Hello all,
Can someone please explain how to lay out waypoints in idiot-speak? I am holding down shift-left click, but, I only can layout the initial target-destination point, it doesn't even prompt me for additional points. Am I missing something?
Thanks.
Waypoints...I must be missing something
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yakaspat
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Decimatus
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yorkie
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deanco
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Xetal
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I have not found a way to use waypoints, and have tried both shift-clicking and looking for a way using the menu.
However, I really have felt little need to set waypoints, as the movement system in the game works pretty well. Also, I find that due to AA fire that setting an automatic patrol of your aircraft doesn't work as well as taking control groups of all of them at once and flying them to the point that you need the firepower, and then selecting the groups and flying them back when you're done.
Quite honestly I don't use aircraft for larger senarios due to the fact that they tend to run themselves out of fuel and crash if you don't give them a ton of micromanagement. For the smaller senarios they are quite good unless your enemy has a fair number of long-range AA fire (which the AI doesn't seem to favor building, thank god). Things like Thunderbolt-II's work wonders in the early senarios due to their cheapness, their fair durability, and their very strong anti-ground fire.
In my recent michigan game I build 12 full squadrens (26 each) of Thunderbolt II's for my wars against ohio and indiana. That's 312 units each hitting everything in their flight path for 80ish damage a pop. I basically hedged my troops into ohio, which caused them to send a bunch of units my way, and then manually took my two control groups of Thunderbolts and flew them over the battle (which was just starting). My ground troops really didn't have to do much work...
The point is that it was done with use of control groups, which would be an even better option if two changes were made. Change 1: Have your aircraft have a 'home base' that they always return to when you tell them to return to base. Change 2: Change the way their fuel works so that they no longer crash. They have so much fuel, and when they run out they have to fly directly back to base. Realistically pilots keep very good track of their fuel and rarely just 'run out'... and this would reflect that.
Those two changes would allow you to use large control groups of aircraft and have no need for a constant 'patrol' command (or anything similar)
However, I really have felt little need to set waypoints, as the movement system in the game works pretty well. Also, I find that due to AA fire that setting an automatic patrol of your aircraft doesn't work as well as taking control groups of all of them at once and flying them to the point that you need the firepower, and then selecting the groups and flying them back when you're done.
Quite honestly I don't use aircraft for larger senarios due to the fact that they tend to run themselves out of fuel and crash if you don't give them a ton of micromanagement. For the smaller senarios they are quite good unless your enemy has a fair number of long-range AA fire (which the AI doesn't seem to favor building, thank god). Things like Thunderbolt-II's work wonders in the early senarios due to their cheapness, their fair durability, and their very strong anti-ground fire.
In my recent michigan game I build 12 full squadrens (26 each) of Thunderbolt II's for my wars against ohio and indiana. That's 312 units each hitting everything in their flight path for 80ish damage a pop. I basically hedged my troops into ohio, which caused them to send a bunch of units my way, and then manually took my two control groups of Thunderbolts and flew them over the battle (which was just starting). My ground troops really didn't have to do much work...
The point is that it was done with use of control groups, which would be an even better option if two changes were made. Change 1: Have your aircraft have a 'home base' that they always return to when you tell them to return to base. Change 2: Change the way their fuel works so that they no longer crash. They have so much fuel, and when they run out they have to fly directly back to base. Realistically pilots keep very good track of their fuel and rarely just 'run out'... and this would reflect that.
Those two changes would allow you to use large control groups of aircraft and have no need for a constant 'patrol' command (or anything similar)
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yakaspat
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My airplanes seem to return to base to refuel on their own...Xetal wrote:<snip> ...The point is that it was done with use of control groups, which would be an even better option if two changes were made. Change 1: Have your aircraft have a 'home base' that they always return to when you tell them to return to base. Change 2: Change the way their fuel works so that they no longer crash. They have so much fuel, and when they run out they have to fly directly back to base. Realistically pilots keep very good track of their fuel and rarely just 'run out'... and this would reflect that.
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Xetal
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Yakaspat:
Yup, they work fine when you only have a few, which is why I said that I use them on smaller senarios.
But have you ever tried using more than 14 units of aircraft at a time? They have a nasty tendency to all try to return to the nearest base or two... causing them to overestimate how long it will take them to get back to a base, and when the closest base or two fills up they panic and then try to find another place to land, but at that point they're too low on fuel and crash.
You can manually grab groups and direct them to airports... but it very quickly becomes impossible to do.
For example, if you have an aircraft carrier fleet that has carriers that can hold 4 planes each. Lets say you have 20 carriers and 80 aircraft. How are you going to control them when all 80 aircraft are trying to land at the closest 2-3 carriers, leaving the rest to circle, get confused... some head for your nearest LAND base (and crash into the ocean)... some try to keep circling and will do so until they crash. They will do this even if there are 15 more empty carriers sitting waiting for them. What you have to do is manually take 4 at a time and order them to land on a specific carrier.
As you can imagine, this basically makes them worthless as it takes entirely too much time to have to micromanage them. If you could just take all 80 aircraft and have them 'based' at a specific carrier that they would always return to if possible it would make this much easier, as you could just take the whole pile of them (all 80) in one control group. You could take that control group and use it for missions, and then hit the 'kill all orders' button and they would automatically return to the appropriate carriers instead of getting themselves confused, ending up out of fuel, and crashing.
Yup, they work fine when you only have a few, which is why I said that I use them on smaller senarios.
But have you ever tried using more than 14 units of aircraft at a time? They have a nasty tendency to all try to return to the nearest base or two... causing them to overestimate how long it will take them to get back to a base, and when the closest base or two fills up they panic and then try to find another place to land, but at that point they're too low on fuel and crash.
You can manually grab groups and direct them to airports... but it very quickly becomes impossible to do.
For example, if you have an aircraft carrier fleet that has carriers that can hold 4 planes each. Lets say you have 20 carriers and 80 aircraft. How are you going to control them when all 80 aircraft are trying to land at the closest 2-3 carriers, leaving the rest to circle, get confused... some head for your nearest LAND base (and crash into the ocean)... some try to keep circling and will do so until they crash. They will do this even if there are 15 more empty carriers sitting waiting for them. What you have to do is manually take 4 at a time and order them to land on a specific carrier.
As you can imagine, this basically makes them worthless as it takes entirely too much time to have to micromanage them. If you could just take all 80 aircraft and have them 'based' at a specific carrier that they would always return to if possible it would make this much easier, as you could just take the whole pile of them (all 80) in one control group. You could take that control group and use it for missions, and then hit the 'kill all orders' button and they would automatically return to the appropriate carriers instead of getting themselves confused, ending up out of fuel, and crashing.
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dust off
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tboy21
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yakaspat
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Xetal
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It isn't just with carriers... I just used them as an example because generally you use carriers to have airstrips where you otherwise couldn't (the waterways).
The same exact thing happens with airstrips and airbases on land... where the aircraft aren't quite sure where to land. In a lot of senarios that isn't a problem, because even if they all head for the closest two landing strips then there is still room for 14 squadrens of planes... which if you build them at max power like I do... that's 364 planes.
However, in some of the larger senarios where you can easily have 5x this many aircraft trying to strike on the same front... THEN it becomes a big problem. It's been suggested by a few people (I know I wasn't the first) that you should be able to 'lock' a group of aircraft to a certain airstrip, airbase, or carrier... and that they should always head for that 'base' location when they're done with their mission.
Other problems include situations like this: You are North America and you're in the world map trying to invade europe. You already have Africa... but have a limited number of airbases. You have 2 bases in northern Africa that each have 7 F16C's. You have 4 bases deep in Africa that each have 7 B52's. You launch them to bomb spain... but your B52's take the close landing strips, causing your F16's to try to fly all the way to south africa to land... they obviously don't have the fuel and crash. This situation also could have been avoided if they had a 'base' location.
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Waypoints and stealth: This is true, but for the most part I find that stealth is not nearly worth the cost that is assosiated with it in SR2010. Why pay 7000m/year for 12 Stealth Bombers when you can pay 600m/year for the same amount of B52's? As far as ground troops go, I havn't really seen much effect of stealth due to each hex being able to detect things that go in them. As far as submarines go in the navy, waypoints would be useful... but they are (mostly) slow moving and expensive, so they're much better at setting up a sub-net to ambush things than to move around a bunch. If you're trying to quickly move ships into place for a missile attack (useful to occupy enemy AA fire so they're reloading/resupplying when your bombers get there), then I find that Subs really aren't the most useful due to speed/expense, and I tend to use destroyers and cruisers.
The same exact thing happens with airstrips and airbases on land... where the aircraft aren't quite sure where to land. In a lot of senarios that isn't a problem, because even if they all head for the closest two landing strips then there is still room for 14 squadrens of planes... which if you build them at max power like I do... that's 364 planes.
However, in some of the larger senarios where you can easily have 5x this many aircraft trying to strike on the same front... THEN it becomes a big problem. It's been suggested by a few people (I know I wasn't the first) that you should be able to 'lock' a group of aircraft to a certain airstrip, airbase, or carrier... and that they should always head for that 'base' location when they're done with their mission.
Other problems include situations like this: You are North America and you're in the world map trying to invade europe. You already have Africa... but have a limited number of airbases. You have 2 bases in northern Africa that each have 7 F16C's. You have 4 bases deep in Africa that each have 7 B52's. You launch them to bomb spain... but your B52's take the close landing strips, causing your F16's to try to fly all the way to south africa to land... they obviously don't have the fuel and crash. This situation also could have been avoided if they had a 'base' location.
---
Waypoints and stealth: This is true, but for the most part I find that stealth is not nearly worth the cost that is assosiated with it in SR2010. Why pay 7000m/year for 12 Stealth Bombers when you can pay 600m/year for the same amount of B52's? As far as ground troops go, I havn't really seen much effect of stealth due to each hex being able to detect things that go in them. As far as submarines go in the navy, waypoints would be useful... but they are (mostly) slow moving and expensive, so they're much better at setting up a sub-net to ambush things than to move around a bunch. If you're trying to quickly move ships into place for a missile attack (useful to occupy enemy AA fire so they're reloading/resupplying when your bombers get there), then I find that Subs really aren't the most useful due to speed/expense, and I tend to use destroyers and cruisers.
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hithere
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waypoints seem they would be most useful with ships. for instance, i had a sub in the middle of the atlantic. i wanted it to go just north of s. america. it chose a path directly west to get in my waters (i was n. america), the work its way down. it should have just gone straight to it destination, instead, it added about 3000 miles. it was a nuke sub as well so fuel was not a factor.
as far as the stealth bombers, they seem to make it in and out much better than, say, a B-52. also, they pack much more of a punch (non-missle) than a B-52 or even a B-1. this is esp. good it you have a couple of isolated units you do not want to waste 20 million dollars worth of missles on. (ie; a camal)
and as for the carrier aircraft, it definatly needs to be looked at.
one thing i do that works pretty good, though, is assign my aircraft numbers and after a mission, manually pick the numbered groups and move them to the carriers. this kinda sux and is very micro-managy, but i have used this to launch large carrier attacks and have not lost any aircraft to fuel.
as far as the stealth bombers, they seem to make it in and out much better than, say, a B-52. also, they pack much more of a punch (non-missle) than a B-52 or even a B-1. this is esp. good it you have a couple of isolated units you do not want to waste 20 million dollars worth of missles on. (ie; a camal)
and as for the carrier aircraft, it definatly needs to be looked at.
one thing i do that works pretty good, though, is assign my aircraft numbers and after a mission, manually pick the numbered groups and move them to the carriers. this kinda sux and is very micro-managy, but i have used this to launch large carrier attacks and have not lost any aircraft to fuel.
hi there
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bergsjaeger
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I know it has happened in real life. Matter fact it was the US did the bombing. Wonder if camel steaks are good