Air-Defense Coordinator
The system that actually decides who shoots at what.
FULLY AUTOMATIC
It runs automatically every game-clock tick, independently for every player, with no player trigger involved. Each tick runs three steps in order.
STEP 1 — REBUILD THE SAM ROSTER
Any living ground or naval unit with a loaded, positive-range SAM-capable weapon qualifies, filed into one of four range classes — long, medium, short, point-defense — based on the unit's general sensor/engagement range, not the specific missile it's carrying. A unit can technically be filed under a longer-range bucket than what its loaded missile can actually reach.
STEP 2 — REBUILD THE THREAT LIST
Missile threats from Threat Assessment (no detection gate), plus aircraft and helicopter threats pulled from your vision state — but only once a contact has reached "tracked."
| TIER | WHAT LANDS HERE |
|---|---|
| 1 | High-altitude missiles that can be intercepted |
| 2 | Other high/medium-altitude missiles; high-altitude fast aircraft |
| 3 | Low-altitude or ground-level (terminal phase) missiles; medium-altitude aircraft |
| 4 | Low-altitude aircraft, helicopters, drones |
| 5 | Tightest point-defense engagements |
STEP 3 — ASSIGN DEFENDERS
Only threats that are unassigned — or whose current defenders have all gone un-ready (reloading or out of ammo, the same readiness gate as Combat Readiness) — get reconsidered this tick. A threat with even one ready defender is left alone. Threats needing attention are worked strictly by tier first, then by priority score within the same tier — a ballistic missile always jumps ahead of a slow helicopter, regardless of score.
FOUR GATES, ALL MUST PASS
For each threat, every roster SAM unit is checked against: ready to fire, in range,class-appropriate (point-defense can't reach high-tier threats; long-range can't hit ground-level targets), and an active fire-control lock on the target — a stricter requirement than ordinary detection.
SCORING & ASSIGNMENT
Units clearing all four gates get scored on estimated hit chance — roughly 30% at the edge of range, scaling to 100% at point-blank, plus a bonus for class match. Normally only the single best-scoring unit is assigned. Two units get assigned instead when either the threat is the top priority tier, or no available unit individually clears roughly 60% hit chance.
If nothing clears all four gates for a threat, nothing happens that tick — it's re-evaluated on the next one. If an interceptor successfully downs an incoming missile, the enemy's own coordinator notices and automatically retries that engagement once its unit reloads.