#[NO ACTION] Air Attack Overload

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

opaque wren
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A long time points of friction - too many fighters, too much external ordnance. This can be addressed through a number of parts, both in MekHQ and MM.

MM side, this could mean limiting how many bombs the bot will drop in one hex, probably using one of the behavior sliders as a guide. And adding level bombing to the repetoire so they carpet bomb and cause general damage rather than outright deleting a unit. And a more cicumspect bot for ground attack purposes which makes only one or two passes before retreating.

MHQ side, changing how the range of external ordnance points is determined. Rather than a flat random number from a minimum to the maximum (which is around 80-90%, if I remember correctly) make this a bottom heavy curve so lighter bomb loads are more likely than heavier ones. Potentially dynamically adjusting the curve based on how far along the mission/contract is and/or the enemy morale rating, to represent their ability to resupply with external ordnance.

torpid oasis
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I also had quite a lot of aerial scenarios spawning for my two poor ASF on my union. It would be nice if for the Stratcon scenarios we could bid away doing aerial battles as part of the contract so if you don't like it you have a gameplay way to handle it other than spawning Ilkhan era ASF.

wraith grove
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From my experience this is an issue but it feels more to be about the ordnance than the fighters themselves. ASFs are difficult but have enough weaknesses that they can be handled. The problem I find is when they're toting 100+ damage worth of bombs. It becomes less of a tactical problem to solve and more of a "Well, I guess they get to delete one of my units" that I can do nothing about.

A much more bottom-heavy curve for the external loads would be a good MekHQ solution. Though this also ties into another topic...

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(If we were looking at this from the MM side of things, potentially just banning the bot from using the dive bomb maneuver could solve a lot.)

opaque wren
wraith grove
opaque wren
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Hence the suggestion for putting in a limit, and tying it to one of the sliders. A very conservative setting would only drop a single bomb, while the opposite end would drop the entire load. Being able to tailor behavior to both desires is important.

gloomy terrace
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We could also add a campaign option, if there isn’t already one, that reduces the amount of bombs generated

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That’d not be the best solution, but would mitigate the need to fiddle with Princess’ logic

pastel orbit
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As-is, bombs are basically un-balanceable campaign-wise. You can't stop a bombing run from bombing its target on the ground map, and even stacking enough ground AA to ensure the fighter doesn't make it back out doesn't matter when the NPC forces are functionally unlimited and the player forces aren't. I don't think that's fixable without a rules change, which waits on CGL, so an option to turn off external ordnance in the meantime is probably the simplest way to go.

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Fighters without bombs aren't too absurd, they can make powerful strikes but they can also die a lot faster than a mech of equivalent BV.

gloomy terrace
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Yeah

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I think we can make it a range, though

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Some players won’t want any bombs, some will want them a little less obnoxious

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A range should satisfy both

autumn otter
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I've adjusted the ammunition spawn rates for external ordnance in one of the ammo config files, and it makes them signifcantly less oppressive

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One major issue with aerospace fighters under princess' control specifically is that the AI doesn't vary its approaches enough. If four aerospace units get spawned in with external hardpoints, 9 times out of 10, all of them will dive the same unit, with roughly the same flight path.

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If their bombing attacks were more diversified, this would also counteract a lot of the problems. 100 damage points spread between 4 units is a lot less catastrophic than 100 damage points on a single unit.

cerulean kite
pastel orbit
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yeah, that's nominally how you fix the issue on tabletop

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which is still a bit awkward in that the only defense against enemy aerospace bombers is having your own aerospace units

cerulean kite
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It's been the most convenient for me, at least
if I had more tanks than fighters, I'd instead generate a ground battle where I put anti-air units against the enemy aeros. Same idea, just with different units.

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One of these days I might make a dedicated anti-air lance for one of my campaigns. Maybe turn off damage thresholds so I can use AC 2/5 boats for their intended purpose

pastel orbit
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The updated version where total damage exceeding the highest threshold on the target counts for a control roll works to let LBX or other small guns do AA without a single AC2 downing a DS in one hit (this is available in MM already)

cerulean kite
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ooh, I didn't know that existed, I'll have to try it out

bleak harness
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suggestion here: campaign rule that makes a lower-than-default limit on external bomb loads? like, if you get one per 10 tons, or one per 20 tons, it gets way less absurd

that way you can have it apply equally to the player as well, so you don't just nerf the bot

(idk if this is practical at all, though)

autumn otter
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You can already change this in ammo settings with a text edit, afaik

bleak harness
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So very practical, then

lavish salmon
autumn otter
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Incidentally, going into the munitionLoadoutSetting.yaml (located in the mmconf folder), and editing it with Notepad++, you can decrease aerospace bomb spam a lot by changing the values for:

percentBombersToEquipMin: percentBombersToEquipRange:

I run with 10 in the first value, and 20 in the second, which has improved my ability to play into it somewhat.

Ideally though, a structural approach that does any of the following, in no particular order of feasability or complexity:

STRATEGIC:

  • Distinguish aerospace superiority facilities from aerospace bomber facilities. The former could provide larger OPFOR (4 craft) with smaller, lighter craft (<50t) that are naturally less prone to carrying huge ammunition weights, while the latter could provide a smaller OPFOR (2 craft) with heavier units (>50t) that would specifically be geared towards bombing you.

  • Provide own aerospace units with type-specific mission types (for ground units, these are things like maneuver, auxiliary, training, etc). Air-superiority should prevent enemy aerospace facilities from contributing to scenario's or produce a similar effect as detailed in TACTICAL, but generate more air-to-air scenario's while active, while close-air-support mission could function as reinforcement bonus specifically for aerospace units (essentially an air-warfare reflavour of the ground-based mission type).

TACTICAL:

  • Have enemy air assets coming into a scenario against units that have the anti-air targeting quirk take an amount of random damage to represent 'approach interception', with severity dictated by a formula that accounts for weight of unit, amount of AA units, and skill of AA unit (or alternatvely, BV which abstracts all of this). This should mean that a lance of Elite rifleman could feasibly do enough damage to force certain craft into retreat / destruction as soon as they spawn.

STRUCTURAL:

  • Lower default values on units generating with bombs to decrease volume of munitions.

  • Refine Princess attack logic so that less craft attack along the same vector, reducing the volume of bombs being dropped on one single target, vs. multiple targets.

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As always, just brainstorming possible solutions, many of these likely widely out of scope, but you never know. Partial implementation, or food for thought for more comprehensive reworks down the line.

cedar hamlet
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God Yes, please get rid of bombs, completely unfun

opaque wren
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I LOVE the idea of fixed wing force mission types handling parts of this. Just as you can set ground forces to Scout to find things, have a set for fixed wing forces that does their own thing. 'Ground attack' for ones that are on-call to support against OpFor ground forces; 'Intercept' or 'CAP' for ones that shield your own forces from air attack. Maybe a few tweaks like strategic speed, including external ordnance penalties, to modify effectiveness in the same way fast light units get benefits to scouting.

autumn otter
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To boil down some of the essentials:

  • Enemy aerospace units bomb too often and too freely, something Mishra described very accurately higher on up.
  • Own aerospace forces don't do enough to mitigate this, because tactically the game does not provide sufficient recourse.
  • Own anti-air forces don't do enough to mitigate this, for the same reason as above.
  • There is a demand for strategic relevance of own/allied aerospace units because this reflects their actual use case, but this is not/poorly supported by the game system in general.
gloomy terrace
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Yeah, we're fighting uphill when the rules themselves are against us

hollow galleon
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My take is similar to dgorsman we need to better model Air Supremacy and Air Dominance. Counter Air, Air Support.

hollow galleon
gloomy terrace
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I know we previously said that StratCon was feature complete, but I do think this is a persistent enough problem that we need to address it.

pastel orbit
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This is starting to sound like a more major project, however

gloomy terrace
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Outside the scope of spit and polish, yeah

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I think, for now, players will just need to edit the text doc. That provides some way to address the issue, even if it isn't the most ergonomic

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I'll have another chat with the autoammo author and see if maybe we can drop bomb counts down a little by default.

glacial jackal
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Could you make a checkbox to only allow bombs on light ASF and CF? That cuts down a lot of the volume issue and gives those units a role.

gloomy terrace
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Not really, that would get in the way of autoammo

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You can lower bomb amounts in the autoammo config

gloomy terrace
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[NO ACTION] Air Attack Overload

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I'm marking this as 'no action' for two reasons: