Make fighters stay out of SAM envelopes?

[JCR]

Right now, fighters tend to suicide themselves trying to shoot down ASW helos over enemy warships.
Can't there be a AI rule that makes fighters avoid the engagement zone of a positively identified enemy warship? I mean it is one thing to head over Skunk-23 but no sane people would fly over a Kirov to attack a Helix taking of
Of course this would not apply to manual attacks or strike missions and maybe you could turn it off in doctrine.

[Blu3wolf]

hmm. this should be under the existing doctrine for respecting standoff, really...

[JCR]

ORIGINAL: Blu3wolf

hmm. this should be under the existing doctrine for respecting standoff, really...

Not really. If a Sea Harrier sees a Helix hovering over a Kirov it will mean it will just close to Sidewinder range, still well within the Kirovs S-300 engagement zone.

[Blu3wolf]

and this is what I mean - standoff from the S-300 rather than only its immediate target.

[ParachuteProne]

ORIGINAL: JCR

Right now, fighters tend to suicide themselves trying to shoot down ASW helos over enemy warships.
Can't there be a AI rule that makes fighters avoid the engagement zone of a positively identified enemy warship? I mean it is one thing to head over Skunk-23 but no sane people would fly over a Kirov to attack a Helix taking of
Of course this would not apply to manual attacks or strike missions and maybe you could turn it off in doctrine.

I agree, would be nice to see this fixed sometime.

[mikmykWS]

AI will do that although you should be able to use no navigate zones to prevent your fighters from getting into sam range.

[JCR]

Of course I can use navigation zones but it is simply stupid behavior and should not happen.
I mean no fighter pilot will thing "a kill! I will risk my life and my multimillion dollar fighter to shoot down a ASW helo! If enough of us do that the enemy cruiser will run out of SAMs and we will win!"
Which is basically what it boils down to

[navwarcol]

In the scenario I am working on I had this issue as well from a land base in Iran. The US fighters close on Iranian BARCAP of F-5 based on the differing ranges of the two AAMs carried by both sides, but within the range of the Iranian IADS. To fix it I did as Mike suggested above with the no-navigate zones. It does bring a question however. Will the AI create its own no-navigate zones?

[mikmykWS]

No the AI will not draw one on its own. Probably a number of ways this could be addressed on our side though.

Will add it as something to be looked at on our list.

Mike

[navwarcol]

The fact that the AI is able to co-relate its information on the airborne target, to know what missiles it needs to stay out of range of based on its identification of that air unit, means you probably already "have the technology" to do it, though obviously each step adds to what the cpu is doing.
If the radar for the SAMs is operating, it should be not too difficult to make sure the aircraft stay out of the range of the missile system associated with that radar.
If however the radar is off, at least until it is visually detected, depending on the fighters' ROE they probably SHOULD close on the ASW helos, maybe more cautiously depending upon the proficiency given to their side, but if all they see is a helo of the other side, they know an enemy ship is out there somewhere, but ifit is not radiating, they would not know where anyway. The same with mine and the land-based SAMs, if those sites were not radiating, I am not sure it is "bugged" if the fighters closed range on the F-5s. From my view I would say "WAD" but hope there can be a way to make the AI side make intelligent decisions so as not to give the human a way to trap the AI controlled a/c unfairly.

[Blu3wolf]

hmm... the decision to enter the engagement range of a decent SAM is not one made lightly by a pilot. it will be interesting to see what the chosen solution is that does NOT require microing the planes...

[navwarcol]

@JCR, was the surface ship positively IDed? Usually if it is operating under strict EMCON this is a quite difficult thing to do without some visual verification.

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

The fact that the AI is able to co-relate its information on the airborne target, to know what missiles it needs to stay out of range of based on its identification of that air unit, means you probably already "have the technology" to do it, though obviously each step adds to what the cpu is doing.
If the radar for the SAMs is operating, it should be not too difficult to make sure the aircraft stay out of the range of the missile system associated with that radar.
If however the radar is off, at least until it is visually detected, depending on the fighters' ROE they probably SHOULD close on the ASW helos, maybe more cautiously depending upon the proficiency given to their side, but if all they see is a helo of the other side, they know an enemy ship is out there somewhere, but ifit is not radiating, they would not know where anyway. The same with mine and the land-based SAMs, if those sites were not radiating, I am not sure it is "bugged" if the fighters closed range on the F-5s. From my view I would say "WAD" but hope there can be a way to make the AI side make intelligent decisions so as not to give the human a way to trap the AI controlled a/c unfairly.

We do understand the AI can be gamed this way and I think it is a problem worth taking on at some point.

The challenge with the underlying logic is to determine if its the kind of threat that should be avoided. So while your SAM site case is pretty straightforward what happens if its an enemy fighter? So it not just theoretical range ring we have to avoid but also classify the target and then figure out pathfinding if we've got to go around the threat. There are millions of little cases we have to consider when implementing and not just one.

Mike

[navwarcol]

Ah, yeah.... good point.

[JCR]

I doesn't really seem to work for the AI either, like in the "Brass Drum" scenario, when the iranians tend to overfly the Zumwalt SAG in droves to shoot down its poor S-60 as soon as you launch it

[mikmykWS]

Another solution in the interim might be implement a fighter side and and bomber side allied to each other. The fighters get a no fly zone and the bombers do not.

Mike

[Petrolhahn]

Hello,
I just bought this game (1.08) and this issue - the fighter committing suicide on SAMs - bugged me immediately (on the first tutorial mission), is there something in progress about it?
I really don't want to micromanage and this issue makes me want to mothball the game and wait for a fix
Thanks,
P

[mikmykWS]

Yes look at setting up a no navigate zone.

This game does require some investment in time to learn the game.The manuals and various videos posted do help though and I would suggest them. If you don't have the time or don't like planning air operations this game may not be for you.

Mike

[thewood1]

For goodness sakes...in real life, threat zones are set up for missions all the time. In fact there is a tutorial around here that shows specifically how to set up threat zones for missions. It sure seems like you don't want to make the effort to use the tools the devs provided to handle these issues.

I mean to come in like a child and threaten to stop playing the game seems to show a pretty poor appreciation of real life challenges and the game.

[Petrolhahn]

Well it seem you like bullying people, what a taste of the community, great.
Maybe I mistaken the tone of your message, and in all friendship please accept my apologies if I did.

Hopefully mikmyk is more mature, thanks for the kind answer, I'll have a look at the tutorials (I already watched some) and see if I can walk around this easily.

Anyway I think this request is perfectly valid as what we have here is a top-level wargame simulator.
I expect that I don't need to manually move the pilots out of SAM enveloppe, just as I can adjust their behaviour and tell them to RTB when they're out of ammunition or to shoot the enemy when they see one.
If the pilots do have the equipment or the altitude/speed to have a very good chance to defeat the SAMs then it would be ok to run into them, but it wasn't the case.

I don't see why you see my comment about not playing the game as a "threat", does it matter to you if I play or not? One day ago you didn't even know I existed...
Given the type of simulation we have here, sooner or later this feature should be implemented, and in the meantime, if I estimate that not having it will spoil the game for me, then I prefer to wait.

I really like this type games and I'm not sending a threat (I mean, who would seriously care about the little me), I'm just telling that I might get a bad taste of the game if I play it right now, considering the expectations I have about it and maybe I should hold off playing (or maybe play without SAM threats, or never sending the fighters above the AO) until the game is fully shaped.
I expect the units not to take inconsiderate risks by default unless I tell them to do so.