Scout planes

[Seawake]

Where can information from scout planes be found

 

[Kanitatlan]

For me scout planes perform two important tasks

• Improve intelligence reports so I can see what I'm fighting
• Provide a non-AA affected mission that justifies the enemy disputing air superiority (rather than ignoring it)

Beyond that they seem useless but it can be a relatively cost effective way to improve visibility of enemy forces given you don't need very many of them.

PS Given the difficulty of spying on the Soviets in NSB, being able to send scout planes makes a big difference to intelligence

 

[The_Tim]

For me scout planes perform two important tasks

• Improve intelligence reports so I can see what I'm fighting
• Provide a non-AA affected mission that justifies the enemy disputing air superiority (rather than ignoring it)

Beyond that they seem useless but it can be a relatively cost effective way to improve visibility of enemy forces given you don't need very many of them.

I agree with this tbh, and you don't just put a factory on Scouts and forget about it, you produce like 300-400 and then you don't produce more Scouts since they don't really do much when en masse and you get your benifit from relatively few planes

 

[FindFloppies]

The photo gear wouldn't help finding a task force, but later analysis should help tighten up the identification of the numbers and types of ships in that TF compared to just eyeball observation and possibly excited pilot reports*.

Yes. Just like CV-6 Enterprise was reported sunk by Japanese pilots at least six times, if I remember in my reading of The Big E; while she was damaged multiple times, she was only one of two full-sized prewar carriers to survive the war. (i.e. Ranger doesn't count, just Sara and Enterprise)

I use scout planes in groups of 20 per air region that I'm interested in. I also run air recon at night exclusively. Seems to bring in the intel just fine either way, but fewer losses.

For sea zones, I have no 'data' to tell me they help with ship detection, but, it seems to help. Might be confirmation bias, too. Either way, it's only a few aircraft.

 

[Harin]

Just playing the game, I threw scout planes into sea zones, and would have said that it seemed like maybe they helped enemy TF detection a bit But that's just an impression, and I didn't see any tooltip numbers getting better when I went back to check.

I am playing a game now. I was the Germans, but after conquering everything immediately around, I tagged out to the USA to try and save the world from the Axis. Just days after taking over the USA I get the invasion warning for Hawaii. I sent the local fleet out to convoy hunt and what planes were there hoping to spot the enemy invasion. No success. I then noticed that the USA had scouts so flew them out there. Almost immediately after the scout planes arrived, the Japanese convoys were spotted and my fleet promptly sunk them all, about six divisions worth.

Did the scout plans help spot the convoys or was it just happenstance? I do not know. Like you, I could not find any tooltip showing they were helping. Either way, I took the win. The USA was in bad shape and losing Hawaii would have been a major set back, with how naval ranges work in that area.

* There was an old computer game, SSG's "Carriers at War". It was always entertaining to see the reported results when pilots would conduct their air strikes on Pearl Harbor. I remember once my elite IJN air arm sunk thirteen carriers there on Dec 7. (And yes, it had a historical OOB.) Good work, men! Might even still be available at Matrix Games. They've got one with the title, at least, and I think they were republishing some SSG games like the Battlefront series.

I loved that game. The not-knowing elements made decision making tense. Resources were scarce, small numbers of aircraft mattered, there was not time to fix mistakes, you had to live with them. Very well thought out game.

 

[FindFloppies]

I am playing a game now. I was the Germans, but after conquering everything immediately around, I tagged out to the USA to try and save the world from the Axis. Just days after taking over the USA I get the invasion warning for Hawaii. I sent the local fleet out to convoy hunt and what planes are there hoping to spot the enemy invasion. No success. I then noticed that the USA had scouts so flew them out there. Almost immediately after the scout plans arrived, the Japanese convoys were spotted and my fleet promptly sunk them all, about six divisions worth.

Did the scout plans help spot the convoys or was it just happenstance? I do not know. Like you, I could not find any tooltip showing they were helping. Either way, I took the win. The USA was in bad shape and losing Hawaii would have been a major set back, with how naval ranges work in that area.

That basically matches my experience with scout planes over sea regions. I just put a group of 20 on each sea region, and it seems to spot better. Maybe it's not shown in the sea zone stats? As you say, can we prove it has an effect? No. But, it doesn't cost me much to put up the planes.

 

[Poopfaust]

Good responses. Maybe in the next patch the GUI will improve IF Scout planes help in Naval.

 

[xtfoster]

That basically matches my experience with scout planes over sea regions. I just put a group of 20 on each sea region, and it seems to spot better. Maybe it's not shown in the sea zone stats? As you say, can we prove it has an effect? No. But, it doesn't cost me much to put up the planes.

It does help with spotting, but not with Naval Intel...whereas over land they provide both spotting and intel. Kind of makes sense.

 

[goodcigar]

It does help with spotting, but not with Naval Intel...whereas over land they provide both spotting and intel. Kind of makes sense.

This is one of the problems (and confusing things) about the current implementation of Scout Planes. Scout Planes should not be increasing global Intel levels. They are not an Intelligence Department of Code Breakers. They are physical aircraft that fly around a specific area. The only thing they should do is spot things in the zone they are flying in.

This also ties into how getting Intel is far too easy in the game.

 

[xtfoster]

This is one of the problems (and confusing things) about the current implementation of Scout Planes. Scout Planes should not be increasing global Intel levels. They are not an Intelligence Department of Code Breakers. They are physical aircraft that fly around a specific area. The only thing they should do is spot things in the zone they are flying in.

This also ties into how getting Intel is far too easy in the game.

But they are flying over foreign territory. So they see factories (including the lots where they park all those tanks/planes while waiting for delivery), intercept radio communications, and do other things than simply look for enemy troop formations.

 

[FindFloppies]

But they are flying over foreign territory. So they see factories (including the lots where they park all those tanks/planes while waiting for delivery), intercept radio communications, and do other things than simply look for enemy troop formations.

Whereas in sea zones, they're just spotting fleets, etc, so, as the reply to me earlier, that makes sense.

 

[goodcigar]

But they are flying over foreign territory. So they see factories (including the lots where they park all those tanks/planes while waiting for delivery), intercept radio communications, and do other things than simply look for enemy troop formations.

You can literally fly a bunch of Scout Planes in a single enemy air zone and it makes your global Intel level go up which eventually reveals literally everything about your enemy. It's completely goofy/makes no sense and broken and basically an exploit.

The only thing Scout Planes should reveal is things they are physically seeing in the air zone they are in. They are not Spies or Code Breakers or an Intelligence Department.

 

[Lamartine]

Just did a quick test as USA
- I flew 100 scout planes over the Carribbean, which got my Civ Intel on the UK up to 81% and France up to about 30% (because UK has more islands in the Carribbean?)
- I dropped the wing down to 1 plane and immediately my Civ Intel started to drop on the UK and France, about -0.11% per day IIRC
- I pushed back up to 50 scout planes in the wing and my Civ Intel on the UK returned to 81% but didn't increase further. Same for France at ~30%

This suggests that
- More scout planes = faster climb towards the ceiling for a target nation
- More scout planes = higher ceiling for that target nation (?)
- More target nation provinces in an air zone = faster climb towards the ceiling for that target nation (?)
- More target nation provinces in an air zone = higher ceiling for that target nation (?)

Should test next time
- Flying scout planes over an air zone that's got lots of target nation provinces vs only one province
- Flying scout planes over the same nation across multiple air zones at once

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

I'll add this.

Scout planes should be treated like Transport planes. No need to research them, everyone has them.

Why? Anyone who could produce airplanes in WW2 had recon planes. Often times these recon planes were longer ranged examples of existing planes. Recon Spitfires, Recon 109s, FW190s ... just off the top of my head all existed ... I could go on and on.

It is just silly that this 'tech' needs to be researched but transport planes are 'free' from a research perspective. Perhaps tie the 'unlock' to recon support companies idk.

Also shouldnt any plane work as a scout plane, albeit with limited effectiveness compared to one designer for that purpose?

 

[goodcigar]

Just did a quick test as USA
- I flew 100 scout planes over the Carribbean, which got my Civ Intel on the UK up to 81% and France up to about 30% (because UK has more islands in the Carribbean?)
- I dropped the wing down to 1 plane and immediately my Civ Intel started to drop on the UK and France, about -0.11% per day IIRC
- I pushed back up to 50 scout planes in the wing and my Civ Intel on the UK returned to 81% but didn't increase further. Same for France at ~30%

This suggests that
- More scout planes = faster climb towards the ceiling for a target nation
- More scout planes = higher ceiling for that target nation (?)
- More target nation provinces in an air zone = faster climb towards the ceiling for that target nation (?)
- More target nation provinces in an air zone = higher ceiling for that target nation (?)

Should test next time
- Flying scout planes over an air zone that's got lots of target nation provinces vs only one province
- Flying scout planes over the same nation across multiple air zones at once

It's comical how broken Scout Planes are. I can't believe they've left them like this. Not only broken but completely nonsensical.

Does anyone know if it's possible to remove the Intel gain from Scout Planes with a mod?

 

[Sbrubbles]

It does help with spotting, but not with Naval Intel...whereas over land they provide both spotting and intel. Kind of makes sense.

People think it helps, but it's just confirmation bias. You put up a spy plane, your ship detects an enemy ship, and your intuition tells you your spy plane helped to spot.

Scout planes do nothing to help spotting ships. Missions with airplanes that give air superiority, those definately help spotting, including CAS missions (which convenienty cost no fuel if there are no battles happening)

 

[goodcigar]

Yes. Just like CV-6 Enterprise was reported sunk by Japanese pilots at least six times, if I remember in my reading of The Big E; while she was damaged multiple times, she was only one of two full-sized prewar carriers to survive the war. (i.e. Ranger doesn't count, just Sara and Enterprise)

I use scout planes in groups of 20 per air region that I'm interested in. I also run air recon at night exclusively. Seems to bring in the intel just fine either way, but fewer losses.

For sea zones, I have no 'data' to tell me they help with ship detection, but, it seems to help. Might be confirmation bias, too. Either way, it's only a few aircraft.

Another way they are broken and basically an exploit. The pilots can magically see and scout at night.

 

[Anaraxes]

Does anyone know if it's possible to remove the Intel gain from Scout Planes with a mod?

I don't know for certain, having not tried playing around with values to see the effect in-game. The comments in the files aren't always detailed. But, I'd start by experimenting with these, from common/defines/00_defines.lua.

    DYNAMIC_INTEL_SOURCE_AIR_RECON_MAXIMUMS = { 25, 20, 30, 20 },
    DYNAMIC_INTEL_SOURCE_AIR_RECON_ABSOLUTE_MAXIMUMS = { 30, 25, 35, 25 },

    RECON_PLANE_INTEL_BASE = 0.02,                 -- intel base amount for a strategic area per plane
    RECON_PLANE_LAND_DISTRIBUTION = { 10.0, 6.0, 0.0, 3.0 },    -- controls for land and sea zones how much of each intel type is given (civ, army, navy, air)
    RECON_PLANE_SEA_DISTRIBUTION = { 0.0, 0.0, 10.0, 0.0 },

The mod forum is probably a better place for these kinds of questions. More people with more expertise in how the game files are used.

(As an aside, that "base amount per plane" value has an interesting name for the question 'how many recon planes does it take?" 50 * 0.02 = 1.00, which may mean 50 recon planes maxes the intel gathering in that area. Or it may not, because the defines often have some extra built-in scaling factor. That is the number I wound up throwing into my recon wings, but that was more to fit into the multiples-of-100 airbase sizes. 25, 33, 50...)

 

[billcorr]

I pushed back up to 50 scout planes in the wing and my Civ Intel on the UK returned to 81% but didn't increase further. Same for France at ~30%

50 scout planes per air zone is the magic number?

If 50 is the number needed, then I'll give this whole thread a gold star for excellence.

Useful information.

50.

Who would have guessed!?

Thanks, y'all!

 

[Emren]

More useful information in this older thread than in the Wiki

How to use Scout Planes?

Can someone please explain how to use Scout Planes? How do you know they are working? How can you tell what information they are revealing to you? I see literally no indication of their effect in the UI anywhere. Am I just supposed to guess what...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Thanks for this! I've updated the Wiki with the essence of the thread you linked to: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_missions#Air_recon_mission

 

[FindFloppies]

Another way they are broken and basically an exploit. The pilots can magically see and scout at night.

You'll have to take that up with Paradox, or more likely, make your own mod. You can simply mod out scout planes completely, you know. I believe it's units-->single engine aircraft, at the end, iirc. You'd have to remove them from the tech tree, too, I think. Otherwise, the other things don't matter, like those defines about the intel effects, etc, if no one has the planes to fly at all, anyway.

Good luck.