Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign
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OK, I found some time to do tests:
After setting my Squadron at Hwangju to not “Set by HQ” I hammered the base with single-ship Mig-29s every 10 minutes, everytime destroying assets on “my own airbase” except runways. Those court martials…
The finding was: At some point the HQ did not frag new missions. The already fragged ones where launched if planned. Buildings seem to have a hard percentage value, so that destroying some of them brings the base to 0%.
There is a somewhat hidden “hint” for this: I’m not exactly sure if it is at 0% or already at a higher value (since I re-enabled “Set by HQ” after destroying most of the buildings). But if no flight is selected, you see below the mission list (were you normally see the flight’s aircraft) the text “Airbase Destroyed”. You see this when your list gets emptied completely or if you delete a flight over ATO - in the second it needs to select the next flight.We as players are absolutely able to take over such a squadron and plan our own packages, this is still possible.
INTERCEPTIONS are NOT affected. AI HQ even plans and launches them if everything except the runways is destroyed and no normal missions are planned because of the shutdown. That covers with my experience that nearby bases will always launch fighters against my packages (as long as runways are intact). This can lead to huge numbers of interceptors of course, especially if the aircraft numbers on the destroyed base are still high.
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Great @Atze-0 ,
So, to summarize :
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Status level of AirBase drives the Sorties Fragging (and its rate as mentioned by @tiag).
- When it comes to 0%, the AI HQ stop Fragging new Sorties, except for Interception Flights
- But you can still manually plan Flights/Packages if there is sufficient Aircrafts.
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All Fragged Sorties will be launched :
- Regardless of the actual reported Aircrafts remaining in Squadrons.
- Until the Runways are destroyed.
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When Runways are destroyed
- All Fragged Sortie are deleted.
- Manual planning is no longer possible.
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The more buildings destroyed, the more ressources are needed for reconstruction (so continue to Strike it as said by @tiag )
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@CheckPoint
IMO, if both runways are destroyed all mission types, including the ability of manually fragging, should not be available anymore from that AB.
We also need a stronger affect of the building destruction on the sortie rate.
TY, guys. -
@CheckPoint @tiag
If all runways are destroyed, the message when trying to frag a mission is always “Not enough AC”. -
This is a very good discussion. I’d like to point out that even with the entire runway destroyed it is still possible to take off from taxiways it they have enought lenght. This would be use for sure in desparate wartime. There are A LOT of civil airports that uses its taxiways for T/O and LDG operations when the main runway is taking some regular maintenance. And I am not talking about small airports… But I don’t know if this should be considered for BMS, just small talk here…
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@sasah320 If I’m not mistaken even if a single runway section is damaged/destroyed you can’t frag flights (you can still frag if only the threshold is damaged/destroyed), so it’s quite hard to find a case where you can take off from a taxiway.
Maybe if you land on the taxiway of some FOB/alternate just to refuel and take off again from the taxiway. But it also wouldn’t make sense gameplay-wise. You would be forced to pretty much carpet bomb airbases just to make any flights unable to take off as persistent people would certainly find enough space to take off even if you bombed the taxiways and runways.
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@CheckPoint said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
Great @Atze-0 ,
So, to summarize :
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Status level of AirBase drives the Sorties Fragging (and its rate as mentioned by @tiag).
- When it comes to 0%, the AI HQ stop Fragging new Sorties, except for Interception Flights
- But you can still manually plan Flights/Packages if there is sufficient Aircrafts.
-
All Fragged Sorties will be launched :
- Regardless of the actual reported Aircrafts remaining in Squadrons.
- Until the Runways are destroyed.
-
When Runways are destroyed
- All Fragged Sortie are deleted.
- Manual planning is no longer possible.
-
The more buildings destroyed, the more ressources are needed for reconstruction (so continue to Strike it as said by @tiag )
I didn’t want to open a new topic, so I’m sharing my very interesting discovery here.
I have found an example where airbases CAN frag sorties even at 0% (!!!)
After months of real life stuff I’ve found some time to push my Rolling Fire campaign a bit further and I watched Shenyang to stay at 0% because of the J-20s.
But suddenly, there were plenty of them so I thought a new squadron could have been activated, but nada.To investigate what dark witchcraft they are doing up there I joined the J-20 squadron in Shenyang.
In the following screenshot you see that the airbase frags BARCAPs along the FLOT even if it has 0%.
Of course, the 2 segments of the broad runway are repaired, the 0% come from other destroyed assets on the base:Another thing: From time to time I’m suspecting the campaign engine to do its math wrong. Me and my wingmen shot down 4 J-20 and damaged 1, myself flying 2 missions. It was clearly stated in the debriefing. But the number in Shenyang only dropped from 13 to 11! When should the aircraft be subtracted from the OOB?
Another other thing:
Wow, is this campaign tough - day 5 and my ground troops seem to travel from east to west and back all the time but almost not northward (enemy has still a high ground power level). So when fragging missions I saw some strange loadouts: F-16 on STRIKE missions almost always loaded with 2 single Mavericks? Also the Air Interdiction loadouts are often far from usefull. Is there a reason for that? I just wonder, because enemy troops and i.e. war production assets are still high. Could those loadouts have a negative impact?
I forgot to mention: I’m still on 4.37 without updates for savegame compatibility.But now I’ll go back to the sim. With day 5 Russia entered the war as stated in the *.tri file and now I will have a good time.
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@Atze-0 thank you Atze. I dont want to say too much here otherwise Max wil ban me , but check next version please. These bugs and many others in the campaign have been solved.
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@tiag
That sounds awesome! I agree with Atze 0 above, it’s frustrating if it counts wrong. Glad to see some fixes! -
@Atze-0 said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
@CheckPoint said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
Status level of AirBase drives the Sorties Fragging (and its rate as mentioned by @tiag). When it comes to 0%, the AI HQ stop Fragging new Sorties, except for Interception Flights ... All Fragged Sorties will be launched : Regardless of the actual reported Aircrafts remaining in Squadrons. Until the Runways are destroyed.
I didn’t want to open a new topic, so I’m sharing my very interesting discovery here.
I have found an example where airbases CAN frag sorties even at 0% (!!!)
In the following screenshot you see that the airbase frags BARCAPs along the FLOT even if it has 0%.
Of course, the 2 segments of the broad runway are repaired, the 0% come from other destroyed assets on the base:Yes that match. The sorties should have been fragged before the status came to 0.
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Would it be possible to set all fragged sorties status to aborted once AB status reaches 0% operational (or even better once key elements as center section of runways, tower and such are destroyed).
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@CheckPoint said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
@Atze-0 said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
@CheckPoint said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
Status level of AirBase drives the Sorties Fragging (and its rate as mentioned by @tiag). When it comes to 0%, the AI HQ stop Fragging new Sorties, except for Interception Flights ... All Fragged Sorties will be launched : Regardless of the actual reported Aircrafts remaining in Squadrons. Until the Runways are destroyed.
I didn’t want to open a new topic, so I’m sharing my very interesting discovery here.
I have found an example where airbases CAN frag sorties even at 0% (!!!)
In the following screenshot you see that the airbase frags BARCAPs along the FLOT even if it has 0%.
Of course, the 2 segments of the broad runway are repaired, the 0% come from other destroyed assets on the base:Yes that match. The sorties should have been fragged before the status came to 0.
Hmmm, I’m pretty sure I kept Shenyang at 0% for a looong time after my first strike (also see my initial strike here), always building follow on strikes manually so the J-20 will not recover. There are many other assets on the base destroyed. But it was sufficient for them to repair the one runway with just 2 segments to frag those BARCAPs again (see screenshot).
Of course, this is an absolutely special case here. My experience has always been that they cannot frag at 0%, even in this present campaign.But thats no problem, I wanted to solve this anyway with challenging the J-20 in the air so I can wipe them out. No, wait, it is a problem, Russia entered the war… D’oh!
My strategy now: PAKS back to FLOT, sliders for defensive counter air up. Maybe taking out the Kuznetsov and fragging another mega-multi-package assault against Uglovoye airbase. I think that will do it until the J-20 are down, then I let Uglovoye come back repaired, draining their huge fighter complement in air-to-air combat.@Xeno said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
Would it be possible to set all fragged sorties status to aborted once AB status reaches 0% operational (or even better once key elements as center section of runways, tower and such are destroyed).
This would be nice, but it really is a minor problem, because HQ is always fragging the runways first. Let’s see what the Devs did in 4.37 U3. But as I said, this should not be high priority.
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Hi @tiag , I didn’t want to open a new thread for this question, because it is somewhat related to the topic:
One annoying thing about the current state of Oca Strikes is that, no matter the load out or package composition, the engine only destroys one runway in the attacked airbase (the top one in the target list), making it quicker to repair. Are there any changes planned around this in the next version?
Thanks for all the hard work! -
@Rasetti wait for U3 at this stage
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@Atze-0 this is a great idea, it upsets that all that target variety in an airbase doesnt actually matter.
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@VDK said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
In order to the base to be repaired, is there need to be an engineering ground unit close to the base, or the base has an “autonomous” system of repair?
Airbases can repair themselves, but I believe there is a slight advantage with time if there is an Engineering battalion on location.
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@JollyFE said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
@VDK said in Airfield strikes and squadrons in campaign:
In order to the base to be repaired, is there need to be an engineering ground unit close to the base, or the base has an “autonomous” system of repair?
Airbases can repair themselves, but I believe there is a slight advantage with time if there is an Engineering battalion on location.
I was told that no autonomous repairs were possible. Repairs would require presence of engineer battalions ?
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@jayb Currently an Airbase can “self-repair”, but it is a very pro-longed repair process. On the order of 24-30 hours or more. An engineer battalion does speed up the repair, although the battalions are a bit buggy and don’t always “Repair” once at the base.
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@JollyFE I see, thanks. It is too bad that the self-repair can happen, since those virtual engineer troops are likely baked into the airbase itself and do not present themselves as a target.
Otherwise there could be a strategic aspect in hitting engineers en route to the airbase, or hitting the on-site engineers to keep an airbase out of commission
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@jayb IF you consider real life, & the objective of an OCA, only the infrastructure is targeted. Yes there will be casualties, but unless a nuke is used most of the base populace remains alive and a valuable resource. A Resource than pick up shovels or operate heavy equipment to fill in holes. It may not be as efficient as an engineering batt., but it will do the job.