Question about sides classification.

[KitsuneKojima]

I hope you don't mind if I ask another question about this great game. It is a little more complicated, so let me explain. I just want to add that I searched the manual briefly and checked around the Internet without success, but if you are able to point me the link / manual page / YouTube video that can help me, that would be greatly appreciated.

I just lost playing the "Battle Ocean '64 - Baltic Convoy". Main goal in this scenario is to escort the huge convoy from West Germany to Poland, and possibly avoid any enemy (Soviet) units on the way. During the course of the play, the enemy was able to sink two of my units using torpedoes. After that, they were still visible as "unfrendly" to me, so they don't attack me openly: their fighters just intercept my forces without opening fire, and their Navy don't use guns. They somehow attacked me without turning hostile.

My question: Is it possible to attack the other side without changing the side classification to "hostile"? Is it up to scenario settings, or maybe just some units are able to silently engage the enemy without rising an alarm? I lost because I just answered with fire and attacked the unit that I thought fired a torpedo: it was a Soviet Corvette that was trailing my unit. And then all of their units turned red and the hell broke loose.

Also I noticed the messages poping up in the message window before, informing me about the torpedo fail. That means that they've tried more than once. By the way, this message window sometimes gives away some important info about the enemy .

[thewood1]

1) If your units don't see the firing unit, it won't automatically declare hostile
2) The options for message log can be changed to eliminate any messages you want to hide.

#2 I am 100% positive on. But 1 is from memory and there might be other issues at play. These types of questions can get complicated and posting a save is always the best way to get an answer.

Also, I don't know the scenario, but the USSR subs might be on their own side. This allows them to fire and be hostile, while the rest of the Soviet units are only unfriendly. Again, without the save its hard to tell.

[KitsuneKojima]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

1) If your units don't see the firing unit, it won't automatically declare hostile
2) The options for message log can be changed to eliminate any messages you want to hide.

#2 I am 100% positive on. But 1 is from memory and there might be other issues at play. These types of questions can get complicated and posting a save is always the best way to get an answer.

Also, I don't know the scenario, but the USSR subs might be on their own side. This allows them to fire and be hostile, while the rest of the Soviet units are only unfriendly. Again, without the save its hard to tell.

thewood1, thank you very much! I suspected that this can be the case. I would like to play this scenario again without spoiling it before, so I don't want to open it in editor and check for now.

But I am really curious about the 1#. I wonder if firing a torpedo while being visible equals visible attack. I tried to fire a torpedo myself to check it out, but my forces automatically mark whole Soviet forces as hostile after that, and then it is hard to tell who was first.

I agree that there are a lot of variables in this case.

[thewood1]

There are a bunch of settings in the editor around side posture. A key is collective responsibility. That means a switch for whether a single unit firing will classify an entire side as hostile. If you search collective responsibility, you'll see.

[thewood1]

btw, the message log options are not just in the editor. They are in the main game menu. Suggest looking in the manual for game options.

[KitsuneKojima]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

btw, the message log options are not just in the editor. They are in the main game menu. Suggest looking in the manual for game options.

Thank you very much for your help! I think I have to start learning about the editor, because there is a lot of scenarios that I love, but a lot of details in them that I don't. And I must change the message log settings, because there is too much info given away by it sometimes.

[Gunner98]

Side posture is a very tricky thing - which can work to your benefit or against you depending on the situation. It can be frustrating but it adds a bit of realism and uncertainty into the game as well.

The more ambiguous situations often happen with submarines but can happen with air and surface units - particularly at night with old tech. You must be able to detect the firing unit - and - that it is firing - and - the weapon. If any of these fail, the unit remains in the posture you have previously detected it at. So with submarines your sonars have to be pretty decent or you need sonobuoys around to do the detection. In Pole Positions for instance, one of your tasks is to sink an enemy sub without being detected, and you can but it takes some skill.

This behaviour works against you if the enemy is stealthy - and you as the commander must make some hard decisions, like I think that unit might have just fired - should I engage him even if he is only Unfriendly - and designers are sometimes nasty with penalties if you get the decision wrong.

Where this behaviour gets frustrating is that a side just needs to detect the unit is firing and the weapon but not the target. So, for instance, in Old Grudges Never Die, you will often have sides going hostile unexpectedly because you tossed a weapon roughly in the direction of an ally - and they take offence to that.

Hope this helps.

B

[KitsuneKojima]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Side posture is a very tricky thing - which can work to your benefit or against you depending on the situation. It can be frustrating but it adds a bit of realism and uncertainty into the game as well.

The more ambiguous situations often happen with submarines but can happen with air and surface units - particularly at night with old tech. You must be able to detect the firing unit - and - that it is firing - and - the weapon. If any of these fail, the unit remains in the posture you have previously detected it at. So with submarines your sonars have to be pretty decent or you need sonobuoys around to do the detection. In Pole Positions for instance, one of your tasks is to sink an enemy sub without being detected, and you can but it takes some skill.

This behaviour works against you if the enemy is stealthy - and you as the commander must make some hard decisions, like I think that unit might have just fired - should I engage him even if he is only Unfriendly - and designers are sometimes nasty with penalties if you get the decision wrong.

Where this behaviour gets frustrating is that a side just needs to detect the unit is firing and the weapon but not the target. So, for instance, in Old Grudges Never Die, you will often have sides going hostile unexpectedly because you tossed a weapon roughly in the direction of an ally - and they take offence to that.

Hope this helps.

B

That kind of uncertainty makes this game so great. I had a situation like that when playing the scenario I mentioned above. All of un-friendly forces were kept in-check by my fighters, and then suddenly my long range radars detected two air targets 200 nm north from me. I was afraid that they may be bombers so I frantically sent two Starfighters to check it out. It turned out that it was just some Commercial flight to Copenhagen. The passengers had a good view on some fighters that day.

One thing that bothers me is that I have a feeling that MY OWN forces change target qualification to easy. Let me explain: let's say that I have a Corvette with torpedoes on board. I would really like to sneakly fire a torpedo or two at the Soviet unit, but it turns out that at the moment I choose an attack option, all of my forces automatically classify all of the Soviets as hostile. Unless the Soviet unit has some very accurate sensors on board (and I have to check that, so I will edit this post as soon as I do it), there is no way it was able to detect me. Hence the change was on my side at first. And that spoils the whole plan, because I wasn't planning to escalate it full scale.

Still, I may be wrong and maybe the Soviet unit DID notice me firing the torpedo, and that means they change their stance and the whole force recived an order to attack. In that case, I have no complains.

[Gunner98]

And in that situation if you are trying to control escalation it is critical to put everyone on Weapons Hold so they don't automatically engage - that however has downsides for self defence..

B

[neno]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

And in that situation if you are trying to control escalation it is critical to put everyone on Weapons Hold so they don't automatically engage - that however has downsides for self defence..

B

Perhaps the devs should include "Weapons Hold but Allow Self Defence" doctrine. [;)]