Offer on air defense rebalans

[MaximGhost]

I am aware that the subject more than once rose, but I consider that it is necessary to redo air defense what it could sivat planes what it positively would affect balance and didn't contradict common sense.

I offer
- To make to air defenses tools 2 radiuses in which they could fire:
* small radius (we will call it the radius of dagger fire) - in him air defenses tools work with good accuracy and have quite good chances to shoot down the plane.
* Big radius (suppression radius) - this radius (and work of air defense in him) corresponds to how air defense works in a game now (suppression with small chance of damage).
it is possible to make it a double set of arms with the different range and accuracy (by analogy with tanks which had ATMG in the Wargame series)

Such system will allow to balance flexibly air defenses tools and aircraft, will allow the player to feel with the lost air superiority not so defectively, but in too time will leave an opportunity for the difficult balanced air attack with suppression of air defenses tools.

- To make to all soldiers to the armed with rifles and machine-gun calculations an opportunity to attack planes (100 meters for rifles, 150 meters for manual machine-gun, 250 meters for easel machine-guns, caliber of the 7-8th, 350 meters for easel machine-gun of caliber the 12-15th), but only with a suppression radius, without radius of dagger fire (they have no specialized sights for firing at air targets). In war very many planes in attempt of attack have been hit by fire from guns and manual machine guns (statistically this quantity isn't high, rather specialized anti-aircraft weapons, but absolute figures turn out decent).
In the same way it is worth arriving also with machine guns on the equipment (only a suppression zone without zone of dagger fire) which shoots at planes now, but isn't a specialized anti-aircraft weapon.

- To introduce a booking system for planes. Hs-129 for example is very well armored in a lobby in front from below so when calling the attack (when he
substitutes armor under fire) has to ignore completely any machine guns (both a loss, and suppression) and sometimes to ignore 20 mm shells (only a loss of a part of shells).
Hs-129 not the only plane from a game, in reality have armor, just his example is most indicative.

- To make more effect from the defensive arms of planes, by suppression chasing them the fighter. Now the effect of defensive arms is almost not noticeable.

 

[Protosszocker]

The second one is making the game even more micro intensiv than it is at the moment. Thats not a good change. The first one is kind of okay though I think their are better ways like buffing the stun aoe so that plane trains become weaker (single planes already get suppressed well by aa guns.

 

[von Steinberg]

A proper rebalance would have to include another unit: A dedicated airspace spotter. This could be varied by making some of those spotters RADAR units (regardless of how realistic or unrealistic them operating that closely to the front would be) which would of course be radically more expensive than their human counterparts, but much more efficient.

What the air spotter actually does, is not only warn you about enemy planes, but actually allow your AAA (if it fires HE shells, so a .50 cal on top of a Sherman wouldn't gain anything) to set up a defensive perimeter, in which all planes take massive stress penalties per second, and increased damage. This zone should be shorter range than the maximum engagement range of the particular guns, and any gun in range of an air spotter would automatically switch over to that perimeter mode as soon as the air spotter sees a plane moving into his line of sight. Additionally, to give the player more control, perimeter mode can be deactivated on the air spotter, so that AAA can theoretically function as it does now, but with the added benefits of the air spotter.

In return, AAA on its own should have severely reduced spotting capabilities, necessitating air spotters (even if you don't use perimeter mode) for them to be effective, unless you have an air patrol running all the time.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

I'd rather AA units get increased optics for air and a bigger aoe for all calibers of flak than any of these suggestions.

 

[Archonsod]

Bigger AA to counter the plane train would be nice. Another possibility might be a speed nerf for suppressed planes; would give your fighters a better chance to catch them (though that would probably have implications for the air game as a whole).

 

[MaximGhost]

I'd rather AA units get increased optics for air and a bigger aoe for all calibers of flak than any of these suggestions.

What you offer will break balance of antiaircraft guns and the land equipment and infantry which and so not ideal.

 

[Miskyavine]

It is funny how AA is so accurate ingame like radar lock accurate, in reality tracers would be hitting everything but the plane and usually AA wouldnt be able to target planes on the first pass. All the AA in this game is hand crank rotation and elevation. 88s should not be a sniper rifle for stunning fighters, The only thing that needs to be changed with the AA system is the graphics it looks so stupid seeing a million tracers hitting a plane and not doing anything when really it should show a ton of misses and the rare hit. Also when planes die breaking apart, spiraling and other cool death animations would be nice to see, other then the bland drop down as soon as dead.

This is in the pacific one of those ships has more AAA guns then a team on a 4V4 can get and there were several shooting at planes and some planes still got through.

 

[MaximGhost]

This is far from the case. It's quite possible to shoot an airplane without the use of a radar. At the disposal of anti-aircraft rifles there were special sights (

), as well as control devices for anti-aircraft fire, with range finders. Even without these devices, there were shooting tables, guided by which it was possible to conduct an effective barrage.

 

[Drang]

All of which were notoriously poor at downing maneuvering aircraft.

 

[MaximGhost]

But the aircraft, when attacking the namesake goals, too, are limited in maneuver (especially if they are attacked by a group), otherwise it will simply fall into it. When attacking, they are forced to walk for a while in a straight line with a more or less constant speed + with a load of weapons, their maneuverability decreases even more. So start to maneuver under anti-aircraft fire = disrupt the attack.
2 radishes just reflect this. If the plane hit the first radius and panicked it either will cancel the attack, or its attacks will be extremely inaccurate, but if it enters a smaller radius, where the anti-aircraft fire has a good chance of knocking it down, it means that it came too close. In the war of aircraft, attackers from low altitudes carried very large losses at a small distance, if in the attack there was not isolated a group that suppressed the air defense weapons. Even infantry with machine guns and rifles could shoot down such airplanes (these were not special cases).

 

[Nebelwerfer 42]

It is funny how AA is so accurate ingame like radar lock accurate, in reality tracers would be hitting everything but the plane and usually AA wouldnt be able to target planes on the first pass. All the AA in this game is hand crank rotation and elevation. 88s should not be a sniper rifle for stunning fighters, The only thing that needs to be changed with the AA system is the graphics it looks so stupid seeing a million tracers hitting a plane and not doing anything when really it should show a ton of misses and the rare hit. Also when planes die breaking apart, spiraling and other cool death animations would be nice to see, other then the bland drop down as soon as dead.

This is in the pacific one of those ships has more AAA guns then a team on a 4V4 can get and there were several shooting at planes and some planes still got through.

I think we can complain about how unrealistic the AAA is in this game when we first point out how unrealistic it is for the enemy to amass bomber trains on call and have his badly damaged shot up planes repair and be back up to mint condition in mere minutes. The AAA system obviously had to be adjusted for size, we already have people using planes without any consequence or fear of being shot down, which is why Airborne divisions are so cancerous.

 

[UberNL]

I think there are a couple of things going on that make the current air meta annoying for everyone who is not an air spammer:

1. Visual feedback is off on AA fire. As others have mentioned the AA fire seems to be hitting the plane all the time when in most situations it is, at best, adding suppression due to near misses. The visual cues should be tweaked so that tracers do not always pass so close to the planes, except when actually dealing damage. This would help alleviate the feeling that AA is so ineffective.
2. Suppression dealt to planes should spill over to nearby planes using an AOE mechanism. When artillery shells explode the add suppression to all units in the AOE. This should be extended to AA fire (perhaps it already is) and strengthened. Furthermore, causing a plane to retreat or shooting it down should have a knock on panic effect on nearby planes. The net result of this would be sending a large wave of planes in close formation would quickly gather enough suppression forcing the whole train to retreat. As it stands now the first plane will be forced to retreat and the rest of the planes drop their payloads without a care in the world, which is incredibly annoying.
3. Planes that retreat with significant damage (i.e. smoking) should return to the battle in a damaged state. This damage state would mean the plane takes suppression more quickly causing fast retreats. One of the frustrations for non-air spammers is that no other unit can disappear from the map for several minutes and then return in perfect health. Assuming the recharge time is a massive abstraction of either battlefield repairs or other planes being sent in, the effect of planes being damaged should persist across sorties. This would also penalize the current cheese of a whole train of planes getting shot to shit and then returning in pristine health several minutes later. It would also make the risk/reward calculation most interesting.