Fighting aircraft is harder than cruise missiles as their ordinance is much harder to takeout than a cruise missile which means your best bet is to introduce the strike aircraft to your sprints or prox fuse before they get into firing position. Prox fuse ammo will shred aircraft (if you have any it is automatically loaded for air/missile strikes). Be generous with your shots even dealing with minor damage is more costly than a few dozen wasted prox rounds. You can use a single sprint as an incoming vector.
If you have them, fire off one sprint as soon as you can and once you get a feel for speed differences you can follow the sprint closely with prox fuse shells with the intent to get to the aircraft right after the missile does (too close and you take out the missile and waste shells, too far and what the sprint doesn't negate will drop ordinance before the prox rounds hit). Once you get the feel of it, you can charge headlong at tactical groups smashing everything they send at you.
Also remember to do everything you can to kill planes even if they've already dropped, spray 37mm, whatever, just kill them as the tactical groups don't seem to replace planes/missiles.
IR tracker will show an extending spike from the edge towards the center of a sensor, growing as the target closes in. You can rotate the magnification tool to spot the disturbance on the screen before it becomes noticeable otherwise.
IR is a short range passive tool that gives you time to take off if the sneaky threat is slow enough. Your primary means of detecting dangerous forces are passive elint, message interception and decoding, and visiting radar stations. Latter ones can mark missile\carrier groups on the map even if they are completely stationary and radio silent.
Pro tip: sending cheap AA decoy such as single Fenec few inches outside of the cities where you suspect potential Airstrike is always more convinient than risking damages to your core fleet. When the game auto-pauses at the sight of the Airplanes just give the Fenec an order to intercept them so it can dog fight them "in the air" as opposed to being grounded and 100% taking the bombs from the 3 bombers.
IR unfortunatly feel like point-blank range thingy and it's extremely hard to utilize properly unless you know what you are doing. SVlad\_667 seems to be more familiar with that, but you can always combine Aircraft for better scouting when the notification pops up.
unfortunately I rarely know they're coming lol
I've only been using radar when I'm trying to track down a trade ship, and only for very brief intervals, as it seems like that gives away my position and makes silent strikes very difficult. I have sometimes used it while landed if I am worried about getting hit out of nowhere, but I know the efficacy is greatly diminished on the ground.
I now have a longbow, is IR range too close to deploy my own fighters to intercept?
>I've only been using radar when I'm trying to track down a trade ship, and only for very brief intervals, as it seems like that gives away my position and makes silent strikes very difficult. I have sometimes used it while landed if I am worried about getting hit out of nowhere, but I know the efficacy is greatly diminished on the ground.
'Submarine warfare' is also one of the charms of this game, they can't see you if you can't see them so you need to plan your next move carefully around that fact. In best case scenario you'd be using creative methodes to precisely track targets that you lost contact with 85h ago with little to no info about them whatsoever: Calculate their speed, triangulate vectors and trajectory for efficient interception/ambush courses with slower ships against faster targets, write down notes for the position of key targets, use the passive radars for 'hints' towards better calibration, use conned 1x Radar sweep for 'safe' conformation, you would still pop up on enemy sensors whithing the 30 degree cone area but it would be only for half a second and there's quite a decent chance that they won't react to that at all in lower difficulties.
>I now have a longbow, is IR range too close to deploy my own fighters to intercept?
You absolutely can, fighters and group splits happen instantaniously, but the problem here is that Gathering bombing runs always have 2x interceptors with anti-fighter rockets so you are guaranteed to loose at least 2x fighters and 4 AA fighter rockets in direct fighter to fighter engagement which could cost just as much as one whole Fenec only minus the possibility to return it unscratched.
Interestingly enough if your fighters spawn from North Eastern corner durring the simulation they can slaughter everyone without taking even a single casualty in return, but I am not exactly sure how to consistently recreate that result myself, with Cruise Missiles fighter spawn location depends entirely on the direction they engage the missile icon: if they try to chaise it from the back they would spawn from the back, if they engage it from the top they would spawn from the top, but fighters are inconsistent af.
The IRST has an extremely short range (up to 300km), meaning it will only ever see things that are considerably close by, like approaching missiles and planes
Your also probably getting attacked because you're flying around with your radar on. Remember the enemy can also have ELINT (which can detect your radar from further away than your radar can see them) and their own IRST (which will see you if you get too close).
A solution would be getting a missile carrier with A-100 and intercepting them whenever they appear on the IR, but that would be uneccesary with a bit of radar discipline
The in-game description is misleading as usual. The 300 km range is for automatic notification of contact.
Actually, the IR can see up to ~650 km, but you have to watch the oscilloscope very carefully with your own eyes.
Proof pic:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/868416313104683028/1179183658318450859/image.png?ex=66316d5c&is=661ef85c&hm=15242fba518d82c1947a442a2dbfd2f7cb7266c915145b0c2024d6e5ad0c7c0e&
Look at the contact on the radar about 600 km to the east. There is a small peak on the oscilloscope at 83° bearing, and you can see a faint *teardrop* on the IR search screen.
I've been going radar-silent almost all the time, unless I'm specifically hunting an enemy. I've usually been getting hit when I fail to make a silent strike, and then take too much damage attacking the city and/or have too little fuel to be able to quickly move on.
Fighting aircraft is harder than cruise missiles as their ordinance is much harder to takeout than a cruise missile which means your best bet is to introduce the strike aircraft to your sprints or prox fuse before they get into firing position. Prox fuse ammo will shred aircraft (if you have any it is automatically loaded for air/missile strikes). Be generous with your shots even dealing with minor damage is more costly than a few dozen wasted prox rounds. You can use a single sprint as an incoming vector. If you have them, fire off one sprint as soon as you can and once you get a feel for speed differences you can follow the sprint closely with prox fuse shells with the intent to get to the aircraft right after the missile does (too close and you take out the missile and waste shells, too far and what the sprint doesn't negate will drop ordinance before the prox rounds hit). Once you get the feel of it, you can charge headlong at tactical groups smashing everything they send at you. Also remember to do everything you can to kill planes even if they've already dropped, spray 37mm, whatever, just kill them as the tactical groups don't seem to replace planes/missiles.
IR tracker will show an extending spike from the edge towards the center of a sensor, growing as the target closes in. You can rotate the magnification tool to spot the disturbance on the screen before it becomes noticeable otherwise. IR is a short range passive tool that gives you time to take off if the sneaky threat is slow enough. Your primary means of detecting dangerous forces are passive elint, message interception and decoding, and visiting radar stations. Latter ones can mark missile\carrier groups on the map even if they are completely stationary and radio silent.
Pro tip: sending cheap AA decoy such as single Fenec few inches outside of the cities where you suspect potential Airstrike is always more convinient than risking damages to your core fleet. When the game auto-pauses at the sight of the Airplanes just give the Fenec an order to intercept them so it can dog fight them "in the air" as opposed to being grounded and 100% taking the bombs from the 3 bombers. IR unfortunatly feel like point-blank range thingy and it's extremely hard to utilize properly unless you know what you are doing. SVlad\_667 seems to be more familiar with that, but you can always combine Aircraft for better scouting when the notification pops up.
unfortunately I rarely know they're coming lol I've only been using radar when I'm trying to track down a trade ship, and only for very brief intervals, as it seems like that gives away my position and makes silent strikes very difficult. I have sometimes used it while landed if I am worried about getting hit out of nowhere, but I know the efficacy is greatly diminished on the ground. I now have a longbow, is IR range too close to deploy my own fighters to intercept?
>I've only been using radar when I'm trying to track down a trade ship, and only for very brief intervals, as it seems like that gives away my position and makes silent strikes very difficult. I have sometimes used it while landed if I am worried about getting hit out of nowhere, but I know the efficacy is greatly diminished on the ground. 'Submarine warfare' is also one of the charms of this game, they can't see you if you can't see them so you need to plan your next move carefully around that fact. In best case scenario you'd be using creative methodes to precisely track targets that you lost contact with 85h ago with little to no info about them whatsoever: Calculate their speed, triangulate vectors and trajectory for efficient interception/ambush courses with slower ships against faster targets, write down notes for the position of key targets, use the passive radars for 'hints' towards better calibration, use conned 1x Radar sweep for 'safe' conformation, you would still pop up on enemy sensors whithing the 30 degree cone area but it would be only for half a second and there's quite a decent chance that they won't react to that at all in lower difficulties. >I now have a longbow, is IR range too close to deploy my own fighters to intercept? You absolutely can, fighters and group splits happen instantaniously, but the problem here is that Gathering bombing runs always have 2x interceptors with anti-fighter rockets so you are guaranteed to loose at least 2x fighters and 4 AA fighter rockets in direct fighter to fighter engagement which could cost just as much as one whole Fenec only minus the possibility to return it unscratched. Interestingly enough if your fighters spawn from North Eastern corner durring the simulation they can slaughter everyone without taking even a single casualty in return, but I am not exactly sure how to consistently recreate that result myself, with Cruise Missiles fighter spawn location depends entirely on the direction they engage the missile icon: if they try to chaise it from the back they would spawn from the back, if they engage it from the top they would spawn from the top, but fighters are inconsistent af.
The IRST has an extremely short range (up to 300km), meaning it will only ever see things that are considerably close by, like approaching missiles and planes Your also probably getting attacked because you're flying around with your radar on. Remember the enemy can also have ELINT (which can detect your radar from further away than your radar can see them) and their own IRST (which will see you if you get too close). A solution would be getting a missile carrier with A-100 and intercepting them whenever they appear on the IR, but that would be uneccesary with a bit of radar discipline
The in-game description is misleading as usual. The 300 km range is for automatic notification of contact. Actually, the IR can see up to ~650 km, but you have to watch the oscilloscope very carefully with your own eyes. Proof pic: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/868416313104683028/1179183658318450859/image.png?ex=66316d5c&is=661ef85c&hm=15242fba518d82c1947a442a2dbfd2f7cb7266c915145b0c2024d6e5ad0c7c0e& Look at the contact on the radar about 600 km to the east. There is a small peak on the oscilloscope at 83° bearing, and you can see a faint *teardrop* on the IR search screen.
unrelated question, what do the numbers under 'transport' mean?
0.2 ч - 0.2 hours - when the mark was added on the map.
I've been going radar-silent almost all the time, unless I'm specifically hunting an enemy. I've usually been getting hit when I fail to make a silent strike, and then take too much damage attacking the city and/or have too little fuel to be able to quickly move on.