SAS-WW2 Players Strategy and Mission Creation thread

[tony_glazebrook]

All - I've started this as a new thread just to remind you all how you can simplify what you need to do, so you don't get overwhelmed.

1. Definitely play out the Tutorial first
2. Make sure you have all emergency tac responses OFF during turn calculation until you feel capable of trying them; and then, do it selectively at first, say just fleet orders or carrier strikes, and then, just for selected fleets or carriers. These options are all ON by default, so you need to go in and turn them off until you are ready to re-enable them.
3. If you want to, reduce the operational (and strategic) turn length down from the default 4 weeks to say 2 weeks or even 1 week - this means that a half or a quarter as much action gets calculated. You will not have so much to follow before you can review the turn and plot the next moves
4. Use the ability to filter out messages during turn calculation and replay - eg you may want to filter out less important messages like refuelling, repairing, rearming and so on. This cuts down on the information that is coming at you.
5. Use the in-game help as much as you want, especially the context help. (Most screens have a '?' button).
6. Use your 2IC unashamedly until you want to try out areas that you are interested in.

We have built in all these features specifically to make your learning task easier.

Good luck Admirals!

[Warship NWS]

Manually Creating Missions
Okay,

A little tutorial on creating missions. Let's try this...

1. Start the game and click on "Select Campaign".
2. Select the Intro scenario and escape out of the briefing screen.
3. Select "United States" and "Continue Game". You should find yourself in the Admiral's Office.
4. On the Blackboard, select "Build", then "Infrastructure" and "Yes" to let your 2IC plan your infrastructure spending. When he's finished, select "Commit Funds".
5. From the Build menu, select "Ships" and "Yes". After your 2IC shows you what he's planned, select "Finished".
6. Back on the Build menu, select "Troops" and "Commit".
7. One more time.... On the Build menu, select "A/C", "View", and "Commit". That finishes the turn's infrastructure building.
8. Select "Done" from the Build menu. That should place you back at the main Blackboard screen in the Admiral's Office.

We did all of this just to get some ships built and the other parts of the turn completed quickly. Now, to free up ships and make a mission.

9. Select "Deploy" from the Blackboard, then "Form Fleets" and "Yes".
10. The View Missions screen should pop up. In my case, I have 8 fleets listed. TF1 is an Offensive Patrol consisting of a carrier, a battleship, and several escorts. Click on it in the left hand panel, then click on "Cancel" in the top of the right hand panel. TF1 has disappeared from the list of missions.
11. Exit out of the View Missions screen. You should now be at the Theater Map.
12. Click on the "Form Fleets Manually" button in the upper right part of the Theater Map.
13. You should now be at the Fleet Manifest.
14. In Panel 1 (the upper left panel), click on "Home Fleet Reserve". Panel 3 should now list the ships from the TF1 mission we canceled.
15. Click on "2. Create Fleet". Type "My Fleet" in the dialog box.
16. In Panel 2 (the upper right panel), select "My Fleet".
17. In Panel 3 (the bottom left panel), click on all of the ships listed with the exception of aircraft carriers, then click on the ">" transfer button. Everything with the exception of aircraft carriers should move to the bottom right panel - they are now part of My Fleet.
18. Click on the SAS icon in the upper right corner of the screen to exit the Fleet Manifest. You should return to the Theater Map.

Let's bombard Tokyo...http://forums.navalwarfare.org//images/smilies/biggrin.gif

19. My Fleet should be in San Francisco. We're going to have My Fleet sail from San Francisco, bombard Tokyo, then return to Pearl Harbor.
20. First, make sure the drag tick box at the top of the Theater Map is ticked. Now, resize the map until you have both Tokyo and Pearl Harbor in view.
21. You cannot give fleets orders with the drag tick box ticked, so untick it.
22. In the Select Fleet window, select My Fleet. The orders panel should pop up.
23. You cannot send a fleet into an enemy port unless you are conducting an invasion. In order to bombard a port, you must do so from a hex adjacent to the target.
24. Tick the "Hexes" tick box so you can see the hexes on the map.
25. In the orders screen below the Select Fleet window, change the fleet speed to 16.
26. Click hex 21/12 to the north east of Tokyo - that tells My Fleet to go there.
27. Click the "Bombard" button, then click hex 21/12 a second time. We've just told My Fleet to bombard Tokyo from that hex.
28. Now, to send My Fleet to Pearl Harbor, click on top of Pearl Harbor's blue circle, hex 50/18. Mission complete.
29. Click on the SAS icon to exit the theater map.
30. Back in the Admiral's Office, work your way back on the Blackboard until you see the main Blackboard screen. Click "Go!", then click "Ok" to start the turn calculation.
31. If asked to calculate the enemy's moves, click "Yes".
32. You'll eventually get to the Run Turn screen. Before we start, let's disable the pop-ups that don't apply to our mission. Un-tick everything except for "Enemy Fleet Sightings", "Surface Battle Reports", "Bombardments", and "Fleet Tactical Responses".
33. Click the "Edit" button next to Fleet Tactical Responses.
34. In the left, "Selected for Tac Responses" box select everything except My Fleet, the click the ">" button. We'll let the 2IC worry about the rest of the fleet while we concentrate on My Fleet.
35. Click "Ok" to exit the Edit screen, the "Ok" again to return to the Run Turn screen.
36. Click the Play (">") button to run the turn. Adjust the turn speed as you see fit.
37. You should see My Fleet make it's way across the northern Pacific on its way to Tokyo. If the game halts on a Fleet Tactical Response, select "Ignore" so My Fleet stays focused on its mission.
38. If all goes well, My Fleet should sail to Tokyo, bombard it, then return to Pearl for some R&R with pretty Hula Girls. http://forums.navalwarfare.org//images/smilies/biggrin.gif
39. Replaying the turn, the game should halt when you bombard Tokyo.
40. Go to the Turn Briefing and scroll down to the Action Report appendix (they're located below the Technology Capability graphs). You should see a hyperlink next to "One own surface bombardment of enemy ports". Click on the hyperlink.
41. Your results will probably be different than mine, but my intel folks estimated a total RP loss to the enemy of approximately 1600 RPs! WooooHOOOOO!!

I hope that helps those of you who might be a bit confused with mission creation.
__________________
Regards,

Scott Chisholm
NWS Team

[Warship NWS]

Aircraft production.

AC production costs RPs. At the END of each turn, the computer checks on the RPs available at your home port, and then takes a percentage of these for ac production. (The production numbers then get shown on the next turn). The percentage is something you can set on the build aircraft screen. But you still need to have a decent pool of RPs to take that percentage from.

It is very tempting to use most of your RPs on building new ships; but you will help your aircraft production if you cut back here, and on your infrastructure or troop expebnditure as well. If you are often finding you are building only very low numbers of aircraft, shortage of RPs at the turn's end will be the reason. The problem can be helped by the suggestion I just gave.

Tony Glazebrook
NWS Projects Designer