Career Difficulty and Density Test and Conclusions

[raizde2]

Decided to replay a career mission (escort bombers) several times (42 runs, might do a few more to check some of the random things like number of squads, but started to see the patterns so I stopped, specifically ground units are quite consistent) (registered each squad, size of it and type of planes, also their spawn location, counted the AA in my airport, in the enemy airport not far from our bombers target location, and the target location AA)

Career Stalingrad flying on a F4 squadron.

 

 

Ground Units/AA numbers:

Difficulty:

my airport AA: easy 30, moderate 21, hard 15

a specific enemy airport AA: easy 1, moderate 3, hard 7

bomber target location: always the same

 

Density:

my airport AA: always the same

enemy airport AA: always the same

bomber target location: scattered 6x2, medium 6x3, dense 6x5 PLUS about 30 (2 lines of about 15 each) right before the objective

 

Air units (very random, both size and number of squads,might test a few more times):

Difficulty:

Easy:

Fighters: 0,1 or 2 squads of size 2,3 and 5

Escorts: 0 or 1 squad of size 3

Bombers/attack: 0 or 1 squad of size 2 (attack)

 

Moderate:

Fighters: 1 or 2 squads of size 3 and 6

Escorts: 0,1 or 2 squads of size 5

Bombers/attack: 0 or 1 squad of size 1 (bomber) or 3 (attack)

 

Hard:

Fighters: 1,2 or 3 squads of size 2,3,5 and 6

Escorts: 0 or 1 squads of size 5

Bombers/attack: 0 or 1 squad of size 3 or 6 (attack) (6 was with density dense)

 

Density:

Not easy to check if it does any difference, but I suspect that might increase the size of the bomber/attack for example on Hard/dense I found 5 migs escorting 6 IL2s

 

Conclusion... for now:

 

Difficulty changes number of squads and size of the fighters and number of friendly AA and enemy AA.

Density changes number of enemy AA on the objective (on dense also creates new AA location with lots of units) and might increase the quantity of attack planes/bombers per squad

 

Edit: Just played a career mission of intercept bombers on easy and dense and the enemy squad had 12 bombers escorted by 3 fighters, so I'm pretty sure that density changes the number of bombers/attack planes.

 

Hope it helps.

Edited December 6, 2021 by raizde2

[Pikestance]

I always thought difficulty was qualitative (higher ration of quality pilots and gunners) and density was quantitative (more of everything). 

[LukeFF]

7 hours ago, FlyinPinkPanther said:

I always thought difficulty was qualitative (higher ration of quality pilots and gunners) and density was quantitative (more of everything). 

 

No - Frontline Density only affects ground units at the front. 

[Chilli_40]

I have a question, I'm playing career mode currently with it set on hard/dense. Of all the books I have read over the years talking about the flak and AA being so thick you could walk on it yet in the game both are really sparse I see the occasional flak burst and AA only if really close to a target and it's really of no threat. So my question is why so sparse on the ground munitions? All Campaigns seem to be the same.

[LukeFF]

27 minutes ago, MStewart40 said:

I have a question, I'm playing career mode currently with it set on hard/dense. Of all the books I have read over the years talking about the flak and AA being so thick you could walk on it yet in the game both are really sparse I see the occasional flak burst and AA only if really close to a target and it's really of no threat. So my question is why so sparse on the ground munitions? All Campaigns seem to be the same.

 

It's a balancing act to ensure any given mission isn't overloaded with AI resources, hence the density of AA guns we currently have.