Is air combat essentially random?

Just checked in on the fight - the enemy is dead and my now 3 fighter stack is at 92%.

X-factor

C'mon! You mean to tell me the "X-Factor" is strong enough to allow a fighter to be out numbered 5-1 and still shoot down the enemy at a rate of 2-1?!? Even if that were true then I am having a very bad run of luck because it happens TO me routinely but never FOR me. Shouldn't happen essentially random?

I get that you want to have some randomness and unpredictability in the game but this is extreme - way too extreme IMO.

Let's do some math:

Level 2 fighters have 20 HP each and air attack of 5.5.

So my 5 fighter stack had 100 HP and 27.5 air attack on patrol so divide by 4 means I am applying about 7 damage points per round (on average).

My single enemy should be applying about 1.5 per round.

At the rate I am doing damage I should have killed him in 3 to 4 rounds during which time he should have inflicted around 6 points of damage to me. He in fact inflicted more than 40! That means the X-Factor in fighter on fighter combat is close to a multiple of 7!

Not right!

.. maybe it was Erich Hartmann you attacked ..?

Elite Canuck wrote:

C'mon! You mean to tell me the "X-Factor" is strong enough to allow a fighter to be out numbered 5-1 and still shoot down the enemy at a rate of 2-1?!? Even if that were true then I am having a very bad run of luck because it happens TO me routinely but never FOR me. Shouldn't happen essentially random?

I get that you want to have some randomness and unpredictability in the game but this is extreme - way too extreme IMO.

Let's do some math:

Level 2 fighters have 20 HP each and air attack of 5.5.

So my 5 fighter stack had 100 HP and 27.5 air attack on patrol so divide by 4 means I am applying about 7 damage points per round (on average).

My single enemy should be applying about 1.5 per round.

At the rate I am doing damage I should have killed him in 3 to 4 rounds during which time he should have inflicted around 6 points of damage to me. He in fact inflicted more than 40! That means the X-Factor in fighter on fighter combat is close to a multiple of 7!

Not right!

Read the air force guide to see what you do wrong: https://forum.callofwar.com/index.php?thread/10124-air-combat-guide-for-dealing-some-in-decent-damage/

Elite Canuck wrote:

I put 5 level 2 fighters on patrol over 1 grounded level 2 fighter. Nothing else was under my patrol area - I made sure of that.

I expect that on average I would do 5 times as much damage to the grounded fighter than he does to me.

I have already lost 1 fighter and my 4 stack is reduced to 76% - 1% away from losing another and the enemy fighter is at 15%!

I'm PO'd!

I have encountered this kind of uneven exchange several times before in several different games and raised multiple bug reports to be told about "X Factor". Has anyone else seen fighter on fighter combat not working as expected?

Attack from patrol does 25% damage. The defending fighters do 100%.

Effectively your 5 fighters represent 1,25 attacking fighter. 1,25 vs 1 is not a significant difference, which can play out wrongly due to the x-factor (i.e. bad weather, jammed guns, dirty fuel filters etc).

Air Combat Guide (linked above by BMFox) point #8 states air units on patrol receive 25% damage from defenders. Is this incorrect?

I have seen similar crazy results in land battles. Example: 6 Level 2 LTs on flat terrain taking 3 hp from 2 infantry on first shot and losing 2 tanks by battle end. More than once have seen a single Level 2 infantry defender take 6-8 hp from attackers in one shot.

Seems like extreme results are fairly common and almost always not to my advantage. X-factor appears to be designed for this.

Experience also suggests that the X-factor includes an additional -50% for the first shot of a battle.

Ya - I've noticed a reduced effectiveness in my first shot too!