Sending multiple interceptors: Bug?

[deliciouspancakes]

Is this a development oversight or a UI bug?

When you launch an interceptor it plays a cutscene and begins pursuit while time advances. This makes it seem like you can only send one ship out at a time.

However, you can send multiple interceptors after the same UFO simultaneously if you double click the UFO. When you do this the hanger menu re-opens an allows you to send out a second aircraft.

This is obviously bugged, I'm just not sure which method was intended, multiple aircraft or one at a time. The hangar menu makes me think multiple, like the old X-com, but the cutscene and resulting map focus/forced unpause makes me think one at a time.

Personally, in a tactical game with time so important a factor, I find the forced cut-scene and unpause on interceptor launch incredibly obtuse. However, being able to send multiple interceptors after the same ship and abort at will makes taking down more difficult ufos a cakewalk.

[Cyborgt]

That sounds like something probably left over from the fact that they supposedly built the game like the original xcom and then stripped things away till they got to where it is now. I've never even noticed it was there but the way the game treats the ufo thing and the fact that you can take down pretty much every ship pretty easily with just one appropriately equiped plane would seem to indicate to me that it was intended for you to just use one ship per ufo.

[szmind]

Originally posted by Cyborgt:

That sounds like something probably left over from the fact that they supposedly built the game like the original xcom and then stripped things away till they got to where it is now. I've never even noticed it was there but the way the game treats the ufo thing and the fact that you can take down pretty much every ship pretty easily with just one appropriately equiped plane would seem to indicate to me that it was intended for you to just use one ship per ufo.

Sorry for necro, but I am just developing the mod allowing for sending multiple interceptors. It is totally possible. Expect its release soon. Indeed the code was written to handle old-xcom-style interceptions - managing distance from outpost/jet to UFO, changing destination during flight, multijet combat and so on. There are even ready functions to handle simulated results of both interceptions and tactical combats (so that player could totally concentrate on tac or strat layer of the game). But they stripped it out and interception interface is designed purely for 1 on 1 fight. Changing this (displaying more than 1 jet) would require total redesign of interception gfx movie/interface. It is not impossible but beyond my knowledge and skills. Therefore multijet fight in my mod will still display only 1 jet image but 'bullets' from all aircrafts. You will be able to pull out jets one by one via abort button.

If you have further expectations/ideas on how should all this work write it here. I am developing it for Long War (different jet stances and pilot ranks) but if there is enough demand I will make a pure EW version as well. Definitely the max number of jets in a squadron will depend on the rank (number of kills) of most experienced pilot selected for an interception.

[DeadlyDanDaMan]

Originally posted by szmind:

Originally posted by Cyborgt:

That sounds like something probably left over from the fact that they supposedly built the game like the original xcom and then stripped things away till they got to where it is now. I've never even noticed it was there but the way the game treats the ufo thing and the fact that you can take down pretty much every ship pretty easily with just one appropriately equiped plane would seem to indicate to me that it was intended for you to just use one ship per ufo.

Sorry for necro, but I am just developing the mod allowing for sending multiple interceptors. It is totally possible. Expect its release soon. Indeed the code was written to handle old-xcom-style interceptions - managing distance from outpost/jet to UFO, changing destination during flight, multijet combat and so on. There are even ready functions to handle simulated results of both interceptions and tactical combats (so that player could totally concentrate on tac or strat layer of the game). But they stripped it out and interception interface is designed purely for 1 on 1 fight. Changing this (displaying more than 1 jet) would require total redesign of interception gfx movie/interface. It is not impossible but beyond my knowledge and skills. Therefore multijet fight in my mod will still display only 1 jet image but 'bullets' from all aircrafts. You will be able to pull out jets one by one via abort button.

If you have further expectations/ideas on how should all this work write it here. I am developing it for Long War (different jet stances and pilot ranks) but if there is enough demand I will make a pure EW version as well. Definitely the max number of jets in a squadron will depend on the rank (number of kills) of most experienced pilot selected for an interception.

It's a good idea, however, I feel that it would completely unbalance the game since every aircraft is balanced (stats wise) around 1v1 engagements. You would never need to build anything but basic Interceptors if you could just send a squadron of them at a time after a UFO, even a Battleship wouldn't be able to handle 3 or 4 Interceptors at once.

You might as well just use the Friendly Skies second wave option instead. Same result without all the hassle of a mod. Sorry to poop on your parade.

[szmind]

Originally posted by DeadlyDanDaMan:

It's a good idea, however, I feel that it would completely unbalance the game since every aircraft is balanced (stats wise) around 1v1 engagements. You would never need to build anything but basic Interceptors if you could just send a squadron of them at a time after a UFO, even a Battleship wouldn't be able to handle 3 or 4 Interceptors at once.

You might as well just use the Friendly Skies second wave option instead. Same result without all the hassle of a mod. Sorry to poop on your parade.

First - this is not about difficulty but about variety. You can already send 3-4 aircrafts against any UFO. Just you are forced to do it one by one. And the UFO will still not stand a chance. I see no break of balance with changing 4 movies into one. Could you precise the difference between 4 x 1 and 1 x 4?

And as I said - I am creating it for Long War rather than for vanilla. In vanilla EW airgame is trivial.