I would like to propose an upgraded algorithm for the air defense systems at the player's base.
For example, suppose there is a simultaneous attack on the player's base by multiple alien missiles (see
this topic for a description of this mechanic) - on the geoscape it will look like many UFOs flying to the player's base, which will arrive at the base almost simultaneously. Since in the real world the amount of ammunition in air defense systems is limited, air defense systems can only fire a limited number of shots. And if the number of targets exceeds the number of ammo in the air defense system, the latter targets are guaranteed not to be shot down.
The current air defense algorithm in the game does not take this feature into account: every time an attack is made on the player's base (when the screen of reflection of the attack on the player's base is shown), each air defense system has a full ammo supply, which is instantly reloaded between attacks. Of course, using the "ammoItem" and "ammoNeeded" parameters (see
this topic) brings a bit of realism, but still does not take into account the reload speed of air defense systems.
I suggest adding the following parameters for the base modules (similar to the "craftWeapons" parameters):
ammoMax - the maximum amount of ammo that can be loaded into this air defense system. According to the "ammoNeeded" parameter, this parameter can indicate either the amount of ammunition required to operate the air defense system, or the number of shots. For example, with "ammoNeeded: 5" and "ammoMax: 15", in the first case it will mean that the air defense system will be able to fire 15/5=3 shots until the ammo is fully discharged, or in the second case - 15 shots (each of which requires 5 ammo).
rearmRate - how much ammunition will be loaded into this air defense system per game hour. If possible, it is better to make this parameter to describe the amount of ammunition loaded during a game minute.
In addition to the technical implementation of the new algorithm, I think it will be a big problem to display information about the presence or absence of ammunition for each air defense system on the base. At the moment I think it will be enough to display this information in text form on top of the picture of the air defense module on the base screen.
In the attached image, the text "-/-" means that this air defense module has infinite ammunition and does not require rearming (as it works now).
