Slitherine

In Norway my mounted artillery was attacked by an Allied fighter. The next turn I wanted to attack that fighter with my fighters (I had 3 fighters) but it was raining. To prevent that fighter from escaping I surrounded the enemy with 6 of my aircraft (tactical bomber, transport, fighters and level bombers). But the Allied fighter escaped! I know that in PzC aircraft doesn't exert zone of control. But flying through one of my airplanes...how is that possible?

Since StarTrek we know there are three dimensions in space.

kanniethexen wrote:In Norway my mounted artillery was attacked by an Allied fighter. The next turn I wanted to attack that fighter with my fighters (I had 3 fighters) but it was raining. To prevent that fighter from escaping I surrounded the enemy with 6 of my aircraft (tactical bomber, transport, fighters and level bombers). But the Allied fighter escaped! I know that in PzC aircraft doesn't exert zone of control. But flying though one of my airplanes...how is that possible?

Maybe it ran out of fuel during its turn.

MartyWard wrote:

kanniethexen wrote:In Norway my mounted artillery was attacked by an Allied fighter. The next turn I wanted to attack that fighter with my fighters (I had 3 fighters) but it was raining. To prevent that fighter from escaping I surrounded the enemy with 6 of my aircraft (tactical bomber, transport, fighters and level bombers). But the Allied fighter escaped! I know that in PzC aircraft doesn't exert zone of control. But flying though one of my airplanes...how is that possible?

Maybe it ran out of fuel during its turn.

No it, doesn't. As I saved the turn I looked it up, it had 14 fuel and was on hex 14,22. If it could escape my 6 planes it had enough fuel to go the airfield Fornebu (16,20) for refueling. But the Hurricane didn't. I tried to find out where it was. It flew to Lillehammer (15, 15) with 5 fuel left. But still there is the question how to escape when fully surrounded?

btw: my edit was a spelling mistake

In the gamerules.pzdat file you will find...

# *** Zone of Control (ZOC) rules
# The following three options specify if the three main branches of units (ground, air or naval) are effected by ZOC created by enemy units. 1=yes, 0=no.
GroundZOC 1
NavalZOC 1
AirZOC 0

This means in your example, that the enemy fighter is not affected by the effects of zone of control.

nikivdd wrote:In the gamerules.pzdat file you will find...

# *** Zone of Control (ZOC) rules
# The following three options specify if the three main branches of units (ground, air or naval) are effected by ZOC created by enemy units. 1=yes, 0=no.
GroundZOC 1
NavalZOC 1
AirZOC 0

This means in your example, that the enemy fighter is not affected by the effects of zone of control.

Well, to my understanding ZoC is a wargaming concept that when you move in a hex next to the other power it will stop it's movement. Also a hex cannot contain two units, the only exception is one ground unit together with an air unit. I know air units don't exerts ZoC. But for it's movement it had to be in a hex where my planes were. And that is odd, in my humble opinion.

You can move your friendly ground units through each other (there are games where that is not possible). So without ZoC the one-unit-one-tile-rule seems to apply only for the end of the movement.

That said, it would seem to be reasonable to let the enemy fighter escape but with some penalty on his movement since he had to evade your fighters. But that is not in the game rules.

Klaun wrote:You can move your friendly ground units through each other (there are games where that is not possible). So without ZoC the one-unit-one-tile-rule seems to apply only for the end of the movement.

That said, it would seem to be reasonable to let the enemy fighter escape but with some penalty on his movement since he had to evade your fighters. But that is not in the game rules.

No I have had planes surrounded and you cannot move through them an enemy unit. There is no air zoc but the air units block movement, just like ground and naval units do. If it was completely surrounded then it should have been there the next turn.

MartyWard wrote:

Klaun wrote:You can move your friendly ground units through each other (there are games where that is not possible). So without ZoC the one-unit-one-tile-rule seems to apply only for the end of the movement.

That said, it would seem to be reasonable to let the enemy fighter escape but with some penalty on his movement since he had to evade your fighters. But that is not in the game rules.

No I have had planes surrounded and you cannot move through them an enemy unit. There is no air zoc but the air units block movement, just like ground and naval units do. If it was completely surrounded then it should have been there the next turn.

Indeed, I have a savegame to prove it (end your turn and you will see it fly away)

kanniethexen wrote:

MartyWard wrote:

Klaun wrote:You can move your friendly ground units through each other (there are games where that is not possible). So without ZoC the one-unit-one-tile-rule seems to apply only for the end of the movement.

That said, it would seem to be reasonable to let the enemy fighter escape but with some penalty on his movement since he had to evade your fighters. But that is not in the game rules.

No I have had planes surrounded and you cannot move through them an enemy unit. There is no air zoc but the air units block movement, just like ground and naval units do. If it was completely surrounded then it should have been there the next turn.

Indeed, I have a savegame to prove it (end your turn and you will see it fly away)

No doubt but it should not happen.

Air units having no ZOC is probably for the best. In PG, I used to love taking six fighters and lining them up as a screen in front of my troops, with two empty hexes in between. In total, they made a screen 18 hexes wide behind which ALL of my army would be safe. In PzC, you have to think more about which units to protect and how to protect them (air cover or close terrain).

It does however seem unreasonable that air units don't block the path, allowing a largely surrounded air unit to get to where it's going without any impact on range or fuel use.

proline wrote:It does however seem unreasonable that air units don't block the path, allowing a largely surrounded air unit to get to where it's going without any impact on range or fuel use.

If in 2D, on the ground, six units are enough to surround an enemy unit totally you certainly must agree that in a 3D space you would need a lot more or in other words trying to apply real world logic to a hugely abstract system in a 1:1 manner is bound to fail.

Tarrak wrote:

proline wrote:It does however seem unreasonable that air units don't block the path, allowing a largely surrounded air unit to get to where it's going without any impact on range or fuel use.

If in 2D, on the ground, six units are enough to surround an enemy unit totally you certainly must agree that in a 3D space you would need a lot more or in other words trying to apply real world logic to a hugely abstract system in a 1:1 manner is bound to fail.

Considering that you should also drop the concept of 'the ambush' in the sky.....

In Panzer generel you could surround planes.
In PC you cannot. The plane can still fly.

Well, I guess the surrounded plane can simply go over or under the surrounding aircraft.

Tarrak wrote:

proline wrote:It does however seem unreasonable that air units don't block the path, allowing a largely surrounded air unit to get to where it's going without any impact on range or fuel use.

If in 2D, on the ground, six units are enough to surround an enemy unit totally you certainly must agree that in a 3D space you would need a lot more or in other words trying to apply real world logic to a hugely abstract system in a 1:1 manner is bound to fail.

I'm not saying 6 units should immobilize an air unit nor that they should have a ZOC. However, there should be a movement penalty for going straight through a fighter unit in clear weather. To accomplish that would surely require some maneuvering and/or switching to a less optimal altitude.

There's a reason why close formations for fighters were given up quite early in the war, more lose formations with leader/wingman combi were way more flexible and reduced the risk of colliding with your own guys. Those can hardly block or even surround another unit in a 3d environment where everything can change rapidly. Fighters even broke into and sometimes through bomber formations, which were way closer "packed".

Sure it would need some evasive maneuvring to disengage when combat had been initiated aready, but pursuing evading planes would take similar maneuvring efforts - no need for a penalty.

bebro wrote:There's a reason why close formations for fighters were given up quite early in the war, more lose formations with leader/wingman combi were way more flexible and reduced the risk of colliding with your own guys. Those can hardly block or even surround another unit in a 3d environment where everything can change rapidly. Fighters even broke into and sometimes through bomber formations, which were way closer "packed".

Sure it would need some evasive maneuvring to disengage when combat had been initiated aready, but pursuing evading planes would take similar maneuvring efforts - no need for a penalty.

That's pretty oversimplified. A slow, nearly defenseless Ju-87 had no capacity to pass through enemy fighter formations no matter how loose, nor could it 'disengage when combat had been initiated'. The only way to survive such an encounter in clear weather would be to fly extremely close to the ground and hope not to get seen. Doing this would incur a noticeable penalty in range while not affecting the fighters involved in any way whatsoever. Remember that we aren't talking about just fighter vs. fighter here. In PzC a transport plane like a DC-3 can pass through 3 formations of Fw-190 in broad daylight without taking any damage or losing any range. You really think that's reasonable?

proline wrote:

bebro wrote:There's a reason why close formations for fighters were given up quite early in the war, more lose formations with leader/wingman combi were way more flexible and reduced the risk of colliding with your own guys. Those can hardly block or even surround another unit in a 3d environment where everything can change rapidly. Fighters even broke into and sometimes through bomber formations, which were way closer "packed".

Sure it would need some evasive maneuvring to disengage when combat had been initiated aready, but pursuing evading planes would take similar maneuvring efforts - no need for a penalty.

That's pretty oversimplified. A slow, nearly defenseless Ju-87 had no capacity to pass through enemy fighter formations no matter how loose, nor could it 'disengage when combat had been initiated'. The only way to survive such an encounter in clear weather would be to fly extremely close to the ground and hope not to get seen. Doing this would incur a noticeable penalty in range while not affecting the fighters involved in any way whatsoever. Remember that we aren't talking about just fighter vs. fighter here. In PzC a transport plane like a DC-3 can pass through 3 formations of Fw-190 in broad daylight without taking any damage or losing any range. You really think that's reasonable?

What you wrote makes sense. However it was not broad daylight, it was raining. And it wasn't a DC-3 which tried to escape, it was a British Hurricane. But you are right, it isn't about a single plane, it is a formation of planes. The sky over there was crowded with planes. You also have to keep in mind that handling aircraft in a game like this is very abstract. No fighter can stay in the air for days! I totally agree with the fact that aircraft doesn't have ZoC but you can't have two opposing aircraft in the same hex, otherwise you have to drop the concept of ambush in the sky. There has to be some penalty for that Hurricane.

Hi guys, I've been busy but finally did some testing to see if I could reproduce this. Well, it seems to be some some sort of bug with the spotting system during bad weather.

During rain/snow/sandstorms, planes can't attack each other, and they normally can't spot each other or anything on the ground. Ground units can spot airplanes, however. I knew that you could still be 'intercepted' if you accidently moved through another unseen airplane or if you moved to a hex next to it. This shows the plane you bumped into although you shouldn't be able to spot it with your aircraft. This seems to be a moment that the spotting isn't updated correctly, but it might be necessary game-wise to prevent two airplanes occupying the same hex or something, I don't know.

But if you wait another turn, that plane you bumped into turns invisble again if it is outside spotting range. Because your plane shouldn't be able to spot them, the aircraft dissappears from view. It should still be visible to ground units, so it won't dissappear when a ground unit is in spotting range. OK, but I have noticed something buggy when I replicated your situation (surrounding an airplane during bad weather)

1. If a surrounded airplane can't spot the planes next to it, it can move through them, but it will be stopped by any air unit it moves through that is next along its path. So any unit directly next to it is ignored, but anything more than one hex away will stop it again. I placed a ring of planes around a fighter, I could freely move through it unless I placed another bigger ring around it, it was stopped by those again.

2. Suppose one of your planes is surrounded, and you can see the other aircraft with one of your ground units, you cannot move through them. But if you move the ground unit away, the next turn the spotting is updated an even if your plane is still surrounded they won't be visible anymore, and you can move. So if you want to prevent a surounded AI plane from escaping, make sure the AI can spot all your planes with its own units. Vice versa, if you need to escape you need to move your ground unit out of spotting range (during bad weather spotting is 1 for ground units, so its easy to estimate).



BTW, I'm making a list of all weird things/possible bugs I encounter, and this one wasn't on it, so thanks for reporting. Actually I'm surprised that some other things haven't been reported yet, there are other weird things out there, some are only when using mods, though.

Things I found:

1. 'Unexpected encounter' works odd when there is an escorting fighter; if the unit that you encounter is a fighter-bomber with a non-passive air attack (like a Bf110), an escorting fighter will fire at you as well! But escorts do nothing if you encounter a normal bomber. So getting bounced by escorted Bf-110s is very dangerous and results in a double attack, but get bounced by an escorted Stuka and nothing happens...

2. Normally if you bomb a ground target in cloudy weather, you attack with halved strength and AA fires with half strength as well. This works OK, but air combat with interceptors is still done with full strength, so any suppressing hits are applied to the full strength of the bomber. But when the bomber then attacks the ground target (with halved attacks due to clouds) something is not quite right: I assumed the total number of suppressed strength was halved as well, but it seems all suppressing hits are counted against the already halved number of bombing attacks. This is not really a bug but I finally understood why bombing under these circumstances (cloudy, protective fighter next to target) seemed to produce so little effect.

3. One that only happens with mods: If you attack a submarine with an airplane, if the sub can fire back the plane doesn't use its Ground Defense but its Close Defense!