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ORIGINAL: Flankerk

The problem isn't to do with RCS though, its that the AI will no longer fire at the target it was asked to do.
Effectively the planes are taking off with a specific strike mission and more or less ignoring their orders.
If it is behaviour that can be switched on or off that'd be ideal.
It seems pretty clear to me that all parties are unhappy with the present behaviour.

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The problem isn't to do with RCS though, its that the AI will no longer fire at the target it was asked to do.

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One final question, are you speaking in the context of scenario set up (to defeat the player) or are you setting it up in single player as part of an overall strategy for defeating a scenario?

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ORIGINAL: Flankerk

Unless I am mistaken, pretty much all of us know the problem with the weapons allocation and can readily reproduce it? If I understand correctly it has been reported a number of times and all parties are agreed that it is not the desired behaviour.

I just created a scenario in DB2000. I allocated an Oscar II to a strike mission versus a Wisconsin. The Wisconsin had an escort of a Vincennes and a Ticonderoga. The Oscar came to shallow depth and immediately opened fire, however twelve missiles were aimed at the Vincennes, twelve were fired at the Wisconsin and none were aimed at the Ticonderoga.

The end result was that the scenario as such behaved completely differently from how it should, and completely differently from how it operated in 3.6.
As a result while we would want to convert to 3.7 we are unable to do so. No-one wants a work round solution to stop this behaviour, they want the scenario to behave as was intended.

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ORIGINAL: FreekS

Thanks for the explanation.

Dale asked:

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One final question, are you speaking in the context of scenario set up (to defeat the player) or are you setting it up in single player as part of an overall strategy for defeating a scenario?

The reasons behind using the specific shipstrike or landstrike are ALWAYS (when I use them) to program the AI to give a good player a run for his money. Couple of examples (SPOILER ALERT!):

- In 2FR_NL a diesel/electric submarine lies in wait before an approaching CVBG. I put the sub on delayed specific shipstrike mission to attack the carrier and used the plotted path during the delay period to move the sub towards where I (the designer) thought the player would move the CVBG. In 3.6 this means that if the player runs his CVBG in the anticipated direction without good ASW practices (active sonar, helicopter patrols), the SSK will hold fire untill the carrier is in range and shoot at her. This is what I think a really bold sub driver would do. Works like a charm in 3.6. In 3.7.3 the sub shoots at a DDG in the outer screen and of course is detected and killed easily by the player. Reading the above I guess the SSK sees the DDG as a threat, but hey, those are risks SSKs with orders to penetrate a CVBG are supposed to take!

-  In the example of UNIFIL; Iranian SSMs are aimed at Israeli runways. Iran is then made neutral to Israel so the SSMs don't fire. I then set up a ferry mission of Iranian attack planes to make the player (Israel) make a decision; "do I see the Iranian planes as threat and kill them or do I hold fire". if he shoots; the SSMs (in 3.6) fire and damage his runways which take about 5 hours to repair (great feature that!). In 3.7.3. the whole airbase (all facilities) get destroyed. So in this case I aimed for a mild punishment of the player for breaking ROE and now cannot control the damage done (in fact I've seen the SSMs fire at a different SIDE when that became hostile).

I do understand the efforts made by AGSI to make the AI smarter (that is after all exactly what I try to do in the above examples). However it creates two problems for scen designers that are serious to me:

1. The daunting task to replay/retest ALL my scens in 3.7.3 (which on my 5 yr old PC runs VERY slow) to discover the changes in behaviour of the AI - You may have observed that I've only fully tested and released for 3.7.0 and 3.7.1 about a dozen scens (in about 6 months). I know dozens more need major surgery that I don't have time for (yet).
2. Then to decide how and if I can take the time to change my scens so they will work as intended with 3.7.3.

Don't want to sound negative at all; but is certainly seems that FORWARD compatibility of already built scenario's from 3.6 to 3.7.3 is not one of the features of 3.7.3. By compatibility I mean that the scen plays roughly as the designer intended. There are some GREAT features in 3.7.3 (I've enjoyed Multi-Player, the higher speeds of air intercept missions, the more realistic visual horizon) but it seems that many of my scens will have to stay with 3.6. and I must choose if I spend my H3-time retesting/rebuilding them or leaving them unavailable for 3.7.3 and focus on designing new scens.

I welcome this discussion and hope that maybe Bucks new logic and the 3.6. specific target missions can be combined in some way.

Freek

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ORIGINAL: VCDH

I then consulted with Darrel Dearing, our chief coder. He has stated that this was a requested feature. The level of threat that both the Ticonderoga and Vincennes had was determined by the 'aValue' numbers you see in the report window in the scenario editor.

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ORIGINAL: VCDH

This isn't a bug, rather it is a change in how the program engine prosceutes targets. The sub is also engaging the other units becuase of the threat from them but because the BB is the primary target it expends most of the missiles on that platform. If the player wishes to expend all of the missiles the Oscar has on the specified target then he'll have to take control and manually allocate the missiles against the BB.

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ORIGINAL: VCDH

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ORIGINAL: mikmyk
Can you explain the avalues though and how are they derived? I assume the higher is the bigger threat (so I get that much) but not really sure how they are derived. This may be important to scenario editors I think.

Darrel and I didn't get that deep into how the values are derived, only that it's based on the mounts in the platform. As of yesterday, he's gone to visit family and won't be back until the end of the week.

Later
D

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And I'm quite disapointed to see that the request wasn't stopped by the AGSI "experts", since it clearly breaks key functionality in the game, and makes it impossible for experienced scenario designers to create good scenarios.

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There won't be all that many scenarios that do not use some form of specified strike I would have thought?

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Generic non specified strikes would be improved by this behaviour, but for the specific strikes the end result is unwanted behaviour.

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ORIGINAL: VCDH

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ORIGINAL: mikmyk
Can you explain the avalues though and how are they derived? I assume the higher is the bigger threat (so I get that much) but not really sure how they are derived. This may be important to scenario editors I think.

Darrel and I didn't get that deep into how the values are derived, only that it's based on the mounts in the platform. As of yesterday, he's gone to visit family and won't be back until the end of the week.

Later
D

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ORIGINAL: VCDH

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ORIGINAL: mikmyk
Can you explain the avalues though and how are they derived? I assume the higher is the bigger threat (so I get that much) but not really sure how they are derived. This may be important to scenario editors I think.

Darrel and I didn't get that deep into how the values are derived, only that it's based on the mounts in the platform. As of yesterday, he's gone to visit family and won't be back until the end of the week.

Later
D