Matrix Games Forums

Hi all,

I have a question about the radius setting for air missions. The manual says that if I adjust the radius, the number in parentheses after the "area" field will display the "number of hexes" targeted. But with some missions, like recon and strategic bombing, it displays a much larger number than this. E.g., on a mission to bomb Essen, if I set radius to 0, I see (53). I think that actually indicates the round-trip hexes to target (52) plus the one-hex target. But if I set radius to 1, I see (134). I can't figure out how the game gets 134. I would expect something more like 52 plus 7, the 7 hexes around the target. Or maybe 52 plus 9 -- the 7 hexes around the target and a couple of approach hexes.

It's not a big deal, as the on-map graphic displays the target area, but I'd still like to understand what the number in parentheses means exactly.

Also, an unrelated, bigger question: is it insane to turn off automatic air directive creation altogether? Do any of you set up everything from scratch?

Number in parenthesis shows amount of valid targets. In case of strategic bombing/reconning this is amount of factories. It helps you to estimate how fat is your potential prey. This number later may be used to calculate the amount of raids to for the given intensity.

is it insane to turn off automatic air directive creation altogether? Do any of you set up everything from scratch?

I'm doing this almost all of the time and this is indeed insane as I can't see how bad/good AI could be

Thanks for the reply! I *like* turning off the air directive auto-creation. It's fun to assign stuff myself.

Also: does air directive auto-creation create the exact same missions each time, if you give it the exact same parameters? I've been testing it, and it seems to create different missions each time. Which is yet another argument for creating the missions myself.

I can't comment much on the AD AI as it is something done by Gary. Knowing his habits I'd say there should be some randomness

Gotcha. Well, the AI seems to make sensible missions. I just like doing stuff myself.

It is so easy to do the Air Directives yourself that I think most people will turn off the AI once they get a handle on things.

Might be easy for you [:)]! I am having trouble manually setting the AD. I go from the Summary screen and everything is done as per the Handbook and Manual and I set the target etc but have no 'Confirm' button in place. Obviously doing something wrong, but what?

You only need to Confirm once and only for newly created ADs. If you are modifying one already there (maybe set up by computer, or from last turn), then no need to confirm as all changes you make take effect immediately.

Thanks.

The 'easy' part is once you have a generic Recon mission (for example) planned, you only have to click on Hex in the description, click on your new target hex, and you have changed the area covered by your Recon mission without having to change anything else. The same for the rest of the missions.