Air Battle questions only.
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As i understand it not. But your bombers and your battleships can destroy enemy aircrafts while they are at their base by bombing the base. In case of City that does work, as for the seperate airbase via worker i have not tested it.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Only in the sense that if you send in your Fighter/Jet on a Bombing mission first, the AI's Fighter/Jet may/will attack it, using up its move for that turn. Then your Bomber can attack second. Of course, if the AI has more than 1 Fighter/Jet stationed in that town, then you would need to make sufficient Fighter-attacks to activate all of those, to ensure that your Bomber(s) had a clear run.
Same principle applies if the AI has built any AA ground-units (unlikely at lower diffs, but possible at higher) -- if you're attacking the town itself, you would need to 'use up' their attacks as well, before sending in the Bombers. However, if the town has a SAM-site (again, possible at higher diffs, where the AI will eventually build every city-improvement), I believe that these can fire more than once per turn (Justanick...?), so any Bombing-runs on the town itself may/will activate it. And that's when you need to start building Stealth-planes...
This thread may help. And possibly also this one.
No. Ground units and ships with AA have no such limit. In fact having up to 4 units will have a chance to attack you. However, only 0.1 times their attack value is applied. So a fleet of 4 battleships will have 4 chances of 1-(2/(2+0.2))^4=31.699% to shot down an attacking bomber.
For SAM the amount of attacks is probably unlimited aswell. I never bother to find out. However here the full attack values applies, but only in 50% or 5% of chances, that will depend on stealth or no stealth.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
I did know that no more than (the top) 4 AA-capable units per stack are considered per each bombing-run, but are you therefore saying that each AA-capable unit can potentially fire >once per turn, i.e. that AA-defence does not work the same way as defensive (Range=0) bombardments?
Because I know for sure that if there are, say, 3 (defensive-)bombardment units in a stack, then only the first 3 attackers against that stack will risk def-bomb HP-loss on the way in; all subsequent stack-attackers during that turn will not get bombarded, even if some/all of the bombardiers are still alive/intact.
Conversely, if I hit a stack of 4 AA-capable units with 8 planes, you're saying that I could potentially (in a very low-probability worst-case scenario) lose all 8 of them? (That would seriously suck...)
Yes. AA does not work very well in the short run, the chances of losing a unit against it are relatively low. But you can easily lose 32 bombers to 4 battleships or 43 bombers to 4 Aegies-Cruiser or 52 bombers to 4 mobile flarak each turn. For that you would need to attack with 100 bombers each turn, so maybe that will exceed your production.
Kirejara
King
I have another question and some observation about air combat.
After very rarely seeing Fighters scramble to intercept Bombers, I have set the "Chance to intercept enemy air missions" from the original 50% to 90%.
But still the real interception rate is far lower than the designated 90%.
I have created a test multiplayer map to experiment with air interception (two cities at stone throwing range, one with several bombers and the other one with several fighters).
The result was not impressive: Even when covered with 20 Fighters, the real interception rate against 10 Bombers is rarely higher than 50%. In two test runs the Bombers were even completly unchallenged. Even defenceless Airships managed to slip through the Fighter screen several times.
I have tested it with all fighters generation (Combustion (WWI): 2/1, Flight (WWII): 4/3, Adv. Flight (Late WWII): 6/4, Rockety (Cold War): 8/6, Smart Weapons (Modern Days): 12/10) and all bomber generations (Defence from 0 - 6). Even defenceless Airships managed to slip through the Fighter screen.
I know that each Fighter can only intercept one Bomber per turn. If a Fighter is bombed (both hit and miss), will it still intercept the next wave or will it be grounded for the round?
Is there a way to further increase the real interception rate.
I have not tested it yet, but does someone know, what happens at 100% interception rate? Will still slip bombers through?
After very rarely seeing Fighters scramble to intercept Bombers, I have set the "Chance to intercept enemy air missions" from the original 50% to 90%.
But still the real interception rate is far lower than the designated 90%.
I have created a test multiplayer map to experiment with air interception (two cities at stone throwing range, one with several bombers and the other one with several fighters).
The result was not impressive: Even when covered with 20 Fighters, the real interception rate against 10 Bombers is rarely higher than 50%. In two test runs the Bombers were even completly unchallenged. Even defenceless Airships managed to slip through the Fighter screen several times.
I have tested it with all fighters generation (Combustion (WWI): 2/1, Flight (WWII): 4/3, Adv. Flight (Late WWII): 6/4, Rockety (Cold War): 8/6, Smart Weapons (Modern Days): 12/10) and all bomber generations (Defence from 0 - 6). Even defenceless Airships managed to slip through the Fighter screen.
I know that each Fighter can only intercept one Bomber per turn. If a Fighter is bombed (both hit and miss), will it still intercept the next wave or will it be grounded for the round?
Is there a way to further increase the real interception rate.
I have not tested it yet, but does someone know, what happens at 100% interception rate? Will still slip bombers through?
Probably. So far i assumed that interception rate refers to SAM-sites only. As for Air vs. Air some investigation might be needed.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Interception =/= Shootdown. I'm pretty sure that I remember reading an air-combat thread (might even have been one of those I linked above) where the tester set (Fighter) Intercept-rates to 100%, and Bomber-shootdown rates then equalised to what would be expected from the 'standard' AttackerA/TotalA+D combat-equation. That is, there are (at least) 2 RNG calculations made when a Fighter has 'Air Superiority' set:
(1) Is a Fighter scrambled to intercept the Bomber? (result based on 'Intercept rate')
I assume that if Fighters were modded to have 2 MP, they could then potentially be scrambled twice per turn (or be ReBased and then potentially scramble once), but I have not tested this yet.
(1) Is a Fighter scrambled to intercept the Bomber? (result based on 'Intercept rate')
- If no, Bombing mission succeeds
- RNG then calculates damage/ destruction to unit/ city/ tile improvement, based on AA-presence, relative A/D values, RoF, lethality-settings, etc.
- If yes, Bombing mission fails, goto (2)
- If yes, Bomber will crash'n'burn (Fighter may be damaged)
- If no, Fighter will crash'n'burn (Bomber may be damaged)
I assume that if Fighters were modded to have 2 MP, they could then potentially be scrambled twice per turn (or be ReBased and then potentially scramble once), but I have not tested this yet.
Kirejara
King
Just to make sure: with interception rate I am meaning the chance that Bomber will be engaged by a Fighter without regards to the result of this engagement.
The success rate could be something totally different (take for example 10 Biplane Fighters (2/1) intercepting 10 Jet Bombers (0/4) - the success rate should be near zero, even if the interception rate is 100%, but then there is still the Spearman-vs.-Tank-Dilemma.
).
I will give 100% interception rate a try on my test map and will report. To make thinks more comprehensible, I will only use the standard Fighters and Bombers for this.
The success rate could be something totally different (take for example 10 Biplane Fighters (2/1) intercepting 10 Jet Bombers (0/4) - the success rate should be near zero, even if the interception rate is 100%, but then there is still the Spearman-vs.-Tank-Dilemma.
). I will give 100% interception rate a try on my test map and will report. To make thinks more comprehensible, I will only use the standard Fighters and Bombers for this.
Kirejara
King
While I have not done yet my interception rate experiment, I have witness some air combat actions, that have been unknown to me before.
KI fighters will intercept enemy bombers in range, even if the bombers target belongs to someone else.
Yesterday I lost a Blenheim Bomber to a japanese Zero, while bombing a chinese city. This becomes even more bizarr as the the Japanese are also at war with China (so basically they "helped" their enemy against another enemy.
A few rounds later an arabian Warhawk killed a chinese SB-2 Bomber over one of my cities.
Some time ago I also encounter a little trap that can backfire very fast: While at peace one of my fighters intercepted and killed a bomber of a KI nation, that was bombing one of my Privateers and so causing war!
KI fighters will intercept enemy bombers in range, even if the bombers target belongs to someone else.
Yesterday I lost a Blenheim Bomber to a japanese Zero, while bombing a chinese city. This becomes even more bizarr as the the Japanese are also at war with China (so basically they "helped" their enemy against another enemy.
A few rounds later an arabian Warhawk killed a chinese SB-2 Bomber over one of my cities.
Some time ago I also encounter a little trap that can backfire very fast: While at peace one of my fighters intercepted and killed a bomber of a KI nation, that was bombing one of my Privateers and so causing war!
Kirejara
King
I have so far finished my experiment with interception rates.
On a small map I have placed two civs close together.
Civ A has become 2 Armored Scout Vehicles and 10 Firaxis Fighters on an external airfield (to avoid that the result is messed up by bombed Fighters
).
Civ B has also 2 ASV and 10 Firaxis Bombers. One of the ASV is driven to the city of Civ A as observer.
I switched both civs to human players via C3C Multiplayer Tool and have done five games (3 with 90% and 2 with 50% interception rate).
My first surprise (and most likely the reason my own Fighter Squadrons perform so poorly): Interceptors never launched in the round they are ordered to perform CAP (= Combat Air Patrol). Only in the following round they will start intercepting enemy aircraft.
So transferring a fighter to a dangered aera means, that the fighter will need three rounds to get operational (1. round: transfer, 2. round: receiving orders, 3. round: finally getting operational and performing CAP).
This seems to be also the reason why often freshly transferred or build fighters can be destroyed by bombers without resistance.
The second round in my test game, was more successful from the point of the defending Civ A.
With 90% Interception Rate all bombers were intercepted:
7 Bombers vs. 3 Fighters lost
9 Bombers vs. 1 Fighter lost
8 Bombers vs. 2 Fighters lost
At 50% Interception Rate at least some of the bombers managed to avoid interception:
7 Bombers vs. 2 Fighters lost, 1 Bomber unchallenged
6 Bombers vs. 2 Fighters lost, 2 Bombers unchallenged
So best to leave Fighters set to CAP undisturbed as they will not intercept anything after being waken up.
What I do not know how the movement of Aircraft Carriers intervenes with CAP.
And I have currently no idea how to test that.
On a small map I have placed two civs close together.
Civ A has become 2 Armored Scout Vehicles and 10 Firaxis Fighters on an external airfield (to avoid that the result is messed up by bombed Fighters
). Civ B has also 2 ASV and 10 Firaxis Bombers. One of the ASV is driven to the city of Civ A as observer.
I switched both civs to human players via C3C Multiplayer Tool and have done five games (3 with 90% and 2 with 50% interception rate).
My first surprise (and most likely the reason my own Fighter Squadrons perform so poorly): Interceptors never launched in the round they are ordered to perform CAP (= Combat Air Patrol). Only in the following round they will start intercepting enemy aircraft.
So transferring a fighter to a dangered aera means, that the fighter will need three rounds to get operational (1. round: transfer, 2. round: receiving orders, 3. round: finally getting operational and performing CAP).
This seems to be also the reason why often freshly transferred or build fighters can be destroyed by bombers without resistance.
The second round in my test game, was more successful from the point of the defending Civ A.
With 90% Interception Rate all bombers were intercepted:
7 Bombers vs. 3 Fighters lost
9 Bombers vs. 1 Fighter lost
8 Bombers vs. 2 Fighters lost
At 50% Interception Rate at least some of the bombers managed to avoid interception:
7 Bombers vs. 2 Fighters lost, 1 Bomber unchallenged
6 Bombers vs. 2 Fighters lost, 2 Bombers unchallenged
So best to leave Fighters set to CAP undisturbed as they will not intercept anything after being waken up.
What I do not know how the movement of Aircraft Carriers intervenes with CAP.
And I have currently no idea how to test that.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Well that's both interesting and highly annoying, since the AI knows where your units are, and will tend to avoid cities that can defend themselves, in favour of those that can't. Presumably the distance over which CAP-missions can be flown depends on the Range-stat of the (Fighter) planes involved...? So you would have to station a dozen or so Fighter-squadrons in a town central enough to defend as many potentially vulnerable neighbours from incoming Bombers as possible, before the AI starts bombing them.
Which adds weight to my suggestion of making Fighters M=2, if that would indeed then allow both rebasing and setting to CAP on the same turn. At least that way your flyboys might go on duty on Turn 2, rather than Turn 3...
I suspect that it doesn't, so long as you don't have the 'Cancel Orders...' preferences checked, and avoid using the 'Wake all' right-click stack-command after you've set the Fighters aboard a Carrier to fly CAP-missions.
From my current game-in-progress (PtW, Standard-size, Random-Map/-MyCiv/-AICivs, Emp), I do know that if you have ships (threatening an enemy's coasts and) within range of enemy Bombers, the AI will bomb them if it has nothing more attractive to do -- at least the PtW-AI will. And if you have a Fighter aboard a Carrier in amongst (or nearby) that Fleet, it can fly CAP-missions (my single Carrier-based Fighter eventually shot down an incoming Ottoman BomberAnd I have currently no idea how to test that.
)So to test the effect of Carrier- movement, you'd need a map where the AI's Bombers can't reach your homeland. Then you could put a stack of Fighters (with 100% intercept-probability) onto a small fleet of Carriers (remember to turn off their AA-defence, if you're doing this in C3C), set all the Fighters to fly CAP missions, and then sail your Carriers into range of the AI's Bombers (which likewise should have their Lethal Sea-bombard ability turned off under C3C). After your Carriers arrive (and fortify?) in enemy waters, count how many turns it takes before your Fighters get scrambled. Even if the "no CAP until 1T after the mission is set" rule also applies to Fighters on a Carrier, if the time in transit was longer than 3T, you may get an immediate interception/ shootdown. Once your Fighters have made their first interception, move the Carriers 1 tile and count how many more turns it takes before the next interception/ shootdown occurs.
Using, say, 10-12 Fighters aboard 3 Carriers, vs 10 AI-Bombers, and running this trial 8-10 times, you should be reasonably sure of getting reasonably representative results.
Kirejara
King
Ok, I have quick tested your idea on my test map. Again I switched the attacking player 2 to a human player for better control.
I have used three Aircraft Carriers (5 squadrons capacity) for player 1. I stuffed each Carrier with a different type of fighter to check different situations and reactions.
Carrier 1 fortified and then sets it Fw190 to CAP.
Carrier 2 sets it P-38 Lightnings to CAP, then moved and fortified.
Carrier 3 sets it MiG-15 to CAP, then moved and stopped (spacebar).
As it turns out, this was unnessecary as all fighters behaved the same.
They did not scramble in the turn, there they received their orders.
In the following turn they all scrambled and performed some kind of the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". Despite a interception rate of only 60% all 15 bombers of player 2 were either shoot down by interceptors or Carrier-AA in three out of five trial runs (in one run two of the bombers managed to slip through the fighter screen and bomb the carriers and in another one a bomber managed to kill a MiG-15). Most of the bombers were killed by the fighters, but in each trial run 2 to 3 bombers were killed by the AA (air defence strength of the carriers is 2).
So moving the Aircraft Carriers after setting the fighters to CAP seems to make no differents.
Somewhat annoying is the additional handicap, that even undamaged fighters, who were engaged in air combat, are awake the following round and await new orders, so that they are unable to intercept bombers in two successive turns.
I think I will have to adapt my current naval strategy to the two-turns-until-CAP-problem.
Any suggestions what to test next?
PS: a two-movement-points-aircraft can transfer to another base and then execute a mission in the same turn. I did not test it with fighters, but the A-10 Ground attack Monster and the Attack Helicopters have two MP plus blitz, but only a short range and they can do it.
I have used three Aircraft Carriers (5 squadrons capacity) for player 1. I stuffed each Carrier with a different type of fighter to check different situations and reactions.
Carrier 1 fortified and then sets it Fw190 to CAP.
Carrier 2 sets it P-38 Lightnings to CAP, then moved and fortified.
Carrier 3 sets it MiG-15 to CAP, then moved and stopped (spacebar).
As it turns out, this was unnessecary as all fighters behaved the same.
They did not scramble in the turn, there they received their orders.
In the following turn they all scrambled and performed some kind of the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". Despite a interception rate of only 60% all 15 bombers of player 2 were either shoot down by interceptors or Carrier-AA in three out of five trial runs (in one run two of the bombers managed to slip through the fighter screen and bomb the carriers and in another one a bomber managed to kill a MiG-15). Most of the bombers were killed by the fighters, but in each trial run 2 to 3 bombers were killed by the AA (air defence strength of the carriers is 2).
So moving the Aircraft Carriers after setting the fighters to CAP seems to make no differents.
Somewhat annoying is the additional handicap, that even undamaged fighters, who were engaged in air combat, are awake the following round and await new orders, so that they are unable to intercept bombers in two successive turns.
I think I will have to adapt my current naval strategy to the two-turns-until-CAP-problem.
Any suggestions what to test next?
PS: a two-movement-points-aircraft can transfer to another base and then execute a mission in the same turn. I did not test it with fighters, but the A-10 Ground attack Monster and the Attack Helicopters have two MP plus blitz, but only a short range and they can do it.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
First of all, you're awesome You should probably report these results in the C&C forum, and maybe also post them in the Air combat thread(s) I linked to above (if you didn't already).
This is interesting though:
If you do already have the 'Cancel orders...' preference switched off, then yes, what you describe is indeed irritating: it suggests that assigning a mission to an air-unit is equivalent to the 'sentry (enemy unit)' order for a land-unit, rather than an 'automate' order, i.e. that the Firaxis programmers have (yet again) applied unintuitive/ inconsistent 'logic' to the game-units.
You should probably report these results in the C&C forum, and maybe also post them in the Air combat thread(s) I linked to above (if you didn't already).This is interesting though:
I can't help wondering, do you perhaps (still?) have 'Cancel orders for enemy combat units' switched on in your game prefs? If so, switching it off might fix that problem.
If you do already have the 'Cancel orders...' preference switched off, then yes, what you describe is indeed irritating: it suggests that assigning a mission to an air-unit is equivalent to the 'sentry (enemy unit)' order for a land-unit, rather than an 'automate' order, i.e. that the Firaxis programmers have (yet again) applied unintuitive/ inconsistent 'logic' to the game-units.
Kirejara
King
I have checked this, and the option is disabled.
No, I have not posted my new discoveries in another thread or elsewhere in the forum.
I am more or less surprised, that they are not mentioned at all anywhere.
Kirejara
King
I am playing my first game with adjusted carrier operation (after I have reached Flight and Mass Production of course ).
My carriers are usually part of my main battlefleet, so that carriers and battlewaggons can protect each other.
Until now, I was simply using the right mouse button and selecting "Wake Transported" (and thereby cancelling my CAP
), then I wanted my bombers active.
At first it was very exhausting to pick the bombers out of the long list of ships and aircraft, without waking the interceptors.
But now I found an easy workaround:
First I divided my carriers into offensive and defensive units. The defensive carriers transport fighters only (for obvious reasons ) and are renamed "DEFENCE Name of the Carrier". The offensive carriers have an attack mix of planes and are renamed "ATTACK Name of the Carrier".
So the offensive carriers are hopefully at the top of the ship list. Now they can be easily selected, either to wake their aircraft manualy or by moving all offensive carriers one field away from the fleet (and the defensive carriers), fortify them and then select "Wake Transported".
After they finished their airstrikes, they can (and should be!!!) moved back into the fleet.
This way the fighters assigned to CAP remained undisturbed.
The fist sign of success is visible in the screenshot: one of the defensive fighters of HMS Glorious has become elite.
And yes, there are fighters too on my offensive carriers, since they have a better chance of survivial against intercepting enemy fighters than the low defence bombers.
Overall this seems to be working much better then my previous and flawed carrier operation. My ships and land units are much better protected against enemy bombing raids, due to the working CAP.
). My carriers are usually part of my main battlefleet, so that carriers and battlewaggons can protect each other.
Until now, I was simply using the right mouse button and selecting "Wake Transported" (and thereby cancelling my CAP
), then I wanted my bombers active. At first it was very exhausting to pick the bombers out of the long list of ships and aircraft, without waking the interceptors.
But now I found an easy workaround:
First I divided my carriers into offensive and defensive units. The defensive carriers transport fighters only (for obvious reasons
) and are renamed "DEFENCE Name of the Carrier". The offensive carriers have an attack mix of planes and are renamed "ATTACK Name of the Carrier". So the offensive carriers are hopefully at the top of the ship list. Now they can be easily selected, either to wake their aircraft manualy or by moving all offensive carriers one field away from the fleet (and the defensive carriers), fortify them and then select "Wake Transported".
After they finished their airstrikes, they can (and should be!!!) moved back into the fleet.
This way the fighters assigned to CAP remained undisturbed.
The fist sign of success is visible in the screenshot: one of the defensive fighters of HMS Glorious has become elite.
And yes, there are fighters too on my offensive carriers, since they have a better chance of survivial against intercepting enemy fighters than the low defence bombers.
Overall this seems to be working much better then my previous and flawed carrier operation. My ships and land units are much better protected against enemy bombing raids, due to the working CAP.
Spoiler :
Yes. Thought this was a bug but seems it's how they're programmed. That explains why enemy Bombers bombarded nearby tiles with impunity the same turn my Fighters were ordered on CAP. BTW here's an old thread which gives some additional info about this (I can confirm that Fighters on Carriers in a City will intercept Bombers and that they can become Elite):
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/problem-fighters-not-intercepting-from-carrier.104077/
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