Hi all,   lots of good discussion gets buried in the large CV thread / bin - for example an excellent suggestion by @El2aZeR on a better fighter model for CVs post rework. Hence I try to summarize it in a clean thread - hope you and WG will like it     1. PURPOSE AND SUMMARY OF PROPOSED CHANGE  Make fighters part of your flight deck instead of the “afterthought” the current fighters are and change them in a way they become a tool to support the team against CV attacks instead of a cheap spotting consumable. Furthermore enhance the handling for the player.     2. CHANGED INGAME REPRESENTATION OF FIGHTERS Firstly change fighters so they become like the rest of any planes and an actual part of the carrier’s flight deck. This means fighters get: HP like other planes, maybe similar to rocket planes speed like other planes - but no boost a squadron size deck space for this type Regeneration time like other planes    This makes them “normal” planes as a first step. On top they get: “ammo” count: a certain amount of air-to-air ammo to be spent in aerial fights ”fuel” count: time the fighters can spend in the air before returning to the CV in seconds. This includes travelling to their assigned patrol area (“en route”)
sketch of fighter properties      3. PUTTING FIGHTERS INTO ACTION Rather than “dropping” fighter from a squadron out of the sky the CV player would assign a “patrol” area anywhere on the map - similar to the bird’s eye view we have when using a spotter plane - from the CV’s point of view. Deployment should work within known gameplay elements - eg. select squadron, get birds view presented on second press of squad button, place patrol area, eg like this:     Now what should happen next: fighter squadron takes off like any other squadron and begins travelling towards the assigned patrol area number of planes is subject to the usual availability rules (incl. regeneration) once the squadron arrives at the patrol area it will start circling and the fighter area is marked on the minimap
The fighter deployment view should be accessible from the CV hull or any squadron.   The patrol area should be larger than the current “consumable” Area - proposal would be twice the radius.
    Open question: should the model allow for changing the patrol area while fighters are up in the air and within the “fuel” limit?     4. “HIGH ALTITUDE” Fighters en route to their assigned patrol area fly higher than normal bombers (eg. like German DBs) - called “high altitude”. Special about “high” altitude: damage taken from AA clouds and AA DPS greatly reduced (eg. -80% - to be determined) No spotting of ships whatsoever    Purpose is to prevent fighters from being exploited as cheap spotting help and let them focus on their actual task.     5. ENGAGING ENEMY PLANES  Once the fighters take their patrol area any enemy plane entering the area will be engaged immediately. No delay like today. To engage the fighters however decent to normal altitude and are subject to all AA as per normal rules. 
  Planes en route can engage as well but their patrol “vision” is greatly reduced (proposal 1/4 but to be determined).   This means fighters are pretty resilient to AA while en route or patrolling but they don’t spot. Once they engage the normal rules apply.     6. AI DOGFIGHT Instead of simply “cancelling-out-each-other” the engaged planes perform an AI controlled dogfight. This could be relatively simple and similar to the auto dogfight from the RTS model.   It should be a bit less predictable like the current super-dull model though. 
  Ammo and Fuel would be limited though. Once up fighters will evac.   The player can recall fighters even in a dogfight. Eg. select squadron, press “F” - normal rules would apply. Gain altitude, continue to take damage until “safe” altitude, return to CV.
    7. RETURN TO CV Fighters return to the CV if: fuel is consumed  ammo is consume player recalls fighters manually      8. AOB / other considerations  Bombers should receive AI rear gunners for rudimentary Defense against fighters       Closing remarks: I always wanted fighters to be directly controllable with manual dogfighting but as it stands it doesn’t look like that would work well in the current model. Firstly it could create a lock down when the better player simply blows the other CV’s planes out of the air and secondly mitigation of damage is in the current model inferior to dealing damage. Meaning striking would be the more effective play style - somewhat defeating the purpose of manual fighters.   Regardless - the current fighter implementation is really poor. It feels like a complete afterthought while the team focussed on implementing the strike mechanics.   However some of us feel that there would be a relatively simple way to include fighters into the rest of the CV play properly and fix at the same time two more issue: being able to support the team closer with cover and remove the exploit that current fighters are misused as cheap spotting.   WG was relatively open to implement some additional improvements to the CV rework to address pressing shortcomings in the past year hence why I hope they will do something about fighters!!     So - dear WG - please take a look at some constructive discussions and proposals like this one and let us know what you think!