Navy insists on touring South Pacific?

[DeMatt]

Can anyone tell me why, when moving ships between Southeast Asia and North American West Coast, they insist on moving via South Pacific?  It's the same number of map moves via Central Pacific, USA has bases in Central Pacific, the great-circle route between San Diego and Manila actually passes NORTH of Hawaii...

And yet they head for Fiji first.  Whyyyyy?

[Enderminion]

Same thing happens going to SEA from North American East Coast, they go through Northern Europe and past India even though it's the same number of moves to go through Panama l and the US actually has bases there.

[aeson]

I believe it has to do with the order in which sea zones are listed as adjacent in MapData.dat in the Data directory - when two paths have the same cost, it appears to choose the one that goes through the first-listed adjacent area when leaving each sea zone. The North American West Coast's (NAWC) adjacent areas are Northern Pacific, South American West Coast, The Caribbean, South Pacific, Central Pacific, in that order. Swapping South and Central Pacific causes ships to path through the Central Pacific instead of the South Pacific when going from the NAWC to Southeast Asia while swapping the Northern and Central Pacific causes ships to path through the Central Pacific instead of the Northern when heading to Northeast Asia and the Central Pacific instead of the South Pacific en route to Southeast Asia.

[JagdFlanker]

would be interesting to have the option of choosing which seazones each FS ship patrols - maybe have a set of ships patrolling the Caribbean, another set patrolling east Africa/Indian ocean, another in SE Asia, etc

it would prevent the 'wild wandering' of ships on FS patrolling colonies on opposite sides of the world

[wknehring]

Thank´s guys. And I thought I am narrow-minded. In my current game it sucks as hell, when you fight with the US Navy against the Brits, moving a small squad (1BC, 1 CVL, 2 CL, 6 DDs) from the Carribean (Panama has opened already) to SEA and at Southern Africa a British squad of 4 BCs waits to intercept them.

[aeson]

Apr 12, 2020 12:29:00 GMT -6 wknehring said:

Thank´s guys. And I thought I am narrow-minded. In my current game it sucks as hell, when you fight with the US Navy against the Brits, moving a small squad (1BC, 1 CVL, 2 CL, 6 DDs) from the Carribean (Panama has opened already) to SEA and at Southern Africa a British squad of 4 BCs waits to intercept them.

If the Panama Canal is open to your ships, ships leaving the Caribbean to go to Southeast Asia should not go around Africa - Caribbean => NAWC => South Pacific => SEA is a shorter path than Caribbean => West Africa => Southern Africa => Indian Ocean => SEA. I would also expect that ships leaving the North American East Coast for SEA would go via Panama if the Suez Canal is closed to them since NAEC => Caribbean => NAWC => South Pacific => SEA is a shorter path than NAEC => Northern Europe => West Africa => Southern Africa => Indian Ocean => SEA. Are you certain that the Panama Canal is open and that your ships were ordered to SEA?

[Fredrik W]

Apr 12, 2020 8:51:33 GMT -6 aeson said:

I believe it has to do with the order in which sea zones are listed as adjacent in MapData.dat in the Data directory - when two paths have the same cost, it appears to choose the one that goes through the first-listed adjacent area when leaving each sea zone. The North American West Coast's (NAWC) adjacent areas are Northern Pacific, South American West Coast, The Caribbean, South Pacific, Central Pacific, in that order. Swapping South and Central Pacific causes ships to path through the Central Pacific instead of the South Pacific when going from the NAWC to Southeast Asia while swapping the Northern and Central Pacific causes ships to path through the Central Pacific instead of the Northern when heading to Northeast Asia and the Central Pacific instead of the South Pacific en route to Southeast Asia.

This is correct. If you want more control over the route your ships take, you can always order them to an intermediate destination first.

[wknehring]

Apr 12, 2020 12:42:20 GMT -6 aeson said:

Apr 12, 2020 12:29:00 GMT -6 wknehring said:

Thank´s guys. And I thought I am narrow-minded. In my current game it sucks as hell, when you fight with the US Navy against the Brits, moving a small squad (1BC, 1 CVL, 2 CL, 6 DDs) from the Carribean (Panama has opened already) to SEA and at Southern Africa a British squad of 4 BCs waits to intercept them.

If the Panama Canal is open to your ships, ships leaving the Caribbean to go to Southeast Asia should not go around Africa - Caribbean => NAWC => South Pacific => SEA is a shorter path than Caribbean => West Africa => Southern Africa => Indian Ocean => SEA. I would also expect that ships leaving the North American East Coast for SEA would go via Panama if the Suez Canal is closed to them since NAEC => Caribbean => NAWC => South Pacific => SEA is a shorter path than NAEC => Northern Europe => West Africa => Southern Africa => Indian Ocean => SEA. Are you certain that the Panama Canal is open and that your ships were ordered to SEA?

But they did (I had the pop up "The Panama Canal opens" a year or so earlier, during peace time). You give the moving order, count your areas and think the shortest way via the Panama Canal should fit and they are save (especially there are my own posession underway to supply my ships). And than you have an "unexpected battle" in Southwest Africa. To be honest I didn´t follow this force in the first month, so I could have stopped the move at Western Africa. In the end, I quitted the game via task manager and reloaded- luckily I forgot to save before the whole movement action.

Another thing I noticed was a move from Northamerican Westcoast to Southeast Asia. I have strong bases at Pearl Habour and at Alaska. They move around the Southern Pazific without supplies and taking the risk to be intercepted by British Forces there.

These are these points I mentioned somewhere else, where you start losing against the Brits and you can´t do anything against it (imagine you lose your mobile BC+CVL squad and you are no longer capable to deal with enemy BCs- now your CA and CL get murdered). But to be fair- I haven´t got the point how to stop a movement properly so far. I normally try about a few minutes until my ships stop and that´s why I let them do their sightseeing tour through foreign posessions, once there are no enemy capital ships in range. But there is still the risk of engine breakdowns underway.

[aeson]

Apr 13, 2020 2:56:31 GMT -6 wknehring said:

But they did (I had the pop up "The Panama Canal opens" a year or so earlier, during peace time). You give the moving order, count your areas and think the shortest way via the Panama Canal should fit and they are save (especially there are my own posession underway to supply my ships). And than you have an "unexpected battle" in Southwest Africa. To be honest I didn´t follow this force in the first month, so I could have stopped the move at Western Africa. In the end, I quitted the game via task manager and reloaded- luckily I forgot to save before the whole movement action.

When I order AF ships to go from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia after the Panama Canal is open, they go from the Caribbean to the West Coast, without exception. If the Panama Canal was in fact open to your ships at this time, then my assumption for why your ships ended up off Africa when ordered to go from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia is that you accidentally ordered them to go to the Indian Ocean instead of Southeast Asia.

[Fredrik W]

I could adjust pathfinding so that ships prefer the path with most friendly base capacity.

[DrunkSailor]

Apr 13, 2020 9:34:46 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

I could adjust pathfinding so that ships prefer the path with most friendly base capacity.

Please do so