CAG op-fire at subs

[graf spee]

Hi,
I just had this strange battle.
6 subs from Gibraltar attack AC,TRT,LF,CAG,in the Atlantic.
AC,TRT,LF are damaged.CAG survives
No subs damaged in battle.
1.Shouldn't the CAG search for a new base,its carrier is damaged?

Off course I want to get my subs back in port in Gibraltar.
When I move them back the CAG op-fires at them.
From the manual p.57
"Also ,units that have just attacked will not be op-fired at by enemy units in the just completed combat region if the attacking units move out of te area."
2.I think this is the case here so why does the CAG op-fires.?

The op-fire from the CAG is also strange.
I move the subs in a stack-pressing shift and move-message "1 op-fire".When I move i get the message 1 hit but 2 subs are damaged and placed back on the production track.
What is happening here??
Same with the other stack of 3 subs.Sometimes one,sometimes 2 subs get put back on the production track.
One more observation.
In the initial attack the firing CAG is unsupplied,so the targeted sub gets the+1mod.for evasion.
During the op-fire this mod.is not counted.
I know op-fire does not use supply.,but is does not feel right that first the CAG attacks "out of supply"giving the target unit the+1mod.for evasion and then later when it op-fires at the sub leaving the region,the "out of supply"is not been taken in account.
Who can help me here??
Thanks
Bob

[JanSorensen]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the report. I have made my replies in blue below.

Jan

Hi,
I just had this strange battle.
6 subs from Gibraltar attack AC,TRT,LF,CAG,in the Atlantic.
AC,TRT,LF are damaged.CAG survives
No subs damaged in battle.
1.Shouldn't the CAG search for a new base,its carrier is damaged?

I believe it should be damaged actually. With the recent patch we fixed it so cargo on TRS was properly damaged when their TRS was damaged but it seems we missed the case with carriers. Ofcourse your could argue that the CAG should find another base instead. I would call the case you describe a bug.

Off course I want to get my subs back in port in Gibraltar.
When I move them back the CAG op-fires at them.
From the manual p.57
"Also ,units that have just attacked will not be op-fired at by enemy units in the just completed combat region if the attacking units move out of te area."
2.I think this is the case here so why does the CAG op-fires.?

Hmm, I dont recall having pondered that particular sentence before. Unless it means to refer to units that retreat (which seems unlikely) the only case where units of both sides can be present after a combat would be with subs (either as the attacker or defender) as I can think of. However, that has never been the case with subs that I remember - so something is definitely off. I do not know if this is a code bug or a mistake in the manual. Only Joel can tell.

The op-fire from the CAG is also strange.
I move the subs in a stack-pressing shift and move-message "1 op-fire".When I move i get the message 1 hit but 2 subs are damaged and placed back on the production track.
What is happening here??
Same with the other stack of 3 subs.Sometimes one,sometimes 2 subs get put back on the production track.

Moving the subs together or as a stack makes no difference. Each and every unit will be hit by op-fire individually. Dont you see multiple op-fire pop-ups in this case? One per sub.

One more observation. In the initial attack the firing CAG is unsupplied,so the targeted sub gets the+1mod.for evasion.
During the op-fire this mod.is not counted.
I know op-fire does not use supply.,but is does not feel right that first the CAG attacks "out of supply"giving the target unit the+1mod.for evasion and then later when it op-fires at the sub leaving the region,the "out of supply"is not been taken in account.

I think the problem here is to differentiate between units that are not in supply and could not draw supply on one side and units that are not supplied but could draw supply on the other side. In the first case it would seem reasonable to make the op-fire with the unsupplied ev mod but in the latter case it would be less obvious. I will have to consider this some more before I feel like committing either way.

Who can help me here??
Thanks
Bob

[Joel Billings]

What version of the game are you playing? I'm pretty sure the intention was to be able to attack and then move after the attack without suffering Op-fire (Jan is right that this is intended for sub and anti-sub operations). Sounds like there is a problem.

[JanSorensen]

Joel,

I just checked this with the international v1.040, with v1.070 and v1.087 (the 3 installs I had up). In all 3 versions the CAG will op-fire on the subs that try to leave an area after a combat has taken place in that area. I do not remember this being different but obviously it may have been so at some point.

[graf spee]

I have the international version with the new 1.087 patch.
I have the saves from before and after the op-fire.
Will send them to Jan.
Bob

[JanSorensen]

I took a look at those.

When you move a stack away from the area you only get one op-fire pop-up for some reason even though the CAG is op-firing on each on the subs individually. So, its a bug but only a visual one. If you instead move the subs one by one you will see the op-fire for each sub.

I believe I covered the other 3 points in your post as best as I can above.

[Lebatron]

Off course I want to get my subs back in port in Gibraltar.
When I move them back the CAG op-fires at them.
From the manual p.57
"Also ,units that have just attacked will not be op-fired at by enemy units in the just completed combat region if the attacking units move out of te area."
2.I think this is the case here so why does the CAG op-fires.?


I think the CAG should fire in this case too. Otherwise its effectiveness at op-fire will be greatly reduced. Take for instance a case in which you wish to pass several subs through a sea zone covered by a CAG. You will get op-fired at each time meaning that carrier plane gets several shots. Now consider a case in which the transports and CAG are all in the same sea zone. Then the subs don't need to pass though only enter. Combat takes place with the CAG shotting at only one sub. Now the subs wish to retreat. In this case do you want the CAG to lose the chance to attack each sub? The only difference in these two cases was where the transports are located. In case one they were on the other side of a CAG and in case two they were in the same place as the CAG. If the manual was taken literally then CAG would certainly lose a lot of punch because in case two only one sub would get shot at during combat then they would be able to escape without any op-fire. It seems wierd to me that a CAG would be less effective in case two, when in fact it should be more so, since its in the same sea zone as the transports providing cover. If this was fixed to agree with the manual then we would all have to start placing our CAG's into intercept positions to trigger op-fire rather than actually sit in the same sea zone with the ships you wish to protect.

[Joel Billings]

I confirmed with the programmer that there is supposed to be a basic rule that says once a battle happens in an area, all units from the moving side should be flagged to indicate that they may no longer undo their move earlier than this point. This same flag is supposed to indicate that the units may freely leave this area without being Op-fired at (you can always leave the area you started in). I just ran some quick tests and indeed this seems to be broken. I don't know in what version this was broken, but in 1.087 it definately is not working correctly. The logic behind the rule is that if you are willing to fight a battle in an area, you should be able to coordinate a move throught the area so that each moving unit isn't fired on independently by each enemy unit that can Op-fire. Op-fire is intended for those units that don't want to fight a major battle but instead want to risk racing through the area. Basically, if you're willing to fight everyone in the area, you should be willing to flood the zone and avoid multiple Op-fires. This really only involves subs and anti-sub combat because all other combats force one side to retreat. We will get this fixed before the patch becomes official. Thanks for the bug report.

The CAG staying at sea is a bug as well as Jan mentioned and we'll look at that as well before the patch becomes official.

The stack move op-fire issue is a display problem as Jan mentioned.

The supply issue is something we did to simplify and make Op-fire more important (by ignoring supply) and won't be changed.

With the number of changes we've made in 1.087, some problems will always come up. We think 1.087 is much better than 1.040, and we'd like to see more users playing 1.087 so we can weed out these remaining issues before the patch becomes official. Thanks for helping out.

[JanSorensen]

I believe the display problem will be moot once the op-fire problem is fixed. As far as I can tell its only when moving a stack from the area of combat that the display problem occurs.