Supermarine Walrus *Done*

Just trying to summarize where we are with this one.

Walrus
Maker: Supermarine
Introduced: Summer, 1936
Wingspan: 45 ft 10 in
Length: 37 ft 7 in
Speed: 135 mph, 217 km/h at 4,750 ft
Forumini Speed: 8
Service Ceiling: 18 500 ft
Armament: 2 x 7.7mm Vickers MG, 6 x 45kg bombs or 2 x 110kg bombs or 2 x 110 kg depth charges

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Type: Aircraft-Patrol Bomber or Dive Bomber?
Year: 1939
Cost: ??
ASW: 2
A/VA/HP: 3/4/1 or 3/5/1 (I think 3/4/1 is correct)

SAs

Sea Basing - This unit can base only in a coast or an island sector on your side of the map. Don't place a Rearming counter on this unit during your Air Return step.
Spotter - At the beginning of your Air Attack step, you may choose an enemy Ship within range 2. Your Ships roll one extra attack die when attacking that ship at range 2 or greater with their main Gunnery attack this turn.
Air Rescue - Once per game, this unit can perform a rescue mission if it's in a sector where a friendly unit was destroyed during (this/the previous turn). Score 3 victory points at the end of the turn.

"This turn" means one has to determine which sector one is likely lose a ship in, and then place the Walrus there? That narrows the window in which Spotter is also usable... which might be fine, but I like the greater flexibility of including the previous turn. This would require keeping track of lost ships though, which is more tedious than the ability needs to be.

(Side note: can this ability be used after the Walrus has been placed in an island sector for the air return phase, if the island sector contained a Vosper or suchlike that got sunk during the turn?)

The question behind Patrol Bomber or Dive Bomber is search checks at night and at long range correct? It would be more useful as a patrol bomber, as it needs to succeed on a search check to act as a spotter, rescue, or make an ASW attack.

Personally, I still prefer Patrol Bomber, simply because it makes it more useful, though I understand the perspective of making it a Dive Bomber. Patrol Bomber makes the plane better in certain situations and should probably make it a touch more expensive.

Dive bomber has no in game advantages over patrol bomber.

However the gsme states where the patrol bomber classification is relevant arent compatible or desirable for this unit.
Do we need a seabasing pb in distance games?

Gunnery spotting aircraft at night makes no sense to get a bonus to search and recovery.

Circumventing landbase limits and getting a bonus to distance game search checks is not ideal.

The advantages are so limited, they shouldnt affect cost anyway.

Weeds, to sum up the differences between Dive Bomber and Patrol Bomber on this unit (most impacts are in the Night and Long Distance Games):

Patrol Bomber
No night recovery (landing) checks.
Places successfully on a 3+ in long distance or night games.
May not benefit from Expert SAs.

Dive Bomber
Must make night recovery (landing) checks (fails on a 1 and you lose the plane). If desired, this could be eliminated with an SA.
Places successfully on a 5+ in long distance or night games.
May benefit from Expert SAs, unless blocked by an SA on the card.

(All, if I missed something, chime in...no coffee yet).

Neither status confers a night attack bonus, not that this plane is going to have a big attack value. Could be changed with an SA, but I wouldn't advocate for that.
Neither status effects the ability to use a spotting SA at night, though Dive Bomber would make it harder to pull off successfully because of the lower probability of succeeding on a search check.

Combined with Sea Basing, which carries a bunch of unique functionality in its own right, the differences in a standard game with no darkness or long distance in play aren't that significant. Making it a Patrol Bomber would definitely make it better at night or in long distance games. In my opinion, the edge in making successful search checks in those situations would make a Patrol Bomber Walrus worth about 1 point more than a Dive Bomber Walrus. 

Depending on how inexpensive it is, a lower cost Dive Bomber version with Sea Basing might be a bit more spammable than a more expensive Patrol Bomber, which could impact the air-placement game.  All that said, Sea Based planes *must* fly every turn...in the face of decent AA, these things are going to die in droves.

I think the discussion really comes down to do we think the Walrus had good capability at night or not. Personally, I think float planes should be more forgiving at night when it comes to recovery checks (they often took off or landed in darkness). When it comes to their effectiveness in finding targets at night or successfully attacking them, I think that depends on other features of the aircraft. On this point, I think there is certainly some room for debate on how good the Walrus was in that environment.

Admittedly, this isn't necessarily going to be a big deal to every player. Personally, I play a lot of Night Games, as do a number of folks commenting in the thread, but I know some folks that never have. To them, the choice between Dive Bomber and Patrol Bomber is probably about aesthetics or is largely irrelevant.

I can see it as either Dive Bomber or Patrol Bomber. I favor Patrol Bomber for reasons stated before, but it would be a functional plane either way. I just think there should be a slight points difference between the two.

I try my friend.  Would love to get a game going at some point if you have time.  Its been too long.