I've been playing Defcon for a few weeks now and already read a lot of the good advice on this forum, finished the in-game tutorial (although it taught the basics, much of strategy and tactics were sorely lacking in that short tutorial..)
I've tried searching around for the following questions in the forums but couldn't find a post anywhere that directly addressed some of these issues I've having, and in particular the transportation and relaying of bombers across airports to carries etc..
After watching a few recordings on dedcon I was able to pick up on a few tactics used by some of the more experienced players in the game. One of them included transporting fighters across the world in a relay system of airports and carriers. I was able to duplicate this myself in a test game:
However when I tried the exact same thing this time with bombers instead of fighters it was a massive failure.
It seems that for one thing, the bombers always stubbornly want to return to airports even when I directed them towards carriers in the ocean.
I have to resort to moving the carriers far away from land and almost in the middle of the Pacific and direct my bombers very far out (almost to bingo fuel) for them to redirect to carriers instead of airports, and even then, only a maximum of TWO bombers (even on a previously totally EMPTY carrier with zero fighters and zero bombers) can redirect towards any one carrier before the rest of the bombers re-plot back to the nearest airport..
I know for sure that carriers can have up to FIVE bombers loaded on it at the same time, so what gives? Why can't I refill my carriers to the full potential of five bombers and have to settle for only two? Is there something I'm doing wrong or missed? The interface itself seems very intuitive and simple, so that makes it all the more puzzling for me why this is not working..
Also..
while I was experimenting all of this in a test game I also noticed the following strange things and was hoping if any of you could give me an idea of what it all entails:
1. Sometimes (I'd say like less than 5% of the game) randomly and seemingly on its own this will happen: I'm playing a game and try to place a fighter or bomber and the game will give me this hard annoying BEEP sound indicating that I can't do that placement.. In this case there were no other obstructions in the way, I didn't accidentally target something else, and it was well within the range of the bomber/fighter and yet the game would simply REFUSE to let me place at all! Has anyone encountered this? What to do about it? In a middle of a heated naval battle this very frustrating especially if other players are yelling for SPEED and I can't even place my fighters! (due to no fault of my own!)
2. Like many of you, I use the six-pack silo placement and place my silos usually over the heaviest population areas of my population... (aka I try not to place any silos on top of cities, but its almost inevitable that many silos where be placed NEAR a lot of cities!!) When I'm in a frenzy to launch my silos in sync often times when I try to right click on a silo it accidentally picks up a city.. In cases where the city and silo are very close together sometimes I have to re-rightclick three or more times just to get the silo instead of the city. This also happens for airports too, I'll be trying to scramble a few fighters and all of a sudden I find myself right clicking on the city closest to the airport.. Since cities can't DO anything, there is really NO POINT in being able to right click on ANY city for any reason.. (and hence mistaken clicking on a city when you actually intend to click on a silo or airport) Is there a mod, hack, trick to disable the click (left or right) of cities to prevent this hassle from repeating itself?
3. This is a small issue, and nothing to gripe about, but I'd like to know if possible what you more experienced players do about this..
You know that "time compression/timer" bar on the very top of the screen? Well I always try to move/shift it a downwards a little so that it is NOT at the VERY top of the screen.. but every-time I exit Defcon and then later restart the game it can't remembers its position anymore.. Sometimes in a game when we are all time-compressed and then something unexpected pops up I'd like to have the ability to go to "real-time" asap.. Many times I have encountered this when I need to go to "real-time" and I move the mouse towards the top of the screen and reach for the PLAY button, the whole screen moves (especially if I'm zoomed in) and its annoying because now that's a few more precious seconds... It is dizzy and disorienting to be immersed in a game and zoomed in one a particular battle engagement and then when you need to switch to real-time asap to micromanage the whole screen shifts from under you and you have to relocated the "play" button to slow down and then refocus the screen and all the while its at time compression so precious seconds are lost Is there a keyboard sequence or shortcut to switch to real-time?
