Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Command: Modern Operations series >> Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles

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Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/29/2021 4:21:05 AM

maoyoushisi

Posts: 6
Joined: 5/29/2021
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Hi guys,

Enemy cruise missiles are fired at my land installations and travel through my AAW patrol area.
Since these installations have their own air defense, I don't want to waste air-to-air missiles on them, and so I set my AAM WRA to no automatic fire on guided weapons. (These fighters don't have guns either.)
The result is my fighters won't stop chasing after these cruise missiles on afterburner, wasting fuel and patrol time.
Is there a way to stop this from happening?

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Post #: 1

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/29/2021 12:51:05 PM

BDukes

Posts: 1695
Joined: 12/27/2017
Status: offline

This one might be a little tough depending on their patrol area.

AAW patrol missions can be limited using prosecution zones and investigate unknown contacts outside the patrol zone and investigate unknown contacts within range switches in the mission editor. You can also limit weapons firing logic in the ROE. I highly suggest reading the manual and finding a good video on this as it's an important game concept and better learned outside brief forum posts.

Pat G's Tutorials on YouTube are pretty awesome.

In this case, if you have a prosecution zone you may be able to manipulate the zone (moving reference points) when these missile contacts appear so the AAW patrol won't engage them. All depends on the course of the missiles.

Mike

< Message edited by BDukes -- 5/29/2021 1:01:59 PM >

(in reply to maoyoushisi)

Post #: 2

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/29/2021 2:22:22 PM

SeaQueen

Posts: 1451
Joined: 4/14/2007
From: Washington D.C.
Status: offline

On what level are you setting them to not engage cruise missiles? It's possible that you're setting it on a high level only to be undone at a lower level.

(in reply to maoyoushisi)

Post #: 3

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/30/2021 5:06:17 AM

maoyoushisi

Posts: 6
Joined: 5/29/2021
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: BDukes

This one might be a little tough depending on their patrol area.

AAW patrol missions can be limited using prosecution zones and investigate unknown contacts outside the patrol zone and investigate unknown contacts within range switches in the mission editor. You can also limit weapons firing logic in the ROE. I highly suggest reading the manual and finding a good video on this as it's an important game concept and better learned outside brief forum posts.

Pat G's Tutorials on YouTube are pretty awesome.

In this case, if you have a prosecution zone you may be able to manipulate the zone (moving reference points) when these missile contacts appear so the AAW patrol won't engage them. All depends on the course of the missiles.

Mike

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply.

I have just checked the manual again to see if I missed anything, but it seems like the game doesn't distinguish a target between a plane and a missile when it comes to AAW patrols. The manual only refers to them as "airborne targets".

So I have experimented with various settings, including ROE, WRA, and both "investigate contacts" options that you suggested.

The fighters do adhere to the WRA and hold fire, but they are just stuck being "engaged offensive". I tried disengaging using ctrl+E, they do disengage, but would engage again immediately.

Yes, relocating the patrol zone or prosecution zone does stop the engagement, but then they wouldn't engage enemy planes in the area either...

_____________________________

东风夜放花千树。更吹落，星如雨。

(in reply to BDukes)

Post #: 4

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/30/2021 5:11:34 AM

maoyoushisi

Posts: 6
Joined: 5/29/2021
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

On what level are you setting them to not engage cruise missiles? It's possible that you're setting it on a high level only to be undone at a lower level.

Hi SeaQueen, thanks for the reply.

The settings are set on the side level, and I made sure they are inherited on the mission level as well.

Technically I wasn't able to set them to not engage cruise missiles, but rather not fire at them.

Attachment (4)

< Message edited by maoyoushisi -- 5/30/2021 5:13:05 AM >

_____________________________

东风夜放花千树。更吹落，星如雨。

(in reply to SeaQueen)

Post #: 5

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/31/2021 2:30:46 AM

KnightHawk75

Posts: 1450
Joined: 11/15/2018
Status: offline

quote:

Is there a way to stop this from happening?

Nope, not directly, they will engage regardless even if they can't actually fire anything at it.
Without regard to how much sense that makes, the work around is to play gimmicks with contact posture such that they are neutral inside the AAW zone in your example, and hostile outside of it, and that these two areas don't overlap much. If they are neutral the "engagement" will stop.

You can do this manually if you are the player, flipping them neutral and then back again later.

If you need to do this in an automated way or for the ai side I've approached it in the past in two ways, the first involves decent amount of scripting and a separate contact tracking system of my own. I'll skip focusing on it as its more than is technically needed and the second method is less scripting version of basically the same thing though a little less flexible.

That second one is basically setup 2 events (or sets of events). The first is an in-area trigger for each of the specific cruise missile types you are interested in and have them link to a set-to-neutral action, in the case presented the area can be that of the AAWZone\AAWprosecZone. Then in the second event (or set) you just have another in-area defined trigger that does the reverse of the first, in that it sets-to-hostile. In instances where there aren't more complications and your aaw in question is sort of the outer defensive ring it works ok, but in more complex scenes or situations it may create other undesired effects that you may need to test for, have to design around, or simply not use it and take another approach.

Pic to give you some idea.

In the pic the missiles traveled though the AAW being marked neutral so that the aaw aircraft ignored them, then as they pass into another area they get flagged hostile again so that the local air defense units will start engaging them, but since they're now outside the aaw those aircraft will ignore them.

The small amount of code attached for doing the switch-contact-posture that might save you some time (ChangeContactPosture_Uploaded_5027982.txt), consists of 2 global funcs, and sample action script that makes use of those.
edit: oops forgot that attachment.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by KnightHawk75 -- 5/31/2021 3:46:09 AM >

(in reply to maoyoushisi)

Post #: 6

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/31/2021 5:15:44 AM

Rain08

Posts: 92
Joined: 7/18/2016
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What I do to stop fighters from chasing cruise missiles is by changing the WRA of the aircrafts assigned to the mission. I put the WVR/BVR missiles and guns to Do Not Fire and Not Automatic Fire against detected weapons, and that seems to make the aircrafts ignore weapon contacts. It can be sometimes tedious, especially when handling multiple patrol missions, but I find it worth it.

I think there should just be a checkbox in the mission editor where units on a (AAW) patrol mission would ignore cruise missiles/weapon contacts.

(in reply to KnightHawk75)

Post #: 7

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/31/2021 5:53:13 PM

SeaQueen

Posts: 1451
Joined: 4/14/2007
From: Washington D.C.
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: maoyoushisi
The settings are set on the side level, and I made sure they are inherited on the mission level as well.

Technically I wasn't able to set them to not engage cruise missiles, but rather not fire at them.

Interesting. If they can't shoot them, then they'll typically ignore them. There's no such thing in Command as an "unfriendly" missile that you trail and don't shoot. Check the mission level and lower doctrine settings and make sure they're what you want them to be. It should be inherited from the higher level, but sometimes for various reasons that doesn't always happen.

Also, be sure to check all the missile variants are set not to engage cruise missiles. Sometimes you might miss a setting if, for example, there's both AMRAAM-C and AMRAAM-D in the game.

(in reply to maoyoushisi)

Post #: 8

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 5/31/2021 9:20:55 PM

KnightHawk75

Posts: 1450
Joined: 11/15/2018
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rain08

What I do to stop fighters from chasing cruise missiles is by changing the WRA of the aircrafts assigned to the mission. I put the WVR/BVR missiles and guns to Do Not Fire and Not Automatic Fire against detected weapons, and that seems to make the aircrafts ignore weapon contacts. It can be sometimes tedious, especially when handling multiple patrol missions, but I find it worth it.

I think there should just be a checkbox in the mission editor where units on a (AAW) patrol mission would ignore cruise missiles/weapon contacts.

This does not work in my experience in the past, and testing it again just now, all weapons set to do not use and no automatic fire, AAW member still engages the guided weapon contact even though it can use nothing against it.
Click thumbnail for full image.

(in reply to Rain08)

Post #: 9

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 6/1/2021 2:16:58 AM

maoyoushisi

Posts: 6
Joined: 5/29/2021
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: KnightHawk75

Hi KnightHawk, thank you so much for the detailed response.

I tried changing the contact postures before and thought it didn't work, because the missiles still appeared red on the map, so I thought missiles can't be set to neutral. But after testing again I found out that this method indeed works.

I guess I will stick to this method whenever I play through a scenario, just have to remember to set them back again on time.

The automated method (and code) you provided is very clever, I will play around with it and put it to use on future scenarios.

Again, appreciate your help!

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东风夜放花千树。更吹落，星如雨。

(in reply to KnightHawk75)

Post #: 10

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 6/1/2021 2:24:44 AM

maoyoushisi

Posts: 6
Joined: 5/29/2021
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rain08

I think there should just be a checkbox in the mission editor where units on a (AAW) patrol mission would ignore cruise missiles/weapon contacts.

Agreed, I do believe that missiles should be treated differently than aircrafts in a patrol mission.

Nevertheless, like KnightHawk demonstrated, my patrol aircrafts still engage hostile missiles even with WRA set to no automatic fire. For now, the only practical way to have them ignore missiles without scripting is just changing contact postures.

_____________________________

东风夜放花千树。更吹落，星如雨。

(in reply to Rain08)

Post #: 11

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 6/1/2021 6:58:19 PM

BDukes

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Possibly related but I did put this in bug reporting forum with last update or so.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5022356

Used to be able limit fire to just the prosecution zone itself. That is no longer the case.

Mike

(in reply to maoyoushisi)

Post #: 12

RE: Fighters won't stop chasing after cruise missiles - 6/2/2021 1:26:35 AM

KnightHawk75

Posts: 1450
Joined: 11/15/2018
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: BDukes

Possibly related but I did put this in bug reporting forum with last update or so.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5022356

Used to be able limit fire to just the prosecution zone itself. That is no longer the case.

Mike

Not directly I think, but it is related in that when it comes to doing layered defenses and needing more fidelity than just wra settings it can come into the picture for sam units and such. When it comes to aircraft on aaw mission they do at present obey the prosecution zone. But I do hope they restore the feature in your request for all assigned members of the group that existed in cmano as it would make scenario design life easier in general if one could set prz's that applied to member facilities.

(in reply to BDukes)

Post #: 13