Convoy escort duty protects only nation's convoys or all faction members' convoys?

[billcorr]

When assigning a fleet to convoy escort duty, does convoy escort duty protect only the one nation's convoys or all faction members' convoys?

In the air war, fighters only protect bombers that are of their same nation, not faction.

For example, what happens if you try to use Italian fighters to escort German CAS? Do the Italian fighters actually effectively stop the German bombers from being disrupted by Allied fighters?

No, they do not. Only German fighters are capable of escorting German CAS/bombers.

Hmm. This raises the question about a potential naval bug.

Do fleets on convoy escort missions only protect their own nation's (not faction's) convoys?

I suppose that some experiments would help answer this question.

 

[FrancescoT]

Moved to Bug Reports Sub-forum.

 

[FrancescoT]

@billcorr do you have a save to attach here for the devs to look at?

 

[billcorr]

Thanks for the attention.

Suggestion: keep query on main forum in order to elicit responses from HoI4 gamers who might have experienced a lack of protection from fellow-faction fleets.

Lack of convoy protection from faction fleets is not quite a proven bug.

But a theoretical bug.

It is based on the proven bug (see Beethoven's post for more information) that in the air war, friendly fighters do not protect bombers of faction members. No escort duties.

So.

The reasoning is, "If there is a proven bug that fighters do not escort other faction members' bombers, then perhaps fleets do not escort other faction members' convoys."

Just checking to see if any HoI4 players have experienced a lack of naval escort from friendly nations.

Thanks!

 

[FrancescoT]

Suggestion: keep query on main forum in order to elicit responses from HoI4 gamers who might have experienced a lack of protection from fellow-faction fleets.

Lack of convoy protection from faction fleets is not quite a proven bug.

But a theoretical bug.

It is based on the proven bug (see Beethoven's post for more information) that in the air war, friendly fighters do not protect bombers of faction members. No escort duties.

I'll go with a better safe than sorry policy and call a last minute QA attention on both .

@Ceebie could you take a look?

 

[bitmode]

I for one had several cases in multiplayer with multi-nation invasions where the escort fleet left the other nations' convoys to die. Got bogged down by another bug though while reproducing this one

 

[billcorr]

I for one had several cases in multiplayer with multi-nation invasions where the escort fleet left the other nations' convoys to die. Got bogged down by another bug though while reproducing this one

Lack of convoy protection from faction fleets is not quite a proven bug.

Sounds like it might be a proven bug.

Hmmm.

Thanks, @bitmode!

 

[Russian Bias lmao]

I can confirm I had the same bug as well. Played as Italy during Barbarossa, the Axis had slight air superiority, had 1500 CAS over and air zone and they were getting massacred by enemy fighters while unable to bomb anything. The escort from other axis countries was nonexistent.

 

[Omghax]

Hi. I've been trying to repro this from scratch but from what I can see the escort fleet seems quite keen on joining battles to defend allied convoys (so far I've seen a join ratio of ~80%). If you think this is a harsh issue feel free to provide me with a save where escort fleets are consistently leaving allied fleets to die (I might have to look at it after summer though). Very good hunch though.

 

[billcorr]

Hi. I've been trying to repro this from scratch but from what I can see the escort fleet seems quite keen on joining battles to defend allied convoys (so far I've seen a join ratio of ~80%). If you think this is a harsh issue feel free to provide me with a save where escort fleets are consistently leaving allied fleets to die (I might have to look at it after summer though). Very good hunch though.

Thank you for the feedback.

Allied escort fleets are not a harsh issue.

Join ratio of 80%. Good number to know.

Many thanks for working on this theoretical bug (well, it is not a bug as you have demonstrated).

 

[bitmode]

Hi. I've been trying to repro this from scratch but from what I can see the escort fleet seems quite keen on joining battles to defend allied convoys (so far I've seen a join ratio of ~80%). If you think this is a harsh issue feel free to provide me with a save where escort fleets are consistently leaving allied fleets to die (I might have to look at it after summer though). Very good hunch though.

In the attached save I made a test setup at the Iberian Coast. German subs/DD raiding British convoys against French DD escort (be sure to disable AI). While they do disrupt the German fleet sometimes (usually days after the battle started), a good number of convoys still get sunk. By contrast with a British escort fleet, not a single convoy ever gets sunk (across ~5 months respectively) because the escort ships intervene almost immediately. So I would argue they happen to sometimes help (like fleets on patrol duty) but they don't actually escort allied convoys. If I'm shipping an army across the ocean 80% is not good enough.

Also this may sound naïve but can't you just check the source code to know whether this case is handled?

 

[billcorr]

n the attached save I made a test setup at the Iberian Coast. German subs/DD raiding British convoys against French DD escort (be sure to disable AI). While they do disrupt the German fleet sometimes (usually days after the battle started), a good number of convoys still get sunk. By contrast with a British escort fleet, not a single convoy ever gets sunk (across ~5 months respectively) because the escort ships intervene almost immediately. So I would argue they happen to sometimes help (like fleets on patrol duty) but they don't actually escort allied convoys. If I'm shipping an army across the ocean 80% is not good enough.

Nice test.

Thank you for taking the time to check it out.

A random thought: does the UK have better naval doctrine for escorting than the French do?

Wait a minute...I can check. The save game file is right there.

Edit: Whoops. I could not unzip the file. My unzip-fu is very low. HoI4 game files can be directly uploaded into Paradox threads without having to zip them. TinyWiking changed the forum a few months ago so that Paradox files could be directly uploaded.

 

[Omghax]

Yeah agreeing it looks pretty bad in the save you uploaded. I will report it, make sure it gets looked at.

And while I have access to the sourcecode, I am unfamiliar with the c++ syntax (and debugging code is outside of my job-description) so it is likely better to get a coder to take a look at it.

 

[bitmode]

Edit: Whoops. I could not unzip the file. My unzip-fu is very low. HoI4 game files can be directly uploaded into Paradox threads without having to zip them. TinyWiking changed the forum a few months ago so that Paradox files could be directly uploaded.

It's so tempting because they get 10 times smaller when compressed Here's the uncompressed file

But I can already tell you that the French actually have more doctrines in this test (because I forgot to put the English on par)

 

[billcorr]

Here's the uncompressed file

Thanks!

 

[billcorr]

All things be equal, France should be doing better in escorting convoys in the Escort File.

In the above attached file, Escort test, France is confirmed to have better naval doctrines than the UK:

• UK has a total of 25% improved escort efficiency
• France has a total of 80% improved escort efficiency