RE: Aircraft stacking.. (Full Version)

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Advanced Tactics Series



Message

TheArchduke -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/27/2009 6:51:58 PM)

Two  very good suggestions, Seille.

Thanks for listening, Vic.:)



jjdenver -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/27/2009 7:09:32 PM)

Great thread guys. I'm really glad to see this discussed and to see that Vic reads it. I think the mega-stack for air and navy is the biggest problem in the game. It removes a lot of the interesting decisions that you could potentially face in the air and sea war and makes players favor a single big stack of Fighters or ships that sails or flies around killing anything it meets from total safety.

Really this single flaw keeps me from playing now some AT scenarios without some house rule to limit this effect. I think the other big flaw in the game is the ability to research to max tech level very quickly rather than having it spread over many years and more balanced research.

GrumpyMel's suggestion sounds very good I think (air superiority abstracted in a theatre). However one possible problem might be that it would negate the interesting potential you would get in a campaign like the Pacific where each forward air base held strategic significance over a particular part of the Pacific theatre. Abstracting air superiority too much would remove the importance of particular bases seized for planes.

I just left an Operation Barbarossa game because I couldn't stand the mega-stack of FTR's that each side had to develop. Here are house rules that I proposed for that scenario.

1) Limit on tech advances: 1941: German tech2. 1942: Soviet tech2 German tech3. 1943: Soviet tech3 German tech3. 1944 Soviet tech4 German tech4.
2) Air basing: No more than 5 FTR's at a single base, and 5 bombers at any base.
3) Air mission limit: No more than 30 FTR's and 20 bombers can fly on a single attack mission.
4) Air build cap: No more than 150 FTR's can exist on either German or Soviet side. No more than 100 bombers can exist on either side also. In 1943 the Soviet limit increases to 200 FTR's. The Soviet people effectiveness penalty of -10% should make the air fight relatively even when Soviets have a few more FTR's in 1943.

I don't know how these house rules would work out for Operation Barbarossa. Maybe some of you can help me come up with a better set of house rules to make the air war more interesting and realistic?

Thx



GrumpyMel -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/29/2009 6:25:19 PM)

    Although I generaly like the airfield capacity suggestion, it doesn't really fix the problem... Just shifts it around a bit.

The issue with that is that the Attacker can ALWAYS gain numbers over the defender by flying a sortie with planes from different airfields.... since the defender would have a maximum stacking limit per airfield... the attacker just picks a target in range of that airfield... but not any of the defenders other fields....and viola...they outnumber the defender pretty much every time.

The more I think about it...there is two things that I think could help address the problem.....

  1) An ODDS setting for interceptors...just like there is a readiness button. Essentialy the main reason people mass thier air is so that their opponent can't mass his fighters in a single strike to take on your interceptors piecemeal and knock them out.  People generaly don't mass thier air in order to do ground strikes or if they ALREADY have significant air supremecy... as it really is better to be able to strike targets across a wide range of your front.

The reason that tactic works is because it's a You-go-I-go system where the defender doesn't have a chance to respond intelligently to the attackers strikes.
"Realisticly" if the attacker sent 50 fighters to attack a stack of 10 rifle-men with no flak protection sitting in an unimportant position on the front.... and the defender had 10 fighters in intercpt range...The defensive air commander would probably say..... You know what boys, sit this one out. It's not worth sacrificing our air to stop that strike. With the current system...there really is now way to simulate that sort of response. Either you intercept a strike in range or you don't intercept any.

If you had an Odd button on your interceptors.. the game could calculate the total strength points of attacking fighters (I'd suggest that SFT class only... not bombers) versus the total strength points of potential defending fighters and determine the mission would be intercepted or not.

This would mean that while, yes, an attacker could still mass his fighters in an attack.... He couldn't use it as a tactic to lure the defender out to be destroyed at insanely unfavorable odds. In practice, this would mean that the attacker would be forced to use his fighters to escort bombing missions. If he massed all his fighters in one or two mega-attack's.... he could insure that those bombing missions got through...... but you wouldn't get TEN free ground strikes a turn....after you used all you fighters in one mass attack to knock out any intercepters in range.... and then fly unescorted....which is exactly what happens now.

Note that you could STILL force a battle with defending planes by hitting thier air-fields (if in range).....but at least with that, the defender could predict where you would force him to battle and use flak to defend his fields well (as happaned in real life).

2) The other thing you could do would be to change the way air vs air combat was fought a little. So instead of one mass of attackers versus one mass of defenders.... you had a series of one on one duels.

The way I would envision this would be to match up one random attacking plane vs one random defending plane. They would fire at each other until either one or both had been shot-down or forced to retreat or a set number of rounds had passed. At the end of that "duel" if either plane was below it's set readiness level would go "flown"....and ends it's participation in the mission right there. Planes that were above thier set readiness level would return to the pool of available planes to fight in the rest of the mission. The air portion of the combat would continue until all the planes of one side had gone "flown". If the attacker won the air portion of the combat his remaining planes (non-flown) would go on to strike the ground target as normal.

I think this would achieve a few things..... it would recude the impact of outnumbering your foe. Numbers would still count... as the side that was outnumbered would have planes that had to stand multiple duels... so that even if you won the first duel...you'd be going into the second one damaged somewhat and more vulberable. It would also place greater importance on pilot experience and on tech advantage for individual planes.... which also seems like it would model history more accurately. An expereinced pilot in a better plane could still be brought down by masses of lesser foes...but he'd get his licks in before doing so.
It would also probably mean that fewer planes were actualy lost in a given combat.... and more likely that they would just have thier readiness reduced. Which doesn't strike me as a bad thing. This could also potentialy allow you to increase the cost of producing a plane....as you'd be going through fewer of them. Also not a bad thing.





































tweber -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/29/2009 10:05:32 PM)

I think the easiest way to avoid mega stacks of air and / or ships is to change supply required so they are mega difficult to keep in the field.  In the big random game I am playing, I have a large naval stack and keeping it in supply is actually pretty hard.

Also, mega stacks of air units are mega vulnerable to level bombing attacks.  You only need a few level bombers to knock out and air field and then your mega stack is mega useless ; )

One idea to make an airbase with  stacking limits is to use carriers.  Take a carrier sftype and convert it to a land unit.  You can tinker with combat and movement and you now have limits.

I am personally not a fan of stacking limits for aircraft.  In WWII, you could put a hundred planes on a large carrier the size of a football field.  You could operate a lot of aircraft in a big open field.

In the end, I think the issue is less about the engine than the specific scenarios people play.  If you play with purchase cost, supply cost, ranges, combat effectiveness and regime variables - you can make mega stacks a great strategy or a horrible one.



jjdenver -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/30/2009 3:15:28 AM)

quote:

) The other thing you could do would be to change the way air vs air combat was fought a little. So instead of one mass of attackers versus one mass of defenders.... you had a series of one on one duels.


I really like this idea. I might disagree w/ the exact details of it but breaking it down into smaller combats would get rid of the problem where all of the attacker's fighters fire at a small stack of defending fighters and just obliterate them for little or no cost.

As for Tweber's feeling that having planes cost a lot of supply is the way to go. Tweber is obviously a great scenario designer so he may well be quite right. But to me just having planes cost more upkeep might limit the number in a scenario overall but won't limit the big-stack problem where all fighters in a scenario clump into a single group to pound down the opponent's single group.



seille -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/31/2009 4:27:58 PM)

@Tom

The overstacking is a problem especially for planes. Of course you can try (TRY) to destroy the airfield with the bonus of reducing the survivors
to 10 readiness, but what happens when the defender are equal in numbers or you simply donīt have tons of Levelbomber (II) for this attack ?
Or what happens when the defender has his planes in a 4000 struc points location ?

Since you talked about our random game..... Donīt you think the 100 fighters you had in Dede last turn (2000 point city) protected by AA had
a protection due to itīs concentration ? You know very good splitting them to two locations would have resulted in the end of one of the
groups [;)]
If a player is scouting well heīll mostly find the soft spot to attack, so overstacking is often the only way to secure all
planes intercept and not only parts of your interceptors.

Plane limits to airfields is imho the only way without too much work for Vic and keeping the straight way AT was made by Vic.
Of cource large plane concentrations are still possible, BUT the attacker has to pay for (building airfields) and
the defender can still intercept from all airfields in range of the attacked target. Pretty simple.
All we need is a message if a player tries to move too many planes on a airfield with plane limit.
Since this must be a realtime message its as far as i know not possible by the actual event engine.




TheArchduke -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (5/31/2009 8:46:39 PM)

I really hope for the airfield fix.

I just had a Barbarossa game where 400 fighters and 95 divebombers flew against 259 fighters at Kharkov. Aircraft on other fronts, none.



Vic -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (6/1/2009 8:47:41 AM)

I might adress it in the next release guys. Its on the to-do list to look at. I am still thinking it over.

In the meantime it is of course possible to do a mod by making an event that reduces the readiness on any airunits that are in a hex that is overstacked.

kind regards,
Vic



seille -> RE: Aircraft stacking.. (6/1/2009 8:57:57 AM)

Thanks Vic.
I donīt think readiness reduction is a good way for a penalty especially
when the player get no warning he just overstacks a hex.
With a warning before the player transfers this would be ok maybe.
Otherwise player will accidently overstack (not knowing this rule) and end with useless planes
consuming tons of supply.

I really hope youīll find a solution here. Iīm sure youīll if you spend some time on this.
You always found good solutions for things like this.
I hope you can solve this problem soon.



Page: <<   < prev  1 [2]

Valid CSS!




Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI
5.264648