Air Fighters and Intercepting Questions

[Daza99]

I have two air fighters at my SHQ with Air Intercept orders set at 75%> readiness. Their current range is 6 hexes. I had troops attacked from the air six hexes away and it appeared they weren't intercepted?

Questions: During enemies turn..

1) If the distance of intercept is exactly the range or bingo range of the interceptor is the mission aborted?
2) How do we know if there has been an intercept mission launched? and its outcome eg. failure or success or perhaps partial success.
3) My current fighters are prop powered so i presume it would take them too long to get to the hex by which the enemy is long gone?, unlike for example WW2 where there were daily patrols of the skies (something this game doesn't have)
4) What is the best method to protect troops on the front line? do i need to build an airport as close as to the fight to get better reaction time from the interceptors? i could use flak units, but that means creating one per hex which these take a huge amount of ammo to create.

[zgrssd]

I can help with the defense against low fliers:
- MG's do have a limited AA score against Low Fliers. Something like 4 for basic Infantry, 20 for Double Barrel, 30 for Quad Barrel. This includes the vehicle variants. So the unit would at least be not totally helpless. Not likely to kill something with ~100 Air HP however.
- Low Fliers get penalties from Foiliage. They got no issues attacking into mountains, but trees block them from being effective
- AA has a "Flak Range" of 1 listed in the Design log. Wich means it can fire from adjacent hexes without being targetable itself. SAM range caps out at 5-6 Hexs, depending on size. So you could place one SAM on the OHQ and it would possibly cover every unit that is within 100% HQ Power range.

About Intercept:
"The Air Units Intercept range is calculated using the Readiness Score instead of the Action Points and diminished with 33%. Interception is never a certainty, but the closer the Interceptor Unit is to the Hex where the enemy Air Units are active and the higher the Readiness, the more chance an Air Intercept will take place"
"Any Air Units that are attacked on their own Airbase Hex will suffer combat penalties. Their attack points will be reduced in combat round 1,2 and 3 by respectively -100%, -66% and -33%. Their hit points will be reduced by -66%, -44% and -22%. These penalties simulate the time needed to scramble and get up in the air. It might well be advisable to place some Anti-Air weaponry on Airbase Hexes in order to protect them."

Keep in mind that all Roles except Fighter and Fighter-Bomber are set to avoid Dogfights - wich is propably the primary mode of Air combat after the first 2 rounds. So they have a hard time intercepting.

[Soar_Slitherine]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Keep in mind that all Roles except Fighter and Fighter-Bomber are set to avoid Dogfights - wich is propably the primary mode of Air combat after the first 2 rounds. So they have a hard time intercepting.

I'd be interested in any confirmed information about this. One would think that air units explicitly told to intercept enemy air missions would try to shoot them down, not merely show up and then bugger off, regardless of what the nominal role of the aircraft they're flying is.

[Clux]

In my experience interceptors only works the 33% of the time while having 100% readiness and being perfectly in range (assuming -33% range). Therefore, I would recommend making SAMs or using quad mgs in your units, cuz even if they have a low AA attack value, somehow they consistently score lots of hits and force the enemy aircraft to retreat (occasionally they score a kill)

[Daza99]

I have yet to discover SAMs or Quad MG, I have three wars going which were unavoidable quite early in my play. But i managed to get two alien races to join me just as those wars started, and one Major regime who is blackmailing me and likely wants to attack me as well at some point, i am hoping i can get rival faction into power and perhaps removing the blackmail. At the moment it one Major regime that is only using air attacks. They do what i have been doing in the past, bomb my troops then send in ground forces.

I think it would be nice if we could designate air patrols, because it seems illogical you can't. It could work the same way as Air bridge(but not having to wait a turn before it is in effect- because you can send bombers and recon out on same turn), but the destination the squadron will cover a radius of +1 hex in all directions of the destination hex before RTB. This perhaps costs more fuel. Also this could work in tandem with sending bombers to the area and thus also get fighter support. Air patrols could require 100% readiness if balancing is needed, and as said costs more fuel than a-b attack runs etc.

Currently the only way to sort of do this would be to build and upgrade several airbases near the front, which perhaps by the time are operational the front line has moved or the airports are taken over by the enemy and possibly used by them.

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: Daza99
[...]
1) If the distance of intercept is exactly the range or bingo range of the interceptor is the mission aborted?
[...]

What is "bingo range" ?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Daza99

Currently the only way to sort of do this would be to build and upgrade several airbases near the front, which perhaps by the time are operational the front line has moved or the airports are taken over by the enemy and possibly used by them.

Then just light MG infantry with some Flak as cover every 2 hexes.

I can confirm that even normal MG's with a mere 4 Low Air Attack seem to have a exceptional ability to turn around my fliers.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Clux

using quad mgs in your units, cuz even if they have a low AA attack value, somehow they consistently score lots of hits and force the enemy aircraft to retreat (occasionally they score a kill)

I noticed that I always had a retreat of one Aircraft subunit on the 1st turn. I made a bug report for it, maybe you have coroborating incidents?

[Daza99]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

ORIGINAL: Daza99
[...]
1) If the distance of intercept is exactly the range or bingo range of the interceptor is the mission aborted?
[...]

What is "bingo range" ?

Its a word used to mean when a pilot reaches a range where they only have enough fuel to return to base and head back and must do so, i am not sure of the actual lingo, maybe 'bingo fuel'. But i figured in this game the range is based on being able to go somewhere and return.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Daza99

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

ORIGINAL: Daza99
[...]
1) If the distance of intercept is exactly the range or bingo range of the interceptor is the mission aborted?
[...]

What is "bingo range" ?

Its a word used to mean when a pilot reaches a range where they only have enough fuel to return to base and head back and must do so, i am not sure of the actual lingo, maybe 'bingo fuel'. But i figured in this game the range is based on being able to go somewhere and return.

Indeed there are three ranges:
- maximum range for transfers
- half of that for offensive missions, where you have to fly there and back
- half the range -33% for air intercept, as some fuel has to be reserved for dogfighting/loitering/being on patrol

[shabowie]

Hah, I didn’t even know how to have them fly intercepts or caps prior to this thread. The way I’d been achieving air superiority is sending my fighters with my bombers every time. They come up to stop me my fighters kill a bunch of them.

Good stuff.