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I need my LL Camera equipped recon planes to fly at say 16000 ft or lower (effective "range/height" of the LLC), but my ML Camera and HL Camera equipped planes to fly higher. If I use AI to fly my missions - I can only set the doctrine height for the AoG - not by plane type. And the AI seems to reset the doctrine to 16000 ft if it contains any LLC equipped recon planes (very sensibly). One option might be to put the LLC recon sqdrns in their own AoGs - but the AI priority settings will just mean they get reallocated. The only solution would seem to be manual air control - which I don't really want to use but there may be no way round it. Could the AI (or does it already?) set a min height for recon when it executes the mission be set to be the max effective camera height if less than the doctrine setting? That would fix the issue.

Wish I could help, but I do manual missions.

And, as you are considering, I seperate my recon aircraft based on type and fly each mission at camera optimum altitudes.

DarkHorse2 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:10 pm Wish I could help, but I do manual missions.

And, as you are considering, I seperate my recon aircraft based on type and fly each mission at camera optimum altitudes.

Do you know what those optimal altitudes are?

Defined in the Devices Tab in the editor:
LLC Effective 12,000, Max 16,800
MLC 24,000, 30,000
HLC 36,000, 50,000
Regards
Vermin

As Vermin said, unfortunately, you have to go into the editor to find the "effective" ceiling values.

Honestly, I found myself forgetting it all the time... when I needed to verify my altitudes.

I ended up saving it off into a small text file so I would not have to exit the game and load the editor, while playing.

shame on you matrix....

Here is the raw data (last value is "Effective Ceiling"):

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Another hint is that you may find you need to fly your "low-level" recon as high as possible to avoid as much flak as possible. The magic target alt is 16000 ft. (this helps avoid a bunch)

So, even though the Low Level Camera has an Effective Ceiling of 12,000 ft, you may want to go ahead and push it to 16,000 ft on occassion if Recon losses get too high.

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FYI - Matrix appears to have nerfed the Bf110E-3 by giving it a crappier camera than the Bf110C-5. The E-3 has a Max Alt of 34,000ft. So why would it make sense for the upgrade to not have a camera that takes advantage of the ability to avoid enemy fire

Following is what it was prior to the nerf.

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DarkHorse2 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:10 pm Wish I could help, but I do manual missions.

And, as you are considering, I seperate my recon aircraft based on type and fly each mission at camera optimum altitudes.

utterly irrelevant to how the game plays, see final para of section 18.1.6.

mission height sets how the planes move from base to the area of the recon directive - over target they adjust to meet their load out

loki100 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:50 am
utterly irrelevant to how the game plays, see final para of section 18.1.6.

mission height sets how the planes move from base to the area of the recon directive - over target they adjust to meet their load out

Incorrect Loki. (thought you were gone for impersonating other users)

It is very relevant for trying to avoid Flak.

Also, mission height is auto adjusted over the target HEX, but not that path, which you spend the majority of the flight.

To make sure I was not completely delusional... I ran through a series of tests to verify.

Basically, it is 2 sets of air recon missions. One set at low altitude (9000 ft), other set is high altitude (what I would typically use, based on AC type).

In order to try to duplicate the conditions as closely as possible between the two sets, they are both using "Follow Exact Path" for all of their air missions.

The results were:

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Low Altitude Losses - 53 / Dam 25
Hi Altitude Losses - 34 / Dam 23

Air Directives Low Results

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Air Directive High Results

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Air Losses - post Low Recon Missions

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Air Losses - post High Recon Missions

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To be as objective as possible, the test was conducted over a range of recon missions that crossed various weather patterns and enemy deployments.

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Additionally, the AirExecLogs have been provided, below.

...I'm not surprised that if you fly higher you are going to reduce flak losses but you've not provided a key data set.

Have your recon results been less successful? ( not easy to demonstrate objectively I suspect)

I wonder whether transiting at a sub-optimal altitude on the way to the AD boxes has such a big effect on successful recon as my understanding of loki's interpretation of the rules is WAD.

Taking this a step further, if recon is not impacted, why not set the transit altitude to the maximum possible for any given aircraft variant?