AI Troubles, what am I doing wrong?

[Easy301]

I have tons of hours on CMO but had to take a break due to some medical issues. I'm back now, last time I played was right before the tiny/warplanner update, trying to get back into the swing of things and have just minor issues with some the AI doing things I don't want.

I noticed today, my aircraft on the way to their CAP mission area were engaged prior to getting to that area, they went defensive, and upon defeating the missiles just returned to their plotted course to the patrol area with the enemy still on their six less than a mile behind them closing in for the shot, only to go defensive again when the enemy fired another missile. The aircraft never went offensive or returned fire. WRA was good, ROE was good, mission settings such as "Investigate contacts outside patrol area" was good.

Is this because technically the aircraft are not on station yet so the targets are not part of their mission set and since they are not on station yet I'm guessing the "Investigate contacts outside of patrol area" logic is not running yet either?

I CAN get the aircraft to engage if the setting "Engage Opportunity" is turned on and they are engaged while they are transiting to the patrol area but surely there is a better way to handle this then having to turn on this setting for all units transiting to an area? I thought for sure having the ROE on TIGHT would allow the aircraft to engage after fired upon or if the unit is marked hostile and near, but this only works if they are already on station.

The same thing happened with a Sea Control mission, ROE, WRA, all set to good values. Hostile aircraft flies within a few miles of my ships and they don't engage, I'm guessing in this case it's due to air targets not being part of the Sea Control target list, and engage opportunity needs to once again be on?

Thank you

[SunlitZelkova]

All of your issues depend on the platforms involved and the exact situation. Because of this it is usually recommended to post a save when asking for help with that kind of issue.

Just from what you wrote though, if the problem was solved by turning "engage ambiguous targets" turned on, that probably means the aircraft were not allowed to engage because the target was too ambiguous. When assigned to a mission, a unit won't go after a hostile unit at all if its WRA will not allow it to use those weapons against the target.

At least when manually engaging a target, a weapon is considered unusable if the target is too ambiguous. So the AI may be regarding it like it can't use the weapon at all.

With the ship there should be no issues. Perhaps the aircraft was not within the defensive weapon's DLZ.

If none of this sounds like it is what you are experiencing and it really is doing something weird, you should post the save in the tech support section with the same details you gave here.

[Easy301]

All of your issues depend on the platforms involved and the exact situation. Because of this it is usually recommended to post a save when asking for help with that kind of issue.

Just from what you wrote though, if the problem was solved by turning "engage ambiguous targets" turned on, that probably means the aircraft were not allowed to engage because the target was too ambiguous. When assigned to a mission, a unit won't go after a hostile unit at all if its WRA will not allow it to use those weapons against the target.

At least when manually engaging a target, a weapon is considered unusable if the target is too ambiguous. So the AI may be regarding it like it can't use the weapon at all.

With the ship there should be no issues. Perhaps the aircraft was not within the defensive weapon's DLZ.

If none of this sounds like it is what you are experiencing and it really is doing something weird, you should post the save in the tech support section with the same details you gave here.

Thanks for the info here. I edited my posted above as I made a mistake..I'm talking about the "Engage opportunity" doctrine settings and not the Engage Ambiguous. My apologies.

Aircraft going to a patrol area won't engage even when fired upon by even extremely close range aircraft prior to reaching the patrol area unless "Engage opportunity" targets is on. This issue vanishes and the aircraft engages those same targets as normal as soon as it reaches the patrol area.

Thank you for the response, I feel like I kinda derailed the help it could have given me by getting the Engage Ambiguous and Engage Opportunity settings mixed up. Sorry about that again!

After further testing it does indeed look like aircraft won't engage offensive prior to reaching their patrol area for an AAW patrol even if fired upon unless Engage Opportunity is enabled. If this is a bug or not, I'm not sure.

I guess I can create a save to illustrate the issue if it'll help since it's a super basic set-up.

I'll keep the other issue with the ships on the back burner for now as even though I checked all common hang-ups for units failing to engage in WRA, ROE, etc I did fail to check the arc at the time, it's possible it was that.

[Blast33]

If you cannot attach it, zip it and it will work.

[thewood1]

"I guess I can create a save to illustrate the issue if it'll help since it's a super basic set-up."

There is no such thing as a "super basic setup". If you want help, the least you can do is add a save so you don't have people wasting their time guessing. There are just too many variables at play for anything close to a definitive answer.

[Easy301]

So here's a quick scenario save showing the potential issue:

In this scenario my two friendly CAP aircraft are on their way to the patrol area and are about to be engaged by two marked-hostile tracks before they arrive. They absolutely will not engage in response if left to their own devices.

Doing a manual F1 engagement order DOES causes them to attack, otherwise they just follow their course even after defeating the missiles. Oddly enough, even on the friendly aircraft unit panel it states they are "engaging: Standoff" they just...don't.

Note: I've done my absolute best to make the save as respectful to the observers time as possible. My friendly aircraft are engaged shortly after unpausing. Due to random variation though, you may have to restart the scenario a few times until at least one of them defeats the missile so you can see them proceed on course and refuse to engage. Each run of the scenario at 15x speed should take just a few seconds though.

Nerve Hydra, 1994.zip

(327.87 KiB) Downloaded 5 times

[SunlitZelkova]

The file is not appearing when I unzip it, and it seems to be because it is a .save file.

If you just open the scenario again without doing anything, and then save as a .scen file, you should be able to fix it without having to set up the whole thing again.

[Nikel]

The file is not appearing when I unzip it, and it seems to be because it is a .save file.

If you just open the scenario again without doing anything, and then save as a .scen file, you should be able to fix it without having to set up the whole thing again.

It is a valid CMO save.

It is displayed in the saved games tab.

[Mgellis]

So here's a quick scenario save showing the potential issue:

In this scenario my two friendly CAP aircraft are on their way to the patrol area and are about to be engaged by two marked-hostile tracks before they arrive. They absolutely will not engage in response if left to their own devices.

Doing a manual F1 engagement order DOES causes them to attack, otherwise they just follow their course even after defeating the missiles. Oddly enough, even on the friendly aircraft unit panel it states they are "engaging: Standoff" they just...don't.

Note: I've done my absolute best to make the save as respectful to the observers time as possible. My friendly aircraft are engaged shortly after unpausing. Due to random variation though, you may have to restart the scenario a few times until at least one of them defeats the missile so you can see them proceed on course and refuse to engage. Each run of the scenario at 15x speed should take just a few seconds though.

Nerve Hydra, 1994.zip

This one is mine. Let me check it. It's entirely possibly you're not doing anything wrong...I may have just put some weird settings into the scenario by accident (or as an experiment).

It is also possible the issue is because, I think (it was a long time ago), the scenario was originally written for CMANO. I have noticed a few issues with some of the older scenarios when they get played in CMO.

Anyway, I'll see if I can figure out what's causing the problem. (If it's a bug, I won't be able to check that, of course, but if it's something I did with the scenario when I wrote it, I may be able to spot it and fix it.)

[Easy301]

So here's a quick scenario save showing the potential issue:

In this scenario my two friendly CAP aircraft are on their way to the patrol area and are about to be engaged by two marked-hostile tracks before they arrive. They absolutely will not engage in response if left to their own devices.

Doing a manual F1 engagement order DOES causes them to attack, otherwise they just follow their course even after defeating the missiles. Oddly enough, even on the friendly aircraft unit panel it states they are "engaging: Standoff" they just...don't.

Note: I've done my absolute best to make the save as respectful to the observers time as possible. My friendly aircraft are engaged shortly after unpausing. Due to random variation though, you may have to restart the scenario a few times until at least one of them defeats the missile so you can see them proceed on course and refuse to engage. Each run of the scenario at 15x speed should take just a few seconds though.

Nerve Hydra, 1994.zip

This one is mine. Let me check it. It's entirely possibly you're not doing anything wrong...I may have just put some weird settings into the scenario by accident (or as an experiment).

It is also possible the issue is because, I think (it was a long time ago), the scenario was originally written for CMANO. I have noticed a few issues with some of the older scenarios when they get played in CMO.

Anyway, I'll see if I can figure out what's causing the problem. (If it's a bug, I won't be able to check that, of course, but if it's something I did with the scenario when I wrote it, I may be able to spot it and fix it.)

Thanks, Mark—that would be a huge help!

It’s been a real pleasure playing through your scenarios. You’re easily one of my favorite scenario creators, and I truly appreciate all the time and effort you’ve put into them.

Having played quite a few of your scenarios, I actually have a list somewhere of the ones that don’t seem to function quite right. I’ve been meaning to reach out via private message at some point. When I get a bit more time, I’ll dig it up and send it your way if you’re interested. I don't know if you ever plan on going back and touching up some of your older ones.

Most of your older scenarios still hold up surprisingly well, especially when it comes to triggers and events. The most consistent issue I’ve noticed is that enemy units—particularly aircraft—tend to engage earlier than intended. Looking through the editor, I often see triggers and events that suggest there’s supposed to be a buildup or flow before hostilities begin, but instead, units go hostile and engage right away.

This seems to be a common issue across many scenarios originally made for CMANO, regardless of the creator: enemies engaging immediately upon contact, even when that wasn’t the original design intent.

It’s hard to say for sure just by looking at the editor, but this scenario might be another example. I’m not certain whether the aircraft were meant to go hostile and engage immediately in the original version, but it feels like they probably weren’t.

That's a whole other can of worms that probably involves some pretty extensive changes between CMANO and CMO and at this point I'm just rambling.

Anyway, thank you again for creating so many fantastic scenarios. I really hope you’ll keep making more in the future and I'm glad I got the opportunity to thank you for them all directly.

[Mgellis]

Easy301, please feel free to use this thread...

https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=406204

[Mgellis]

When I try to unzip the .save file, I get an error message.

When I opened the original scenario in the editor, I saw that under the side doctrine that "Engage opportunities" is set to "No." Could this be causing the problem?

[Easy301]

When I try to unzip the .save file, I get an error message.

When I opened the original scenario in the editor, I saw that under the side doctrine that "Engage opportunities" is set to "No." Could this be causing the problem?

Sorry you’re having trouble opening the file. I tested it on several devices and it opens correctly.
In case you missed my original post, I was able to get the aircraft to engage when fired upon, but only when the "Engage Opportunities" option is enabled.

My questions are: Is this the intended behavior? Do aircraft need "Engage Opportunities" enabled to return fire against any air units that attack them while transiting to their patrol area? Is there a better way to handle this than enabling that option for all units en route to a patrol area?

I assume this happens because the aircraft have not yet reached their patrol area, so their patrol mission logic is not active and they do not treat those attackers as mission targets yet, even with the "Investigate contacts outside mission area" option turned on.

I attached the scenario again. I changed the extension to .zip for this one so there is nothing to unzip; rename the attached file to .save and it will work.

Oddly, if I change the "Engage Opportunities" option after the aircraft are already airborne and near the bandits, they do not engage. If I change it before the mission launches, they do engage.

[thewood1]

From the manual...

"Engage Opportunity: If enabled, the unit will engage targets
not directly related to the mission at hand. If disabled, it will not.
Enable at one’s own risk, for this can lead to dangerous behavior."

I think this pretty much aligns with what you are seeing. Also check your self-defense WRA. That will have an impact on how the units behave on the way to a mission area. In fact, getting a good understanding or ROE/Doctrine for units and missions is critical part of mission planning. It takes practice. You really need to think about how you want your units to react to unplanned events.

[Easy301]

From the manual...

"Engage Opportunity: If enabled, the unit will engage targets
not directly related to the mission at hand. If disabled, it will not.
Enable at one’s own risk, for this can lead to dangerous behavior."

I think this pretty much aligns with what you are seeing. Also check your self-defense WRA. That will have an impact on how the units behave on the way to a mission area. In fact, getting a good understanding or ROE/Doctrine for units and missions is critical part of mission planning. It takes practice. You really need to think about how you want your units to react to unplanned events.

I think that’s where my confusion came from. With aircraft assigned to an air patrol mission—and the mission configured to allow them to engage contacts outside the designated area—I expected they would engage hostile aircraft, or at least return fire if attacked, even a few miles outside that boundary, prior to arriving. This seems especially logical, since once they enter the patrol area they will immediately turn around and engage those same aircraft outside the boundary without hesitation. They just won’t do it beforehand.

As a side note, I did check the self-defense WRA, and it had no effect on whether they engaged—even in self-defense. The only factor that made a difference was the Engage Opportunities option.

Edit: Does this mean the only way to ensure aircraft and other units can defend themselves en route to the mission area is by enabling this option—which, in turn, may cause them to engage unintended targets, even when your sole intention is self-defense?

[Mgellis]

As for intention, don't worry. I assume players will modify settings, tactics, etc. as they need to. If there was something the player HAD to do or absolutely could not do, I would have included it in the briefing (e.g., "Due to limited supplies, units under your command may not engage opportunity targets.") And I think originally the default setting for engage opportunity targets (in CMANO) was "No," and I probably just didn't change it.

[Nikel]

I think it is a bug, not related with engaging, but with investigating contacts.

The F-16s should investigate the incoming ACs, but instead lose focus and decide to plot to a random point in the CAP area.

If you play this scenario in CMANO, without changing any setting, the behaviour of the F-16s is quite different. If fact they investigate too much