Hey guys, I feel like I am filling the forum with piecemeal questions; however, the nature of this game is such that I don't know what I don't know until I know I don't know it--that's a mouthful.
In any case, I realized last night I had no clue about ship conversions and was making impromptu choices based on my needs at present. For example, I ended up converting half of my Clemson DDs to DEs before I had an epiphany that the Allies have very few APDs for fast transport missions.
So that made me curious if there was a good conversion guide out there that gives information about which ships can convert to what class and when, as well strategy advice on conversions.
Another thing I realized is that I can set the maximum distance for shore bombardment missions. I find I literally have no clue when it comes to optimizing these. Is there any information (or can anyone advise me) about how to best use my ability to set bombardment distances?
Then I have some other basic questions:
1. I have an over abundance of xAKs and an under abundance of xAPs. I feel like I actually use such a small percentage of my xAKs that I must be doing it wrong. Any advice?
2. Mine laying. What's the best strategy for laying mines? Is it worth laying offensive mines at all? E.g. sub mining places like Truk as the allies?
3. Ship upgrades... when a ship is pulled into the repair yard for an "auto-upgrade" is it eating capacity? If so, I really need to turn auto-upgrade off, but I see no easy way to do this on a large scale.
4. Is there anything you can do to help ships that both on fire and in port? What is acceptable FL damage for risking moving a ship? E.g. I really want to move BBs from Pearl to Seattle so that I am not wasting all of PHs repair capacity.
5. How important is recombining units? I have this OCD desire for recombining units and concentrating my forces at bases. Is this how the game is played? For example, I see no need to defend any of Malaya before JB and singapore, or the Philippines before a triangle around Clark Field, Manila and Bataan.
6. Preparedness. Is there any way to prepare units for hexes with no bases, OR does preparing troops to defend/attack a particular base also bonus them for a radius around that base?
Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
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- Revthought
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Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
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- leehunt27@bloomberg.net
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RE: Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
On shore bombardments, check your ships AA gun range. If you have ships with 4k range for AA, and you do the bombardment at 3k, you'll use up your AA rounds and then your ship could be defenseless against air attack. Also, a closer range could put you into the CD shore gun target zone.
Here are some thoughts, I'm sure others could add more or clarify further:
1. Any ships like xAK or xAP can be used to ship troops or supply or whatever. You are always needing to ship something somewhere
2. Check your pools of mines under the Intelligence (I) button and then remember mines disappear over time unless you have ACM's to tend to them. So offensive mining is shortlived, defensive mining requires ACM's long term.
3. You can click auto upgrade off for all your ships at once on the "S" screen. It cam be annoying to have a battleship come into port and start a long upgrade process when you need them back in the fray the next day.
4. I don't know for sure, but if flotation damage is above 60 I try not to move the ship away from port. Bring in AR's if its isolated from ship repair yards.
5. I think, but don't know for sure, that fully integrated units have better efficiency and less fatigue/disruption. Don't know for sure though.
6. Preparedness is very important for amphibious landings and attacks. You can't prepare for random empty jungle hexes, only named ones. No bonus radius.
Here are some thoughts, I'm sure others could add more or clarify further:
1. Any ships like xAK or xAP can be used to ship troops or supply or whatever. You are always needing to ship something somewhere
2. Check your pools of mines under the Intelligence (I) button and then remember mines disappear over time unless you have ACM's to tend to them. So offensive mining is shortlived, defensive mining requires ACM's long term.
3. You can click auto upgrade off for all your ships at once on the "S" screen. It cam be annoying to have a battleship come into port and start a long upgrade process when you need them back in the fray the next day.
4. I don't know for sure, but if flotation damage is above 60 I try not to move the ship away from port. Bring in AR's if its isolated from ship repair yards.
5. I think, but don't know for sure, that fully integrated units have better efficiency and less fatigue/disruption. Don't know for sure though.
6. Preparedness is very important for amphibious landings and attacks. You can't prepare for random empty jungle hexes, only named ones. No bonus radius.
John 21:25
RE: Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
For repair, put your BBs Pier Side to reduce their floatation to zero. Once at zero, send off to Seattle. Don't have them in shipyard, even if you have the space, you'll need it in Feb, March and April where you can upgrade DD's and CV's in Pearl instead of West Coast. Think Sara and Lex upgrade in March, they're both 30k+ tons with Pearl being 100k. Takes about 20+ days to finish the refit. Yorktown and Big E is April.
For the Pearl shipyard, save it for critical ships, CA, DDs, ARs. Especially those with high AA or ASW. I still have the AR Vestal in there and it's April '42, should be OK by end of month.
For refit, they will all be placed in the shipyard, sometimes to over-capacity. Don't know the effect of overcapacity is, so I put those lower priority on Pier side until I'm below capacity. Planning for upgrades and positioning your fleet to where they can be upgraded quickly is important.
For xAKs, initially I sent a lot to CT and SF. After depleting Aden and CT of supply, I've put a bunch of xAKs on the UK-CT run. I've seen others do the EUSA-CT or to Balboa.
For the Pearl shipyard, save it for critical ships, CA, DDs, ARs. Especially those with high AA or ASW. I still have the AR Vestal in there and it's April '42, should be OK by end of month.
For refit, they will all be placed in the shipyard, sometimes to over-capacity. Don't know the effect of overcapacity is, so I put those lower priority on Pier side until I'm below capacity. Planning for upgrades and positioning your fleet to where they can be upgraded quickly is important.
For xAKs, initially I sent a lot to CT and SF. After depleting Aden and CT of supply, I've put a bunch of xAKs on the UK-CT run. I've seen others do the EUSA-CT or to Balboa.
RE: Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
1. This is often the case for the Allies in the early war. Many of your xAKs can convert into xAPs - look for the Pacific L and Dominion L cargo classes. They are capacity 3900 and 5500 (IIRC), and will convert into xAPs with capacity 1000/1900 and 2200/2250 (again, IIRC). There are some other classes as well, but those 2 are the most numerous. Also, you can ship troops on xAKs, it just takes many more of them than it otherwise would.
2. You can lay offensive mines, sure. Subs are the best way to do that, but keep in mind that sub mines are often your largest and laying them "defensively" is valid as well.
3. You can always pull the ship out of the yard to Pier Side: even if a ship requires a certain size repair yard, once the upgrade has started it will complete it at Pier Side mode. If there is associated damage that needs to be repaired, that may be another matter.
4. Fires: not really, no. More naval support might help. Maybe. Maybe not (ships on fire can't take advantage of Pier Side mode, so maybe they don't access port resources at all - no clue). For "acceptable" damage to move a ship, that's really up to your own judgment. Keep in mind that System damage represents working systems on a ship - pumps, electricals, etc. If you have a moderate level of System damage, there is a chance your ship will not be able to keep up with flooding while it sails to its destination and sink along the way. You don't always need to get it down to 0, but 0 is better than 10 and 10 is better than 20, and so on. I often sail ships with less than 50 flooding damage with 10-20 system damage if I really need to get that ship to a yard. If it can wait until System reaches 0, then I'll wait. Commander Inspiration rating apparently affects damage control checks, as does crew experience.
5. Your method is fine. As you play more you'll cotton onto alternate ideas, if any strike your fancy. Also, bigger units last longer in combat. Smaller units get worn out more quickly.
6. In a word, no. You should read in the manual what preparation does. In essence, it does 2 things: (1) prevents you from taking high levels of disruption/disabled troops upon amphibious landing, and (2) prevents you from receiving the preparation(-) penalty on defense. There is a third thing that is much more rare, which is that if you have an HQ unit prepped for a base that you are attacking then you might receive the HQ(+) bonus in your attack if the HQ is in range. You can stack a Corps/Army HQ bonus with a Command HQ bonus. In my thousands of turns, I've only ever seen this bonus show up one time, to my knowledge.
2. You can lay offensive mines, sure. Subs are the best way to do that, but keep in mind that sub mines are often your largest and laying them "defensively" is valid as well.
3. You can always pull the ship out of the yard to Pier Side: even if a ship requires a certain size repair yard, once the upgrade has started it will complete it at Pier Side mode. If there is associated damage that needs to be repaired, that may be another matter.
4. Fires: not really, no. More naval support might help. Maybe. Maybe not (ships on fire can't take advantage of Pier Side mode, so maybe they don't access port resources at all - no clue). For "acceptable" damage to move a ship, that's really up to your own judgment. Keep in mind that System damage represents working systems on a ship - pumps, electricals, etc. If you have a moderate level of System damage, there is a chance your ship will not be able to keep up with flooding while it sails to its destination and sink along the way. You don't always need to get it down to 0, but 0 is better than 10 and 10 is better than 20, and so on. I often sail ships with less than 50 flooding damage with 10-20 system damage if I really need to get that ship to a yard. If it can wait until System reaches 0, then I'll wait. Commander Inspiration rating apparently affects damage control checks, as does crew experience.
5. Your method is fine. As you play more you'll cotton onto alternate ideas, if any strike your fancy. Also, bigger units last longer in combat. Smaller units get worn out more quickly.
6. In a word, no. You should read in the manual what preparation does. In essence, it does 2 things: (1) prevents you from taking high levels of disruption/disabled troops upon amphibious landing, and (2) prevents you from receiving the preparation(-) penalty on defense. There is a third thing that is much more rare, which is that if you have an HQ unit prepped for a base that you are attacking then you might receive the HQ(+) bonus in your attack if the HQ is in range. You can stack a Corps/Army HQ bonus with a Command HQ bonus. In my thousands of turns, I've only ever seen this bonus show up one time, to my knowledge.
RE: Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
ORIGINAL: Revthought
5. How important is recombining units? I have this OCD desire for recombining units and concentrating my forces at bases. Is this how the game is played? For example, I see no need to defend any of Malaya before JB and singapore, or the Philippines before a triangle around Clark Field, Manila and Bataan.
It depends. You may consider holding those bases which produce Resources i.e. Atimonan as long as possible so you get more resources moved to Manila for its Light Industry which produces supply. If Atimonan is left empty, it will auto-convert to Japanese who land at Legaspi without the Japs even walking into the hex. I may divide some weak PI division into A/B/C and try to cover airfield 2/Resource locations outside the Triangle so they do not auto-convert to the Japanese.
RE: Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
ORIGINAL: Revthought
Hey guys, I feel like I am filling the forum with piecemeal questions; however, the nature of this game is such that I don't know what I don't know until I know I don't know it--that's a mouthful.
In any case, I realized last night I had no clue about ship conversions and was making impromptu choices based on my needs at present. For example, I ended up converting half of my Clemson DDs to DEs before I had an epiphany that the Allies have very few APDs for fast transport missions.
This is a personal preference, and you'll need to get a feel for what's best for you. IIRC I've read that Allied players generally prefer the APD for these vessels. Understand too that I've only played as Japan as yet.
So that made me curious if there was a good conversion guide out there that gives information about which ships can convert to what class and when, as well strategy advice on conversions.
AFAIK no.
Another thing I realized is that I can set the maximum distance for shore bombardment missions. I find I literally have no clue when it comes to optimizing these. Is there any information (or can anyone advise me) about how to best use my ability to set bombardment distances?
Again IIRC there's a drop off in accuracy once you go over a certain percentage of the guns' range (2/3?). Generally I set it to 60% if I'm expecting shore defense guns. BTW don't go near Singapore or Manila as Japan you will not like the results. Putting heavy vessels against large caliber shore guns could be a sad event. I say could because its possible to reduce their efficiency with air attacks or restricting/reducing their supply. In addition you should set at least one float plane (if available) from one of the bombarding vessels to night recon with the base as the target. This is to aid in spotting. Oh, BTW bombardment missions will normally be done at night.
Then I have some other basic questions:
1. I have an over abundance of xAKs and an under abundance of xAPs. I feel like I actually use such a small percentage of my xAKs that I must be doing it wrong. Any advice?
Some of those xAP's will convert to AP's, a much more valuable ship, so watch for these and protect them. As for the xAK's, from the Japanese side at least, they can convert some of their cargo space to troop space, thus requiring fewer vessels to move ground troops. You need to have them in a port of level 6 or > and generally it takes about 5 or 6 days to complete. Don't know if this is a big deal for the Allies, but I find it helps to move troops around/from the rear areas for Japan.
2. Mine laying. What's the best strategy for laying mines? Is it worth laying offensive mines at all? E.g. sub mining places like Truk as the allies?
As usual with this game it depends. Laying offensive mines at large Japanese bases shouldn't prove too profitable in a PBEM. The reason I say this is your opponent should have the base defenses up. For instance if there's an ASW TF present you'll be in shallow water and this could very well result in the loss of a sub. Air search by good units may see you coming. I normally have at least one AMc present to clear mines. You could possible hit an opponents minefield. Against smaller forward bases that you know he'll be reinforcing you'll probably have better results. For the Allies the need for defensive mines drops off as the game progresses. Have ACM's (mine tenders) at the base, if possible, as these will preserve your mines to the tune of 150 mines/ACM. Also note mines are limited in number and only certain mines will load on certain CM/CMc's.
3. Ship upgrades... when a ship is pulled into the repair yard for an "auto-upgrade" is it eating capacity? If so, I really need to turn auto-upgrade off, but I see no easy way to do this on a large scale.
What Lokasenna said.
4. Is there anything you can do to help ships that both on fire and in port? What is acceptable FL damage for risking moving a ship? E.g. I really want to move BBs from Pearl to Seattle so that I am not wasting all of PHs repair capacity.
Ships on fire will not enter a shipyard for repair. Lots's of naval support squads will help suppress fires and Pearl has these at start. In a PBEM be careful moving damaged ships out of Pearl too soon as the Japanese have a lot of subs around the islands. I know I would love to finish off these damaged Allied tubs. In one of my AI games the AI did just this and it was fun having a trail of burning sinking BB's in a line from the HI to the west coast. I wouldn't do it again against the AI, but that time I just couldn't resist. Against a PBEM opponent, bonsai!!!!
5. How important is recombining units? I have this OCD desire for recombining units and concentrating my forces at bases. Is this how the game is played? For example, I see no need to defend any of Malaya before JB and singapore, or the Philippines before a triangle around Clark Field, Manila and Bataan.
Again it depends. If you're looking to pick up undefended/lightly bases or put a garrison in place split units are the way to go. Against a well dug in or defended hex/base they will not hold up and combined units are generally better.
6. Preparedness. Is there any way to prepare units for hexes with no bases, OR does preparing troops to defend/attack a particular base also bonus them for a radius around that base?
Prepping for a base is for that base only. As to the rest, what Lokasenna said, except I have seen the bonus more than once.
At any rate I hope some of this helps. Ciao[;)]
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Hume
In every party there is one member who by his all-too-devout pronouncement of the party principles provokes the others to apostasy. Nietzsche
Cave ab homine unius libri. Ltn Prvb
In every party there is one member who by his all-too-devout pronouncement of the party principles provokes the others to apostasy. Nietzsche
Cave ab homine unius libri. Ltn Prvb
RE: Conversion Guide Bombardment Distance (and other questions)
Hi all
A short lists of ship class that can be converted
Ship Conversions
Admirality S Class DD or DM
xAKL Wilcannia to PC, AG, Amc
Amc Wilcannia to PC, AG, xAKL
XAK Traismarine to AG
XAK Haarriman Class to AKE
Hog Island Tender Class to AKE
Domino M Cargo Class to AP
C1 Cargo Class to AP
C2 Cargo Class to AP
AM Bird Class to AVP
A short lists of ship class that can be converted
Ship Conversions
Admirality S Class DD or DM
xAKL Wilcannia to PC, AG, Amc
Amc Wilcannia to PC, AG, xAKL
XAK Traismarine to AG
XAK Haarriman Class to AKE
Hog Island Tender Class to AKE
Domino M Cargo Class to AP
C1 Cargo Class to AP
C2 Cargo Class to AP
AM Bird Class to AVP
Two types of ships, targets and submarines
Death from below
Death from below