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ORIGINAL: Phoenix100

It was a serious question for the devs. I bought this game on day 1, and have since bought everything for it, expansions and LIVE modules, without, actually, being able as yet to really get into playing it, though I keep trying, keep coming back to it, keep watching the various videos, keep learning a little here and there. And I do realise how great it is.

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ORIGINAL: Phoenix100
My slowness to get to grips with it is partly because I've wanted to do less - lazy me - in terms of the micro-management. So ever since the Advanced Strike Planner has been mentioned I've thought it would make a huge difference. To my interest, at any rate. I realise it's a complicated beast, but I was just wondering if there was any time-frame pencilled in, and whether that could be shared. I ask now, because, like someone else in a post above, each time a new expansion is mentioned I get a bit eager, thinking this will be it, then a bit disappointed it's not. So The Silent Service sounds great, but when I saw there was to be another expansion I was hoping THIS one would be the ASP. I understand the urge to joke about it, but it was a question for the devs, if they are able to share any meaningful info on this function's development?

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ORIGINAL: Phoenix100

Well, it turned into a great discussion, after the laughs. Thanks for taking it seriously, Emsoy. I would only like to stress - of all these excellent suggestions and analysis, and being both a novice here and an idiot - the point made by Gunner98 in his great summary - point 7b there - 'show the player graphically what it would look like'. When I imagine the ASP I always think of being able to point and click on the map and get representations of routes and targets and moveable adjustable rally points, waypoints etc (as well as everything else people have suggested above). ie; I would hope it would be mainly graphic rather than 'spreadsheet-like', though there will have to be other components, obviously.

But, could I just ask again the original question - IS there any sort of time-frame pencilled in for this work? Just wondering. I was assuming it would be DLC and would happily pay for it, of course, as would everyone here, I assume. It would be a very significant development and priced accordingly, no doubt.

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ORIGINAL: nukkxx

Yes, a planner would be great to reduce micro management.

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ORIGINAL: nukkxx
There are also several UI issues that prevent from enjoying the game as I should.
1) The fact that the message log is not clickable. It's sometime a real pain to see to what item the message is intended. "Where the heck is SKUNK #137 ?!"
2) The non-fluid zoom system with a one-second delay.

In my opinion, instead of working on new features, new theaters, new DLC, etc, the devs should focus in priority on making the UI more pleasant by fixing these three severe issues (1-planner, 2-message log, 3-Zooming/scrolling).
MHO ...

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I'm still struggling a bit on target priorities, and how it will work 'in the wild', both UI-wise and AI-wise... What if you don't have enough fuel to bring the ordnance back home if no targets are found. Jettison, or plan for it by reducing max strike radius? Etc etc. How is it done IRL?

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ORIGINAL: emsoy

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ORIGINAL: Airborne Rifles

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ORIGINAL: emsoy

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ORIGINAL: Airborne Rifles

Well, if the player decides to plot their own waypoints, then the achievement of a ToT is completely on them and their own planning, as it should be. The suggestion I'm making is about weapons for which the AI already automatically plots an off-axis attack without player input other than to assign the salvo to a target.

Hmm but then the missiles have two possible routes, one going left and one going right? Wouldn't me much spacing between weapons other than that?

Basically the idea would be that the initial off-axis leg of the AI-plotted attack would be slightly shorter for each successive missile fired from a single unit. So a weapon travelling at 500 kts might travel 10 miles in one direction before turning onto its attack vector. the next weapon, launched say ten seconds later, would travel ten seconds' worth of distance less along the off-axis leg, and the next weapon another ten seconds less etc.. The key is for each weapon to travel the same distance to the point where it's terminal guidance kicks in minus the amount of distance traveled by the first weapon prior to the successive weapons' launches. A player can already do this manually by making sure that the (player-plotted) pre-planned off-axis attacks all travel approximately the same distance during their entire flights. Of course, maneuvers by the target throw off the ToT calculations, but hey, that's war [:)]. A variation of just a few seconds can mean the difference between overwhelming a modern ship's point defenses or not.

Yeah that might work, thanks!

Do you know how its done in RL?

And how accurate must the ToT be? Like, will we have to take the time spent turning on each waypoint (which can add quite a few seconds to the flight time!) into account, or can we live with weapons arriving 10-20 sec early/late?

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ORIGINAL: Gunner98

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I'm still struggling a bit on target priorities, and how it will work 'in the wild', both UI-wise and AI-wise... What if you don't have enough fuel to bring the ordnance back home if no targets are found. Jettison, or plan for it by reducing max strike radius? Etc etc. How is it done IRL?

I think that target priorities should focus the AMP’s efforts (and the player’s thoughts).

Priority 1 target: If this target is not destroyed the mission is a failure.
• There should only be one Pri-1 target – yes that is something the modern world seems to ignore – if everything is a priority, nothing is. I suppose in reality there could be a small number of Pri-1, such as the three runways on a base or something. But not many.
• The mission planner ensures that there is enough ordinance going to the Pri-1 targets with a good margin of insurance
• This may not be feasible or even desirable: If assets are lost, the AMP can re-task other assets in the same mission with appropriate munitions to strike the Pri-1 target.

Priority 2 targets: There are more of them, they are supporting the Pri-1.
• The mission is still successful if none of these are hit but the Pri-1s are destroyed.
• The mission is a resounding success if all or most of these are destroyed.
• If the Pri-1 targets are not destroyed, destroying a good number of Pri-2 will make the mission a partial success

Priority 3 targets: Targets not key to the mission but worth expending ordinance on.

Probably best to describe with an example which I have attached. These are only my thoughts and some of the options may be beyond the scope of version 1 or any version of an AMP. However it is designed the fundamental elements should be a TOT planner and the ability to adjust the plan easily.

In any case, if this requires an additional player investment – I’m in. My only though as a scenario designer is that DLC options make scenarios a bit trickier to build. CoW for instance requires the designer to build for two different versions of the game, or just one. Building for one either eliminates a certain number of the playing audience, or under values the players who have CoW. An AMP would be a fantastic tool to build an AI opponents missions, however if only some players have an AMP DLC license – would that mean that the AI opponent would have to be built differently for those players? So you would now have 4 versions of the same scenario: 1) Standard no options, 2) CoW only, 3) CoW & AMP, 4) AMP only. That could become unmanageable.

IRL it is more complicated, but essentially commanders make the decisions on priorities, the staff makes all the detailed plans, the 'trigger puller' has the final say on exactly what s/he drops or fires on, the Intelligence guys determine the original target options to give to the commanders and any re-strikes, and the lawyers pick up the pieces.

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ORIGINAL: ExNusquam

Here’s some input based on what’s been said so far…Gunner has done a great job outlining the requirements. I've attached an academic journal that defines the real strike planning process for reference (although it's obviously vague on specifics).

All strike planning starts with a commander’s desired effects. Targeteering is undertaken to determine what should be hit to achieve the desired effects. An example would be desired effects of degrading ISIS oil revenue, and the targeteering would select striking tanker trucks to achieve this. Both functions should be undertaken by the player. If there are defenses around the target (SAM/CAP), they will be accounted for in the targeteering phase. BOL aimpoints should be selectable in AMP as well to support ToT calculations for decoys and other SEAD strikes.

Weaponeering then allocates weapons to targets to achieve desired effects. This may range from complete destruction to degradation of capability. A GBU-12 will destroy a tanker truck, but 30mm shells will make it equally useless. In this phase I think the AMP should make suggestions based on what targets and loadouts the player has selected for aircraft assigned to the mission, but should always defer to player input. The suggestion should consider weapon Pk/accuracy/failure rate/WRA, which will result in overkill most of the time (which is OK!). In this phase, it should be possible to allocate ToT at the weapon level, but all values should be populated automatically. The reason for weapon specific ToT is primarily SEAD – to keep SAMs suppressed you will want to re-strike ARM BOL points while strikers are within a SAM WEZ.

Weapon jettison should be a doctrine option, like current. If the target is important, the player should be able to risk losing weapons (which may be limited) to kill a target at longer range. Default should be to bring back weapons.

Tanker planning (dynamically determining a refuel point) is probably not necessary…if the strike package doesn’t have the range available to reach the target, a message should be provided telling the player to add tankers. Using the current interface, the player should be able to assign tanker missions to the strike. AMP should provide allocate time based on capacity/required offload/transfer rates. Ideally, AMP will suggest a time for the ARCP that can be passed to the tanker support mission. On station time constraints for patrol/support missions would also be hugely helpful for standoff jamming and TARCAP missions as well.

I suspect the easiest feature to implement would be allowing the player to select time constraints at waypoints. The aircraft would then adjust its speed to meet the time restriction. The time-to-go is already displayed in the Speed and Altitude dialog, so the game is already calculating this in real time. For a strike mission, using the current system where an IP is created for the aircraft, the strike planner should set control times at the IP either simultaneously for stand-off or at 30 second intervals non-stand-off weapons (as this distinction already exists in the mission planner). WRA and target lists already gives a huge amount of flexibility in terms of weapon allocation.

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Okay how about this...

In order to be releasable within a reasonable time frame, Advanced Mission Planner (aka AMP) v1.0 could include:

Editable flightplans: pre-take-off route planning (move, insert, delete waypoints), waypoint speed/altitude, waypoint doctrine and refueling settings
Configurable Time-On-Target (ToT) or Time-On-Station
Strike packages

The AMP v1.0 will NOT be a hands off 'one click does it all' mission tool. In fact, realistically, such a feature will probably never materialize. Simply too much work.

And it will not have detailed weapon allocation and cruise missile planning. That alone could add years to the development schedule.

It will also be a paid add-on. Given the massive time and effort that would go into this, it might in fact be a premium price product.

So it would basically give you this:

Will that work for everyone?

Thanks

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ORIGINAL: emsoy

However it should probably be noted that setting up all the waypoints, timings, EMCON, etc, would require a bit of work for the player [:D]

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If AMP v1.0 has this exact functionality, nothing more and nothing less, all would be good?

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The AMP v1.0 will NOT be a hands off 'one click does it all' mission tool. In fact, realistically, such a feature will probably never materialize. Simply too much work.

And it will not have detailed weapon allocation and cruise missile planning. That alone could add years to the development schedule.

It will also be a paid add-on. Given the massive time and effort that would go into this, it might in fact be a premium price product.

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YES!

Very nice, this is exactly what an Advanced Mission Planner should do.

However it should probably be noted that setting up all the waypoints, timings, EMCON, etc, would require a bit of work for the player

If AMP v1.0 has this exact functionality, nothing more and nothing less, all would be good?

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ORIGINAL: emsoy

1. Yes, that sounds reasonable.

2. Good point, will add to my list. This would be similar to the datablock info on units, yes?

3. How about you set the ToT, and all the other times are calculated automatically, including take-off? And if you need push points with hold times, just enter the desired hold time for the waypoint, and the take-off time is adjusted accordingly?

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ORIGINAL: emsoy


If AMP v1.0 has this exact functionality, nothing more and nothing less, all would be good?

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ORIGINAL: Cik

if it includes waypoint-specific actions for the mission planning i think it'll work. that means something like:

push
split
switch EMCON state
go to tanker (with same settings as normal proceed to tanker order)
attack TOO (some sort of freeform search and destroy option would be good)
change altitude/airspeed
fly angle-off to target(s)
jettison weapons/fuel tanks
BOL (decoys)
BOL (attack specific coordinate)

the TOT/WTOT function and the ahead-of-time steerpointing and the per-steerpoint actions are the biggest priorities for me i think.

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ORIGINAL: Cik

keep in mind emsoy i don't think there is any real reason that the AMP should replace totally what the game already has. even if it were implemented tomorrow i wouldn't feel the need to use it for every single mission. relatively often the "fly straight line to target, drop, RTB" is good enough.

that isn't to say that the AMP wouldn't be revolutionary of course, just saying that you don't have to nuke what you've got and start from square one.

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ORIGINAL: emsoy

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ORIGINAL: Cik

if it includes waypoint-specific actions for the mission planning i think it'll work. that means something like:

push
split
switch EMCON state
go to tanker (with same settings as normal proceed to tanker order)
attack TOO (some sort of freeform search and destroy option would be good)
change altitude/airspeed
fly angle-off to target(s)
jettison weapons/fuel tanks
BOL (decoys)
BOL (attack specific coordinate)

the TOT/WTOT function and the ahead-of-time steerpointing and the per-steerpoint actions are the biggest priorities for me i think.

Thanks again for everyone's input. This is great [8D]

Cik, Im a bit curious what you envision each of the items in the above list to be like in terms of functionality in-game.

To be honest I do not think detailed weapon allocation, cruise missile flightplans, decoys, or lat/lon targets (coordinates) will be included in v1.0. Its simply too much work that could add a year or more to the development schedule. Sorry!

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ORIGINAL: Cik

keep in mind emsoy i don't think there is any real reason that the AMP should replace totally what the game already has. even if it were implemented tomorrow i wouldn't feel the need to use it for every single mission. relatively often the "fly straight line to target, drop, RTB" is good enough.

that isn't to say that the AMP wouldn't be revolutionary of course, just saying that you don't have to nuke what you've got and start from square one.

Yeah the AMP will build on top of whats already there. The first version of the flightplan generator was created for v1.07 and has been systematically improved since. It works really well and is used for all AI-generated flightplans, and has support for off-angle attacks and navigation around No-Nav Zones.

http://www.warfaresims.com/?p=3653

The flightplan generator has even been using different types of waypoints for several years, and you can already set speed/altitude, EMCON, doctrine etc for them after the aircraft have taken off. Because of this, the AMP would probably even be backwards compatible with older scenarios and strike flightplans.

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ORIGINAL: VFA41_Lion

It's about micromanagement. This is entirely an operational game - I can order entire squadrons to bomb certain areas, tell a whole carrier strike group where to sail and who to bomb, tell another surface action group where to go, who to shoot, what not to shoot at, transport passengers and cargo, fire nukes, deploy EMPs in the upper atmosphere - I'm legitimately confused why you think this is a game solely about airplane combat.

Until recently, you couldn't tell your pilots when to drop chaff. We still can't make them drop flares. We can't individually control their actions when they're defending against threats. Its all agility and probability to hit and decoy spoofing modifiers and ultimately comes down to a bunch of dice rolls. Saying 90% of the game is individual pilot actions is a little much.