I know the sun is setting Jimmy, but we need one more sortie

[dizzy]

So how many of you send your pilots and planes on one more mission despite knowing they will land after nightfall? Who cares! It's not like the game doesnt instantly replace your losses. Seems like you get new pilots and plane replacements instantly. Is that how you all perceive it? I'd like that to change. I'd like to know how carrier losses replenish themselves and see if we can have a system that makes sense and that's not instant. How does it all work? Seems instant to me and Squadron Experience doesnt seem to change with air losses and they should.

[mycophobia]

To be honest, I never care about sending planes out before night as long as I don't expect battles to continue into the next morning. I will hold off planes for games that started late afternoon or twilight since I want them available in good strength if needed the next day. But if this is the closing stage of a battle, I send them out anyway regardless of possible loss. For the exact reason you mentioned, aircraft loss aren't really felt based on my experience. Preserving aircraft only felt important to me within the scope of the tactical battle.

[wolfe]

I'm actually always very conservative with late evening launches, since you never know if the battle is going to last through the night (and by the late game, my non-carriers tend to be optimized for night battles, and I'll probably be in contact throughout the night) and I want to have aircraft available for the next day.

[akosjaccik]

Yes, we are I believe at about the same issue as with the "oh, come on!"-land based air. I recall folks talking about the importance of limited ordnance aboard the carriers and their impact on sending out strikes - well, not only that, but the planes don't feel like important resources either. As such, when I started playing the game, I sat on the edge of the seat, lamenting on the best time to spot and launch, using the optimal composition, assigning escort, using coordinated strike.

Now, however? Use full spot value for strike planes the moment I reasonably can, don't care about coordinated strike, don't care about daytime, win, rinse and repeat. So, to answer the question - I am not fazed by nighttime landing ops (anymore); even if the remaining battle time plus the daytime indicators tell that I'll likely have some time next day morning to actually launch a follow-up attack (which is not horribly common in my battles).

Frankly at this point I'd say that I'd love that plus micromanagement of having to buy aircraft in specific numbers and assigning those to squadrons after their development are done similar to actual ships. For game-balance purposes, I wouldn't even mind if building 20 torpedo planes would take 4 bloody months (let's say, the Army needs stuff as well plus factories are getting bombed back to the stone age), if suddenly I have to think about paying actual reserve aircraft numbers, or actually take care of my air wings in wartime. Other interesting idea would be not bothering with this and keeping the current system fully intact, but instead slowing down the replenishment rate, so I run into very real risks in case I squander my aircraft that next month my carrier will arrive into battle half-depleted. Currently maybe reliability can mess with the numbers, but that's about it.

[wknehring]

It depends on the battle progress:

If I need cover during a retreat or a final killing blow against some retreating capital ships, while my capital ships are medium or heavy damaged or the enemy carrier force is detected, I force my pilots to sacrifice themselves

In general it depends on the possible results I can gain from this attack.

[jorgencab]

I don't do it for role-play reasons... I care about my digital soldiers and sailors... don't you?!? WHERE ARE YOUR EMPATHY!!!

One of the most omportant resource in WW2 was pilots, especially SKILLED pilots. No one would be so foolish to send out pilots knowing full well they would not come back unless it was absolutely necessary evil to do so. Neither was air plane replenishment instant or free in any way. Planes had to be transported and this was a delicate process since planes took up allot of space and was rather fragile piece of equipment. One of the more important duties of a carrier was actually to transport planes to remote places. During these missions they could not really be used for air operations (or at least limited ones) since their hangars and deck was fully covered in planes.

[jorgencab]

Jun 13, 2019 0:39:08 GMT -6 akosjaccik said:

Yes, we are I believe at about the same issue as with the "oh, come on!"-land based air. I recall folks talking about the importance of limited ordnance aboard the carriers and their impact on sending out strikes - well, not only that, but the planes don't feel like important resources either. As such, when I started playing the game, I sat on the edge of the seat, lamenting on the best time to spot and launch, using the optimal composition, assigning escort, using coordinated strike.

Now, however? Use full spot value for strike planes the moment I reasonably can, don't care about coordinated strike, don't care about daytime, win, rinse and repeat. So, to answer the question - I am not fazed by nighttime landing ops (anymore); even if the remaining battle time plus the daytime indicators tell that I'll likely have some time next day morning to actually launch a follow-up attack (which is not horribly common in my battles).

Frankly at this point I'd say that I'd love that plus micromanagement of having to buy aircraft in specific numbers and assigning those to squadrons after their development are done similar to actual ships. For game-balance purposes, I wouldn't even mind if building 20 torpedo planes would take 4 bloody months (let's say, the Army needs stuff as well plus factories are getting bombed back to the stone age), if suddenly I have to think about paying actual reserve aircraft numbers, or actually take care of my air wings in wartime. Other interesting idea would be not bothering with this and keeping the current system fully intact, but instead slowing down the replenishment rate, so I run into very real risks in case I squander my aircraft that next month my carrier will arrive into battle half-depleted. Currently maybe reliability can mess with the numbers, but that's about it.

 One thing I find a bit strange is that ship track ammunition for their guns but not aviation fuel and ammunition which are equally important. These were in rather limited supply and when we build carriers we should be able to choose how much storage we want for air operations as well as for the planes themselves. Torpedoes for example was often of rather limited supply where lighter bombs for dive bombers and torpedo bombers to use were more plentiful. This would mean you would need to carefully plan your attacks and what type of load to use and what type of air planes to use. You would not have an infinite number of light, medium and heavy bombs either. Fuel for the planes is not infinite either.

[pcasey]

I must confess, I totally ignore the warnings about landing at dusk/night and happily send my planes out.

Planes are a disposable resource, like ammunition.

The auto replenish after the battle, battles rarely last into the next morning, and can do a lot of damage in a sortie, so why *wouldn't* I send them out?

Frankly in most scenarios I would still send them out on an evening sorties of death upon landing was 100% certain.

They'd do some amount of damage to the enemy, the squadron would replenish anyway, and the battle would be over before morning.

[gimlet]

"Just swim for California Jimmy, it's over that way. You can't miss it!"

[dizzy]

Jun 13, 2019 9:22:25 GMT -6 pcasey said:

Frankly in most scenarios I would still send them out on an evening sorties of death upon landing was 100% certain.

They'd do some amount of damage to the enemy, the squadron would replenish anyway, and the battle would be over before morning.

I think most of us would agree that this is the current thinking with how instant, no penalty replenishment works. But would you still do it knowing that your Squadron Experience would go down, and that planes wouldn't replenish 100% unless you had enough in reserve to replace them, so you'd likely be short planes for the next month or two? Air crews tasked with night flying that lack that gear probably would lose confidence in their air commander and morale would tank. This, at least, should be represented somehow. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that air losses do come out of Reserve Aircraft, but I dont think it's working correctly. In one mission I lost around 500 aircraft and the next month or so later all my carriers were at 100%. Doesn't seem right. And carriers should have priority over land based replenishment. 

I'd like to see the game change so squadron crews are given some thought instead of being treated as ammo. It would certainly add tension to making a decision to send Jimmy out on one more sortie as the sun is setting... Well maybe not, I never liked Jimmy anyway.

williammiller, jwsmith26, garrisonchisholm, Fredrik W 

[klavohunter]

A lack of skilled pilots was one of the defining failures of the IJN that kept their carriers out of action at various points. Currently, this is not an important factor in the game.

[dizzy]

There's doctrine mechanic for that, but yes, it doesnt go far enough.

[klavohunter]

Jun 13, 2019 11:43:38 GMT -6 dizzy said:

There's doctrine mechanic for that, but yes, it doesnt go far enough.

Right now it seems to just be a "Make pilots gooder for xtra $$$" button.

[pcasey]

Jun 13, 2019 11:49:13 GMT -6 klavohunter said:

Jun 13, 2019 11:43:38 GMT -6 dizzy said:

There's doctrine mechanic for that, but yes, it doesnt go far enough.

Right now it seems to just be a "Make pilots gooder for xtra $$$" button.

I'm just not sure how much pilot quality matters ... it doesn't *seem* to matter very much, but its a really messy sample set so I'm not sure if my observations are correct.

[garrisonchisholm]

Jun 13, 2019 11:08:13 GMT -6 dizzy said:

Jun 13, 2019 9:22:25 GMT -6 pcasey said:

Frankly in most scenarios I would still send them out on an evening sorties of death upon landing was 100% certain.

They'd do some amount of damage to the enemy, the squadron would replenish anyway, and the battle would be over before morning.

I think most of us would agree that this is the current thinking with how instant, no penalty replenishment works. But would you still do it knowing that your Squadron Experience would go down, and that planes wouldn't replenish 100% unless you had enough in reserve to replace them, so you'd likely be short planes for the next month or two? Air crews tasked with night flying that lack that gear probably would lose confidence in their air commander and morale would tank. This, at least, should be represented somehow. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that air losses do come out of Reserve Aircraft, but I dont think it's working correctly. In one mission I lost around 500 aircraft and the next month or so later all my carriers were at 100%. Doesn't seem right. And carriers should have priority over land based replenishment. 

I'd like to see the game change so squadron crews are given some thought instead of being treated as ammo. It would certainly add tension to making a decision to send Jimmy out on one more sortie as the sun is setting... Well maybe not, I never liked Jimmy anyway.

williammiller , jwsmith26 , garrisonchisholm , Fredrik W  

We did discuss this early in Beta, as it was easy to see that planes & pilots need not really be valued as "assets", and at the time (as I recall) we learned that to change the mechanic, or more closely add one, would back up to quite a lot of programming time that Fredrik was loathe to spend given the many other priorities.

For now, suffice to see we are all aware of the matter, and I think we would all like to see something better represented, though for my part I am not in a position to promise or guarantee anything at all.