Questions, Flames, Gripes?

[Bullethead]

Originally Posted by crackaces

* I have observed the behavior that if ships break contact within the tatical map because of visablity (thus the visibility is far less than a 'hex') the ships are placed at the center of the hex(?) as a united task force for the next contact.

This is a very complex and irksome issue for us at SES. We have ammeliorated it considerably, but it's still a problem at night in areas of high traffic and narrow water, such as the Channel. Sorry for the inconvenience. We might be able to tweak it a bit more in the future, but we'll have to see.

The underlying cause is the necessity of having granularity (call them "hexes" but they're really squares) in the campaign map. Without going into the long technical explanation, suffice to say that when the game has to set up a battle, places like the Channel at night sometimes cause it to have to fudge a bit due to the various rules for how often TFs can engage, plus all the LOS issues in heavily travelled areas. Thus, sometimes your TF isn't where you think it should be. From the POV of the player as Lord High Admiral back in port, you can rationalize this as your commander at sea not always doing what you think is best.

* I set area patrol for my Zep's and I have found the balloons taking a Sunday stroll over France. Let the Army use Albatros planes to patrol the front lines ! Maybe allow the user to select an area or enter vectors (between X to Y degrees for Z thousand meters). I like allowing a mouse select over an area to patrol.

You CAN set the patrol area. It goes like this:
1. Select the TF you want to do an area patrol.
2. Click on the check-mark button to close the order button flyout while keeping the TF selected.
3. Move the cursor to the point where you want the center of the patrol area to be and right-click there.
4. When the orders buttons come up again, select Area Patrol.
5. A slider for patrol radius then appears. This is in MAP "HEXES", not Kms or miles, BTW. Select the desired radius and there you go.

Once set up, an area patrol works like this. The TF will try to keep about 1/3 of its ships/zeps in the patrol area, 1/3 in tansit both coming and going, and 1/3 refitting in port, but having about 1/3 in the patrol area takes priority. The individual ships will take a direct path to the center of the patrol area, then wander around more or less randomly within it, usualy going through each "hex" in it once (fuel permitting) and only once, then go straight back home. The TF will dispatch a relief ship timed to reach the patrol area just as another ship is leaving for home, trying to keep 1/3 of its ships in the patrol area at all times.

Assuming the ships have adequate range to complete the whole patrol area, there are a few of things you should keep in mind when setting up patrols:

The larger the patrol's radius, the longer individual ships will be on station, so the less often the TF will need to dispatch relief ships, and vice versa. The further away the patrol area is from the TF's base, the longer it takes to get there, so relief ships go out more often, and vice versa. The more often relief ships need to sail, the more ships the TF needs to contain in order to keep the patrol flowing smoothly.

IOW, to keep a few ships always in the patrol area, you need to balance the transit distance, area radius, and TF size. For any give TF size, there comes a point where the patrol area is so far away, and so relatively small, that the priority given to keeping ships on station means the TF will send out all its ships in a conga line before any come back. Thus, there will be a gap in the patrol while the 1st ships sent out are refitting prior to going out again. As a player, you can overcome this by adding ships to the TF, moving it to a base closer to the patrol area, and/or tweaking the radius. If you have any patrols you think are very critical to do right, therefore, I recommend testing them in a separate campaign until you arrive at suitable parameters, then replicating them in your real compaign.

Note, however, that you can exploit this behavior to form linear patrols. Set the patrol radius to 0 or 1 and put it a fair distance away from base. Because the TF's ships essentially just go to the center point and come straight back, they have to be replaced very frequently, so you end up with a double parade of ships going and coming between the base and the patrol center point. This is quite useful for blocking straits.