Bug - 1.00.06 - AA doesn't protect ships in port

[Onsdag]

I just noticed something that may be a bug. Anti-Air gun batteries do not engage enemy aircraft when they are targeting ships in port. But they will engage enemy aircraft when the city/port itself (and possibly land units? I haven't checked this yet) is targeted. See attached images.

Wave 1:

[Onsdag]

Hrmm... How odd. How come we're only allowed to post one attachment/picture per post? And how come I can't add any other attached images other than the first post? I assume it's to help prevent spamming, or abuse, but is it really that necessary?

Well, since I can't post any other images I'll just have to try and explain it the best I can.

Wave 2: Allied aircraft attack ships docked at Antwerp but score no hits. Interceptors engage doing moderate damage. No AA defenses activated in spite of 3 AA guns present.

Wave 3: Allied aircraft attack ships docked at Antwerp severely damaging (4!) the Bismark battle group. Interceptors engage doing moderate damage. Again, no AA defenses activated in spite of 3 AA guns present. A victory for the Allies!

Wave 4: Allied aircraft strategic bomb the city of Lille causing 2 production damage. Interceptors engage doing moderate damage. 3 AA guns are activated, scoring 1 hit on the bombers.

Wave 5: Allied aircraft attack ships docked at Antwerp severely damaging (bottomed out!) the Bismark battle group. Interceptors engage doing no damage. Again, no AA defenses activated in spite of 3 AA guns present. A great victory for the Allies!

Wave 6: Allied aircraft attack ships docked at Antwerp moderately damaging (2) the Admiral Hipper CA battle group. Interceptors engage doing no damage and receiving moderate damage in return. Again, no AA defenses activated in spite of 3 AA guns present. A great victory for the Allies!

Wave 7: Allied aircraft strategic bomb the port city of Amsterdam causing 2 production damage. Interceptors engage dealing 1 damage to the bombers while suffering 2 losses. 2 AA guns are present in the port city and are activated, dealing 1 damage to the bombers. A victory for the Allies! But at least we fought back with our AA guns, unlike at the port city of Antwerp.

[AlvaroSousa]

It does. You just got unlucky.

[Onsdag]

Also, while I'm on the subject of Anti-Air guns. Is AA only activated if the hex they are in is specifically targeted, or do they protect adjacent hexes and/or from aircraft flyover? It seems to me that they only protect (theoretically, since it didn't work in the above case) the hex they are located in. I got tired of the U.K. bombing my coastal cities so I beefed up their AA defenses, and instead they just started flying past my coastal cities deep inland to start bombing lesser protected cities. One would think though that they should help protect from any enemy flight that passes overhead. Maybe something along the lines of how interceptors/fighters work, though not as wide coverage, obviously, since they are not mobile. Granted, they could just route the flight around the major cities to softer targets. But I think AA batteries should maybe exert some kind of Zone of Control on air units to at least make it more difficult to bomb targets behind the front lines. As I recall this did happen historically and people either had to take longer flight paths to reach their destination or run the risk of losing aircraft to AA by flying past them. It would probably be somewhat difficult to implement though. Anyways, I was just curious how they work.

[Onsdag]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

It does. You just got unlucky.

Thank you for the reply.

I know and respect that you're the developer, so I don't want to question the accuracy of that, but if you could maybe at least make it visible in the combat report that would be great. Because I have several screenshots showing that when my interceptors engage the enemy and score no hits it shows that fact that I scored 0 hits.

For example, in wave 5 this is the combat report:

Allies Attacking
Air to Air Combat
III Tactical Grp: 0
I Jagdkorps: 0

Naval Air Strike
III Tactical Grp: 0
Defender Losses
Bismark BB Grp: BOTTOMED

You'll notice that even though my fighters/interceptors scored 0 hits it still lists it as such. Thus I know they were activated and tried to engage the enemy but, as you say, "they just got unlucky." I'm fine with that. However, it doesn't show my AA as having been engaged in the fight at all (and I'm sure you're probably right that they were there), but in every single other non-naval engagement where AA is present it actually shows that the AA tried to engage the enemy.

For example, here's the wave 7 report, which also took place in a port city with AA present, but wherein the target was a land unit and/or the city itself:

Allies Attacking
Air to Air Combat
No. 4 Hvy Bmbr: 1
III Jagdkorps: 2

Anti-Air Fire
No. 4 Hvy Bmbr: 1

Strategic Bombing Losses
Production Damage: 2

See, here I can clearly see that my AA guns did engage the enemy because it's actually listed in the combat report. If, as you say, I "just got unlucky" in every other single instance when the enemy aircraft engaged my naval units in a port city with AA present then I would still like to see it reported, even if it just says:

Anti-Air Fire
No. 4 Hvy Bmbr: 0

That way I can know it's functioning, and I just got unlucky as you say, and I don't have to worry about reporting it as a bug. And speaking of luck, what would be the odds of having 5 separate air attacks on a city with 3 AA guns installed, and every single one is a complete miss for the AA guns? Because if you're right and that's what happened when they attacked my naval units in port then I've got the worst luck. Meanwhile, in the 2 non-naval strikes, my AA guns have a 100% success rate of at least scoring a hit - and it's actually reported in the combat report so I know it's at least working.

[Onsdag]

Alright, I did some more testing by reloading several times and playing through the turn with the above mentioned attacks. In case anyone is wondering, yes, everything is randomly generated so you will never get the same results. Here are the results:

Number of reloads/turns: 8

Naval strikes: 40
AA reported: 0
AA not reported: 40


Non-Naval strikes: 16
AA reported: 16
AA reports 1+ damage: 8
AA reports 0 damage: 8
AA not reported: 0

As you can see I played through the turn 8 times. The results of each turn are randomly generated. Some turns the Bismark was sunk, other turns it was the Admiral Hipper sunk, and some turns nothing was sunk. The attacking and defending losses of aircraft varied wildly too. I mention this to show that we can treat each attack as its own encounter, and the results therefore should reflect a randomness too.

There were 40 Naval strikes, targeting the ships docked in 1 city, which had 3 AA gun installations. Out of the 40 Naval strikes not once is AA defense reported (0%). Since the AA is never reported I cannot determine if it is actually working as intended, or if it's even working at all. At face value I'm inclined to think it's not working at all, but I very well could be wrong and it could either be A) hidden and/or not being reported (which I would consider a bug or unintended behavior), or B) baked into one of the other reports.

Out of the 16 Non-Naval strikes AA is reported 16 times (100%). Two different cities were targeted, Lille which has 3 AA guns installed, and the port city of Amsterdam which has 2 AA guns installed. Of the 16 Non-Naval strikes 8 (50%) report some amount of AA damage (usually 1 or 2; it may have gone higher but I was only noting if the enemy aircraft took damage or not) while the other 8 (50%) report 0 damage. It is important to note that the Non-Naval strikes do actually report 100% of the time, even when it is 0 damage.

This is what makes me think that something isn't quite right in regards to AA defending from Naval strikes into port cities, because it is clearly reporting even the failures when the target is Non-Naval. So either 1) the AA guns aren't activating in defense of Naval strikes in port cities, 2) it's just not being reported at all, or 3) it's being reported, but it's baked into one of the other statistics. Whichever one it is poses a problem, in my opinion, and should be looked into. If it's not working at all then that's an obvious problem because the AA should be firing in defense of all assets in the targeted hex. If it's just not being reported, or reported incorrectly, then how can we know what is accurately going on and adjust our actions appropriately?

Here is an example of one of the Naval strikes, and why I think it may be possible the AA guns are being misreported as something else:

Allies Attacking
Air to Air Combat
No. 11 Ftr: 4
I Jagdkorps: 3
(I'm assuming this is the Allied bomber escorts/CAP and my fighters/interceptors engaging in combat before the bombers arrive. The allied fighters take 4 damage and my planes take 3 damage.)

Air to Air Combat
Tactical Air Grp.: 3
I Jagdkorps: 2
(I'm assuming this is my fighters/interceptors engaging the Naval strike forces themselves. The allied bombers take 3 damage whereas my planes take 2 damage.)

Naval Air Strike
Tactical Air Grp.: 11
Defender Losses

Naval Air: 5
Admiral Hipper Ca Grp: 2
(This part actually confuses me. There is clearly a space separating these two sections, but I believe they are supposed to be together as they represent the Naval strike itself (refer to the picture in the OP for what I'm talking about). I'm guessing the 11 Allied aircraft losses are from what my Naval units inflicted upon them (they have AA defenses themselves after all), but it seems rather high? I do have 4 Naval groups - 2 BB, 1 BC, and 1 CA - stationed there, so it might be reasonable? Or is this damage from my 3 AA batteries stationed in the city? I've never seen that many losses from AA alone though, usually it's only 1-2 damage. Maybe a combination of both? Also, what is going on beneath the "Defender Losses" section? I don't have any aircraft carriers, so the 5 Naval Air losses can't be mine, can they? Or are these even more losses inflicted upon the Allied strike craft from some unknown source? 5 damage is pretty significant - that's 1/4 of a full air wing. What's strange is while all the damage numbers are colored yellow, the "Naval Air" number is grey - so is this something completely different? And then clearly the 2 damage is what my Naval units received from the bombers.)

Can you help me understand what is going on here? Thanks!

[AlvaroSousa]

I literally looked at the code and it does pass the AA guns to the functions and includes them in the damage.

I'll see if I can an AA message. But the damage should be included after interceptor combat.

Try strat bombing a 6 AA city with a air sup. You will see some serious casualties.

[Onsdag]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

I literally looked at the code and it does pass the AA guns to the functions and includes them in the damage.

I'll see if I can an AA message. But the damage should be included after interceptor combat.

Try strat bombing a 6 AA city with a air sup. You will see some serious casualties.

I'll trust you on that. I'm guessing it's just not being reported properly then, or it's being combined with one of the other reports.

[AlvaroSousa]

If I remember, and forgive me there is a lot under the hood, the combat reports do report all hits.... but it doesn't report hits that got blocked by defense and converted to effectiveness loss.

Much like the exaggerated kills by pilots.

WarPlan is like poker. A game of incomplete information.

[Onsdag]

OK, I think I figured out the "Naval Air" thing - that represents the combined (average) Naval Anti-Air rating of the fleet. Individually my 4 ships have an AA rating of 7, 7, 5, and 3, which averages out to 5.5 for the fleet. Which suggests, in the above example, that the 11 losses comes from this number, with some random tolerances.

[Dalwin]

ORIGINAL: Onsdag

Also, while I'm on the subject of Anti-Air guns. Is AA only activated if the hex they are in is specifically targeted, or do they protect adjacent hexes and/or from aircraft flyover? It seems to me that they only protect (theoretically, since it didn't work in the above case) the hex they are located in. I got tired of the U.K. bombing my coastal cities so I beefed up their AA defenses, and instead they just started flying past my coastal cities deep inland to start bombing lesser protected cities. One would think though that they should help protect from any enemy flight that passes overhead. Maybe something along the lines of how interceptors/fighters work, though not as wide coverage, obviously, since they are not mobile. Granted, they could just route the flight around the major cities to softer targets. But I think AA batteries should maybe exert some kind of Zone of Control on air units to at least make it more difficult to bomb targets behind the front lines. As I recall this did happen historically and people either had to take longer flight paths to reach their destination or run the risk of losing aircraft to AA by flying past them. It would probably be somewhat difficult to implement though. Anyways, I was just curious how they work.

While I appreciate the effort you went to in providing detail for this bug, even if it ends up only being a bug in reporting, I disagree on your point about flyover. It is a common request in other games too, but it simply not realistic, especially at this map scale and without the ability to make detailed bombing routes that either go around AA concentrations or pass over them at high altitude. Historically AA was only a significant danger at the target itself and even then mostly minor.

[sveint]

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa
Try strat bombing a 6 AA city with a air sup. You will see some serious casualties.

In my experience bomber casualties are still very light, no matter the conditions. At least that is what the report says to the Axis player.

[sveint]

Example