How does escort/intercept work?

[Feinder]

If my CVs are "Mixed"...
1. Enemy LB Fighter intercepts (but is not the target)
A. What Atk or Def value does his LB Fighter use to attack my formation?
B. What Atk or Def value does my CV strike use against his LB Fighter? Is it reduced because my formation is "Mixed"? (Half? Since part of the formation is bombers).
C. If an enemy CV (not the target) on Mixed, intercepts my attack, what atk/def values does it use againt my escorts? My strike?
D. For the actual strike vs target, what is the modifier for mixed vs bomber? As in, is a mixed formation attacking at 50% and a Bomber formation attacking at 100%?. Or is the mixed formation at 100%, and there is a bonus to the atk value vs target when hit in Bomber formation (ex. 150%) .

If my (anything) strike is escorted by
A. Friendly LB fighter, what atk or def is my fighter using against enemy interceptor?
B. Friendly CV escorts from nearby (not same) CV on Mixed, what atk or def is my non-organic CV escorts using? Are they reduced as if not not all are allocated to intercept (since in Mixed mode).

I have no issue with the mechanics, I'm just trying to understand how it works.

[Bavre]

When something intercepts, the fight is calculated with interceptors attack value (vs fighter or carrier, whatever the escort is) vs escorts attack value against interceptors unit type. Should the interceptor have str >= 5 left after that, it attacks the escorted flight with 50% of its appropriate atk value vs the bomber/carriers defense value against the interceptors unit type. Man those cases are convoluted
A fighters def vs fighter only ever comes into play, if the other fighter directly attacks the "airfield", not during intercepts.

Unfortunatelly I don't know the details for your carrier questions and would actually also be very interested in the answers.

[Elessar2]

Welcome to my world, Feinder.

You may already know this from perusing my old AARs for WitP, that I discovered that putting a CV on Bomber mode made it a LOT more vulnerable than if it is in Fighter mode. IOW you have the broad task force CAP that is used to intercept enemy strikes, as the animations make clear. BUT you also have a 2nd, "close-in CAP" which works automatically IF the carrier is in Fighter (where it gets the full Bomber or Naval defense bonus) or Mixed (gets half, I believe, as you asked here). If it is in Bomber mode it gets diddly, no matter what the active intercepting CAP may have done to the initial strike.

In one of my battles with OCB I had no idea that this was the case, and couldn't figure out why my strikes just bounced off his hulls like they were all Superman (since he had them all in Fighter mode natch), while on his turn all of my CVs which were set to Bomber mode made them easy pickings. His carriers' individual CAP basically got 2 chances to reduce damage, mine only 1.

Units REALLY need a 4th manual tech category, so this defense bonus can be geared solely to the carrier's AA and not to its fighters (since they already got their chance on the original intercept).

I am not 100% certain (95% maybe) about the answers to your other questions, so hopefully a dev will come in here and answer them. Bavre I believe has it all correct.

[Feinder]

Thx for guidance Elessar.

For our PBEM game, Ngineer and I only use Mixed or Bomber for CVs, per they guidance from your and OCB's playthru. For my part, I'm very careful when going to Bomber mode, as I discount any organic CAP from the targeted CV (in Bomber mode). If I set somebody to Bomber mode, it's because I feel that I have enough other assets that can provide intercepts / top-cover for my CV that went all-in for Bomber mode. The numbers above, about using the Atk-values etc, is along the lines of what I was looking for - Thank you.

It brings a corollary question... "Is there, or should there be any way to increase the Defense value of CV/CVLs against other carrier strikes?" As in, raising the Fighter rating/tech of CV/CVL increases their atk and def vs. Land-based air. But not against in-coming carrier strikes (I noted that this is true for both regular WaW and your Mod). All other ships have a Flak value which increases their defense vs. Carrier Attacks. And Carriers with upgraded Fighters have a better defense vs. LBA. It would seem that upgrading Fighters would improve a Carrier's defense against other Carriers.

Thoughts?

[Elessar2]

That would just make the imbalance worse. If I am reading you right, tech doesn't add anything, but a CV on Fighter mode still has the base (L0) default defense rating, while one in Bomber has (virtually) nothing. As I intimated, the cap already had their shot at the enemy bombers. Only way to do it is as I said to add a 4th tech category (along with a code change to shift the CV's integral defense from Fighter to AA). I tried to come up with a way to deal with this state of affairs in the existing code/editor, to no avail (what I would change is all hard-coded).