Matrix Games Forums

How does the Mission Editor check box ' Investigate contacts outside the patrol area' work with Prosecution Areas?

You need to ensure the check box is checked to cause the Prosecution Area to work correctly. If the box isn't checked, aircraft within their patrol area won't target hostile aircraft that enter the prosecution area associated with the mission.

- Investigate targets outside contact area needs to be enabled. If you (for example) use a patrol with two RPs per cap as patrol area and 4 RPs as prosecution area, they will not prosecute unless investigate targets outside contact area is enabled. But, brilliantly indeed, they wont go a thousand miles away now, just use the prosecution area So it makes sense but it might be a worthy note. I was initially wondering why they were not committing.

- Also, engage targets of opportunity overrides the prosecution area. I cannot recall the exact math for opportunity target commit ranges (something like 1,5 or 2 times the max range of the longest range weapon onboard?) but this means they might target something outside the prosecution area.

Thanks for the information. Prosecution Areas is a great added feature.

ORIGINAL: steelp

Thanks for the information. Prosecution Areas is a great added feature.

I agree. I've done a few tests with it and so far it is working fine and offers a lot of possibilities.

Why not extend the prosecution area idea to AAW 'Strike' missions as well. This could be used to simulate QRA / Scramble intercept missions, where the interceptors start on the ground instead of in a patrol area.

Really important in my opinion, unless of course there is a way to do this already?

Are you talking player controlled side or AI controlled side? If the latter: use the same AAW patrol but set the mission to inactive and use an event to trigger it to active (a unit detected trigger or something)

If player control you can set it up same way and manually activate the mission when you need it.

Would that work?

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

Are you talking player controlled side or AI controlled side? If the latter: use the same AAW patrol but set the mission to inactive and use an event to trigger it to active (a unit detected trigger or something)

If player control you can set it up same way and manually activate the mission when you need it.

Would that work?

OK I should have been clearer. I would like to set up a interception area - sort of a no-fly zone - with certain finite dimensions. I would like say a pair of aircraft sitting on QRA on their airfield. When a contact is detected in the zone, lets asumme unknown contact, they scramble and try to intercept. I know I can launch manually but is there a way to do it automatically (without complex event triggers)? - both player controlled and AI? AAW Strike mission with procecution zone would be perfect.

What if you make an Exclusion zone with violators marked as unfriendly or hostile and have an Air Intercept mission launch with same designation.

To answer the OP, I just did a detailed experiment with prosecution zones, and I can explain them using geographic terms.

I have a group of Hunters based in Lebanon. I set them for an AAW patrol close to their base. Now under the old system, I either check "Investigate contacts outside of the patrol area" or not. So I check the box, and set up a transport flying across Turkey. The radar detects it, and the Hunter pilot slams the throttle and rushes over to that country to check that yes, it's a transport. Outside of an artificial test scenario, this behavior would be problematic. Or I set investigate outside contacts to "no", and the Hunters never leave their box. This could also be problematic in an actual game.

Now with prosecution areas, I put a somewhat bigger box, covering most of Lebanon proper and extending into Syria. As was said before, investigate contacts out of the patrol (different from prosecution) area has to be enabled. Now the Turkish transport is spotted but is not acted upon. However, a plane moving into the prosecution box in southern Syria is quickly pounced on.

So why use the patrol area then? Why not just have the prosecution area? I just want to make sure I understand.

Because having the two options can help you achieve different things.

With the patrol area you control where your planes hang out during patrolling, with prosecution area you can control where they will target.

But, you might also have situations where you actually want your planes to roam around during their patrol, for example during like an "armed recce" mission, where you want your units to roam around looking for tanks or something.

If you look below you can see the difference. Top patrol has a barcap and an area where they will start targeting if someone shows up, bottom guys dont have a prosecution area so they roam around in their "kill box".

Both ways have their uses in my opinion, it just depends on the effect you are looking for.




Make sense?

Thanks...good explanation.