there is, directly after he splits you have a short frame of time where the game allows you to switch the target without returning. this mentioned window is active between few seconds up to few minutes, depending on server response i guess. so if you observe sharply you may redirect.
Splitting makes bombers next to useless.
Is anybody aware if there are plans to fix this loophole?
I would argue that there are, accidentally or on purpose, multiple benefits to actively playing the game, i.e., staying online for the duration of a war, or as much as possible. The ability to split units to avoid bomber damage is one of those.
Splitting doesn't make bombers useless, it makes them less effective against intelligent and active players. When AI split, they tend to send the larger part of the force in the direction of the bomber, taking it away from protection and making it easier to destroy. A player who isn't logged in during the bombing run won't split regardless.
What would you suggest as a correction? Either the bomber has to target the unit split from, or the bomber has to target the unit split to, either way an active player can split in such a way that the "target" designation disappears from the more valuable stack. You could prevent players from splitting units that are currently being targeted by bombers, which is completely unrealistic, and would make it more difficult to use bombers effectively against AI in fortresses.
You could have the bomber's damage for that run apply to both units after the split, which would certainly solve the particular issue, but could potentially lead to server-breaking situations, such as if a unit is split into multiple pieces, and one or more of those units then joins with other nearby units, all of which would be *attacked by the bomber* and thus also *defend themselves from the bomber*. So, if someone split the armored cars from their artillery stack and joined it up with a stack of 20 balloons during the 2-hour bomber transit, so that the bomber is suddenly attacking a unit with 10 Air Defense instead of 4, now you run the risk of losing the bomber completely.
I'm not certain if it's even possible to allow the program to give you a real window of time to redirect the bomber without returning home, but that would also allow you to choose which of the split units the bomber attacks.
There is a thing called splash damage. If the units are close enough together you will still have a chance of hitting both.
The targetting with planes is a hit and miss.
I would like to see some changes such as a range number (the radius of the circle, which would allow redirecting mid flight or even a bombard and then land in a different aerodrome command.
I would also like to see the ability to fly planes twice their radius distance, meaning that if they are flying to a target at the edge of their circle and return to aerodrome they should be able to fly twice that circle to another aerodrome. It is the same distance. This of course would require a huge overhaul of the system but be more realistic.
It would be interesting to consider implementing a "crash" chance or damage to a plane if you would like to fly it to a province without an aerodrome or if the one it flew from was destroyed while in the air.
I don't hate the idea of correcting "transit" distance to be twice combat range, but the idea of randomly crashing bombers makes my skin crawl.
What about having bombers attack points instead of units? Any units within the attack circle are damaged, and you get both a more period-realistic use of bombers and an interface that's more honest about how accurate bombers can be.
QuoteWhat would you suggest as a correction? Either the bomber has to target the unit split from, or the bomber has to target the unit split to, either way an active player can split in such a way that the "target" designation disappears from the more valuable stack.
To first order, having the bomber just automatically target the stack with bigger strength would be a good step forward. It would at least avoid the "just split off 1 inf from my stack of 100" annoyingness. Yes, they could still split and gain a defensive benefit. They could even split a stack of 100 into 100 separate stacks, but that's going to take some real dedication to do repeatedly and isn't as easy the 1/99 split.
with the new plane mechanics. you can redirect planes in flight so splitting doesnt exactly matter now. you can also use the patrol function to deal consistent damage to units below it
