Improving Aircraft Carriers

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xeeks
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Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by xeeks »

Most of the time AI re-bases planes in Aircraft Carriers to Land based Airbases. I would like to have those planes in my Carriers permanently.

One of the ways is... When I build any plane which is carrier based plane it should be based in Aircraft Carriers and if I don't have carriers or at full capacity shouldn't be able to build those type of planes or AI shouldn't build those type of planes (I use AI to build)... For Example: When I build F-35C (Which is solely Carrier based) it should be based on a carrier instead of land based air bases.

Aircraft Carriers are used in modern world as to project power and support war efforts... To use AC now in the game have to micro manage it... Thus takes away many advantages of having Aircraft Carriers... If Aircraft Carriers can keep planes based in it... It would allow players to utilize Aircraft Carriers to support an invasion.
Last edited by xeeks on Oct 26 2014, edited 1 time in total.
adam_brisbane
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by adam_brisbane »

I agree with this idea in part, though a F-18 would be different to implement such a idea for. So got me to think of two options

Options 1 - instead of the Aircraft Fabrications building air carriers planes why could they not get the Navy Fabrication to build them and only have the carrier versions listed that that would only end up been able to go to a Aircraft carrier or placed in reserve.

Option 2 - When you build a aircraft carrier you have to select the planes you wish to place in the carrier and it is calculated in the time to build of the carrier. This would also lead to people not building midways in the 1940s and keeping them to 2050 because they have 6 slots compared to modern carriers that have 5 or 4.
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Fistalis »

Teaching the AI to use aircraft carriers as aircraft carriers rather than resupply ships have been on my wish list since 2020... GL with that. :wink:

btw neither of your suggestions will fix the fact that the AI views Carriers strictly as supply ships. You can have all the planes on them you want... the AI will only send carriers in a response to a resupply request.

Of course since i don't have SRU this is assuming BG didn't revamp the whole AI from 1936 to SRU.
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Hullu Hevonen
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Hullu Hevonen »

They promised "fleets"
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rogerbacon
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by rogerbacon »

xeeks wrote:Most of the time AI re-bases planes in Aircraft Carriers to Land based Airbases. I would like to have those planes in my Carriers permanently.

One of the ways is... When I build any plane which is carrier based plane it should be based in Aircraft Carriers and if I don't have carriers or at full capacity shouldn't be able to build those type of planes ...
This is a terrible idea and totally ahistorical. The Japanese used zeros and other carrier-capable planes on land bases during much of the war.

The proper solution (in addition to teaching the AI what a CV is) is to have one more setting for the minister for air units besides none-low-med-high that says "Don't rebase this unit". That way you can choose any unit you want and give it that setting and then it can also have high level of AI control to fly missions yet it will be doing the missions where you placed it and not rebase. This is good for land-based air as well if you don't want it flying off somewhere.
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Zuikaku
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Zuikaku »

Step one: teach AI not to rebase CV airgroups unless they are obsolete and modern replacement is available

Step two: teach AI to base correct mix of fighters and bombers on CVs

Step three: teach AI to attack with CV aircrafts enemy threats in range - ships and other CVs first

Step four: teach AI to launch fighter CAP when enemy aircrafts are in range

step five: teach AI to escort CVs with destroyers/escorts

Step six: teach AI to use CVs as mobile support for fleets, invasions or sea interdiction

That is maybe too much for AI to learn, but without that, carriers are useless...
Please teach AI everything!
rogerbacon
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by rogerbacon »

Zuikaku wrote:Step one: teach AI not to rebase CV airgroups unless they are obsolete and modern replacement is available

Step two: teach AI to base correct mix of fighters and bombers on CVs

Step three: teach AI to attack with CV aircrafts enemy threats in range - ships and other CVs first

Step four: teach AI to launch fighter CAP when enemy aircrafts are in range

step five: teach AI to escort CVs with destroyers/escorts

Step six: teach AI to use CVs as mobile support for fleets, invasions or sea interdiction

That is maybe too much for AI to learn, but without that, carriers are useless...
Even with all of that, there's still one more thing that I think is essential to make CVs work like they did in real life.
CVs right now are virtually blind, being able to see only about 7 km. I would propose that the spotting rating of a cv be automatically increased when an air group is onboard to represent the search capabilities of aircraft. I'd make it something like Square root of (# of planes in the group * plane range). So for an 18 plane group with a range of 1000km that would give a spotting range of 134 km. Maybe code it so that the plane group had to be a tac bomber group as fighters were not used for search.
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Zuikaku
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Zuikaku »

CVs during WW2 used their bombers for search. Japanese prefered using B5N torpedo bombers. USN used dauntless bombers for search. So, AI should learn to use bombers and other aircrafts to search for enemy, but that is just too much to ask...

I like more the idea that CV has a chance to detect something in the within the range of it's aircrafts... something like generic search capability that depends on the range of aircrafts onboard?
Please teach AI everything!
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Zuikaku
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Zuikaku »

rogerbacon wrote: I would propose that the spotting rating of a cv be automatically increased when an air group is onboard to represent the search capabilities of aircraft. I'd make it something like Square root of (# of planes in the group * plane range). So for an 18 plane group with a range of 1000km that would give a spotting range of 134 km. Maybe code it so that the plane group had to be a tac bomber group as fighters were not used for search.
+1
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geminif4ucorsair
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by geminif4ucorsair »

Even with all of that, there's still one more thing that I think is essential to make CVs work like they did in real life.
CVs right now are virtually blind, being able to see only about 7 km. I would propose that the spotting rating of a cv be automatically increased when an air group is onboard to represent the search capabilities of aircraft. I'd make it something like Square root of (# of planes in the group * plane range). So for an 18 plane group with a range of 1000km that would give a spotting range of 134 km. Maybe code it so that the plane group had to be a tac bomber group as fighters were not used for search.[/quote]

* * CVs right now are virtually blind, being able to see only about 7 km.
Comment: this is not really correct. Suggest that you check the Spotty Types chart on the website to see correlations between Spot Type 1 (and other variables of Range and Strength)
Example: UNITID# 16025 - Ark Royal Class CV (CV 91) - 1935 - Spot Type 1 is "30" - equating to a 31-km detection range.

No UNITID# - Ark Royal Class Modernization CV (CV 91) - 1948 - Spot Type 1 is "92" - equating to a 92-km detection range, because of its new radars, etc. [presume this new unit, as a modernized unit of HMS Ark Royal, will make future Updates in both SR-1936 and
"SR-Ultimate".

At this point, BG has ARK ROYAL and EAGLE rated at 29; ILLUSTRIOUS at 68, and IMPLACABLE at 101.
Therefore, I am confused as to your suggestion that CVs only has a Spot 1 range of 7-km.(other navies were looked at too).

* * .....spotting rating of a cv be automatically increased when an air group is onboard to represent the search capabilities of aircraft.
Each ship design has its own Type 1 spotting capability, irrespective of what aircraft it might carry.

You can augment this search range - such as IJN Akagi flying off B5N Kate aircraft squadron - in a specific search direction; hence, it is separate from the ships radars and other search/detection capability. If you have a onboard Squadron with a 1000-km range, you can search that range....or half that disance if you want them back :lol:.....[Note: the lack of 'waypoints' continues to hinder proper search ability in the game, which could otherwise use player determined search patterns, etc. for greater historical accuracy.]

In the case of SR-1936, which now has unique floatplane carriers, a Squadron allocation number is assigned (just like a CV/CVL/CVE).

In the case of Destroyers or other ships with a small contingent of floatplanes or helicopters, they are figured into both the Type 1 and Type 2 (underwater) spotting ranges....based on historical norms of how far these helos were allowed to operate from their 'mother' ship....a Tone or Chikuma heavy cruiser flying E13 (Jake) floatplanes has enhanced Type 1 spotting, yet these floatplanes, not representing a 18-plane squadron of aircraft, do not get a "squadron-type" onboard assignment (as with CV/CVL/CVEs).
in practical terms, this varies from @ 25-km to 75-100-km in SR.
Last edited by geminif4ucorsair on Oct 17 2014, edited 1 time in total.
xeeks
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by xeeks »

I know intelligent AI for Aircraft Carriers are lot to ask for and perhaps beyond the capabilities of this game engine. But I'm interested in what developers has to say about this...
Stangryn
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Stangryn »

For personal control that simple-ish fix of making the plane always go back to its original base and not rebase would solve most my problems with using carriers. However, it would be nice to have the enemy be capable of sending in an airstrike (potentially from around the globe) with a carrier as well. As it stands currently if you are at war with someone 2-3 countries seperated from you, it's almost impossible for them to bring any air power to the fight (which is not also true for the player, giving us an unfair advantage that most of us probably don't need/want).

Just my two cents though.
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Fistalis »

Stangryn wrote:For personal control that simple-ish fix of making the plane always go back to its original base and not rebase would solve most my problems with using carriers. However, it would be nice to have the enemy be capable of sending in an airstrike (potentially from around the globe) with a carrier as well. As it stands currently if you are at war with someone 2-3 countries seperated from you, it's almost impossible for them to bring any air power to the fight (which is not also true for the player, giving us an unfair advantage that most of us probably don't need/want).

Just my two cents though.
There are a huge number of player centric features. It's really a design decision.. and balancing the player demand of features with the fact that there just isn't enough dev time to get the AI to use them all properly. That is to say.. many players demand features that BG will never have the resources to add + get the AI to use properly. Not to mention adding these new features takes dev time away from getting the AI to properly use the features already implemented. It's a vicious cycle..
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by Aragos »

This is going to sound odd, but it seems to work this way in game.

Where ever you have a Sea Port with an airfield/airbase, the AI will load A/c on the CVs. If it doesn't, it won't. Maybe the addition of airfields wherever ports are will help the AI along.

Just an observation.
xeeks
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Re: Improving Aircraft Carriers

Post by xeeks »

Aragos wrote:This is going to sound odd, but it seems to work this way in game.

Where ever you have a Sea Port with an airfield/airbase, the AI will load A/c on the CVs. If it doesn't, it won't. Maybe the addition of airfields wherever ports are will help the AI along.

Just an observation.
That's hardly ideal... Building extra Airfields costs money and costs maintenance... Hence not good for the economy...
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