Air combat needs a remake

If you want to get rid of bomber stacks just use nukes ?

Walter R said:

I think it does in this regard: There is no prediction of damage to the attacking unit (or to be strictly correct, the damage is always estimated as zero). All other combat allows a realistic estimation of the outcome before committing the unit to the attack, which includes the damage to the attacking unit. All other ranged attacks (i.e. land and naval) would expect zero damage to the attacker - I think they just forgot to update the display for air units.

I appreciate that interception damage by fighters, SAMs etc. is a totally different issue.

Click to expand...

Shouldn't it be that when a fighter actually intercepts something - that's when the XP is granted? If nothing was intercepted obviously no XP should be given.

Right now it's zero, even if the fighter shoots down enemy aircraft. That is completely illogical.

MarshalN said:

Shouldn't it be that when a fighter actually intercepts something - that's when the XP is granted? If nothing was intercepted obviously no XP should be given.

Right now it's zero, even if the fighter shoots down enemy aircraft. That is completely illogical.

Click to expand...

I was just adding to the thread "Air combat needs a remake" not the specific side-topic of interception gaining experience - sorry for any confusion

There are many issues with xp acquisition. For example: a carrier should get xp when aircraft are launched from it.
A scout should get xp for scouting, rather than fighting.
It should be possible to train existing units up in your barracks if they have less xp than the 15 they would get there, etcetera.

But the point is: aerial combat is fine and changing any aspect of it requires a complete rebalancing and testing of the late game. I don't really understand what is wrong with it anyway, it already changes the way in which you wage wars dramatically.

Vohbo said:

But the point is: aerial combat is fine and changing any aspect of it requires a complete rebalancing and testing of the late game. I don't really understand what is wrong with it anyway, it already changes the way in which you wage wars dramatically.

Click to expand...

My challenge was not with the overall aerial combat mechanic as such, merely the ability to assess the likley outcome.
For instance, in my last game I had three bombers that I decided to use to attack an enemy city. The bombers all had the first two city promotions plus air repair, the city strength was about 80 I think. The first bomber lost about half hit points as a result of the attack (not totally unexpected) and did some perceptible city damage; the second bomber however did only nine damage and was killed (totally unexpected). As usual the combat screen suggested no damage before I initiated each attack. There were no interceptors so that was straight city-to-aircraft damage.
That's my point - in all other combat the combat screen allows the attacker to consider the relative merit before engaging, with aircraft it's blind as far as the consequences to the attacker. It seems clear to me that the game mechanic for aerial combat does not match the combat screen. I suppose only the Devs know whether this was intentional, but my view is that it could be re-worked to better reconcile with all other game combat. IMHO!

Vohbo said:

But the point is: aerial combat is fine and changing any aspect of it requires a complete rebalancing and testing of the late game. I don't really understand what is wrong with it anyway, it already changes the way in which you wage wars dramatically.

Click to expand...

That's you opinion, I don't think some changes in air combat would dramatically change all game balance, in the first place this game is far from balanced at current state.