What is Strat?
Strat is the system of strategic resupply for damaged airfields.
How does it work?
The Strat system utilises the factories and depots to effect resupply for damaged airfields. The depots hold enough supplies to effectively never run out, and can resupply damaged fields all night long without straining itself. Complete destruction of a depot is the only way to stop it from it's resupply mission.
Only if the depot is destroyed, does the factory come into play, since this facility is what will rebuild and resupply the depot. If a factory is destroyed, then depots cannot be re supplied until the factory is fixed. If a factory is captured, then depots that are destroyed receive NO resupply. A country can be seriously impaired if they lose one of their factories, and the depots are destroyed as well. If this happens, fields will receive NO resupply for that commodity until the factory is recaptured.
Supplies from the factory to the depots are handled automatically, effectively invisibly, you can't disrupt that portion. Supplies from the depots to damaged airfields however, are handled via host flown C-47, and you *can* disrupt this flow by shooting down the C-47.
Lets go through an example of how strat can effect a country. We will use the Bz ammo factory for our example. In Image 1, we have a normal picture of strat, and it's chugging along happily.
Image 1. Blue lines represent un-interruptable supply lines between a factory and depot. The orange lines represent lines from depots to the fields, which can be interrupted, by shooting down the C-47 that is carrying the ammo.
Now lets say a nasty old Cz squadron (ACCS for example) comes along and destroys, then captures the factory (Image 2). No big deal really, because the depots are still sending gooney's to the fields with ammo if needed.
Image 2. Depots can no longer be resupplied from the factories.
Where this becomes a problem, is if that nasty squadron comes along and blows away the depots next. Because the Cz own the factory, the Depots cannot be resupplied or repaired. Again, not that big of a deal, as long as no fields are hit (Image 3).
Image 3. The Bz might need to start getting worried, and get that factory back if they can at this point. No fields will get resupplied if they don't, and they are porked for the night.
Finally, the pay off for those hard runs by our intrepid Cz. They have captured the factory, and destroyed both Ammo depots. Now, any field that gets it's ammo hit will not get resupplied until that factory is back in production. Any fields with porked ammo will stay porked until the factory is returned to bz control and reopens. Since factory dead time is 30 minutes, as is depots, and fields, at the point of Image 4, if the Bz immediately recapture their factory, the porked fields will not be back at 100% until 1.5 hours after the factory is recaptured (30 mins for the factory to repair, then 30 mins for the depot, then 30 mins for the field itself!)
Image 4. The Payoff. Damaged fields will not resupply with ammo until the depots are repaired, and the depots wont repair until the factory is recaptured. B-land is porked for the night unless they get this factory back.
In another example of how strat can effect game play, we have an Az fuel Depot, trying valiantly to resupply a field with porked fuel. However,
a couple of Cz point dweebs have set themselves up between the depot, and the effected field, shooting down the goony's as they carry fuel. This keeps the base effectively porked, since the goony carrying the fuel to replace what was destroyed is not landing. (Image 5)
Image 5. Porked fields will never resupply if the gooney doesn't land.
So, there you have the basics of Strat. Hope this helps you in your quest for general AW knowledge! ~Mage
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