Two small naval changes, inspired by Japan playing

[Riekopo]

Been playing as the glorious Imperial Japan and they have a large navy that only gets bigger. Two things I noticed that would really help me out. At least for the way I play with my little ships.

First, the ability to choose a Home Port for your Task Forces or whole Fleet. This ability existed before Man The Guns. No idea why it was removed.

Second, the ability to auto reinforce Task Forces based on Ship Class. Currently, it can only be done by assigning 1 of 8 random icons to a Ship Class. I organize my Task Forces based on Class/capability. And I'm sure many others do too. Remembering what icon is assigned to what ship build is really annoying. And I run out of icons anyway. So I have to basically manually do it all the time which is really annoying. Also, there's a kind of bug with manual reinforcement where it seems like they can't be reinforced sometimes.

 

[noobermenschen]

Been playing as the glorious Imperial Japan and they have a large navy that only gets bigger. Two things I noticed that would really help me out. At least for the way I play with my little ships.

First, the ability to choose a Home Port for your Task Forces or whole Fleet. This ability existed before Man The Guns. No idea why it was removed.

Second, the ability to auto reinforce Task Forces based on Ship Class. Currently, it can only be done by assigning 1 of 8 random icons to a Ship Class. I organize my Task Forces based on Class/capability. And I'm sure many others do too. Remembering what icon is assigned to what ship build is really annoying. And I run out of icons anyway. So I have to basically manually do it all the time which is really annoying. Also, there's a kind of bug with manual reinforcement where it seems like they can't be reinforced sometimes.

Eight icons per ship type and you still run out? That's a lot of specialization. I have never used more than four for DDs (scouting, with radar, attack with buffed torpedoes, destroyer escorts, and long range once I get 1940 DDs researched) and fewer for other ship types except subs. You might be making perfect the enemy of good enough, I wouldn't want to manage that dockyard production.

Homeporting would be kind of nice to have back though.

 

[Gort11]

Yeah, being able to set a home port would definitely be nice. Too often my strike force ends up in a level 3 port for repairs when there's a perfectly good level 8 port six hours away.

 

[Casko]

Yeah, being able to set a home port would definitely be nice. Too often my strike force ends up in a level 3 port for repairs when there's a perfectly good level 8 port six hours away.

it can get even wonkier in Caribbean, in case you're fighting Americans there for Naval Supremacy, and use the Caribbean islands as your base of operation / naval invasion base. Where one island has level 1, and the very next island has a level 8 base. So its really important to say what ports your navies can and can't use for repairs there.

 

[TheDeathIncarnate]

it can get even wonkier in Caribbean, in case you're fighting Americans there for Naval Supremacy, and use the Caribbean islands as your base of operation / naval invasion base. Where one island has level 1, and the very next island has a level 8 base. So its really important to say what ports your navies can and can't use for repairs there.

You can do that. Just right-click(i guess)to a port to disable it for repairs.

 

[Casko]

You can do that. Just right-click(i guess)to a port to disable it for repairs.

Thats what I said. and just reminded people that it is something that one should do regularly when fighting in regions such as Caribbean.

 

[noobermenschen]

Thats what I said. and just reminded people that it is something that one should do regularly when fighting in regions such as Caribbean.

Ooh, I'd forgotten about that feature, thank you!

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Second, the ability to auto reinforce Task Forces based on Ship Class.

You mean *? It automatically fills task forces with whatever is available.

What I would like, based on Japan campaigns, is to be able to place a garrison order on the (air)port. All the tiny pacific islands masterfully hidden underneath those icons are frustrating to garrison properly.

 

[Riekopo]

You mean *? It automatically fills task forces with whatever is available.

What I would like, based on Japan campaigns, is to be able to place a garrison order on the (air)port. All the tiny pacific islands masterfully hidden underneath those icons are frustrating to garrison properly.

I mean I have a Task Force and I have say a Class of ship called Cheyenne. I want my Task Force to automatically replace its losses with Cheyenne Class ships in the inventory.

They also really need to add a 'No Swim' option to the Garrison command. So we can garrison islands in the Pacific without them all getting themselves killed.

 

[Anaraxes]

First, the ability to choose a Home Port for your Task Forces or whole Fleet.

What functionality are you looking for from designating a home port? AFAIK, the feature got removed because it didn't do anything but limit fleet range (until you manually reassigned the home port).

only be done by assigning 1 of 8 random icons to a Ship Class.

The icons are independent per ship class. I generally pick a scheme where gun means combat, shield is escort/defense, crab is the minimal DE, one for patrol, etc. (Usually only destroyers and sometimes CLs get this specialized by design, but sometimes you just want to group up old battleships for shore bombardment or just impose two groups of the same design.) I can't say I had a lot of use for the auto-fleet-reinforce feature (I haven't found it that burdensome given the low rate of ship production, nor feel compelled to maintain a lot of exactly identical fleets.) But I also never ran out of icons for roles.

How do you use the icons to organize your fleets?