A couple of simple (?) changes that would significantly improve the SP campaign...

[33lima]

I'm not posting under 'Suggestions to the developers' as they have enough of those already and I'm probably wasting my time anyway, but here goes.

 

For the current SP campaign 'Intercept' mission, the following need to be changed:

 

1. The enemy flights to be intercepted should be penetrating friendly territory and the 'Action point' (YUK! - should be called 'objective', 'target area' or suchlike) should not be far from the player's airfield.

 

Rationale: interceptions now seem always to be of aircraft approaching friendly front lines, which should be invisible until they are close to or over friendly territory. This is NOT the Battle of Britain, with a well-developed high and low level radar network with widespread coverage well into enemy territory. Interception missions would be much more plausible if they were mostly 'scrambles' to intercept an enemy raid which was already over your territory by the time you are 'scrambled' in a hasty effort to gain height and catch it, preferably before it has bombed. This would not only be more realistic, but a more satisfying challenge for the player.

 

2.   The enemy flights to be intercepted should be roughly double the size they are now - say, between 6 and 9 bombers - Heinkels, Stukas or Pes. Occasionally there should be a single aircraft, normally a twin-engined bomber, on a visual, photographic or weather reconnaisance flight.

  

Rationale: REALISM. Fighters sometimes operated in small numbers but bomber attacks with 3 aircraft are just ridiculous. Anything worth bombing is going to need something like at least a staffel attack, to give a reasonable prospect of putting down enough HE to make the sortie worth the fuel, never mind the risks. If necessary to improve balance, scramble a second, small flight not under the players control, which might arrive and engage earlier, later or not at all. If the player is faced with a much superior force, well, he can bl**dy well earn his flight leader's pay by thinking of something clever, like gaining height, diving through the escort and getting in a pass at the bombers before heading home for tea and biscuits.

 

As AI formations of three bombers seem to straggle badly at times, especially after turns or if attacked, I realise greater numbers might just show up this undesirable effect (if I'm describing it accurately) and end up in bigger straggling messes rather than bigger formations. But the answer to this is not to avoid bigger formations (and 6-9 isn't that big). It's to improve AI bomber formation-keeping if that's also necessary, so that bombers keep formation better that RoF 2-seaters and so that at least moderately-sized bomber formations are feasible. I gather here that reports that the engine has difficulty with such numbers are not correct; for a WW2 sim I certainly hope not.

 

Along with possible issues around organising effective ground attack and bombing by flights - compounded badly by entirely unacceptable Lemming-style AI Stuka takeoffs - interception missions are currently the weakest part of the current SP campaign (as opposed to the desirable SP campaign, which is a fairly radically different beast). The above changes would make a significant difference and would be worthwhile, if a quick win and not a serious distraction from work on a 'new, improved' SP campaign format.

Edited January 9, 2015 by 33lima

[FlatSpinMan]

Sounds good to me.

[BlitzPig_EL]

I'd just be happy if every single ground target I'm tasked to take out would not be right next to a German airfield that just happens to have a flight of escorted He 111s or Stukas coming in, and their escorts joint the G2s that are already all over me.  Along with all the flak from the airfield, and the train, and the guns covering my target...

 

All of which turns my computer into a slide projector.  (I know that is my problem, I'm working on a mobo/processor upgrade, but one of my friends has an I7 computer that does the same thing...).