Matrix Games Forums

In some of the recent changes, it seems like there has been a trend to somewhat automate / simplify some of the air system features that players, previously, had more control over.

A couple of these come to mind:

* individual air-base supply priorities
* "Naval Only" setting used to be configurable

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Anyways, this is the situation - I want more control over the supply to AC units over land units. Even when conducting "Air Transport" supply missions, with the sole intent of bringing up supply to the based AC units, I find the freight gets re-directed to some other destination instead after conducting the air transport. (requires numerous further air-drops to finally get some of the freight to my AC units.... grrr....)

There is a lot of historical accounts where Luftwaffe was operating from advance bases, with their primary supply source being air-transport. And these units clearly had supply priority.

(there is even one account recently read, where Luftwaffe was flying air recon over a "repaired" rail line, to insure they got 1st dibs on the delivered freight - i thought this was funny)

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Yes, I am aware of the AOG supply priority settings (which seem to only be available at the Luftflotte echelon AOG). Out of the box, I think most of those are already set to "4", which doesn't seem to keep the Wehrmacht from stealing the air-drops)

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About the only control a user seems to have over this now is through the upper echelon AOG, which seems to push its settings down to all the subordinate AOGs, AC units, and individual bases. Even this is awkward as trying to get fighter AC supply priority is only theoretically possible, if you are willing to complete restructure your entire AOG Hierarchy in some ahistorical goofy fashion. (like putting all fighter AC in Luftflotte 1, and the remaining AC in Luftflotte 2 / 4)

Whatever control players had over AC unit supply seems to have been largely removed (simplified?), most likely with good intent. However, I find it largely sucking and would like to have some of the AC supply control back please.

Couple of suggestions.

See 17.1.8 in the manual - Air transports set to follow a HQ will try and supply units of that HQ. Transports with follow HQ set to none will try and resupply airbases.

You can set individual airbase supply priorities - right click on the airbase hex, bring out the airbase submenu and it should be one of the available options. See 16.6 of the manual

Have you tried using the manual 'resupply airbase' function? Again right click on the airbase and you should get this as an option. Note that in order to have the option visible the airbase needs to be low on fuel/ammo/air support so you want to move the air units to the base first (so that you get the orange/red indicators for low supply) before clicking resupply.

All of my AC units are already controlled manually with everything set to follow "none".

I do not use the AC AI for anything.

- anything the AI can do, the player should be able to do themselves;
- the AC AI is not all that reliable, even in the best situations;

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Everything is manually done, even the Air Transport of supply. (the submitted bug reports should attest to this...)

You do a manual air supply mission to an airbase, you have ZERO control on where that freight goes. It can easily take 3 drops until all the available vehicles are used up and it actually starts to accumulate at the air base.

If you aren't seeing this, I have to question if you are actually doing Air Transport of supply?

I've even got manual Air Supply Relays set up in order to get Air Freight to Smolensk (no easy task when freight is commonly stolen throughout the airbase-transport chain)

My air transports are used to nearly 100% capacity every turn. All manual missions.

Fair enough, just trying to help. You said that you wanted to be able to set the individual airbase priorities and I was hoping to help by showing how you do this. I think setting the priorities may still be relevant even if you are doing all the air transport manually - you might want to try reducing the priorities of the nearby ground HQs and making sure the airbase priority is on 4 before you run the missions - maybe that will help?

I don't really use air transport to supply the airbases - I just use it to top up the close by ground units. I'm not at home with the game open but my suspicion is that the amount of supplies you can actually transport by air is not nearly enough to meet the fuel/ammo requirements of an airbase with a full fighter A/G. As above I tend to use the 'resupply airbase' option which seems to me to work better. Have you tried using that facility? I can't say for sure whether using the option is 'good' play - I haven't dug deep enough to check whether it is burning up trucks.

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

Fair enough, just trying to help. You said that you wanted to be able to set the individual airbase priorities and I was hoping to help by showing how you do this. I think setting the priorities may still be relevant even if you are doing all the air transport manually - you might want to try reducing the priorities of the nearby ground HQs and making sure the airbase priority is on 4 before you run the missions - maybe that will help?

That is a valid point, and I hate to have to resort to reducing priorities of other ground units just to keep them from stealing air transported supply.

There are special benefits to having some of the units set to Supply Level 4, that I really did not want to disable for this.

But from what I have seen so far, it didn't matter what the supply levels were set to when it came to Air Transport of Supply. I cannot tell it is factored at all. It appears more dependent on vehicle availability than anything else.

As soon as those pigs smell any freight dropped, here the trucks come to scarf it up before you can push it further down to another airbase (or even the locally based AC units).

actually the allocation routine is fairly simple

a) air base has no combat units/HQs - freight goes to the airbase (assuming it has a need - ie air groups)
if not, temp depot, freight sent out at the end of the turn as with any depot, temp depot deleted
b) air base has combat units - freigt goes to those units
c) air base has a HQ (s) - freight goes into the HQ and is then redistributed to relevent combat units

ORIGINAL: loki100

actually the allocation routine is fairly simple

a) air base has no combat units/HQs - freight goes to the airbase (assuming it has a need - ie air groups)
if not, temp depot, freight sent out at the end of the turn as with any depot, temp depot deleted
b) air base has combat units - freigt goes to those units
c) air base has a HQ (s) - freight goes into the HQ and is then redistributed to relevent combat units

Ah, that explains why my planes are getting shot down, even my beloved Focke-Wulfs. I always place them in big cities, typically with a HQ right on top of it.

Thanks for explaining this!