Interwar plane design help.

[Synicus]

Currently, without the advantage of well-placed airports as the aggressor nation, I'm take a lot more losses vs identical interwar fighter wings.

The following questions are aimed at player Japan's limited resources and civilian factories.
With the loose goal of creating a longer range 'rubber fighter' with heavy attack.
What I mean by 'rubber fighter' is using non-strategic materials usage to eliminate the need for aluminum with interwar designs.
Previously I tested a 36' fighter design with heavy machine guns, non-strategic materials usage and self-sealing fuel tanks to make up for the air defense stat loss.
The design performed very well but did not have the range I wanted and was still resource expensive.

1) Is air defense important for fighters? or would it be catastrophic to use drop tanks instead of self-sealing fuel tanks resulting 1.0 air defense 800 range?

2) Should I even bother with early fighters? all interwar planes will likely be eventually given to a puppet.

3) Should I forget taking advantage of starting production efficiency and go with CAS instead?

4) Is the 'rubber fighter' simply a poor idea?

5) Should I ignore the early game fubar total score where the number of planes makes the biggest impact?

6) Lastly, does total score have an impact on Foci that make demands of other nations?

Edit: all designs will include engine 2.
Please don't feel obligated to answer all of my questions. Any one will be helpful.

 

[HmJ_JP]

1) I'd say all stats relevant, currently speed is most important. Air defense is definitely important, just not most critical stat.
2) Depends on your competition and if you go early war: the air superiority bonus is good for ground troops, however do note that range and air accidents might be an issue early on (and will be more in future patches, as we learnt from the Summer Open Beta)
3) Production efficiency is super important in HOI4. I always try to have 1 MIC on fighter and 1 MIC on CAS as early as possible, then ramp up as needed. But don't constantly change production: efficiency retention is poor, especially when you update the airframe.
4) You do with what you have. If you lack aluminum and have no choice, then do rubber fighter. But then realize you're interested in optimal value, not the best possible stats: produce cheap to slowly grind their air superiority
5) Didn't notice
6) Didn't notice

My rant with the air game is about the new air accidents rate, as introduced in 1.12.12: that's 0.01% loss per hour, 0.24% per day, 7.2% per month and... 87.6% per year. With good weather conditions. So early game my losses are about 1:4 for each plane I lose to enemy fire, 4 are lost to air accidents. A bit drastic. Means you have to keep up with lots of MIC replacing those lost planes.

The good news is that the enemy should suffer from same penalty, but often they have higher MIC in early game compared to me.

https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Attrition_and_accidents#Air_units

 

[Synicus]

Very helpful.
I do take air crew surveys asap and never sacrifice efficiency by improving designs in stages.
We need a flight simulator tech to help with training.

 

[HmJ_JP]

Very helpful.
I do take air crew surveys asap and never sacrifice efficiency by improving designs in stages.
We need a flight simulator tech to help with training.

Yes, but you still need 50 XP to get the air crew surveys spirit. Also note that training gives an additional malus to the accident rate - fortunately training to lvl 3 is rather fast.

 

[The Colonel]

Speed just gives a % increase to your attack if you are faster than the enemy, and while it can give a large increase in damage vs. other fighters you would need an incredibly contrived scenario to reach the max bonus at 3.5x speed advantage; it's mostly there to give fighters a damage bonus vs bombers. Most likely it will be a few % increase, vs. adding another gun or going from 1x cannon to 2x (via saving weight elsewhere) which will likely double your damage. For more info, see the wiki https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_combat#Sub-phase_2:_Damage

Undoubtably the 3 most important stats are attack, defense, and range. The basic damage formula is your attack / their defense, and not having enough range to get 100% mission efficiency will linearly decrease your effectiveness. On an IW frame, boosting range is probably your biggest priority because the base range is so low. With small #s of planes you will also struggle with detection, so taking centralized control and building early radar will help there.

 

[Synicus]

Good to know. I guess that's why the 36' design did so well, having a higher defense than the interwar fighters attack despite the still limited range.
Luckily, I'm using the same design on my current run.

I have yet to capitulate China with the Eight years' war mod. So much testing for efficiency, adding, removing and adding again the extended tech mod. Then the loss of the A6M. All good fun though.

 

[HmJ_JP]

Speed just gives a % increase to your attack if you are faster than the enemy, and while it can give a large increase in damage vs. other fighters you would need an incredibly contrived scenario to reach the max bonus at 3.5x speed advantage; it's mostly there to give fighters a damage bonus vs bombers. Most likely it will be a few % increase, vs. adding another gun or going from 1x cannon to 2x (via saving weight elsewhere) which will likely double your damage. For more info, see the wiki https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_combat#Sub-phase_2:_Damage

Undoubtably the 3 most important stats are attack, defense, and range. The basic damage formula is your attack / their defense, and not having enough range to get 100% mission efficiency will linearly decrease your effectiveness. On an IW frame, boosting range is probably your biggest priority because the base range is so low. With small #s of planes you will also struggle with detection, so taking centralized control and building early radar will help there.

Regrading speed you're right, not such a big deal now, except since the Summer Open Beta we know that agility will be much more prevalent. And agility is proportionate to excess speed.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

With the loose goal of creating a longer range 'rubber fighter' with heavy attack.

You'll fail spectacularly: it nerfs defence (which you might as well think of as HP) too much to be considered on anything that you expect to participate in air combat. For range, a heavy fighter would be a much better option; especially since earlier models aren't that far behind lighter frames when compared at 100% efficiency.

Should I forget taking advantage of starting production efficiency and go with CAS instead?

If I understood it right (along the lines of "don't build fighters") - that's an option, provided they'll be more fighters than CAS and you'll go battlefield support for extra stat boost (unless the goal is to pile up your own air losses). While more of a meme, it's the only way to build a useful multirole (although, it's only supposed to fly ground support, so it does not quite lives up to the name the way an average player would expect).

 

[Kanitatlan]

Air combat in HOI4 is essentially subject to the Lanchester square law with modifiers. The Lanchester part basically says that the value of a design is proportional to attack per IC times defence per IC. Notice that the cost applies twice.

However, this is modified by the other factors that apply. Speed and agility advantages both apply modifiers which are likely, based on the summer beta, to significantly change in the next release. Currently the base Lanchester formula tends to dominate but the expected changes will make speed and agility rather more important. This is especially relevant because maximising attack time defence is NOT what the Lanchester law is telling you to do because you must take cost into account.

In addition to these you need to take notice of mission efficiency (range) and simply the number of aircraft to increase your air detection levels.

 

[Secret Master]

1) Is air defense important for fighters? or would it be catastrophic to use drop tanks instead of self-sealing fuel tanks resulting 1.0 air defense 800 range?

I did a run on a live stream a few weeks ago where I had a ton of planes with non-standard materials usage. I wasn't running IW planes, but I had plenty of CAS with air defense of 1. It was part of a larger experiment with trying to save aluminum by having fighters with top tier stats and CAS with poor air to air stats to lower their cost (since I wanted to see if I could lower costs of planes lost to AA).

The end result was that CAS losses to enemy fighters skyrocketed even though I had plenty of fighters in the air regions covering the CAS.

The lesson was simple: air defense is a vital stat for any plane that gets into combat with other planes, fighter or bomber. As you discovered.

Good to know. I guess that's why the 36' design did so well, having a higher defense than the interwar fighters attack despite the still limited range.

The problem you are facing though is that air defense is a vital stat, but mission efficiency is also a big nerf to aircraft capabilities. Because better airframes have better default range, I think the correct answer is this: build IW planes with range in mind, but later air frames shouldn't trade range for horrendously low air defense.

But get those better airframes into use ASAP.

 

[Synicus]

Awesome. Thank you all for your input.
I also have an extended tech mod 'rotary engine' that increased reliability.

Ultimately an air force isn't all that necessary vs China, and I should be building up for the future rather than the present.
I just got to used taking out the Netherlands/Dutch east Indies early with Vanilla. I can walk fine without that crutch.

I would have ditched 'Eight Years' War' mod after finding out they broke the A6M Zero focus, if not for the plane designer and all the ideologic foci that go with the mod.

 

[Findell_HOI]

The only planes you should use the non-standard materials on are planes that will not get into combat against other planes.

Scout Planes, Some Naval Bombers ( The long range ones to take out subs ), Fighters ( when you are fighting against a country that will not use planes like china) etc.

 

[The Colonel]

Air combat in HOI4 is essentially subject to the Lanchester square law with modifiers. The Lanchester part basically says that the value of a design is proportional to attack per IC times defence per IC. Notice that the cost applies twice.

However, this is modified by the other factors that apply. Speed and agility advantages both apply modifiers which are likely, based on the summer beta, to significantly change in the next release. Currently the base Lanchester formula tends to dominate but the expected changes will make speed and agility rather more important. This is especially relevant because maximising attack time defence is NOT what the Lanchester law is telling you to do because you must take cost into account.

In addition to these you need to take notice of mission efficiency (range) and simply the number of aircraft to increase your air detection levels.

I think the bigger effect, unless the live patch is significantly different from the beta, will be the huge range nerfs. It's going to be very hard to make offensive fighters to take air superiority over a zone you're just pushing into because you have to sacrifice defense and weight => attack (with thrusts now reduced) to get the extra fuel tanks to have enough range to project superiority into other zones. Unless there are more changes, it seems like defensive interceptors will be able to mop multiple times their IC in bombers/air superiority fighters, which I can't really comment on the historicity of but certainly seems like it'll make air less useful or fun.

 

[Secret Master]

I think the bigger effect, unless the live patch is significantly different from the beta, will be the huge range nerfs. It's going to be very hard to make offensive fighters to take air superiority over a zone you're just pushing into because you have to sacrifice defense and weight => attack (with thrusts now reduced) to get the extra fuel tanks to have enough range to project superiority into other zones. Unless there are more changes, it seems like defensive interceptors will be able to mop multiple times their IC in bombers/air superiority fighters, which I can't really comment on the historicity of but certainly seems like it'll make air less useful or fun.

We'll see how it shakes out, but I know what you mean by the impact of the range changes we saw this summer.

It might lead to several different outcomes depending on how the costs shake out:

1) medium air frames become much more common due to range.
2) we build a lot more airfields in places we normally wouldn't bother/need to
3) light airframes are going to become loaded up with tons of range upgrades.
4) The Pacific is going to change substantially. We might see far more practical use of Pearl Harbor bombers
5) we might see more dedicated interceptor designs for use at home to deter bombing. I don't mean heavy fighters, but just literally light airframes with no range upgrades and tons of armor/survivability upgrades.

 

[Synicus]

I welcome some changes to range. Aside from dropping nucellar bombs we can currently ignore large and medium air frames.

Hollywood often shows a small number of planes having a massive impact in combat typically, vs squads and battalions.
Likely somewhat unreal due to production costs and safety.
I just hope as always that accuracy is the main focus of future expansions.

Edit: Non-strategic materials usage can be affective with a defense like self-sealing fuel tanks. Findell your opinion is true for multi-player.

 

[Umbosch]

The design performed very well but did not have the range I wanted and was still resource expensive.

The range is a big problem. At the end you have the choise between longrange or buid airports. I have make some pictures where the port is in every china coast provinces are. GXX can i give you too when you will.

Spoiler: Lao Che Air Freight

2) Should I even bother with early fighters? all interwar planes will likely be eventually given to a puppet.

1) I'd say all stats relevant, currently speed is most important. Air defense is definitely important, just not most critical stat.

For historical fans and player: I have read a new air journal this month. There was two intresting journal article. The one double decker bi plane in ww2: old but good. The other swedish flying regiment 19 in Finland. Doubledecker bi plane units too.

Double decker bi plane was outdatet to begin at ww2. But the moust countrys and untis has not enough of the new airplanes. The most of them was use as interceptors. Fewer for ground combat mission, night fights and to attack seatargets. The power of of a interceptor double decker was the agility. That was a point that Italy use and build long time double decker bi when she already have the G.50. How Japans early too. The oldes doubleldecker bi plane the use in WW2 was the british bristol bulldog. 10 of this plaines fight in the finish winter war and was successfull. Let me see this in the game again this 2000 russian airplanes.

The best and most modern was the AVia B534. They has a closed cockpit and has the last kill of a doubel decker in WW2: sep 1944 a Ju 52. Gladiator, Fiat CR 42 and Poliparkow have make a good job in WW2 but at the end has the new interceptors not the agility but was faster and better armed. The fastetst bi plane was the Fiat Cr 42 with 515 km/h. But the curve fighting or how the italy say acrobatic airfight was out to date. The new era was hit and run with full speed and max damage. What was extand was use as CAS or Scouts.

For historical modul fans. The most doubledecker bi plane has 2 x 7,7 mm MG. Only the fiat CR 42 and CR 32 has 2 x 12 mm. Poliparkow, Gladiator and AVia has 4 x 7,7 mm MG. Engines are little complicatet.

My rant with the air game is about the new air accidents rate, as introduced in 1.12.12: that's 0.01% loss per hour, 0.24% per day, 7.2% per month and... 87.6% per year. With good weather conditions. So early game my losses are about 1:4 for each plane I lose to enemy fire, 4 are lost to air accidents. A bit drastic. Means you have to keep up with lots of MIC replacing those lost planes.

Have we not learn in our last discussion: Stay together! run together! Fall together. Ok this was the rule of my sergeant as i go first time with him at patrol. But the best way again accident was the airfield to stuck full?!

 

[HmJ_JP]

Have we not learn in our last discussion: Stay together! run together! Fall together. Ok this was the rule of my sergeant as i go first time with him at patrol. But the best way again accident was the airfield to stuck full?!

If you're blessed with a normal economy, you can afford having many MIC to your plane productions while balancing proper and balanced equipment buildup.
If you have to win WWII by yourself, no faction, and with a minor country - let's say France for example - you'll have no choice but spread your forces, and you can't fill airports till at least 1941, unless you ignore that armor path and fully embrace the air war. Yet, it's not as powerful as it used to be, and anyway, theoretically, that's cheating since we don't reflect the official wiki definition

Also: what do you mean with double-deckers planes? I only know the transport plane category, which is much older that we think thb.

 

[Umbosch]

Also: what do you mean with double-deckers planes? I only know the transport plane category, which is much older that we think thb.

its the name in german. I have long search to find the correct translation of this. Sometime there was a hit with double decker. some times not. I mean biplane.

that's cheating since we don't reflect the official wiki definition

When you it not not say Paradox. I will don't do it too. When i understand our last test correct, give the first wing the max accident at airport. This value will distribute to everyone airwing at this airport. I ask me is what happened when the first wing is one with 100% durability?

Other idea: effective training program + 25% air training vs air crew survive -25% air accident vs veteran air instructor - 25% air wing XP at kill vs steel wing steel heart -33% untrained peanlty?

 

[HmJ_JP]

its the name in german. I have long search to find the correct translation of this. Sometime there was a hit with double decker. some times not. I mean biplane.



When you it not not say Paradox. I will don't do it too. When i understand our last test correct, give the first wing the max accident at airport. This value will distribute to everyone airwing at this airport. I ask me is what happened when the first wing is one with 100% durability?

Other idea: effective training program + 25% air training vs air crew survive -25% air accident vs veteran air instructor - 25% air wing at kill vs steel wing steel heart -33% untrained peanlty?

Yes, I remember I saw this "double decker" several time on the forum. In any case, that's just for icon visualization.
But you're right: using interwar fighters as interceptor instead of flying permanently for air supremacy is the better option. That, or else give them as lend lease to collect more XP or war participation.

As for air accidents: the formula seems to allocate the rate for 1 wing in proportion to all the wings. So more acceptable.

Your last point is fair: I also proposed that accident rate formula factors in the pilot experience, cannot be a blank formula, especially when all airframes have the same 80% reliability.

 

[Umbosch]

Your last point is fair: I also proposed that accident rate formula factors in the pilot experience, cannot be a blank formula, especially when all airframes have the same 80% reliability.

I have no idea in which thread i should post this: I have make some tests with trainings mission again but i am not finish. What i can say small airports have fewer accidents as big airports. Burden of airports give not more accidents. Weather is a big problem. 12 month's with storm = 40 accidents more at wing. Advisor with -20% bad weather penalty don't work.