AAW Patrol mission problems

[Figeac]

Hi,

After many hours/days of playing/beta testing this great game, I think I have figured out why AAW patrols bothers me so much (yeah, maybe Im a little slow... [;)]): its all about excessive micromanagement.

1 - First of all, any time that you create an AAW patrol mission, it has an active/inherited radar EMCON by default, and so, it changes the side radar EMCON to active too by itself and you have to manually change it again if you want it to be passive (this bug has already been reported but I don't know if it has been logged);

2 - If you have many AC trying to take off from the same airbase/CV, the facilities get jammed and your AC start to ready again (for a few hours, depending on their load) without even started their engines;

3 - When your patrol aircrafts are airborne, if you want them to group together, it has to be done manually by pressing G and then reassigning them to the mission because it can't be done from the mission editor;

4 - If your mission has "investigate contacts outside patrol area" marked, your aircrafts will do it, even if the contact is thousands of miles away from the patrol area;

5 - And, IMHO, the worse: once your patrol aircraft pick up targets outside the patrol area, the only way to make them drop it is by manually doing, one by one, because the "drop all targets" is normally grayed. And so, if you want them to come back to the patrol area, is a lot of micromanagement: the "ignore plotted course when attacking" doesn't work because if they have targets selected, they don't plot patrol courses anymore (unless you do this manually constantly); unassign from mission either, because they will keep tracking their targets anyway. So, again, the only way I see is by dropping all the targets one by one...

Maybe if the "drop all targets" were always working, or if there was a distance/quantity limit for a platform to pick up targets, or if the patrol AC keep plotting patrol courses even if they had picked up targets, our lives would be easier!

It would be very nice to hear from the devs if they are working on some of this stuff (if they consider this things to be a problem too, of course).

Thanks!

[CaptCarnage]

Yeah.
The pilots are very disobedient. I want to tell them: stay in your assigned area! - but they won't. And I can understand that maybe they want to chase after something every now and then (like when I toggle the "investigate outside area" on) but how do I ever get them back to their patrol area?

If I set up an area as a Fighter Screen, I want them to stay there and protect whatever it's screening. If they won't return to that area when I want them to, then my defenses are gone.

[ExMachina]

1 - First of all, any time that you create an AAW patrol mission, it has an active/inherited radar EMCON by default, and so, it changes the side radar EMCON to active too by itself and you have to manually change it again if you want it to be passive (this bug has already been reported but I don't know if it has been logged);

Ah, so that really IS real? Noticed it a few times but just thought I was just getting crazy and/or forgetful in my old age [;)]

[sneekyzeke]

And I don't mind micro-management occasionally if need be; in fact it's part of the fun. But if I have to step in to stop the little digital jerks from killing themselves by, oh, I don't know, flying straight down the throat of an SA-2 (that happened to me yesterday, multiple times) then they'd bloody well do what I tell them! Which, sometimes they do, and sometimes... [:D] p.s. ain't this fun?

[Figeac]

I don't mind it too, occasionally. I don't even mind if a pilot don't do what I want one time or another because yes, that's part of the fun! What I don't like is excessive micromanagement, you see... Always have to get planes back to the patrol area, always have to make them drop targets, always have to check EMCON, always have to check their aggressive instance to not let them go straight to trouble or spend all of their ordinance in only one target etc, etc... That's the kind of micromanagement I would like to see enhanced by the developers!

[smudge56]

The one thing that bothers me is the ai use of weapons slight overkill so manual attack is better in saving ammo.

[SSN754planker]

Or when a ship fires a two SAM salvo and the first missile hits, and then the ship immediately fires another SAM for nothing. Planes exhibit this behavior also.

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

The one thing that bothers me is the ai use of weapons slight overkill so manual attack is better in saving ammo.

[ComDev]

ORIGINAL: SSN754planker

Or when a ship fires a two SAM salvo and the first missile hits, and then the ship immediately fires another SAM for nothing. Planes exhibit this behavior also.

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

The one thing that bothers me is the ai use of weapons slight overkill so manual attack is better in saving ammo.

Noted, and I'm working on a fix.

[jomni]

I like the micromanagement.

For #3. Go to air ops, select several planes, launch as group, even without waiting for them to launch go to mission editor and assign the group to a mission.

[Dimitris]

Hi Figeac,

ORIGINAL: Figeac
1 - First of all, any time that you create an AAW patrol mission, it has an active/inherited radar EMCON by default, and so, it changes the side radar EMCON to active too by itself and you have to manually change it again if you want it to be passive (this bug has already been reported but I don't know if it has been logged);

I think this is fixed in v1.02, right?

2 - If you have many AC trying to take off from the same airbase/CV, the facilities get jammed and your AC start to ready again (for a few hours, depending on their load) without even started their engines;

Check Build 481, we added some tweaks to the "air boss" that should prevent this from happening. Large airgroups may take longer to take off but they stick together.

3 - When your patrol aircrafts are airborne, if you want them to group together, it has to be done manually by pressing G and then reassigning them to the mission because it can't be done from the mission editor;

Currently this is a design choice, on the principle that in a patrol you want to cover as much area as possible, rather than concentrate your forces. Patrol groups have been requested however.

4 - If your mission has "investigate contacts outside patrol area" marked, your aircrafts will do it, even if the contact is thousands of miles away from the patrol area;

This has been fixed by v1.02.

5 - And, IMHO, the worse: once your patrol aircraft pick up targets outside the patrol area, the only way to make them drop it is by manually doing, one by one, because the "drop all targets" is normally grayed. And so, if you want them to come back to the patrol area, is a lot of micromanagement: the "ignore plotted course when attacking" doesn't work because if they have targets selected, they don't plot patrol courses anymore (unless you do this manually constantly); unassign from mission either, because they will keep tracking their targets anyway. So, again, the only way I see is by dropping all the targets one by one...

Thanks, this has been fixed in Build 481.

[msc]

quote:


2 - If you have many AC trying to take off from the same airbase/CV, the facilities get jammed and your AC start to ready again (for a few hours, depending on their load) without even started their engines;


Check Build 481, we added some tweaks to the "air boss" that should prevent this from happening. Large airgroups may take longer to take off but they stick together.

Where can I get Build 481?
I had this problem with B480 in Scenario Delaware Bold. Tried to launch a group of several aircraft (assigned with Mission Editor), 1 launched, all other started to ready again (several hours). Also tried a different way, did not assign them to a Mission in the Editor, just launch them as a Group from the carrier. But the same problem ocured.

[MaB1708]

Where can I get Build 481?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3508885

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

3 - When your patrol aircrafts are airborne, if you want them to group together, it has to be done manually by pressing G and then reassigning them to the mission because it can't be done from the mission editor;

Currently this is a design choice, on the principle that in a patrol you want to cover as much area as possible, rather than concentrate your forces. Patrol groups have been requested however.

I just noticed this in a test scenario I built. I set up AAW patrols with the hope that all the aircraft would be grouped as in a strike mission, but instead I had a dozen jets scattered in all directions of the zone. Ummm, that's not what I wanted-- I wanted a *group* patrol.

How do I do it? *Can* we do it?

[mikmykWS]

Hi

Command doesn't group patrols. You could try launching some a group though and adding it to the mission.

Thanks

Mike

[Davekhps]

That doesn't do anything for an *edited* scenario, however.

Oh well, I'll figure out a kluge.

[ComDev]

Group AAW patrols is planned for the advanced mission planner [8D]

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: emsoy

Group AAW patrols is planned for the advanced mission planner [8D]

Woohoo!

[Stevechase]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

4 - If your mission has "investigate contacts outside patrol area" marked, your aircrafts will do it, even if the contact is thousands of miles away from the patrol area;

This has been fixed by v1.02.

5 - And, IMHO, the worse: once your patrol aircraft pick up targets outside the patrol area, the only way to make them drop it is by manually doing, one by one, because the "drop all targets" is normally grayed. And so, if you want them to come back to the patrol area, is a lot of micromanagement: the "ignore plotted course when attacking" doesn't work because if they have targets selected, they don't plot patrol courses anymore (unless you do this manually constantly); unassign from mission either, because they will keep tracking their targets anyway. So, again, the only way I see is by dropping all the targets one by one...

Thanks, this has been fixed in Build 481.

Thanks Sunburn.
Guess I had missed these in the change logs. These were a couple of the reasons I was holding off on completing some scenarios I have been working on. Still a couple mission related ones that I am waiting for. They have already been logged so I know they will get corrections. I just want to hold out for these so I can do all my scen testing at one time. Anyway good job.

[Dimitris]

Can you tell us which ones are blocking your scenes? We tend to place those issues on the top of the pile. Thanks.

[Stevechase]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

Can you tell us which ones are blocking your scenes? We tend to place those issues on the top of the pile. Thanks.

Sorry bout the response delay.
Ok the main unresolved issue for me is having the ability to allow the user in game(so this would actually be more a new mission feature than scenario design/event editor feature.) to setup a zone in-which an area can be designated as an intercept zone. Which when such area is entered by an enemy or unknown an air intercept is triggered to which the assigned intercepting aircraft will launch investigate and sanitize the area then land immediately. The commander can further define which threats trigger the intercept such as: unknown contact, hostile, specific classof aircraft, or even specific aircraft. Among other advantages this would allow the user to setup specific intercepts to handle only specific threats if need be.

Thanks