Matrix Games Forums

Side A is sailing in open waters.
Side A and Side B are hostile to each other.
Side C, a civilian (or other nation), and is NEUTRAL to Side A, but FRIENDLY to Side B.
In fact, Side C currently begins the game with a trawler (or other intelligence ship) about 10 miles away from some of Side A's ships, say a carrier group.
For game purposes, the Side C trawler intends on following the Side A ships, while providing constant updates as to their position to Side B.

So, is there anyway to do that in the game? I know that I could use Rotating Reference Points to move an area to allow a unit from your own side to a relative position, but is there a way to make it happen with a unit from another side controlled by AI? It isn't critical, but it could be a useful tool.

In my experience, I believe that with satellites, and confined waters like the Persian Gulf, or the Straits of Hormuz, there is always lots of traffic, and it's really hard to hide a carrier group, etc. So, this procedure/method would be a nice means to be able to provide intelligence to one side (if needed) for game purposes.

Any thoughts?

Doug

I have done this using Gods Eye view, and a reference point. While in gods eye view, assign the unit to patrol the ref point with a mission make the ref point rotate to the unit you want to follow.

If that make sense

That solution used to work - but now, unless you leave Gods Eye View on for the side that is doing the trailing, the RPs won't follow the target on the other side. It may not now even with Gods Eye on. I just haven't tested it in a while.

Something may have changed and it might work again, don't know

One solution is using active radar on the trailing unit (usually suicidal) and assign it to a strike mission - assuming it has no weapons to actually strike the target - and the target as a selected target in the strike. I have not tested this is a long while either but the trailing unit should try and catch up to the target unit and assuming the target can/will outpace the trailing it will work. If the trailing unit catches up however you get weird behaviour.


A player will usually catch on that there is a snooper quite quickly so you need to make things work quickly at the start of the scenario or hostilities. For instance, an AGI on Side C, identifies the target for side B which launches a strike mission. If side A does nothing the strike goes in, no problem. if side A kills the Side C AGI, the Side B strike mission is still launched and will come in, hopefully with recon in an escort role or something else to pick up the targeting solution. If no viable targeting solution remains when the strikers arrive you get some very interesting - and I think realistic things happening, missiles go into search mode, aircraft wander around until they find the target etc.


With strict orders not to engage Side C and a hefty VP penalty, the player might just have to weather the storm.

Thanks AlphaSierra (and Gunner98) for your suggestions.

I will try them out. I am just trying to make the ships being trailed constantly observed for a plane attack later on.

I made all of the ships auto-detectable, so that solves one problem (at last I think that it did), so it's now just a question of the "appearance" of reality which is, keeping the ship that is providing the location details physically close enough that it actually could.

In any case, I'll play around with it some more.

Thanks again.

Doug

I believe you can also set the awareness level of the side containing the trawler to omniscient... that lets that side automatically detect the other, while providing a way around it if the other is able to sink the trawler (or really, all units of its side)
I am on a scenario in the same region, and have played around with several ways to do the same thing, penalizing the "Blue" side heavily if they sink neutrals for example, while having a extra neutral side of a handful of vessels that they can attack and "blind' the enemy... leaving it up to them with a few clues in the briefing, to figure out which "neutrals" are really not neutral.