Air wing Attacking multiple objetives

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  • Air wing Attacking multiple objetives

    Just got attacked by a single fighter damaging not only my units in the city targeted, but nearby units travelling to that position and a helicopter wing patrolling far away form the attack zone of such fighters. How can a single unit damage all these units and take so little damage. I like to know if i missing something or if it was a bug. Thanks in advance!

  • Well if set on patol mode, the fighter attacks everything in that bubble on same time with full force.
    Every unit deals full damage in return.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Dorado Games
    DE - Team Lead
    Conflict of Nations




    "That was not me, it was already broken!"
  • @Urssmorris thanks for pointing this out. We are just investigating this issue and if really dealing full damage to all units in patrol range this constitutes a bug.
    Most probably this is due to me not clearly instructing the coders on how I would want the splitting to be done.

    My intention was to split the damage similar to how the Anti Air splits its damage in the patrol range: It takes it and divides it according to the amount of the targets (eg. your tornado jets are bombing 3 infantry units, the damage would be split and distributed, before the jet returns to base).

    I hope that you concur that this would make more sense. Glad to get your feedback,

    //G
    "Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion." Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf
  • Hello.

    I can confirm this is how it works right now : Patrol hits everything in the radius with its base damage, and of course, receive all defense damage in return.

    I thought it was the desired design to punish "overstacking" in the same area, a bit like the splash damage.

    If it's not what you intended, then you indeed need to change it, we began to use it routinely as an option for making some air assaults quicker.

    I can hear from there the air-only guys screaming "OMG NOW USELESS".


    Actually, what you say would change a LOT the anti-air balance and how we position our units
    Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
  • Operationally, it's more the choppers that benefit heavily from that, due to the very short range the mobile anti-air has (in addition to the already interesting fact that attack choppers are a overwhelming counter to mobile anti-air until late game).

    With Strike fighters, it's "strong", but it's somewhat mitigated by the high damage output of the SAM, and its range : the common case being that the SAMs would trigger to defend the other units in the areas. There are some edge cases of using patrol to "hit something within the SAM bubble but without getting shot by the said SAM", but it's "okay".

    The case where it makes choppers and strike absolutely op is when there is no SAMs to provide a bubble. In such case, indeed, a single stack of strike fighter may very well kil 8-9 units at once in a single run.

    It's not easy to balance, because to play the devil advocate, if suddenly damage get "shared", anti-air mail armor becomes suddenly strong very close to the "unfair" point.

    The current design punishes harshly clueless players. It plays obviously a role in why so much of our "regular+" players love so much air in public games.
    But it's "not that flawed" between two knowledgable players.

    Shared damage would shift this by balancing more the "clueless" side of players, that would see themselves less quickly exterminated, but would shift the balance more into "pro-anti air", betwen knowledgable players.

    Maybe a middle ground would be cool to discuss, with streamlined damage output. Warning : "i didn't think that for more than 30 seconds" idea.


    Patrol : Attacks everything in the radius. Each group suffers 66% of the damage, and retaliates 100% of damage. If troops are in splash damage range from each other, they still suffer 66%.
    Direct Attack : Attack only one unit, but with 100% of the damages. If troops are in splash damage range, they are hit 100%

    Underlying idea : Reduce the punishment suffered for locally overstacking and shift it toward the air. Bombing through patrol may still be useful, but has an efficiency drop if there are less than 2 groups to hit at once, and the attrition will be higher. Indirectly rewards players that invest in point defense.
    Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
  • I can only add, that this mechanic includes bombers, NPA and helicopters - nice multikills over land and ocean. Playing like that about a year. Record - 15k(manpower) destroyed at once by 5xNPA against naval transports. ;)

    But I like to leave this, because it gives a comfortable area control, progress feels dynamic (specially against bots) and is a suicide on prepared enemy anyway.
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  • We went through several iterations actually - and indeed the current design was basically sanctioned by our "laissez-faire".
    This said I would like you to please think about how to balance it better without breaking the current area control dynamic.

    Possibly we could actually try something else: Give strikes in direct attack mode a "double" damage simulating a condensed attack, but lowering the unit's actual damage somewhat to compensate for the usual "area of effect/AOE" use we primarily see today.
    Could that work? I really do not want to rock the boat or change the total Rock/Paper/Scissor of the game and would rather leave it than risk the current balance.

    Thanks for your really valuable feedback so far.

    //G
    "Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion." Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf
  • Hi everybody,
    as promised here are my thoughts about Patrol Mode.
    i tried view it from different angles.

    As beein a guy, loving to play strategic wargames, I love when i understand game mechanics (up to a decent point at least) and, more important, the results of actions are mainly mirror realistic behaviour (also up to a decent point).
    We all knew CoN is not a Plane-Tank-Infantry Simulator, it is also not Chess and neither Civm Twilight Empire or Risk. CoN is CoN with al his advantages (many) and all his disadvantages (low). So there is no need to be 100% realistic and some reduction in favour of gameplay is absolutel fine.
    But this is a strategic wargame so the results of an air-raid shuold be understandable and be near the result a (normal educated) player would expect.

    In my Imagination, if i send some Jockeys to figtht an enemy Ground Stack, they will choose teir loadout and are heading there beating the shit out of the enemy stack (which means they are unloading everything they have on him - and only on him).
    If i Say go there, beat everything in that Area, they ruffle up, go ther ean hitting everything that moves. BUT, ant thats the point, a plane or a chopper can only carry a certain amount of payload so if i go for several stacks, i´m expecting that the damage capacity have to be dividet amongst the enemys in Patrol Range.
    (Ok, this is not new and not higher lores of physics, also Germanico has stated that is was intended working so, only it wasn´t implemented properly becuase some dev (draise the developers) maybe divided the Damage by Zero and got strange results... :P

    So no it´s getting interesting.
    Damage should be divided:

    - equally? (then it would be able to shield the mainstack with 5x single guards walking around
    - random? (not suggestable, would produce many Tickets to explain randomness to the players :whistling: )
    - 66% as a quick and dirty solution? (Would still mean, that Patrolling Aircraft might deal much more damage than their nominal capacity)

    My favorite is:
    - Take about 125% of the nominal damageoutput,
    - divide it equally to all enemys in target area,
    - if an enemy unit is destroyed, take the not used damage and divide it again equally on the remaining enemys
    (and now write this in the code :thumbsup: :saint: )

    As for defence, it is quite simple:
    everything attacked might shoot back :)

    So im happy to see some discussions about that :)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Dorado Games
    DE - Team Lead
    Conflict of Nations




    "That was not me, it was already broken!"
  • Between the Germanico and Feryed answer, i can't really say if i approve or disapprove, but i can only say that i really like the "design" of "let's give the player a choice, between two behaviours with their pros and cons".

    Something like "reduced output of damage but double if direct attack" could then work, but i do raise a warning : We need to be careful of finding a way to inform players (especially new) of this specific "sub-rule". The game is already intricate (and it's part of its goodness) and there is already a lot of "subtle things" we try to learn to young players. If such a system is added without a way for even casual players to immediatly grasp "the advantages" of X or Y behaviour, it will not serve its purpose
    Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
  • To be honest. Patrol mode in all those strictly offensive units adds many opportunities for dirty play. Can be used to :
    - increase range ( by patrolling on maximum range limit ),
    - short arrival time ( by targeting precisely with patrol circle border; worth to mention that helis are about 5 minutes faster ),
    - scouting ( by crossing opponent country from point to point ),
    - stay undetected ( by patrol over own border or sea ( including hostile radar blips to the circle ) ), by avoiding to move into targets's view range, by hiding airport where aircraft is coming from ),
    - multikill,
    - and probably more but I didn't notice.

    And on top of that, strike fighter role is for precision strike, not to patrol, I guess.

    If I seriously think about it, everything is telling me that patrol mode should be cut off from some air units, and only direct fire available. I feel this is the clear solution (also to newbies). But It will make game 'painful' and of course will start chain reaction in balance.

    Other:
    - returning to no penalty for 10/10 stacks concept,
    - boost strike fighter (but what exactly in numbers - is a good question).
    - if only direct fire to SF, increase patrol zone to - let's say - 100 ( so it means ASF could be now set up somewhere like SAM ). Very comfortable, but nah... Could become too deadly.

    So, maybe shared damage... Uh oh... I've switched to land strategy anyway. 8o
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    "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
    - Marvin Lee Minsky

    ***



    The post was edited 2 times, last by Efreet: readability, grammar ().

  • No patrol for strike fighters is "weird" but i like the approach. However, how to balance it with choppers that do have (logically) a patrol ? We cut it off too ? Or maybe buff the Strike fighter to be REALLY like an air-ground sniper, while chopper deal more "diffused" damage.
    Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
  • Well... :whistling: Yup. Cutting. :evil:

    To balance choppers - problem is that everything is balanced over patrol splash damage. :D

    Am I not defend status quo well enough ? :D

    But something changed in my perception I see now patrol as the most comfortable source of abuses. :(
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    ***

    "We rarely recognize how wonderful it is that a person can traverse an entire lifetime without making a single really serious mistake — like putting a fork in one's eye or using a window instead of a door."
    - Marvin Lee Minsky

    ***



  • With the short range of mobile anti-air, yes, totally.

    With the SAM long range, in some way, one may argue that if they are positioned well enough, patrol only increase the punishment. Can be defended as a way of seeing things.

    But well, it's true that chopper patrol may be abused.


    Now, to take the other "side", patrol is also heavily used by casuals to say "protect this area" or "go check in this area and if there is something, attack it".

    This part of the feature, i don't think it would be good to "cut it". What would be desirable to cut is the "exploit ability to kill 20 units at once"
    Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
  • I love the ability of choppers to fight from the shadows thanks to the patrol reach, because as Fereyd pointed out you can attack enemy units from outside the border, without having to enter and reveal your choppers. But as Opulon pointed out, it makes MAA pretty useless, because the patrol range of choppers is so big, that a patrol does not trigger the AA-attack of MAAs because the center of patrol is out of reach. (Patrol range 50, counter attack range 26, same goes for cruisers.)

    I always thought of the patrol as an compensation for not getting an reload after a kill. Having to kill thinly spread out units with direct fighting would make it extremely bothersome to clear up AI and zerging players. Artillery gets a reload after killing, so they can on that way clean single units in quick succession, patrol kill them all at once.

    But it is true, that it leads also to a lot of abuse, by attacking hostile units without getting in range of their AA-units, therefore rendering them pretty useless if player are not aware of the issue. The question is: Is that exploitation or is that 'understanding the game'?

    Though I suspect the issue with MAA and cruisers should get fixed anyhow. And I could also live with Opulons suggestion of diminished combat strength on patrols.

    Also I think it should be added, patrols make fixed wing officer an inferior air superiority unit. Air superiority units ignore ground units and can be used for scouting, a fixed wing officer counts as air sup and as striker, so it does not ignore ground units, making it useless for scouting only. (One of the reasons why I wish for passive stance for air unit patrols.)


    I guess as a little example of the strength of patrols, the devestating effect of only 2 patrol attacks:

    The post was edited 2 times, last by Kalrakh ().

  • Little add in regards of MAA:

    The get a range of fifty later on, but because their sight range is only 26 and they have no radar, the attacker probably can still attack without triggering an offensive reaction, because he can stay unseen? (not tested, just assuming, hardly ever meet MAA with higher level anyway)


    And another idea that just popped up in my head:
    If we lower attack power during patrol, passing by a patroling Air Sup might be exploitable. Your Air Sup would defend with full strength, but their Air Sup would only attack with reduced strength, giving it automatically a disadvantage and therefore a new source of exploitation.

    The post was edited 1 time, last by Kalrakh ().

  • True.

    Even if we also know that patrol can be used in the same way to exterminate air groups, if they fly in "close formations"
    Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.