Air Superiority Enemy phase

[metaphore]

ORIGINAL: loki100

Key bit (to me), AS is not really the mission to interact with GS. It will, or the fighters can be called in but that is much better handled via the GS or auto-intercept missions

A lot of this makes more sense in WiTW. The Axis player relies on 'enemy' AS as that is when the bombers are over the Reich. The allies rely on 'friendly' AS as, yep, that is when the bombers are over the Reich and the LW in the skies.

Or ... to be pedantic, I still hold to my view that in WiTE2 AS is a pretty esoteric mission and you need to understand the things it does better than just auto-intercept and why you are not just using auto-intercept.

But, practically:
1. Auto-intercept by itself won't stop hundreds of tons of supply to be airlifted to enemy pocketed forces.
2. Auto-intercept is also significantly less effective for everything else since the latest releases.

That's the primary reason why everybody is actually trying to make the most out of Air Superiority missions.

As usal, it's important to be able to measure precisely what are the cost vs benefits of those settings without relying on whoever general considerations on what they are supposed to be used for (or not).

It's the same about the reason why they have been implemented like that in this game : it's not helpful to discuss that if we still don't know how the system is really supposed to work.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: metaphore

....

Thank you loki for stating again the obvious: they will only fly during the phase chosen, or both!

Now, how will this work as described in the rulebook depending on the selected option:
"Air groups that are specifically assigned [...] will have a better chance of flying interception missions during the enemy movement phase in the target area of the air superiority air directive. This allow them to intercept enemy Ground Support and Transport mission. This is because the miles they flew for air superiority missions in the friendly execution phase..."

But if I didn't select this option (fly during friendly execution phase), what happen then? how many miles? how much supply? what bonus?

This description seems only to be working for a single option: "fly AS during both phases".
Then, what is supposed to happen when the other two are selected instead?

I'm aorry but the distinction is obvious, how to use them to get the effect you want isn't.

There are 2 parts to AS.

a) it interacts with other air missions flown in the air phase, either 'friendly' ie the missions you generate or 'enemy' (with exceptions the missions your opponent generates)
b) it creates 'air miles' on the map that are used to determine interception with enemy GS and air transport related missions - the key here is those missions do not happen in the air phase but the ground phase.

Now I personally am of the view that AS is a poor choice for (b), but clearly there is little point to stating that. As is designed to do 2 things - put your fighters over enemy airspace looking for a fight or box in the defending fighters so they stay concentrated. The nature of the air war in WiTE2 is such that neither are common features of most games.

I personally can readily get auto-intercept to catch transport missions, so perhaps that maybe an area where studying what you are doing might pay off?

I think the interaction with (b) may well have bugs. As has been stated many times Pavel is the only person who can recode the air war. Since release he's been trying to do the scaling work and is now working to regain functionality for the editor. The view is that none of this is easy, its probably a mix of WAD (but misunderstood) and bugs.

By deliberate choice, there are a lot of detailed formulas not in the manual. Partly they change, sometimes they are near incomprehensible written out and sometimes to stop micro-rule abuse.

So there is no clear answer to:

"But if I didn't select this option (fly during friendly execution phase), what happen then? how many miles? how much supply? what bonus?"

Beyond the relatively obvious, you fly 50% of the AS (ie one phase only), you get 50% of the results

[Joel Billings]

I'm using the latest test exe, although the one bug fix in there since .10 having to do with fighter escorts not flying is not something I would expect to make a difference in this situation. I attacked the hex you showed attacked in the screenshot above on turn 12, and several others. I got no a/c flying, no losses, and no fuel used up in the airbase. I cannot explain what you are seeing as it does not make any sense that the base would use fuel when no one is flying. I think I've seen displayed losses with no a/c in the battle before, but can't remember when or why. I have some recollection it may have to do with AS aircraft, but just can't remember. It's not good, but since I can't recreate any of this with your save, I don't know what to do. The save I used was the one in the air planning phase. All I did was end the phase, and once in combat I started launching attacks in the area you showed. If you changed something during air planning, let me know. If not, I'll have to see another case of this where I can duplicate what you're seeing.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I'm using the latest test exe, although the one bug fix in there since .10 having to do with fighter escorts not flying is not something I would expect to make a difference in this situation. I attacked the hex you showed attacked in the screenshot above on turn 12, and several others. I got no a/c flying, no losses, and no fuel used up in the airbase. I cannot explain what you are seeing as it does not make any sense that the base would use fuel when no one is flying. I think I've seen displayed losses with no a/c in the battle before, but can't remember when or why. I have some recollection it may have to do with AS aircraft, but just can't remember. It's not good, but since I can't recreate any of this with your save, I don't know what to do. The save I used was the one in the air planning phase. All I did was end the phase, and once in combat I started launching attacks in the area you showed. If you changed something during air planning, let me know. If not, I'll have to see another case of this where I can duplicate what you're seeing.

Thank you for the reply.

When you say, "I'm using the latest test exe" you are using an .exe above .10 correct? I am concerned if that is the case since if it is in .10 and you are using the latest .exe above .10 then the problem can be hidden only to pop up again I would think. So either the problem got fixed in the "latest test .exe" after .10 or it did not to only come back later. Did you try with .10?

I am going to delete my whole WITE2 game from the computer & re-install fresh. I don't know if anyone else is seeing this but maybe a file on my computer is corrupted and causing the errors since I have seen no one else mentioning this. I don't know if this will have an impact but it is worth a try in my opinion.

On the BETA Forums ZOV's made a post on not seeing what I was seeing between the different patches. I was using .09 and Zovs was like .12 or higher. That is where you could have possibly seen it.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Has any one else had these issues with .09 &/or .10?

[loki100]

no, not happening - maybe patch as I'm on the latest test beta. Must admit I am usually now utterly confused as to which patch is public and which not, so that is one reason to hold off new HtH unless someone has access to the test patches.

But it doesn't help for discussion.

In effect

- I'm not hitting a problem because I'm not trying to do what you are
- I'm not hitting a problem because I've set it up so it does work (perhaps using some half remembered feng shui from WiTW)
- One of us is an idiot (I'll volunteer [;)])
or
- I'm using a patch that has resolved it - especially if its all a bit of an accidental side effect of a different change

Pick 1-4 from above (or more)

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: loki100

no, not happening - maybe patch as I'm on the latest test beta. Must admit I am usually now utterly confused as to which patch is public and which not, so that is one reason to hold off new HtH unless someone has access to the test patches.

But it doesn't help for discussion.

In effect

- I'm not hitting a problem because I'm not trying to do what you are
- I'm not hitting a problem because I've set it up so it does work (perhaps using some half remembered feng shui from WiTW)
- One of us is an idiot (I'll volunteer [;)])
or
- I'm using a patch that has resolved it - especially if its all a bit of an accidental side effect of a different change

Pick 1-4 from above (or more)

Thanks for the reply.

I have come to my conclusion and will act on it.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: loki100

- One of us is an idiot (I'll volunteer [;)])

I don't feel this was very nice even with you volunteering as one & smiley face to boot. I have only tried to contribute on what I am seeing. If I am an idiot trying to bring this out then I no longer want to be part of this game.

[Joel Billings]

I tried again, and this time I got a loss. I tracked it down to I/JG51 that is flying AS. It actually got a few miles added to it and it used fuel. It was in the Dugino airbase so I was looking at the wrong airbase. It did this in both 1.01.10 and my latest test version, so it's still there. Why they are flying, adding miles, using fuel, but not showing on the combat display is a mystery. I'll add it to the bug list for Pavel to look into when he gets back to looking at the air game.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I tried again, and this time I got a loss. I tracked it down to I/JG51 that is flying AS. It actually got a few miles added to it and it used fuel. It was in the Dugino airbase so I was looking at the wrong airbase. It did this in both 1.01.10 and my latest test version, so it's still there. Why they are flying, adding miles, using fuel, but not showing on the combat display is a mystery. I'll add it to the bug list for Pavel to look into when he gets back to looking at the air game.

Thank you Mr Billings. I am sorry I should have said I had 4 AS's from 4 different air bases in the area but the one I was tracking was out of Rzhev. I am so glad you were able to duplicate the situation.

[Joel Billings]

Now it is possible this is WAD for the following reason.

During the enemy phase, the unit flies AS. The miles flown are available to be used to intercept in the enemy ground phase. Now that you are in a new turn, your miles flown are reset to 0. The unit is available to be used for auto CAP over friendly ground attacks. I don't know if this is WAD, and if it is, the a/c should show up as having flown in the battle. It could be some bad interaction between the auto CAP routine in the ground phase that Gary wrote, and the AS routines that Pavel wrote. As with many things with the air game (which we admit got incredibly complicated re what fighters would fly when), we won't really know until Pavel has time to take a deep dive into some of these items.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

It could be some bad interaction between the auto CAP routine in the ground phase that Gary wrote, and the AS routines that Pavel wrote.

I know when I write programs and trying to marry them up to someone else's work there could be an issue where variable assignment, and some other things, gets mixed up. This has the finger prints of that as you explained in the sentence above which makes total sense.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Is there a flowchart of the step through for the Air Phase that was done for the programming that can be shared? If there is one that is available I would love to see it.

[Joel Billings]

So would I. [:)]

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

So would I. [:)]

Oh!