Aircarft Squadron Size

[Andeerz]

I'm glad Chris agrees on that point!

As for what I said about the single aircraft... sure they don't stand a chance against my 9 aircraft squadrons, nor do they stand a chance against three or two. And me sending out my single aircraft in the game... yeah they are at risk whether it's nine UFOs or two.

Also, think about what happens after about a month in the game. There are a LOT of UFOs about. I frequently find myself having to judge what to send where, and I never have enough aircraft to pursue all targets (not that I find that a problem gameplay wise! Fun challenge...). I normally only send one or two aircraft against squadrons containing a single UFO anyway, because I only have so many aircraft to mobilize at any given time... so it's not like the game would change in that respect all that much. Plus, getting nine aircraft and being able to afford and maintain them is hard enough in the game (and I have no problem with that). I cannot envision a time where I've had enough aircraft at my disposal at any given time to (had I the ability to) have a squadron of bigger than five... especially not with the multiple UFOs flying about that I have to intercept.

The main gameplay benefit I see from having unlimited or a larger limit (like 5 to 9 or something) squadron size:

I can outnumber the enemy when it makes sense to do so, and they can outnumber me when it makes sense to do so (why the hell shouldn't I be able to send more than three planes out against an escorted capital ship if I know it's coming to attack my base and I have more than three planes at the ready and know they have superior aircraft? Also, why can't the enemy decide to merge squadrons or mobilize larger ones if they want to up the odds against me (which should scale with the difficulty of the game as the game progresses)? And if upping the limits changes the game, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

To put it more simply, my suggestion is that I should be limited by my resource management abilities and the aliens should be limited by the scaling of difficulty as the game progresses. And I feel my suggestion likely would improve the game by taking out an annoying, contrived limitation that sticks out like a sore thumb and breaks immersion. If that isn't a gameplay benefit, I don't know what is.

In any case, I can see where you are coming from, Gauddlike, but I feel like neither of us can tell what might happen until it's tried anyway.

[Gauddlike]

It won't be tried.

The game would need several systems redesigning in order to try out larger squadron sizes.

Your suggestion would just make balancing the air combat incredibly difficult with no benefits to gameplay that I can see.

All it would accomplish would be to force players to have multiple huge squadrons to compete with the aliens huge squadrons.

You are changing nothing you are simply multiplying the numbers.

If you know you can hire an extra few craft at the start and stand little chance of being beaten in the air then where is the challenge or the tension?

All you need to do is consistently hire an extra craft or two each time the enemies get a slightly larger squadron and you easily maintain an unassailable advantage.

If the enemy is balanced to make this tactic less appealing by making them able to take on larger squadron sizes you then lose the ability to fly smaller squadrons completely as they stand no chance of survival, let alone victory.

I don't feel that you are thinking through the implications of your suggestion past the cool factor of larger scale battles.

I also don't feel that limiting the number of craft in a squadron stands out any more than limiting the number of ground troops does.

There has to be some limit somewhere, if not you have no control over the forces in play and no way to balance the game.

For example in your system there would be nothing to stop the aliens grouping every UFO in a wave in to a single 100 ship squadron that you simply could not beat.

It would then be free to fly around ruining your relations with the funding nations it passes over or to fly in and wipe your base off the map with no way for you to stop it.

It would be equally possible for the player to set up 20 craft squadrons that the aliens could not stand against and fly round taking out as many as they could reach before running out of fuel.

There is no challenge in that and no limitation to prevent it.

If you cap the aircraft numbers at 6, or 9, or 50 there is still an arbitrary cap in place, the only difference is that you are guaranteed to meet enemy groups of that size so would be forced to have your own squadrons available in those numbers to counter them.

You have replaced the number 3 with the number 9 but not changed the game in any way.

[anotherdevil]

Yeah I agree with Gauddlike

[Andeerz]

Ok... lemme clarify some things:

It won't be tried.

The game would need several systems redesigning in order to try out larger squadron sizes.

I don't know if anyone can really say that without knowing the inner gutty works of the game. For all we know, the framework might already be there and require a few tweaks of the UI and a changing of a few numbers. But that is all speculation.

Your suggestion would just make balancing the air combat incredibly difficult with no benefits to gameplay that I can see.

All it would accomplish would be to force players to have multiple huge squadrons to compete with the aliens huge squadrons.

You are changing nothing you are simply multiplying the numbers.

If you know you can hire an extra few craft at the start and stand little chance of being beaten in the air then where is the challenge or the tension?

My main argument here is that any limits imposed on a player in a game should make sense within the context of the game universe it occurs in; it should at least make sense enough that it doesn't draw attention to the implausibility of the premise of the game or possible holes in the setting's continuity (if that is the right word...). This three plane limit does exactly these things and makes no sense for the reasons I mentioned in my previous posts. My suggestion would do more than increase the scale of air combat (and not by much, I assure you); it would remove a silly restriction that serves to detract from the atmosphere the game espouses. That alone is an improvement to gameplay. Another improvement to gameplay is that it allows for more variety and flexibility in how the player and the aliens can respond to threats. I already explained what kinds of situations I hate that the 3 aircraft limit imposes. I don't want stupid Independence Day scenarios or huge air battles... I just want air combat to make sense to avoid stupid scenarios like the one I mentioned in my last post with the ship coming to attack my base.

Balancing, I think, would not be difficult. The balance should and would arise from two things: the nature of managing resources, how much things cost, etc.; and the speed at which the aliens up their difficulty as time progresses. The game already does, in my opinion, an excellent job of striking a balance in ground combat for the most part, as by the time I get the resources to upgrade my soldiers, the aliens have themselves become more powerful adversaries (and in the higher difficulties, they do so faster than you sometimes). The way the game does this balance on the side of the player is by virtue of how much time, money, personnel, and physical resources it takes to purchase/manufacture the things you need, as well as how much time it takes to get newly hired personnel and aircraft to where you need them to go. The way the game balances things on the side of the aliens is not having them become too powerful too fast (for which there is an acceptable explanation for in the game! So this somewhat arbitrary limit on the aliens makes enough sense!). These balancing mechanisms are precisely what would and should balance my suggestion and every feature of the game. And the game definitely has this capability in place.

Think about it: as the game already stands (which is already pretty good!), it is prohibitively difficult and expensive (as it should frikkin' be) to purchase/manufacture and maintain a sizeable airforce, not to mention a sufficient ground force and significant global presence in general. And the pacing of the alien invasion scales appropriately with this. With my suggestion, one would probably never be able to get an airforce of greater than a total of 20 planes until after a few years game time if ever, and if the pacing of the alien invasion is altered to accommodate this (as in, keep the appearance of certain ships with time the same or similar as it is now... just make the sizes of squadrons increase in size at a rate proportional to what is expected of an average player's increase in airforce size), there would be balance.

So, basically, I think it is player management of resources that should limit the strategies they can employ, tech they use, and the sizes of squadrons. And proper scaling of alien difficulty with time would limit the sizes of alien squadrons.

All you need to do is consistently hire an extra craft or two each time the enemies get a slightly larger squadron and you easily maintain an unassailable advantage.

If the enemy is balanced to make this tactic less appealing by making them able to take on larger squadron sizes you then lose the ability to fly smaller squadrons completely as they stand no chance of survival, let alone victory.

...not if the limits on the aliens are done wisely and in a way that doesn't break my suspension of disbelief. More about that in my response to your quote about the 100+ aircraft UFO squadron...

I don't feel that you are thinking through the implications of your suggestion past the cool factor of larger scale battles.

I also don't feel that limiting the number of craft in a squadron stands out any more than limiting the number of ground troops does.

There has to be some limit somewhere, if not you have no control over the forces in play and no way to balance the game.

Oh, believe me, I think the limit for ground troops should be lifted as well, and that would be balanced in the same way air combat would; resource/time/etc. costs and proper scaling of enemy difficulty. And the combat wouldn't really get much bigger if at all. Maintaining troops and outfitting them to be an actual threat gets more expensive resource and time wise than aircraft pretty darned quick, and there would probably never be a time where the player would land two chinooks full of troops at a given engagement since it would cost so much logistically to do until maybe really late game (assuming the limit to troops was taken off). To put things in perspective, an individual soldier outfitted with a laser weapon and wolf armour with maintenance costs costs about as much as an aircraft, and you need way more soldiers than aircraft. So having more than 16 well equipped soldiers or whatever the limit is right now is no small feat. But that is another topic altogether. And I agree that there need to be limits somewhere, just (ideally) not where they are readily visible stick out like a sore thumb. Just look at what I wrote above in this post for how I feel limits should emerge.

For example in your system there would be nothing to stop the aliens grouping every UFO in a wave in to a single 100 ship squadron that you simply could not beat.

It would then be free to fly around ruining your relations with the funding nations it passes over or to fly in and wipe your base off the map with no way for you to stop it.

There would be something to stop that: hard limits imposed that make sense within the setting of the game like I said before. The aliens presumably have to contend with other military forces and have other things to worry about other than the Xenonauts. Plus, though their forces are large, they are presumably limited and need time to be outfitted to operate in the atmosphere. So, it would make some sense (at least enough for suspension of disbelief) that they wouldn't have 100+ craft available at the same place at the same time for such an engagement as you say, and would have to divide their forces to do many things in a limited time, hence squadrons of reasonable size given the time that has passed in the game. Sure, with my suggestion maybe small squadrons could merge to larger ones, but if the scaling of difficulty is appropriate, it wouldn't break the game. It would be a simple thing to balance by just having the developers play through enough to see how fast the alien threat should grow and adjusting that growth appropriately. And small squadrons would still exist, and with the player having limited resources at their disposal, the player will frequently (as they do now) have to send out squadrons of 1 or 2 planes while other 3 plane squadrons are taking care of other, bigger threats.

It would be equally possible for the player to set up 20 craft squadrons that the aliens could not stand against and fly round taking out as many as they could reach before running out of fuel.

There is no challenge in that and no limitation to prevent it.

Sure. It would be possible for the player to set up such a large squadron. But, for reasons I stated earlier, that would be a substantial investment of resources on the part of the player to be able to do so, not to mention risky. Put all your planes into doing said strategy, then what's to keep the aliens from sending a landing ship contingent towards your base now devoid of aircraft, or harassing a bunch of other places while all your planes are focused on one area? And if alien squadrons could merge and respond to this large squadron threat, then there would be balance and challenge right there to that tactic. And most of the time, at least a few months into the game as it is now, it's pretty frikkin hard to have a squadron engage more than one squadron per outing; there is that nice fuel limit (rather generous limit, at that). And if that isn't enough to balance things, then the game could just lower the fuel capacity of the aircraft (which is already huuuuuge), and/or make the aliens ships a tad faster, and/or change the frequency of radar detection and/or make the aliens smart enough to turn tail in the face of such odds.

If you cap the aircraft numbers at 6, or 9, or 50 there is still an arbitrary cap in place, the only difference is that you are guaranteed to meet enemy groups of that size so would be forced to have your own squadrons available in those numbers to counter them.

You have replaced the number 3 with the number 9 but not changed the game in any way.

So, since suggesting a cap of 6 or whatever, I've since changed my mind. There should be no hard limit at all. The end. This would change the game in that there will be more flexibility on both the ends of the player and the aliens to respond to threats, as well as remove a really immersion-breaking feature of the game as I have belabored extensively and excessively in the present wall of text. To me the rationale for my suggestion is evident, and mechanics for balancing the suggestion laid out. Fortunately all the balancing would require is possibly a few changes in numerical parameters that already exist, and would not require any novel game-mechanic other than MAYBE the ability of squadrons to merge.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Andeerz

[anotherdevil]

My main argument here is that any limits imposed on a player in a game should make sense within the context of the game universe it occurs in; it should at least make sense enough that it doesn't draw attention to the implausibility of the premise of the game or possible holes in the setting's continuity (if that is the right word...).

This here is your problem. It is a game, not the real world. If all games are based around what they would be like in the real world, then NONE would be the games we play today. If you make this aspect of the game hyper-realistic, then all other aspects would have to be. No longer would a plane cost a few hundred thousand, no longer would hiring new recruits only take a few days, no longer would we stand any chance against aliens who have the ability to travel across the stars...

[Andeerz]

Hmmm... I think you are missing my point. I agree with everything you say, except your first sentence, and half of the third sentence... there are games like ARMA, America's Army, Red Orchestra, IL-2, Orbiter, and, to a degree, Aurora that try to be as realistic as possible and revel in the challenges real-life (or real-life-esque) problems present... but that's a completely different topic, as the goal of this game is not to be realistic. This game is trying to set a mood (which doesn't necessarily have to involve realism at all, obviously), and some of that mood is set by the nature of gameplay. I just think that a lot of the mood is killed when I encounter silly limitations like this 3 aircraft limit. Anyway, what about my suggestion makes any aspect of the game even close to realistic?

[anotherdevil]

there are games like ARMA, America's Army, Red Orchestra, IL-2, Orbiter, and, to a degree, Aurora that try to be as realistic as possible and revel in the challenges real-life (or real-life-esque) problems present...

That's a self defeating argument, because that's what I said. They may want to be realistic, and in many ways they try very hard, but they simply are not.

And sorry if I was off topic, I thought in your really long post (which I didn't have time to fully read) that you were saying that we should have more aircraft in the squadrons because in the real world that would make more sense. Because if that's what you were saying, then I wasn't off topic at all... I don't think?

[Andeerz]

Yeah, I wasn't saying we need more aircraft in a squadron because that is how it is IRL. I was saying that I wanted more aircraft allowed in a squadron because it makes sense that if I have four grounded craft at my base and a landing craft with two heavy fighters is coming towards my base, I should be able to send all four of those aircraft instead of having to send three (where one will almost certainly die) and then one. Or two and then two or whatever. It just seems forced and contrived and breaks the feel of the game.

[Gauddlike]

I think it would break the game an awful lot quicker if you kept coming up against large UFO squadrons you could not beat because of their numerical and technological advantage.

If you allow the player to have large squadrons then you have to allow the aliens to do the same.

That forces the player to keep multiple large squadrons or lack the ability to respond to the threats they face.

If you were to lose an engagement then you would be forced to start building another huge squadron simply to compete.

I don't understand how this could be seen as a fun addition to the game.

As it stands if you lose then you can get together three craft and you are back in the game.

If you want to introduce sense to the game you remove the majority of the gameplay elements.

It makes sense that the US president would throw their whole air force at anything that got into their airspace or threatened a major city.

It also makes sense that even with less chance of damaging the enemy they would easily take out 10 or 20 UFO's as they attacked.

Watching that happen while you sat at Xenonaut HQ would make for a boring game.

It makes sense that the Soviet army would swarm any UFO with overwhelming numbers and stand at least as good a chance of taking them out as a small Xenonauts squad.

Doing that would also make the game less interesting.

It makes sense that if there is a Xenonaut squadron of 5 planes around but there are 10 enemies in the area then they would band together and take you out.

That would be frustrating and make balancing difficult.

[anotherdevil]

Anyone in an airforce have any feedback on this?

I don't think it's contrived. After all I don't think an aircraft carrier would launch all it's aircraft to engage one hostile target...

[Gorlom]

Andeers: there is a very simple reason why the aliens aren't amassing 20 UFOs in one wing: they are trying to fly under the radar. Avoid being spotted etc.. It's kind of hard to complete covert missions with secret objectives if you fly in a bigass swarm and blocking out the sun and all that.

How are real engagements in the air fought btw? I realize I only have <insert generic space flick with armada battles in it here> as reference.. since there is no immediate objective that has to be desperately defended at all costs those things doesn't make sense to me in the xenonaut context. wouldn't the pilots break off and try to single enemies out instead of getting into a freeforall with enormous chances of getting shot down from all angles? How many enemies can a pilot keep track of?

[Andeerz]

Gauddlike, you raise very valid concerns.

Yeah, it would break the game if the alien squadrons got too big too fast, or were very big too often. But I don't think this is too hard to fix if it indeed is a problem; just tone down alien strength growth over time such that the player is able to (through successfully meeting the fun challenge of skillfully managing resources) actually meet or surpass the increased threat.

And I understand the your second concern... late game would be pretty unforgiving if in one of your larger engagements or a series of smaller ones you lost a substantial portion of your total planes. But if that happens, it should be because you made the wrong choice in how to meet incoming threats and distribute your limited airforce. And if you don't have enough resources to replace your lost planes, that's your fault for not managing resources well. A defeat should mean something. But it's not like you would necessarily lose the game in that case, just as losing all your craft in the game as it is now doesn't. And presumably later in the game, you will have (provided you do a good job playing) increased your revenue and sell-able stuff such that you can recover from such set-backs or at least minimize the damage from such a set back. And I do see this as a fun challenge, myself. That is why I liked the original X-com and Xenonauts and games like it: it's pretty darned unforgiving, especially at higher difficulties, and is a game of calculating risks. To balance this, again, just have people play through the game and see if costs for thing should be altered and/or alien threat growth should change. Then the developers can change a few numbers and, voila. More balance without sacrificing the sense of the game mechanics.

And the kind of sense I am arguing for doesn't mean the game has to "make sense" in terms of absolute realism. I just want the gameplay to make sense within the context of the given setting, and basically all that would require really is (among maybe a very very few other things outside of the scope of this thread) removing these ridiculously low numerical caps on certain things when other aspects of the game (like management of resources and gradual increase in alien strength) can place those limits on their own in a way that comes naturally and emerges elegantly from the system, which I think it would with out changing any mechanics of the game fundamentally.

And the setting makes enough sense to allow me to suspend my disbelief. The game does a decent job of not drawing attention to the fact that you don't obviously see the Soviets and the US fielding their sizeable airforces and stuff to combat the alien threat. While playing, you can assume they are doing their own things, getting into engagements themselves, sometimes winning, sometimes losing (hence the random info that pops up around the map detailing incidents of military casualties, etc.). For all you know, they could be having air engagements all the time with UFOs you don't detect; you just don't pick up on it other than the occasional white box things that appear on the map because it is not critical to your mission or any of your business as the Xenonauts.

And, also, the game tries to make it clear that the Xenonauts are needed and are in fact effectively an extension of the militaries of all the nations of the world (they are paying you!), filling the role as the most elite, technologically advanced combat troops available in the world. I mean, look at the F-17; it's super advanced! That thing has a range an order of magnitude greater than just about any other plane in real life and is one of few aircraft capable of catching up to a UFO in time to intercept it before accomplishing whatever its goal is planet-side or leaving for orbit. The jackal armour is pretty advanced for back then... The troops you have are supposed to be mega awesome and come from all parts of the world. Whatever the case, the game does a good job of making the setting able to get you immersed and in the mood... and it doesn't have to be realistic at all to do that; hell, no story does. I just think there are a few things that occasionally get in the way of that; the three plane limit being one of them.

So, basically, sense in the setting-sense is sort of already there (it at least makes enough sense to not bring attention to the things that might not). Sense in the gameplay sense is almost entirely there (in my opinion), but not quite, due to the things we've been talking about. And my suggestion would not affect the sense of the setting other than making the game less likely to draw you out of immersion.

And if there is a Xenonaut squadron of 5 planes about and there are 10 enemies in the area, you need to make a decision, which would be a fun challenge every once in a while but only be frustrating if it happened too often (again, this can be balanced by tweaking alien strength progression and other things as mentioned before). The decision would be to continue on as planned or back off after seeing the 10 enemies in the area (keep in mind, you do have the option of engaging or disengaging before any encounter...). If you assess that they would likely be able to form together to neutralize you and appear to be mobilizing to do so, then you would want to back off before meeting them (pretty easy to tell). If you assess that you could probably get to your target in time before they come together, then you would want to go on ahead. I like the idea of having to make such decisions (and you already have to make similar decisions sometimes!). It adds excitement and tension and makes sending your forces around the world more of a chess game.

[HWP]

Anyone in an airforce have any feedback on this?

I don't think it's contrived. After all I don't think an aircraft carrier would launch all it's aircraft to engage one hostile target...

A carrier actually can't even do that. Only about a dozen aircraft can be kept in the air at a time.

More precisely, it will launch 4 aircraft, then another 4, then 4 more, and, before or immediately after launching the next 4, the first 4 will have to land.

This is for a supercarrier. A smaller carrier can sustain 6-10 aircraft. Of course, if you don't care for them coming back, you can launch more (you would in a WWII Midway kind of situation), but still nowhere close to all the aircraft.

Also, in real life, if you have say 3 aircraft, one will be ready to launch in 5 minutes' time, the other will be kinda usable (you'll need to do a full ramp start - between 15 and 30 minutes, plus another 5 for the actual launch), and the third will be partially disassembled undergoing scheduled maintenance.

That's at best, with low-maintenance planes like F-16 (which Xeno's F-17 seems to represent), assuming you don't get damaged and don't fly too often. A fighter plane still needs a few hours on the ground for every hour in the air.

[Gauddlike]

Part of the point to me is that you shouldn't easily be able to surpass the alien threat.

If you can just swarm any enemy then they lose their threatening status and become an annoyance.

If you have to face them with limited numbers then you need to be concerned about them.

An alien fighter wing balanced for 3v3 fights would be hopelessly outclassed if you could send 8 interceptors against it.

There is no threat there and the only tactic you need in order to win is to own more craft then the current alien wing size.

One powerful alien ship can more easily be balanced against your own forces if you know it will not face more than a set number of interceptors.

If you come across a battleship that you can beat but you risk losing an interceptor or two then you have to decide if the risk is worth it.

With the swarm system all you need to do is work out how many hangars and migs (for long range bombardment) it will take to render the threat harmless.

Chances are you will already have the numbers available as you will have used the same tactics on heavy fighters corvettes, cruisers, strike cruisers and so on when they appeared.

If you know how many craft the enemy is likely to have in a wing (maybe due to their steady size increase over time) then you only need to surpass that number to make a win likely.

You would need to do a lot of micromanagement of your craft in air combat in order to keep the ones targeted running away and the free ones hitting the enemy but in the end it can only really end one way.

[HWP]

It shouldn't even work like that, ideally. Would be better if numbers were deemphasized, so that if a UFO can keep evading one fighter, it will usually still evade two or three - until you get a better fighter that can keep up, or better missiles that can hit it.

Imagine sending F-4 Phantoms after a modern fighter, a Raptor or even a relatively lowly Flanker. It doesn't matter how many you send - they'll get shot down while there are missiles, then with cannons, and then the modern fighter will safely disengage and go to homeplate.

The gap between Earth's fighters and UFOs is at least as wide.

That's how I would personally prefer the game to feel, a tech race, not a numbers race. I think original X-Com actually had some of that, you had to let well-armed alien ships go until you could match them. The importance of an artificial squadron limit of 3 betrays underlying balance issues. But I guess it's too late to fix them, it is what it is.

[Gauddlike]

How would you alter the balance (and the mechanisms behind it) to make numbers unimportant?

Using the current system as a basis would be best but for brainstorming purposes it doesn't matter.

[Buzzles]

Also, just to point out, aircombat is a secondary part of the game.

I for one, as much as a do love flight games, would get incredibly bored in the later game if I had to control 6/9/12+ of my own aircraft nearly every aircombat.

3 is quite a nice number, it also allows for differences in aircraft and technology to be more pronounced, rather than being bogged down and covered up by numbers.

If anyone has ever played EVE:Online, and has been involved in null sec PVP with gangs, then you'll know just how powerful "blobs" are, and how little the setup or choice of the ships that make up that blob actually matter (think Goonswarm frigate swarms).

I also feel if that you are going to increase numbers, you're going to have to dramatically change the aircombat mechanics and offer much more depth, to the point it would probably become the primary focus of the game.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Buzzles

[HWP]

How would you alter the balance (and the mechanisms behind it) to make numbers unimportant?

Using the current system as a basis would be best but for brainstorming purposes it doesn't matter.

I'm not 100% sure, since I didn't get to the part of the game that has serious air combat. But the idea of having to fly 3 craft everywhere isn't great already. For the record, I'm not in favor of increasing squadron size, I'm in favor of a game where you don't feel like you have to band all your planes together all the time.

In terms of game lore, Xenonauts are supposed to win through tech and knowledge, not numbers. I like to think that is because numbers alone don't cut it.

Let's see how that could be translated into game mechanic.

In the original, it was all about range. When a big UFO outranged you, it didn't matter if you send fighter after fighter, the game didn't have a limit. The UFO would shoot them down before they got close. It was pretty hard and not all that realistic.

Xenonauts, it seems, wants to avoid it being so cut and dry, so now you can outrange the UFOs.

Why don't they just spam Mig-31's or F-14's in real life, just build big planes with lots of missiles with as long a range as possible? Because long-range missiles have poor hit probability. New fighters can break missile lock using jamming, then outmaneuver or sideslip a missile, then deploy their towed decoy.

I think something similar could apply to UFOs in-game. Larger UFO could have electronic jamming systems (or even active defenses, but I like jamming better) significantly improving their missile evasion. Jamming chance could be common - while the UFO is successfully jamming, no missiles using vulnerable technology can get a lock on - so numbers don't fix it.

To get an edge you would need to either switch to alien-derived weapons, getting back into XCOM's range contest, or improve to missiles with guidance technology that is more resistant to jamming. In real life that's LIDAR, or it can be alien-derived technology. Alternately, rather than missiles, jamming can be applied to aircraft sensors, requiring you to upgrade your aircraft.

An additional way to reduce the importance of numbers could be giving missiles ammo, somewhat like described here, by default. If the UFO is too good for you, it will take the plane out before it can make a second shot, so it won't make a difference. If your plane is good enough to avoid the UFO's fire, now you don't have to take additional ones just to bring enough damage points to take the UFO down. All while keeping missile damage high enough that the added utility of firing bigger salvos is reduced, it's getting them through before it gets you that counts.

It helps with the goal of putting technology ahead of numbers, and does so in a realistic way - missile guidance and jamming technology are of decisive importance in air combat, and aliens aren't going to stay out.

I would even consider having aliens learn to jam you gradually, getting better with experience, so that the early game is still easy, but Mig-32 spam becomes ineffective at some point. That way smaller UFOs can remain viable even late in the game, because you still need a good fighter against them. To make it work against gun fighters as well, they could lose UFO position, causing failed attack runs.

More aircraft remains better than fewer aircraft, as it should be, but focus on jamming and evasion over raw damage narrows the difference. Since jamming isn't overcome by numbers, there's less gain from spamming. With proper balance, that gives more times when you'd send just one fighter, making those small one-hangar bases useful, and that is good for gameplay.

There is a potential issue of introducing extra randomness. I think it can be mitigated though, if the alien craft has to choose between jamming and attacking, it will get much less advantage from luck. Or luck factor can be removed by making jamming mostly deterministic, factoring into duration and time between repeating rather than chance of success.

Edited October 10, 2012 by HWP

[Andeerz]

Let's see how that could be translated into game mechanic.

In the original, it was all about range. When a big UFO outranged you, it didn't matter if you send fighter after fighter, the game didn't have a limit. The UFO would shoot them down before they got close. It was pretty hard and not all that realistic.

Xenonauts, it seems, wants to avoid it being so cut and dry, so now you can outrange the UFOs.

For the record, I love your post and your ideas... but how is it unrealistic for something that outranges you to shoot you down before you can get to it? And I thought the aliens still had a significant range advantage over you in this game.

Why don't they just spam Mig-31's or F-14's in real life, just build big planes with lots of missiles with as range as possible? Because long-range missiles have poor hit probability. New fighters can break missile lock using jamming, then outmaneuver or sideslip a missile, then deploy their towed decoy.

That's great to know... I mean, I could imagine a single generation 5 fighter being pretty much unable to be touched by much older aircraft in any number... just unload ordinance, destroy what it can, leave without being touched due to superior range, jamming etc... right?

I think something similar could apply to UFOs in-game. Larger UFO could have electronic jamming systems (or even active defenses, but I like jamming better) significantly improving their missile evasion. Jamming chance could be common - while the UFO is successfully jamming, no missiles using vulnerable technology can get a lock on - so numbers don't fix it.

To get an edge you would need to either switch to alien-derived weapons, getting back into XCOM's range contest, or improve to missiles with guidance technology that is more resistant to jamming. In real life that's LIDAR, or it can be alien-derived technology. Alternately, rather than missiles, jamming can be applied to aircraft sensors, requiring you to upgrade your aircraft.

Well put. How about all of the above? Regardless, all of the options you present make total sense and would make for MUCH more interesting air combat in terms of considerations of loadout, how to allocate research and other resources...

An additional way to reduce the importance of numbers could be giving missiles ammo, somewhat like described here, by default. If the UFO is too good for you, it will take the plane out before it can make a second shot, so it won't make a difference. If your plane is good enough to avoid the UFO's fire, now you don't have to take additional ones just to bring enough damage points to take the UFO down. All while keeping missile damage high enough that the added utility of firing bigger salvos is reduced, it's getting them through before it gets you that counts.

Provided it doesn't get too ridiculous, increasing ammo would be cool! I mean, can't an F-16 carry like 6 sidewinders? Regardless, I think what you said before would take care of things on their own, though this could also be a great thing to do. However, if this was in, I'd give the aliens maybe more missile capacity, too. I dunno.

It helps with the goal of putting technology ahead of numbers, and does so in a realistic way - missile guidance and jamming technology are of decisive importance in air combat, and aliens aren't going to stay out.

I would even consider having aliens learn to jam you gradually, getting better with experience, so that the early game is still easy, but Mig-32 spam becomes ineffective at some point. That way smaller UFOs can remain viable even late in the game, because you still need a good fighter against them. To make it work against gun fighters as well, they could lose UFO position, causing failed attack runs.

Well frikkin' put. After a point, the "very small" alien fighters become almost pointless, and pretty much are from the get-go if there is 1 basic starting F-17 for each alien fighter.

More aircraft remains better than fewer aircraft, as it should be, but focus on jamming and evasion over raw damage narrows the difference. Since jamming isn't overcome by numbers, there's less gain from spamming. With proper balance, that gives more times when you'd send just one fighter, making those small one-hangar bases useful, and that is good for gameplay.

There is a potential issue of introducing extra randomness. I think it can be mitigated though, if the alien craft has to choose between jamming and attacking, it will get much less advantage from luck. Or luck factor can be removed by making jamming mostly deterministic, factoring into duration and time between repeating rather than chance of success.

HWP, yours ideas are awesome, and I'd prefer them to what we have now by a long shot. You also have given me some perspective...

And your ideas would make any sort of arbitrary cap on squadron size not at all necessary for any sort of "balance" issue (which, in my previous posts, I tried to make clear don't even need to be in there even with the game as it is now, as costs of things would self-balance stuff) in a much more elegant and (BONUS) realistic way! And I definitely like it way better than my suggestion, though mine is likely easier to implement. Seems like things being more realistic (I trust what you said about aircraft carriers, realistic aircraft maintenance expectations, etc.) actually would make for this aspect of the game better and the setting of the game make all the more sense! It really should be a tech race, and not a numbers race.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Andeerz

[HWP]

For the record, I love your post and your ideas... but how is it unrealistic for something that outranges you to shoot you down before you can get to it? And I thought the aliens still had a significant range advantage over you in this game.

It's not that, rather that it's not really hard to make an arbitrarily long-ranged missile. If AMRAAM isn't enough, there's Phoenix, if that's not enough there's AA-13, and, if you want to go ridiculous, there's SAM.

That's great to know... I mean, I could imagine a single generation 5 fighter being pretty much unable to be touched by much older aircraft in any number... just unload ordinance, destroy what it can, leave without being touched due to superior range, jamming etc... right?

At some point numbers will overtake. But if the fighter plays its cards right - stays out of dogfights early on, dictates terms of engagement, disengages when it's time - it will be able to overcome even a significant numerical disadvantage.

Well put. How about all of the above?

Well, it does have to be kept simple.

But now that I think of it, it doesn't need to be complicated at all.

UFOs have a chance of successful jamming and per-second chance for it to be broken, but that's behind the scenes. What you see is that sometimes UFOs will jam you. It can show up as stylized distortion, for instance UFO radar image becomes interlaced and noisy.

If the UFO is not evading, jamming only makes it impossible to lock on to. If it is also evading, missiles can no longer follow its maneuvers and are more likely to miss.

Jamming becomes less effective against advanced interceptors and higher tier missiles.

[TrashMan]

Imagine sending F-4 Phantoms after a modern fighter, a Raptor or even a relatively lowly Flanker. It doesn't matter how many you send - they'll get shot down while there are missiles, then with cannons, and then the modern fighter will safely disengage and go to homeplate.

I don't see it happening. I've yet to see a modern aircraft that is immune to 20mm bullets.

F4 Phantoms CAN shoot down a Falnker or whatever craft you use.

Yes, a more modern fighter can outrun them - but if it's running away, then it isn't doing what it's supposed to. Effectively, you chansed him away. A victory for you. But it can't run away forever nor can it keep it's afterburner on.

Assuming it gets into a fight - it has to head towards your fighters..effectively closing the range - dodging missiles means evasive manuvers. Which means slower speed, which means the F4's get to close in.

In the end the modern fighter would be ripped apart (but not before taking out a few F4's)

Edited October 11, 2012 by TrashMan

[HWP]

Yes, a more modern fighter cna outrun them - but if it's running away, then it isn't doing what it's supposed to.

Fighters are not soldiers in a World War I trench, they aren't designed to hold a line. Missions can involve CAP, interception, interdiction, even air offensive, but a fighter is still supposed to go back in the end, not push forward forever. If a fighter completes its mission and returns home safely, then it's doing what it's supposed to. Phantoms (original, not upgraded) wouldn't be able to keep a modern state of the art fighter from completing its mission, as long as the mission is something reasonable.

Assuming it gets into a fight - it has to head towards your fighters..effectively closing the range - dodging missiles means evasive manuvers. Which means slower speed, which means the F4's get to close in.

There was a reason I chose F-4 as an example and not something else. Originally F-4 didn't even have a gun. Even later versions that have one are still missile buses lacking in maneuverability. One on one, they couldn't face a Raptor or a Flanker in dogfight. F-4 is also old enough to employ Sparrow missiles, at least in its original version.

Amassing a crowd would still have effect, so I exaggerated when I said "it doesn't matter how many". But you'd have to go outside the bounds of reasonable ratios for that. Both exercises and what little real-life combat we have seen in the past decades have shown massive disparity in hit:kill ratios between fighter generations.

[Gauddlike]

Interesting ideas but they do seem like they would make the engagements longer, force more actions to be performed by the player, and weaken your interceptors.

I don't think the weakening is necessarily a bad idea, you should definitely have something to worry about when you fight.

I think that might go too far in the context of the current system though.

If the enemy can prevent your Mig locking on before it runs into beam range of the UFO then the Mig will not survive for a second run unless you break off, afterburner away until the jamming stops then turn round and do it again.

You might manage this twice before you are out of fuel and forced to disengage.

Facing a faster craft you might manage it once.

I can see that being incredibly frustrating to do repeatedly for three aircraft (or even more if you are Andeerz ) in what is supposed to be a quick and simple minigame.

That sort of micromanagement doesn't appeal to me.

It also doesn't really help with the swarm being the best tactic if you were to remove squadron caps.

If each craft is jammed individually then taking more would mean you will always have someone who can fire.

If jamming is universal then taking a swarm would ensure that in the seconds you have free from jamming you can unleash significantly more missiles.

Player cash is not an adequate balance for this in my opinion.

[HWP]

Interesting ideas but they do seem like they would make the engagements longer, force more actions to be performed by the player, and weaken your interceptors.

Weakening can be balanced against by making missiles faster and more damaging in the first place. As for longer engagements, yes.

As for more actions by the player... well, I believe it's best if your fighter pilots have a mind of their own, enough not to become sitting ducks, with player involvement made optional altogether. That is seriously called for whether a jamming feature is implemented or not, because minigames tend to be very polar, some people rock at them, breaking the game, others can't manage them, breaking the game in an even worse way. Every game I remember that includes minigames, as long as it's moddable at all, has mods for removing them, and these mods are popular. A nontrivial real-time minigame as part of a turn-based strategy holds potential for a lot of trouble if it isn't made optional.

If the enemy can prevent your Mig locking on before it runs into beam range of the UFO then the Mig will not survive for a second run unless you break off, afterburner away until the jamming stops then turn round and do it again.

You might manage this twice before you are out of fuel and forced to disengage.

Facing a faster craft you might manage it once.

That's just the point. Keep even small UFOs viable for longer. Early in the game it won't matter because jamming effectiveness is zero. Later in the game it will force you to get more close and personal with smaller UFOs, not plink them off from a distance.

If jamming is universal then taking a swarm would ensure that in the seconds you have free from jamming you can unleash significantly more missiles.

Has to be universal. In that case, what does it matter if you launch more missiles? If one interceptor's load of heavy missiles is enough to take down a UFO (except for capital ships), launching two interceptors' loads doesn't add anything, except maybe prevent a crash site from appearing.

It might help you if one gets shot down, but it's better to take a dogfighter for that anyway.

And, if jamming improvement is based on the number of your aircraft UFOs encounter, that's incentive for smaller squadrons right there.

[Gauddlike]

I am not a fan of the current air combat, probably why I try to discourage people who want to make it a bigger part of the game...

Making it more complicated without significantly increasing the interest just does not appeal.

I would prefer to remove it completely in favour of a turn based system more in tune with the ground combat but that won't happen

Having said that I would oppose adding AI to the air combat that removed need for the player to actually play.

If the player gave commands that the AI tried to follow then that may be different, depending on implementation.

On your second point is there a reason to keep the small UFOs in the game longer?

The current plan is to remove them after they become obsolete (in game reason is that the technology you share allows national air forces to deal with them effectively).

A single missile would be enough to wipe them out completely.

Making it incredibly difficult to lock and fire would be frustrating and you would be unlikely to get anything out of it anyway.

The final point assumes that one volley is enough to take out a spacecraft armoured with the best alien manufactured alloys that are so tough we can barely reshape them enough to be able to use them at all.

If that is the case a single shot in return would have to destroy your interceptors.

The enemy have better armour and more powerful weapons so it would be a little odd if you could take them out with one volley but they had to hit you several times in return to take you out of the fight.

If more than one volley per enemy from a single interceptor is required then swarm tactics become attractive.