How to Stop the AI from Auto Attacking?

[miller7219]

How do you stop the AI from auto attacking hostile units it encounters? I'm assuming the new Engage Opportunity Target doctrine is supposed to allow the player to set if the AI will auto engage or not? If so, it's not working for me.

I ran the Warship Ops Training scenario with Enagage Opportunity Targets set to "No". The Stockdala auto attacks the inbound Harpoons fired by the P-3C. Mark the P-3C as hostile and it auto attacks it. When the goblin is detected mark it as hostile and the Stockdale immediately fires of an ASROC when in range. The only thing it doesn't auto attack is the land structures that start detected at the beginning of the scenario (by the way, it will auto attack them if the Engage Opportunity Target doctrine is set to "Yes").

I didn't put this in the Tech Support section because I didn't know if this is a bug or intended behavior.

Anyway, how do stop the AI from auto attacking without going to each and every unit, right clicking and selecting Attack/Hold Fire? Is there a global way to set all of a side's units to not auto attack?

I'd like to be able to have a global ability to select what my units will auto attack, and then be able to override that that at the unit level (just like Doctine&ROE currently operates). I may want to globally control all ASuW, Land, and ASW attacks, but want the AI to auto defend against hostile AAW threats. Or whatever combination I feel like. And then be able to decide I don't want to micromanage attacks from that unit, so I pull up an auto engage window and assign all target type to the AI just for that unit.

[Dimitris]

Ships continue to auto-engage air & underwater hostiles as before. The new doctrine option affects behavior towards surface & land targets.

Ideally we would like AAW & ASW fire to be similarly governed by the new doctrine option too, as it would greatly simplify what to expect. But this would:

1) break expected behaviors in existing scenarios, and

2) generate tons of "bug" reports along the lines of "why aren't my stupid ships engaging these aircraft & subs that are shooting at them?!".

The former can be mitigated if we cooperate with scen authors to check & update their scenarios (not a trivial undertaking, and we also have to consider users who keep playing the scens with the older version of the game, or conversely players who use the new game version on the "old" scenario versions. Backwards compatibility is a PITA...)

The latter is a matter of user "re-education" (that sound Stalinist/Maoist enough?).

[Dimitris]

One possible solution would be to:

1) Make the default setting of the new doctrine option to "yes" (currently the default is "no", to avoid breaking existing scens).

2) Enforce AAW & ASW fire to be governed by the new doctrine option.

This would have the result that ships would auto-engage AAW & ASW threats as before, but they would also now auto-engage any surface hostiles (anything from a ship shooting at them, to a land bunker that happens to be marked hostile).

[thbrix]

Maybe you could implement these options, on same levels as current doctrines.

* Auto engage Surface
* Auto engage Subs
* Auto engage Air
* Auto engage Land

and set defaults so its compatible with existing scenarios.

Im not sure i have fully understood the problem, so if my suggestion is stupid, im sorry.

[miller7219]

My opinion is that the the the only default AI auto attack should be AAW. All other attacks should default to player control, but be changeable to suit the player's own preferences.

1. I'd add an option under the Game pull down that reads something like "Auto Attack Doctrine". Select it and a box pops up with all the various types of attacks (ASW, AAW, ASuW, Land) with the option to select "Allow Auto" or "No Auto". This becomes a global setting fop all player units. By default the AAW option is checked to allow auto, but the player can de-select it if they choose (at their own peril!). The player can customize the auto AI attacks to suit their own tastes.

2. Add new option to the the unit right-click menu that says "Auto Attack Doctrine" that when selected brings up the same box in#1 above, but only apples to that specific unit and will override the global Auto attack settings for that single unit.

[Dimitris]

How does prevent existing scenarios from breaking?