Change back the dog fight mechanics

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    • So, you can still put multiple plane stacks in. They will all get one defensive fire shot in. Then each of those stacks will tick with offensive fire. If moved before they tick, they return to base. Then you get one defensive fire shot from all your stacks every 15 minutes.
      if you have multiple plane stacks, that can still be a good thing depending on how many stacks the enemy has.
      If the enemy has multiple plane stacks too, it becomes much more challenging to figure out optimal stack sizes since any enemy stacks in the patrol area would get defensive fire on your ticks.
      If you have more planes than SBDE maximum effectiveness and more planes than the enemy, multiple stacks still seems the way to go. Your mileage may vary.
      I still wouldn't recommend leaving patrols going while away from keyboard for a long time. We need to better understand the risks of the new dog fight dynamics better before doing that.

    • Lawrence Czl wrote:

      It looks like if you move a patrol after it has fired defensive fire, then it returns to home base. Will need to have this confirmed by others.
      It is probably just that it was the first stack to start patrol from that AB so your patrol sector was centered at zero degrees. This is a forever bug. If you move a patrol in such a situation it must return to AB just like it normally will (unless you happen to move it into the sector centered at zero degrees, then it will fly directly into that sector).

    • I encourage everyone to keep this thread focused on the issue of how to deal with the current ability to defensively target single patrol tics with an unlimited number of full power air stacks.

      I agree that taking away patrol functionality is a bad idea. Several times I have proposed limiting the targeting of a patrol tic to a single or perhaps a small number of defensive air stacks. Too me this seems like the most straight forward way to directly address the issue without messing with other basic plane behaviors, and depending on how many stacks are allowed to be targeted could still leave some room for micro managing without creating a massive imbalance. I am a mega OCD micro manager so the current behavior is definitely to my advantage, so I'm not suggesting this for my own benefit. I just think it is too much of an imbalance and a lot of even veteran players don't like it because they don't have the time to micro manage their planes all day. I haven't really heard much reaction to this proposal, but I'm interested in what you all think.

    • Stormbringer50 wrote:

      the last thing we need is more monkeying around with plane mechanics
      No, we need! In this way only the highest active player wins the game. This makes the problem that more people will share his account with friends to be able to stay 24/7 online.

      Ay Blinkin wrote:

      Hans,

      If you remove the patrol function from bombers, half the player quit. simple as that.
      No, I think that 95% of all players will accept this. Most players didn't know the distinguished power of the air force.

      -----

      I can only speak for me and handful guys that I spoke, but I can say that we want to change something. So let us go back and start the discuss new. This was the 5 options that Freezy gives us:

      freezy wrote:

      A) If a plane did not do an attack tick in the last 15min, the next patrol tick will happen at the beginning of the patrol timer.

      B) When a plane started to patrol, any new command given to it will result in the plane flying back to refuel before executing the new command.

      C) After each patrol tick in which a plane attacks offensively, it has to fly to base to refuel, before flying back to the patrol destination and resuming the patrol. Patrol damage is increased from 25% to 100% to make up for it.

      D) we keep everything as it is and declare it as a feature that everyone can use or avoid.

      E) planes do not deal damage during patrol anymore, unless other planes attack them directly or a friendly target within their patrol radius is attacked.
      So, why is option E for some of the players here in this thread so negative?

      I like to say that option F is my favorite: Set the patrol time from 15 to 60 minutes. All other thinks can leave it in the way they are. We reduce the the influence form this "bug" and make the direkt attack for planes more useful.

      Would you like to play with your friends in a game where gold is banned?


      Watch for the next season starts in September!

    • Xarus wrote:

      So, why is option E for some of the players here in this thread so negative?
      Because it is like nuking a prov with a single militia in it and no buildings. It is a seriously overkill way to deal with the issue. If people think that removing patrol ability altogether is a good idea it should be a separate issue, but not an option for dealing with the one vs many issue of patrol battles. But I don't think 95% of people would be ok with removing the patrol ability completely. It is an integral and important part of the game that anyone who has played much at all uses all the time.

    • Stormbringer50 wrote:

      Xarus wrote:

      No, we need! In this way only the highest active player wins the game. This makes the problem that more people will share his account with friends to be able to stay 24/7 online.
      This is absurd
      No it isn't - it's already done by players. (and you have no chance to detect it via MAD system)

      ----------------

      @DxC: I didn't say that 95% of the players will happy to remove the patrol feature, but they will accept it ant not quit the game forever - like Ay said.

      but correct me if I wrong, it sounds to me that you not happy with the way it is now, right?

      Would you like to play with your friends in a game where gold is banned?


      Watch for the next season starts in September!

    • Xarus wrote:

      but correct me if I wrong, it sounds to me that you not happy with the way it is now, right?
      For my own play style I like to destroy my enemies planes with hardly any damage to my own, so the current behavior is to my advantage. However, I think that the majority of players, or at least enough of them, don't like it and don't have time to manage their planes all the time. Not to mention that the majority of players don't even know how things work and are vulnerable enough, even without extra tricks that can be played on them. So I do think the one vs many scenario in patrols should be modified for the common good. But I also think that removing patrol ability completely is a very wrong approach to the issue.

    • So what du you think about the option F, Is this not a compromises? It's not a big thing for the devs to change and we can try it in FP-Games if it works.

      Would you like to play with your friends in a game where gold is banned?


      Watch for the next season starts in September!

    • Xarus wrote:

      I like to say that option F is my favorite: Set the patrol time from 15 to 60 minutes. All other thinks can leave it in the way they are. We reduce the the influence form this "bug" and make the direkt attack for planes more useful.
      That addresses the problem even less than E. You would still be able to use the many vs one tactic on that. Besides not addressing the issue it would diminish the usefulness of patrolling to almost zero. It seems like you are keen on getting rid of patrolling and using this issue as an argument to do that. My suggestion directly addresses the issue and doesn't drastically change other parts of air behavior. Regardless of what the moderators might claim, my suggestion would be a relatively simple technical change to implement.

    • DxC wrote:

      I assume Bytro is still looking into this. I think the most straight forward and easy to implement solution would be to allow only a single air stack to defend on an offensive patrol tic. If there are a sufficient percentage of peeps that like to use a more hands on management of battles, perhaps a max of two (or 1.5) stacks could be allowed to defend.
      you mean this one?

      Would you like to play with your friends in a game where gold is banned?


      Watch for the next season starts in September!

    • Xarus wrote:

      DxC wrote:

      I assume Bytro is still looking into this. I think the most straight forward and easy to implement solution would be to allow only a single air stack to defend on an offensive patrol tic. If there are a sufficient percentage of peeps that like to use a more hands on management of battles, perhaps a max of two (or 1.5) stacks could be allowed to defend.
      you mean this one?
      Yes. This directly addresses the issue of one stack vs many which is what all this is about. Depending on how many stacks are allowed to defend on a tic it could allow some appeasement to those who like the more hands on approach to battles. Allowing only a single stack to defend would take away the main advantage of this tactic, but you could get some minor benefit from a bit better TAC defense power. In any case, when a tic occurs the code already has to iterate through all the stacks to see what is within it's patrol range. The only modification that would need to occur is to keep track of the number of air stacks currently in the list and stop adding them once the limit is reached. For example some pseudo-code:

      airStackCount = 0;
      loop over stacks
      if ( stack.isAir ) {
      airStackCount >= maxDefendingAirStacks && continue;
      addStack(stack)
      airStackCount++;
      }