DEVELOPMENT PLAN #89 — Meeting Raids from the Ground: Linking Guns, Spotters and Command

This is a development plan: it describes something I want to build next. None of the systems described here are implemented yet, and the details are still under consideration and may change before they ship.

This morning's post (#88) registered ground-based air defense in the game: research, anti-aircraft guns and air-defense facilities. But a gun placed today still never fires. Tonight's plan is to link observation posts, ammunition stores, command posts and guns into one air-defense network that engages enemy air missions. It builds on the existing improvement item AAD-002 (air-defense engagements and settling quantities), and I have added this plan to that ticket.

The current Defense section of the region information screen, captured from a development Debug build for verification. It shows barracks, garrison, the AA network (how many of observation, ammunition and command are built), emplacements, and the next step.

Where things stand: the network can be built, but not used

The region information screen has a Defense section for building military facilities. Barracks are the prerequisite; the AA observation post, AA ammunition store and AA command post form the "AA network"; and AA emplacements and fortress AA emplacements are where the guns go. Research progresses for the whole country, while building is done region by region.

What does not exist yet is the part where deployed guns actually fire and damage aircraft. Platoons can already call in friendly air support, but no enemy anti-aircraft gun ever engages those sorties, and the Defense section itself says the effect of deploying AA guns is not implemented yet.

What I want to make interesting

If more guns always meant more protection, air defense would just be a numbers game. The design instead treats air defense as an integrated system of observation, command and supply: observation posts track targets, command posts assign fire, ammunition stores feed the guns, and only then do the guns deliver. I want the screen to show which link in that chain is weak, so that deciding what to build next becomes part of the play. Attackers, in turn, get reasons to exploit night, clouds and high altitude.

Idea 1: effective AA strength and the "weakest link"

I am considering expressing a region's air defense as effective AA strength: the total AA attack of the deployed guns multiplied by six factors, each between 0 and 1 — readiness, crew, training, observation, command and environment. With no guns deployed, no target tracked, or no ammunition, it is 0.

For example, four fixed AA guns (20 × 4 = 80 AA attack) without a command post fall back to local control (command 0.60); add rain (environment 0.75) and modest training (0.70), and effective strength drops to about 18. I want to mark the lowest factor as the "weakest link" and show an outlook such as "build a command post: about 18 → about 27". The goal is a situation where one command post helps more than two extra guns.

Concept mock (plan under consideration): an "Air-defense outlook" added to the Defense section, with the observation → command → ammunition → guns chain, each factor, the weakest link and a next step. Numbers and places are illustrative.

Idea 2: an engagement log with four kinds of result

When an enemy air mission enters the defended area, I plan to check, for each combat round and in order: is it hostile, is it within effective altitude, is it tracked, are the guns deployed, and are crew and ammunition available. A neutral aircraft that merely flies over the country is not attacked.

The result will not be a simple hit-or-miss. It will be one of four outcomes: light damage, mission aborted and returning, forced landing, or destroyed. Ratings will not translate directly into a kill chance; the aircraft's own protection and armored vital parts are taken into account. A forced landing does not immediately mean total loss; it hands off to rescue and recovery. A daily engagement log will also list why guns could not fire (above effective altitude, not tracked) and how much ammunition was used, so you can read afterwards why a raid was or was not stopped.

Concept mock (plan under consideration): one day's engagements listed by round, with checks, the emplacement that engaged, the result and ammunition. Numbers are illustrative, not actual game values.

Never counting twice

Ammunition used, aircraft damaged or destroyed, and crew casualties are settled exactly once per engagement and round. Reopening a screen, reloading a save, or recalculating the same round will never count them again, and several emplacements firing at the same target can never destroy more aircraft than there are. Conserving quantities is the foundation of this game's economy and combat, so this part gets settled before the visuals.

Implementation steps and related systems

The planned order is: (1) calculating effective AA strength with its breakdown; (2) tracking enemy air missions and deciding engagements; (3) the four outcomes, connected to the existing damage, rescue and recovery handling; (4) settling ammunition, aircraft and crew exactly once; (5) the air-defense outlook and engagement log on the region information screen (Japanese and English); and (6) save/load round-trip checks and the nightly 31-day comparison.

The environment factor will use the daily weather, consistent with the weather effects from plan #85. Sabotage against observation posts and ammunition stores, and secondary explosions (AAD-003), come after this.

Tell me what you think

Does the weakest-link idea — "a command post beats more guns" — sound like it would make building air defenses fun? Are four kinds of result too fine-grained, or just right for feeling that your defense worked? I would love to hear your impressions.

Image 1 was captured from a development Debug build using the verification procedure; images 2 and 3 are concept mocks (plans under consideration). Numbers are illustrative, not actual game values.

This morning's post: DEVELOPMENT SNAPSHOT #88

Weather plan: DEVELOPMENT PLAN #85

Previous plan: DEVELOPMENT PLAN #87 — Where Broken Gear Gets Fixed: Field Repairs and Rear Workshops

See the files currently available and the development status on the downloads page