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podcat

Studio Manager, Game Director <unannounced>
Paradox Staff
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Jul 23, 2007
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Hi everyone! Today’s diary is sort of a logical continuation on the 1.4 “Oak” updated where we did a full revamp on the air interfaces and much of the underlying combat mechanics. So lets dive into some more air stuff!

Attaching air wings to armies
It's now possible to attach air wings directly to armies. This means that if you assign them to an army pushing into a hostile nation those wings will get automatically move to bases in range and assigned to areas the army is fighting in. This should hopefully mean no more accidentally forgetting your air force in france when you move forces up to the russian front in hectic multiplayer games or needing to manage things manually when crossing into new areas under an advance.
Assigned wings show over armies in air mapmode (you can’t attach to army groups) for easy check on how your attached air forces situation is. We show them in 3 groups: Fighters, Close Air support/tactical bombers and Transports for supply. You can’t attach strategic bombers, because, well, having planes on order to destroy the area you move through is generally not good. You can also quickly select those planes in each group which makes sending them around and rebalancing easy and quick.
Attaching is a free feature for everyone as part of the 1.5 “Cornflakes” update. The rest of the diary will cover features in the upcoming (and still unannounced. Trust me I’m itching to tell!) DLC.
Screenshot_1.png



Air Supply
Ever had your troops encircled and out of supply and wished there was some way to help them out? Now you can assign your transport planes to bring supply across enemy lines. Each plane assigned to a strategic area will boost supply in supply areas there. These planes can be intercepted as any other mission resulting in less supply, and destroyed planes. Air supply is designed to be a costly thing that you only want to use at a smaller scale, or to adjust minor supply problems. To ensure this we are rebalancing transport planes a bit so you will need a lot more of them (although with reduced costs as their “air fleet” status right now works badly with being intercepted) and air supply being a logistically tricky affair will require tying up new country resource to work. More info on that in a later diary though when we can show the whole picture. What is important here is that it's hard to use this at a large scale, and that it will come with some trade-offs.
supply_mapmode.png

(German planes delivering loot-boxes in a totally not-artificial at all situation of troops trapped in the middle of Poland)

To make it easy to identify where to send your transport planes on supply missions the air mapmode now has a special indicator showing areas with a supply need where planes could be assigned. If you are over supplying them through the air this is also shown, so that you may want to withdraw some of your wings.
supply_mapmode_2.png



Prioritization for strategic bombing
Players can now affect target selection for strategic bombers. The way it works is that you mark your prioritized targets when picking the strategic bombing mission. Those building types selected will have a higher chance of being targeted compared to others. Bombing isn't the most exact process and we felt it would be weird if you could completely control what doesn't get hit etc. So instead we decided on a system where you can somewhat affect it, but won't be able to walk into an area with all refineries destroyed but pristine infrastructure and factories.
upload_2017-11-1_16-4-0.png


We also have one more air related feature as part of the DLC, but we will be showing that off in a future diary where it fits in better with the content there ;P

Next week is a diary I have been looking forward to - we are going to explain what that new topbar button does that you may have spotted in screenies :)

PS. The second episode of our beginner-stream with @Da9L and @bus is coming any second now. Even though most of you are probably familiar with the basics, this is perfect for any friends that want to join in. Check out the Paradox twitch today at 16:00 CET: https://go.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive
 
Relevant!
 
Huzzah on the improvements, though it likely won't help me as I do the encircling (mwahahaha).

When do we learn which country is getting the second focus tree overhaul?
After announcement of the expansion. I've kept all that on hold so we dont show off the theme before the announcement. Not that long left now tho!

Damn you had me worried that you were gonna implement loot boxes for a moment. Glad you decided instead to just take the piss out of a fuckawful gambling system

No worries. I was considering it but then I watched this insightful article about it.
 
Will the assigned planes be split among the air zones the army is fighting in case of more than one or be concentrated where the fighting is harder?

We are still iterating on the exact behaviour here (and for hoe it best picks bases), but yeah the idea is they will be splitting up based on combat amounts as well as divisions (potential combats)

Will there be technologies for the transportplanes to research? Or will you have the anno 1936 transport planes in 1945?

there is some argument for at least american transport plane tech increasing its not in the plan atm.

That'll be very good for multiplayer indeed but is it the only thing it does ? Or does it, for instance, somehow tie planes to support only fights for that army ? Like being able to assign your CAS to help mostly the army ypu attached it to, instead of helping your garrison forces in the same area, for which you need less help ?
We are testing them only joining the attached army's combats, but might not be something we go with in the end depending on results so I didnt mention in the diary
 
If you look closely at the picture, you can see a general next to a field marshall who is in a larger picture, while the air groups are assigned to the general. I think podcat means a field marshall commands an army group and you can only assign to generals, as is seen in the picture.

yeah exactly
 
Well, and I'm asking why block using air attach into Army Group. It isn't so different mechanically, I believe (?), and you can stretch an army for two air zones as well. Can't say any other reason.
it makes it more unclear where they should focus, and one of the reasons to use attach to army. The army group cant directly control its own units.
 
Is it "a new focus tree" or "new focus trees"?

Hopefully it's a typo, not archangel being a politician XD

I will say this much - and this is what I have always said, many times before: the thing is - regardless of what your personal opinion on it may be - the thing is that my position has not changed, and I stand behind what I said.
 
İngilizcem kötü olduğundan türkçe yazıyorum.
Bu yazımı iyi bir ingilizce'ye çevirirseniz sevinirim.

Sonunda hoi 1 ve 2 deki özellikler geldi
Ama hava kuvvetlerinin kara birliklerine saldırılardaki sorundan bahsetmemişler
Tac and Cas sadece savunan ve saldıran birlikleri bombalıyor
Tac and Cas diğer zamanlar bombalamıyorlar düşman birliklerini

ve nokta stratejik bombardıman olacak mı?
örnek
majino hattının gerisindeki yolları bombalayıp ordaki birlikleri supplsiz bırakabilecekmiyiz

Translation:

Finally there are a couple new features for HoI.
But there was no discussion about the problems while air force is attacking land forces.
TAC and CAS only bombs units that are currently in a fight, otherwise they don't attack units

And will there be an option do strategic bombing for exact locations? For example will we be able to bomb the infrastructure behind Majino line and will leave the units on that location out of supply.