Micromanagement and auto-defen(c|s)e
Within reason, the user should be allowed to play the game how they like. I'm not going to change the default behavior of the game because that gets us back where we started with a different group of people unhappy. What I'm going to do is the following:
Allow the user to configure the AI response. The user will be able to set some parameters to define how the game will design attacks. i.e. How many attacks to assign to an incoming missile.
Introduce new ROE sets. Weapons Really Free and Weapons Really Tight will be added to the current ROE sets of Weapons Tight and Weapons Free. Weapons Really Tight will only engage targets ordered by the player.
Allow the user to configure the default ROE.
I cannot tell you the timing of the changes because I do not know. The earliest point they would be included would be 3.10, the planned release after 3.9.4.
Thanks,
Russell,
The 3.6 AI had a more sophisticated 'Weapon Tight' behaviour than most people think.
Namely the Players units would defend themselves against incoming missiles (so ships would fire SAM at incoming SSM) but it would NOT fire on SSMs aimed at other ships. This ensured that ships would defend themselves, but avoided lots of missiles fired at 'crossing targets' with poor Pk.
I was therefore quite safe to play constantly with Weapons Tight. I would have the advantage of self defense plus minimised expenditure of SAMs, no automatic firing on unarmed or low-threat targets in Weapons Tight mode, and I could close helo's or planes and kille them with sidewinder or guns and save my long range AMRAAM, for example. When things got hot it was little trouble to switch to Weapons Free and all other ships in my Task Force would start firing.
I'm not sure which group of people was unhappy with this bahaviour, but I submit that the discussion was probably not based on the true facts; there were statements made like 'of course you want your units to defend themselves' probably not realising that they did!
So when considering the new Weapons Tight/Weapons Free functionality; I'd request that this sophisticated Weapon Tight But Maintain Real Self-Defense is considered.
I have nothing against making this new Weapon Tight/Weapon Free behaviour configurable; but lets realise that the more configurable options; the more likely it is that players have them set up in ways that scen designers did not foresee. So the fewer options the better.
Freek
