Aircraft are too unaffected by efficiency so far. While reducing their efficiency by simply flying around would be too harsh, any involvement of combat action, may it attacking or defending should lower their efficiency. Loosing ammunition by combat action sounds very plausible for such efficiency drop.
I think aircrafts like tactical bombers can too easily rule a battlefield with air supremancy flying fully effective over a long course of adjacent turns, attacking a half-dozen and more targets without the need to recover that often like ground units.
I would also like to see an additional (trigger-)mechanic for weather that aircrafts are sometimes forced to return to base.
As the artillery got hit by the efficiency balancing-hammer recently, I also think that naval units should be affected like that. Constantly in combat action should also reduce the efficiency, but instead of sitting idle around getting torpedoed, naval units may still move around to recover efficiency. They just have to stay out of combat for a turn.
What is anyone else thinking about this?
Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
Moderators: Order of Battle Moderators, The Artistocrats
Re: Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
+1
I also miss the old mechanic were defending naval vessels would shoot back (which should also lower efficiency of course).
I also miss the old mechanic were defending naval vessels would shoot back (which should also lower efficiency of course).
Re: Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
Can't remember that ships could actually defend like other units. Was this in early-beta? Such mechanic is in PzC at least.
Same with ground units, more experience would slightly reduce the plain efficiency loss for attacking and defending air and naval units. Although the shock value certainly could also affect a naval deck crew, I think it’s not necessary to additional bummer every ship by that.
I just imagine how straining dogfighting for aircraft pilots is that it sounds simply implausible to be at 100% efficiency over days/turns of action in the air. But realism aside, it's simply unbalancing for air units compared to the poor ground units suffering much more there. With fuel ratings of 10-20, this is ridiculous powerful in the long run for planes.
Same with ground units, more experience would slightly reduce the plain efficiency loss for attacking and defending air and naval units. Although the shock value certainly could also affect a naval deck crew, I think it’s not necessary to additional bummer every ship by that.
I just imagine how straining dogfighting for aircraft pilots is that it sounds simply implausible to be at 100% efficiency over days/turns of action in the air. But realism aside, it's simply unbalancing for air units compared to the poor ground units suffering much more there. With fuel ratings of 10-20, this is ridiculous powerful in the long run for planes.
Re: Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
I agree on the point that aircraft is too powerful at the moment (especially strategic bombers) and that they could use some form of nerf. I'm not sure efficiency is a useful statistic to represent fighting capability of planes. However, perhaps by introducing an ammo/bomb counter so that planes can still fly long, but would need to restock ammo after 3-4 bombing runs (as opposed to the current 12+ consecutive turns of bombing for strategic bombers).
However, on to the point of ship efficiency/firing back, I do not agree:
1. Ships to fire back when attacked - this has been discussed by developers as to why it was changed. The reason is that it makes naval combat too quick - after a couple of turn, a 1 on 1 is resolved. Since ships also don't have the reinforcements mechanic, it would make a Kriegsmarine scenario last no longer than 20 turns, compared to 30+ for a normal one (sometimes 50).
2. Ships to lose efficiency - a ship unit on the map already represents one ship and its fighting ability deteriorates with strength loss. For ex, a ship at strength 1 can only move 1 hex, and has minimal fighting capacity. You can consider it a floating wreckage at such value already.
What would be the point of having efficiency for the ships? It would be another mechanic duplicating what the "strength" statistic already covers completely. A ship on a short term mission (as those in OOB), doesn't suffer from shooting its guns or fighting until it takes hits (and that's represented by deteriorating combat/movement capacity when strength drops).
Note that strength/efficiency works well for ground combat because the unit icon represents more than 1 of tank/infantry/artillery/etc. A unit at full strength can be exhausted, and vice versa can still be coherent while at minimal strength behaving differently in both cases. In that case, efficiency/strength works really well.
However, on to the point of ship efficiency/firing back, I do not agree:
1. Ships to fire back when attacked - this has been discussed by developers as to why it was changed. The reason is that it makes naval combat too quick - after a couple of turn, a 1 on 1 is resolved. Since ships also don't have the reinforcements mechanic, it would make a Kriegsmarine scenario last no longer than 20 turns, compared to 30+ for a normal one (sometimes 50).
2. Ships to lose efficiency - a ship unit on the map already represents one ship and its fighting ability deteriorates with strength loss. For ex, a ship at strength 1 can only move 1 hex, and has minimal fighting capacity. You can consider it a floating wreckage at such value already.
What would be the point of having efficiency for the ships? It would be another mechanic duplicating what the "strength" statistic already covers completely. A ship on a short term mission (as those in OOB), doesn't suffer from shooting its guns or fighting until it takes hits (and that's represented by deteriorating combat/movement capacity when strength drops).
Note that strength/efficiency works well for ground combat because the unit icon represents more than 1 of tank/infantry/artillery/etc. A unit at full strength can be exhausted, and vice versa can still be coherent while at minimal strength behaving differently in both cases. In that case, efficiency/strength works really well.
Re: Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
I don't really need that return-fire mechanic either anymore for ships.
As for naval efficiency loss: I could argue with the original dev Panzerkrieg change-log explanation here: "The efficiency of artillery class units drops gradually when firing several turns in a row, to represent ammunition depletion and barrels overheating."
It's a balancing matter that ships can continously bombard poor ground units all the turns while ground artillery units can't anymore. This isn't exactly fair, don't you think?
Edit: Yeah, I'm a friggin Heavy Cruiser Captain now. Envious of my big ever-firing guns, poor arty-chaps?
As for naval efficiency loss: I could argue with the original dev Panzerkrieg change-log explanation here: "The efficiency of artillery class units drops gradually when firing several turns in a row, to represent ammunition depletion and barrels overheating."
It's a balancing matter that ships can continously bombard poor ground units all the turns while ground artillery units can't anymore. This isn't exactly fair, don't you think?
Edit: Yeah, I'm a friggin Heavy Cruiser Captain now. Envious of my big ever-firing guns, poor arty-chaps?
Re: Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
Ships can be balanced on ground combat by having lower ground attack/shock values compared to artillery. You can suggest tweaking those values instead of introducing the new mechanic of efficiency for ships. A ship can maintain it's firing for a lot more than artilleries by virtue of being thousands of tonnes steel monster with a lot of ammo that had tens of guns available at its disposable to fire with.
I personally think though that ships are perfectly represented in terms of ground bombardment capabilities. They are neither too strong, nor too weak. It's a good risk/reward balance at the moment. If you spend a whole turn with all 5 of your ships to bombard that entrenched infantry in a city, then the next turn you'll probably have to contend with the fact that your oponent will use all of their ships' volleys on yours.
I personally think though that ships are perfectly represented in terms of ground bombardment capabilities. They are neither too strong, nor too weak. It's a good risk/reward balance at the moment. If you spend a whole turn with all 5 of your ships to bombard that entrenched infantry in a city, then the next turn you'll probably have to contend with the fact that your oponent will use all of their ships' volleys on yours.
Re: Aircraft and Naval Unit Efficiency
It's indeed often the mass of available ships that can help a lot by all the sum of the shock values that you can batter safely onto defenders. It all depends on the scenario/map of course how much enemy naval action is involved. Sometimes you are fast enough to deal with the enemy quickly to have a too powerful naval support afterwards.