mirroredwang wrote:

Hawkei wrote:... Having a whole force of T3 gunships pushing inland, on an attack move command, with some aircraft carriers sitting behind, is a very powerful attack force. As the gunship will automatically pull back as they take damage, repair, and re-join the fight. With the rate at which carriers can repair, fully healed gunships will be joining the fight just as quickly as those pulling out. This form of attack is virtually unstoppable.

How does this work exactly?

Hawkei wrote:

PhilipJFry wrote:

codepants wrote:Put your planes on patrol anywhere on the map.

This is pretty much where the problem starts (for late game air at least).
Putting your ASF on Patrol will result in half of your airforce chasing a single t3 spyplane and getting annihilated in the process.

You don't patrol with ASF... You patrol with cheap and expendable aircraft. Such as Interceptors or Swift Winds... Holding back your ASF in one big cluster on the ground leaves you wide open to drops and raids. It's called Airspace Control.

The advantage with this tactic is that nothing can make an incursion without you knowing it, and you might even be able to bait the enemy ASF into an unfavourable engagement - for the cost of a few cheap and expendable aircraft. All without risking your ASF swarm.

Yes, I do use air staging. I have it incorporated into my build templates. Manually using the R&R facility is really simple. You zoom in on your armada and quickly select all the ASF's in the red. Tell them to R&R, then shift click return to landing area. Only takes a couple of seconds, and the fighters will take turns on the pad. Patrol and attack move do the same thing - Though on attack move the aircraft are much more responsive when they take damage. Having a whole force of T3 gunships pushing inland, on an attack move command, with some aircraft carriers sitting behind, is a very powerful attack force. As the gunship will automatically pull back as they take damage, repair, and re-join the fight. With the rate at which carriers can repair, fully healed gunships will be joining the fight just as quickly as those pulling out. This form of attack is virtually unstoppable.

PhilipJFry wrote:

codepants wrote:Put your planes on patrol anywhere on the map.

This is pretty much where the problem starts (for late game air at least).
Putting your ASF on Patrol will result in half of your airforce chasing a single t3 spyplane and getting annihilated in the process.

codepants wrote:
Lichking suggested something like:
if(fuel < 0.3 && idle && idletime > 5000 && autorefuel){gorefuel();}

Where:
- fuel is the percentage of fuel the plane has
- idle is whether or not the unit has any orders queued (move, attack, etc)
- idletime is set to 0 every time the unit completes its last order and counts up in ms
- autorefuel is a boolean set by the player

Gorton wrote:

codepants wrote:Again, yes, the ideal solution would be that they "know what to do," but any solution where they "automatically" go refuel, there's going to be issues of when exactly do they do that. You don't want half your squad staying behind at a critical moment.

How about "When they're out of fuel" ?

codepants wrote:

Gorton wrote:I think you're missing the point entirely codepants.

Doing something (setting them on patrol) give you more to do, wastes fuel, is not a good move.
That's odd by itself.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Setting other units on patrol gives you "more to do..." I don't see why air units should be special.

Gorton wrote:
And this is completely irrev to the idea of having at least a button to tell planes to refuel, ideally a toggle to do it automatically when they reach low fuel.

You can select them and tell them to dock with the air staging facility. Not as efficient as it could be, I'll agree, but it's there. As for the auto toggle -- would you want them to leave the battlefield at x amount? How would they know when it was OK to go? Again, yes, the ideal solution would be that they "know what to do," but any solution where they "automatically" go refuel, there's going to be issues of when exactly do they do that. You don't want half your squad staying behind at a critical moment.

codepants wrote:

Gorton wrote:I think you're missing the point entirely codepants.

Doing something (setting them on patrol) give you more to do, wastes fuel, is not a good move.
That's odd by itself.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Setting other units on patrol gives you "more to do..." I don't see why air units should be special.

Gorton wrote:
And this is completely irrev to the idea of having at least a button to tell planes to refuel, ideally a toggle to do it automatically when they reach low fuel.

You can select them and tell them to dock with the air staging facility. Not as efficient as it could be, I'll agree, but it's there. As for the auto toggle -- would you want them to leave the battlefield at x amount? How would they know when it was OK to go? Again, yes, the ideal solution would be that they "know what to do," but any solution where they "automatically" go refuel, there's going to be issues of when exactly do they do that. You don't want half your squad staying behind at a critical moment.

Gorton wrote:
I think you're missing the point entirely codepants.

Doing something (setting them on patrol) give you more to do, wastes fuel, is not a good move.
That's odd by itself.

Gorton wrote:
I think you're missing the point entirely codepants.

Doing something (setting them on patrol) give you more to do, wastes fuel, is not a good move.
That's odd by itself.

And this is completely irrev to the idea of having at least a button to tell planes to refuel, ideally a toggle to do it automatically when they reach low fuel.