At the moment they are completely ridiculous. The entire multiplayer meta is CAS spam currently. Paradox needs to rethink CAS imo.
Its time to nerf CAS
- Thread starter Mushro0m
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CAS are powerful due to a bug not making it possible to disrupt them with fighters so you can't lower their damage output even if you have thousands of fighters.
Stats wise CAS already were nerfed in 1.3, and before 1.3 they apparently were not OP... so this bug is the thing that's the problem, not CAS themself
Stats wise CAS already were nerfed in 1.3, and before 1.3 they apparently were not OP... so this bug is the thing that's the problem, not CAS themself
I think that units other than fighters and heavy fighters should suffer a reduction in agility if there are insufficient friendly fighters present to escort them. I picture this as being similar in concept to the function of screens to cover capitals in the naval battles. Unescorted bombers, including CAS, need to suffer heavier casualties than they currently do. The fact that CAS are survivable on their own is the primary reason they are overpowered, IMO.
Yes, this should be a thing.CAS are powerful due to a bug not making it possible to disrupt them with fighters so you can't lower their damage output even if you have thousands of fighters.
Stats wise CAS already were nerfed in 1.3, and before 1.3 they apparently were not OP... so this bug is the thing that's the problem, not CAS themself
Doesn't it make the system more complicated than necessary? Wouldn't it be easier to simply tweak the CAS stats to make them easy cannon fodder for fighters? The result would be the same as you propose: CAS without air superiority = CAS graveyard.
I don't see it as being overly complex at all. It would do exactly what I want and what the OP is calling for and that is to change the game dynamics such that the tactic of building 100% CAS cannot dominate. Your approach would also make them more vulnerable when you have AS. That is the nature of air combat mechanics.
We agree that they should be more vulnerable. The rest is just a quibble on how to achieve that.
As a 100% SP-player I am not aware of the magnitude of the CAS spam problem.
I'm curious though: is there no viable counter to it yet with the existing system?
I would assume that if you expect the enemy to spam CAS that you would try to counter it by adjusting your fighters. Creating variants with lvl.5 weapons instead of pimping the engines for instance. Does radar or flak reduce the problem?
Or is there truly nothing to counter CAS spam? If so, then it definitely has to be fixed asap. I reckon that the easier approach would be tweaking the CAS stats while your proposal might be the overall better solution.
Other current threads suggest that building heavy fighters results in a CAS graveyard for the CAS spammers in MP. I couldn't tell you how effective that is in practice, nor how popular in current MP groupthink.
Should really be two ways to go with CAS - either better against fighters but less effective CAS (more of a multi-role fighter). Or dedicated CAS but not good against fighters.
I have not tried using heavy fighters against CAS. Looking at the numbers, I don't think this would work well. HFTR are good against STRATS because they have high attack vs STRATS high HP. CAS survive because their agility is high, not at good as light fighters, but not bad at all especially with variants. HFTR do not have great agility. Factor that in with the cost and I don't think it would be effective.
What I do know from recent games is that if you have 1000+ FTR in a zone and the enemy has 1000+ CAS there (with zero friendly fighter cover), you will be disappointed in your kill ratio and they will continue to hit far too many ground targets. Alex's suggestion regarding allowing FTR to force CAS to abort would also help somewhat.
One counter, perhaps the most effective currently, is to put AA on your ground units. I would still prefer for fighters to be a viable deterrent as well.
What I do know from recent games is that if you have 1000+ FTR in a zone and the enemy has 1000+ CAS there (with zero friendly fighter cover), you will be disappointed in your kill ratio and they will continue to hit far too many ground targets. Alex's suggestion regarding allowing FTR to force CAS to abort would also help somewhat.
One counter, perhaps the most effective currently, is to put AA on your ground units. I would still prefer for fighters to be a viable deterrent as well.
In what game? I can count on one hand the number of anything I've ever seen division AA shoot down...
If you believe that then you are not looking in the right places. It will not show anywhere in the battle details. It is only in the regional air summary report that you will see how many support planes are lost to AA and it can easily be more than are lost to fighters.
Good to know - I've always looked at the combat screens and been very unimpressed with AA to the point where I never use it.
I'll try it out.
I'll try it out.
What's the current state of wing size? Is it still best to use small wings or can you use one 1,000 plane stack without suffering disadvantages? I believe they wanted to balance it so that no tiny stacks are required anymore.
For fighters do not go too small since there is a limit to 6 wings affecting air superiority at any given time. For other types the limits are lax enough that it makes little difference. Spreading out bombers and support planes means less wasted effort since you will spread out more and avoid the caps on individual battles, but that is a minor perk in exchange for the extra time spent moving and assigning them.
For me the top consideration in wing size is making them fit well into bases. I do most things in 100 except fighters which will often be in 200 or even 400 depending on how many I want to concentrate into one area.
As much as I would like to get in on this thread, with major air warfare changes expected in 1.4, it seems kind of futile. Can't wait for open beta to do some serious testing though.
I hope you are not too disappointed in those changes.As much as I would like to get in on this thread, with major air warfare changes expected in 1.4, it seems kind of futile. Can't wait for open beta to do some serious testing though.
The impressions I have gathered so far is that they are mostly QoL changes altering the UI both to make things more readable and to make it easier to order your air assets. Until they announce otherwise, I am not counting on any substantial changes to the combat mechanics themselves. It is for this reason that threads like this one during the next 6 weeks or so are more important instead of less. This is exactly the time to make your voice heard on what needs to change with air war.
Once they have finished their rework of the air system it will become nearly impossible to get them to change it again. We will be stuck with it for the foreseeable future and only the fixing of outright bugs will make additional changes to the air system.