Flight behaviour of planes

[alik83]

Why not make planes fly like in OTA?
So that if you give your plane a patrol order around 2 points, it goes to first point, slows down if needed to take direction to second point, slows down and stops when it gets to 2-nd point and so on?
Why all that flying around in wide circles around the points ordered?
And in Spring if you give your plane a move order close behind it, it will go forward still a long way, than make a wide turn and return,
But if you give the same plane a move order a screen behind it, it will turn around quite quickly and fly back...
Isn't it strange?
Just try to make them like in OTA, it was cool enough

[Warlord Zsinj]

The problem with turning on the dime is that units actually occupy an area of space for an extended amount of time, giving any air-firing units significantly increased potential of hitting those units. Watch, put patrol point over the enemy base in OTA, and you'll find that as your planes slow down to hit that point, they will get absolutely pasted.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I _really_ think that aircraft should be left as they are. Radars are the main problem here. What I think is even with the current system, everything works fine, the inaccuracy granted by the roving dots is enough to reduce casualties from out-of-los missile fire. If your planes get decimated, you're doing something wrong.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Agreed.

[zzymyn]

I've got a few idea's (perhaps not for OTA, but for mods to use):

1. Radar only sees moving units (or perhaps a minimum speed, so a crawling bomb going slow wouldn't be detected, building's may pose a problem though).
2. Radar sweeps around (I think this has already been said).
3. Radar cannot detect units below a certain size.
4. Radar get's blocked by hills.
5. Some units have toggleable stealth (when in stealth mode they move slower/reduced fire rate etc...)

[Warlord Zsinj]

Hey blobby.

Oh noes! Your secret identity has been revealed!

A few comments on your suggestions:

1) Radar seeing only moving units: this was suggested in another thread (although it was hidden under the guise of radars detecting "seismic activity" - ultimately the exact same thing). I think its a particularly good idea, but as you said, it would cause a number of issues, but it'd be interesting to try it out on gameplay. I love the potential for ambushes.

2) Yeah, I thought this was a nice solution, but thinking about it, I thought it could be a bit annoying, rather than solving aircraft issues. Consider, what would happen if each radar sweeps around; and I just built two radars. To they counteract each other? Do I get twice the radar updates? If I do, I'd just build two radars for every spot...

3) Oooh, curious. But what size would you determine to be "detectable".

4) This already happens.

5) This is fairly easy to do for a mod; not complicated scripting required at all.

[zwzsg]

Are you so sure toggleable stealth is so easy? So far stealth is just a .fbi line, it's not toggeable.

And don't forget
6) Radar dots only update once every second. Or have a one second delay. (Change second to a balanced period that makes plane dots outdated most of the time but tanks dots fairly accurate).