Air Force is a convoluted mess

[Sarnen]

I wish I had an encyclopedia to understand the air assets. I should check the tutori- oh, wait.

There's nothing that makes it clear where an air unit is even stationed, or how it's organized, or why it says "standing by," or how to assign reinforcements (that's if I even knew what was where. Paradox if you're reading this you need to go from the ground up and start again.

In HOI3 I was able to at least figure out how the ♥♥♥♥ to deploy a plane to an airbase. Now I have two side by side windows with nothing to indicate what either means. In HOI3, for all it's clunky UI, I was able to assign bombers to bombing missions (which needed alot of tweaking and micromanagement cleanup but at least it was doable), and I could easily assign fighters to protect the skies. I can do neither, now. Thanks, Paradox. The Blitzkrieg rolls without a Luftwaffe support of any kind (it's like re-enacting the Ardennes offensive of Dec 1944 - in 1940). The Finest Hour of Britain never occurs because it's too hard to figure out how to even put fighters in the air. Heil Koenig Edward VII!

[Roundpixel]

The Paradox air forces tutorial is insufficient - good bsics but lacking. Check out the ones by Bridger and by DasTactic for more advanced details, they are very useful.

[GamingOutkast]

I agree, the system is bad.

Let me help you out, or at least offer what I have learnt.

Manufacture plane(s)

Click on an airbase, when and if you have any planes in reserve you can create a new wing in any airbase.

Create a wing with said plane. Move over 1 unit. Select the tab that shows the units in that wing. You can now expand the amount of planes in that wing.

So say for example you are manufacturing bombers. And you have 5 airbases. Wait till you at least have 5 planes in reserve. Go to each airbase and create a wing with just 1 plane in it. Then go back over those wings and expand the number of planes you want in them.

The planes being manufactured will now be disperesed throughout those bases/wings

[Kurf]

Yeah the Air screen is a big old mess, not because of the menus but because of their color choice. You can't tell region from region because they're all bright white and the borders aren't well matched.
But basically to answer what you're asking/♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about:
During War it'll tell you where all your Aircraft that aren't doing anything are with a Notification, other than that the Airfields are glitched right now (They're supposed to highlight Blue when they have Planes in them but they don't), so that'll need a patch but that's the other way how once they do. You can also scroll over them and see how many planes they actually have (#/600 or #/1200 and so on), so just find airfields with those.
Standing By means exactly what Standing By means, they're Standing By, they're doing jack diddly squat because you haven't assigned them anything.
Planes don't reinforce the way your Army does, you have to actually give the Airfield equipment. So instead of supplying squads, you just supply planes and the Region it's in will do its best to get you Pilots. Sometimes Wings will merge into a big 800 Fighter blob because you aren't giving the Airfield new wings so they just shove all the stored planes into one big one. Basically, when you open an Airfield menu you will see a big + Button, clicking that opens your Aerial Storage where you can give the Airfield planes to make Wings with (you can only do one type at a time).
To do Missions you have to select the Airfield which will select every single Wing stationed there, if you want to deselect one shift click it or if you want to select only one just click one. Now that you have your planes selected, use the poorly colored Air Map to select an Air Region you want to operate in. For example if you're Germany, you'll want to tell your selected planes to operate in Western Poland for invasion. You do this with right-click, and then all those planes appear in the left menu so you can close the Airfield menu. Now you'll have the mission orders. On the left side of the plane is Operation settings, whether they do what they do Day or Night and when they return to Base for repairs. No Retreat means they'll only return for Fuel not when they get damaged, the rest have self explanatory tool tips. The missions on the right decide what the planes do.
Fighters: Win Air Superiority or Intercept. (They can bomb Navies but it's useless)
Fighters are terribad at Intercepting, don't do it. It's not what you think it means, it means Intercepting bombers not Fighters. Air Superiority wins, well, Air Superiority. Having AS means your bombers will be able to Bomb without taking any damage or losses thus saving your precious resources. This doesn't make them immune to AA though.
Bombers: Pretty much all the same just better at each different mission. Bombers can bomb troops (Strategic can't), bomb Infrastructure, or bomb Navies (CAS and Naval CAS).
Heavy Fighters: Win Air Superiority or Intercept.
Heavy Fighters are incredibly bad at fighting other Fighters because they lack the two most important Dogfighting stats, Agility and Speed (so prioritize those for your Fighters). Heavy Fighters are the ones that do the Intercepting. Their Attack Power absolute roasts Bombers and can essentially make you immune to bombs if you have a few wings of them defending your forces.
That's how the Air Force works pretty much.

[Sarnen]

Another huge problem is that it shows "air wings" (I think?) in different places, and I can't do anything with them. I have an airbase in warsaw, when I rigth click, move the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ planes to warsaw. instead it just doesn't, but it shows a "unit" (I think?) in two locations for no reason or explanation.

[Sarnen]

Originally posted by O U T O F V I A L S:

Yeah the Air screen is a big old mess, not because of the menus but because of their color choice. You can't tell region from region because they're all bright white and the borders aren't well matched.
But basically to answer what you're asking/♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about:
During War it'll tell you where all your Aircraft that aren't doing anything are with a Notification, other than that the Airfields are glitched right now (They're supposed to highlight Blue when they have Planes in them but they don't), so that'll need a patch but that's the other way how once they do. You can also scroll over them and see how many planes they actually have (#/600 or #/1200 and so on), so just find airfields with those.
Standing By means exactly what Standing By means, they're Standing By, they're doing jack diddly squat because you haven't assigned them anything.
Planes don't reinforce the way your Army does, you have to actually give the Airfield equipment. So instead of supplying squads, you just supply planes and the Region it's in will do its best to get you Pilots. Sometimes Wings will merge into a big 800 Fighter blob because you aren't giving the Airfield new wings so they just shove all the stored planes into one big one. Basically, when you open an Airfield menu you will see a big + Button, clicking that opens your Aerial Storage where you can give the Airfield planes to make Wings with (you can only do one type at a time).
To do Missions you have to select the Airfield which will select every single Wing stationed there, if you want to deselect one shift click it or if you want to select only one just click one. Now that you have your planes selected, use the poorly colored Air Map to select an Air Region you want to operate in. For example if you're Germany, you'll want to tell your selected planes to operate in Western Poland for invasion. You do this with right-click, and then all those planes appear in the left menu so you can close the Airfield menu. Now you'll have the mission orders. On the left side of the plane is Operation settings, whether they do what they do Day or Night and when they return to Base for repairs. No Retreat means they'll only return for Fuel not when they get damaged, the rest have self explanatory tool tips. The missions on the right decide what the planes do.
Fighters: Win Air Superiority or Intercept. (They can bomb Navies but it's useless)
Fighters are terribad at Intercepting, don't do it. It's not what you think it means, it means Intercepting bombers not Fighters. Air Superiority wins, well, Air Superiority. Having AS means your bombers will be able to Bomb without taking any damage or losses thus saving your precious resources. This doesn't make them immune to AA though.
Bombers: Pretty much all the same just better at each different mission. Bombers can bomb troops (Strategic can't), bomb Infrastructure, or bomb Navies (CAS and Naval CAS).
Heavy Fighters: Win Air Superiority or Intercept.
Heavy Fighters are incredibly bad at fighting other Fighters because they lack the two most important Dogfighting stats, Agility and Speed (so prioritize those for your Fighters). Heavy Fighters are the ones that do the Intercepting. Their Attack Power absolute roasts Bombers and can essentially make you immune to bombs if you have a few wings of them defending your forces.
That's how the Air Force works pretty much.

I'm sorry but I don't understand this wall of text. Thank you for trying though

[Kurf]

If you're going to ♥♥♥♥♥ on the forums and not read the answer you're looking for you might as well shut up and get back to putting your finger in your bum as you cry about not getting answers.

[Sarnen]

Originally posted by O U T O F V I A L S:

If you're going to ♥♥♥♥♥ on the forums and not read the answer you're looking for you might as well shut up and get back to putting your finger in your bum as you cry about not getting answers.

Eloquent. You sound very pleasant. Mom's basement get too hot today?

[Kurf]

Originally posted by Sarnen:

Originally posted by O U T O F V I A L S:

If you're going to ♥♥♥♥♥ on the forums and not read the answer you're looking for you might as well shut up and get back to putting your finger in your bum as you cry about not getting answers.

Eloquent. You sound very pleasant. Mom's basement get too hot today?

Should ask you the same thing if you can't take 2 minutes out of your day to block your crippling pre-pubescent ADHD to read what I put out for you. I answered your question and more and you just say "i'm not reading that"
If you weren't going to take an answer, why would you post?

[Sarnen]

Originally posted by O U T O F V I A L S:

Originally posted by Sarnen:

Eloquent. You sound very pleasant. Mom's basement get too hot today?

Should ask you the same thing if you can't take 2 minutes out of your day to block your crippling pre-pubescent ADHD to read what I put out for you. I answered your question and more and you just say "i'm not reading that"
If you weren't going to take an answer, why would you post?

I said I didn't understand, and thanked you, and then severe autism kicked in I guess.

[Kurf]

Originally posted by Sarnen:

Originally posted by O U T O F V I A L S:

Should ask you the same thing if you can't take 2 minutes out of your day to block your crippling pre-pubescent ADHD to read what I put out for you. I answered your question and more and you just say "i'm not reading that"
If you weren't going to take an answer, why would you post?

I said I didn't understand, and thanked you, and then severe autism kicked in I guess.

If you don't understand, tell me what you don't and I'll try to answer it simpler. I'm sorry for going off on you I thought you were saying "I'm not reading that" not "I don't understand that".

[Fox]

I'm finding that every time I look at the listing for active bombers or active support planes it's always 0, despite setting missions for bombers and support planes. It'll show active fighters when I have them set to missions, and the number, but never the other planes. On the flip side it'll show enemy active bombers/support. Am I missing something or what...

[BoydofZINJ]

Originally posted by Black Hitler:

I'm finding that every time I look at the listing for active bombers or active support planes it's always 0, despite setting missions for bombers and support planes. It'll show active fighters when I have them set to missions, and the number, but never the other planes. On the flip side it'll show enemy active bombers/support. Am I missing something or what...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoTo6ylOejo&list=PLGB6RkFB7ZmPxVlR8oy_-CrlFNox8O1t6&index=9

Here is a video that will help u out. On large powerful nations... you will tend to have multiple fronts and you may want to split your airforce up. However, on a smaller country.. let say... Mexico... and you are only at war with one other country.... then you can micro it a bit easier.

[Kurf]

Originally posted by Black Hitler:

I'm finding that every time I look at the listing for active bombers or active support planes it's always 0, despite setting missions for bombers and support planes. It'll show active fighters when I have them set to missions, and the number, but never the other planes. On the flip side it'll show enemy active bombers/support. Am I missing something or what...

It depends on your mission settings.
It doesn't count them as active if they're not on a mission or if they're at at the air field.
So if you tell all your planes to operate at night, it'll say 0 during day time. Or if you tell them to run Low Intensive operations, they'll be at the air field repairing because they keep getting damaged.

[Radioactive]

I do understand how to use it, but yea, aircraft / ship management is messy. It has a lot of extra steps that I think are unnecessary and I think the user interface works very poorly when you have many air / naval fleets.

I wished they would rework the UI for that... or better yet, make it easy for modders to do it (if it isn't already possible ... though I haven't really seen any UI mods that aren't icon substitution yet, but that replace entire dialogs fully).

[Sarnen]

yeah I gave it another try after being away a few days, still can't figure out head from tail on this ♥♥♥♥. Like if I click an airwing that (I think?) is in brandenburg, and then click somewhere in western germany... it says westfalen... but still shows up in the eastern germany window! like jesus what unpaid intern tested this?