Patrol no longer gives intelligence reports?

Yes, this changed a few updates ago, maybe 6 months or so?

I'm not a fan either but oh well

i am old fashioned, I make a drawing/map

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling.

You have now the choice to get a basic view without snapshot (but have to remember it yourself) or you get a detailed view with snapshot, but it takes longer and is more risky due to damage.

In addition to the logical reasons, the change was also needed to fix a related bugs.

It was indeed changed many months ago, in May of this year. And no, it won't be changed back, sorry.

freezy wrote:

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling..

Gen. Smit wrote:

freezy wrote:

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling..

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

freezy wrote:

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling.

You have no the choice to get a basic view without snapshot (but have to remember it yourself) or you get a detailed view with snapshot, but it takes longer and is more risky due to damage.

In addition to the logical reasons, the change was also needed to fix a related bugs.

It was indeed changed many months ago, in May of this year. And no, it won't be changed back, sorry.

I agree with the reasoning also just makes it a little harder to record. I just patrol for a brief minute and take a Gyazo screenshot. That way I can go back and have a record. Cheers

Gen. Smit wrote:

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

Fox-Company wrote:

I agree with this, there should be a range where AA auto-initiates an attack of passing aircraft, it would be a lot more realistic, so AA doesn't have to be on the front lines fighting other attacking units while being bombarded by planes to protect those units.

freezy wrote:

Gen. Smit wrote:

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

Fox-Company wrote:

I agree with this, there should be a range where AA auto-initiates an attack of passing aircraft, it would be a lot more realistic, so AA doesn't have to be on the front lines fighting other attacking units while being bombarded by planes to protect those units.

We at Bytro agree as well. It is one of the wanted features that is in our backlog for a long time already. Sadly implementing it would take some weeks of Dev work, that's why it so far did not get enough prio to be implemented. But maybe at some point in the future

Gen. Smit wrote:

freezy wrote:

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling..

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

I am not sure if this can be actually applied...

On the other hand if this was modern warfare it would be applicable because long range AA defense missles (or whatever you guys call it I am just a kid) actually exist...

Did I get that right?

Kyrollous wrote:

Gen. Smit wrote:

freezy wrote:

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling..

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

well by ww2 standards I think that would be a VERY small range to be workable on the map.....I am not sure if this can be actually applied...

On the other hand if this was modern warfare it would be applicable because long range AA defense missles (or whatever you guys call it I am just a kid) actually exist...

Did I get that right?

freezy wrote:

Gen. Smit wrote:

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

Fox-Company wrote:

I agree with this, there should be a range where AA auto-initiates an attack of passing aircraft, it would be a lot more realistic, so AA doesn't have to be on the front lines fighting other attacking units while being bombarded by planes to protect those units.

We at Bytro agree as well. It is one of the wanted features that is in our backlog for a long time already. Sadly implementing it would take some weeks of Dev work, that's why it so far did not get enough prio to be implemented. But maybe at some point in the future

I don't know if they've thought about implementing it that way. Something to think about or possibly an alternate idea that may make implementing it easier.

Genghis Khanson wrote:

freezy wrote:

Gen. Smit wrote:

I don't know if they've thought about implementing it that way.

freezy wrote:

Sadly implementing it would take some weeks of Dev work, that's why it so far did not get enough prio to be implemented.

Kyrollous wrote:

Gen. Smit wrote:

freezy wrote:

It was too OP, allowed players to create spy snapshots of whole countries within some minutes without any risk, and made spies less useful. Now there is at least some risk to get shot down, which is realistic. Enemies wouldnt just idle when over them scout planes are circling..

Ok I have been in anti air service, there is no way that enemy planes flying over territory are left alone by AA. It is thus only logical to implement a (smaller) radius for AA to be active even if not directly attacked, this is somewhere between 3-5 km depending type.So flying over this (small) area should at all times result in attack by AA

well by ww2 standards I think that would be a VERY small range to be workable on the map.....I am not sure if this can be actually applied...

On the other hand if this was modern warfare it would be applicable because long range AA defense missles (or whatever you guys call it I am just a kid) actually exist...

Did I get that right?

AA-guns are usually limited by the "brissant" in the projectile, that explodes after a certain time, in missiles like the stinger its the same. In general, projectiles dont need to "hit", being in vicinity and explode is sufficient. In wwII some guns already had 10 km range, maybe some even more.

That would only be extremely heavy AA guns like the 88mm. These were minorities in overall air defense, most AA guns were 20- or 40mm with much lower range. Also need to consider that ranges for AA are mostly a vertical factor; "what altitude plane can your gun hit", and not a horizonal one like artillery ("how far can it shoot"). So I think point-defense range for AA guns should be really small, just three kilometers or so.

Also worth mentioning that direct-plane-attack-vs-ground battles are the only battle in which defensive damage is applied first, presumably to simulate the fact that the ground AA would have gotten shots off prior to the planes attacking. I don't think a 3km radius is better than this solution, as it just seems like a more complicated method of getting at the same result. I suspect the vast majority of the instances in which a plane's dot gets within 3km of a ground unit's dot is when the plane is directly attacking.

jubjub bird wrote:

Also worth mentioning that plane-vs-ground battles are the only instance in which defensive damage is applied first, presumably to simulate the fact that the ground AA would have gotten shots off prior to the planes attacking. I don't think a 3km radius is better than this solution, as it just seems like a more complicated method of getting at the same result.

I agree with other comments. Yes it is odd that ground based AA don’t attack, but they are limited to targets under a certain altitude. If the patrol is at a high enough altitude, ground based AA is of no value. Not that surveillance planes exist in CoW, but this has been their defensive strategy since their special role was adapted essentially rely on a combination of altitude and speed for defense.

Genghis Khanson wrote:

I have always wanted AA to have some sort of area of air engagement, something like a patrol ring but smaller and if the air unit enters that ring and the AA unit has a clean battle timer it would attack the air unit inside its area of engagement.

I don't know if they've thought about implementing it that way. Something to think about or possibly an alternate idea that may make implementing it easier.

jubjub bird wrote:

Also worth mentioning that direct-plane-attack-vs-ground battles are the only battle in which defensive damage is applied first, presumably to simulate the fact that the ground AA would have gotten shots off prior to the planes attacking. I don't think a 3km radius is better than this solution, as it just seems like a more complicated method of getting at the same result. I suspect the vast majority of the instances in which a plane's dot gets within 3km of a ground unit's dot is when the plane is directly attacking.

The difference compared to passively ideling AA in a stack is that this offensive AA would not need to wait until the enemy airplane's tick. Right now an aircraft user can pull back airplanes at any point, its completely up to him when or if the airplane engages with ground units. He can let his planes fly across the enemy country without any risk of being shot down unless the enemy has planes as well. With a ranged AA this would change and planes could not scout and park over enemy countries risk-free anymore. it would also make interactions like averting a flying bomb or nuke bomber a bit easier to understand. Perhaps we could even remove the "ground armies strike first vs air" rule if we have ranged AA.

But a I said, I dont see this coming in the near future but I am at least hopeful that it may be a possibility at some point.

I am just going to throw in my two cents at this point. A few years ago I came across an old report on the use of AAA to defend the Remagen bridge. This was a report written by either the AAA Command or the Air Defense School a few years after the war to show HOW to conduct a defense of a vital location should be handled. Due to the many years between when I read that report and today the links are sadly no longer active. But I do remember the major points of this report that bear on the idea of giving the game AA units some range, to put it simply that would be a mistake. The limited range of AAA at the time required that the 3 different AAA units assigned to defend the Bridge from German air attacks essentially defend the bridge from within sight of the bridge or in essence point blank range. They simply could not move to far distant from the bridge and still be able to defend it. The only saving grace for the defenders was they KNEW the approaches that the Luftwaffe would have to use to attempt to destroy the bridge and were able to position all of their guns to cover those approaches. In other words they were only able to defend when attacked because of their limited range, so giving the AA in the game either an offensive ability or an increased range would not be in keeping with the weapons of the time.