air war feedback

[Stamb]

There's broken, and there's WAD but not as you'd like it. When you say air game is broken, I really would like to know exactly what is broken. We have some things on the list now to look at, but as time is hard to find and fixes are hard to come by on complex issues, it would be great to know what the top issues are re the "broken" air game. I would support your starting a thread in the tech support area listing the top items that you think are broken with the air game. I can then check to see if I have them on our list with the required saves, or if I need examples of what they are. We expect to have Pavel looking at a few issues this summer before the Steel Inferno expansion is completed, so having the most important items lined up to be looked at would help a lot. Some things like the fact that sometimes GS causes no damage is likely not something that will get looked at unless it is repeatable from a save, which to my knowledge it has not been. It's possible that these are WAD and simply cloud cover obscuring the target even in what is otherwise decent weather.

here i will provide a list of things related to an air war, that was made by collecting feedback from multiple players

it will contain not only issues but also suggestions, we decided to put it all together since it will be already a mega air war thread

1. overpowered GS
tactical bombers, for both sides, are just too deadly
it is common to see that unit lose 8 guns from the GS, while 1 was lost in retreat and 1 was lost in a battle

maybe it is WAD but i have no idea how it will look like past 42
as already in `41 both sides lose 2x-3x-4x of their big gun production per turn (not even counting losses in other TBs)
i am afraid that if game goes to `43 or `44 both sides will be out of guns

2. VVS are wiped in the air if Germans fly
from patch notes of a latest beta (• Several tweaks were made to reduce the intensity of air to air combat.)
they are nice, and what i see in my games, from a Soviet POW, Germans do not fly in hundreds, but 20-40 fighters instead in `41

but when they have enough supply (i suppose), typically in the north, they start to have hundreds again and VVS are wiped without any chances
which actually would be fine, if not 1. overpowered GS

because of so strong GS and inability to defend against mass German fighters Soviets suffer enormous losses from a GS

3. super rare recon/GA interception
players can recon huge areas without interception, maybe it is WAD, but it was not a case some time ago
in 27/29beta i played around 50+ turns and recon missions were intercepted only once or twice

same goes for GA
you can bomb the hell out of your enemy for free
i house rule GA except of Axis turn 1 completely, starting from 02.11 patch

4. GA missions with a goal to create interdiction are useless, it was shown in few AARs, i am sure Beethoven vs Bread had it, and it shows that you will move just fine even with interdiction in the hexes, except of few cases like river crossing or something

and here is another question, since interdiction does not do almost anything - are partisans having any effect at all?

5. same ops losses in any weather
it was changed some time ago and it was working fine, but at some point i noticed that there are no changes in OPS losses
i noticed it in my game vs Stephan when he was flying transport planes in any weather with same losses
if you will check it - use day missions, i do not think anybody even uses night transport missions

also there are a couple of reports that transport mission OPS losses are to high (personally i did not see too high losses but it is also worth adding)

6. if transport mission is intercepted than losses of transport planes are minimal
being Soviet player i had interceptions of German transport planes without an escort and managed to kill 1-2-3 planes only, which is basically the same as OPS losses without interception

7. during GS there is no way of making sure that bombers fly with an escort, it would be really nice to have option to set minimum amount of bombers and escort to fly, and if criteria is not met - no GS

8. air mission description is over the fly path, so players can not edit fly path
typically Soviets face this problem
solution would be to make fly path over air mission description, or to make air mission description background more transparent so fly path could be selected

9. fighters fly to support armies that they are not supposed to support
in GS during attack there is no such issue, it happens only if GS is used defensively
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=384716

10. good pilots are lost when squadron goes to reserve
it is really pain in the ass
it forces players to keep squadrons on the map not to lose pilots with good exp
for example Soviets on t1 have a lot of squadrons with 50-60 exp
if player send it to reserve and then bring them on map again - he will get something like [40-60] exp pilots

one of the option that was discussed between us (players) was to remove trained, normal pilots completely and have all pilots exp equal to exp of a squadron
if this is not an option then reducing the range of exp which pilots get when they are going from reserve to a map will also work
for example from [35-60] to [45-50]

11. no ability to kick pilots from a squadron
sometimes there is a great squadron of aces while few pilots are complete newbies, and the only way to get rid of them is to wait til they die

12. add multiple ground support air doctrine settings, one for level bombers and one for tactical bombers

13. show full details of all recon air battles

14. fake info about bombing damage, even if you are the side that was bombed

lets say my city was bombed
i view air battle and report says there was 20% damage to a port
i click on a city itself and there might be 3% damage

15. fighters range circles display something, but not their actual range (i think tyronec made a thread on the main forum, but not sure, there were more examples) as a result players have no idea where their fighters can actually provide air cover

16. operational losses for air superiority were also reported as too high, which makes using it not worthy


Joel, if you want to discuss some specific issues or suggestions it would be worth creating new threads (1 per issue/suggestion) as it going to be a hell here, if players start to discuss them here
i know it, i went through it when we were making this list in discord

thanks for asking for a feedback

we appreciate all of the work from you and devs!

[Stamb]

17. air NM is not displayed anywhere (except of the editor)

[Stamb]

18. no ability to set altitude for the planes on ESCORT or PATROL, do not remember which one
as a result some planes will fly at the altitude that you set, while others will be at default 9k

[AlbertN]

1. overpowered GS
tactical bombers, for both sides, are just too deadly
it is common to see that unit lose 8 guns from the GS, while 1 was lost in retreat and 1 was lost in a battle

maybe it is WAD but i have no idea how it will look like past 42
as already in `41 both sides lose 2x-3x-4x of their big gun production per turn (not even counting losses in other TBs)
i am afraid that if game goes to `43 or `44 both sides will be out of guns

Here I feel that SOVIET GS is overpowered and Axis underpowered.

Il2 and Su2 are flying death stars - and I've shown it in my Soviet AAR.
Stukas just explodes as they fly where there is a minimum of AA.
Level bombers are generally disrupting decently.

But for now we see Axis players going 'Luftwaffe Bombers go in reserve or around NSS' from Turn 2.
That itself screams how HUGE the problem is.
It is also accrued by the ridiculous German logistics.
Once a bit into Soviet Union your troops are pretty much starving already in summer, in winter they just lose morale in throves - figure out if you need to add squadrons and squadrons of bombers operating day in and day out (as I am sure historically happened).

Soviet Logistics instead allow for bombers to operate day in and day out - as shown by the CAV attacks with 200+ bombers tagging along!

2. VVS are wiped in the air if Germans fly
from patch notes of a latest beta (• Several tweaks were made to reduce the intensity of air to air combat.)
they are nice, and what i see in my games, from a Soviet POW, Germans do not fly in hundreds, but 20-40 fighters instead in `41

but when they have enough supply (i suppose), typically in the north, they start to have hundreds again and VVS are wiped without any chances
which actually would be fine, if not 1. overpowered GS

because of so strong GS and inability to defend against mass German fighters Soviets suffer enormous losses from a GS

Agreeting with Stamb with due premise, if the GS is overpowered ... there is a problem linked here.

Now in latest patch (.29) the Luftwaffe is a joke and hardly inflict adequate losses in '41 '42.
BUT if we just hop backward to previous patch, the Luftwaffe is at the other scale - and obliterates Soviets that fly almost in their entirety.
Also in both patches if the Soviets intercept unscorted German bombers they butcher them.
Also the air combat model in Air Supply missions is wonky - and in general it is perceived as the best way to attrition the Luftwaffe. Fly Li2 + Escorts air missions and have them intercepted by the LW, that regularly comes in small numbers, and suffer a lot of OPs.

3. super rare recon/GA interception
players can recon huge areas without interception, maybe it is WAD, but it was not a case some time ago
in 27/29beta i played around 50+ turns and recon missions were intercepted only once or twice

same goes for GA
you can bomb the hell out of your enemy for free
i house rule GA except of Axis turn 1 completely, starting from 02.11 patch

Recon should not get intercepted in general.

It is very uncommon that some recon airplane is intercepted, the fly solo or in pairs at best and are just not bothered - unless someone can fly persistant air patrols (Air Superiority).

On the other hand on the Ground Attack I am with Stamb and muchly so.
I've done non intercepted airfield attacks deep into German lines as Soviets - like 20-30 hexes, by day and the Luftwaffe has not intercepted - and got fighters bombed in their airfields.

4. GA missions with a goal to create interdiction are useless, it was shown in few AARs, i am sure Beethoven vs Bread had it, and it shows that you will move just fine even with interdiction in the hexes, except of few cases like river crossing or something

and here is another question, since interdiction does not do almost anything - are partisans having any effect at all?

Confirming Interdiction on the ground seems ... useless.

Partisans I cannot profess - THINK - they do something but it's about freight.
They produce little interdiction, not even 1 full value. And most of our games experience are in '41 and '42 where they were not exactly organized.
Partisans are meant to be annoyance - and the game handles it well by just keeping a garrison at abstract level.

5. same ops losses in any weather
it was changed some time ago and it was working fine, but at some point i noticed that there are no changes in OPS losses
i noticed it in my game vs Stephan when he was flying transport planes in any weather with same losses
if you will check it - use day missions, i do not think anybody even uses night transport missions

also there are a couple of reports that transport mission OPS losses are to high (personally i did not see too high losses but it is also worth adding)

I've noticed a difference in weather OPs.

I am also one of the people reporting excess of OPs losses for transports.
Albeit I think in general OPs are far too high.

6. if transport mission is intercepted than losses of transport planes are minimal
being Soviet player i had interceptions of German transport planes without an escort and managed to kill 1-2-3 planes only, which is basically the same as OPS losses without interception

Yes and no.
I believe Intercepts of Air Transport missions are excessive.

A matter is if air supply happens in a pocket. Planes fly over the enemy heads, they inform their planes and they take off to intercept.
If I am flying something that is already -2- hexes behind the frontline the possibility that the enemy planes are right here when a transport fleet is about to land is nihil.
They've over the head of your own troops in general and you'd be aware of your presence.

There should not be any interception at all behind enemy lines UNLESS an Air Superiority mission is established for it (with all the intended consequences).

Besides 'HOW INTERCEPT AIR SUPPLY' works - I think the losses are iffy as well but in general I think the Germans suffers too much there.
There is some deviant mechanism that makes the Luftwaffe easy to attrition by making them intercept Russian Airlift.

7. during GS there is no way of making sure that bombers fly with an escort, it would be really nice to have option to set minimum amount of bombers and escort to fly, and if criteria is not met - no GS

FULL AGREEMENT!!!

I add, it would do good to add a criteria for battle intensity for the enemy turn too.
Players should be able to leave the GS on for the enemy turn. And planes should intervene only when X enemy units or X enemy CV is involved in a battle maybe.
Otherwise CAV spam attacks to lure enemy GS around and inflict them bucket of OPs, and then the real attacks come. (Done that already currently in the Soviet game - needless to say the Luftwaffe in '42 has pulled back after being bombed in the airfield and all!).

As Soviet when I've left Ground Support on it was either massively micro'ed (which I dislike) down to a specific ARMY (not even a Front) or simply Idid not cared (because Soviets have swarms of planes and pilots and pilot experience is redundant for bombing. The Il2 were destroying bucket of Axis guns and the Stukas were being blasted away by AA).
But the LW was doing its numbers there - it was before the nerf of air combat patch though. Very confident right now in '42 the VVS can crush the Luftwaffe just in virtue of sheer massed numbers.

8. air mission description is over the fly path, so players can not edit fly path
typically Soviets face this problem
solution would be to make fly path over air mission description, or to make air mission description background more transparent so fly path could be selected

Labels of AOG can cover things at times. Yes.

Some air mission stuff like Air Supply cannot have its pathing altered either.

9. fighters fly to support armies that they are not supposed to support
in GS during attack there is no such issue, it happens only if GS is used defensively
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=384716

That is quite important as some fighters would just waste added mileage by flying to protect something remote, while they could ahve covered something closer 5 times more.
Turn 1 is a typical example itself of how the LW intercepts beyond the GS boundaries.

10. good pilots are lost when squadron goes to reserve
it is really pain in the ass
it forces players to keep squadrons on the map not to lose pilots with good exp
for example Soviets on t1 have a lot of squadrons with 50-60 exp
if player send it to reserve and then bring them on map again - he will get something like [40-60] exp pilots

one of the option that was discussed between us (players) was to remove trained, normal pilots completely and have all pilots exp equal to exp of a squadron
if this is not an option then reducing the range of exp which pilots get when they are going from reserve to a map will also work
for example from [35-60] to [45-50]

Yes that was one of the trending topics in the Discord group I and Stamb are part of (and as you can see we digress in opinions on many things!)

Definitely it would do good to the health of the game to NOT have individual pilots.

Number of Pilots in squadron.
Experience of Pilots.
1 value serves all pilots of the squadron.
That way there is no need to worry about 'sending stuff to the reserve'.

11. no ability to kick pilots from a squadron
sometimes there is a great squadron of aces while few pilots are complete newbies, and the only way to get rid of them is to wait til they die

This one for instance I do not agree with because it will turn into a massive exploit.
One would kick all pilots that are inferior to your average values.
Once these pilots return to pool they lose their 'inferior value' and turn into generic pilots.

Otherwise there need to be the record of all kicked pilots ... the 'scrubs list' ... not exactly doable imo, it would add micromanagement.
Players will just scour all their air units to kick all the shoddy pilots or so...
Then kick all good pilots there. Add all the bad pilots to your I153 unit, park it in Caucasus or so for good...

It would open up a can of worms.

Much better just to not have individual pilots at all!

12. add multiple ground support air doctrine settings, one for level bombers and one for tactical bombers

Agree!

13. show full details of all recon air battles

Recon should provide more details - than just 'Oh it's armor' 'Hmm it's infantry'.
Recon should be WAY MORE USEFUL.

14. fake info about bombing damage, even if you are the side that was bombed

Agree!

If I got bombed in the enemy turn, I'd like to see what was the result (and so one can test too in Single Player).
There is a logistic phase in the middle that repairs as well (It would do good to add how much was repaired in General if one enables the Factory / Industry filter on map).

15. fighters range circles display something, but not their actual range (i think tyronec made a thread on the main forum, but not sure, there were more examples) as a result players have no idea where their fighters can actually provide air cover.

16. operational losses for air superiority were also reported as too high, which makes using it not worthy

Yes that is a problem.

In general OPs to me are too high - which leads to players being very conservative on their airforce.

In all games I've played people barely fly stuff - it is surreal and definitely anticlimatic.

Air Supply is the thing that is flow the most past T1!

Only the more experienced Soviet players fly because they know they have production for and all - but many see absurd OPs losses and stop.

___

Now I'll be quite blunt - I think the Air System is in general ill conceived and badly designed here in general.

It has a day by day system vs a week turn system for the ground warfare.
It mixes the pair as some air business happen only in the 'weekly' component of the turn.

Recon should happen BEFORE anything, in some sort of 'pre phase' (Or allow the WITE1 approach of run it on the flow which probably was factually better).

The scene in my mind unfolds that recon takes place (it would happen daily!) and on the base of the recon one plans ahead.
We live in IGO UGO system.
So first one has 'Recon Phase'. Based on Recon Phase on can determine if to attack airfields, railyards, ground support, etc - and with better recon results - one can prepare ground maneuvers.
There should be some final, post-ground movement phase, air phase.

Players should determine the zones where they want ground support or fly interdiction - some generic air operations - which can be a mix match of things.
Or even something taht spreads from an airfield (like Naval passive patrols) on ground would probably be better.

I'd rather have a DLC to buy that gives me a proper Air System and real Production and Axis Unit Creation system than scenarios.

[tyronec]

1. Range circles are not depicting how the game works. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=384165

2. As I understand it historically GA was most effective in defence (when the enemy troops will be out of their trenches) or during mobile warfare. In the game you cannot leave GA on during the enemy turn without risking losing masses of aircraft and GA in attack is more effective against single or small units because the damage inflicted is proportionally higher than if against a stack of units.

3. During the blitzkrieg phases of the war ('41 for Axis, late war for Soviets) it is borderline to use GS because of the supplies that bombers absorb and draw away from the ground troops. I have never read anything to suggest that this was actually the case.

4. Naval patrol interdiction can be countered by naval patrol interdiction, so both sides are competing to get the higher interdiction level. No, if both sides have a high interdiction level then it should block supplies for both sides. It should be fighter intercepts that block naval interdiction.

5. Load out selection. Could the auto selection be a bit better. So naval patrol always use mines and GA - airbase always use maximum small bombs; and am sure there are other examples. Every game you have to reset the Stukas on T1 or they mess up.

6. A few interface issues:
Air transfer of an individual air group that doesn't execute can leave something in memory that has to be cancelled before you can do any further air transfer.
Transfer air group from the reserve. If you select say fighters only then it should give you fighters only rather than having to cancel what is already selected first.
Setting up an AD. If you select an AOG and then select an individual air group it cancels the AOG.
Air supply sometimes doesn't allow you to select the nearest air base with supplies for the staging base.

7. New units coming to the map without supplies and then having to be supplied by air just adds an element of admin to the game that doesn't contribute much.


Personally I would like to see a radical rethink of the air war to simplify it:
Do away with the air phase, bring Recon into the ground phase.
Do away with GA (would need a special rule for T1) , AS (which has limited use anyway) and NP (which I don't think is justified historically, would need to do something different on isolated ports).
GS is going to be easier to get right without all the other stuff. It already has total flexibility within the ground phase as you can control which air groups partake by switching AOG commands and micro managing the air fleet from ground combat to ground combat. But there should be better and simpler ways of doing this.

[Stephan61]

Personally I would like to see a radical rethink of the air war to simplify it:
Do away with the air phase, bring Recon into the ground phase.
Do away with GA (would need a special rule for T1) , AS (which has limited use anyway) and NP (which I don't think is justified historically, would need to do something different on isolated ports).
GS is going to be easier to get right without all the other stuff. It already has total flexibility within the ground phase as you can control which air groups partake by switching AOG commands and micro managing the air fleet from ground combat to ground combat. But there should be better and simpler ways of doing this.

I totally agree with your "wrap here"
Lets simplify the Air War, make it user friendly

[Beethoven1]

There are a lot of great ideas here. I'd like to just pick out a handful that I think deserve particular emphasis.

First:

7. during GS there is no way of making sure that bombers fly with an escort, it would be really nice to have option to set minimum amount of bombers and escort to fly, and if criteria is not met - no GS

10. good pilots are lost when squadron goes to reserve
it is really pain in the ass
it forces players to keep squadrons on the map not to lose pilots with good exp
for example Soviets on t1 have a lot of squadrons with 50-60 exp
if player send it to reserve and then bring them on map again - he will get something like [40-60] exp pilots

These two are particularly important, IMO, because they are both significant ways that players are disadvantaged by using AI air assist. It ought to be (and I think, is) a design goal that ideally players are supposed to be able to simply use AI air assist without being excessively hurt by it if, for whatever reason, micromanaging all the details of the air war is not their cup of tea.

So, even if it were not possible to address many of the other issues, addressing these would be a big 'win' because it would enable players who are not happy with those other issues to more easily, with a cleaner conscience, just say to themselves "I won't bother with the air, I'll just focus on the land war and hit the AI Air Assist button."



Second:

Personally I would like to see a radical rethink of the air war to simplify it:
Do away with the air phase, bring Recon into the ground phase.
Do away with GA (would need a special rule for T1) , AS (which has limited use anyway) and NP (which I don't think is justified historically, would need to do something different on isolated ports).

I agree that the ideal would be tyronec's call for a "radical rethink" (and basically along the lines that he describes, also). Whether that is feasible is of course another question. But that would be the ideal.


Third:

The air interface/UI itself is just, in general, significantly worse than the land interface (which is quite useable). What I mean by the air interface being "worse" is not even that, but rather that it is just less responsive and crisp even in terms of the time it takes to respond and click on things. It is like the air UI is somehow having to calculate more stuff, or is doing so in a slower/less efficient way than the land UI. At least for me on my computer, I notice that when doing air orders/missions/etc, my computer takes longer to respond than when I am doing things relating to land combat. The map seems to scroll slower in the air interface, the control + shift and draw a box with the mouse thing to move planes doesn't work reliably (I often have to try it multiple times before it actually works), etc.

In theory, I might be interested in micromanaging the air war, but not with the interface/UI like this. So to me, the first thing to do is make AI air assist a more useable option (so that at least if problems remain with other stuff, I can ignore them without worrying), and secondly to improve the UI's basic responsiveness/crispness/functionality to a point that it is similarly useable to the land UI. If that were done, then all the various more detailed things that improved would matter more, because it would not be a big pain to micromanage them. But with the interface as is, I would frankly rather just ignore them if I can. And finally, the third thing would be to improve those more detailed issues, because if the interface were more useable and responsive, I might in fact actually be interested in micromanaging the details.


Fourth:

4. Naval patrol interdiction can be countered by naval patrol interdiction, so both sides are competing to get the higher interdiction level. No, if both sides have a high interdiction level then it should block supplies for both sides. It should be fighter intercepts that block naval interdiction.

I think this is particularly worth emphasizing, in particular because not only does it not make sense substantively for the reasons tyronec gives, but also naval interdicttion is one of the few areas of the air war where it is not an option to simply ignore. As soon as you get to Odessa/Sevastopol/Leningrad, you have no choice but to deal with naval interdiction, because it relates directly to the land mechanics (isolation). And moreover, as tyronec says in his other bit, it is questionable if it is really "justified historically" for naval interdiction air missions to actually be that important. Sure, there were such missions, but were they actually such a decisive factor (the singular decisive factor, even) in determining whether these places were "isolated" and consequently whether they fell or held out? mmmmm doubt - at least not in a binary/all-or-nothing way as with the current mechanics.

This is also related to the isolation mechanic - it is simply problematic for "isolation" to be a binary state to the degree that it is. Isolation penalties should ideally depend on things like unit morale and/or leader rolls (in which case low morale Soviets in the Bialystok pocket would surrender quickly, but Germans in the Stalingrad pocket would surrender more slowly) and things like whether they are sitting on a depot with a lot of supply/freight stored up (as in Odessa/Sevastopol or later as in Stalingrad in the StB scenario). If you have 50k freight stored up, then your units are well supplied. It doesn't necessarily matter so much if you are "isolated" until you actually do run out of supply/ammo/etc. And if you are sitting in Sevastopol and have plenty of that, it doesn't make sense to surrender immediately the first turn after being "isolated."

If stuff were changed with naval interdiction and/or isolation mechanics, this could make Leningrad/Odessa/Sevastopol/etc potentially much more realistic and fun than they currently are.

[Joel Billings]

I think some of you are thinking too ambitiously when proposing the air system should be totally rewritten, with the air phase removed or some missions moved from the air phase to the ground phase. Maybe in a WitE3 someday, but not going to happen in WitE2. When Pavel has more time to invest in the air game, we'll be looking at fixing some things that aren't working, or aren't working well, but not totally rewriting things. I think you need to adjust your expectations of what can be done, and try to suggest a few more specific items that might improve what is there. Only Pavel at this point can make the changes necessary. If I had things distilled down to a few issues, I can suggest he more forward on some of them. If they were in separate well contained threads, I could encourage him to read them. I think this thread would totally demoralize and scare him off, and it's much too long for me to try to wade into. I hear your passion, but there are limits on what can be done. IIRC, it took practically 2 years of full time work (well full-part time as that's all Pavel can give to the game) to create the air game in WitW. It was then much modified over the years since then. He doesn't have that kind of time to put into the air game, especially as there are other items that could use some work as well.

[AlbertN]

If I've to shorten it up the goals should be:

1) Luftwaffe Bombers are used in '41 and in general onward too - instead of parked behind not to suck supplies. It should be convenient, in fact a MUST to have the LW present. -- That would require fine tuning of OPs losses, GS effectiveness, and in general number tweaking and altering. (That includes fixing Ground Support in general, and Air Combat - but I do not think to add or remove from equations is a chore or hurdle)
Conceptually is wrong that it is better to have the LW sit behind. It does not feel right.

2) Ensuring missions fly only with Escorts. -- Ground Support should be 'allowed' to be enabled durng the enemy turn.
It does not feel right that if I leave GS up, I get butchered.

3) Generic Pilots - have just Pilot Experience.
Nuke away the complexity of individual pilots. (or simply make all pilots having exactly -that- skill level without variety).

These would by my 3 goals / priorities to work on first.

[Jango32]

Moreover having the other air missions be useful would be a huge plus, especially running interdiction on railway track behind enemy lines with escorted level bombers.

[Beethoven1]

Agree with Albert + Jango that those are more or less the things that should be emphasized for simple/feasible but important improvements.

[Joel Billings]

Ok, that's a more understandable list to deal with. None of them have easy solutions however, but at least it's something that can be worked towards.

[tyronec]

1) Luftwaffe Bombers are used in '41 and in general onward too - instead of parked behind not to suck supplies. It should be convenient, in fact a MUST to have the LW present. -- That would require fine tuning of OPs losses, GS effectiveness, and in general number tweaking and altering. (That includes fixing Ground Support in general, and Air Combat - but I do not think to add or remove from equations is a chore or hurdle)
Conceptually is wrong that it is better to have the LW sit behind. It does not feel right.

2) Ensuring missions fly only with Escorts. -- Ground Support should be 'allowed' to be enabled durng the enemy turn.
It does not feel right that if I leave GS up, I get butchered.

3) Generic Pilots - have just Pilot Experience.
Nuke away the complexity of individual pilots. (or simply make all pilots having exactly -that- skill level without variety).

Would agree that 1 and 2 are the most important issues to bring the air war into balance with the ground war.
There are also a few bugs to sort out to make the system more user friendly.

Regarding 1, it seems that bombers draw too much supplies compared to ground troops. Another factor is I think if you move bombers to one airbase and then next turn move them forwards to another airbase a few hexes away then the supplies at the first airbase get 'lost' which is a huge waste if a lot of transport capacity has been used bringing the supplies a long way from a source depot.

Regarding 2, maybe need something along the lines of:
You can specify maximum range and minimum numbers of bombers and escorts for defensive GS to fly. But also levels of experience, morale and fatigue so that air groups don't get trashed by flying too often - at present all of these can be controlled during offensive GS but not defensive GS as they change from combat to combat.

[Beethoven1]

3) Generic Pilots - have just Pilot Experience.
Nuke away the complexity of individual pilots. (or simply make all pilots having exactly -that- skill level without variety).

These would by my 3 goals / priorities to work on first.

I misread this #3. I thought AlbertN was saying to make it so that pilots didn't disappear when you send them to reserve (in particular the problem of Soviets losing their starting pilots if they send anything to reserve, which is a problem because AI air assist will do that, hence making AI air assist unuseable).

Regarding getting rid of the complexity of individual pilots, I would put in a word of caution. A distribution of pilots is likely to behave differently mathematically from a system where pilots all have the mean skill. My guess is it would tend to disadvantage the side with higher skill (which, when there is a distribution, gets disproportionate benefit from its top skill pilots). So this idea should not be assumed to not have an actual effect on balance (unless it were correctly anticipated and offset)...

If getting rid of individual pilots entirely is the only way to fix the issue of extra pilots disappearing when being sent to reserve, then I would think that eliminating pilots entirely would be the lesser evil. But it would not be ideal, and probably not without balance implications.

[AlbertN]

3) Generic Pilots - have just Pilot Experience.
Nuke away the complexity of individual pilots. (or simply make all pilots having exactly -that- skill level without variety).

These would by my 3 goals / priorities to work on first.

I misread this #3. I thought AlbertN was saying to make it so that pilots didn't disappear when you send them to reserve (in particular the problem of Soviets losing their starting pilots if they send anything to reserve, which is a problem because AI air assist will do that, hence making AI air assist unuseable).

Regarding getting rid of the complexity of individual pilots, I would put in a word of caution. A distribution of pilots is likely to behave differently mathematically from a system where pilots all have the mean skill. My guess is it would tend to disadvantage the side with higher skill (which, when there is a distribution, gets disproportionate benefit from its top skill pilots). So this idea should not be assumed to not have an actual effect on balance (unless it were correctly anticipated and offset)...

If getting rid of individual pilots entirely is the only way to fix the issue of extra pilots disappearing when being sent to reserve, then I would think that eliminating pilots entirely would be the lesser evil. But it would not be ideal, and probably not without balance implications.

My idea is to have 'Experience' and 'Number of Pilots' - but all pilots in that specific unit have the specific experience of the unit.
If thta unit has experience 80, all its pilots work as if having experience 80. There is no 'ace' at 99 and 'scrub' at 61. All are 80.
The unit can gain or lose experience due to some formula.

__

On a different note I forgot as point 4 - RECON mission efficiency.
Recon should net more information - unit type, size, CV, etc - and in general spot more units.

[Beethoven1]

My idea is to have 'Experience' and 'Number of Pilots' - but all pilots in that specific unit have the specific experience of the unit.
If thta unit has experience 80, all its pilots work as if having experience 80. There is no 'ace' at 99 and 'scrub' at 61. All are 80.
The unit can gain or lose experience due to some formula.

Yeah, I would expect there to be different results from combat between a Soviet air group with a distribution of mean experience 50 and a German air group with a distribution of mean experience 80, as compared to the case of a Soviet air group where all pilots had 50 experience vs a German air group where all pilots had 80 experience. I would hypothesize that would be true in the initial battle, but also even more so over repeated battles across multiple turns.

[Mehring]

1. Create (re)shapeable, not just resizable, air directive boxes. This will actually reduce micromanagement for players who don't use auto assignment, allowing a player to create one raid box to cover multiple targets that don't fit the current raid box, while excluding areas they want to avoid.
2. Create air reaction boxes, areas where fighters will auto-respond to raids, thus preventing auto-responses outside these boxes. Auto-responses to airfield raids might be default behaviour within an air army but exclude auto-responses between air armies. Currently a player cannot coordinate action between air armies but reaction between them is automated and beyond a player's control. Thus an enemy air directive can draw a response from fighters of any and all air armies in range not set to "rest."
3. Fix mission altitude or remove the feature altogether and have planes fly within default altitude ranges for their type and directive. Interception or not could then be determined by probability of a sighting. I prefer the latter option as single altitude is somewhat artificial given an outgoing flight might travel at one altitude and return at another and mission altitudes would vary over a week game turn. A more general abstraction in this case might better represent reality.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

There's broken, and there's WAD but not as you'd like it. When you say air game is broken, I really would like to know exactly what is broken. We have some things on the list now to look at, but as time is hard to find and fixes are hard to come by on complex issues, it would be great to know what the top issues are re the "broken" air game. I would support your starting a thread in the tech support area listing the top items that you think are broken with the air game. I can then check to see if I have them on our list with the required saves, or if I need examples of what they are. We expect to have Pavel looking at a few issues this summer before the Steel Inferno expansion is completed, so having the most important items lined up to be looked at would help a lot. Some things like the fact that sometimes GS causes no damage is likely not something that will get looked at unless it is repeatable from a save, which to my knowledge it has not been. It's possible that these are WAD and simply cloud cover obscuring the target even in what is otherwise decent weather.

1. overpowered GS
tactical bombers, for both sides, are just too deadly
it is common to see that unit lose 8 guns from the GS, while 1 was lost in retreat and 1 was lost in a battle

maybe it is WAD but i have no idea how it will look like past 42
as already in `41 both sides lose 2x-3x-4x of their big gun production per turn (not even counting losses in other TBs)
i am afraid that if game goes to `43 or `44 both sides will be out of guns

2. VVS are wiped in the air if Germans fly
from patch notes of a latest beta (• Several tweaks were made to reduce the intensity of air to air combat.)
they are nice, and what i see in my games, from a Soviet POW, Germans do not fly in hundreds, but 20-40 fighters instead in `41

but when they have enough supply (i suppose), typically in the north, they start to have hundreds again and VVS are wiped without any chances
which actually would be fine, if not 1. overpowered GS

because of so strong GS and inability to defend against mass German fighters Soviets suffer enormous losses from a GS

3. super rare recon/GA interception
players can recon huge areas without interception, maybe it is WAD, but it was not a case some time ago
in 27/29beta i played around 50+ turns and recon missions were intercepted only once or twice

same goes for GA
you can bomb the hell out of your enemy for free
i house rule GA except of Axis turn 1 completely, starting from 02.11 patch

4. GA missions with a goal to create interdiction are useless, it was shown in few AARs, i am sure Beethoven vs Bread had it, and it shows that you will move just fine even with interdiction in the hexes, except of few cases like river crossing or something

and here is another question, since interdiction does not do almost anything - are partisans having any effect at all?

5. same ops losses in any weather
it was changed some time ago and it was working fine, but at some point i noticed that there are no changes in OPS losses
i noticed it in my game vs Stephan when he was flying transport planes in any weather with same losses
if you will check it - use day missions, i do not think anybody even uses night transport missions

also there are a couple of reports that transport mission OPS losses are to high (personally i did not see too high losses but it is also worth adding)

6. if transport mission is intercepted than losses of transport planes are minimal
being Soviet player i had interceptions of German transport planes without an escort and managed to kill 1-2-3 planes only, which is basically the same as OPS losses without interception

7. during GS there is no way of making sure that bombers fly with an escort, it would be really nice to have option to set minimum amount of bombers and escort to fly, and if criteria is not met - no GS

8. air mission description is over the fly path, so players can not edit fly path
typically Soviets face this problem
solution would be to make fly path over air mission description, or to make air mission description background more transparent so fly path could be selected

9. fighters fly to support armies that they are not supposed to support
in GS during attack there is no such issue, it happens only if GS is used defensively
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=384716

10. good pilots are lost when squadron goes to reserve
it is really pain in the ass
it forces players to keep squadrons on the map not to lose pilots with good exp
for example Soviets on t1 have a lot of squadrons with 50-60 exp
if player send it to reserve and then bring them on map again - he will get something like [40-60] exp pilots

one of the option that was discussed between us (players) was to remove trained, normal pilots completely and have all pilots exp equal to exp of a squadron
if this is not an option then reducing the range of exp which pilots get when they are going from reserve to a map will also work
for example from [35-60] to [45-50]

11. no ability to kick pilots from a squadron
sometimes there is a great squadron of aces while few pilots are complete newbies, and the only way to get rid of them is to wait til they die

12. add multiple ground support air doctrine settings, one for level bombers and one for tactical bombers

13. show full details of all recon air battles

14. fake info about bombing damage, even if you are the side that was bombed

lets say my city was bombed
i view air battle and report says there was 20% damage to a port
i click on a city itself and there might be 3% damage

15. fighters range circles display something, but not their actual range (i think tyronec made a thread on the main forum, but not sure, there were more examples) as a result players have no idea where their fighters can actually provide air cover

16. operational losses for air superiority were also reported as too high, which makes using it not worthy

Once the realization that the Air war is "multi-facted" a new "light" will shine through to clearer thought. Meaning each part not being an entity in and of itself but multiple cogs that need to work together. Here are a couple of comments, although I could probably comment on the majority of them.

@ number 1 - overpowered GS
tactical bombers, for both sides, are just too deadly
it is common to see that unit lose 8 guns from the GS, while 1 was lost in retreat and 1 was lost in a battle

maybe it is WAD but i have no idea how it will look like past 42
as already in `41 both sides lose 2x-3x-4x of their big gun production per turn (not even counting losses in other TBs)
i am afraid that if game goes to `43 or `44 both sides will be out of guns

The proper set-up of AS and good amount of fighters to bomber ratio in your own GS will nip overpowered GS in the butt. Too many times in AAR's have I seen non-optimal fighter to bomber ratio in GS.

@ number 3 - super rare recon/GA interception
players can recon huge areas without interception, maybe it is WAD, but it was not a case some time ago
in 27/29beta i played around 50+ turns and recon missions were intercepted only once or twice

same goes for GA
you can bomb the hell out of your enemy for free"

GA,recon, and supply drops are best countered (intercepted if you will) with Superiority mission. Your basic interception will not do the trick since basic interception, from my studies showed that basic intercept intercepts 1 in 4 chance even on well supplied air bases.

As for bombing the hell out of an enemy for free, IF I was not lazy in the Beethoven game and set up Air Superiority the result would have been way different. I do have a PBEM game save that does show the advantages of AS against Ground Attack and the results from that would be very telling to the community of the "true value" of AS


@ number 4 - GA missions with a goal to create interdiction are useless, it was shown in few AARs, i am sure Beethoven vs Bread had it, and it shows that you will move just fine even with interdiction in the hexes, except of few cases like river crossing or something

Those studies were based on MP's and MP's alone from what I read on that AAR. There are many other factors that has not been considered that "interdiction" does do that is being totally overlooked I feel. Do a word search on the WITE2 manual for details for those that are interested.

@ number 7 - "during GS there is no way of making sure that bombers fly with an escort, it would be really nice to have option to set minimum amount of bombers and escort to fly, and if criteria is not met - no GS"

There is a way to do this already

@ number 9 - fighters fly to support armies that they are not supposed to support
in GS during attack there is no such issue, it happens only if GS is used defensively

This looks like "basic" interception at its best

@ number 15 - fighters range circles display something, but not their actual range (i think tyronec made a thread on the main forum, but not sure, there were more examples) as a result players have no idea where their fighters can actually provide air cover

I use a rule of thumb of 2 less than those range circles. That usually is pretty accurate. not full proof but has served me well.

@ number 16 - operational losses for air superiority were also reported as too high, which makes using it not worthy

I would agree with this a year ago where I lost 1/2 of my planes to OPS losses on AS. BUT today in current patches OPS losses on AIR Superiority is next to nothing for what they provide. I know this post was written awhile ago but you can fly "Air Superiority" easily now with minimal OPS losses. I use them all the time.

Fine post by Stamb and just adding my 2 cents worth to this post for what it is worth. Thank you for looking

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I posted this in another forum post on the power of Air Superiority. Is AS supposed to be this powerful?


https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0#p5047310

[Joel Billings]

At some point after release we changed the range circles info for fighters, so now, a fighter unit set to Mission:Fighter will show a range circle equal to its max intercept range. The unit detail screen shows two numbers for these units, the first is escort range, and the second is max intercept range. IIRC, the escort range is always 3/4 of the max intercept range. So I think this has been addressed.

As for the AS being so powerful, my first question is in your test, how many fighters were within range? It looks like JG3 has 79 a/c, but based on the info reported of plane types, it looks like more than just JG3 intercepted. Could it be that the AS mission was able to detect the enemy far from the target, which then allowed other non-AS groups to join into the turkey shoot? Would be interesting to see this kind of thing at other times of the war. Once you get detection of an incoming Soviet strike at this time in the war, the system will tear it apart. AS gives you that chance of detection early enough to make a difference.