Controlled Airspace

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    • VorlonFCW wrote:

      So Bytro you have taken a lot of flack over this change. I can't say as this one ruffles my feathers a lot, especially now that we understand it better.

      With ranging units like artillery I enjoy the fire control options that are available as a high command member. Is there a way to fiddle with the programming and utilize that same fire control code in the planes patrol mode? Then perhaps they could be set to "hold fire" and not inflict damage to ground on patrol, or return fire would simply attack what attacked them, etc.

      I understand that there are limitations of the programming, but I think this idea is worth at least a couple minutes discussion.
      Artillery doesn't auto-attack neighbouring units when you are at peace. For bombers to do so is a bug, in my eye. If you are at peace with your neighbour, why would the game assume you want to drop bombs on them?

      That said, I believe being allowed to scout them (for example teching planes early to be able to see which of your several neighbours might be building up to blitz you on day 4) without declaring war adds strategic depth to the game without compromising realism.
    • MontanaBB wrote:

      @freezy: Have the Bytro programmers continued to tinker with the software related to this issue?

      In a standard patrol overflight of a human player's newly conquered province with a single L6 tactical bomber squadron, I just unintentionally initiated a state of war. The recon "patrol" lasted no longer than 2.5 minutes -- I am using my digital cell phone alarm to remind me to move aircraft units on recon overflight patrols. No damage was inflicted on the units or buildings on the ground, nor was any damage suffered by the recon TB squadron, nevertheless an accidental state of war now exists.

      Once again, this is not what was advertised, and it is inconsistent with the experiments conducted by King Draza three days ago, and it contradicts your supposedly definitive explanation from two days ago.

      What's going on, chief?

      We need certainty regarding the rules, not ever-changing game dynamics with no prior notice. My frustration is growing.
      It appears that my previous statement and the performed tests from forum users were not accurate enough in that regard. I tested it once more and can confirm that currently war is triggered at the start of the patrol timer, not at the end. This means of course that you can still scout out the neutral country without triggering war, if you redirect the plane before it reaches the patrol destination.
      I will still pass this to the devs to see if something can be done about it. Until then please regard it as current state and control your units accordingly.

      CityOfAngels wrote:

      I agree with the sentiment that recon should not trigger war automatically, and that it's silly for recon planes to do damage while at peace, so that is the problem that should have been fixed.

      Meanwhile I have a probably-related bug report in process - About the time of this change I had some tac bombers staging from an airfield belonging to an allied player (Right of Way) who had recently archived but was not AI yet. I attacked from the archived ally's airfield against some enemy tanks who were passing through his territory (they also had RoW), and the game declared war on my ally for me. (Savaging my kill ratio when the poor bombers returned to the now-hostile airfield!)
      :(
      Well the difference is, that you are not sending recon planes, but full war ready fighter squadrons. We could of course think about implementing a real scout plane in the future... :)

      Regarding your bug report: I could not confirm it sadly. I tested it as follows: Having bombers and fithers patrol over a country with which I have right of way, while an enemy is located inside the patrol radius on that countries territory. The enemy was correctly damaged while I remained at right of way with the province owner. I tested it again with my planes being stationed in the country I have right of way with, still the same result, no war was triggered. If you have more information how to exactly reproduce this, you can forward it to me.

      CityOfAngels wrote:

      Artillery doesn't auto-attack neighbouring units when you are at peace. For bombers to do so is a bug, in my eye. If you are at peace with your neighbour, why would the game assume you want to drop bombs on them?
      That said, I believe being allowed to scout them (for example teching planes early to be able to see which of your several neighbours might be building up to blitz you on day 4) without declaring war adds strategic depth to the game without compromising realism.
      But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.

      You still can scout our your neighbours if you redirect your plane before it reaches the target area (let it fly from patrol to patrol, without reaching it), war will be triggered once the patrol starts.

      We still hear the concerns of many users and will discuss the issue once more in the team.
    • freezy wrote:

      You still can scout our your neighbours if you redirect your plane before it reaches the target area
      That becomes an almost impossible task in micro-management ---- and I say that as someone who is fairly adept at micro-managing his COW combat units. Moreover, if you are unable to at least briefly stop and patrol over the target area, given the other bugs and problems that the software is experiencing regarding the revealing of non-allied units within the patrol radius of all ground, air and naval units, the recon overflight exercise is really pointless.

      We are back where we started, Freezy, and it is unacceptable. The developers have attempted a jerry-rig of a known problem (patrolling aircraft inflicting damage to buildings during peace time), and they have destroyed a long-established game practice (aerial reconnaissance) that even your in-game tutorial and unit descriptions promote.

      This is a f***ing mess.
    • freezy wrote:

      Well the difference is, that you are not sending recon planes, but full war ready fighter squadrons.
      From the description of interceptors on the unit spec sheet for them:

      "Fighters are the strongest unit when it comes to air battles and perfectly suited to gain air superiority or gain quick Intel."

      Freezy, even your own in-game tutorials and unit spec sheets promote the use of fighter units for reconnaissance purposes, and this has been an integral part of the game since its creation. Stop making excuses, and fix the underlying problem (planes on patrol attacking in peace time). Either that, or restore the 15-minute patrol ticker, which most of us agreed we could live with.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by MontanaBB ().

    • freezy wrote:

      Regarding your bug report: I could not confirm it sadly. I tested it as follows: Having bombers and fithers patrol over a country with which I have right of way, while an enemy is located inside the patrol radius on that countries territory. The enemy was correctly damaged while I remained at right of way with the province owner. I tested it again with my planes being stationed in the country I have right of way with, still the same result, no war was triggered. If you have more information how to exactly reproduce this, you can forward it to me.
      I direct-attacked the enemy tanks in the RoW territory, not patrol. I wanted to kill them while I was sleeping, as they continued along their path. (I sent a link to a screenshot of the doomed bombers on their way back to the now-hostile airfield with my bug report, but don't have it handy.)

      I think I was warned when I plotted the attack "You may declare war on Georgia" or whatever, but ignored it because I've seen that same message many times and this is the first time that it actually did cause a war.
    • freezy wrote:

      But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.
      Artillery does not automatically start shooting across the border each hourly tick at neighbouring units who are in range, when at peace. If they did it would terribly mess up the game. Imagine the Maginot line constantly firing into Germany from the time it was built. (And Germany doing nothing about it!)

      Are you saying that they would if they were on the Aggressive High Command setting? Or just saying that it's a side-effect of the plane patrol mechanic, which thus could be fixed?

      I guess I had heard about the planes attacking at-peace neighbours without triggering war (as an exploit that could be abused to clear a country for the conquering), but I've never intentionally done it. So if I patrol a bomber around an area at the edge of my territory (the centre of the bubble is in my province but the bubble/view range overlaps the neighbour) and he has a scout AC at the edge of his territory watching me, I guess I'm still going to blow him up even if I didn't intend to, and it won't declare war despite the death toll? That's just silly, and needs to be directly fixed, right?

      Each patrol tick, have the planes attack any enemy units in their range bubble. Problem solved.
    • CityOfAngels wrote:

      "Fighters are the strongest unit when it comes to air battles and perfectly suited to gain air superiority or gain quick Intel."

      Freezy, even your own in-game tutorials and unit spec sheets promote the use of fighter units for reconnaissance purposes, and this has been an integral part of the game since its creation. Stop making excuses, and fix the underlying problem (planes on patrol attacking in peace time). Either that, or restore the 15-minute patrol ticker, which most of us agreed we could live with.

      The fighter (and all aircraft) can recon just fine with no restrictions in times of war. I have played before the change and after it, and I think the change is fine.
    • MontanaBB wrote:

      freezy wrote:

      Well the difference is, that you are not sending recon planes, but full war ready fighter squadrons.
      From the description of interceptors on the unit spec sheet for them:
      "Fighters are the strongest unit when it comes to air battles and perfectly suited to gain air superiority or gain quick Intel."

      Freezy, even your own in-game tutorials and unit spec sheets promote the use of fighter units for reconnaissance purposes, and this has been an integral part of the game since its creation. Stop making excuses, and fix the underlying problem (planes on patrol attacking in peace time). Either that, or restore the 15-minute patrol ticker, which most of us agreed we could live with.
      Our devs will investigate soon why it does not behave as stated before. Until then you sadly have to live with how it is at the moment. I think it is still perfectly doable to get intel without declaring war. Planes have vision range, so they also see units along the way while flying to their destination. So you could for example place the patrol command at the other end of the neutral country and check for the units along that path, then redirect the plane before it arrives (and you see when it arrives on the timer). I know it is not perfect. And the not updating ?-units are another issue that will be investigated separately.

      CityOfAngels wrote:

      freezy wrote:

      Regarding your bug report: I could not confirm it sadly. I tested it as follows: Having bombers and fithers patrol over a country with which I have right of way, while an enemy is located inside the patrol radius on that countries territory. The enemy was correctly damaged while I remained at right of way with the province owner. I tested it again with my planes being stationed in the country I have right of way with, still the same result, no war was triggered. If you have more information how to exactly reproduce this, you can forward it to me.
      I direct-attacked the enemy tanks in the RoW territory, not patrol. I wanted to kill them while I was sleeping, as they continued along their path. (I sent a link to a screenshot of the doomed bombers on their way back to the now-hostile airfield with my bug report, but don't have it handy.)
      I think I was warned when I plotted the attack "You may declare war on Georgia" or whatever, but ignored it because I've seen that same message many times and this is the first time that it actually did cause a war.
      Sadly I also could not reproduce this. I attacked an enemy unit inside the country with which I have right of way with a direct bomber attack, one time from my own city, one time from the nation with which I have right of way. No war was triggered despite the warning popup. Then I did the same again when the enemy units where stationed in a city of the country I have right of way with, with units of that country in the same city, to try out if perhaps area damage triggers the war. But also here, no war was triggered when attacking it.

      So I must assume that something else triggered the war in your case, sorry. On a sidenote: Your report was about using the attack button, so it is not related to our patrol change.

      CityOfAngels wrote:

      I guess I had heard about the planes attacking at-peace neighbours without triggering war (as an exploit that could be abused to clear a country for the conquering), but I've never intentionally done it. So if I patrol a bomber around an area at the edge of my territory (the centre of the bubble is in my province but the bubble/view range overlaps the neighbour) and he has a scout AC at the edge of his territory watching me, I guess I'm still going to blow him up even if I didn't intend to, and it won't declare war despite the death toll? That's just silly, and needs to be directly fixed, right?
      You don't attack in that case, you only attack them when the center of your patrol radius is inside the neutral country.
    • freezy wrote:

      But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.
      "Patrol means attacking" - Not really... They don't attack when patrolling over someone who gave you Right of Way. If you want to attack them you use the attack button. Why not extend that to neighbours who are at a Peace setting?

      I understand the logic ("intruding on their air space"), I just don't think it helps the game, and doesn't make things more realistic, so why do it that way?

      Note that it seems to provide a learning curve issue (barrier to new players) too. If a newbie proudly builds their first plane, and reasonably uses it to scout to see what their AI neighbour is doing... Then comes back a couple hours later and their plane is dead and angry enemy troops are swarming across the borders... That could cause someone to say WTF and leave for good.
    • CityOfAngels wrote:

      freezy wrote:

      But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.
      "Patrol means attacking" - Not really... They don't attack when patrolling over someone who gave you Right of Way. If you want to attack them you use the attack button. Why not extend that to neighbours who are at a Peace setting?
      I understand the logic ("intruding on their air space"), I just don't think it helps the game, and doesn't make things more realistic, so why do it that way?

      Note that it seems to provide a learning curve issue (barrier to new players) too. If a newbie proudly builds their first plane, and reasonably uses it to scout to see what their AI neighbour is doing... Then comes back a couple hours later and their plane is dead and angry enemy troops are swarming across the borders... That could cause someone to say WTF and leave for good.
      -you cant attack a ROW country via scouting BECAUSE YOU ARE ALLIES....

      -the realistic factor is pretty much 100% true, while i don't care about the upgrade, i can still scout with no problems

      -if you leave your planes over someone's country, don't expect them to greet your pilots with tea or something, you must be retarded to actually leave your planes for hours to scout over the enemy territory, hell, your argument is invalid, because if i was a active player, and i seen that a random bastard is scouting over my country with planes, i'd gladly declare war on him and invade him, in other words, you're gonna piss everyone off if you're spying on them via planes, this includes AI since this update
      This player may have been reactivated in October 27th 2017
    • King Draza Mihajlovic wrote:

      -if you leave your planes over someone's country, don't expect them to greet your pilots with tea or something, you must be retarded to actually leave your planes for hours to scout over the enemy territory, hell, your argument is invalid, because if i was a active player, and i seen that a random bastard is scouting over my country with planes, i'd gladly declare war on him and invade him, in other words, you're gonna piss everyone off if you're spying on them via planes, this includes AI since this update
      Military planes trespass in other country's airspace for scouting purposes during peacetime all the time. What examples are you thinking of where the country being scouted declared war because of it? I fear you are just making stuff up.

      And in any competitive game, it's pretty unlikely that you can afford to declare war on every country that scouts you, or places a spy in your country. You'll soon be spread out way too thin and getting picked to pieces.
    • CityOfAngels wrote:

      Military planes trespass in other country's airspace for scouting purposes during peacetime all the time. What examples are you thinking of where the country being scouted declared war because of it? I fear you are just making stuff up.
      Citing real life situations to support your disagreement is flawed as this is not in any way even close to an accurate real world simulation.

      That being said; yes, it is true, though less frequent nowadays in the age of satellites, that spy planes scouted out foreign countries.

      However, it is equally true that the spy planes could, and did, get shot at. The case of Gary Powers being the most famous of the Cold War era.

      This change makes it possible for patrolling planes to get attacked by defending aircraft and AA guns, which is 'realistic'.

      Unless Bytro wants to alter the code so that units can attack, and damage, units with which the player is not at war, this is an acceptable compromise.

      Losing peacetime scouting power with a fighter is no big deal. If its so important to you to find out what is in a province, just hire a spy and send him on an intel mission.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by KingCongo: spelling correction ().

    • KingCongo wrote:

      Citing real life situations to support your disagreement is flawed as this is not in any way even close to an accurate real world simulation.
      I was responding to people who were trying to claim that the change made it more realistic. IMO the opposite is true. And realism is important not just for the sense of immersion in the game, but moreso because it makes the game easier to learn. If submarines flew and were great at intercepting fighters, which were the best units for destroying enemy factories, the game would be a lot more difficult to pick up, right?

      If the change helped gameplay somehow then your argument would have value, but in my opinion it hinders gameplay. You mention "simulating spy planes being shot at" - That would be fine, as long as it doesn't force a declaration of war between two countries which is a much bigger deal/hassle. Especially for a new player who moves his plane there out of ignorance, or any player who does it by mistake (maybe dealing with a laggy connection, trying to play on a handheld, tired, whatever.)
    • CityOfAngels wrote:

      KingCongo wrote:

      Citing real life situations to support your disagreement is flawed as this is not in any way even close to an accurate real world simulation.
      I was responding to people who were trying to claim that the change made it more realistic. IMO the opposite is true.
      there is that one time that Russia violated Turkish airspace, the jet got shot down, and frankly, if you fly over someone's airspace, your plane will be shot down, and in Call of War, if damage gets caused by one side, it instantly declares war, so stop whining about "realism" and game mechanics.




      and man, newbies wont even know that they can scout with planes.....so why use them as a example?
      This player may have been reactivated in October 27th 2017
    • King Draza Mihajlovic wrote:

      there is that one time that Russia violated Turkish airspace, the jet got shot down, and frankly, if you fly over someone's airspace, your plane will be shot down, and in Call of War, if damage gets caused by one side, it instantly declares war, so stop whining about "realism" and game mechanics.



      and man, newbies wont even know that they can scout with planes.....so why use them as a example?

      I appreciate the irony of you arguing with real-world examples (and poor ones at that, since Turkey did not declare war on Russia), and then whining at me to stop doing the same.

      I'll repeat one more time and then give up. If the change doesn't make the game more realistic -and- the change doesn't make game-play better, why make the change? Especially if it makes the game less realistic and makes game-play more annoying (accidental wars with neighboring AIs)?

      If you are a business (like Bytro), newbies are very important because you hope they will turn in to paying customers. You should try to encourage them by offering an entertaining game experience, if you hope your business will grow.
    • CityOfAngels wrote:

      If the change helped gameplay somehow then your argument would have value, but in my opinion it hinders gameplay.
      IMO the change did help gameplay. Saves me the trouble of threatening a DoW everytime I catch someone flying a plane inside my borders.

      CityOfAngels wrote:



      Especially for a new player who moves his plane there out of ignorance, or any player who does it by mistake (maybe dealing with a laggy connection, trying to play on a handheld, tired, whatever.)

      If you are a business (like Bytro), newbies are very important because you hope they will turn in to paying customers. You should try to encourage them by offering an entertaining game experience, if you hope your business will grow.
      This is clearly not about what n00bs want, but what you want.

      New players that start the game with the current ruleset won't even notice the change because they joined the game after it was in effect, and the game warns the player when (s)he attempts something that might start a war.

      If anything this helps the noobs because now they won't have to worry about veteran players having the added advantages of knowing they can scout early (thus being able to sneak attack n00bs who misplace their defenses) and also knowing they can destroy neutral units via the patrol exploit (thus giving them a conquest-time edge).

      Furthermore, aircraft still scout just fine in wartime conditions, in friendly airspace, and at sea, which is when/where it most vital.

      I am sure Bytro isn't going to suddenly go bankrupt because they tweaked a minor feature and made it work more as intended.
    • CityOfAngels wrote:

      I appreciate the irony of you arguing with real-world examples (and poor ones at that, since Turkey did not declare war on Russia),
      IF that happened in call of war, it would cause a freaking war since units from 2 nations clashed with each other









      and i pointed that out in the post, you damn moron
      This player may have been reactivated in October 27th 2017