Air Interception Priority

[MJY]

When fighters are set to "intercept" shouldn't they be the first units to intercept enemy aircraft (as opposed to other aircraft set to "auto")? I am playing WAW and have had carriers set to auto intercept enemy air before my land-based air wings (which I would prefer to intercept first). Is this a bug? And if not, what's the advantage of the intercept function?

[SeaMonkey]

You know MJY, that's a great concept, selected intercept should override the "auto" selection. Generally I believe the first to intercept is the group within range that possess' the highest readiness.

[MJY]

In my current game, here's the situation. I have two regular air and a carrier near Manchester. When my opponent attacks with his bombers and escorts, I want the regular air to intercept the first wave(s) and only if there are additional waves do I want the carrier to intercept.

In this particular case, the reason I want this pattern is as follows: the carrier aircraft are more expensive to repair and are more useful to preserve due to their flexibility (i.e., move and attack in the same turn), so I only want to use them if absolutely necessary. But the reasons could just as easily be because the regular air have higher tech or more strength points or more experience or whatever.

I just want the option to manage my air defences to maximum advantage. And as I stated in my previous post, otherwise what's the use of the intercept setting as currently configured when other aircraft are set to auto?

[pzgndr]

Is this a bug? And if not, what's the advantage of the intercept function?

No, the idea was simply to restrict units from the full auto function. Intercept really means no escort, and escort means no intercept. Grounded of course means don't do either. The game considers all eligible units for intercepts and escorts and selects one according to an algorithm. Players have no control here.

In retrospect, it might make sense to give priority to units specifically assigned to intercept or escort rather than all eligible units. But really the issue boils down to YOU deciding if you want particular air units eligible or intercept/escort or not, not knowing exactly what air battles they may be engaged in, and restricting them as desired.

[MJY]

I would have to think that giving intercept priority (or escort priority for that matter) to units so designated should not be difficult from a coding point of view. If the current system choses the unit with the highest readiness rating (as SeaMonkey suggests), all that would be needed would be for the software to do one more check -- "is there a unit in range set to intercept" (or whatever) -- before picking that unit. And readiness would still be part of the calculation (e.g., the higher readiness of two or more "intercept" units would fly first and so on).