[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by gap

Weren't air torpedoes a feature introduced with SHIV? Yes, but I can't remember if that was the initial release, or one of the "updates"... The problem of the torpedo not launching properly was there also though - or at least, for a period of time. Part of the problem was plane speed, as well as plane height when launching, which may have been "fixed" in v1.5. I do not recall where it was, but someone mentions working on fixing the backwards torpedo launch, and it may well have been a TDW thread instead of Rubini...

Indeed, there is an Air Torpedo mod for SHIII by Rubini, but I think it exploited the same workaround as the ship torpedo mod (where torpedoes are spawned in game as the muzzle flash effect of an invisible dummy gun); I doubt anything related with their working and with their setup to apply to later SH games Exactly on the "spawn" method. This does bring to mind though, the fix, and that was the actual spawning of the torpedo being initiated from the "splash" of the "fake" drop... The drop did not matter, since the "splash" is what spawned the actual torpredo. Then, it is just a matter of "aiming", of which there is none... lol - well, actually, there is, it's just that the aiming of the torpedo for the game AI utilizes its base platform, which is a gun, and a shell shot from a gun travels much faster than a torpedo...

Resuming:

• Once an unit is detected, there is a chance that response aircraft will spawn from the nearest enemy base within detected unit's range. If, considering max radii of the assigned aircraft, no air base is within range, no response aircraft will spawn. yes
  
• The chance that the selected airbase will actually spawn response aircraft depends on a number of factors like airbase veterancy level and day/night time as well as a number of related parameters in AirStrike.cfg (i.e: Default Air Strike Probability, Probability Increase factors, Atenuation Factor, Airbase Modifiers and Night Modifier). If someone could provide the formula actually used by the game for calculating this chance, that would be cool. There is a write-up on that - in the AirStrike.cfg itself?? Anyway, the game decides if it will respond (is usually does on the first run-through). It then decides which airplanes are available that can reach out at the detected range, and pulls randomly from that pool. The game will usually not use one plane type exclusively, but rather, spread the response, as can be seen in that video, where the first plane is a P-40, the next three are Wildcats, then a PBY (probably not seen in that particular video), etc. The other factors are then applied to the response equation.
  
• The chance of a response "session" is calculated at fixed time intervals equal to Logic Steps Between Air Sessions (AirStrike.cfg) x 90 seconds.
  
• The maximum number of response aircraft spawned per session is variable, depending on the type of unit (ship, submarine, port, coastal defense, etc, Axis/Allied threat zones count as if they were a refular unit) whose detection has "triggered" the response. In SHIV, the typical response against a submarine is composed of a maximum of seven aircraft. This is what it appears to be.
• The minimum number number of response aircraft spawned per session, depends on the number of aircraft with the appropriate range assigned to the selected airbase and "available" for the mission. Yes, but does include all types of planes, dependent upon range.
• Resuming, if we are detected and the nearest airbase has more than 7 aircraft assigned with enough range to perform a response raid, only 7 aircraft will spawn (i.e. the maximum hardcoded limit for ASW attacks), but if that base has only 4 aircracft available, then only those 4 will spawn. yes - total aircraft though, not just one type
  
• All the aircraft composing a response group will come from the general direction of the airbase they spawned from. If that airbase has more than one aircraft type assigned and available, the composition of the response group will be random. Aircraft won't get to the operation area all at once, but at short intervals and in small groups of 1, 2 or 3 aircraft. yes
  
• No matter if the aircraft composing a response raid are killed in action or they return to base after accomplishing their mission, they become "unavailable" for the next raids, yet, on they way back to base they are still "active"; they will report any enemy unit if they detect one (thus triggering a potential cascade of "resposne raids"), and they will attack it if they still have any weapon available. I am not certain of "availability". It seems that an AirBase seemingly generates more airplanes than it should, sometimes apparently generating its new response off of the airplanes that should still be enroute back to base, but are outside the player's "spawn range".
  
• If the unit which had triggered the air response was not destroyed during the first raid, more raids will be considered by the game if the selected airbase has still some aircraft available. Indeed, that will involve waiting for the next dice roll. yes

LOL

Did you try playing with AirStrike.cfg settings in order to reduce aircraft activity?

Yes, we "tweak" those every so often in attempts to get a more predictable response. Probably one of the main problems found in FotRSU, and this applies to Sea assets as well, is the disparate sources of a lot of the assets imported to the mod. Each author of a ship or plane has their own idea of how to do things, and they build them for their own version of the game, which that "environment" may well be significantly different from what they are currently being used in...

Originally Posted by gap

I have just found a couple of books containing information on USAF Squadrons similar to the information we already had on RAF ones:

Air Force Combat Units of World War II


Combat Squadrons of the Air Force WWII

SHIV modders as well as SH5 ones might be interested in having a close look into those documents

Very nice! Thank you.