Feedback about air war

[Stamb]

Some time ago Joel made a post where he told that they are collecting feedback for a recent changes.

Here is my feedback:
1. Tactical bombers are insane now. For both sides. They destroy/disrupt enormous amount of elements. While in previous patches they were destroying only a couple of elements and disrupting few more - now they are flying artillery.
2. Level bombers for GA/GS are pretty bad.
3. A2A battles are insanely broken. As i was showing here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=379018

In most cases, not in 100%, but mostly it is total annihilation of the VVS.
Trained pilots, not trained pilots.
MIG, YAK, LAGG.
Different altitudes for them.
It is irrelevant. End result is the same.
Losses: a couple of German fighters for almost whole VVS mission.

I saw only few times when there are reasonable a2a battles - when German pilots exp was just a little bit higher than exp of my pilots, so maybe pilots exp is contributing to an end result too much?
And when there are air battles during air transport. It seems like game uses different code for generic a2a battles and air transport a2a battles.
And first one is broken while second one is what should be happening in a2a battles.

Example (from my AAR, but will post ahead of time)

how to deal with OP axis fighters.png (497.89 KiB) Viewed 685 times

Previously it was less relevant because GS was almost useless. But now if you pair total German domination in an air with godly tactical bombers - then we travel back to an arty patches were Germans were crushing everything. And Soviets were unable to do anything about it.
Now it is the same. You can not counter German fighters in the sky if German player knows how to play a game.

I would be very happy to get an answer from a devs if i should continue to post more examples of a2a/gs battles or all of this is WAD as it is with axis allies (where most players says that they are useless) and i will just have to house rule GS in my PvP games

4. There are different other issues.
No GA/recon interception even when they fly deeply into enemy front line.
People report huge OPS losses for German level bombers while i am playing as a Soviet and do not see any ops losses.

I started to play this game in 01.15 beta i believe.
And starting from there - in EVERY patch there is something pretty broken with an air.

No interception / too much interception.
Huge flak losses/ no flak losses.
Useless GS/ god mode GS.

When we will have proper air war? There is even dedicated phase in this game for it. Which indicates that it is important part of the game. And probably the most bugged one.
I recall Joel saying that Pavel will work on it after finishing tasks with an editor. When it gonna happen? Isn't so bugged air war more important to give it higher priority?

Sincerely,
Stamb

[Stamb]

Look at ml 20 gun losses.

1.png (1.56 MiB) Viewed 619 times

What i can do prevent this?
I have my fighters in the air. They do not help.

[Stamb]

is it ok?

rape.png (773.13 KiB) Viewed 614 times

[therealevan]

It does seem that in my game, the VSS is taking a ton of losses during battles where I have GS turned on. I don't fly other forms of interdiction, so my experience with the game is narrow in that regard. Even if I am outnumbered 1 to 4, VSS usually gets its clock cleaned every fight.

[DarkHorse2]

Personally, I have only found GS combat results rather 'eh' at best.

From what I understand, some of the numbers can be deceiving. For example, an item can be disrupted multiple times.

I think when you look at the combat summary from the 1st tab of the combat results, it will list the number of elements disrupted by air. When looking at the entire number of elements an enemy had, the number of elements disrupted by AC will most likely be rather marginal.

You showed the losses of the 152mm ML-20 Gun Howitzer from "AIR". But what of the rest of the elements? Did they sustain much disruptions?

[Stamb]

tactical bombers are death machines
and here is disruption:

1.png (1.5 MiB) Viewed 589 times

[Stamb]

But Soviets can be much more deadly IF the are allowed to fly with their il2. Just because they will have more planes.
The problem is that Axis can wipe them out in the air.
While Soviets can not do anything to a Germans in the air.

[Stamb]

Example from my AAR:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 4#p4989974

Something was bugged and Axis planes did not make proper interception, as a result

[Stamb]

And Albert allowed me to show this. This is his examples:



it is completely broken
if it would happened in my game - i would put it on a hold for a better times

i am actually starting to think that old good useless GS was better than what we have now

[battlefield91]

Finally GS is having an impact.

[DarkHorse2]

I must be missing something, but based on the images you submitted, I am not finding the tactical bombers as "death machines".

In one example, you show 33 Panzer IIc with 407 "DISRUPTED / AIR". You know that is not completely accurate.
You show 33 Panzer IIc being destroyed by 548 tactical bombers. Again, nothing that outstanding to me.

The defending Wiking SS Motorized Div has no AA assigned. I know I don't let any of my Armor or Elite SS formations run around around without a Bn of AA attached.

You have another (T16 Oct 5 1941) (197,114 Light Woods) (14.2:1 odds)

The DISRUPTED AIR is much less than GND with only 152mm ML-20 Gun-Howitzer, some support and 3 field guns begin disrupted. (but again, these numbers are exaggerated due to multiple hits per unit)

As far as the DESTROYED and DAMAGED sections, when comparing against GND and RTR, AIR is trivial.

I am sorry, but I am not seeing the cause for concern yet.

[AlbertN]

That's part of my game and it is not trivial at all.

Air fires before ground stuff for all I know.
Anything disrupted, damaged or obliterated by air it's something -less- that will fire at my guys when they charge in.

Also it's '42, AA is integrated in the OOB and the battallions are disbanded. There are only so few dedicated AA units in '42 that can be attached around.

The only half-saver is that where the LW is present the VVS melts away.

But as it is now to me there is too much obscurity also in where air cover is, where it is not, how hard is to supply forward bases and relocate planes in same turn, etc. It's a problem in general and if Axis exits their air umbrella they're screwed.

[Stamb]

33 panzers II out of 33 it pretty impressive, no?
and amount of disruption in Albert's example is just enormous

and considering that GS happens before ground battle it will make big impact on a ground combat itself