Air intercept?

[Adam Rinkleff]

How does air intercept work? What's the % chance of intercepting? Does it cost fuel? How much? Is it better to have 10 fighters in one formation, or 1 in ten, or does it not matter? How do I know if they are intercepting? I seem to build them and they don't see to do anything, and then they just get shot down but I don't know what happened.

[Tac2i]

Newly created fighter units have by default intercept turned off. You must turn it on. Intercept range is half its normal range. A level one fighter at full readiness has a range of 10, so its intercept range is 5.  Planes can not fly into, out of or inside of a mud weather zone: they are grounded.

[82ndtrooper]

ok first thing is at the start of each turn you see the combat numbers from the AI's last turn. if these show you killing and losing planes then you are intercepting.

second you can view the history and see what happened on the AI's last turn.

next you have to set each fighter unit to intercept and a % of readiness they will stop intercepting at. I use 50%.

they will not intercept if its mud where they are based.

[LordJim]

ORIGINAL: AdamRinkleff

How does air intercept work? What's the % chance of intercepting? Does it cost fuel? How much? Is it better to have 10 fighters in one formation, or 1 in ten, or does it not matter? How do I know if they are intercepting? I seem to build them and they don't see to do anything, and then they just get shot down but I don't know what happened.

I'm sure it costs some fuel to intercept. Look at the stats of the unit (click on da picture) and see what it says. I recall seeing something like it uses half the fuel to incercept as it does on a normal raid.

Can't really say about how many to put in a unit. I oftentimes use 10. Using only one would be silly, I would think.

I do believe also that if your air units are idle and grounded, they will suffer if hit by a bombing raid.


LJ

[Adam Rinkleff]

I think the most pressing question I have is in regards to how likely an intercept is? It seems to me that I produce fighters, but they rarely seem to be doing anything. They are set to intercept, and they are, I just don't think it justifies the cost. Should I build more airfields and scatter them about the map more? How likely are they to kill something?

[phatkarp]

I too am interested in the answer to this question.

Also, if you are facing heavy and repeated air attacks, is it better to split 10 fighters into 2 groups of 5, or keep them in one group of 10?

And is there a number of fighters where, if you exceed that number, you receive an airstack intercept penalty?

[GrumpyMel]

1) Defending fighters do use fuel when intercepting.

2) By default in ATG there is a rule that gives defending fighters a chance NOT to scramble on a particular intercept mission. The chance that they will intercept decreases as they get closer to the max limit of thier intercept range (i.e. They are more likely to intercept attacks close to thier base). This rule doesn't exist in AT classic and can be turned off or on by the designer of the scenerio. It's a very powerfull dynamic that makes it much more difficult to profile an opponents air defenses and pick them apart piecemeal.

3) I believe, that the chance for each stack of fighters to intercept a mission is on a stack by stack basis (I could be wrong on this...so take it with a grain of salt). So having more stacks of fighters means a greater chance that SOME of them will intercept....but also means you risk intercepting with only PART of your force. Same holds true if you have stacks of fighters in the same hex but with different readiness. More stacks give you more versatility...but also mean they risk fighting piecemeal. Whether that risk is worth it or not is a tactical call for the player.

4) There is currently no overstack penalty for air to air combat, just air to ground combat. So if your main opposition is enemy aircraft...you don't need to worry about throwing a ton of aircraft into a mission. If your main opposition is enemy flak, then you do.

Hope that is of help.