Matrix Games Forums

Procedure to reproduce:
Run the attached scenario. The surface ship which acts as the target is made auto-detected for simplicity and reproduceability.

Expected behaviour:
When the target ship comes into torpedo range, the submarine should immediately engage it with torpedoes.

Actual behaviour:
When the target ship comes into torpedo range, it is not immediately engaged. This appears to be because the submarine is pointing along an intercept course which causes the target to be outside the engagement arc of the submarine's torpedo tubes. The screenshot below shows evidence that this is the cause of the problem. Proposed solution:
I propose that, when conducting an automatic attack at a range of less than 5 nautical miles (the threshold below which weapon arcs are relevant), the attacking unit should automatically turn to unmask the weapon. In such a case, there is no need to point along the intercept course because the target is already in range of the weapon.

Not sure it is WAD, but it will engage if you change the Engage opportunity targets setting.

Same thing happens to aircraft on an intercept course.

I tried it a couple ways.

1) Took them off the mission. As soon as in range and given a fire order, they fired.
2) Manually moved the sub on mission to close to within range but out of firing arc. As soon as the ship came into range, the sub fired.

The short of it if you leave them on mission, they'll fire within range and even change their heading to do it. The thing I see is if the sub is out of position on an intercept, it'll ignore the fire order and return to patrol.

I have just tried the "opportunity targets" setting. It does not appear to have any effect.

In my testing, I cannot identify any circumstance in which the submarine turns away from its intercept course specifically to unmask a weapon. If the scenario is allowed to run well past the time at which the target first comes into range, the submarine does eventually point in a direction which permits the firing of weapons. (By the time this happens, the target is well within torpedo range.) However, as far as I can tell, this behaviour has no deliberate connection to unmasking. It instead appears to be a fortunate consequence of a different behaviour in which an attacking unit, if it finds no valid intercept course at its specified attack speed, instead points directly toward the target. In this case, that happens to unmask the weapon because the weapon is forward-facing and within range.

Regardless of certain details, it remains quite clear that the current behaviour considerably reduces the effectiveness of submarines on patrol missions. My proposed solution remains the same: when the target comes within weapon range and is within 5 nautical miles, the attacking unit should, if necessary, turn away from intercept course to unmask its weapons.

Thanks for the report


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meltingSnowdrift wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2024 2:27 pm I have just tried the "opportunity targets" setting. It does not appear to have any effect.

Well, it happened when I tested, but was casual, because after reading your post tested several times and did not happen in any case

It is one of the things I have learned in CMO, one test is not enough.



I think now I have found a systematic behavior, well, at least in 5 tests it happened the same, the sub will engage just after the ship enters the patrol zone.

I suppose the bug is in the number of boats that investigate, 1 should be enough if 1 is patrolling, however if you switch to all, it will engage (5 of 5 times).

The speed is also important, perhaps full is enough, but I tested with flank setting. With creep is not because the ship is faster and will run away and the sub just abandon the pursuit.




In 3 tests the sub was destroyed, in 2 the ship was sunk. Perhaps the captain was right not investigating and engaging the frigate

Changing the "number of units that investigate" alone, without changing any other setting, has no effect in my testing. It appears that attack speed alone produces the behaviour you describe.

The results when attack speed is set to flank are quite unsurprising. A faster submarine needs to "lead the target" less on its intercept course, and so points in a direction closer to directly facing the target. This allows the target to be within the weapon arc when it comes into range.

It was quite intentional that I set attack speed to creep when making this scenario. The faster a submarine moves, the louder it is. Submarines therefore do not use unnecessarily high speeds when near enemies. I suspect that the submarine being frequently destroyed in your testing is related to the loudness caused by the higher speed you set. In this case, creep speed is enough to bring the target cleanly within weapon range, but the submarine is unable to take advantage of this on a patrol mission (without being manually controlled by a player) because, when the target comes into range, it does not turn to unmask its weapon.

I set the attack speed to flank because noticed the frigate crossed the patrol zone so fast that the sub could not catch it when it was randomly located in the southern part of the patrol zone.

I have just updated Command to version 1328.18. After the update, I now observe the behaviour you describe.

When making the scenario, I made the frigate auto-detected so that the submarine would enter the "engaged offensive" state and begin moving toward an intercept point almost immediately after the scenario starts. Because this leaves very little time between the start of the scenario and the submarine entering that state, the position (and time) at which the submarine begins trying to intercept the frigate should be effectively non-random. This worked as intended in version 1328.14. However, upon running the scenario in 1328.18, the submarine does not enter the engaged state near the beginning of the scenario.

I may investigate this further and, if necessary, submit it as a separate issue. Meanwhile, to reproduce the behaviour I am talking about in this issue using version 1328.18, add the following step to the procedure to reproduce:
Immediately after the frigate becomes visible due to auto-detection, order the submarine to engage the frigate.

We were using different versions. I see what you say.

But is the speed the problem? if you switch to full from the beginning it will engage after the frigate crosses the green underwater weapons range. While at creep speed it has problems somehow intercepting and facing the ship?

Yes, the speed is the problem in an indirect way: the faster the submarine is allowed to go while intercepting, the closer it is to pointing directly toward the target. Therefore, at an adequately high speed, the target is within the weapon arc while the submarine is on its intercept course, while this is not true for the intercept course used on a low speed. To visualize this, try using the weapons dialog to show the weapon arc of the relevant torpedo tube.

Similarly, with the target in torpedo range at low speed (and with no torpedo having been automatically fired because of this issue), try turning off "ignore plotted course when attacking" and manually steering the submarine to point directly toward the target (while the submarine remains in its "engaged offensive" state). This should cause the submarine to launch torpedoes when the target comes within the weapon arc.