Controlled Airspace

MontanaBB wrote:

@freezy: Have the Bytro programmers continued to tinker with the software related to this issue?

In a standard patrol overflight of a human player's newly conquered province with a single L6 tactical bomber squadron, I just unintentionally initiated a state of war. The recon "patrol" lasted no longer than 2.5 minutes -- I am using my digital cell phone alarm to remind me to move aircraft units on recon overflight patrols. No damage was inflicted on the units or buildings on the ground, nor was any damage suffered by the recon TB squadron, nevertheless an accidental state of war now exists.

Once again, this is not what was advertised, and it is inconsistent with the experiments conducted by King Draza three days ago, and it contradicts your supposedly definitive explanation from two days ago.

What's going on, chief?

We need certainty regarding the rules, not ever-changing game dynamics with no prior notice. My frustration is growing.

I will still pass this to the devs to see if something can be done about it. Until then please regard it as current state and control your units accordingly.

CityOfAngels wrote:

I agree with the sentiment that recon should not trigger war automatically, and that it's silly for recon planes to do damage while at peace, so that is the problem that should have been fixed.

Meanwhile I have a probably-related bug report in process - About the time of this change I had some tac bombers staging from an airfield belonging to an allied player (Right of Way) who had recently archived but was not AI yet. I attacked from the archived ally's airfield against some enemy tanks who were passing through his territory (they also had RoW), and the game declared war on my ally for me. (Savaging my kill ratio when the poor bombers returned to the now-hostile airfield!)

Regarding your bug report: I could not confirm it sadly. I tested it as follows: Having bombers and fithers patrol over a country with which I have right of way, while an enemy is located inside the patrol radius on that countries territory. The enemy was correctly damaged while I remained at right of way with the province owner. I tested it again with my planes being stationed in the country I have right of way with, still the same result, no war was triggered. If you have more information how to exactly reproduce this, you can forward it to me.

CityOfAngels wrote:

Artillery doesn't auto-attack neighbouring units when you are at peace. For bombers to do so is a bug, in my eye. If you are at peace with your neighbour, why would the game assume you want to drop bombs on them?

That said, I believe being allowed to scout them (for example teching planes early to be able to see which of your several neighbours might be building up to blitz you on day 4) without declaring war adds strategic depth to the game without compromising realism.

You still can scout our your neighbours if you redirect your plane before it reaches the target area (let it fly from patrol to patrol, without reaching it), war will be triggered once the patrol starts.

We still hear the concerns of many users and will discuss the issue once more in the team.

freezy wrote:

You still can scout our your neighbours if you redirect your plane before it reaches the target area

We are back where we started, Freezy, and it is unacceptable. The developers have attempted a jerry-rig of a known problem (patrolling aircraft inflicting damage to buildings during peace time), and they have destroyed a long-established game practice (aerial reconnaissance) that even your in-game tutorial and unit descriptions promote.

This is a f***ing mess.

freezy wrote:

Well the difference is, that you are not sending recon planes, but full war ready fighter squadrons.

"Fighters are the strongest unit when it comes to air battles and perfectly suited to gain air superiority or gain quick Intel."

Freezy, even your own in-game tutorials and unit spec sheets promote the use of fighter units for reconnaissance purposes, and this has been an integral part of the game since its creation. Stop making excuses, and fix the underlying problem (planes on patrol attacking in peace time). Either that, or restore the 15-minute patrol ticker, which most of us agreed we could live with.

freezy wrote:

Regarding your bug report: I could not confirm it sadly. I tested it as follows: Having bombers and fithers patrol over a country with which I have right of way, while an enemy is located inside the patrol radius on that countries territory. The enemy was correctly damaged while I remained at right of way with the province owner. I tested it again with my planes being stationed in the country I have right of way with, still the same result, no war was triggered. If you have more information how to exactly reproduce this, you can forward it to me.

I think I was warned when I plotted the attack "You may declare war on Georgia" or whatever, but ignored it because I've seen that same message many times and this is the first time that it actually did cause a war.

freezy wrote:

But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.

Are you saying that they would if they were on the Aggressive High Command setting? Or just saying that it's a side-effect of the plane patrol mechanic, which thus could be fixed?

I guess I had heard about the planes attacking at-peace neighbours without triggering war (as an exploit that could be abused to clear a country for the conquering), but I've never intentionally done it. So if I patrol a bomber around an area at the edge of my territory (the centre of the bubble is in my province but the bubble/view range overlaps the neighbour) and he has a scout AC at the edge of his territory watching me, I guess I'm still going to blow him up even if I didn't intend to, and it won't declare war despite the death toll? That's just silly, and needs to be directly fixed, right?

Each patrol tick, have the planes attack any enemy units in their range bubble. Problem solved.

CityOfAngels wrote:

"Fighters are the strongest unit when it comes to air battles and perfectly suited to gain air superiority or gain quick Intel."

Freezy, even your own in-game tutorials and unit spec sheets promote the use of fighter units for reconnaissance purposes, and this has been an integral part of the game since its creation. Stop making excuses, and fix the underlying problem (planes on patrol attacking in peace time). Either that, or restore the 15-minute patrol ticker, which most of us agreed we could live with.

The fighter (and all aircraft) can recon just fine with no restrictions in times of war. I have played before the change and after it, and I think the change is fine.

MontanaBB wrote:

freezy wrote:

Well the difference is, that you are not sending recon planes, but full war ready fighter squadrons.

From the description of interceptors on the unit spec sheet for them:

"Fighters are the strongest unit when it comes to air battles and perfectly suited to gain air superiority or gain quick Intel."

Freezy, even your own in-game tutorials and unit spec sheets promote the use of fighter units for reconnaissance purposes, and this has been an integral part of the game since its creation. Stop making excuses, and fix the underlying problem (planes on patrol attacking in peace time). Either that, or restore the 15-minute patrol ticker, which most of us agreed we could live with.

CityOfAngels wrote:

freezy wrote:

Regarding your bug report: I could not confirm it sadly. I tested it as follows: Having bombers and fithers patrol over a country with which I have right of way, while an enemy is located inside the patrol radius on that countries territory. The enemy was correctly damaged while I remained at right of way with the province owner. I tested it again with my planes being stationed in the country I have right of way with, still the same result, no war was triggered. If you have more information how to exactly reproduce this, you can forward it to me.

I direct-attacked the enemy tanks in the RoW territory, not patrol. I wanted to kill them while I was sleeping, as they continued along their path. (I sent a link to a screenshot of the doomed bombers on their way back to the now-hostile airfield with my bug report, but don't have it handy.)

I think I was warned when I plotted the attack "You may declare war on Georgia" or whatever, but ignored it because I've seen that same message many times and this is the first time that it actually did cause a war.

So I must assume that something else triggered the war in your case, sorry. On a sidenote: Your report was about using the attack button, so it is not related to our patrol change.

CityOfAngels wrote:

I guess I had heard about the planes attacking at-peace neighbours without triggering war (as an exploit that could be abused to clear a country for the conquering), but I've never intentionally done it. So if I patrol a bomber around an area at the edge of my territory (the centre of the bubble is in my province but the bubble/view range overlaps the neighbour) and he has a scout AC at the edge of his territory watching me, I guess I'm still going to blow him up even if I didn't intend to, and it won't declare war despite the death toll? That's just silly, and needs to be directly fixed, right?

freezy wrote:

But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.

I understand the logic ("intruding on their air space"), I just don't think it helps the game, and doesn't make things more realistic, so why do it that way?

Note that it seems to provide a learning curve issue (barrier to new players) too. If a newbie proudly builds their first plane, and reasonably uses it to scout to see what their AI neighbour is doing... Then comes back a couple hours later and their plane is dead and angry enemy troops are swarming across the borders... That could cause someone to say WTF and leave for good.

CityOfAngels wrote:

freezy wrote:

But planes also do not automatically fly over to neighbours at peace to attack them. In the end you are giving the command for that if you send them on patrol, as patrol means attacking in the current code implementation. The same would happen if artilleries somehow got a patrol command and you would place it over neutral territory.

"Patrol means attacking" - Not really... They don't attack when patrolling over someone who gave you Right of Way. If you want to attack them you use the attack button. Why not extend that to neighbours who are at a Peace setting?

I understand the logic ("intruding on their air space"), I just don't think it helps the game, and doesn't make things more realistic, so why do it that way?

Note that it seems to provide a learning curve issue (barrier to new players) too. If a newbie proudly builds their first plane, and reasonably uses it to scout to see what their AI neighbour is doing... Then comes back a couple hours later and their plane is dead and angry enemy troops are swarming across the borders... That could cause someone to say WTF and leave for good.

-the realistic factor is pretty much 100% true, while i don't care about the upgrade, i can still scout with no problems

-if you leave your planes over someone's country, don't expect them to greet your pilots with tea or something, you must be retarded to actually leave your planes for hours to scout over the enemy territory, hell, your argument is invalid, because if i was a active player, and i seen that a random bastard is scouting over my country with planes, i'd gladly declare war on him and invade him, in other words, you're gonna piss everyone off if you're spying on them via planes, this includes AI since this update

King Draza Mihajlovic wrote:

-if you leave your planes over someone's country, don't expect them to greet your pilots with tea or something, you must be retarded to actually leave your planes for hours to scout over the enemy territory, hell, your argument is invalid, because if i was a active player, and i seen that a random bastard is scouting over my country with planes, i'd gladly declare war on him and invade him, in other words, you're gonna piss everyone off if you're spying on them via planes, this includes AI since this update

And in any competitive game, it's pretty unlikely that you can afford to declare war on every country that scouts you, or places a spy in your country. You'll soon be spread out way too thin and getting picked to pieces.

King Draza Mihajlovic wrote:

-you cant attack a ROW country via scouting BECAUSE YOU ARE ALLIES....

CityOfAngels wrote:

Military planes trespass in other country's airspace for scouting purposes during peacetime all the time. What examples are you thinking of where the country being scouted declared war because of it? I fear you are just making stuff up.

That being said; yes, it is true, though less frequent nowadays in the age of satellites, that spy planes scouted out foreign countries.

However, it is equally true that the spy planes could, and did, get shot at. The case of Gary Powers being the most famous of the Cold War era.

This change makes it possible for patrolling planes to get attacked by defending aircraft and AA guns, which is 'realistic'.

Unless Bytro wants to alter the code so that units can attack, and damage, units with which the player is not at war, this is an acceptable compromise.

Losing peacetime scouting power with a fighter is no big deal. If its so important to you to find out what is in a province, just hire a spy and send him on an intel mission.

KingCongo wrote:

Citing real life situations to support your disagreement is flawed as this is not in any way even close to an accurate real world simulation.

If the change helped gameplay somehow then your argument would have value, but in my opinion it hinders gameplay. You mention "simulating spy planes being shot at" - That would be fine, as long as it doesn't force a declaration of war between two countries which is a much bigger deal/hassle. Especially for a new player who moves his plane there out of ignorance, or any player who does it by mistake (maybe dealing with a laggy connection, trying to play on a handheld, tired, whatever.)

CityOfAngels wrote:

KingCongo wrote:

Citing real life situations to support your disagreement is flawed as this is not in any way even close to an accurate real world simulation.

I was responding to people who were trying to claim that the change made it more realistic. IMO the opposite is true.

and man, newbies wont even know that they can scout with planes.....so why use them as a example?

King Draza Mihajlovic wrote:

there is that one time that Russia violated Turkish airspace, the jet got shot down, and frankly, if you fly over someone's airspace, your plane will be shot down, and in Call of War, if damage gets caused by one side, it instantly declares war, so stop whining about "realism" and game mechanics.

and man, newbies wont even know that they can scout with planes.....so why use them as a example?

I appreciate the irony of you arguing with real-world examples (and poor ones at that, since Turkey did not declare war on Russia), and then whining at me to stop doing the same.

I'll repeat one more time and then give up. If the change doesn't make the game more realistic -and- the change doesn't make game-play better, why make the change? Especially if it makes the game less realistic and makes game-play more annoying (accidental wars with neighboring AIs)?

If you are a business (like Bytro), newbies are very important because you hope they will turn in to paying customers. You should try to encourage them by offering an entertaining game experience, if you hope your business will grow.

CityOfAngels wrote:

If the change helped gameplay somehow then your argument would have value, but in my opinion it hinders gameplay.

CityOfAngels wrote:

Especially for a new player who moves his plane there out of ignorance, or any player who does it by mistake (maybe dealing with a laggy connection, trying to play on a handheld, tired, whatever.)

If you are a business (like Bytro), newbies are very important because you hope they will turn in to paying customers. You should try to encourage them by offering an entertaining game experience, if you hope your business will grow.

New players that start the game with the current ruleset won't even notice the change because they joined the game after it was in effect, and the game warns the player when (s)he attempts something that might start a war.

If anything this helps the noobs because now they won't have to worry about veteran players having the added advantages of knowing they can scout early (thus being able to sneak attack n00bs who misplace their defenses) and also knowing they can destroy neutral units via the patrol exploit (thus giving them a conquest-time edge).

Furthermore, aircraft still scout just fine in wartime conditions, in friendly airspace, and at sea, which is when/where it most vital.

I am sure Bytro isn't going to suddenly go bankrupt because they tweaked a minor feature and made it work more as intended.

KingCongo wrote:

This is clearly not about what n00bs want, but what you want.

Happy Canada Day long weekend!

CityOfAngels wrote:

I appreciate the irony of you arguing with real-world examples (and poor ones at that, since Turkey did not declare war on Russia),

and i pointed that out in the post, you damn moron

CityOfAngels wrote:

Happy Canada Day long weekend!

Getting ready for another Yankees Win Their First War Fourth of July Weekend down here! xD

King Draza Mihajlovic wrote:

IF that happened in call of war, it would cause a freaking war since units from 2 nations clashed with each other

and i pointed that out in the post, you damn moron