Fighter Intercept Rule

[SeaMonkey]

Someone clue me in, what am I missing here. Page 44 SC WW2 PT manual states defending fighter within AP range, strength greater than 5, set in either intercept or auto mode will be activated for the intercept mission.

Imagine my surprise when my CV in Vizagapatam port does not receive the intercept help from carefully positioned fighters (the US Marine Ftrs 4 tiles away respond), UK one in Hyderabad ignore orders, the other in tile 6,39 north of Madras go missing, both 9 and 10 supply, AP = 5, strike range 5, set in "intercept" mode.

Both of them...just sit there, did they fail to get orders? I counted the tiles numerous times = 5. Do I only get one intercept from US Marine fighters 4 tiles away, while the enemy CVs get double strikes? Perhaps they were involved in a Texas Hold'em game and went all in which they perceived to be a satifactory compliance for the given orders, while 2 thousand RN sailors flounder in the waters of the Indian Ocean, many never to see home again, after their carrier goes down!

Ohhh, the humanity!:mad:

[jon_j_rambo]

General, even the best laid plans can go bad. Any weather?

[Hubert Cater]

SeaMonkey, do you happen to have the saved turn so I could take a look? That is really the easiest way for me to see what might be going on.

Thanks,

Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

Oh yeah, I got my memory stick right here, turn 49, its on the way, thanks Hubert.

No weather that I could tell, I ran the turn a number of times trying to figure it out, I'm almost sure I'm overlooking something.

Probably I need a good dressing down, so long to the rank of General, next stop Buck Private.:confused:

You know what, come to think about it, maybe it was weather cause I really couldn't see the bases(they were on the edge tiles) where my fighters were, on the turn replay screen, perhaps they were socked in, maybe we need a bigger replay screen Hubert?

[Hubert Cater]

No worries SeaMonkey as it looks like you may have found something there. First there is a typo in the manual as it should refer to strike range and not AP range. Second the actual range is then limited by the spotting range of the air unit in question. For example, if it is an Air Fleet then it is limited by it's 'land' spotting range which in your game should be 4 tiles.

If on the other hand it was a Carrier it would be limited by it's 'naval' spotting range which would be 5 tiles for Japan etc.

I did notice that the intercept range highlights are not showing the correct range for Carriers but it does show the correct range for Air Fleets. I will correct this for the next patch.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

Thanks Hubert, but that seems a bit confusing, maybe its my oldtimers flaring up.

So it seems the response of fighter intercepts is limited by its spotting range and not by its AP or range. You do realize that SC1 AF intercepts were determined by their APs, right? IIRC the AFs had an AP one less hex than their range (AP=4, range=5).

Rationally speaking, I believe the intercept range should be determined by the unit's own range and not spotting as they could be called in from a coordinated central defense command, much as the Luftwaffe and Royal Airforce actually did.

Logically..I guess ....I could explain your position as the necessary use of action points(fuel) in conducting the dogfighting, attack runs on the opponents aircraft, diminishing their range by one tile. But then again you could use the same logic to restrict air attacks on naval/ground units and diminish their range as well.

My position is its inconsistent.

Would it be safe for me to assume in the future that my fighter intercepts would be conducted at 1 tile less than their range/APs, kind of like it was in SC1?

Maybe I should learn to use the intercept range highlighter which I've never used before!

[Nupremal]

I recently discovered this. I had noticed it sometimes on the 4 spotting 5 range settings, but when I lowerred all the spotting ranges on fighters I found out it was a big difference (2 spotting means much too limited intercepts). So I am changing that in the stats, but I am not sure intercepts should be that way myself. Have to think about it some.

[Nupremal]

Oh also - not that if naval spotting is different than land, they will be intercepting at much shorter range - which to an extent may make sense. It was very hard to do that over sea - and land would be easier because you can much more easily spot the enemy coming on land than at sea where no one lives.

[Hubert Cater]

Interesting discussion for sure SeaMonkey.

Going back to SC1 you are correct that it was much simpler and was actually SR - 1, but since Blitzkrieg we started connecting the limitation of Intercepts with the spotting range which pretty much gave us the same effect. For example if the SR was 5 I think in most cases the spotting was one less tile so it gave us a similar setup to the original SR-1.

After the WaW expansion came out we now had two separate spotting ranges for all units, i.e. Land and Air, so in keeping with the existing setup started with Blitzkrieg I had to narrow it down to one of those values for Intercept ranges. This is why it is the 'land' spotting value for Air Fleets and the 'naval' spotting value for Carriers.

You definitely raise some good points and perhaps it would be simpler to just go back to the SR-1... anyone else have some suggestions before I commit one way or the other?

[Hubert Cater]

Another thing I noticed when looking at the older SC1 code is that there was a special rule for Carriers that had intercepts at their SR without any further reduction as SR-1 would have been an intercept range of 1.

I think the consensus was that SR-1 made sense for Fighters as that would make it a reasonable 4 tiles but 1 tile would be too little for Carriers.

Thinking about this some more I think I understand why we connected it to the spotting range as generally spotting was at an appropriate value wrt its SR and worked well in customized maps etc.

For example, looking at the Pacific Operation Z campaign if we linked it to AP then Japanese Carriers would have an Intercept range of 10 which I think would be too high as it is much more than even their strike range of 5. If we link it to SR only then for Fighters it is likely too high whereas when linked to spotting it is usually a nice compromise as that is usually less than or equal to SR and seems to work well relative to either the Fighter or Carrier unit type... well from what I have seen from most maps whether the scale is large or small etc.

Just a few more thoughts to consider.

Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

Makes sense Hubert, I see your point, I repectfully rescind my position......currently....... with the rights reserved to change my mind again (must be a slight elevation of the miniscule estrogen level I possess).

[Hubert Cater]

Fair enough!

[janu03]

When it is started near the bogey's flight path, pure pursuit usually results in a very high angle-off at the intercept with little fighter advantage. .