"Ignore EMCON while under attack" - Default ON or OFF?

[Dimitris]

A little intro may be necessary here.

One of the things that really annoyed us as both players and scen designers during the "good times" with Harpoon 2/3, was that the AI was not smart enough to keep a silent EMCON profile _and_ also activate its sensors when the hide-and-seek was over and incoming threats where detected. Essentially, you had to choose between a "what is EMCON?" force that radiated like a Christmas tree (thus opening itself up to ESM detection, localization and kinetic/electronic attacks) or a silent force that would happily eat up missiles without ever activating its fire control sensors and responding.

Frankly, that sucked.

So when we were putting together Command, we wanted a more EMCON-savvy AI, both for the player's virtual subordinates and the enemy.

What we did is: Ships, facilities and their parent groups (if any) obey their EMCON postures _unless_ they determine themselves to be under attack - in which case they activate all their sensors and defend themselves. Once the threat is over, they revert to their directed EMCON status.

This behavior has been used in a number of included scenarios with good success, leading to forces that realistically managed their electronic emissions while also handling themselves under attack.

Unfortunately, this behavior meant that many players found their units suddenly emitting at circumstances that they, for whatever reason, would have preferred a silent approach (example: fb.asp?m=3535991). Even though we repeatedly explained why this behavior was triggered (example: fb.asp?m=3537089), the perception created (and in some cases deliberately propagated by certain persons of shady motives) was that "Command's AI has a serious flaw: sometimes units spontaneously light up their radars and sonars even when the player directs them not to".

To fix this "problem" for the new public release, we took this behavior, which hitherto was hard-coded on the AI, and moved it to a new configurable doctrine setting ("Ignore EMCON while under attack"). In addition, we set this doctrine setting to "OFF" by default (at least in B517).

However, this creates a new problem. In existing scenarios, units that have been instructed to maintain EMCON silence (with the expectation, from the part of the scen author, that they will override this and defend themselves when necessary) are now practically naked to atacks. Scen authors must go back to their existing works and set each unit's doctrine to re-enable this behavior. And likewise, for any new scenario, scen authors (and also players)
must remember to explicitly enable this behavior for any unit / group they want to. It is likely a big hassle.

We could avoid this problem by setting the doctrine option to "ON" by default (ie. keep the pre-B517 behavior by default). This however would mean that players not familiar with this behavior and why it works this way (99% of them) would still enquire on this. The false perception would remain.

So this poses an "interesting" dilemma.

What do you think the default setting should be? And do you have an alternative idea that avoids this problem altogether?

Let's hear it.

[dillonkbase]

I generally liked the old config, but I also wanted to be able to override it if I thought That would be to my advantage... ie the carrier stays dark and only my ddg sings Christmas tunes. In this case the default of on is fine. I can already automatically pause the game when a missile is detected so I can change the setting then if need be.

[Sardaukar]

To me it feels that Default ON with ability to override is way to go.

I want ships etc. react to attack UNLESS I specifically want them not to.

[mcp5500]

That is an interesting question. I agree. The new feature I believe should always be set to auto defend and light-up. In 99% of the time, In this case, the enemy knows where you are so radiating should not be an issue. That said, the enemy may not know your make-up, so individual objects may not want to radiate. That's where the new setting should be changed, that way old scenarios go unchanged but new ones can incorporate the feature at the unit level. The unit level would have to over ride mission and side. Of course designers can go back and revise there work if they want to, but they do not need to.

Well I hit on in the voting by mistake. Change my vote to off.

[thewood1]

I agree...default should be light up if feeling threatened.

Just to clarify...the issue with the original behavior was a group lighting up because a ship 300 km away was being shot at. In cases where you were trying to sneak a group into an area, there was no way around the behavior.

[mcp5500]

Better.

[Shemar]

I go over all the AI options at the start of every scenario so I am good either way. [8D]

[Randomizer]

Kudos for presenting the option but my vote is for default ON as pre-Build 517.

-C

[Dannyp19]

ORIGINAL: dillonkbase

I generally liked the old config, but I also wanted to be able to override it if I thought That would be to my advantage...

+1 here

[Mgellis]

Default ON seems the best option. It has my vote.

[chrisol]

I think this is a great option, but would be inclined to keep the pre-B517 behaviour as the default... not for reasons to do with naval authenticity necessarily but to ensure compatibility with scenarios.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: chrisol

I think this is a great option, but would be inclined to keep the pre-B517 behaviour as the default... not for reasons to do with naval authenticity necessarily but to ensure compatibility with scenarios.

Also that scen designer won't accidentally forget units into "non-responsive" setting. Easy to do if lots of units.

[Gunner98]

Default ON is the better option and will work for most situations. The new functionality of giving the player the option is excellent and allows the player to pause - evaluate - shut down where needed - suck up the attack - counter attack with his silent units (assuming his threat analysis was correct [:D])

Thanks. B

[AndrewJ]

I'm one of the people who really wanted to be able to tell my ships to keep quiet, no mattter what, and the new ignore EMCON yes/no switch is superb! That being said, I think the default should be ON, for self-defence and scenario building reasons, with the player able to turn it off as needed.

[sluggy2010]

As an alternative is the creation date or version stored in the scenario? i.e. If scenario created prior to 517 set to on?

On another note would an update of the manual would stop some of the queries?

Regards

me

[Dimitris]

There is by now a clear consensus. Setting default to ON from Build 522 onwards.