veteran, sorting by group to find the Training squadron, and selecting the pilot from there?

I don't use this method, but it should work. I think this may get the pilot there a bit sooner as you don't need him to get to the reserve first.

Hope this clears things up. If I've made any mistakes just wait a while, someone will stop by and correct me.[:)]

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

If I've made any mistakes just wait a while, someone will stop by and correct me.[:)][/b]

rustysi, you're a complete nincompoop. We'll have to wait for someone else to weigh in as to why, 'cause I have no idea.

[rustysi]

the Japanese have a lot of transport capacity that they don't need

Hey Gorn I haven't gotten very far into the game yet but my tranports are always busy. Between humpin' sumtin' here and there, or just training themselves up so I can cut my op losses. I guess maybe later in the game. Even then I still have ideas for them. The Japanese have bunches of units that are air transportable and my plans call for using these as an RDF of sorts. I just wish I had more transports for this. Guess I could use bombers to assist on a short term basis. Just MHO.[:)]

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: rustysi

If I've made any mistakes just wait a while, someone will stop by and correct me.[:)][/b]

rustysi, you're a complete nincompoop. We'll have to wait for someone else to weigh in as to why, 'cause I have no idea.

[:D]