Air-Stacking penalty

[gzav]

As requested, here it is, vote away.

But be advised that posting this poll may not have any effect on the game developpement, as this is just for my own personal curiosity.

And remember, no discussion in this thread, use the huge air-stacking penalty thread for that, the only posts i want to see here are the suggestions if you voted 3.


edit: Right, this was my 1st poll, so there were some technical issues, but it's all good now

edit2: Only suggestions/ideas in this thread!

[hitsomebody2004]

I think the stacking penalty is fine but should be better implemented so that the AI gives it more consideration.

[HistoryMan]

Personally, I would like to see a "hard cap" at about 3 or 4 units in 1 stack - but the option to have multiple stacks in 1 province, of course. Whether you then need a penalty for having so many planes all flying round the same bit of sky.. hmmm - probably.. but not as severe as the current scheme. After all, 1000 bomber raids DID happen, but were quite tricky to organise and synchronise.

Tim

[forezjohn]

It should be balanced, i've seen 9 english units easyly destroy 9 of my 11 units because of it(and my planes were better than english ones) so it should be lowered or the AI should also have a penalty.

[CyberMajestic]

Seems to me that the fix could be pretty easy. Just make it apply to the AI as well. I may be overlooking something though.

[Dark]

I have to say it is absolutely the wrong method to go after this problem... Giving bombers large organizational losses for bombing runs is a much better solution. If you have 2000 planes let them bomb the same sorry divison(s) over and over... but set an org loss at say 10-20 points per bombing run so they can't bomb non-stop, just once every couple days or so... let them whittle targets down slowly, not annihiliate them in 3 rapid passes spanning a single day.

[Banner]

Since Im not 100% into the game mathematics this is just a indication what I think can be done and how.

1. They penalty should "grow" example: the first four units fight at 100% always. If added a 5th units it fight at say 75% representing al units fighting at 95%, if added 6 th unit both 6 and 5th fight at 60% representing al units fighting at 85 %, and so on.

2. "Bombers" dont add to the number for a dog-fight.

3.Itroduce the same penalty for bombing

4. Make it harder to bomb as org or strenghtget lower/ or rise the cap the minimum damage done (not apply to naval units)

5. the AI might gel less penalty, but the Allied 12 fighter group redeploing al ower Europe must be stoppable with out total micromaganing..


Unfortunatly i think the air war was much better in earlier patches. But since we (some of us) player try to win against the computer we try to beat the system and not try to win the war.

[M@drox]

If there is going to be the limit target stack of four, have it apply to the AI like in 1.06b. I hate its 9 UK fighters making mince meat out of my German planes when they fly from England to Egypt, which is a ridiculous distance for Spitfires to cover.

I am also will to live with the no penalty since I don't play with the gamey tactic of stacking all my fighters together to destroy enemy airforces. If a person wants to abuse the AI then let them.

[Leonatos]

The AI can't handle the stacking penalty, that much seems to be clear. The stacking penalty was implemented for multiplayer, not for single player where the only opponent you have is the AI.
So unless it is possible to either
1) make it an option like "autosave each month" but then "turn on air stacking penalty" at the beginning of the game (so it would be a parameter in the save game file, as much as difficulty = 5, aggressiveness = 5, air stacking is 1) and the game only applies the air stacking penalty if this value is 1.
2) If #1 isnt possible, turn it off in single player games, and on in multiplayer games.
3) Tie the level of stacking penalty to the difficulty level. The higher the difficulty, the higher the penalty for the player
4) Turn it on for AI players, and just let it be. If it is too easy to win that way, install a mod like C.O.R.E. or HSR and try to play that. I wanted to type a long story but this was just for suggestions.

My preference would be #1, where you can choose to use the air stacking penalty. That way you can turn it on for multi and off for single.

[da Kraut]

the new penilty caught me off gaurd i admit .but after reflecting on past games the ai air attacks were never much threat to me and after 42 or so ceased altogether so something should be done but obviously giveing the ai the same penilty put it back to the way it was to an extent .so but the aa back to its previous level this gives the human some level to counter or blunt the ai's impunity to losses,yet cost the humen some ic build up aa.or as ive seen posted if its to easy for some change your difficulty so you cant build so many or remove the penilty for fighters but the current fix is too tough for me but thats just me .again making the penilty apply to the ai also ,dosent seem to be a solution to the ai throwing its airforce away

[Sgt. Bulldog]

Assuming the AI cannot be made to act sensibly with the stacking penalty, I suggest that the player penalty is halved OR the AI penalty is half of that of the present human penalty.

It should reduce the dominance on the gameplay.

[Stas]

I agree with Sgt. Bulldog. The penalty is alright, but the disparity between human and AI needs to be halved.

[Zorg]

Just make it apply to the AI as well, and everything will be OK.

[Irish Hand]

Voted for "this is one of the most poorly-conceived changes I've seen", or whatever was closest to that.

If you have two groups of fighters opposing each other over a certain area, there will be a certain casualty level. As you increase the number of planes in the sky, the casualty rate should increase at a rate much higher than the increase in planes.

You put 1000 fighters in the sky against 1000 enemy fighters (ridiculous, I know, but the game allows that sort of thing ), then I'd hazard that half of them wil be craters in the ground within 15 minutes. The "big sky, little plane" theory goes to pot when there are a butt-load of planes in the air.

Whoever came up with a "stacking penalty" which reflects the decreased offensive power of an air unit as there are more air units in the sky needs to be smacked.

[Lord Ederon]

When you play with AI, it's not so harsh. AI is stupid and human player has no problem to overcome it. Just another way AI cheats. This is ok by me.

But in MP it really sucks. Therefore I suggest some kind of "turn stacking penalty off" button, so player can decide. Or, less complicated to implement: deliver patch, which has stacking rules encapsulated in one library (file). When player wants to swap stacking rule, he'd just need to rename these two files (i.e. file1 name as file2, and file2 name as file1, where file1 is that library currently used by program). There can be simple utility like settings one is, where you'd select what stacking rules you want and it'd handle those files for you.

[Disgustoid]

I already suggested this elsewhere (and there are even better suggestions out there):

Keep bombers out of defensive aircombat ...

and

In stacks of 4+ have 4 units at 100% of their attack and 100% of their defense potential (obviously modified by weather, leaders etc.) and have the rest of the planes at 0% attack and 100% defense. This would decrease lethality of air-combat and would eleviate the disadvantage the human player has currently as this would allow him to spread the damage he suffers over more than 4 planes ... (complicated I know)

OR:
give the A.I. an air-stacking penalty from 7, 8 or 9 units upwards ...

edit: I'm fine with the penalty as such ... one can work around the penalty with massive ammounts of micro-managemnet ... I'm willing to do so, others are not ... so I opted for #3

[gzav]

Apparently noone reads the first post any more, so i'll repeat it yet again:

*Only* post suggestions in this thread, all other discussion regarding the air-stacking penalty should got in the Air-stacking penalty thread...

[G'Kar]

The player should be able to turn the penalty off or it should only be active in MP games. The way it is now it destroys the air warfare against the AI (modifier is much too high!) because you have to cope with an unfair AI advantage or counter it with massive micromanagement in the wrong place.
I'm sure most of the games are still played in SP, so countering MP problems with a general restriction is not a good idea IMO.

[Freiksenet1987]

It is good, if AI suffers it too.

[Hayden]

Why not cycle fighters trhough combat. I.E. The Germans send 5 fighters groups against 6 US fighter groups. As a limit of 3 (for example) units are allowed to fight at a time, 3 Germans and 3 Americans duke it out. Once the dust clears in the first battle, there are a total of 3 Germans left and 3 Americans (Assuming all American fighters and 2 german fighters are destroyed in the first battle). The surviving units then proceed with combat untill one side is destroyed or is incapable of continuing.