Mission profiles for airplanes.

[theusje]

Hello there,

Ever wanted to defend mainland Europe as Germany against the AI-bombers, which always know where your interceptors aren't flying. So you have to micromanage your interceptors from an area to another.

Do you always want the maximum efficiency when lowering that organisation levels of the enemy with your 4 groups of 4 wings of tactical bombers in those pockets on the Easternfront. And the next week it's another pocket a few hundred miles away ...

First you can chose between "Day", "Night" and "Both". After that you have to do the slider with strenght/org. At last but not least you have to set for how long you want to do them that mission.

I have no problem with this scheme but do we have to go through it everytime? Paradox is doing a great job here, you won't hear anything else from me. You are almost one hundred procent in control, which is very nice but not practical when playing with a large airforce (and I guess the same goes for the navy). After a while it starts to get bloody annoying and repetive. I'm so used with the scheme of setting missions that I always do the same: slider at around 12% (or at 0%) and always 5 or 6 months. I only started to notice this when my girlfriend pointed it out.

Thus I suggest that we should be able to create some sort of mission profile.
Some examples
Name of profile: Air Superiority Daylight
Type of mission: Air Superiority
Lengt of mission: 6 months and only during Daylights
Strenght/org slider: 25%

Name of profile: Ground Attack Both
Type of mission: Ground Attack
Lengt of mission: 1 month both day and night
Strenght/org slider: 0%

So when you select a mission you'll get the menu with the 'normal' missions and the bottom of the list you'll find "Air Superiority Daylight" if your unit can do Air Superiority and "Ground Attack Both" if you got bombers.

I hope I made my point clear, if this has already been purposed or you can mod this then let my know it and ignore this thread.

Theusje

 

[unmerged(35319)]

This seems like a really good idea. Very simple and elegant. Almost like creating your own plays in a football game and getting to use them.

However I don't know if it'd work in the current engine. But we can hope! Great post.

 

[theusje]

Thanks for replying Acronym.

I think that it shouldn't be that hard to program. You're just setting some parameters and save them so you can use them later. We do it all the time when playing HoI but we don't save them. We have to set them over and over again.

I really hope that the team could include this into HoI3. It would make playing a bit easier and faster (specially in mp) without adding much complexity. If you want to do it the old, go a head, and if you want to use profiles, go a head. It's a win-win situation and you always have the choice.

I believe that Paradox Interactive should be a synoniem for choice.

Theusje

 

[unmerged(42324)]

I agree this sounds like a nice simplification which wouldnt be hard to implement.

I have another little proposition, maybe an "year" button when choosing mission length, not just month day an so. Its kind of irritating when pressing the month button many many times when ordering lots of fighters to patrol the english channel from ~1940 to ~1946

 

[theusje]

Once you made your profiles you won't have any further work on them.

Anyone some other thoughts on this subject?

Theusje

 

[unmerged(59184)]

Not really more thoughts, but I like your idea very much.

However, setting your bomber missions to 0% can result in lost bomber divisions.

 

[unmerged(94130)]

Great idea

And the possibility to give an order for several air corps with just one clic, not for each corps of a stack...

But of course, if the weather allows the missions and if all air corps are able to reach the province or air regions.

 

[Delta107]

Very good idea indeed

 

[theusje]

Not really more thoughts, but I like your idea very much.

However, setting your bomber missions to 0% can result in lost bomber divisions.

Yes, that's true if you leave the slider at 0%. Set it at 10 or 25% and you won't lose airwings. But it's all about micromanaging and that depends from player to player. I for example always keep a close watch on my airforce. I will know when I can't win an airbattle and retreat or I'll throw in an extra stack of interceptors. My girlfriend on the other hand won't even notice that I'm intercepting her bombers for over a week. As we all can guess she loses a bomber divisions here and there.

Great idea

And the possibility to give an order for several air corps with just one clic, not for each corps of a stack...

But of course, if the weather allows the missions and if all air corps are able to reach the province or air regions.

aaah yes, I haven't thought about it. I would be indeed timesaving and easier to, fe, select 4 stacks of CAS (16 wings in total) and order them to bomb area X if the weather allows it and all planes are within range. I think this would apply to fleets aswel.

Thanks for supporting Delta107

 

[Lazy_Boy]

That would be very handy. Setting air missions is such a pain.

Also you should be able to set exactly which provinces they defend. And it shouldn't be just these constant patrols flying around. Need a scramble system based off radar and tech. Planes don't leave the ground unless on a specific mission or to intercept. The biggest factor in air war was detection.

Need to be able to make a huge impact by bombing airfields and radar. Especially if you catch planes on the ground.

And btw #1 issue - TARGET INDIVIDUAL PROVINCES WITH BOMBERS. So many times I need my bombers on an important target and they start bombing some random territory in the back getting themselves hurt and doing nothing.

 

[unmerged(94026)]

A simple thing that pdx should done in HOI2 is adding more hot keys... especially in AF commands

 

[Waffen9999]

Personally given the complexity of aircraft, I always wanted like theater designations. Where you dont' control the aircraft themselves but rather assign X amount to a various region and give an order and they'll take it from there. Then you could get monthly reports or whatever of what kind of damage they're doing. Though that would probably work in another type of game over the way this one works out.

 

[Richardson]

My girlfriend on the other hand won't even notice that I'm intercepting her bombers for over a week. As we all can guess she loses a bomber divisions here and there.

You're playing HOI2 with your girlfriend??? Wow, sounds like a keeper!

 

[unmerged(94130)]

That would be very handy. Setting air missions is such a pain.

Also you should be able to set exactly which provinces they defend. And it shouldn't be just these constant patrols flying around. Need a scramble system based off radar and tech. Planes don't leave the ground unless on a specific mission or to intercept. The biggest factor in air war was detection.

Need to be able to make a huge impact by bombing airfields and radar. Especially if you catch planes on the ground.

And btw #1 issue - TARGET INDIVIDUAL PROVINCES WITH BOMBERS. So many times I need my bombers on an important target and they start bombing some random territory in the back getting themselves hurt and doing nothing.

Or if one division is bombed by ennemies bomber wings will go immediately intercept these bombers.

Before radars, we can create an air watch network, less efficient than a radar, because humans eyes don't get the range of radio waves, but very usefull before the building of radar stations.

You're playing HOI2 with your girlfriend??? Wow, sounds like a keeper!

Girldfriend : If i win this party, you do the dishes this evening !

And btw #1 issue - TARGET INDIVIDUAL PROVINCES WITH BOMBERS. So many times I need my bombers on an important target and they start bombing some random territory in the back getting themselves hurt and doing nothing.

Absoluty necessary.

But for fighters and naval bombers, we can choose several provinces which will be included in missions profiles. So we will have London/Birmingham Air superiority daylight.

 

[zeekater]

How about making the starting parameters of missions adaptable ( like in misc.txt)?

Each mission type has 4 parameters, somewhere in the base code (with default settings):
* start time (= 'current time')
* duration (= '30 days')(ingame you see end time)
* mission percentage (= 50%)
* day/night/both (= day)

So, for example, for air superiority there would be 3 lines (start time should always be the current time I think )

# air superiority; default duration (days)
30
# air superiority; default mission percentage
0.5
# air superiority; default day (0),night (1), both (2)
0

After all, you're mostly only using one set of parameters for any type of mission. Air superiority for me is always during the day, till 5%, for as long as possible (until I reassign it). Same for any other mission (also naval missions ). I don't know how it's for other players, but it's only very rarely that I want to ground attack at night for example.

The advantage of this is that it is an 'easy' extraction of parameters. Disadvantage is that it's not multiplayer friendly (different people might want different default settings).

 

[krieger11b]

The problem I found worst about air missions was they were done by regions and not so much acutal range. I would be able to hit ships near Nova Scotia because my Stuka could reach one sea province next to Dunkirk because it was the same "region."

 

[Chief Savage Ma]

CAS and Tac must be able to be focused on a single province or I will burn my copy of HoI3 and boycott PI. How many times have my CAS flown over the 6 retreating armor divisions to bomb the dugin garrison with a AA brigade?

 

[unmerged(87183)]

I'd like to see a Night Fighter brigade.

You attach it to Interceptors, and it changes them to NFs, or just a whole independent Night Fighter that needs R&D.

Either way, these units will only fly at night. You don't need to set them they automatically only fly at night.

 

[unmerged(94130)]

The problem I found worst about air missions was they were done by regions and not so much acutal range. I would be able to hit ships near Nova Scotia because my Stuka could reach one sea province next to Dunkirk because it was the same "region."

CAS and Tac must be able to be focused on a single province or I will burn my copy of HoI3 and boycott PI. How many times have my CAS flown over the 6 retreating armor divisions to bomb the dugin garrison with a AA brigade?

So, we need a system where we choose the one or several provinces where the missions will be launched.

I'd like to see a Night Fighter brigade.

You attach it to Interceptors, and it changes them to NFs, or just a whole independent Night Fighter that needs R&D.

Either way, these units will only fly at night. You don't need to set them they automatically only fly at night.

Night fighter can't be mix with day fighters units.
They need special equipment, special tactics, special training.
So special night fight units.
We don't know what will look like the military units production system, but if we can creat our own divisions, with it's regiments...So may be, and i hope it, we will can choose the organization of our wings and night fighters will be available. But with a special size, because you can't send 100 night fighters for intercepting a bomber raid...

 

[unmerged(94026)]

I'd like to see a Night Fighter brigade.

You attach it to Interceptors, and it changes them to NFs, or just a whole independent Night Fighter that needs R&D.

Either way, these units will only fly at night. You don't need to set them they automatically only fly at night.

Daytime fighters should automatically perform missions only in daytime and they are of less than 1% efficiency at night.
However, nightfighters can fight during daytime. During the first US air raids Me110s of NJG did take off and fight, suffering great loss.

Nightfighters should be a tree of R&D, relying on fighters and radar, etc. It should also be another kind of unit.

PS: I think intercepters tree and fighters tree are bad idea in HOI2. Ridiculous when in fact the difference between planes does not lie there.