Convoys now invincible vs. naval strike in MTG?

[elitesix]

Oh, so the NAV / convoy bug only occurs when combat is between NAV without ships?

It seems that all the pics of NAVs getting slaughtered by convoys is when there are no friendly ships present (or they arrive late). That would make sense that it's a bug then.

 

[mikwarleo]

But convoys are not in any way OP with their AA guns.

Take this example:

1936 NAVs hitting British convoys in the Bay of Biscay. 1 DD in a raiding fleet to allow the NAVs to actually attack.

View attachment 459978

The DD isn't even getting any hits in. The damage done by those crappy NAVs that have no air XP applied and no aces is enough to wipe out ships.

I could do this all day. Even if I lose 1 NAV every time I attack a convoy (which isn't happening in these attacks), I still come out ahead.

Hell, the DD took more damage than the planes. I sent it back to port to repair for 23 days.

How about this battle:

View attachment 459979

On the contrary, your screenshot actually adds further proof to the point that convoys are VERY overpowered, here's how:

Try making the equivalent battle substituting DDs or CLs (historically the best AA ships) in defence:

45 convoys x 70 NIC = 3,150 total NIC
LESS than 3 destroyers worth of NIC
LESS than 1 CL worth of NIC

You killed 6 convoy ships, so that's 70NIC x 6 damage, 420NIC of damage dealt.

That's the equivalent of less than one destroyer 50% damaged and about 15% damage to a CL.

The battle you've shown would have likely dragged on for days.

How do you think you'd go with 200 NAV against the 3 DDs or 1 CL in a battle that drags on for the same amount of time ... your battle likely went on for days.
You would do much much better against the warships than the convoys.

Now if you consider one of my examples... look at this screen shot and tell me any other situation in-game where you could kill 90 bombers in one afternoon, literally a single sortie, without taking a single loss yourself.

For example:
View attachment 452437

As you can see, I dealt ~25,000% of damage to the convoy, but didn't sink or damage a single ship for the loss of my ~90 bombers.

This is not the first time I'd seen this in this particular game and this was in addition to 100s of smaller engagements losing between 1-3 planes several times a day for zero effect.

With this in mind it's very hard to see how anyone could suggest, "convoy AA is not OP" as you do. The main problem seems to be the way convoys receive (or rather don't receive) damage but the effect is that they're the best AA platforms in game, bar none.

The above pic is WtT, but it's clear ntothing has changed in MtG, I had no game-changing mods, majority of planes are upgraded 1936 Nav (63 lost if I'm reading this right) with a bunch of other stuff some outdated most not. I had ~1,500 bombers and 4,000 fighters plus radar over the whole region, so ~100% detection.

Thoughts?

 

[elitesix]

mikwarleo, putting balance aside for a second, perhaps this is historical though?

I know I'm under the impression that convoys suffered immensely from naval bombers, but perhaps you have found that the NAV losses by convoy AA fire ingame is historically accurate?

 

[mikwarleo]

mikwarleo, putting balance aside for a second, perhaps this is historical though? I know I'm under the impression that convoys suffered immensely from naval bombers, but perhaps you have found that the NAV losses by convoy AA fire ingame is historically accurate?

It's a fair point but it's just not remotely historically accurate. If there was any historical accuracy to this mechanic, even abstractly, I'd not take issue here.

Summing up the above in response to your point: the way it works in game currently is that naval and other bombers are much more effective against actual warships or subs than convoys. Clearly not historical.

Most of the time, you'll take significantly fewer losses and do a great deal more damage going up against a full multi-carrier task force (to push the example to the extreme) than you would going up against any remotely similar size convoys. Whether you assess it from ICD perspective, or just same number of ships this is true (and since convoys are SO much cheaper than any other ship comparing just ship numbers means they're massively OP AA platforms unless they did much worse than the same number of warships).

Obviously historically speaking it was a very easy meal for attackers against freight/transport ships. And in my example I had literally ~1,500 bombers, supported by ~4,000 modern fighters, over the english channel, with only 500 enemy fighters left. It should be a wrecking yard in those conditions. There's no level of abstraction that explains the results I describe above.

As I've noted the issue might not be the strength of convoy AA per-se, but rather that if you don't kill them, they take zero damage. So the damage you deal is spread out across the entire fleet of convoy ships, they're damaged (as you can see ~25,000% damage in my example) but they magically heal all of it immediately after battle, while your planes are actually killed and the damage felt.

This is explained in detail above so hope that clarifies it enough?

 

[j4l]

Since convoys are not immune to air attack, it's not worth a bug report.

The fact that NAVs can't seem to see convoys despite the presence of friendly fighters and RADAR might be worth a bug report.

But convoys are not in any way OP with their AA guns.

Take this example:

1936 NAVs hitting British convoys in the Bay of Biscay. 1 DD in a raiding fleet to allow the NAVs to actually attack.

The DD isn't even getting any hits in. The damage done by those crappy NAVs that have no air XP applied and no aces is enough to wipe out ships.

I could do this all day. Even if I lose 1 NAV every time I attack a convoy (which isn't happening in these attacks), I still come out ahead.

Hell, the DD took more damage than the planes. I sent it back to port to repair for 23 days.

How about this battle:

1 NAV dead, but the DD is down to 6% hull. I'll trade that for 6 convoys.

Just do the same with the DD set to patrol and not to engage. This will result in NAV losses and very few damage on the convoy ships. Every next battle will repeat with nearly the same result and you will also notice that all damage done to the convoy ships will be magically repaired between every fight. This behavior existed in WtT already. Very buggy imho.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

I saw this also in my last run through game up to end of 1940.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

In my latest game, navs go down against convoys, but now that destroyers have showed up to stop the submarine minelayers, they pravail agaisnt destroyers. This has to be a bug.

 

[Daedalusx007]

I don’t think it would be nearly as bad if NAVs didn’t seem to target convoys so much. But they do and you lose on average 1 to 2 NAVs a fight. Sometimes the losses are much much higher.

Convoys and transport planes are strange abstractions in a game where you have to individually produce rifles. Which would be fine except convoys are death incarnate to planes. Purpose built fighters do not see the success convoys do.

At the very least transport planes, when used to supplement supplies, seem to be more reasonable.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

I don’t think it would be nearly as bad if NAVs didn’t seem to target convoys so much. But they do and you lose on average 1 to 2 NAVs a fight. Sometimes the losses are much much higher.

Convoys and transport planes are strange abstractions in a game where you have to individually produce rifles. Which would be fine except convoys are death incarnate to planes. Purpose built fighters do not see the success convoys do.

At the very least transport planes, when used to supplement supplies, seem to be more reasonable.

This has to be a big, right? Does it improve with increased reliability kit or attack?

 

[mikwarleo]

You can start killing convoys only once you have NAV2s, except in some rare cases discussed in this thread, but in any event you still take the losses and the bottom line remains that convoys are still by far the strongest and most cost effective AA platforms in the game. In my tests the best way to kill allied bombers in the channel was to sail divisions (send convoys) through the channel. In this way I was killed several times more bombers than my 4,000 fully upgraded Me109s (1,000 points of upgrades) that were facing off against only 500 mixed (many old) enemy fighters and ~1,500 mixed (many old) enemy bombers. My fighters had a very tough time killing bombers but it was no problem at all for the convoys... Not sure if I'd call it a bug, but there's serious problems with this part of the mechanics. What's sad is that the issue has been reported for quite some time, seems to have arisen in WtT, and PDX has not addressed it. It seems it wouldn't be too hard to adjust the relevant values to rectify the issue and I made some posts and bug reports pre-MtG requesting the change along with others though it's not been fixed. Hopefully they take note of it finally and address it soon.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

You can start killing convoys only once you have NAV2s, except in some rare cases discussed in this thread, but in any event you still take the losses and the bottom line remains that convoys are still by far the strongest and most cost effective AA platforms in the game. In my tests the best way to kill allied bombers in the channel was to sail divisions (send convoys) through the channel. In this way I was killed several times more bombers than my 4,000 fully upgraded Me109s (1,000 points of upgrades) that were facing off against only 500 mixed (many old) enemy fighters and ~1,500 mixed (many old) enemy bombers. My fighters had a very tough time killing bombers but it was no problem at all for the convoys... Not sure if I'd call it a bug, but there's serious problems with this part of the mechanics. What's sad is that the issue has been reported for quite some time, seems to have arisen in WtT, and PDX has not addressed it. It seems it wouldn't be too hard to adjust the relevant values to rectify the issue and I made some posts and bug reports pre-MtG requesting the change along with others though it's not been fixed. Hopefully they take note of it finally and address it soon.

Is it possible to mod convoy anti-air?

 

[Klausewitz]

IIRC the problem is that convoys are the only ships that "heal". Or rather damage for convoys is not tracked from one engagement to the next.
So unless you manage to sink them in one go, they'll stay afloat and move on.
So if your NAVs damage 20 convoys for 80 to 90% each while the convoys shot at them with their puny guns you might very well see 2 NAVs lost for no convoys.

 

[Daedalusx007]

This has to be a big, right? Does it improve with increased reliability kit or attack?

I’ll be honest I only bought the game a couple months ago and am still learning. I won’t presume to say it’s a bug.

But I think it’s more of a problem arising out of the abstraction of one convoy being x number of ships.

 

[Daedalusx007]

Is it possible to mod convoy anti-air?

Actually I don’t think it would be too beyond the pale to make convoys defenseless. Requiring you to cover them with destroyers and cruisers and airplanes.

 

[Xiziz]

Hmm. I wonder if reducing hit chance and increasing damage of nav1 helps.

Also lowering convoy aa by 50-75% might help.

Fleet AA contribution is a little to high overall i think, or the multiplier in defines for ship aa to damage is to high.

I think fleet aa also reduces damage from planes, which is why carriers got such a nerf.

Convoys beeing hard for nav1 and tac to kill is old issue, but the convoys ripping out planes is new.

 

[seattle]

I'm also losing many 1940 navs to convoy AA.
Seems like I have to first sink all convoys with subs, then destroy all ships (in port).
The problem is then the UK doomstack of 80+ divs in England.

Sealion with nukes it shall be.

 

[Tavior]

I'm also losing many 1940 navs to convoy AA.
Seems like I have to first sink all convoys with subs, then destroy all ships (in port).
The problem is then the UK doomstack of 80+ divs in England.

Sealion with nukes it shall be.

Have you tired convey raiding with a surface fleet?

 

[Baron_von_Beer]

I hate to cry bug but certainly leaning that way for convoys AA. Their value is so miniscule that even combined it is going to be minute. In the pg 1 example 6 convoys downed 44 planes. Even if the convoys combined at 100% of their AA, which isn't as it's supposed to happen, that would still only be 1.2 AA; a single level 1 AA mount is 1.6

 

[seattle]

Have you tired convey raiding with a surface fleet?

Nope, why would I do that?
As Germany it's easy to build up a massive U-Boat fleet. Using the surface fleet for convoy raiding instead of strike force has two downsides:
1. burns a ton of fuel
2. Unless you have a huge surface navy, it's probably better to use the few ships you have to secure your shores.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

I hate to cry bug but certainly leaning that way for convoys AA. Their value is so miniscule that even combined it is going to be minute. In the pg 1 example 6 convoys downed 44 planes. Even if the convoys combined at 100% of their AA, which isn't as it's supposed to happen, that would be 1.2 AA; a single level 1 AA mount is 1.6

It is especially telling that those same navs nail warships once Instsrt mining the bay of biscay with uboat minelayers...