Aircraft Interception

[Graufalke]

I am setting up aircraft for the first time and need to understand a little about the mechanics of an air war.

How does aircraft interception work?

If I have fighters or fighter-bombers in range of an enemy air/ground attack, do they "trigger" and engage automatically or do I need to set them to something to do this?

[CHOO CHOO]

Here's how you do it:
1. Make sure you can actually risk flying planes and that your enemies do not have an overwhelming AAA and SAM presence.
2. Build various types of recon planes, bombers and transport aircraft, with their sizes, range and armaments depending on how much fuel you have to spend and whether your enemies are infantry or armor.
3. Build no fighters whatsoever.
4. Also build no AAA or SAM or MANPAD.
5. Realize that the AI never uses planes.

I have often heard point number 5. disputed by others, but for myself I'm forced to report that I never even once saw an AI regime use air vehicles.

[Graufalke]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

Here's how you do it:
1. Make sure you can actually risk flying planes and that your enemies do not have an overwhelming AAA and SAM presence.
2. Build various types of recon planes, bombers and transport aircraft, with their sizes, range and armaments depending on how much fuel you have to spend and whether your enemies are infantry or armor.
3. Build no fighters whatsoever.
4. Also build no AAA or SAM or MANPAD.
5. Realize that the AI never uses planes.

I have often heard point number 5. disputed by others, but for myself I'm forced to report that I never even once saw an AI regime use air vehicles.

#5 lol well thats disappointing....

Thanks for the reply.

[CHOO CHOO]

As said, I've often heard from others that the AI does use planes, I've just never seen in happen myself in my, what, 900h of playing the game. It's entirely possible that I just got persistently unlucky. But if I were you, I wouldn't worry about air superiority until someone actually contests it.

[DazaKiwi]

I've seen Ai use Aircraft in previous games, they would attack my units to soften them up but it will depend on the mbar pressure (ideal is 600-700+) of the planet i think, if its too low then planes lack range and i am not sure if there is a min mbar acceptable level before they will build them?

You only see them in action on their turn, orange icon that looks like a Stuka, and i think only Major regimes use aircraft? i might be wrong.

It would be nice if in the planet setup you could specify what mbar pressure you want and the planet will be generated around that, so you always will get a map where you can properly use aircraft. Thopters are the best for low mbar planets, i dont know if the Ai make use of those, it would be great if the Ai used those more.

[CHOO CHOO]

Hm...do you usually play on large or very large planets? I tend to play on small ones to keep down the micromanagement, and maybe those tend to have thinner atmospheres, and then maybe the AI won't build planes.

[Graufalke]

Yes, the AI not taking advantage of it when I can feels like an expolit.

First turn of a new war I took all my level bombers again a stack of 30 light tanks and encircled it with mobile troops to kill it off. That was about a third of the majors armor at the time gone first turn and by my second option.

Dont get me wrong though as all is not rosey. That metal usage for ammo. Ouch.

[NeonHaggis]

The main problem I have found with aircraft is the game scale - each hex is such a large scale compared to aircraft ranges - unless you are playing on a very crowded world with very small province sizes I have rarely found enemy in range to use them on.

Perhaps trying for a low grav thick atmosphere world might be fun to try to max out their range.

[DazaKiwi]

Often in my games (i start with tech 4) i have an ultra-light recon plane that can fly 7 hexes and early in the game that is still useful for recon. They can do decent air-attacks on basic inf as well. Later on you can build lvl1 Airports on the border of your zone where you want to use them and then use the move command to move them there- even if the airport is out of their normal fly range (i think because usually 7 hex range means there and back) - so flying say 10-12 hexes to an airport is a one way trip. Or if further out, you could say they are being moved via on transport.

I usually wait until i get Thopters before having fighter/bombers they have a great range opposed to the other aircraft. I haven't had much luck in using Jets, as soon as you add a bigger Jet engine, more fuel etc, it ends up being a waste of time. But you can research air design, lighter airframe and more efficient fuel/jet engine etc- but i haven't really gone that far to see if they become viable. Again if you have a really good atmosphere perhaps Jets are good. But yeah Thopters are great as you can use them in most atmospheres i think. Even if your range is 14-20 you can fly them to any place and land them- without an airport.

[CHOO CHOO]

IMO getting at least some basic applied science done for aircraft (aerodynamics, design, fuel efficiency etc.), even if it's just the bottom 25% of each, does wonders for your plane's range. I usually don't even start designing planes until I get some of that settled. And then I design no plane that doesn't get 25-33 hexes of range.

[Q'Xel]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

IMO getting at least some basic applied science done for aircraft (aerodynamics, design, fuel efficiency etc.), even if it's just the bottom 25% of each, does wonders for your plane's range. I usually don't even start designing planes until I get some of that settled. And then I design no plane that doesn't get 25-33 hexes of range.

For range factor, Lightweight Alloys appears to be one of the most important (of course, Fuel Efficiency reduces size of Fuel Tanks & Aerodynamic reduces consumption).

[Zilenan]

As far as I know if you want planes to intercept enemy planes, click on the unit card on the bottom and it should open up a screen about stuff you can do with the unit (disband, scrap, replace, etc) and in there is stuff that lets you decide at what readiness thresholds planes will go into the air to fight enemy planes. They need to have AP to actually do this, and readiness matters a ton more for air combat than other forms of combat so ideally you want that readiness really high.


As far as their effectiveness, it depends on the atmosphere and gravity. If you get a great planet for it planes are busted. Hydra-class worlds are incredible because they always have low gravity and you can generate them with thick atmospheres for incredibly long plane ranges. Outside of those specific planets, they're mostly useful defensively. You can place a central airbase near clusters of cities to instantly get very large anti-tank punch anywhere you need them around all of your cities. Beyond that, it's mostly bombers that you want to build for killing infantry, and Rockets once you unlock those for killing tanks. Both of these absolutely shred their respective units, with Rockets being a lot more ammo-efficient than the latter option but doing very little but damage the readiness of properly-equipped infantry.

[cranky corvid]

Originally posted by Zilenan:

As far as I know if you want planes to intercept enemy planes, click on the unit card on the bottom and it should open up a screen about stuff you can do with the unit (disband, scrap, replace, etc) and in there is stuff that lets you decide at what readiness thresholds planes will go into the air to fight enemy planes.

That option is in Unit Admin in the right-side bar.

[Zilenan]

Originally posted by cranky corvid:

Originally posted by Zilenan:

As far as I know if you want planes to intercept enemy planes, click on the unit card on the bottom and it should open up a screen about stuff you can do with the unit (disband, scrap, replace, etc) and in there is stuff that lets you decide at what readiness thresholds planes will go into the air to fight enemy planes.

That option is in Unit Admin in the right-side bar.

That's where it was, my mistake

[Graufalke]

Thanks all!

Still doesnt matter until the AI bothers to use some air power against me as well, but good enough.