Air Defender Changelog
Version 0.8.2.0
This update is about how a game begins and how the enemy behaves once you meet it. Instant Action no longer buries you before your aircraft are airborne, a Peacetime start no longer plays out to the same script every time, intercepted aircraft can now refuse to turn, and Russian pilots of every type answer you on the radio. It also brings the enemy escort doctrine and tanker support from the previous batch of reports.
A Slower, Smarter Start
- Time To Get Airborne: In Instant Action, or whenever tension reaches Critical, the first raid now arrives after 30 to 60 game minutes depending on your experience level, instead of 15. Get an AWACS on station with two pairs of interceptors airborne and the enemy comes for you sooner. A message on the console tells you the clock is running.
- A Probing First Raid: The opening raid is small, aimed at your radars and airfields rather than your cities, so your first intercept is a fight you can win.
- Raids That React To You: Later raids are launched when the previous one is engaged, crosses the coast or is dealt with, rather than on a fixed timer. There is a limit to how many raids can be in the air at once, and it grows as the campaign goes on and with your experience. A raid will still come eventually if you sit and wait.
- Peacetime Is No Longer Predictable: The first spoofer and the first emergency now arrive at a different time and from a different place each game, and only one thing happens at a time while you find your feet. Radar and base failures no longer land on the same minute for players who identify traffic quickly, and different airliners turn out to be spies from one game to the next.
- Zombies In Every Game: Every session now carries at least one airliner route from a country of interest, so Zombie contacts can appear in every game rather than only when the traffic draw happened to include one.
Intercepts That Can Fail
- They Do Not Always Comply: An intercepted Russian or Iranian aircraft no longer turns away every time. Each raid decides once, with the odds depending on what it is and how tense things are: a lone airliner spoofer usually complies, an escorted bomber often does not. A refusing raid holds its course, the console reports it as not complying, and after the repeated warning it gets one more chance to think again. What happens next is your call.
- Russian Pilots Talk Back: MiG, Sukhoi and Tu-160 crews now answer the interceptor on the radio, not just Bears. Outside our airspace they tell you to stay clear, over land they claim to be on an exercise, and a crew that refuses your order says so, in Russian-accented English, with the words posted to the console.
Enemy Escorts And Tankers
- Fighting By The Book: Enemy fighter escorts now fight the way Russian fighters were trained to in 1998. One pair takes each interceptor, the leader shoots while the wingman covers, they fire two missiles and break away to assess before attacking again. A raid no longer masses its fire on one aircraft.
- Realistic Escort Numbers: Raids bring two to four fighter escorts, the number a regiment could actually put up, instead of up to eight.
- Tanker Support: Enemy raids bring an Il-78 tanker that orbits far out behind the raid. Escort fighters have limited time on station: when they run low they break off, top up and rejoin, and if the tanker is gone they turn for home. Find and kill the tanker and the raid loses its escorts.