Why do planes still teleport and other Air War issues

[Quantum_AI]

I was disappointed by the overly simplified and arcadey air game when the game first came but thought it will eventually be fixed and patched. But its been over 4 years and its still the same?

1. Why do planes teleport completely avoiding any interceptors in the intervening air zones?
2. Why can't you prioritize specific battles for air support? Of course, you can limit the planes that can support a single battle but you should still be able to prioritize.
3. Why can't you select the specific spot for an airport? Sometimes, it is in a very bad location that makes no sense.


Before people start comparing it to the older systems, I am not asking for the older system back. I am just asking the current system to be fixed. And I am quite surprised they are releasing focus trees as DLCs now but still haven't fixed core gameplay features. I figured they'd make an air war DLC like Man The Guns was for Naval but we still got nothing after 4.5 years?

 

[GrandVezir]

1. Why do planes teleport completely avoiding any interceptors in the intervening air zones?

...I suspect the AI has a hard enough time managing bombers and interceptors in the actual target state. Adding more work to an AI that is already challenged by the task it currently has, would probably make HoI4 worse as both a game and a simulation. There is also literally no escort system (despite references to in in the air doctrines tech tree), so interceptors would get free shots at the bombers, in every state along the route.

2. Why can't you prioritize specific battles for air support? Of course, you can limit the planes that can support a single battle but you should still be able to prioritize.

Because you're supposed to be a national leader, not a Luftflotte commander. Besides, you can actually do this: Give Kampfgruppe Guderian only 6-12 divisions, and attach the airwing(s) directly to them. Heinz will sort it out.

3. Why can't you select the specific spot for an airport? Sometimes, it is in a very bad location that makes no sense.

This is true, but also doesn't go far enough. Airfields should be a bit like infrastructure: a state with a level 10 airfield should not have one big airfield, but multiple aerodromes, commercial airports, private airfields, local flying clubs, serviceable highways, &c, all distributed geographically within the state. It's a bit of a programming challenge to implement, though.

I figured they'd make an air war DLC like Man The Guns was for Naval but we still got nothing after 4.5 years?

Be careful what you wish for: Man the Guns made navy more complicated without making actual naval combat remarkably better.

 

[Zauberelefant]

This has been exhaustibly explained by devs.
With the air wing system, a map based routing of planes would choke your CPU to a slow death, while whispering naughty things to it.

Prioritizing individual battles doesn't even work in land battle, so I reckon integrated air land warfare is further down the road

You can't chose the spot of an airport because they are state based buildings (and actually represent a network of air bases). If you could put them in a province, there would be to many of them, or the UI would suffer as you had to coordinate wings from 20+ airbases all with different distances to target area asf.

Last not least, also explained ad nauseam:

This dlc was done with freelancers and took nothing from development of the game.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Because you're supposed to be a national leader, not a Luftflotte commander.

That's such flawed logic. You could say the same for the army. You can move individual divisions but you cant tell your airforce to prioritize the attack on Stalingrad??

Prioritizing individual battles doesn't even work in land battle

Of course it does. You can literally select divisions and tell them to attack or support a specific battle.

Last not least, also explained ad nauseam:
This dlc was done with freelancers and took nothing from development of the game.

Not everyone spends all their time on the forums so if its "ad nauseum" to you maybe that has got more to do with your browsing habits. Either way, freelancers don't work for free. That is not what that word means so resources are still being expanded.

Anyway, that was not the point of this post so don't try to derail the discussion. And if you feel tired with some topic, the logical thing would be to not participate and simply move on instead of gatekeeping.

 

[GrandVezir]

You can move individual divisions but you cant tell your airforce to prioritize the attack on Stalingrad??

Attach the air wings directly to the army with the individual divisions you're sending to attack. They'll find the way so long as there's an airbase in range.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Attach the air wings directly to the army with the individual divisions you're sending to attack. They'll find the way so long as there's an airbase in range.

That is often more trouble than its worth:

1. For example, that army may also be involved in more than one battle.
2. Its also additional micro as you have to attach and detach many times which you don't have to do at all with my suggestion.
3. The biggest flaw is that those attached planes will stop supporting other armies altogether. But with what I was suggesting, you have the exact same behavior as vanilla, just with the added option to prioritize a specific battle IF you want. If you don't want to prioritize a battle, just play as you currently do.

 

[Praetori]

1. Why do planes teleport completely avoiding any interceptors in the intervening air zones?

Because the systems "works" for both players and AI alike. From a grand-strategy-game-perspective it isn't that bad.
It avoids micro-management as you (or the AI) doesn't have to have fighters in every single region in the game and air-battle calculations with spotting, stats etc can be performed where they happen and matter (in the target air-zone). Intermediate Air-Zone interceptions would add little and only increase micro (and would raise questions why you can't circumvent zones like Benelux by flying over the North Sea etc etc). It would need to take into account the weather of all intermediary air-zones and would require a complete re-write of how spotting and disruption works (as not all aircraft fly from the same originating zones to reach the target).

2. Why can't you prioritize specific battles for air support? Of course, you can limit the planes that can support a single battle but you should still be able to prioritize.

QoL like that usually comes further down the road. But war is rarely perfection. Communications, time of day, weather over the target-area etc are things that have botched more than one military operation through history. We already have some ahistorical advantages such as divisions from different armies or even nations collaborating perfectly (including their artillery) in a single battle.

3. Why can't you select the specific spot for an airport? Sometimes, it is in a very bad location that makes no sense.

The actual airport-icon has no effect on where the "middle" of the airzone is considered to be in terms of range-penalties (check for the circles when aircraft are selected). Yes at times they're in really bad spots from a strategic perspective. Moving them from state-level to province-level would create more issues than it solves though (see #1).

 

[Tsavong]

It would already be an improvement if you just could not send planes into an next airzone if you dont have green air in the zone before. Would be even better with real interception, but thats not needed do to to much micro for yourself, ai, computer.
But needed green zones on the route would stop the absolutly annoying stuff like that:

German air superiority in western germany or even on the british isles, but british bombers just ignoring that and bombing in eastern germany... Then switching to austria... So that you need planes over all regions to stop bombing...

 

[Quantum_AI]

It avoids micro-management as you (or the AI) doesn't have to have fighters in every single region in the game

I think you have it backwards there. The current system in fact forces you have planes in each air zone. Channel, South England, Midlands. If planes stop teleporting, you can just have planes in the Channel because taking a longer route was not feasible due to fuel limitations (which is modeling by air efficiency in game).

And I don't know why people are claiming it is not technically feasible. HoI 1/2/3/ DH etc. all had it. In fact, HoI4 air zones are much larger and consequently far less numerous than HoI 3 so it will be less computationally expensive.

Communications, time of day, weather over the target-area etc are things that have botched more than one military operation through history

This a video game. When you click your division, it moves. All those other excuses are just nonsense.

I get it, some people don't want to micromanage it because of your paly style. And in that case, you can choose not to. As I have already stated, it will work exactly like the current system with the OPTION of prioritizing a tough battle IF you want to.

 

[Praetori]

It would already be an improvement if you just could not send planes into an next airzone if you dont have green air in the zone before. Would be even better with real interception, but thats not needed do to to much micro for yourself, ai, computer.
But needed green zones on the route would stop the absolutly annoying stuff like that:

German air superiority in western germany or even on the british isles, but british bombers just ignoring that and bombing in eastern germany... Then switching to austria... So that you need planes over all regions to stop bombing...

The problem with that would be that you'd need to calculate/decide routes between all possible airzone-combinations and would regardless create weird edge-cases where the game allows bombers from say Southern England to bomb the Benelux but not bombers from Northern England because they would pass through a different air-zone. And god forbid if you're touching the edge of a large airzone with 3 pixels and have to put 2000 more planes there because you don't have land-access or airports in that region while the enemy does.
It's been suggested before but it's not a very good "solution" to something that isn't really a "problem" to begin with (other than it possibly offends the mind until you get used to it).

 

[Praetori]

I get it, some people don't want to micromanage it because of your paly style. And in that case, you can choose not to. As I have already stated, it will work exactly like the current system with the OPTION of prioritizing a tough battle IF you want to.

I quite like the micromanagement game. I'm one of those players who named every brigade, assigned every general myself and made attachments to every HQ in HOI3. On the other hand I do understand that it doesn't necessarily make the game BETTER, or that it's for everyone and it's certainly NOT beneficial for the AI to increase the complexity in the mechanics.

This a video game. When you click your division, it moves. All those other excuses are just nonsense.

It's a grand-strategy-title that does try to emulate a lot of things you (and which leaders historically) couldn't affect as well. It's not Starcraft nor GGWITE.
Your generals chose their tactics regardless of what you tell them. Your navies attack or retreat or seemingly sail past fleets which you as a player would like them to attack or avoid. Aircraft crews bomb infrastructure when you'd really like to prioritize the enemy tank-production etc etc. There's a lot of simplifications going on in the game but at least a fair share of them are simplified in a manner geared towards improving the grand-strategy level without forcing a ton of microing.

And I don't know why people are claiming it is not technically feasible. HoI 1/2/3/ DH etc. all had it. In fact, HoI4 air zones are much larger and consequently far less numerous than HoI 3 so it will be less computationally expensive.

The closest analogy would be HOI3 and that air-system was a mess. You actually got teleporting aircraft that skipped provinces because of the relation of speed/distance and game tick calculations (or interrupted interceptions because the bombers left the target-area before damage was calculated etc etc). Building as fast bombers as possible so they could skip as many possible interception-provinces as possible and staging them at specific spots for specific targets was fun.... or not.
Being on the receiving end. Manual floral-pattern interception schemes with onion-style squadron coverage might have been fun for a short while but you could absolutely devastate the AI with simple means and then single-player got really boring. And don't get me started on Airpower in MP. And it was NOT very nice computationally-wise.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Your generals chose their tactics regardless of what you tell them. Your navies attack or retreat or seemingly sail past fleets which you as a player would like them to attack or avoid. Aircraft crews bomb infrastructure when you'd really like to prioritize the enemy tank-production etc etc. There's a lot of simplifications going on in the game but at least a fair share of them are simplified in a manner geared towards improving the grand-strategy level without forcing a ton of microing.

Everyone is well aware there are abstractions. Giving examples of abstractions does not really serve a purpose. At the end of the day, it is subjective what abstractions you like vs what I like. You say you named every brigade in HoI3, I definitely didn't. But that doesn't mean I am vehemently opposed to the idea of being able to name brigades. I don't expect everyone to play as I do. Similarly, as I have said thrice already, prioritizing a battle for air support would be entirely optional as well. It will not make your game better or worse since you can choose to never use it at all.

The closest analogy would be HOI3 and that air-system was a mess. You actually got teleporting aircraft that skipped provinces because of the relation of speed/distance and game tick calculations (or interrupted interceptions because the bombers left the target-area before damage was calculated etc etc). Building as fast bombers as possible so they could skip as many possible interception-provinces as possible and staging them at specific spots for specific targets was fun.... or not.
Being on the receiving end. Manual floral-pattern interception schemes with onion-style squadron coverage might have been fun for a short while but you could absolutely devastate the AI with simple means and then single-player got really boring. And don't get me started on Airpower in MP. And it was NOT very nice computationally-wise.

THIS is specifically why I said in my very first comment that I was not asking to bring back the old system. I knew it was buggy and I knew as soon as I uttered the word HoI3, people would write essays about it. The only thing I was talking about was the computational load. But I regret it now. Maybe I would have been better off by just comparing it with pathing and computation for land divisions. We already have tens of thousands of land provinces and sea routes that are pathed too. Air zones are so big, they will barely add to the load. Not to mention that air wings are far far less numerous than land divisions each of which needs pathing .

 

[Louella]

The smallest time unit in HOI4 is one hour.
A Bomber cruises at 300km/hr, and is based in zone A, and targets zone C 250km away, travelling through zone B, a 150km wide sea zone.
Defending interceptors can cover zones B and C from a base in zone D.
There are also fighters on the bombers side, assigned to air superiority in zones C and D.
Which aircraft attack which, and where ?

Take into account state AA guns, and how air wings lose less XP when aircraft are shot down in friendly territory.

 

[Quantum_AI]

A Bomber cruises at 300km/hr, and is based in zone A, and targets zone C 250km away, travelling through zone B, a 150km wide sea zone.
Defending interceptors can cover zones B and C from a base in zone D.
There are also fighters on the bombers side, assigned to air superiority in zones C and D.

Based on info provided and rest assumed: Interceptors will first fight the fighters in zone C and D in hour 1. Then in hour 2, some of them will intercept the bombers in zone B. What percentage get to zone B depends on relative superiority.

Is there a point? Are you saying this is too complex for a computer? Because HoI4 already does far more complex things than this.

 

[Tsavong]

The problem with that would be that you'd need to calculate/decide routes between all possible airzone-combinations and would regardless create weird edge-cases where the game allows bombers from say Southern England to bomb the Benelux but not bombers from Northern England because they would pass through a different air-zone. And god forbid if you're touching the edge of a large airzone with 3 pixels and have to put 2000 more planes there because you don't have land-access or airports in that region while the enemy does.

Its not really a fair counterargument against an idea when you just assume a bad implementation.
Both cases you described can be easily avoided: Smaller air- zones, anyway a good idea and multiple possible routes to a target air-zone. And for the last point you made : I never wrote that planes could only fly straight...

 

[GrandVezir]

Its not really a fair counterargument against an idea when you just assume a bad implementation.
Both cases you described can be easily avoided: Smaller air- zones, anyway a good idea and multiple possible routes to a target air-zone. And for the last point you made : I never wrote that planes could only fly straight...

I'm not sure re-doing the entire air map qualifies as "easily avoided."

This also sums up the problem with the original poster's whole idea: it necessarily adds multiple layers of complexity to a game that, for better or worse, has always had a design geared toward abstracting all sorts of mechanics. You cannot add mid-flight interception, distributed airfields, and many smaller air zones while also keeping the air war anything close to its present level of abstraction. Which means, by extension, the AI (which can barely handle the current level of complexity) will be even more exploitable than it is now. It's a solution to a problem, which solution will spawn multiple additional problems.

 

[Tsavong]

I'm not sure re-doing the entire air map qualifies as "easily avoided."

Even if you leave the system as it is: Smaller air-zones ( and supply-zones)in the USA and south america would be great anyway. ITs a mess to fight there right now.

 

[Praetori]

Its not really a fair counterargument against an idea when you just assume a bad implementation.

I'm not assuming. This is HOI4. They did try different methods in the past and what we have in HOI4 is, from a SP, MP, balance-perspective and (while not perfect) historical loss/attrition-figures the best one so far.
Back in the development phase they did evaluate different methods and mechanics and eventually came to the conclusion that it was better to not care about in-flight interceptions so it's not like they just went with the first stupid solution they found.

The real issue as I see it are aircraft speeds and game-ticks. The time-resolution is (for performance purposes) not granular enough to do smaller zones or mid-air interceptions viable. Missions are in fixed timeslots which really helps with performance compared to tick-by-tick calculations.

Both cases you described can be easily avoided: Smaller air- zones, anyway a good idea and multiple possible routes to a target air-zone. And for the last point you made : I never wrote that planes could only fly straight...

While partially discussed above any pathing-logic is something that PDS has explicitly expressed to be generally bad. While I'm not a game-developer I'm experienced enough in mathematics and computational complexity to understand why. It's simple enough with a small set of points but it's a NP-hard problem which generally doesn't work well with real-time applications as complexity grows.


Are there better ways to represent the air war in a game lile hoi4? Probably but that depends on what the goal is.
I'm not sure that the air mechanics are the most critical or ahistorical thing to rip out and spend dev-time to fix.

 

[RELee]

^^ Correct. It has been considered and turned away.
Utilizing the Search function, I know it's a novel concept.
Archangel85 more lately stated it in 2017 in a Dev Diary discussing the Paradox Development Process.
Archangel85 points to the opening post of Darkrenown's way back in 2014. DD7 - Air Combat
So, in the Paradox mind, I don't believe there is anything to fix. They weighed it, found it wanting, and went a different route summed up with the last paragraph:

Overall we hope the Air War in HoI4 will be more a matter of Planning and Production than micromanaging Air Wings. It is intended to be something that will require you to wear down an enemy's air force with campaigns of attrition before your own air force can really cause major damage to their country with strategic bombing. As you can guess, many of these changes also affect how Carriers work, but that's another subject of a future DD.

It's okay to respectfully disagree. You might even considering going to the Suggestion forum and making a coherent suggestion thread there. But the developers have answered this question.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Utilizing the Search function, I know it's a novel concept.
the opening post of Darkrenown's way back in 2014. DD7 - Air Combat

If you actually read my original post (another novel concept perhaps), I have specifically stated that I expected the system to be bare bones at release and to be polished over the next 4-5 years. So a 2014 dev comment is not useful in that context because the game has evolved quite a bit since then. For example, that dev diary sates air wings don't have the experience mechanic which was changed. The Naval rework is the another example of a significant and positive overhaul.

Secondly, I never said that I wanted to "micromanage air wings" so that comment is irrelevant anyway. As stated thrice already, the system works exactly like it currently does with the OPTION of prioritizing a specific tough battle if and only IF you feel the need to. Like taking a heavily defended London or Stalingrad etc.