How exactly does Air Management work in 1.06/1.07?

[dizzy]

Forgive me, but I haven't seen it discussed in detail yet.

The major problem prior to 1.06 was the time it took managing your squadrons in times of war and peace. The only way to really deal with squadrons were to add them in war and completely disband them in times of peace, otherwise you'd bankrupt yourself in short order. That let to another problem. The UI only allowed you to disband squadrons ONE at a time. With literally hundreds of squadrons, I timed it once taking me 14 minutes. That's incredibly ridiculous. So many, many great ideas were floated on the suggestions forum to fix these problems. What came of all those ideas?

If I'm reading the 1.06 patch notes correctly, we will always pay 30% for all the squadrons at bases? 30% is still too much to pay the way maintenance works. If I can disband them, why not do that and not pay 30% for years on end when not in war? Is there a way to do this en-masse so I don't spend 14 minutes disbanding every single squadron? Also, does the UI allow for multiple bases to be selected to put into reserve at once or is it one base per reserve order? 

If someone with experience would please explain how the changes have made the game better and easier to manage squadrons, I'd really love the response as the game notes say a new save is recommended. Thank you! 

[dorn]

I think it is more cost. You need to compare costs of 1.05 version to 1.06 reserve.
It is 70 %, so 30 % discount but with a costs - lower experience. But this is bugged, so we can try it in next version 1.07.
There is another thing, simple production system. This excellent and it will help a lot.


My opinion is (I have not play 1.06 yet), these changes will certainly help the system but it will be not enough because of several other issues in system that need to be balanced.

As I will finish my actual playthrough I will report it with some feedback but I need about one month.
Right now it seems that AI cannot balance Naval and Air power well. And whole system is based on Naval power and Air power is only support. So having hundreds of aircrafts in some area cost a lot of money but if your Navy AND enemy navy have not large fleet in that area they (aircrafts) are useless. It happens quite often in my playthrough.
There are other things but I want to summarize with screenshots, saves to show clearly what needs to be addressed to improve RTW2 and think about to give some ideas.

[dizzy]

I did a test, played Japan up to about 1923. Built a number of airbases and had 3 CVL's.

I really do not like most of the changes. Here's my thoughts:

1 - I had to literally fight the UI to change the number of aircraft in a squadron. For some reason it doesn't like to work right. Sometimes after making a squadron smaller, it won't let me add aircraft to a different squadron on the same airbase and make it bigger. Pretty buggy.

2 - Putting bases on Reserve doesn't immediately alleviate the cost of squadrons when needing to cycle from war to peace. I'm back to disbanding squadrons one by one. NO! FIX THIS! IT TAKES TOO MUCH TIME! There needs to be a better easier way to disband multiple squadrons. This has already been suggested to you. The 'Move all to reserve' feature I think is new. Why not a 'Disband All' feature for airbases so I can immediately stop paying for aircraft? That's how budgets work in the game. One month you're at a wartime budget, the next it's drastically reduced. There's no in between. I dont have time to pay for the months it takes to let an airbase slowly dwindle in size and cost (which is what is happening in 1.06) when you switch from Active to Reserve. I observed my airbase change squadron size by one aircraft in each squadron, then the next month they lost a couple more each and then the following month a few more... This is ridiculous. Someone please explain why this feature is in the game? What purpose than to annoy me does it have? This is just a **** poor implementation of a mechanic that does not address the problems with squadrons. Who's idea was this? As far as I can remember reading the suggestions on Air Management, this wasn't any idea anyone asked for. If I want to reduce my cost of squadron maintenance, I'm going to immediately stop paying for the entire squadron just like I scrap a ship. I see no reason to set an airbase on Reserve when I can just disband the squadrons to save budget. And oh man, are squadrons expensive in maintenance!

Look, RTW2 Devs, the WHOLE ENTIRE POINT of Air Group Management with 'Reserves' should have been to FIX the 14 Minutes of time it was taking to disband hundreds of squadrons after a war when you're at peace. But you BLEW it. We now have to place each base on Reserve, which will still take a few minutes just to do that. Then months go by letting squadrons dwindle in size all the while you're paying for squadrons you won't be using. Maybe if tension levels didn't drop universally across the board to GREEN this might be okay. But that's not how the game works. As it is, I'm still going to be forced to go with disbanding squadrons, and you've NOT fixed the time it takes to do this.

3 - I do like the time it takes to replenish or add aircraft to a squadron. That's refreshing and a nice touch. I hope that certain factors like population, national industrial strength, number of ports, economy size, etc., all contribute to the number of aircraft that are able to be produced per month. I mean, Japan shouldn't have the same monthly production ability to replace aircraft losses as the USA, for example.

Conclusion: Playing RTW2 has been a labor of love. Aircraft Carriers are some of the best fun in this game I've ever had in a naval sim. But managing the airgroups in RTW2 is like grooming your girlfriends dog. No one wants to do it. Please, setup an Airgroup Management that makes sense that doesnt take me 14 minutes to manage the costs when switching from war to peace and back again. As it is, I can't play this game anymore because the time it takes to manage airgroups. It just sucks too much of my time and fun. Please... fix this.