Loaded Carrier Sale Bugged

In the latest update these issues are supposed to be fixed. The original posters sale to someone else causing planes to be lost is likely still in effect. I will leave this thread here, but it should be irrelevant now.added by VorlonFCW 1-23-18

Simple rule for carriers: NEVER Merge/Split/Sell a carrier group with planes on the Deck. Just don't.

Perhaps Carriers should come with a warning label because of the way they work. Of course very few players would read the instructions anyway. . .

If a carrier is destroyed the planes are destroyed as well, because it is silly for a carrier to sink and the planes turn into convoy ships where the carrier was.

So the way that planes find out if their carrier is destroyed is by checking for the "uni designation" of the carrier. For example if my carrier group is AB12 the planes are linked to that designation AB12. If AB12 vanishes the planes assume that their next stop is the bottom of the ocean.

I am sure you have noticed that when you merge units together they become identified by one stack number. So if you merge carrier AB12 with a big fleet called AB11, you will likely have the whole fleet called AB11, and the planes assume AB12 was destroyed, so they sink.

Same with splitting up a fleet. If you have carrier group AB12 and you split it in half one part still would be called AB12, and the other part would be the lowest available number, perhaps AB21. If the carriers were in the part now called AB21 - planes again sink.

I am sure you can make the connection from the above examples about selling a carrier group and the resultant name change. I make no guarantees about the solution below working correctly in the case of selling carriers, as I have not tried it.

So the Solution is to have the planes on Patrol at the least. Planes on patrol will hunt for a new airbase or carrier within range and try to attach to it, rather than simply fall from the sky. Personally I don't take that risk if I can avoid it by sending planes to a land airbase whenever possible. Only when I have no other choice do I split/merge carrier groups.

This is a known bug and while it is on the list of things to be fixed it actually is quite rare compared to many other bugs because once you have lost a couple planes once you will make sure not to make the same mistake again.

Thanks for this description! I have been very careful with carriers due to the fact that all reports say that they are buggy when merging/splitting... but from this description, I read that there should not be a problem IF THE UNIT ID OF THE CARRIER STAYS THE SAME. So the next question is: can it be predicted what unit designation a merged or splitted group will get?

When merging: you suggest here that the new group keeps the designation of the BIGGEST of the merging groups... is there any evidence to support this? And if so, what is "biggest"? Most units? Biggest build cost? Biggest manpower in it?

When splitting: same questions really... Though I would ASSUME this might work slightly different since you clearly "split off" a new group from the old one and it would be logical if THEY were re-designated... but again, I have no idea. Anyone?

All good questions Roko. I still advise caution with carriers because of these unknowns.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

can it be predicted what unit designation a merged or splitted group will get?

K.Rokossovski wrote:

keeps the designation of the BIGGEST of the merging groups... is there any evidence to support this?

No, I just changed the wording of that to avoid implying something that I don't know for sure. Some observation will be needed to be sure of how that exactly works before I give misleading advice.

The times that I have needed to split a carrier group at sea I have launched the planes on patrol over the carrier group and done the splitting. Doing this I have not lost any planes.

Results are not guaranteed, and no refunds will be issued

Napoleonxer wrote:

So I sold a carrier to an ally (my brother) with 2 naval bombers on the carrier and had also sent an offer for the planes. He bought it but the planes disappeared into thin air.

1. Were the aircraft units either physically on the aircraft carrier, or flying/patrolling from the carrier when you transferred the aircraft carrier from you to your brother?

The reason why I ask is that the game programming will not permit an aircraft carrier to accept any aircraft units from any country other than the owner of carrier. Carrier-based aircraft cannot convert into sea- or land-going convoys like land-based aircraft units. If you had aircraft units on the carrier when you transferred the carrier to another country, they were probably instantly destroyed because they no longer had a valid "base."

Also, @VorlonFCW, in my personal experience, the only time I have ever lost carrier-based aircraft units is when I split several escorting naval units from an aircraft carrier stack while I had carrier-based aircraft units in the air and returning to the carrier from a successful airstrike. I have successfully added and separated naval unit escorts from a carrier stack while carrier-based aircraft units were sitting on the carrier (i.e. not in the air) with no problems. That's my own experience, but I will usually send my carrier aircraft to an air base on land before I start futzing with carrier escorts in the carrier stack.

MontanaBB wrote:

the only time I have ever lost carrier-based aircraft units is when I split several escorting naval units from an aircraft carrier stack while I had carrier-based aircraft units in the air and returning to the carrier from a successful airstrike.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

When merging: you suggest here that the new group keeps the designation of the BIGGEST of the merging groups... is there any evidence to support this?

Apart from the sequentially assigned unit number, the rest of the unit designation for a given stack is based upon the types of units included in the stack (e.g., "Heavy Tank Division" or "Tactical Bomber Wing," etc.). There is a defined hierarchy of unit types, and a mixed stack that includes multiple unit types will always take the name/designation of whatever unit is the highest-ranking in the stack. For example, a 10-unit stack composed of 9 infantry regiments and 1 light tank brigade, will be designated as the "__th Light Tank Division" despite the fact that infantry outnumbers light tanks in the stack by 9:1. There is one caveat to this general rule: if there are "elite" level units present in the stack, the stack will always take the designation of the highest-ranking "elite" unit; e.g., a stack of 9 heavy tank brigades and 1 L7 "elite" infantry regiment will be designated the "__th Infantry Division," despite heavy tanks outnumbering infantry by 9:1.

There are other minor name variations for naval unit stacks and aircraft stacks, but you get the idea.

VorlonFCW wrote:

I suppose that after an attack has been carried out the planes have a singular mission to return for fuel, and can't be re-directed

Also, another problem I have witnessed (but not personally experienced) is that a returning stack of carrier-based aircraft units cannot split itself. If, hypothetically, you are flying a big aircraft stack of 24 squadrons from a carrier battle group that includes three L6 aircraft carriers (maximum aircraft capacity of 8 squadrons each, for a total of 24 on 3 carriers), and one of the carriers is sunk, you will lose all 24 aircraft units in the stack if they are in the air because the remaining two carriers only have a reduced total capacity of 16 squadrons. I usually mitigate this risk by subdividing my big tactical air wings into smaller strike wings of 5 squadrons each for maximum SBDE efficiency, and this can be done while the "big wing" is in the air.

One other mechanic that needs mentioning here, as it is related. Moving your carrier out of it's planes range while they are in the air will also result in the planes visiting Davy Jones' locker.

Stormbringer50 wrote:

Moving your carrier out of [its] planes range while they are in the air will also result in the planes visiting Davy Jones' locker.

It seems to be inconsistent then. I will try to do more research as I work bug reports to see if I can get some fine details as to exactly what is happening. Thank you for the input Montana.

@MontanaBB they were unfortunately on the carrier, I thought a little about consequences of selling the carrier and thought I could put the planes on patrol but I at first assumed that the planes would sell with the carrier and therefore my planes went when I sold the carrier.

@VorlonFCW

@K.Rokossovski

This thread should probably be moved to the main "questions and answers" section of the forum, because it's not really a an issue that is specific to Frontline Pioneers. Cheers.

MontanaBB wrote:

This thread should probably be moved to the main "questions and answers" section of the forum

I might pin it to the top. Darn good info all in one place here.

I did just confirm that the subset that is split gets the new ID and what remains retains the original. Likewise the stationary subset of a merge is what determines the resulting ID. If they are both moving to merge one will always stop first and will provide the ID. If they both stop at the same nanosecond the server will explode and the game will end. I was also able to verify that an ID change to the carrier group will kill a refueling plane, but not if the merge retains the carrier ID.