English Air Power

[blahmaster6k]

I've never gotten far enough along with any particular MP group to be able to play a Major or an Axis major, or influence their meta environment. Yes, the air game is a bit more important and involved in MP, but my talking earlier was centered more around single player which is what OP and most others here I'd imagine are most likely more involved in. I'd also like to think that the very existence of something like no-air soviets being a popular MP approach means that dominating the air isn't really something that you are required to do. I wonder if there have been any multiplayer groups that took that idea in any different directions though.

I might have bias because i have a lot of experience playing as an air controller for both Allies and Axis, and it's something i enjoy doing. To my understanding, no-air works as the USSR because most of your industry is going to be out of reach of enemy tac bombers, and strat bombers are usually banned. That's assuming the Axis were even able to invest into them, which I doubt they would be able to effectively do since the Axis usually uses fighters + CAS or fighters only. The USSR playing a mostly defensive war for at least the first year or two of being at war doesn't help, because you are required to invest in building airbases and RADAR that will likely end up captured and used against you, which is a massive waste of IC. You can be ahead of Germany in fighter tech due to the fighter focus under positive heroism and have plenty of air xp from China lend-lease, but if your built up airbases end up captured you will have to be constantly re-basing planes and lacking nearby airbases to put them all every time you lose one. The very large air zones in Russia don't help either, since once you get east of the Stalin Line mission efficiency drops off a cliff for both sides. Generally planes are just more useful on the western front and early Barbarossa on the eastern front.

 

[safe-keeper]

This whole "whack-a-mole" thing is considered to be one of the main problems with air power (even if efficiency does nerf it a bit), and is one of the reasons why Strat Bombing is often banned in MP. It'd be a nice thing to be able to automate.

Agreed. I wish you could assign air wings to multiple regions, and just have them move automatically to where they were needed the most.

 

[DukofDeth]

To deter strat bombing you really just need to maintain a bit over 300 fighters in the air zone. One group of 320 on air superiority will ensure that air accidents don't drop you under 300. There's a line in the defines that tells the AI to avoid air zones that well defended.

 

[blahmaster6k]

To deter strat bombing you really just need to maintain a bit over 300 fighters in the air zone. One group of 320 on air superiority will ensure that air accidents don't drop you under 300. There's a line in the defines that tells the AI to avoid air zones that well defended.

Interception is better for this because your planes will only fly when there are bombers present, and uses less fuel compared to air superiority. Aside from that, you're right in that about 200-400 planes is enough to deter AI strat bombing.

 

[DukofDeth]

Rather than bouncing about, the AI [and players] should only be allowed to cancel missions. There should be an air planner, then you can plan your priorities and automate zone switching as targets get saturated enough [if at all] or to skip an abundance of fighter cover.

 

[bubbas]

To deter strat bombing you really just need to maintain a bit over 300 fighters in the air zone. One group of 320 on air superiority will ensure that air accidents don't drop you under 300. There's a line in the defines that tells the AI to avoid air zones that well defended.

So only the number of fighters matter, not the quality of them?

Does this mean that 320 interwar biplanes do the job aswell any later variant?

 

[DukofDeth]

Interception is better for this because your planes will only fly when there are bombers present, and uses less fuel compared to air superiority. Aside from that, you're right in that about 200-400 planes is enough to deter AI strat bombing.

If the aircraft aren't up when the AI is looking for places to bomb then you might end up taking some damage before it decides to bug out.

 

[desphorin]

To deter strat bombing you really just need to maintain a bit over 300 fighters in the air zone. One group of 320 on air superiority will ensure that air accidents don't drop you under 300. There's a line in the defines that tells the AI to avoid air zones that well defended.

I've also heard this from someone else, but when I look at the defines I cant seem to find that piece of code. Any pointers?

 

[blahmaster6k]

If the aircraft aren't up when the AI is looking for places to bomb then you might end up taking some damage before it decides to bug out.

I've never experienced this, afaik it's automatic that whenever bombers sortie and are detected the fighters sortie at the same time. I could be wrong, but I thought this was how it works. You get base detection just from controlling territory in the air zone even if you don't have RADAR, and as long as you can detect a single bomber your fighters will fly to intercept.

 

[SonofWinter]

I've never experienced this, afaik it's automatic that whenever bombers sortie and are detected the fighters sortie at the same time. I could be wrong, but I thought this was how it works. You get base detection just from controlling territory in the air zone even if you don't have RADAR, and as long as you can detect a single bomber your fighters will fly to intercept.

The AI changes regions, every day. If you put up 800 fighters to intercept in W Germany, it will go after E Germany the next day. Put those 800 fighters in E Germany, the next day they'll attack W Germany.

Whack-A-Mole

 

[DukofDeth]

I've also heard this from someone else, but when I look at the defines I cant seem to find that piece of code. Any pointers?

its in the section on AI

 

[DukofDeth]

I've never experienced this, afaik it's automatic that whenever bombers sortie and are detected the fighters sortie at the same time. I could be wrong, but I thought this was how it works. You get base detection just from controlling territory in the air zone even if you don't have RADAR, and as long as you can detect a single bomber your fighters will fly to intercept.

I'm not sure myself. I was just making the point that it does take a bit of time for the AI to decide to switch out if you do have it covered, so perhaps you ebd up getting bombed a little just from that.

 

[DukofDeth]

Here are the AI defines wrt strategic bombing

STR_BOMB_AIR_SUPERIORITY_IMPORTANCE = 0.10, -- Strategic importance of air superiority ( amount of enemy planes in area )
STR_BOMB_CIVIL_FACTORY_IMPORTANCE = 50, -- Strategic importance of enemy civil factories
STR_BOMB_MILITARY_FACTORY_IMPORTANCE = 70, -- Strategic importance of enemy military factories
STR_BOMB_NAVAL_FACTORY_IMPORTANCE = 30, -- Strategic importance of enemy naval factories
STR_BOMB_AA_IMPORTANCE_FACTOR = 0.5, -- Factor of AA influence on strategic importance ( 0.0 - 1.0 )
STR_BOMB_INFRA_IMPORTANCE_FACTOR = 0.25, -- Factor of infrastructure influence on strategic importance ( 0.0 - 1.0 )
STR_BOMB_IMPORTANCE_SCALE = 1.0, -- str bombing total importance scale (every str bombing score get's multiplied by it)

STR_BOMB_MIN_ENEMY_FIGHTERS_IN_AREA = 300, -- If amount of enemy fighters is higher than this mission won't perform
STR_BOMB_FIGHTERS_PER_PLANE = 1.1, -- Amount of air superiority planes requested per enemy plane
STR_BOMB_PLANES_PER_CIV_FACTORY = 20, -- Amount of planes requested per enemy civ factory
STR_BOMB_PLANES_PER_MIL_FACTORY = 25, -- Amount of planes requested per enemy military factory
STR_BOMB_PLANES_PER_NAV_FACTORY = 15, -- Amount of planes requested per enemy naval factory
STR_BOMB_MIN_EXCORT_WINGS = 2, -- Min amount of airwings requested to excort operations

From the current game version; the copy I mod with is from 1.9.3

 

[DukofDeth]

I wonder if the reason why escort missions don't work is because they should be "EXCORT" missions?!
@bitmode Do you know if this might be why the escort missions aren't working? I know that sometimes their bad spelling is throughout the code, either as a joke or to differentiate variations of the variables.

 

[DukofDeth]

I wonder if the reason why escort missions don't work is because they should be "EXCORT" missions?! I just noticed that spelling...

@bitmode Do you know if this might be why the escort missions aren't working? I know that sometimes their bad spelling is throughout the code, either as a joke or to differentiate variations of the variables.

 

[bitmode]

I know that sometimes their bad spelling is throughout the code, either as a joke or to differentiate variations of the variables.

Reading through the code, if bad spelling is supposed to be a joke, it would be a very tired one at this point. I think it's just bad English skills plus bad (or non-existent) reviews.

I wonder if the reason why escort missions don't work is because they should be "EXCORT" missions?!

Escort missions do work in the sense that they are baked into air superiority (https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_combat#Detection.2C_damage_and_disruption). If you are referring to the escort mission efficiency modifier, that not working is unrelated to any define. The define quoted above is spelled the same in code. There's also a couple other "EXCORT" defines. I have not yet seen an instance where the define's spelling does not match what the game expects. You can count on programmers to use copy&paste

 

[bbasgen]

In my current game as Germany, it is late 1939, before the fall of France. I have just 100 fighters protecting each region on intercept. That has been sufficient to prevent Strat bombing. There was one brief attempt in Western Germany with 300 bombers, and I had to reassign a couple wings (I'm organized in groups of 100, I've already spammed plenty of aces) for a few days to swat them away. I imagine this is partly because all the air fighting is currently over Belgium.

 

[DukofDeth]

Reading through the code, if bad spelling is supposed to be a joke, it would be a very tired one at this point. I think it's just bad English skills plus bad (or non-existent) reviews.

Escort missions do work in the sense that they are baked into air superiority (https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_combat#Detection.2C_damage_and_disruption). If you are referring to the escort mission efficiency modifier, that not working is unrelated to any define. The define quoted above is spelled the same in code. There's also a couple other "EXCORT" defines. I have not yet seen an instance where the define's spelling does not match what the game expects. You can count on programmers to use copy&paste

Thanks.

 

[Pzt_Kami]

This whole "whack-a-mole" thing is considered to be one of the main problems with air power (even if efficiency does nerf it a bit), and is one of the reasons why Strat Bombing is often banned in MP. It'd be a nice thing to be able to automate.

I also think there needs to be a specific/seperate mechanic for air defence like how Garrison system works now post LaR. Players will give for example 500 of their fighters and/or Heavy Fighters for air defence of specific air regions. Players can set re-inforcements priority for their Air-defence force and even restrict it by model type if want to (just like how regular Airwings can be customized now). the rest should be handled automatically by this system and hopefully solve this "whack-a-mole" issue with strategic bombing

 

[kettyo]

A simple solution to that would be to destroy a significant part of any countries' air force if it capitulates. Poland and France shouldn't have their entire air force survive capitulation.

That's still less of a meme than capitulated Japanese fighters protecting Berlin.