Mission planning on a per-control point basis lacked the context it
needed to make good decisions, and the ability to make larger missions
that pulled aircraft from multiple airfields.
The per-CP planners have been replaced in favor of a global planner
per coalition. The planner generates a list of potential missions in
order of priority and then allocates aircraft to the proposed flights
until no missions remain.
Mission planning behavior has changed:
* CAP flights will now only be generated for airfields within a
predefined threat range of an enemy airfield.
* CAS, SEAD, and strike missions get escorts. Strike missions get a
SEAD flight.
* CAS, SEAD, and strike missions will not be planned unless
they have an escort available.
* Missions may originate from multiple airfields.
There's more to do:
* The range limitations imposed on the mission planner should take
aircraft range limitations into account.
* Air superiority aircraft like the F-15 should be preferred for CAP
over multi-role aircraft like the F/A-18 since otherwise we run the
risk of running out of ground attack capable aircraft even though
there are still unused aircraft.
* Mission priorities may need tuning.
* Target areas could be analyzed for potential threats, allowing
escort flights to be optional or omitted if there is no threat to
defend against. For example, late game a SEAD flight for a strike
mission probably is not necessary.
* SAM threat should be judged by how close the extent of the SAM's
range is to friendly locations, not the distance to the site itself.
An SA-10 30 nm away is more threatening than an SA-6 25 nm away.
* Much of the planning behavior should be factored out into the
coalition's doctrine.
But as-is this is an improvement over the existing behavior, so those
things can be follow ups.
The potential regression in behavior here is that we're no longer
planning multiple cycles of missions. Each objective will get one CAP.
I think this fits better with the turn cycle of the game, as a CAP
flight should be able to remain on station for the duration of the
turn (especially with refueling).
Note that this does break save compatibility as the old planner was a
part of the game object, and since that class is now gone it can't be
unpickled.
Mission planning has been completely redone. Missions are now planned
by right clicking the target area and choosing "New package".
A package can include multiple flights for the same objective. Right
now the automatic flight planner is only fragging single-flight
packages in the same manner that it used to, but that can be improved
now.
The air tasking order (ATO) is now the left bar of the main UI. This
shows every fragged package, and the flights in the selected package.
The info bar that was previously on the left is now a smaller bar at
the bottom of the screen. The old "Mission Planning" button is now
just the "Take Off" button.
The flight plan display no longer shows enemy flight plans. That could
be re-added if needed, probably with a difficulty/cheat option.
Aircraft inventories have been disassociated from the Planner class.
Aircraft inventories are now stored globally in the Game object.
Save games made prior to this update will not be compatible do to the
changes in how aircraft inventories and planned flights are stored.
