Is air combat too hard, or is the auto-resolver too forgiving?

[Troublechuter]

So if you've played the game for any length of time, you've probably noticed that the air combat autoresolver is kind of wonky. As far as I can tell, it just compares the strengths of the craft involved, without considering factors like the type of craft involved, or how much fuel they have remaining. This has some interesting results, such as Foxtrots apparently being better against fighter squadrons than Condors, and enabling me to win otherwise impossible air battles.

I had one last night which was a perfect example; two Condors and one Foxtrot vs a bomber and two heavy fighters, head-on. Strictly speaking, I had enough firepower to take all three down, and the game gave me 100% odds if I auto-resolved. However what that auto-resolver failed to consider was that the Condors only had about 20 seconds of fuel remaining, and heavy fighters dodge missiles. If I used the missiles on the heavy fighters, I would have to use two on each one, and then I wouldn't have enough firepower left over to take down the bomber. And while it might be possible to take down a heavy fighter with just laser cannons (I don't know for sure), with only 20 seconds of fuel I had no chance of pulling off any fancy maneuvers or doing much dodging.

So there is a clear disparity between what the autoresolver thinks is possible, and what is actually possible in-game. My question is; which one is right? Should the air combat be made easier to match the autoresolver's predictions, or should the autoresolver be made less generous to better reflect the odds of victory in an actual air battle?

In my opinion, it should be a bit of both. The autoresolver should definitely take fuel into account, and penalize your chances of success appropriately if you have too little. It should also take into account the types of craft involved; unescorted Foxtrots do not fare well against fighters whatever Mr Autoresolve might think! However, if these changes were implemented on their own, I probably wouldn't be winning many air combats at all. There would have to be some give and take. And on that note, I think that maybe heavy fighters are turning up a little too soon. I barely saw regular fighters for a month in my latest game before the heavies showed up, and I've seen nothing but heavies ever since.

Thoughts? Opinions? Reasons I'm wrong?

[quiescat]

### disclaimer i suck at air combat so i want hacker auto resolve ###

the fuel is i am thinking either a bug or overlook in the code either way i think that will change. they might do something like give a set amount of combat time instead of using the fuel that is leftover if it cant be fixed. that is the kinda thing i hope to see as a buff to cannons while being a change of pacing for retreats. no more just running off the sides that just end up being a lot of waiting.

auto resolve it self i have had some odd ball issues with like yours, also i have had 1 on 1 foxtrot vs scout( maybe corvette with later tech) that i know i can win auto gives me at 100% but i end taking damage or even losing the craft, on a air combat that all i would have to do is un-pause to win. still gives me a crash site but the plane has to be recovered. so i kinda viewed auto resolve as more of a numbers dice roll 99%. as is i think it works because it lets you tech out of a part of the game that is either easy because your good, or crippling because your bad, that was the whole reason auto-resolve was put in if i remember the heated debate about it right

maybe its just because i don't feel cannons are useful but until tier 3 fighter foxtrots can just after burner away from missiles. then out run the fighter till torp range its all golden from there. so what i end up doing to things that have escorts is send out 3 foxtrots use 2 for bait and drop the craft while doing circle. some times i can get off all 3 sets more off then not i only get 2 but most craft only need 2 full loads from a foxtrot if your keeping up in tech,worst case i have to make a second run, but with out missiles the fighters cant kill my craft even if i just unpause and after burn once torpedoes are away. if i get really unlucky with a fighter squad i end up sending out a squad of fox trots with sidewinders to clean up, this is very rare.

[kabill]

Passing on what was said to me: the autoresolver is a somewhat blunt instrument. It's reasonable under 'normal' conditions but doesn't factor in most of the variables which actually affect the air combat minigame. For example, it's possible to down UFOs with aircraft that literally don't have enough firepower to defeat it (i.e. their total damage output is less than the UFOs HP).

It's not necessarily a problem: if you only play with one or the other, you'd never notice. But if you want to, it would be easy to exploit the autoresolver to win (or have a chance of winning) otherwise impossible fights.

[Lidhuin]

It's also possible to win fights where you're out of ammo or essentially out of fuel.

The out of fuel doesn't bug me so much - air combat spends far too much fuel per second compared to the hours of fuel the aircraft have prior to and following air combat. However, foxtrots without any missiles should not be able to destroy anything.

[Monifix]

...foxtrots without any missiles should not be able to destroy anything.

Have you ever seen Independence Day? Maybe the autoresolver lures the UFO's into canyons and makes them crash into a cliff

But no, it's very odd the results you get from autoresolve quite often. Winning with no ammo usage at all, winning with 1 second of combat fuel, and on the negative side aircraft taking damage when if you'd done it manually you could simply fire your missiles and destroy the UFO without it being able to damage you at all.

[Beltorn]

Actually i was able to win fights autoresolver couldn't.

Believe me - on normal and on hard cannons are really good against escort aircraft. As i've written elsewhere even Condors remain highly damaging (though this is because damage isn't really tied to the plane. All planes have identical weapons and therefore deal identical damage. Some planes could have like better cannons or more than 2 missiles). Their real trouble is low speed/very minor HP (or too high HP of better crafts) and small range/low fuel reserve. I think the devs should rework the fuel model a bit - i.e interception range is calculated using only say 90% of fuel capacity because other 10% percent are reserved for actual air combat. These numbers are of course just an example and actual numbers should be balance tested. If you use up combat fuel during combat you continue using the other part, if you use up so much you can't fly home, you lose the plane - basically as it is right now.

On topic of other changes i think there should be a time limit with recharge on afterburner, AFAIK planes can't just turn on afterburner and fly, because the engine would overheat and go kaput. Also a better roll function, because i often get the plane rolling into enemy range of PD cannons of larger ships when evading missiles/torpedoes not out of it - very frustrating.

Also, why do mega cannons of corvette and bigger ships have guidance like torpedoes do?

[StellarRat]

The autoresolver is quite uneven in the results it can produce. Sometimes you win when it would be nearly impossible in a manual battle and sometimes you lose when you could easily win in manual combat. I only use it when it say I have a 100% chance to win.

[Troublechuter]

The autoresolver is quite uneven in the results it can produce. Sometimes you win when it would be nearly impossible in a manual battle and sometimes you lose when you could easily win in manual combat. I only use it when it say I have a 100% chance to win.

I believe this is what its intended to be for; auto-resolving easy fights that you already know you can win. The problem is when there's an aerial terror mission going on and I can either struggle to fight two heavy fighters and a bomber with two foxtrots and a condor, or just autoresolve at a 100% chance of victory, damn straight I'm going to autoresolve it, why wouldn't I?

It seems like the only reason to manually fight air combats at the moment is as a self-imposed challenge, and there's no way that's how it should be.

[StellarRat]

... I can either struggle to fight two heavy fighters and a bomber with two foxtrots and a condor, or just autoresolve at a 100% chance of victory, damn straight I'm going to autoresolve it, why wouldn't I?...

You wouldn't. I'm just saying that often I can produce much better or much worse results by flying the mission by hand. I think the autoresolver isn't really very accurate in producing the same results that a human gets.

[dmholt]

Maybe I'm in a minority - but it seems to me that having a choice between manual and automatic air combat is a good solution that should make most people happy.

I loved the original game, and I love Xenonauts - but I hate (and just plain can't do) any sort of real time combat. If I had to manually do the air combat, I wouldn't play Xenonauts. Xenonauts is essentially a tuun based based combat game (with some strategy elements) and manual air combat forces you to play a different type of game entirely - and there's no way that's how it should be.

[Troublechuter]

Maybe I'm in a minority - but it seems to me that having a choice between manual and automatic air combat is a good solution that should make most people happy.

I loved the original game, and I love Xenonauts - but I hate (and just plain can't do) any sort of real time combat. If I had to manually do the air combat, I wouldn't play Xenonauts. Xenonauts is essentially a tuun based based combat game (with some strategy elements) and manual air combat forces you to play a different type of game entirely - and there's no way that's how it should be.

Ok... I didn't actually say that flying manually should be the only option though, did I? I completely agree that you should be able to autoresolve your way through the entire game if you want to (and you can, currently), but it should also be at least possible to achieve the same results as the autoresolver gets, either by making air combat easier, or the autoresolver worse. Or at least making it smarter to consider things like Foxtrots being weak vs fighters.

Having thought more, I think quiescat had a good point; combat fuel shouldn't be as much of an issue as it is now. Fuel use should either not be tied to geoscape fuel at all, or still connected, but at a much lower ratio. I.e, if 60% fuel on the geoscape currently gives you 20 seconds of fuel, it should give 40. It seems silly that you can fly for two hours on a 4 hour tank of fuel, but suddenly you hit combat and you're draining your remaining two hours of fuel in less than a minute. (Yes I know, some fuel has to be saved for the return trip but that's not the point)

Typically in games like this (I'm thinking of the Total War franchise in particular) you will always get a better result fighting manually, to give you an incentive to actually do so. I'm glad the Xenonauts autoresolver has more teeth to it, but its often completely inconsistent with what actually happens in a manual air combat.

[Gauddlike]

Try adjusting the in combat fuel modifier in gameconfig.xml to find a spot where you think it is more balanced and fun.

You can also adjust the afterburner modifier so that it can be kept high to make afterburners an emergency or short term thing rather than something that is always used.

[jeon]

Combat fuel usage is one of the reasons why I don't ever do the manual battles. I'm thinking auto-resolve should respect ammo usage more than it does now though. Kinda silly that you can kill stuff without using much ammo or without even having ammo.

However, it does currently respect ammo types vs. opponents that can roll for combat strength. Missiles count at half and torpedoes count at zero strength if the enemy has roll. It is certainly far from perfect, but it does a good enough job most of the time. It is hard to model all of the components of a fight down into some numbers that are compared and then a random roll is made to influence the outcome and to have it all turn out correct all of the time.

As for Total War games... I've played a few of them, mostly Rome 1 and Shogun 2, and there were many times I preferred the result of an auto-resolve. Usually in a large battle I would have a few units get hit pretty hard by a force 1/2 - 2/3 of my strength, but auto-resolve would spread the casualties out to a more manageable level. Also, sieges in Shogun 2... I pretty much always would auto-resolve an attack and manual fight a defense of a castle because the auto-resolve would always end up with way less casualties on the attacking side than a manual battle would have. Auto-resolve also made it possible for some pretty lousy army compositions to march across the countryside destroying everything in their path without a problem. It's not always perfect, but it did do a good job in taking tedium out of the game for me. The only time it really bothered me was when it gave me really poor results and I had to fight the battle manually.

It's really the same for me in Xenonauts: as long as the auto-resolve gives me a good enough result that I don't have to manually fight, it's working good enough for me. It does need to be improved some in the ammo department though.

[StellarRat]

Combat fuel usage is one of the reasons why I don't ever do the manual battles.

Real combat pilots are very concerned about fuel in combat. It goes very quickly in military jets, so at least it's a realistic concern.

[dmholt]

Troublechuter, point taken, you indeed did not suggest that you shouldn't be able to play through using auto-resolve, hope I didn't come across as too aggressive. Probably just the thought of having to play the manual air combat meant I didn't pay close enogh attention to your post....

As far as all the suggestions about ammo and other strange behaviour under auto-resolve, they do sound like reasonable criticisms. However I get the impression from posts from those who have played both ways that while autoresolve wins some battles it maybe "shouldn't", the other side of the coin is that manual combat often wins battles with very bad autoresolve estimates.

Both paths (manual air combat and auto-resolve) force you to pay attention to your aircraft and weapons research, and punish you if you don't have enough or good enough interceptors. Is there really a lot to be gained by changing how air combat is decided? At the moment depsite some peculiarities the overall balance (as opposed to some specific cases) seems OK judging from most comments.

[dpelectric]

Try adjusting the in combat fuel modifier in gameconfig.xml to find a spot where you think it is more balanced and fun.

You can also adjust the afterburner modifier so that it can be kept high to make afterburners an emergency or short term thing rather than something that is always used.

How do you do this? I went into the gameconfig.xml file and tried everything to change values, left click, right click, highlight, insert, delete, nothing worked. Am I just a dope?

[quiescat]

How do you do this? I went into the gameconfig.xml file and tried everything to change values, left click, right click, highlight, insert, delete, nothing worked. Am I just a dope?

gotta open them with notepad ( at least that's what i use) other text editors might work. mine was set to default open with internet explorer or something if i remember right

[ventuswings]

I know Chris said they wasn't concern about autoresolve using no fuel, but maybe they could tweak the formula so that once you pass certain threshold of available fuel, the percentage chance to win decreases in exponential manner. Or at least have it set so that <7% fuel gives no chance to win.

[dpelectric]

gotta open them with notepad ( at least that's what i use) other text editors might work. mine was set to default open with internet explorer or something if i remember right

Yep, that worked. Thank you

[Gauddlike]

How do you do this? I went into the gameconfig.xml file and tried everything to change values, left click, right click, highlight, insert, delete, nothing worked. Am I just a dope?

As suggested above remember that xml files will usually open with a browser but to edit them you need to use a text editor.

Notepad will do the job.