1.07 Air Group Management - Changes Needed ASAP!

[dizzy]

Fredrik W

1.07 has some welcome advances and great new features, but still falls far short of being playable. What do I mean by playable? I mean, I wouldn't want to play RTW2 until it gets patched with an Air Group Management addition that addresses the soul sucking and time consuming chore of disbanding your squadrons. And there's a bug I found.

I'm sure you all know when you are at war, your budget is increased compared to when at peace. Also, if you're in the thirties or later, you probably have a lot of airbases and aircraft. But what do you do with all those aircraft when war changes to peace and your budget bottoms out? Under finances, the Naval Aircraft expenditures are outrageously expensive and unaffordable and you should reduce those expenditures.

In 1.07, you have two choices to reduce aircraft expenditures. You can now multi-select your airbases, which is new to 1.07 and a welcome change, and either put the bases on Active, or Reserve. Putting them in Reserve, the 1st of your two choices to reduce aircraft expenditure, reduces the number of aircraft on each base by a few per month until they reach around 65% of the base's Authorized Air Strength while reducing squadrons aircrew experience and cuts your Naval Aircraft expenditures by half. Results may vary. It does this over time, around 3-4 months. 

The second choice is to disband your squadrons. This is the only effective cost cutting method to assure that you are able to significantly reduce your Naval Aircraft expenditures in a timely manner after your budget gets axed during peace. Like scrapping a ship you don't need anymore, getting rid of squadrons helps get rid of your excessive budget problems. 

So there are your two choices. So what's the problem so far? Well, none if you want to pay half the upkeep for reserve squadrons and you don't mind the 3-4 months it takes to reduce costs. When you only have a handful of airbases, perhaps you can afford to do so. But if you have a lot of airbases and carriers, like I did in my Spanish campaign of 1949, Having 58 airbases and carriers, 2,597 single engine aircraft, 641 multi engine aircraft, reducing your Naval Aircraft expenditure by half is still unaffordable. Half of 28,468 is a third of my entire naval ship maintenance. But if you want to disband squadrons, you'll need to do it ONE SQUADRON AT A TIME and therein lies the problem. It takes a looooooong time to disband your squadrons! I timed it once and it took 14 minutes, constant clicking, no breaks, just to disband all my unnecessary squadrons and that was from a campaign with fewer squadrons than I normally run.

Here's how the disband process works, for the uninitiated. Open Air group Management. Click 'All' in the left hand window. Right-Click on a Squadron on the right hand pane, and select Disband. Confirm 'Yes' that you want to disband that squadron. Now repeat this for all 250+ squadrons you have, taking some time to make sure you're not disbanding the wrong aircraft from an airbase you intend to keep. It can take 15 minutes. That's crazy. Now imagine doing this EACH TIME you go from war to peace. It's insane, and it's unplayable.

So how do you fix this? Simple. There's two good ways to do it. Allow for multiple airbases to be selected in the left hand pane. Allow an option when Right Clicking those selected to Disband which would get rid of all aircraft based on those selected airbases. Second, when displaying 'All' aircraft, allow multiple squadrons to be selected and Right Clicking would allow us to Disband. 

Lastly, the bug I found was when reducing the number of Authorized Air Strength in a squadron and seeing the wrong number when an airbase went on Reserve and reduced aircraft. Or maybe it was when I reduced the number of aircraft in a squadron and the Authorized Air Strength didn't update. One of those...

[mycophobia]

I think multi-disband should definately be included if multi-reserve is included.

What I do think needs changing is that disbanding airgroup should not be the automatically superior method to cut cost. A nation doesn’t simply abolish its naval aviation branch right after a war, and then immediately conjure one out of nothing in a relative short time.

Multi-disaband is going to save everyone time and should still be included, but if reserving airforce brings little benefit compared to disband, I feel that just incentivize player to “game the systems kinda like the refit for exp exploit Fixed in 1.06.

I haven’t had much experience with air wing experience and replenishment post 1.06, but I think if you disaband multiple airwing and then recreate a ton of them when war comes, most should taken a considerable amount to train and fill up. The more air wings being in need of replenishment, the slower the replenishment/training of each individual air wing should be. Further, replenishing airwing can cost sightly more funding as well.

This way, player are incentivized to maintain a standing force of airwings+ peacetime reserve, but in a reasonable amount to balance the economy. Thus the prudent choice is to maintain a balanced sized airforce rather than a huge amount of airbase spamming just because you can. Disband is still an option if certain wing became less relevant, but should not be the economical option if the wing maybe needed in the foreseeable future .( at least disbanding the entire airforce and then recreating them at war should not be more economical than reserving them/disband some. hence my suggestion to make filling up aircraft costing some funding or otherwise be slowed down proportional to planes needed to fill each squadron)

[dorn]

Issue is that planes are costly and airbase are limited to exact operational area in strategic area.
If enemy has not so many ships in that area Naval aviation is sunk costs.

I am now playing small fleet size trying having no planes in airbases, during peace time have ready only one carrier with 100 planes. I have with USA as France the largest fleet, but have minimum airplanes compare to others.
I totally dominate as others are spending funds to air planes which are not used as they have no ships to support.

So it does not work strategilly as AI is unable to use Navy and Naval aviation together well. It is not so visible with very large fleet budget, but with small fleet system can be seen completely.

I am in 1949, so 6 years to finish. I will give full report after that.


No matter of that multiple selection of squadron is mandatory, but it saves player time, but it will not correct system itself.

[dizzy]

Aug 6, 2019 0:46:10 GMT -6 dorn said:

No matter of that multiple selection of squadron is mandatory, but it saves player time, but it will not correct system itself.

I agree that there are other issues with Air Group Management. Being able to setup templates would be great and save time. But yes, at the minimum, if we are to enjoy this game, we can't be spending 15 minutes simply disbanding squadrons because the interface sucks. So that needs to be patched ASAP.

[umbaretz]

Maybe, multi-mothball airwings option can also be present, in addition to multi-reserve.
I don't remember, though, how airwings work as of now - start at full strength or gradually being filled with planes?

[dizzy]

Aug 6, 2019 2:13:37 GMT -6 umbaretz said:

Maybe, multi-mothball airwings option can also be present, in addition to multi-reserve.
I don't remember, though, how airwings work as of now - start at full strength or gradually being filled with planes?

They gradually fill up to maximum strength. It takes months. The more airbases you have, the longer it takes. Edit: Just want to say I like this feature a lot.

[brucesim2003]

I think radically downsizing after a major war is ok. It's what happened after both world war's, and was a major reason why the U.S. military had such a poor performance in the early stages of Korea. You don't go from a peace time military to full war efficiency in a month or two.

Sure, the Washington treaty was the cause of major naval cuts in the early 20's; but in all honesty, the various powers would have had the cuts forced on them anyway, because their economies couldn't support continued spending. WW1 turned the UK from a lender to a borrower. WW2 bankrupted her.

[cv10]

Aug 6, 2019 7:56:10 GMT -6 brucesim2003 said:

Sure, the Washington treaty was the cause of major naval cuts in the early 20's; but in all honesty, the various powers would have had the cuts forced on them anyway, because their economies couldn't support continued spending. WW1 turned the UK from a lender to a borrower. WW2 bankrupted her.

+1: capital ships aside, the  congressional appropriations tended to be more limiting to the size of the USN, rather than the tonnage restrictions. The US Navy spent the 1920s and a large chunk of the 1930s trying to get Congress to provide the money needed to build the fleet up to its treaty limits.

[garrisonchisholm]

dizzy

First of all good morning. Now I do not want to contest the core of your argument, and we may soon be at liberty to say more, however I do wish to contest your assertion that the game is "unplayable". It is not my intent to provoke an argument or cause a stir, but I do want to lay out that the game is in fact Entirely playable.

To wit, I have played - I guarantee- more RTW2 with air components than anyone, as simply by virtue of my set of assets and flaws I play fast and often. I have indeed many times come up against a budget crunch post-war, and a couple times I was quite worried (once I was nearly sacked), but every time I was able to correct it without downsizing my squadrons at all, or even placing them in reserve. It is entirely possible to play without the touching of squadrons individually.

Does this leave me with an ideal navy? Hardly, and it could be a couple years before first-line ships are out of mothballs and even into reserve, but I have found the game eminently and repeatedly playable.

The issue with the micromanaging needed to accomplish the procedure you desired is fully acknowledged, even in some cases shared, but I should not say more without William's blessing. We continue to highlight and discuss how to address whatever imperfections the game has, and are fully vested in making it a satisfactory experience for multiple play-styles.

[williammiller]

We have very recently had internal discussions about ways to speed up/make it easier for the player to perform air-squadron-related tasks, so this is something we are looking at. Thanks.

[dorn]

Aug 6, 2019 10:22:04 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

dizzy

 It is entirely possible to play without the touching of squadrons individually.

I completely agree with you but I will highlight one thing.

It is not only what is possible but what is best solution (certainly there can be more ways).

If one of best solution is disband substantional number of squadrons and build them before war from scratch the game and AI need to work with it. And in actual game it is. In history, it was.

I can see issue that AI cannot handle decision process of numbers of squadron related to strength of fleet. You can try it yourself playing small and very large fleet games.

History:

If nation does not have surface fleet capable of fighting it has still reason to have naval aviation.

Game:

If nation does not have surface fleet capable of fighting it has no reason to have naval aviation.

As you can see there is big difference. In game AI is "thinking" as it is history, player can easily evaluate game and adapt. At the end AI is completely ineffective compare to player.

In very large fleet game, it is not easily visible but still here. In small fleet game it is really big issue. I will not write game is unplayable, but part of game - "war" is boring as there are almost no battles. Another issue is geography as naval avaition in game is directly linked to naval battles as opposed to history.

Solution:

1. making naval aviation more important and do some damage / sinking similar to submarine warfare. But this is difficult as it completely depends on strategical situation. Eg. Italy vs. UK in the Mediterranean as in WW2 or Russia vs. UK where naval aviation do not have range if UK do not sail to Baltic.

2. AI needs evaluate how many airbases and airplanes is needed with linked to budget, how many ships etc.

Real example of current game. Year 1949 and situation of AI - Italy

fleet: 1 DD, 1KE, 22 submarines

Naval aviation: 420 planes, 16 airships

note: Last war with Italy was ended in 1921!, 28 years ago with Italy loosing only 2 capital ships and 2 destroyers. And as you can see Italy AI is completely not competent as 420 planes are useless. This is war time budget which it is better and still 420 planes and 16 airships costs about 43 M per year, probably more as some planes are multi-engines. Italy budget per year is 78M per year. So even in war Italy is spending 55% (44% if it is not full costs as Italy is not in war) of their budget only for airplanes, not mentioned airbases. Certainly AI is doing very wrong.

I will give you more details as I finish game to work with but you can try small fleet size. There are several issue with strategic AI relating to air power and it seems there are some issues with battle generator too. If you choose small fleet size, a lot of issues are much easily visible than in very large fleet setting.

EDIT: corrected calculation

For comparision this is situation in 1946 in peace.

Italy yearly budget: 53M

Italy naval aviation costs: 33M (400 planes, 16 airships), probably even more

Naval airbases (13): 4M (probably even more as it means almost all airbases is only for 20 planes)

So Italy was spending at least 70 % of budget for useles naval aviation in peace.

[dizzy]

Aug 6, 2019 10:22:04 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

dizzy

First of all good morning. Now I do not want to contest the core of your argument, and we may soon be at liberty to say more, however I do wish to contest your assertion that the game is "unplayable". It is not my intent to provoke an argument or cause a stir, but I do want to lay out that the game is in fact Entirely playable.

To wit, I have played - I guarantee- more RTW2 with air components than anyone, as simply by virtue of my set of assets and flaws I play fast and often. I have indeed many times come up against a budget crunch post-war, and a couple times I was quite worried (once I was nearly sacked), but every time I was able to correct it without downsizing my squadrons at all, or even placing them in reserve. It is entirely possible to play without the touching of squadrons individually.

Does this leave me with an ideal navy? Hardly, and it could be a couple years before first-line ships are out of mothballs and even into reserve, but I have found the game eminently and repeatedly playable.

The issue with the micromanaging needed to accomplish the procedure you desired is fully acknowledged, even in some cases shared, but I should not say more without William's blessing. We continue to highlight and discuss how to address whatever imperfections the game has, and are fully vested in making it a satisfactory experience for multiple play-styles.

Thanks for the response. 

garrisonchisholm you're a bad a$$, I really like you and don't want to argue with you. I don't think that'd be constructive. We both want the same thing, to enjoy this fantastic game. So let me just say that my 'unplayable' comment is my opinion and I stand by it. You're right, of course. The game is playable, if you're willing to ignore the time it takes to micromanage your squadrons or instead compromise your navy to achieve your budget aims.

There can be no argument that Air Group Management is taking shape to be something amazing. But right now it's hobbled in that you cannot easily and quickly manage your squadrons because it lacks a multi-select Disband feature. Whatever Air Group Management is, it isn't 'there' yet. Almost. Instead of asking us to 'hobble' ourselves through the growing pains, address the issue at hand now, fix the problem it has as it is, and then move forward to change it to whatever metamorphic state you have in mind. But right now, what fun is the game in it's current state? Be honest! I'll be honest! This game is crack! It's amazing! It's balls to the wall fun the likes I haven't seen since I gave a ride to those two Thailand hookers on 8th ave 3 years ago. But this ONE flaw, bro... this ONE problem is the pits. Man, I love this game but I haven't touched it in weeks other than to fully appreciate (test) what you guys came out with in 1.07. 

Please, just add a multi-Airbase select Disband feature. I'm not asking for templates, or air group creation tools at this stage, I just want to quickly wrap up a war the way the game works as it is now without having to either gut my navy or choose to spend 15 minutes in time-out clicking. We shouldn't have to choose that over the other. Just handle Air Group Management for what it is now, and worry about what you want it to be when it's ready.