Suggestions on Small Changes to Air Missions

[Slyguy3129]

I'm very excited to hear about Cold War, not just for the game itself but just engrossing myself in that era.

I was wondering if you were going to change any of the mission to combat specifically air combat. It just seems like it is missing its versatility. Such as:

Stand off CAS: The unit attacks at max range (determined by unit) avoids contact with ground units. Good for Fighter Bombers to keep them from dive bombing themselves to death.
NAP CAS/RECON: (Attack Choppers) Unit close in to min range (gains a slight stealth and def bonus for being under radar/behind trees ect) plus added range for recon. Maybe make both these mission like escort where you select the mission then select the unit you want to attack it to the there you have it.

I understand in SR2020GC you can determine in the ROE what the unit attack (L/A/S) but I would like the ability to determine whether it should attack armor/ artillery/ infantry/supplies. While a true global war never broke out it was obvious that the main battle plan for the Soviets was to enmass attack with tanks and overwhelm the NATO forces before American reinforcements could arrive (Red Storm Rising). Being able to order you plan to patrol and attack only armor units (and have the option for it to stand off attack maybe it should be a toggle button like stealth or attack targets of oppurtunity) would help hold off the enemy while allowing the player to micro manage if he so chooses to. Plus as I mentioned it would be a viable strategy. Air Power is the tank killer after all.

Just some ideas I had that I thought I would toss on the forum to see if anyone else had thought about it. Anyone else have any suggestion of this ilk?

[tkobo]

I understand in SR2020GC you can determine in the ROE what the unit attack (L/A/S) but I would like the ability to determine whether it should attack armor/ artillery/ infantry/supplies.

hmmmmm.......i can see problems with this as well as benefits.Not sure which outweighs the other.
I "think" id rather see an "attack preference" like setting,than an "attack restriction" like setting if they tried to go with something like this.

[SoB]

[quote= [/quote]

hmmmmm.......i can see problems with this as well as benefits.Not sure which outweighs the other.
I "think" id rather see an "attack preference" like setting,than an "attack restriction" like setting if they tried to go with something like this.[/quote]

Agree but not just for aircrafts but all units it would be use full

[Slyguy3129]

hmmmmm.......i can see problems with this as well as benefits.Not sure which outweighs the other.
I "think" id rather see an "attack preference" like setting,than an "attack restriction" like setting if they tried to go with something like this.

Agree but not just for aircrafts but all units it would be use full

Problems as far as technical or game play wise? I mean with the stand off feature if the enemies AA is there is can tear you up, and NAP would have a negative affect on ground defense since you are flying so close.

As far as the rest of the units I was hoping it would trickle down to them. With restrictions do you mean preventing a unit from attack INF,AA,ARTY and leaving only armor then it would do the same thing. I would be cool with that if it meant easier implementation. I mean it would make "Wild Weasel" so much easier to manage. Get about 10 units. Set or Restrict them to only attack AA units. Turn off Auto Attack, the move and set patrol. Once there find you target let loose first five then let lose the other 5.

What problems do you think would occur?

[tkobo]

Things that the player has to deal with when using roe to lock out units from attacking are :

*major reduction in units functionality under this
Say you assign a bunch of aircraft to only attack naval units, then set them on sea border patrol.In comes an air invasion,those units do nothing .
Say you next assign those same air units to only attack naval and air units,large battle takes place,some ground units manage to land,those air units do nothing against the beachhead.
etc...

*keeping track of what units can attack what
You need to really organize and keep watch over such units.Battlegroups work ,but have to be reset as losses occur.More work than you might think.Even just creating all the different battle groups is more work than it could be, and as more land is gained,more groups need to be set up.

*dealing with the temp to permanent loss of said units
As mentioned above,the best way to use this currently is thru organized groups,like BGs.BUT losses due to repair or complete loss mean our constantly checking on and adding or decreasing units from the groups.

*Dont expect the AI to do this, and even if it manages,dont expect it to do it good.

Now you can get the majority of what your trying to get here, and lose most of the negatives,by simply turning the attack or dont attack of the RoE into an order of preference attack system.Making the RoE a system that decides which of the targets to go after first from whats seen,which allows it to go after everything but still look for and concentrate on specific targets be they spotted.

So those same aircraft mentioned in the first example:
Naval units set to priority 1
Air units set to priority 2
Ground units set to priority 3.

In comes naval invasion,They react and attack it

In comes an air invasion,they look, see no naval, and go to priority 2,and attack the air.

In comes a major all part invasion.They spot the incoming air leading the way, see no other priorities and engage the air,as they are doing so,into view comes the naval assault the enemy air was trying to secure the area for.They now see a higher priority target and attack it.
The battle is very large and some ground units manage to make landfall,creating a beachhead.The air units fight off the naval, then the air, and then seeing no higher priority,attack the land units.

One BG does it all,no need to watch over or maneuver in three different bgs, because theres no loss of functionality of the units in the one.AND the addition of such a system is simple enough the ai could handle it,even helicopter pilots AND it brings target awareness and threat awareness to the units control system.

If you set the priorities to work off of threat,like fightbombers attacking visible anti-air first,number one priority.Artillery to look at other art as priority one. etc...

[Cutlass]

I like that idea. Looks like it would be reasonably flexible without becoming a total coding nightmare. It also leaves open the possibility of "forcing" the older style ROE on a unit by giving the same target type all three priorities. For instance, I occasionally use some air units only for an air superiority role and do not want those units engaging other kinds of targets where they will on average take more damage for a lot less return.

Questions of missile loadout also come into play, but if one is going to make maximum use of the target priority system then it would make it more desireable to produce missiles that have some attack strength versus all types of targets as opposed to missiles that can engage only one or two types of targets with no effect on the others.

[mfisher12]

Things that the player has to deal with when using roe to lock out units from attacking are :

*major reduction in units functionality under this
Say you assign a bunch of aircraft to only attack naval units, then set them on sea border patrol.In comes an air invasion,those units do nothing .
Say you next assign those same air units to only attack naval and air units,large battle takes place,some ground units manage to land,those air units do nothing against the beachhead.

SR2020-GC is like that already, though assigning roles is a pain in the rear. Modern air units are far more mission-specific and alter their missile loadouts according to their anticipated target. Very rarely do I assign a group of attack aircraft to patrol for naval targets and arm them with anti-ground unit munitions.

Remember Midway - one of the reasons the Japanese carrier force was so easily destroyed was because Nagumo had to switch his strike planes between anti-ship and anti-ground bombs. Why should it be any different in the Cold War period?

Now you can get the majority of what your trying to get here, and lose most of the negatives,by simply turning the attack or dont attack of the RoE into an order of preference attack system.Making the RoE a system that decides which of the targets to go after first from whats seen,which allows it to go after everything but still look for and concentrate on specific targets be they spotted.

So those same aircraft mentioned in the first example:
Naval units set to priority 1
Air units set to priority 2
Ground units set to priority 3.

I like that solution better, but you're still looking at a different weapons loadout for the most part. The ideal solution - though harder to implement - would allow the aircraft's base to decide the priorities and arm the planes with the appropriate bombs and missiles.

[tkobo]

Thing is,missiles will be much rarer in the cold war era.And even in sr2020,you didnt have to task out an aircraft with specific missiles for specfic roles.You could,but you didnt have too.
Sometimes it helped,sometimes it hurt the units performance.

In the sr series so far ,aircraft can perfrom their functions based on default attack stats,and loadouts in the game only come into play with missiles modeled sperately from the unit.I really dont see them changing this in a way that makes the player have even more responsibility for arming the aircraft.

Many people cant even get a handle on the levels its at now, so though i personally would love a system that goes as far as harpoon, i dont think the majority of other players would, and i dont think the devs would take it that far.

In addition, currently the missile units in the game have their own system,that can be used in addition to the RoE.So you really have to approach it from a default aircraft basis,rather than a missile loadout basis,unless the devs push it into harpoons deep waters AND also redo the missile system.

Now adjusting the missile system to take priorites into account would be a nice touch.Where the priorities set determine the missile loadout IF you allow it to do so,automatically.But combining both the RoE and the missile system into one,and making the player have more responsibility in arming the aircraft,i dont think is the way to go.

[Slyguy3129]

A few more suggestions perhaps, maybe give us a newspaper ala SuperPower 1 every month or week or something giving an idea or Domestic Approval and concerns there. Whats happening around the world, and a market history graph showing expenses in each department or whatever. Atleast some way to represent this.

Perhaps a way to receive intel reports on locations you have spies in regarding what they country is building or focusing on or whatever.

Just something to give the player more information, plus the newspaper could be used for events? Since its Cold War I thought the devs might want to make it as immersible as possible.