I think it took more than the time it took with land & naval warfare combined, before I felt like I got a basic understanding of "how air stuff work". Now, when dealing with planes, half the time I still don't know what I am doing.
Some of the comments asking for making things more understandable, or making some actions easier are relatable for me. However, there is a difference between making things "easier, more understandable" and making them "simpler".
Between the "give the option to automate all, make it easier" people and "make everything simpler" folk, I wanna say a few things.
Air zones & range (disagreements with comments):
I see comments suggesting riddance of air zones and/or making it possible to give generalized orders to planes and to make them operate freely within their range.
I guess air zones are necessary for working a system built on top of the underlying "states system". Especially with air detection mechanic. Air detection is always relevant for a specific zone modified by the states within it (and other non state-specific modifiers too). It's impractical for the game to calculate our air detection on every single pixel on the map separately and even if it did, we don't engage the enemy air wings in the middle of nowhere just to "kill stuff". We either protect a friendly zone from bombers by performing interception missions or we bomb an enemy controlled zone ourselves. Therefore, we should be showing where that zone is before we order the air wings to get ready for fighting anything, as already is in the game. Otherwise, we're saying "respond to every threat / bomb everything detected within 2000 kms and when you take off, kill everything until you run out of fuel and come back". That doesn't seem realistic to me.
We shouldn't be able to give vague orders to planes. There has to be some kind of an area where the orders relate, which are relevant to geography, states, provinces and countries. The current division of these air zones and scaling of range in those could be a topic of discussion though.
Exception: Close Air Support missions. These boys need to actually cover where the combat is, what they do has less relevance to the zone. They could be independent from air zones, that could still be realistic.
Air zones & range (agreements with comments):
In my understanding of the current system, the "range" of an aircraft is not there to be interpreted as a "set" number which tells us how far it can fly & return. It is a general scale of how capable that plane is for operating at longer distances and for longer durations. So it is neither a "limit", nor it is a "guarantee". Even if you assign a short range aircraft to an airbase in the middle of a large air zone, that aircraft's performance of its mission has an effect on the entire air zone scaled by its range (except for close air support, where it can't perform if its range circle doesn't cover the province where combat happens). So it's not like it doesn't cover the areas its range suggests it's unable to reach, it covers the whole zone whatever its range but with reduced efficiency. This is so big of a game changing information which is so NOT mentioned or hinted in-game that it's unbelievable.
The problem with this is when all you want to do is to perform a mission on a state which is at the edge of an air zone, it is better to base your planes at the air base which is farther away from where you're concerned with, but is more central to the air zone. Doesn't seem to make much sense but I'm not sure if this has some logic to it.
Maybe it's to include the fact that for example air wings on interception mission can't be limited to fight right on top of the city they're supposed to protect. They may sometimes try to engage enemy bombers further away at certain favourable conditions. Vice-versa, bombers may sometimes take certain courses, make detours to perform better so they can't be expected to operate on a small area and not anywhere else. Maybe the way air zones are set in game have something to do with real world conditions (common weather, common conditions somehow, operation practicality or something on those lines). Maybe it is to make range a more relevant stat in the game. Maybe because there are certain things about air warfare that I'm not aware of, which make this system more logical. Or, it's just a design flaw, a scaling issue. A suggestion in this sense may be making air zones flexible by giving the player the ability to precisely define what their desired zone for a mission is by selecting states and adding them to the mission. If there's not a case of "common conditions" or "undividable certain operational things" with air zones, flexible zones seem like it could be a solution. If anyone has any information or insight about this, I'd be happy to know.
In any case, I agree that the difficulties with the clicking involved when arranging air wings due to this mechanic should be offset somehow. With some sort of an ability to easily set air wings to efficiently cover a certain area maybe. There's a button with fleets which allow us to "split this fleet into balanced task forces". Maybe something similar for air wings too? We select the wings, select the zone/zones, select their mission and then click a "scale" button. They get organized in balanced wings and relocate as necessary to cover that area.
There's also the issue with close air support planes assigned to armies relocating themselves to central airbases and losing their ability to participate in combats anymore... The game seems to be confused about some conflicting systems (you need to be central to be more efficient but you also need to actually range the combat to be able to contribute. you pick efficiency and ignore the other condition: the result is better efficiency with zero contribution).
Finally, clearer warnings are needed imho when we're getting badly strat bombed. There's no way to realize that until we click the states and check the building "HP"s shown there or until we scroll down in the construction tab to see what is being repaired. There's only "enemy has air superiority" alert to the right but that's doesn't always mean "you're getting bombed to medieval age". With pop-ups on the map (like convoy raid pop-ups) and/or alerts at the alert strip at the top maybe?
It probably took more effort to write this than it ever took to arrange planes in game for me so it's really not about the effort, just the satisfaction you get when playing a well-designed, complex but informative game.
