Exp Levels

[DOCUP]

First Question:
Are national experience levels hard coded or are they in the editor some where?

Second Question:
Why was the FM 1 and 2 Wildcats built after the Hellcat was in production? The Hellcats could of been on the CVEs also.

Thanks

[Alfred]

1.  Both.
 
Don't know exactly what you have in mind but essentially there are "experience" tables which vary by year.  Generally speaking, where the experience box (such as for a ship, or a pilot) has "0" entered, a value based on the internal table + a random, is assigned.  Alternatively you can write in a number between 1 and 99 in the experience box and that excludes the hard coded number.
 
2.  They were both cheaper, lighter and smaller.
 
The game engine way overpowers Allied CVE capabilities.  For example, there is no taking of account the deck length of carriers.  So unlike the abstracted airfield size limits for HB and MB, there is nothing abstracted for carrier deck operations.  It allows players, primarily Allied players, to replace their carrier aircraft with better planes which just was not possible in real life.
 
Alfred   

[wdolson]

The green pilot experience levels are in the scenario files and can be set year by year.

The F6F was really not well suited to most CVEs. The larger CVEs built on tanker hulls were large enough to accommodate F6F, but the air group would have to be smaller using F6F on CVEs. In a lot of cases the US decided that something in production was "good enough" and decided not to take the hit to switch production to something new. Lockheed came up with a design to utilize Packard Merlins in place of the Alison which would have dramatically improved performance (reducing weight by 1000 pounds or more), but it was determined the P-38 was good enough as it was and they didn't want to take the hit.

The GM built Wildcats were good enough for the job they were doing. in the Atlantic, they were only used to intercept long range patrol bombers and in the Pacific they were only encountering poorly trained Japanese pilots by the time the CVEs were used to cover invasions. Additionally USN doctrine was to degrade land based air as dramatically as possible before any invasion and use the fast carriers to screen the landing forces and the CVEs. The job of the CVE fighters was to deal with a handful of Japanese planes that got through the fleet carrier's fighters or deal with an occasional long range interloper.

It wasn't a problem before Leyte. Only one was lost in the Pacific before Leyte. The kamikazes as well as getting closer to the home islands made the threats more serious. The fleet carrier air groups almost doubled the fighters on board.

Bill

[DOCUP]

Alfred and Bill: Thank you both for answering my questions.