Battlestations: Midway/Map Tactics

As mentioned before, Battlestations: Midway is a hybrid game which allows players to command any number of units - ranging from battleships, to destroyers, to submarines, aircraft carriers, and land bases. This section of the guide will go through the basics of gameplay - stuff that is better and easier explained through the tutorial. The advantage of this guide though is that if you don't have the game, you can read this and get an idea for it.

This guide is divided into four sections: The RTS section, the air section, and the warship section, and the submarine section.

Real Time Strategy
Pressing the map key opens a tactical map which shows you where your units are and any spotted enemy units. The darknened area is where you lack radar coverage. Enemy units will not be shown.

The lighter portion is your radar coverage. Enemy units can appear in this area, but you won't be able to identify them and they'll be grey and labelled as "UNKNOWN". You'll be able to see if they're a ship or a plane, but not specifically what kind of ship or plane it is. It could be a destroyer, or it could be a battleship...or an aircraft carrier.

Clicking on a unit will select it. Hiding the map now will put you observing the unit you just selected in real-time. You can take command of it by giving it any order.

Many times you will want a unit to be protected by another unit. To do this with a plane, you can click on an air unit and right click on the target you want to protect. A green arrow will show that units are flying a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over the target. They will engage any target that comes within 1 nautical mile of the target they're protecting.

Aircraft
Aircraft are the most powerful units in the game given their high attacking power and high speed. There are several kinds of aircraft, including:
 * Fighters: Includes the A6M Zero and the F4F Wildcat. These planes are typically armed with machine guns and have extremely high manoeuvrability, allowing them to out-turn and out-fly all other aircraft. Typically they have machine guns, but they can be equipped with small bombs too. The bombs cause very little damage. Equipping them with bombs also doesn't appear to affect their manoeuvrability, but dive bombers are far better.
 * Dive bombers: Includes the D3A Val and the SBD Dauntless. These bombers start high and dive low on their targets. Ineffective against targets with strong deck plating, like battleships, they are best wielded against lightly armoured targets, mainly destroyers and light cruisers. They can also bring the hurt on aircraft carriers given the huge size of their deck. Difficult to destroy, but in general causes little damage.
 * Torpedo Bombers: Includes the B5N Kate and the TBD/F Avenger. These planes start low, then climb high after releasing torpedoes. Torpedoes must be dropped at an altitude less than 1,000ft while the plane is almost parallel to the ocean - otherwise the torpedo will detonate when hitting the water. Far easier to use than dive bombers as well as being far more devastating, they are easy prey for targets with a lot of anti-aircraft fire.
 * Carpet Bombers: Includes the B-17 and the G4M. These planes fly at high altitudes and drop massive amounts of bombs on targets. They are rather easy to use and are oftentimes heavily defended by themselves, but their accuracy is typically abysmal. They are effective against all targets, but particularly excel in bombing shipyards, airfields, and aircraft carriers in particular.
 * Recon Planes: Includes the PBY Catalina and the H8K Emily. These planes are slow, but they sport sonar, making them ideal for anti-submarine operations. They come equipped with either bombs, twin torpedoes, or most devastatingly depth charges. Without a doubt the submariner's most deadly enemy, since recon planes can see and attack them without fear of counterattack from the sub. It should also be noted that recon planes can land on the water. If they land on the water near a shipyard, they can be rearmed with additional weapons. Unfortunately, this must be done manually.

All the above types, excepting recon planes, are produced at either an airfield or, most commonly, at an aircraft carrier. Recon planes are produced at shipyards.

Taking Off
To put aircraft in the air, select the unit you want to launch planes - whether a carrier or an airfield, and open up the control panel. You will see 2 to 4 icons:
 * An "H" indicates the squadron is at home base.
 * A diagonal arrow pointing up shows that the selected squadron is currently in the process of taking off.
 * A straight arrow indicates that the aircraft is currently in the air.
 * A diagonal arrow pointing down indicates that the aircraft has received landing orders and intend to land.
 * A skull and crossbones indicates the squadron was destroyed. If you have additional planes, you can launch them.

Beneath those icons you will see:
 * Type: The aircraft the squadron is currently using. You can switch this whenever the squadron is landed.
 * Number: You can change the number of aircraft assigned to the squadron. Typically this means reassigning members from another squadron to the other one. There is a maximum of 5 planes for fighter squadrons and 3 planes for bomber squadrons.
 * Armament: Here you can choose what the planes are loaded with. Typically this involves bombs, depth charges, or torpedoes.

The number at the top right of the window indicates the number of planes airbourne versus the number of planes you can actually put up. Regardless of how many planes you assign to a squadron, the number of airbourne planes cannot exceed the plane cap.

For example, say your airfield can have 9 planes in the air maximum. You have three squadrons. You can assign squadron members evenly (each squadron has 3 members - 3+3+3=9). You can also choose to have 5 planes in one squadron, but that means each of your other squads can only have 2 members each (5+2+2=9).

Landing
Landing aircraft is important, especially for bombers. Planes do not respawn - you simply have a lot of them. Ordering planes, especially bomber squadrons, to return to base gets them fixed up and rearmed for another attack. It does take time, but ultimately it becomes worth it.

To order a squadron to land, open the Command menu and select the left option. You should hear "Landing orders acknowledged, sir" or something of the sort, and your squadron status will be set to "LAND".

The AI takes its time landing - you can attempt to land yourself, oftentimes quicker than the AI, by simply reducing your airspeed (your gear will come down automatically) and simply touch down at a low speed. You can do this for either carriers or airfields, but carrier landings are considerably more difficult than airfield landings.

As mentioned above, recon planes like the Catalina can rearm themselves by landing in the vicinity of a shipyard. Simply do the same thing as before, except on water. Landing on water should be easy - just don't come down at a sharp angle and you should be fine. Keep your throttle low and get close to the shipyard to rearm (you should not need to enter the shipyard, and docking the plane is impossible).

Submarines
Operating submarines requires extreme patience, because while devastating since they can launch a spread of four torpedoes in front of them, they are also one of the slowest units in the game.

Depth Levels
There are four depth levels which submarines can operate at. The dive and surface controls toggle which of the four depths you will go to.
 * Surface: The sub is extremely vulnerable on the surface. Anything can strike it, and will cause a lot of damage. Air-dropped depth charges can easily fry a surfaced sub, as can torpedoes and cannon fire. To assist a little, the Narwhal and Type B submarines have a cannon that allows them to take potshots at other ships while surfaced. They also have a small machine gun to ward off planes, and additionally they can use their torpedoes. Air is replenished at this depth level.
 * Attack Depth: Also known as periscope depth, this is where you should be when you're readying for an attack. You can raise your periscope at this depth and use it to observe your surroundings and track enemy targets. It's basically a submarine version of the binoculars. Enemies can spot periscopes in the water, but they are often very small and difficult to see. Torpedoes can be launched at this depth, but if the target is very close, torpedoes can fly under them. The minimum torpedo range is approximately 0.2 nautical miles. Beware also of depth charges - they cause a lot of damage at this depth.
 * Manoeuvring Depth: The third depth level is where you should be spending most of your time. Depth charges cause considerable damage, but only well-aimed charges can strike you, and even then for considerably less damage than at attack depth. Unfortunately, you're too deep for both torpedoes and periscope work, so you won't be able to do anything here aside from manoeuvre.
 * Crush Depth: The final depth level is as deep as you can possibly go. Here is where you re-enact the scene in every submarine movie ever made: "The hull canna take teh pressuar, captain!" Water pressure begins harming your hull, and you'll take tiny but consistant damage until you rise. The advantage to being at crush depth is that you are so deep enemy sonar cannot spot you, and you are invincible to depth charges. You can wait the enemy out here, but ultimately you'll be forced to get to depth level 3.

Oxygen
As a submarine you don't have an unlimited supply of oxygen. Your oxygen gauge is viewed at the bottom of the screen, near the speed indicator.

You won't die if you run out of oxygen, but you will be forced to the surface, where you'll be vulnerable to pretty much everything. You'll also give away your position, thus negating the stealth you need as a submarine which allows you to evade destroyers and whatnot.

Torpedoes
Torpedoes are your primary weapon as a submarine, but there are several problems with them. A submarine's most glaring weakness is that it can't hit anything in the sky. Only by surfacing can you fire at air targets, and even then your single machine gun may as well be a pea-shooter.

Another weakness of the torpedo is how difficult they are to use. Unlike every other type of ship weapon, you have a fixed number of torpedoes and no way to replenish them. You must, therefore, make each torpedo count.

Torpedoes are also very slow, and when firing at ranges beyond 0.5 nautical miles, chances are the enemy warships will evade your attacks.

When launched at depth 2, the torpedoes will take about 2 seconds to rise to the surface. Until then they simply swim under anything, so firing a torpedo at point-blank range will, most often than not, actually result in your torpedoes being too deep to strike at the enemy hull.

Like ship-launched torpedoes, submarine torpedoes can steer themselves to a small degree. You can fire torpedoes approximately 30 degrees to the left or right of the bow or stern. When launched, the torpedoes will travel straight until they clear the sub, at which they will turn towards the crosshair, rising to the surface at the same time. Creative submarine commanders can use this to make their torpedoes follow unpredictable patterns, making them difficult to avoid. For starters, hwoever, firing at an angle is difficult and generally shouldn't be done - try to fire head-on if at all possible.