The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[Canoerebel]

I'm at work, working industriously and efficiently...with both eyes on the inbox.

I sent the turn to John late last night. He posted a few times then. He's posted a few times this morning. But the pace doesn't suggest that anything major happened this turn.

For you, the reader, "nothing major" isn't the stuff of a Grisham novel. For me, the tired player hanging on every turn, peace and tranquility are gold.

Of course, I could be misreading John's habits. I bet I'll know soon.

In the meantime, I'll continue working industriously and efficiently.

[ny59giants]

Mental health counselor to former legal counselor - Since we both know John better than anybody else here, I do get a chuckle or two reading your attempts to be a mental health counselor. [:D] I get to talk with John usually weekly more or less, so I do have an advantage of getting more clues to what his mindset is than you.

So, please keep reading the 'tea leaves' or tossing the bones on the table to see what they say. I do need my breaks each day from dealing with dysfunctional families. [;)]

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Dirtnap86

I'm recalling something that I read about in an earlier AAR, Greyjoy against someone. In that he had an issue at the end of the AAR: A big enough strike will always get through. I think he lost something like the majority of his CVs and CVEs because the air combat algorithm just couldn't handle all the planes that were in combat (If I recall correctly it was something like 600-800 planes, per side).

I don't know if this ever got fixed or not, but I'd be cautious.

Yes, this was addressed - apparently there was an oversight in the original code causing air coordination to be too easy.

The observable result is that there are more strikes, but each is smaller, instead of a few mega-strikes.

[Canoerebel]

4/7/44

Fun House: It was a (mostly) quiet day with plenty of good news.

1. Legaspi airfield jumped from 1.12 to 2.05 in a single day. It might reach level three in three more days. The base has plenty of supply. John sent two DDs to raid the port. They tangled with BB North Carolina TF, damaging one USN DD, darn it.
2. Catanduanes auto flipped to the Allies.
3. USN strike aircraft sortied in small numbers against those two DDs, scoring no hits. That small fry stuff is frustrating but inevitable, especially in the confusion early on.
4. Allied subs sank a PB, TK and xAK, the latter carrying troops.
5. It still seems like the weight of enemy naval power is to the south, but I have no tangible information about KB.
6. Death Star and the Herd will move just a bit closer to Samar to cover LST supply deliver to Guiuan.
7. 6th US Div. arrived at Naga and will join 43rd US Div. in attacking tomorrow, supported by some tanks (with others kept in reserve to pursue). Unless an enemy division shows up tonight, this base will fall, giving me 3(3) and 3(7) facilities to complement Legaspi.

There's no doubt that this isn't going to be a blitzkrieg campaign, barring an unlikely decisive carrier victory soon. John will reinforce Luzon strongly. That's good, as long as I buy the time needed to build bases strongly. In a week or two, Allied bases - primarily Naga and Legaspi - should be strong enough to allow my ships to dock pretty securely while DS and combat ships take a more offensive role. I have some good ideas but they have to wait - say ten days - until my two main bases are much stronger.

What will John do? Like John Dillworth, I think he has to attack. But he may not. He may be content to bring a massive army to Luzon while avoiding a risky naval battle. I'll be on the defensive for a long time, but if he doesn't control the seas, eventually the initiative will swing my way.

So, once again, I am reminded to avoid giving John a shot at a major carrier battle in close proximity to his big airfields.

The Pacific: A second small amphibious op will take place tomorrow or the day after. These are small steps towards straightening various LOCs.

Burma: The Allies are working into position to flank John's MLR. Heavy bombing of his troops continues.

[Canoerebel]

P-47D25, P-38s, and P-51s can make the leap from Burma to Legaspi. F4U1-As can make the leap from Burma to Naga. That's a lot of good reserves that will start flying in tomorrow. I have more squadrons than I can use in Burma, so the short-legs will stay behind to fight the enemy while the long-legs head to the Philippines.

[paullus99]

This is certainly going to get interesting....John better get his act together quick, otherwise you're going to bury him.

I'm sure he has no idea exactly how much you've brought - You think in terms of armies, he thinks in terms of brigades.

[BillBrown]

As far as Kamis go, he can only convert one unit per day. So it will be a few days before he has enough to make a try.

[Lokasenna]

I think you need more engineers at Legaspi in order to be building both port and airfield...although the numbers get funky.

tm.asp?m=2885601

If you turn off the port building, it will go to level 3 AF in a single day from 2+5%. With the port building, it won't. A maximum of 794 engineer points can be had for an SPS 8/built to level 3 and the cost of level 2 to level 3 is 800. You're at about 40 out of 800, so you need another 760 engineer points... I'm not sure, but I think it splits in half? So half of your maximum 794


For the record, I don't really use this for planning - I just dump engineers and click build. I do it by feel. But given that Legaspi is only an SPS 1 for port, it will build that second level of port really slowly. I'd rather pump the airfield up to 4 or 5 first. You have plenty of naval support there, so don't worry about the port yet.

[Canoerebel]

I shut off port building two turns back in order to concentrate on the airfield, for the reasons you point out (though your reasons are backed by information, mine by hunches).

Did you see my post yesterday about your Fun House guesses? You hit it right on the nose, including Aparri.

Aparri is lightly held at the moment, but I'm not going there until I win a carrier battle.

[Canoerebel]

For the past five turns or so, CVE Manila Bay has been squared away in an ARD of proper tonnage.

Zero progress has been made on the three types of damage.

Why isn't my ARD doing anything?

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I shut off port building two turns back in order to concentrate on the airfield, for the reasons you point out (though your reasons are backed by information, mine by hunches).

Did you see my post yesterday about your Fun House guesses? You hit it right on the nose, including Aparri.

Aparri is lightly held at the moment, but I'm not going there until I win a carrier battle.

I did, but I wasn't gonna toot this time.

Your later hints just confused me - I thought you were still heading for Luzon-ish, but perhaps for the Panay/Palawan area instead of Luzon itself.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

For the past five turns or so, CVE Manila Bay has been squared away in an ARD of proper tonnage.

Zero progress has been made on the three types of damage.

Why isn't my ARD doing anything?

At that level of damage, it takes longer to accrue the points to repair the damage. For some reason. I'm not sure of the details behind it, it's just what I've observed.

However, you should look at the "manage ships under repair" button like you would manage a shipyard full of ships. Looking in there, you should see the progress that is made each turn in terms of repair points and percentage to next point repaired.


I forget if you had just moved the ARD there. If so, was it still repairing 1-2 points of Sys damage first?

[Canoerebel]

ARD had 1% SYS when she arrived in port, but that was "fixed" before she loaded Manila Bay.

You've been generous with your time. Thanks.

Here's a screenshot of "Manage Shipyard." This is new territory for me. I don't believe I've ever clicked that button before.

Is the United Nations investigating the human rights implications in the amount of micromanagement this game requires?

I mean: good grief! There's way too much. It would be possible to spend eight hours on an Allied turn in 1944. Easily.

[BillBrown]

Yes, it has repaired 89% of a flotation damage point so far. It sometimes takes a few days to reduce the damage.
Notice that has an estimate of 120 days to repair the flotation damage, that is about 2 days per damage point.
You will still need to find a shipyard to repair the Sys and Engine damage after the ARD does its work.
An ARD will only repair flotation damage.

[BBfanboy]

Isn't there something about ARs adding repair point to assist the ARD too? I know you have to be careful the ship is assigned to the ARD and not the AR, but if an AR can help it would be good to get one there.

[BillBrown]

I think there was a bug where you had have to have an AR with the AVD to work, but that got fixed in a patch.
I wonder if there is a short delay before the ARD actually starts working? I have never really looked at
that.

[JohnDillworth]

Is the United Nations investigating the human rights implications in the amount of micromanagement this game requires?

Game requires????? Do you really want to know who is repairing your ship and the underlying working conditions? OSHA would have a stroke. just don't ask........

[Dirtnap86]

I think there's a 1 day delay to simulate the ship being 'prepped and loaded' into an ARD. Things like the ARD being pumped out and the ship being shored up.

[MakeeLearn]

What aerial recon tactics are you conducting?

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: BillBrown

I think there was a bug where you had have to have an AR with the AVD to work, but that got fixed in a patch.
I wonder if there is a short delay before the ARD actually starts working? I have never really looked at
that.

There was a bug that was fixed in a more recent version (leading to the message CR quoted in the ops report about ARDs) that involved ARDs not really being used at all.


ARs do assist in repairs, but they can't repair all that much. They're extremely useful but limited in scope. They can repair up to 5 points of major damage, similar to a size 7 port, via the Repair Ship function. Or you can forgo assigning any ships to Repair Ship and they will instead add repair points to the port they're based at. I usually do the latter.