altitude - how do I know what to use (Full Version)

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KPAX -> altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 8:23:52 AM)

There is little info (or at least what I can find) about altitude in the manual.

I have a few questions:

1. For an individual aircarft, how do I know what is the best altitude to set?

2. Is there a best altitude for different mission?

3. How can I determine the best altitude for each plane and each mission?



LoBaron -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 9:22:00 AM)

In genal you can split the answer into two major parts, and then subdivide mission and situation based:

Fighters:

In general altitude is life, so with regards to survivability in fighter vs. fighter combat, the higher you set, the better.
This rule of thumb generally breaks down though as soon as the opposition has a significantly higher max ceiling
than you a/c. In this case go to the altitude with the best mvr delta between you and the opposing fighter.

There are a lot of 'ifs' to this rule though. You need to go low to catch bombers when on CAP, and if you use sweeps
to preceed bombers it is advisable to go at the bombers alt or lower to increase chances they arrive on target first.
Climbing to alt costs time.
With regards to CAP there is another defensive tactic that has proven to be very effective: the so called layered CAP.
Spread your CAP over severeal alt bands to counter different types of threats and catch attackers between your CAP
layers.

Bombers:

Herre it is a tradeoff between effectiveness and risk. Obviousely the lower you go, the better the results, but the thicker the
AAA. An additional point to consider is radar. The lower you are, the more difficult for radar to detect the planes.
Also, everything below 6k is low ground attack, and so uses a different pilot skill. Same applies to naval attack and lowN.

Also, there are alt bands where dive bombs dive bomb, from 10-14k IIRC. Above they glide bomb, until 20k, everything else
means level bomb. Level bomb has the advantage of not flying into AAA but has a high accuracy penalty.


Therees much to write on this topic, if you haven't yet feel free to read my coordination guide, which in smaller parts also
adresses the topic of alt.



Hope this quite general answer helps.



DivePac88 -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 10:28:06 AM)

Also just to add, that with bombers; sometimes you can get the jump on the enemy CAP, by coming in real low (3000-5000).



JocMeister -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 12:11:21 PM)

I wouldnīt worry about AAA in vanilla AE at all. The effects (as far as I have seen) are negligible. Both naval and ground.



Miller -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 12:19:07 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I wouldnīt worry about AAA in vanilla AE at all. The effects (as far as I have seen) are negligible. Both naval and ground.


Dont, however, think its safe to send in Jap a/c at 100ft against big ground formations.........they will die.



barkman44 -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 2:11:54 PM)

Early war as allies I set db and tb's at 13000 and escort at 15000



pharmy -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 4:37:02 PM)

I just tried the Dababes modified stock and promptly lost over half of my 30 nells at 15000 feet to AA. And got a single 250bomb on the Hermes, not the Invincible or Illustrious (forget which). Much better this way though.



JocMeister -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 5:48:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: icepharmy

I just tried the Dababes modified stock and promptly lost over half of my 30 nells at 15000 feet to AA. And got a single 250bomb on the Hermes, not the Invincible or Illustrious (forget which). Much better this way though.


Sounds more like it should be! In vanilla i just stopped bothering with AA since its so useless.

Always wondered why such a historical minded community is happy with the extremly unhistorical working AAA ingame?



Erkki -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/6/2012 8:10:46 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister


quote:

ORIGINAL: icepharmy

I just tried the Dababes modified stock and promptly lost over half of my 30 nells at 15000 feet to AA. And got a single 250bomb on the Hermes, not the Invincible or Illustrious (forget which). Much better this way though.


Sounds more like it should be! In vanilla i just stopped bothering with AA since its so useless.

Always wondered why such a historical minded community is happy with the extremly unhistorical working AAA ingame?


Wait, 50% losses at 15kft? And none to enemy fighters?



PaxMondo -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 12:32:36 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erkki


Wait, 50% losses at 15kft? And none to enemy fighters?

+1



Arigoth -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 3:05:44 AM)

So to combat a batch of Vengeance dive bombers at 10k spread some Oscars over 10k to 15K?



Chris21wen -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 8:11:22 AM)

Can I ask a dumb question.  What is vanilla AE@



LoBaron -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 8:14:40 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Arigoth

So to combat a batch of Vengeance dive bombers at 10k spread some Oscars over 10k to 15K?


If you know they are coming in at 10k without escorts you might as well use one alt band only, e.g. 14 or 15k to exploit the alt advantage.

But usually you donīt know. Thats one of the advantages of layered CAP. You donīt exactly need to know the incoming
alt or the attack composition but still are in a good position to intercept, at least with part of your fighters.



LoBaron -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 8:27:07 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Can I ask a dumb question.  What is vanilla AE@


AE comes in 4 flavours:
Vanilla, vanilla with strawberries, chocolate-vanilla, and dark chocolate. [:D]




Ok, ok, Iīll translate:

Vanilla AE is the built that was officially released, including all official patches since release.
It has no or few changes to the database, and so has some flaws which were only identified in detail when the original designer team already
stopped the support (except michaelm the BugHunter [&o])

Vanilla with strawberries is new, it was released by the DaBabes team and includes many modifications to the stock campaigns iffing out some
of the more obvious errors still present there. A good intermediate scen collection with no learning curve ecept that maybe AAA will now actually hurt.

Chocolate-vanilla is "DaBabesLight", or DBL. It is a big mod which adresses many points critizised in vanilla by the more knowledgable people around here,
it messes with some combat algorithms, changes the database insofar as it modifies certain variables, implements some completely new calculations,
with the overall goal to make WitP AE more realistic.
And it does. Its in my opinion the best compromise between realism and playability.

Dark chocolate is the infamous "DaBigBabes" or DBB.
This is the monster. If you have a job and kids donīt tackle it, if you want to play the AI (at least as far as I know) donīt tackle it.
But if you want to spend your life in a hex field, this is the way to go. It includes all and every improvement of the game ever thought of, including the
DBL modifications, invented a whole new unit structure to add even more complexity and realism (separation of naval load/unload from naval repair units
is only one of the thousands), and adds about a zillion of new small ships which where historically present in the war to the database.


There are many other scenarios and mods around here, but most of them are variations of one of the above.



Chris21wen -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 8:36:47 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Can I ask a dumb question.  What is vanilla AE@


AE comes in 4 flavours:
Vanilla, vanilla with strawberries, chocolate-vanilla, and dark chocolate. [:D]




Ok, ok, Iīll translate:

Vanilla AE is the built that was officially released, including all official patches since release.
It has no or few changes to the database, and so has some flaws which were only identified in detail when the original designer team already
stopped the support (except michaelm the BugHunter [&o])

Vanilla with strawberries is new, it was released by the DaBabes team and includes many modifications to the stock campaigns iffing out some
of the more obvious errors still present there. A good intermediate scen collection with no learning curve ecept that maybe AAA will now actually hurt.

Chocolate-vanilla is "DaBabesLight", or DBL. It is a big mod which adresses many points critizised in vanilla by the more knowledgable people around here,
it messes with some combat algorithms, changes the database insofar as it modifies certain variables, implements some completely new calculations,
with the overall goal to make WitP AE more realistic.
And it does. Its in my opinion the best compromise between realism and playability.

Dark chocolate is the infamous "DaBigBabes" or DBB.
This is the monster. If you have a job and kids donīt tackle it, if you want to play the AI (at least as far as I know) donīt tackle it.
But if you want to spend your life in a hex field, this is the way to go. It includes all and every improvement of the game ever thought of, including the
DBL modifications, invented a whole new unit structure to add even more complexity and realism (separation of naval load/unload from naval repair units
is only one of the thousands), and adds about a zillion of new small ships which where historically present in the war to the database.


There are many other scenarios and mods around here, but most of them are variations of one of the above.


I'm still playing my very first game of AE as the allies against the AI from the day AE was released, currently in July 1945 so never tried any of the others. For DBB why not against the AI? How does the DBL play against the AI.




LoBaron -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 8:47:41 AM)

As the units in DBL remain roughly comparable to stock this means an AI capable of playing stock also
does ok in DBL.
DBB has a whole new unit compsition, and the AI would need to identify the use and the needed combination for
those units to work effectively, and this it does not.

Not that I know much about this, but the AI is extremely difficult and complex to modify, so it is understandable
that noone wants to tackle it on that scale. Also I assume that many AI routines used for correct unit placement are in
the code anyway and cannot be tackled.



Chris21wen -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 8:58:51 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

As the units in DBL remain roughly comparable to stock this means an AI capable of playing stock also
does ok in DBL.
DBB has a whole new unit compsition, and the AI would need to identify the use and the needed combination for
those units to work effectively, and this it does not.

Not that I know much about this, but the AI is extremely difficult and complex to modify, so it is understandable
that noone wants to tackle it on that scale. Also I assume that many AI routines used for correct unit placement are in
the code anyway and cannot be tackled.


OK thanks. Looks like if I want to play DBB I'll have to find someone who plays as slowly as I do.



Sardaukar -> RE: altitude - how do I know what to use (6/7/2012 5:06:09 PM)

DBB A is playable vs. Japanese AI.



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