Fleet Management

[FunkyDexter]

I'm just trying out the Man the Guns fleet management stuff and it's been a struggle to say the least. I think I've almost got my head around it but there are still a couple of things I'm struggling with.

Is there a way to reassign a fleet or taskforce between theatres? At the moment I'm having to find a taskforce in the target theatre, merge the taskforce I want to reassign into it, wait for it to arrive and actually carry out the merge, then re-split it to form a new taskforce/fleet in the target theatre before, often, sending it back to the location it started out at. This is tedious to say the least, particularly as it can require ship to move a long way to carry out the merge when all I want to do is reassign it, not move it. Am I able to just pick the entity and say, "now be part of that theatre"?

The above has been a real headache at the theatre level but the same applies at the fleet level. Can I just select a taskforce and somehow say, "now be part of that fleet"? At present I'm using pretty the same merge and re-split approach I've described above.

I really like the template, reserve fleet and auto-reinforce mechanisms but I'm struggling to get them to play well together. Say I want to set up an Atlantic Theatre to which I'll be assigning fleets of escort. I decide I want 25 destroyers per escort taskforce but I only have 45 destroyers available to the theatre at present so I'd like them to operate as a 25 and a 20 until enough new destroyers are built to fill the gap. I assumed I could set up a 25 ship template, assign it to both taskforces and set the manufacturing target for my destroyer build to the theatre. That doesn't work because you can only set the manufacturing target to taskforces, not theatres. So I broke off a single destroyer to create a reserve fleet and set the target to that. But due to the auto-reinforcement that destroyer immediately gets reassigned back into the taskforce. The only way round it seems to be to either have no reserve and target the taskforce - in which case it will eventually over populate - or remove the template from the smaller fleet and keep reassigning single ships to it manually as they are produced. These are workable but require what feels like unnecessary micromanagement. Am I missing anything here?

When merging fleets in different locations can I easily specify which fleet is the target. It seems to be that whichever fleet is selected first will be the target but it's easy to get this wrong by accident. Particularly when trying to send extra ships from GB to the far east it can be pretty galling to see you capital fleet start steaming from Hong Kong to London and have no way to stop it.

Finally, as a suggestion to the paradox devs: seriously, could this not all be managed by drag and drop. The fleet manager is crying out for it and it would make things sooooo much easier.


Any help is appreciated guys. At the moment I'm coping but it's pre-war. Once war kicks off this stuffs gonna kill me :)

[Mikey]

1.
Each task force is assigned to a fleet the same way army divisions are assigned to armies. You can reassign a task force to a fleet at a whim or even create a new fleet centered around said task force.
Select the task force, right click the fleet you want it to join (bottom center, same as with armies).
As to switching theaters it's a bit more dificult but basicly the same

2.
You can select which theater a given production line is to deploy to inside the production screen.
Find the destroyer line you wish to send to the Atlantic Theater and click the button labelled "auto". You will get a long list of theaters, task forces and ports. Selecting any of them will deploy the ships built in the line to said selection.

3.
Instead of merging task forces, select the task force you wish to remain and make a template that encompasses the other task force(s).
Select the other task force(s) and designate them as reserves (transfer them to the correct theater as well).
The remaining task force will draw on the reserve pool and call the ships in

[FunkyDexter]

Awesome thanks for the responses.

1. Just tried it. Works like a charm. That is going to be hugely useful.

2. The drop down list doesn't contain theatres does it? I only see taskforces and ports. When I have a specific task force already that I want them assigned to then it works great. But I often find myself wanting the production to form a new task force - e.g. to start building up a reserve in the far east. Given your answer above this is easier now (I can just let them deploy to some port in UK which seems to create a new reserve in the starting theatre and then reassign that reserve to the theatre I want) but it still seems a little fiddly. Is there a way I can set the to deploy to the reserve of a theatre that doesn't have one yet?

3. I think I follow that. Essentially set them as reserves in the theatre that contains the target and then use the auto reinforce mechanic to have them move from the reserves to the target automatically. Seems a little long winded but it'll work and much less error prone than what I'm doing at the moment.

Thanks for you tips. Those are going to help a lot.

[FunkyDexter]

edit> re 2 this is particularly acute when I've got a theatre that's not fully manned up to where I want it to be. So even if I get a small reserve, the auto reinforce immediately depletes it by assigning it to the "real" task forces and that, in turn, resets the production line to auto.

[Mikey]

2a.
In my drop downs the theatres are at the very top, followed by task forces and finally ports
2b.
It shouldn't reset your lists unless you attempt to send them to specific task forces that are in reserve. If you want you can add a ship that isn't needed in the theatre (make a destroyer or sub template with a different role icon and send it to reserve).
Only ships of the requested type AND role are added via the reinforcement mechanic so the ship will stay in reserve keeping the task force open for reserve purposes

3.
exactly, and yeah it was long winded. Had to be specific and I had trouble getting that across. You did it nicely :)

[FunkyDexter]

2a. Weird, I don't see them. I've got task forces followed by ports. Kind of a star symbol against the taskforces, an anchor for the ports. Maybe I'm a patch shy or something. Not a big deal though. I've actually just played through the "new reserves" and the right click reassignment removed 90% of the pain. I'm happy enough with that.

2b, I was playing it through yesterday and I'm 90% sure it did reset my list if the reserve fleet was used up entirely. I haven't got my head round the roles yet, though, so probably that's where I'm lacking. I'll try having a play with that idea and see how I get on (I think I've just got everything set to the default question mark at present so that's why it's all flowing straight through)

Thanks again

[Mikey]

yeah if the reserve task force is removed entirely it will reset, which is why I suggested building a ship that won't be used.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1722488063

Thats what my drop down looks like, as you can see the theatre is at the top

[FunkyDexter]

Weird. I have the symbol you have for the theatre against my task forces and I don't have the symbol you're showing for task forces at all.