Scout Planes?

[David Hansen]

Are scout planes OP?

Thinking about restarting the DLC campaigns w/o using scout planes. Have played through AO 39 and 40...the fog of war concept for both immersion and planning becomes almost non-existent/irrelevant IMHO. In addition you can "park" scout planes over air sensitive ground units.

Do the later AO's 41, 42, 43 become much more difficult and these aircraft with their spotting/info gathering ranges help level the playing field a bit as the war grows tougher for the Axis?

[Stormchaser]

Are scout planes OP?

Thinking about restarting the DLC campaigns w/o using scout planes. Have played through AO 39 and 40...the fog of war concept for both immersion and planning becomes almost non-existent/irrelevant IMHO. In addition you can "park" scout planes over air sensitive ground units.

Do the later AO's 41, 42, 43 become much more difficult and these aircraft with their spotting/info gathering ranges help level the playing field a bit as the war grows tougher for the Axis?

Not going to lie, my usual opinion and the one I've seen most around the forum is that Recon Planes are underpowered as 9 times out of 10 a Fighter or Bomber can do the same job.
Kind of refreshing to see someone with a different opinion.

There is a Difficulty Setting that makes it so your units can't move into Fog of War nearly as easily, have you tried that?

[Tassadar]

Having one or two on the first play-through is quite good since you indeed get to know the map and as you said, they can "cover" vulnerable friendly units if no better use can be found for them. That said, on subsequent runs their value drops and also usually there's something better that can be done for their core slot cost - even if it's just getting a 15 cm artillery piece instead of a 10.5 cm one. As for late war value, even if enemy fighter so not prioritize recons, the risk of them getting shot down becomes larger and larger.

[robman]

If you play with the no-move-through-fog-of-war trait, recon planes are worth their weight in gold.

[o_t_d_x]

My opinion: The whole scouting system is too simple.

One of the most important things in war is to know where the enemy is. In Panzer corps 2 you buy 2 scoutplanes and the enemy cant surprise you. In additon you get 3 overstr. for free and if they die, so what, they are sooo cheap. You can use them as baits, or shields and without them, my gustav gun wouldnt last a minute...so yes they are in a way op. They feel more like easy to destroy sci fi drones with star trek sensor array, they see everything.

I would prefer a system like that: Infantry cant be seen in dense wood, with a scout plane. All units should have a button for camouflage, infantry does it very fast, tanks need longer. So if tanks are camouflaged in a forest, even the scoutplane sees nothing. Would be a good system for ambushes.

So the scout plane would still be good and the game would be more complex and challenging. Of course this scouting system would make most sense, with a system, that changes the positions, of the units, on the maps a little, like my system in pc1 endsieg. Otherwise scouting isnt necessary at all, because i remember most of the time, where the enemy is. And thats soooo boring.

[David Hansen]

o-t-d-x 's comments add weight to what I have been experiencing both in the first 3 official dlc's and in playing thru the first 3 iterations of the PC2 Grand Campaign mod.

PC2 offers so many ways to experience and customize one's play thru experience.

I plan to restart both of my campaigns w/o scout planes...yeah...will lose a lot of time I had invested...but I look to the new play thru's as being more immersive/rewarding...IMHO.

[robman]

I would prefer a system like that: Infantry cant be seen in dense wood, with a scout plane. All units should have a button for camouflage, infantry does it very fast, tanks need longer. So if tanks are camouflaged in a forest, even the scoutplane sees nothing. Would be a good system for ambushes.

Brilliant idea! This might be combined with some degree of randomness. Scout planes would have some chance of spotting units, based on terrain type and camouflage, ranging from 100% for uncamouflaged units in open terrain to (say) 10% for units camouflaged for x turns in dense woods. The plane might spot a unit or two, but you would not know, without further investigation, whether additional units are nearby.

[ChristianC]

They are definitely OP. In MP they remove the possibility of ambushing an opponent. You can see practically everything with them, cover your vulnerable units, and they are so cheap spamming them is affordable and effective.

I would prefer a system like that: Infantry cant be seen in dense wood, with a scout plane. All units should have a button for camouflage, infantry does it very fast, tanks need longer. So if tanks are camouflaged in a forest, even the scoutplane sees nothing. Would be a good system for ambushes.

This might be combined with some degree of randomness. Scout planes would have some chance of spotting units, based on terrain type and camouflage, ranging from 100% for uncamouflaged units in open terrain to (say) 10% for units camouflaged for x turns in dense woods. The plane might spot a unit or two, but you would not know, without further investigation, whether additional units are nearby.

I like both of these. I would add that if a scout plane does by chance spot a unit camouflaged to a certain percent, it may not be able to identify the specific unit. For example, if a recon plane sees a unit in a city that has already accomplished some camouflage, it can tell it is an infantry unit, but it can not tell its class (regular, pioneer, mountain, etc.).

Also I think some of this should be applied to ground recons as well. The all-terrain recons are extremely potent given the current situation.

[Grondel]

i noticed that FW189 will not provide recon to a ship attcking a ship. only to ship attacking land.
did anyone bother to check for all reconplanes?

sers,
Thomas