Aircarft Squadron Size

[hullwykearlfc]

Anyone else think we should be allowed to have more in our squadron than 3 when launched? I would also like to see set attack formations.

[Gorlom]

How many aircrafts do you think there should be in a wing? How would you change the air battleUI to accommodate the larger squadron size?

I think there has to be a limit to how many planes you have in the airbattle and 3 seems as good as any. Remember that the UFOs increase in numbers as your planes does.

[Gauddlike]

If you allow more friendly aircraft you would need to allow more enemies.

The problem comes when you attack with two or three fighters and they have a small armada.

At least with the limit of three you stand a good chance of equal numbers or a slight imbalance.

You might still crash and burn but at least you had a chance

[thothkins]

I'd probably have to see it incremented and tested with more craft. There does come a point though, when it starts taking up more of the game than intended. Something you can see with the endless waves of fighters. While that's to be balanced, imagine going through that sort of endless feeling in the actual game, when all you want to do is get to the Battlescape.

Apologies to all who love the air combat part more than any other and would love loads more ships.

[hullwykearlfc]

Fiat points all, just put it there for discussion and opinions..

cheers

[Gorlom]

Fiat points all, just put it there for discussion and opinions..

cheers

That said you are doing very little discussing and onioning... er opinioning? ... having very few opinions on the subject.

[Gauddlike]

Maybe in the sequel there will be Independence Day type UFO fights.

[hullwykearlfc]

That said you are doing very little discussing and onioning... er opinioning? ... having very few opinions on the subject.

I see, tough guy

[Gorlom]

I see, tough guy

what are we discussing again?

[mace6442]

the first time I sent 3 aircraft I did wonder where the second pilots wing man was.

All military personnel always ahve a "wing man".

[hullwykearlfc]

what are we discussing again?

I am not discussing anything with people who have an attitude.

[Gorlom]

... Sorry I guess I forgot my smilies again. I did not intend to have "an attitude" I was trying to get something from you to discuss. Th original post didn't really have any meat on it's bones, so it was kind of hard to discuss anything, and the posts after that didn't have anything.

I apologize if you took offense to something I said or did. /shameful

Edited September 20, 2012 by Gorlom

[hullwykearlfc]

Apology accepted Gorlom, i wouldn't want a proud Viking on my case In relation to the air combat, i read yours and the other guys responses and was swayed by what you had to say. The aircombat is only a small part of the game afterall.

ps having read through the forum further, i see that there is still more balancing to be added to the game. Also i picked up one or two tips about successful combat with your 3 planes.

[Andeerz]

I am also of the opinion there should be bigger squadron sizes for both aliens and humans. I don't care for large armada style conflicts; I don't think those should (or would if we are going to think about how things might be IRL) happen. I know we are talking about a fictional setting here and a very simple air combat system that abstracts out like 99% of everything that happens in air engagements (which I'm totally cool with... it's an awesome game feature as is!), but I find it silly that I cannot send as many planes as I want to do what I want because of some contrived limitation that has really no reason to be there that I can see. For example, it's sort of dumb that if I have spent the resources to build 6 F-17s, and I am at a stage of the game where there are a bunch of alien squadrons of 3 fighters, that I am not able to send all six out as an escort with my chinook to ensure its safety. That alone would take care of pretty much all of the balance issues people seem to have with air combat in the game.

That said, I love the strategic air aspect of the game so frikkin' much!

[Gauddlike]

There would have to be some cap on the squadron sizes surely?

Why is 6 a better number than 3?

How would you keep some semblance of challenge if you could swarm every enemy with overwhelming force?

If you were to balance the enemies so that they weren't completely overwhelmed by your 6+ fighters how would you balance them against lesser numbers?

If you can't face them without 6+ fighters then you HAVE to fly squadrons of 6+ in order to survive.

If you could take 6+ then would the enemy also be able to take 6+ fighters?

If this was the case you have little chance of getting through to your missions unless you do the same.

I reckon all you would do by increasing or removing the squadron caps would be to force larger squadrons to be mandatory.

[Andeerz]

There is already a lot of challenge; challenge which I welcome that is frikkin' aweosome that is due to the superiority of alien craft to human craft 1 on 1 (or even 2 on 1).

However, I hate that I cannot do what came first thing to my mind to combat this challenge which I thought should be no brainer: increase the number of my aircraft to even the odds (which is something that would take good resource management to do which is crucial part of the game). And I think the enemies should be able to do the same.

How I would balance the enemies (if they even need to be balanced further) is simply give them better AI (well, that's not necessarily simple...). And I don't even think there needs to be much in the way of balancing, really. Maybe make the alien aircraft as strong if not stronger than the most advanced of possible human craft in the game and give them much shorter cool-down times for evasive maneuvers. As I said before, the alien craft (at least in veteran and insane difficulties) are already much better one on one or one on two on one than human aircraft (at least the heavy fighters are... which are the ones that should be better than all but the most advanced human fighters). And the game already has the mechanisms in place to balance my suggestion: squadrons of alien craft get bigger as the game progresses. Just make them continue to get bigger than just three per squadron at a reasonable rate. The game should be balanced (and sort of already is) by making it so that by the time aliens get squadrons of a step up in larger size and strength, you will have (if you play smartly) accumulated sufficient resources to combat this increase in alien strength with more and/or stronger planes on your side. It doesn't seem like something that would require anything but changes in numerical values on tables, and some slight tweaks to the air combat UI, and maybe improvements to alien air combat AI.

I guess there ought to be a cap, like maybe 20 or something per side (which I think one would never get to anyway...).

But basically, my suggestion boils down to verisimilitude. The aliens are supposed to have ridiculously awesome aircraft from the get go. And the way this should be balanced (the way it is now sort of) is by having the aliens start off with just single aircraft squadrons at first and then move up in number per squadron and frequency of squadrons as the game progresses (which is justified nicely in the background story arc as to why this happens). If I managed to be smart with my resource management to have built extra planes for the purpose of evening the odds, I should be allowed to do so. This 3 aircraft limit per squad breaks game immersion for me as it is such a contrived limitation and uncreative way to achieve game balance that ultimately sacrifices cohesion of the game universe. I think it's possible to have one's cake and eat it to (balance the game and make a robust, solid game universe, and make the game fun all at the same time) if one is creative.

EDIT: You know, actually, I think I could live with there just being a 3 plane limit, but just have it so that you can include the chinook in the squad without it counting towards the 3 planes.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Andeerz

[Max_Caine]

There are lots of requests for help and complaints about the existing model. It appears that a sizeable chunk of people have issues getting to grips with squadron verses squadron, and upping the air war with a theoretical maximum of 20 a side would make it even worse.

"But Max, if the player can field more aircraft, then problem solved!". Not really. The logistics of fielding aircraft doesn't make it easy on the player. An F-17 costs 200,000. A hangar costs 300,000. MiGs? 250,000, the cost of engineer wages to build it, and the knock-on cost that your engineers can't build fancy gear for your troopers all the time they are busy with aircraft. That's without maintenance costs - F17's costing 40,000 a month, with MiGs clocking in at 50,000. Putting resources into a large fleet is an extremely heavy investment, both inital and on-going, and it's unfair to ask players who already have problems with the air combat system to put even more into it and less into the aspects of the game they find pleasurable, when tweaking the existing system come the beta will provide a reasonable and enjoyable minigame, instead of a constant pressure.

[Thann]

At the moment 3 fighters are not really better than 3 F-17. If you do your rolls at the right time, you shouldn't loose any planes (normally). I just tried to do some fights 2 F-17 vs. 3 fighters:

1. fight: 2 F-17 shot down, 1 fighter shot down (unlucky hit by a delayed fighter rocket destroyed one of the F-17)

2. fight: 3 fighters shot down, only few damage to the F-17

3. fight: 1 F-17 shot down, 3 fighters shot down, other F-17 half damaged

4. fight: 3 fighters shot down, both F-17 heavy damaged (18%, 35% health)

5. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged heavy and half (27%, 52% health)

6. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged heavy and half (38%, 61% health)

7. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged low and half (78%, 61% health)

8. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged low (93%, 78% health)

9. fight: 3 fighters shot down, F-17 damaged heavy and low (25%, 88% health)

As you can see, you even can shoot down 3 fighters with 2 F-17 and with some experience you don't even loose one of your aircrafts. And I read from another thread, that at the moment there are too many fighters in the air. So I think in the release version there should be no problems to kill the fighters in this stage of the game (perhaps some more problems on higher difficulties).

On the topic of aircraft squadron size. I think the squadron size should stay capped. Three is a good number given that you have three F-17 at the start of the game. I wouldn't like more, because if you could have more, then the enemies also would have more (or it wouldn't be a challenge). And then you would have to build more than 3 hangars in every interceptor base to be able to destroy all UFOs near each interceptor base. If you have more aircrafts in a fight then the enemy then the battle wouldn't be a challenge. You could always find a trick to conquer the enemy AI like using the attacked F-17s as a bait and letting them fly away from the UFOs while the other aircrafts pursuit them. And if the UFOs would change their target to counter this trick, then you could play some "turn the UFO" game. And if you increased the UFO turn speed to counter this trick, then you would find another trick (I already would have some ideas for that but it would depend on the situation). At the moment I like the 3 fighter vs. 3 F-17 fights because you have good chances to save all planes if you have few experience and you have a challenge to get as few damage as possible.

[Andeerz]

I'm not asking for the game to be any easier. I'm glad there is so much involved in the logistics of supporting your air force! It's a welcome and awesome challenge and I think this would be what would self-balance a lot of this suggestion so that, among other things, the game would never get to this theoretical 20 plane maximum or even close to it. Also... it might be worth noting that the only times I've ever been frustrated with this 3 plane limit are while playing on veteran and insane difficulties... especially insane difficulty. Too many times have I cursed the fact that I couldn't add another F-17 to as an escort to my chinook to improve the odds that I don't lose anyone to interception on the way to a terror site.

But I guess you are right about it being unfair for other players to draw more of the game into the air combat stuff... I guess I find the air aspect of it actually fun and pretty good for the most part the way it is other than the fact that I can't add to a squadron as many planes as I have lying around that through my skillful gameplay I can afford to maintain. I didn't realize so many people had problems with it.

Also... when I said fighters earlier... I meant heavy fighters... those things are BEASTS and arrive early on insane difficulty. A lot of fun, but darn I hate not being able to just put in that fourth fighter in the squadron...

And I think the number of fighters in the air is pretty neat, personally.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Andeerz

[Thann]

I think I didn't have any heavy fighters yet. Played on veteran and only played till october because of the october savegame CTDs. Perhaps I'll look at insane difficulty if I have the time just to see how hard heavy fighters are.

[Andeerz]

I'd imagine there's some exploit that could be done to kill 'em good just like with the others... I just encountered them a few times and got obliterated every time!

[ElTee]

How do you balance this as is? One immediate effect is that you'd need to either:

1. Build more bases

2. Dedicate more space to hangers.

3. [Gameplay change]: Have hangers support multiple aircraft

4. [Gameplay change]: Make aircraft cheaper.

etc.

[anotherdevil]

And how about trying to balance it in actual combat? It'd be most confusing trying to organise 20 aircraft against 15+ UFOs all on the air combat screen...

[Andeerz]

Playing the game more as is... I guess I could live with squadron sizes being 3... though I'd prefer 6. And what DEFINITELY needs to change, methinks, is that noncombat aircraft (i.e. dropships) should not contribute towards the limit of aircraft per squadron.

Even if squadron size was unlimited... if the game difficulty scales properly as the game goes on, like maybe aliens have squadron sizes increase in max size by one per month, I don't see squadron sizes on either size ever going above maybe 10... And that is not a mindboggling amount of craft to manage. I like the air combat... it just needs a few more aircraft, I think, to truly get the most out of the minigame. And I'm NOT saying that every engagement should have a whole bunch of aircraft: I think even late game there should be instances of single aircraft flying about as it happens now.

[Gauddlike]

But those single aircraft would stand no chance at all against your 9 craft squadrons.

And if you ever sent a single craft out to intercept it you would be risking getting hit by 9 enemy craft and standing no chance yourself.

If you up the limits then you change the game.

The change would simply mean that the only way to survive would be to always take the absolute maximum number of craft.

I don't think any amount of craft would be too difficult to control given the right control method.

I just don't think it would give any gameplay benefit.

Non combat craft shouldn't take up squadron space in the future, Chris agrees that it gives you too great a disadvantage when trying to defend your dropships.