Open General Forums

Hi all!
I'd like to start a debate on air missions or airplanes in general.
I dislike how the planes acted in original PG2, they were more like a floating ships than planes. (Might be fine for dirigibles, though.)
However air missions come with some issues, too. (One them being the fact that ppl don't seem to like this setting.)

what are your opinions on the air missions, or airplanes at all, in the context of modern design choices. I'm especially interested in WW2 era.

Aleksandr wrote: ↑2020-12-09 07:57, Wednesday However air missions come with some issues, too. (One them being the fact that ppl don't seem to like this setting.)

What other issues have air missions for you, in addition to people liking or not them?

LuisGuzman wrote: ↑2020-12-09 19:20, Wednesday
What other issues have air missions for you, in addition to people liking or not them?

Not a technical issues, but rather "filosofical".
Many maps were never done with air missions in mind, so the distances between airfields can be too long.
I'm not sure if AI can use the system effectively.
Number of air transport doesn't really matter, at least for para units.
I will expand the list is anything else comes to my mind.

Aleksandr wrote: ↑2020-12-10 06:23, Thursday Many maps were never done with air missions in mind, so the distances between airfields can be too long.
I'm not sure if AI can use the system effectively.
Number of air transport doesn't really matter, at least for para units.
I will expand the list is anything else comes to my mind.

- you can add "built" airfields to any maps, and they will be visible, the plane's range can also be doubled for air missions
- ai can effectively use the air mission
- i don't understand, the para-issue: iirc, the already used atp slots will not be reset till the next turn, so the same amount of atp can be used with and w/o air mission

and i definitely like air mission

sidenote, but seems that some polls people made at the begining when they opened new forum had more voices than people ready to comment anything... so, if you are interested in some opinions make one - yeah i agree, it is not discussion as you said, but at least something to help you and all

since posted, i don't really know - i'll go with Luis (how i read his words) and say if you design do what is prefered by you and if you think something doesn't work do not use it..... back in the days wasn't big airforce general myself, now just occassional user and joined more to be around and see if i can catch something interesting gaming/OG or historical wise (...and for ladies, of course)) nonetheless, hope you get your discussion...

Paratroopers circumvent the air transport limit. You can have as many of them droppped as you like (well, at least all of them that started the turn on airfield), because they fly and drop in the same turn. Or am I mistaken?

Building the airfiled is not the same as having one on a map.

There's an option to double the flying range? That's cool, coz it keeps the ranges in scale. I found only the increase range option, and it solves the issue with long distance flights, but it doesn't scale, obviously.

I had a scenario where AI has seven planes, there's no opposing ariforce, and it sees 75 % of the map, yet it still took insanely long turns (lots of AI scanning), and there were pauses between movement of each airplane. I cannot tell if this is due to air missions (seems likely that it's linked to planes, as the waiting times were the worst right before planes moved), but I can test it later with AirMis ticked off.

...if you design do what is prefered by you...

well, I don't like either option. Neither the "floating ships" nor the AirMis system makes me 100% happy. That's the reason why I'm interested in other ppl opinions, simply coz I cannot make my mind.


edit:

- you can add "built" airfields to any maps

yeah, got it now: you meant airfield "built" in Suite. That's a solution to range problems, of course, although it may be not the best in some scenario

Me too am not fully happy with the system...or rather "not happy anymore": now, 20-25 years after the first campaign played, i know different games with different systems.

To me, the whole issue evovles around the supply of aircraft (*).
A game turn is usually a couple hours to a couple days (i have rarely seen longer time periods - but then again: i didn't analyze all scenarios and definitively didn't play all games and all their mods).
If we are talking about a couple hours, okay. But very often a turn is 12 hours and longer. In that time period, the aircraft should have been refueled and rearmed at least once per turn, thus: aircraft shouldn't consume fuel AND shouldn't consume ammo (or rather: only consume ammo on a given turn, and then be back to full ammo the following turn).

Once at that point however......why do ground units consume ammo and fuel
And once there, to me, the discussion would rather be "PG2-sytle vs HoI/OoB-style" supply system.



(*) the air comabt mechanics are okay for a turn-based game. At least, i cannot think of anything that i am currently missing - except for radar, maybe (i moved away from night turns).

I probably prefer Air Missions - this is vague, because i currently only remember 1 campaign that used air missions, and i myself never went as far as modifying all scenarios to use AMs (at least i don't remember).

Aleksandr wrote: ↑2020-12-11 11:03, Friday Paratroopers circumvent the air transport limit. You can have as many of them droppped as you like (well, at least all of them that started the turn on airfield), because they fly and drop in the same turn.

Can be turned off via cfg:

Yep, this is precisely what I'm thinking about, and I cannot decide one way or another. I also thing that the air combat is fine, because it's just a continuation of chess in 256 colours, but speaking of air-vs-ground combat, the idea of turns being anything from one hour to one day, and the supply of planes, all these factors are what makes me scratch my head looking for solutions.

One may of course screw the whole thing and just use w/e the heck chosen at random from the two options available. I'll stick to the airmis for now, and see how it goes.

Can be turned off via cfg:

thanks a lot!

Aleksandr wrote: ↑2020-12-17 17:43, Thursday the idea of turns being anything from one hour to one day, and the supply of planes, all these factors are what makes me scratch my head looking for solutions.

Has the date ever been of any relevance? Does it has any effect on a scenario if the duration of a turn is 1 hour or 24 hours or whatever?
The only impact i can think of is the availability of new units when the month changes within a scenario.

To me the game is timeless! There is no time, just turns. One turn can be everything you want!
Of course i set a correct date when i build a scenario in Suite, but that's all.

I must admit, i don't like Air Missions. It's just feels unnatural Air Missions are just a technical gimmick to me

EDIT: typo

randowe wrote: ↑2020-12-17 19:09, Thursday Has the date ever been of any relevance? To me the game is timeless! There is no time, just turns. One turn can be everything you want!

Yes, that's of course true, but even then I still feel like there's a disconnect between the ground units and planes and that's what feels unnatural to me. I'm just not really sure that the airmis reaslly solve this for me...

randowe wrote: ↑2020-12-17 19:09, Thursday Has the date ever been of any relevance? [..]

To me the game is timeless! There is no time, just turns. One turn can be everything you want!
Of course i set a correct date when i build a scenario in Suite, but that's all.

You are right of course: the game terms of "date" and "turn length" are just defining
- available units for purchase and prototypes
- weather
Lets take Atomic Efile as an example: it doesn't matter much whether Barbarossa takes place in 1941, 1950, 1916 or 1930, in summer or in winter. It doesn't really matter, because it is just a technicality.

However, it is not historical.

And this is what we were thinking about, the depiction of reallife stuff in game terms.
Example, in a game turn of 12 reallife hours (2 turns per day setting) a Messerschmitt could fly from northern France over the Channel or southern England, do combat for 30 minutes and return to base. Lets simplify it and say this takes 6 reallife hours...what does the aircraft do the rest of the turn - why is it not resupplied at the beginning of turn 2 ?

In other words: once you get closer to all the stuffs, it is were the game systems become inaccurate, and this is what we were wondering about.

randowe wrote: ↑2020-12-17 19:09, Thursday I must admit, [..] Air Missions [..] feel unnatural

To me it's the other way round

Of course, the default system is what we know from many games for many years. AND it is just as playable as Air Missions, maybe even more playable than AMs (i prefer playability over realism - that's why i have no clear preference in the question of "default or AMs" ).

mythos wrote: ↑2020-12-18 06:22, Friday
And this is what we were thinking about, the depiction of reallife stuff in game terms.
Example, in a game turn of 12 reallife hours (2 turns per day setting) a Messerschmitt could fly from northern France over the Channel or southern England, do combat for 30 minutes and return to base. Lets simplify it and say this takes 6 reallife hours...what does the aircraft do the rest of the turn - why is it not resupplied at the beginning of turn 2 ?

In other words: once you get closer to all the stuffs, it is were the game systems become inaccurate, and this is what we were wondering about.

Actually there is no answer. There are so many inaccuracies that come with turn based games.
Discuss this or that for 20 more years but will there ever be satisfaction?
I can be aware of all the inaccuracies and still enjoy the game every day.

From a player point of view - i want to use my planes like all my other units

randowe wrote: ↑2020-12-18 07:51, Friday Actually there is no answer. There are so many inaccuracies that come with turn based games.

With games in general, but i understand what you mean.

mythos wrote: ↑2020-12-18 06:22, Friday

randowe wrote: ↑2020-12-17 19:09, Thursday Has the date ever been of any relevance? [..]

To me the game is timeless! There is no time, just turns. One turn can be everything you want!

You are right of course: the game terms of "date" and "turn length" ... don't really matter, because it is just a technicality.

However, it is not historical.

I think that the issue with both PG2 and AMs system is a tension between realism and playability. Both system have pros and cons, but none of them is 100% satisfactory for 100% of players.
OG isn't military simulation, so maybe I should care more about playability thna realism.

From a player point of view - i want to use my planes like all my other units

Wow, you made a strong point here! I think that this is really a thing to consider, and especially novice players can struggle with the AMs, as they completely change the behaviour of 1/3 units.
Interesting idea!

I would love to see the system changed. Treating the air units the same as the ground units is pretty illogical.

For instance:
+why escorts only "react" once per turn? How on earth this suppose to make sense
+why there is a need to manually refill, those are planes, if need be lower their action capabilities (less ammo) but refill each turn automatically
+why oh why anyone have thought that entrenchments or bunkers should be able to air attack

I am not familiar with the air missions but under the current system I'd rather see fighters with zone (2 hexes from the plane) and change the escorting rules.

I would personally vote for air missions but this is an arcade chess-like board game not anything close to realism.

+why escorts only "react" once per turn? How on earth this suppose to make sense
+why there is a need to manually refill, those are planes, if need be lower their action capabilities (less ammo) but refill each turn automatically
+why oh why anyone have thought that entrenchments or bunkers should be able to air attack

They only react for gameplay reasons, but you can imagine that a non-leadered pilots are too overwhelmed to fight more planes in one turn. It's a balance thing, and if they'd work like artillery, there'd need to be an extreme redesign of statistics.
Manual refuel/reammo is weird, just like mentioned above. It's also about the length of the turn, but if the turns simulate 12-hour period, than the whole air system makes no sense to me.
Some of the entrechments/bunkers is some of the efiles have the air attack, and I like it. It really depends on what exactly they represent, but for things like local defense system, trench line with AA support, anything like that, it's really logical to me. I mean: it's not a single bunker with a 75mm howitzer, but it has some AA support, be it organic (flak copula) or attached (a platoon of mgs). What really makes me wonder are SPAT/tanks with AA, especially if the air attack is in the 1-2 range: such a StuG does no dmg to the plane, only loses ammo. But one can argue that this is similar to the bunkers: it's not about Tiger firing its mg against planes, but rather the organic AA support of the sPzAbt.

Yeah, i am sure the Red Baron would still be alive if not for infantry shooting into the air

When one hex is, let's say, 2km^2, then there are not only 5 infantrymen in holes. Think of a more complex entrenched position. And they surely would have some MGs, no? Of course every efile is different and there are some unit specials like "AD support", "can air attack" or "no intercept air" that have to be taken into consideration.

You seems to be confusing two things:
1. Air defence against an air assault
2. Air defence against "passing by" planes

While the first of course was an important factor the latter had a marginal effect.
Currently in the game a plane flying over an entranchment is tread as one attacking it. Which is totally wrong.
The losses of planes flying over couple of trenches are enormous. This actually neither makes sense logically nor taking the game engine.
Otherwise all units that did have AA guns (pretty much all units) should be able to conduct an air attack on passing planes.

The game has nothing to do with realism. Period.
It's a beer&pretzel game.

Gliz2 wrote: ↑2021-01-12 14:11, Tuesday You seems to be confusing two things:
1. Air defence against an air assault
2. Air defence against "passing by" planes

While the first of course was an important factor the latter had a marginal effect.
Currently in the game a plane flying over an entranchment is tread as one attacking it. Which is totally wrong.
The losses of planes flying over couple of trenches are enormous. This actually neither makes sense logically nor taking the game engine.

I was not confusing things. i was reacting to your statement which was not related to passing planes:

+why oh why anyone have thought that entrenchments or bunkers should be able to air attack

Anyway, so entrenched infantry can air attack when it has the "Can air attack" special. But it will also shoot on planes passing by.
If the unit special "no intercept air" is ticked (for the infantry) too, planes won't be intercepted while passing by.
As i've said, every efile is different and it is up to the efile maker to decide wether a unit has this or that special.

Currently in the game a plane flying over an entranchment is tread as one attacking it. Which is totally wrong.

I don't even know which efile (if any at all) uses this setting.It's done through .cfg file, unless I'm mistaken and I never encountered it, or at least I don't remember that.

Basekorp for sure and two others I have tested suffer from it as well.
And it is controlled by EQUIP file (after editing it no more issues).

PS. "Air attack" is the instance were the unit can actively attack the planes. Which is strange if the unit is not an AA unit.
Defending itself against air assault is another thing than (actively) attacking.
Air attack is not even a smart solution for bunkers.

I think this might relate to artificial difficulty that some designers wanted to add to their campaigns.

The losses of planes flying over couple of trenches are enormous.

"Air attack" is the instance where the unit can actively attack the planes

You mistake two different things: a scenario setting vs. unit ability.

There's a setting called "Air units can be intercepted while flying", it's set on a scenario level, and it does literally what you wrote in the first quote, "the losses of planes flying over couple of trenches are enormous", because once set, the ground units fire at airplanes that are flying over them. It may lead to many AA attacks against flying-by planes and they soon end crippled before their flight ends.
I don't approve this setting, and it's truly illogical and bad.

Then there are two unit abilities that give to the non-AD, non-Flak ground units an AA ability and/or AD ability. These are the CAN Air Attack and the AD Support abilities. These make it that "the unit can actively attack the planes."
But this ability doesn't do anything to the planes flying over the ground units because this ability alone doesn't initiate the "losses of planes flying over couple of trenches" situation because there are no losses at all for the reason that there are no air attacks initiated against the flying-by planes.
What this ability however DOES, is that the said ground unit either can air attack (in case of CAN Air Attack ability), or fire an AD support (in case of the AD Support ability). Units with those abilities thus work like an AD/Flak units, and this may simulate a Flak/AD elements of the trench line, bunkers, etc.
I approve this ability, and it's truly logical and good.

Btw, Basekorps doesn't use the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" settings, I'm like 99,9% sure of that, because I use BK 99% of time. For clarity's sake: the setting that makes the ground units fire at airplanes that are flying over them, is not the same thing as ability of ground units to initiate AA/AD support against a planes parked above them.

So: the enormous losses of planes flying over trenches is due to faulty scenario design, not due to units' abilities.

edit:

PS. "Air attack" is the instance were the unit can actively attack the planes. Which is strange if the unit is not an AA unit.
Defending itself against air assault is another thing than (actively) attacking.
Air attack is not even a smart solution for bunkers.

Air attack truly is the instance where the unit can activelly attack the planes; the ability CAN Air Attack must do exactly that.
Then there's a passive air attack stat, and every unit with a non-zero air attack but without the CAN Air Attack ability (except for flaks, AD, and FTR, correct me if I'm wrong) does defend itself from the air assault.

Thus the units with CAN Air attack can defend themselves against air attack (if their AA is above zero) and also initiate air attack, and they can simulate local AA defense, AD elements of infantry div., etc. I don't see anything wrong about that. There are such AA/AD elms pictured above, and I think that those MGs can not only defend against the air assault (bracketed AA stats), but also initiate flak fire; they CAN Air Attack.

Then there are units like StuG40 that have the passive air attack (shown in-game with a bracketed AA stat), and those can only defend against an air assault. It is logical that they cannot initiate air attack (they CANNOT Air Attack), because they don't simulate local defense, but are e.g. self-propelled ATY.
My issue with these units is that their AA stats are so low that they cannot really harm the planes and so their AA fire just wastes the ammo.

Speaking of the third issue, there can be a "smarter" solution to AA defense than the CAN Air Attack and/or AD Support abilities, one such a fix is a high air defense stats. But this may lead to balance issues, and we may end with ground units that are impervious to air assaults. Which may or may not be bad from both realism point of view (realism be damned) and gameplay point of view.

We may of course argue about why it's fine for me to have an Entrenched Infantry unit with a CAN Air Attack and not a StuG unit with the same ability (in both cases this ability tries to simulate the same thing, the AA capability of the real-life counterpart, so why not give it to both), and we may also argue about the values (because in an extreme case of a CAN Air Attack unit with an AA stat of 0, there can be 200 of them on battlefield, yet they'd never harm any plane), but this is about an efile finetuning, not about the whole concept of CAN Air Attack / AD Support.

final edit:

Currently in the game a plane flying over an entranchment is tread as one attacking it. Which is totally wrong

Yes, this is totally wrong. In fact it's so wrong that it deserves a mention.

In this game a plane flying over an entrenchment suffers no harm at all most of the times, because most of the times it's not tread like it is attacking the ground unit. This is as simple as that, unless some change that I'm unawared of happened in the past weeks. Which is possible.

Noteworthy thing about the "plane flying over an entrenchment is tread as one attacking it" situation is that this happens only when the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" scenario settings is checked. (I'm not sure if this can be done on efile level, but it surely can be overwritten on a scenario level.)

I know this because I use the one efile you wrote about (Basekorps), and I don't encounter this issue while playtesting my scenarios. Why I don't encounter it? Because even if (and only if) Brian set Basekorps to use this setting, it still has no bearing on the game as a whole, not even in the very scenarios made for Basekorps... as long as the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" isn't checked in scenario.

Now, maybe Brian set BK to use the setting (if that can even be done... and once again: I'm not sure if it's possible, and I don't care as long as I can overwrite it while designing the scenario), or maybe he inherited this setting with the scenarios that were already set to the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" and which he used for BK. In which case I'd argue to change it, because this setting is illogical, bad, and leads to an enormous losses of flying-by planes.

tldr: Open General doesn't use the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" setting by default. Most of the efiles (at least the old ones) don't use it either, because they were designed before this setting was created (some of the CCs are from early 2000's and they were in fact made for the predecessor game), and if any efile uses this setting, than it's the efile keeper's fault (unless we think about some unorthodox/obscure reasons why this is used, e.g. Prehistoric General or Spacecraft Tycoon efiles), and even in such a case it can be overwritten on scenario level.

Thanks Aleksandr for taking time to address my points.
Very informative.

But the more I read of explanations the more confusing it gets.

So I will sticke to an observation made with BaseKorp and Grand German Campaigns. The issue of entrenched infantry firing at flying by planes was in both of the EQUIPs and both Campaigns.
Unticking "AD support" in EQUIP files solved issue in both cases.

It does contradict what you wrote.

Unticking "AD support" in EQUIP files solved issue in both cases.

It does contradict what you wrote

Not exactly. You just solved your issue in a different way, one that also works quite fine.
If you tick back the AD Support back in the Equip file, and then untick the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" setting in the particular scenario, you should get the same effect: ground units won't fire at flying-by planes. They will AD Support, of course, and if that's what you dislike, then equip file edit is your only solution. I'm not by my OG PC right now, so it'll be better if you can test this one for yourself.

I would like to add a few things about this, though.

First of all, I wouldn't tinker with equip file, as there are some issues, e.g. every time you'll get an updated version, you need to make all the changes you've done previously, and even look for the new "offenders" with [F] ability. This is tedious at the best. And it's a bit easier to just untick the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" setting in the campaign's scenarios (unless there are fourty of them, of course.) It's also a bit of a slippery slope, and you may end with highly edited efile (but it's your game, do as you like) or even sink deep into the make-your-own-efile abyss (more power to you, but this is really time-consuming hobby!)

Both these solutions are a big no-no in a case of Campaign Challenges, obviously. But CCs come with their own CC folder complete with equip file, so even if you tinker with say BK equip and then a BK CC is announced, you're still fine, just use the CC version of the campaign. Maybe you're not into CCs at all, then this point is moot.

But the main reason why I'd argue to keep the equip intact is the last one: it's done with a purpose. It's a creation of a mastermind behind that, an excercise in Intelligent Design, and as such, it's a microcosmos of living things where each of them has it's meaning, even the tiniest bacteria, and even the most ugly parasite, they have their own place in the great chain of life...



Back to the topic. The purpose of the [F] ability is quite obvious: it gives an AA/AD ability to the units that otherwise lack it. This is extremely weird and incorrect when used in conjunction with the Air Units Interception setting, much more so in a context of "usual" campaign where there can be tens of those units on each side completely crippling the airplanes and making the game a big mess.

But! There's a design niche where the AA/AD ability is extremely helpful and I'd argue that maybe even necessary: small-scale, RPG-like campaigns. Incidentally, these are the campaigns that I love to play and design. In these campaigns you really need multifunctional, all-purpose units, just like the [F] ones, just like the also-AA infantry and the kinda-AD bunkers. These highly improve your chances in battling the AI, they really improve your gaming experience, and they make your core much more powerful than it may seem at the first glance; this last point alone I cannot stress enough, coz when your core is made of say five or six units (e.g. Heia Safari or sPzAbt 503 made for Kaiser General or Adlerkorps repectively), you really need those multifunctional, all-purpose units to fight the AI hordes.

Please take a look into Basekorps equip, if you may. There's an INF unit Stormtroops 42. They are a costly halftracked guys with AA/AD ability and a range of fire of two hexes. As you can imagine this is exactly the kind of a Swiss Army knife unit that I wrote about. You may use them to assault city hexes, you may use them for covering fire against nearby ground units, and they also serve as a weak AD unit. They really pay for themselves! Now imagine if you deliberately downgrade them by unticking their AD ability...

And there's even more! Check the HQ recons, please. As you may realize, this is an extremely costly recon, late-war unit cost roughly 800 prestige. It's more costly than Pz IV! And for a good reason: not only does it have [C] ability, but it also has an AA/AD ability, and as such this is extremely powerful and really useful unit. It may also sound like a bit of a fantasy unit, but in this case allow me a short detour.

Back in roughly 2016 I discussed the addition of such a unit with Brian aka Puma, Basekorps keeper. I argued that such a unit could represent the HQ with all its assets, including not only the reconnaisance elements (thus the [R] ability), the obvious head command (thus the [C] ability), but also the small AA elements of the HQ unit (and thus the [F] ability). This was an idea that I'm really found of, and I think that Puma not only implemented it very well, but he also made a good job in testing it and tuning it.
By removing the [F] from the HQ unit you're losing much of its power, and you're severely limiting yourself in any RPGesque campaigns that ever came out for the Basekorps, and also in many others that may come in the future... wink wink

To expand on this idea there's a bit more behind the [F] than can be obvious at the first sight. Lets take an example from one recent campaign
It's called Panthers In The Mud and it's made for Basekorps.

In Kholm Relief there's an entrenched Infantry unit that I found has a real AA/AD purpose. Its air attack stat is low, but what it does is that it at least somehow repels the enemy airforce and more notably, its AA fire lowers the initiative of the enemy plane so it's more vulnerable to the next attack... and the next one... and the next one... So even the low-AA unit has still its purpose, because even such a unit still deters the AI from attacking and/or it makes it vulnerable to the next AA fire and/or dogfight. I find these units valuable. Now imagine that you cripple them in equip file. Imagine that you cripple them although they are part of your core. Imagine there's no [F] on your priced HQ unit.
Imagine there's no haven... for your Panthers.

I shiver at the very thought.

In short:
I wouldn't tinker with equip file for a few reasons, and I would gladly use [F] units whenever possible.
I'd also argue that designers never use the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" setting for gameplay reasons.

Once again thanks for your explanation and sharing your opinions. Puts things in perspective.

Well my problem is that there are 40+ scenarios in the campaigns I am playing (I love the long ones) so it is easier to tweak EQUIP

I agree that there is (or at least seems to be) a reason behind implementation of certain rules. The only problem I have is that they at best interfere too much with engine. And many times have questionable logic.

Also I have sometimes the feeling it's an easy way to artificially increase difficulty. Especially when the briefing suggest you do not need the paratroops but the easiest winning rout is to spam them (also the scenarios tend to push the use of them). Feels like a cheap trick to me.

What you are describing is a different issue. I am TAOW veteran (hex based war sim) and there are similar issues (in terms of limitations of scale and engine).
I like the big maps as they give more operational freedom.
Still I wouldn't like to have jack-of-all-trades units as they are "breaking" the engine. As simple as the game is (and what makes it so attractive) it has it's designers limitations. Therefore an all purpose unit is a balance breaker. The game was not designed to have them used.
It's like with the VP. A very strange concept but serves its purpose within the game engine. But it pushes the player to make certain choices (like investing in paras or artillery) and then designers to counter that by tweaking with the engine/scenario design.
The main limitation being here the beer and pretzel approach (one unit per hex and no combined attacks).

But enough about that.
I agree that the EQUIPs are designed with purpose. And you made me curious about some of the campaigns.
So thanks mate al

Aleksandr wrote: ↑2021-01-16 09:03, Saturday And it's a bit easier to just untick the "Air units can be intercepted while flying" setting in the campaign's scenarios (unless there are fourty of them, of course.)

When there are fourty of them you may edit them all at once using the "campaign"/"global changes to scenario options and data" tool.

Aleksandr wrote: ↑2021-01-16 09:03, Saturdaymuch more so in a context of "usual" campaign where there can be tens of those units on each side completely crippling the airplanes and making the game a big mess.

Well i played BK a lot, mostly the long german campaigns, and it never happened to me that my planes took serious damage by some random units that intercepted my planes -> because i do recon a lot. Of course when you want to move your planes around like it's peace time... Think about and you may find this feature not so bad anymore. Bombers are very strong and the player can use them somewhat thoughtful at least. When you fly across unspotted or unknown terrain you may get intercepted

When there are fourty of them you may edit them all at once using the "campaign"/"global changes to scenario options and data" tool.

True!

Well i played BK a lot, mostly the long german campaigns, and it never happened to me that my planes took serious damage by some random units that intercepted my planes -> because i do recon a lot. Of course when you want to move your planes around like it's peace time...

My experiences are limited, but I'd like to add a few things. In a small-scale scenario even two hits can be deadly. When you got one and only plane, and it gets hit by two random AA MGs, it can be severely damaged and either killed on opponent's turn or at least unusable for the rest of the battle. It's also much harder to scout properly when you have one or two planes only.
This gets even harder with Air Missions, as the planes return to the base at the end of AI turn, and you need to fly them back to their target, potentially flying over thesame traps once again. I think that AirMisss + Interception is a bad combination.

"When you fly across unspotted or unknown terrain you may get intercepted".
Are we talking realism in a beer&pretzel game? Were you cannot "stack attack"? Let's remain reasonable

I am referring to a fighter being "intercepted" by entrenched unit (special type of unit).
I understand this a feature but what is then the reason for not having that feature for other units?
I find it illogical. You have legit AA units that perform "interception" and can cover up to 3 hex radius (covering substantial amount of ground). They are there for a (original game design) reason.
If the scale is a problem them make a bigger map so you can fit in more units.

Just from 10 fighters runs over 3 entrenchments (so in total 30 interceptions):
total losses: 38 (21 cases of at least 1 loss, 10 cases of loss greater than 1, biggest loss of 5)
no loses: 19 cases of 0 losses
I wouldn't call it normal.

Gliz2 wrote: ↑2021-01-16 12:18, Saturday "When you fly across unspotted or unknown terrain you may get intercepted".
Are we talking realism in a beer&pretzel game? Were you cannot "stack attack"? Let's remain reasonable

Oh come on! What i wrote is true for every war game. No matter how often you bring up beer & pretzel.

Gliz2 wrote: ↑2021-01-16 12:18, Saturday If the scale is a problem them make a bigger map so you can fit in more units.

Have you ever played the game on big maps? There are maps with more than 100 x 100 hex... But that has nothing to do with air defence

Anyway, i am out of this

The range3 interception of an AA/AD unit with air attack of 10+ is much worse than that of some Entr. INF with their range1, AA 2.
The issue is with the "Air Unit Interception" rule, not wit the units and their AA/AD ability.

There's just a few reasons why use the above rule, and I found just two legitimate ones.

1) To make the AD units different from the rest. Yes, sounds silly, as I'm rather for a consistency, but in a game that's already treating distinct units differently, why not? Tanks have overrun, ATY defends, so AD will intercept.
The trouble is in old campaigns and all the new ones that weren't designed with this rule in mind. If you've had one AD unit out of twenty units, then it'll be fine, and in fact I'd like it. But whne thee are ten of them... no thanks.
Also, once implemented, we can move further a change the ATY to intercept riding-by units...

2) To make the game realisitc in a sense. But I don't even know if (in the context of WW2) there was a widespread interception by the AD. Can you intercpet fighter-bomber that approaches the target 30 m above ground? Can you intercept a Bxx bomber flying in altitude of 20 km? At least in the latter case, the AA MGs, 37mm flk, Ent. Inf., and similar units should never fire.
This could be solved by the Jet ability, of course, and I think Puma even tried that.

Oh come on! What i wrote is true for every war game. No matter how often you bring up beer & pretzel.

Yep. Also, this is getting out of hand. I'd love if we stick with the theme which is Air Missions vs. Panzer General System.

Gliz2, feel free to open thread on interception. I think that it should be open, but we are mere threesome, moreover maybe we already

I will just add a few points here.
I use the "Air units can be intercepted while moving" in my campaigns and I like it but I have adjusted the efile to Range=1 intercept.
I would prefer that intercept only happened when the air unit flew directly over the attacking unit, that would mean range=0 ?

I have also adjusted the efile so only flak, air defense, and destroyers can intercept. Entrenched Inf and some ATY and AT units can still offer support defense (AD support) but cannot intercept.

Finally, anyone is welcome to adjust the BaseKorp efile to what they prefer to play but maybe first try discussing the changes first.
As Alex pointed out, any new releases will need to be updated continuously.

I have also allowed light ATY units to capture hexes and many other small changes. I will release the newer version along with some converted campaigns in the future.

Puma, thanks for chiming in.

I like the way how you restricted interception and I also think that range=0 would be the best. In realism terms this would mean that only the planes that directly approached the flak and flew right above it would be affected. Furthermore I also think that the Jet ability could be useful in improving this concept, as the non-Jet flaks should be unable to intercept Jet planes, whatever the [J] means: be it B-29 or Me 262A, simply anything that cannot be intercepted by 7,62mm MG or some similar weak AA. Correct me if I'm wrong, but right now every LB has [J], and also all the jet planes, right? I think that for some LBs this doesn't make much sense, e.g. Ju 52 was neither fast enough nor high-altitude enough to avoid the light flak.

I have also allowed light ATY units to capture hexes and many other small changes. I will release the newer version along with some converted campaigns in the future.

OK, the "J" concept could me high altitude, so I have only allowed only static flak & AD with range greater than 2 to have this special. This means only 3 flak and 40% of AD units can attack the "J" special planes.

Also, I have removed this special from early/slow level bombers and all floatplanes.

Puma wrote: ↑2021-01-19 02:50, Tuesday OK, the "J" concept could me high altitude, so I have only allowed only static flak & AD with range greater than 2 to have this special. This means only 3 flak and 40% of AD units can attack the "J" special planes.

Also, I have removed this special from early/slow level bombers and all floatplanes.

good idea! It needs some tests, of course, but it sounds reasonable.