State-based damage efficiency for version 1.0

Good points! I think that sbde is the least understood aspect of this game. I have beaten so many "mega stacks" simply by understanding sbde. good players too! Really important and easiest to fix in air to air, artillery and naval, since all these can have types of stand off attacks.

For example, not good to have more than 5 tac bombers in a stack. Problem is the hit points on 5 tac bombers isn't enough to keep them from dieing quickly when attacking highly defended targets. adding more tac bombers doesn't help much though. So I have found that adding up to 5 fighter escorts to your tac bombers helps a lot. Increases the damages they do by a little, but more importantly it spreads out the flack damages received over 10 planes instead of just 5. Your sbde stays high without penalty. Even combining a stack of 5 strat bombers helps. Then your damages are increased and received decreased yet again by being spread over 15 planes, and heavily fortified defending troops soon find their forts reduced to rubble. I even usually make one airforce containing 5 naval bombers too..so it becomes a stack of 20 planes...5 interceptors, 5 tac bombers, 5 strat bombers, 5 naval bombers, and this size airforce can manage to sink even cruisers! That's a tough one too! 20 naval bombers in one stack would die like flies. Might win but would take big damages. But the above mixed force will do great against both land and sea with much fewer casualties.

The one exception to the above I have found is a pure interceptor mission. You see enemy patrols, attack them with 5 fighters...or 2 stacks of 5 fighters each. if you have rocket planes in range you could add them, but adding bombers to an interceptor missions just slows down your fighters.

In other words fighters are good as escorts for bomber missions, but bombers are poor escorts for fighter missions. It makes sense if you think about it realistically and historically.

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CzarHellios wrote:

Nor is this game historical, or realistic.

In the case of fighters escorting tacs, it still helps. I have tested this over and over for months on multiple games. Turns out that while damage priority may have an effect, State Based Damage Efficiency potentially has a greater effect, especially against those "mega stacks". Perhaps I didn't explain it well? I know you know the game well Czar. So I am surprised you object. I have tested the above escorting tac bombers with 5 fighters, 5 strategic bombers and sometimes even 5 naval bombers many many many many times. It works.

Now one caveat. Naval bomber don't get any attack against armor until level 3. So I leave them off the group at low level in some cases, their range too keeps them out of the stack many times. But I assure you 100 % 15 tacs attacking a ground stack will take more casualties than 5 tacs 5 fighters and 5 strats....and if you have 15 tacs, better to split them up into squadrons of 5 each and attach support planes to each rather than attack/patrol with all 15 tacs in one stack.

There is another reason why too. Lets compare a stack of 20 tacs bombing a tough ground force. At 5 % damages it looses 1 tac down to 19. But the stack of 5 tacs 5 fighters, 5 strats, 5 naval air doesn't actually start losing planes until taking 20% damages. And surprisingly, they do about the same damages to the ground forces they are attacking simply due to the SBDE. Their attack factor against ground forces may be less, but they take no SBDE penalty,

I usually just stack tacs with fighter planes and roughly in sizes of 5-10 Tacs and 5-10 fighters depending on the target. Sometimes I'll have many more fighters nearby to counter any enemy airforce.

I don't agree on using strats or naval bombers with my stacks, just a few more fighters or tacs instead.

wildL SPQR wrote:

I usually just stack tacs with fighter planes and roughly in sizes of 5-10 Tacs and 5-10 fighters depending on the target. Sometimes I'll have many more fighters nearby to counter any enemy airforce.

I don't agree on using strats or naval bombers with my stacks, just a few more fighters or tacs instead.

Yeah, but sending 5 planes over a stack of 20 something get's your losses in the high.

wildL SPQR wrote:

Yeah, but sending 5 planes over a stack of 20 something get's your losses in the high.

20 tac: attack strength = 77 inf, 42.7 arm 500 hp (sbde 35%)

5 int +5 tac +5 nav +5 strat = 102.5 inf, 60 arm 500 hp (sbde 102%)

a mixed force not only has better strength against that tough ground force, it also takes less losses. after 25 hp damages you lose a tac bomber in the stack of 20 tacs, but after taking 25 hp damages the mixed stack takes no losses and still fights @ ~97% strength.

Keep in mind though, as stated above, you probably wouldn't want to add naval bombers until they are at least level 3. There are also times when you want a smaller search area, or times you need greater range, or times you need greater speed. Many situational changes can be made by dropping a certain type from the mix. BUT overall, because of State Based Damage Efficiency, mixed forces much better.

Yeah well if you want to waste your research on all those indifferent planes go right ahead

wildL SPQR wrote:

Yeah well if you want to waste your research on all those indifferent planes go right ahead

Redd Baron wrote:

wildL SPQR wrote:

Yeah well if you want to waste your research on all those indifferent planes go right ahead

I am the Redd Baron! And air superiority does bring many tactical advantages.

wildL SPQR wrote:

Redd Baron wrote:

wildL SPQR wrote:

Yeah well if you want to waste your research on all those indifferent planes go right ahead

I am the Redd Baron! And air superiority does bring many tactical advantages.

I thought so

Now I could never have done that if I wasn't online when he started tossing rockets and nukes around. But as I was online, I had the tools needed to thwart his attacks, air land and sea. You can't use those tools unless you researched those tools. But then you still need to understand SBDE so you don't have diminishing returns on your attack strength. Outnumbered like that you need every point.

wildL SPQR wrote:

Also splitting stacks while you are the defender will cause the split stack to lose it's defensive bonus!

Can someone explain this defensive bonus? What kind of bonus do you get by stacking units? Is this simply referring to the added defense value of the stacked units?

Another question about SBDE but possibly related:

So it looks like bombers can be stacked up to 5 at a time to achieve maximum efficiency. What if I split them up into 2 and 3? Efficiency is still the same, but will these stacks take more damage because they are doing 2 separate attacks and damage is dealt once for each attack?

What if I patrol them? Stack of 5 vs. stack of 2 + 3. The smaller stacks will again take more damage if attacked?

Captain_Mo wrote:

Can someone explain this defensive bonus? What kind of bonus do you get by stacking units? Is this simply referring to the added defense value of the stacked units?

Another question about SBDE but possibly related:

So it looks like bombers can be stacked up to 5 at a time to achieve maximum efficiency. What if I split them up into 2 and 3? Efficiency is still the same, but will these stacks take more damage because they are doing 2 separate attacks and damage is dealt once for each attack?

What if I patrol them? Stack of 5 vs. stack of 2 + 3. The smaller stacks will again take more damage if attacked?

2) If you split into 2/3 they will get more damage taken because they would be making two separate attacks. Also they will absorb damage with a third damage on each plane for the 3 stack and half damage for each plane in the two stack; this instead of spreading the damage with a fifth on the 5 stack. So more damage taken pr plane. This is also the reason why I normally go above 5 stacks and do 8/8 stacks sometimes even 10/10 stacks.

The faster you kill a enemy unit, the less attack/defense rounds it will have to damage your troops. Meaning that if you can kill a unit in one attack it's much better than splitting your army in two and then having to do 2 or maybe even 3 separate attack rounds. Thus, your troops, being inflicted with more damage than if it could kill the enemy unit in the first attack round.

I hope this makes sense.

3) Patrolling is a different matter and it can be a two-edged sword. The good thing is that on patrol, your planes will never have to refuel in between attacks. The bad thing is that they will only deal damage every 15 minutes and only at 25% strength. Another good thing about patrol is that the unit will not be as vulnerable to counterattack on retreat after a payload delivery or while refueling. (planes refueling or moving to refuel do not have any strength!)

The bad thing about patrol is that users often forget that they have them on patrol making them vulnerable to the enemy planes and ground troops.

The other night I lost 40+ planes while they were patrolling because a player moved a 40 stack (15 tanks, 15 AA, 10 infantry) under my patrolling fighters and bombers and thus killed many of them.

Captain_Mo wrote:

Another question about SBDE but possibly related:

So it looks like bombers can be stacked up to 5 at a time to achieve maximum efficiency. What if I split them up into 2 and 3? Efficiency is still the same, but will these stacks take more damage because they are doing 2 separate attacks and damage is dealt once for each attack?

What if I patrol them? Stack of 5 vs. stack of 2 + 3. The smaller stacks will again take more damage if attacked?

In other words the tipping point is 5 tacs (same for all the various air units). Splitting your airforce stacks down below the 5 tipping point is counter productive, and above five is diminishing returns. Every normal unit in the game has such a magic number but it varies depending on unit type. In the example above, if you have 10 tacs, then split them into 2 stacks of 5 each for maximum damage efficiency....but escort them with other planes to avoid taking too much damages in return. In the case of AA Art and AT that magic number is 8. Every unit has its optimum sbde, with heavier units generally having lower sbde optimum number.

To make it simplified, large stacks suffering a sbde penalty, split into 2 or more until the penalty vanishes, but include mixed forces and you'll get the most out of your armies, IMHO

As far as whether it is better to patrol or attack, that is case specific. Often if you have a high level 2 or 3 airfield close to the battle, attack can take down an enemy more rapidly. But if the airfield is low and far away patrol will take down an enemy faster. You also need to consider the enemy's response. If the enemy player is online and knows what he is doing, attack can be very very risky, leaving your force vulnerable. You can take down huge stacks of planes very quickly if you can catch them on the ground refueling. I will often make a mixed stack of escorted bombers patrolling, but split off the fighters to attack enemy bombers entering the fray, but it is a risk, because afterwards your fighters will be grounded. Example. In a recent war, I had my mixed unit patrolling and the enemy sent in a nuclear bomber, I split off my 5 fighters to attack the nuclear bomber, which killed it, but I was based at an allies airfield which was only level 1, while refueling, a second nuclear bomber that was following up slightly behind the first nuked the airfield and I lost all 5, leaving me with only my 3 reserve fighters I was bringing up for replacements and my tacs to try and defend against the two remaining nuclear bombers he sent later. So it can be risky to say the least.

Of course that's what makes the game fun! For every strategy there is a counter strategy!

I know this is a really dumb question to ask but; how do you get an interceptor to cancel it's patrol?

Return it to an airbase or issue an attack

Yeah uh... It's just sitting there... I've already done both and just tried it again... I tried to tell it go home. Ignored it. Told it to suicide on an AA gun, not only is it "stuck" on that one position, but it also refused the command.

NVM! I lagged out.

Was about to suggest reloading the page, sounds like a lag out

wildL SPQR wrote:

Captain_Mo wrote:

Redd Baron wrote:

Captain_Mo wrote:

Thanks for the detail explanation. You've made it very clear to me now. What an interesting game mechanic this game has!