When should missions override user sensor settings?

[rsharp@advancedgamin]

Howdy,

I'm looking for input on when you think a mission should override user specified sensor settings. Currently, in ANW, they never will. The occasions when I believe they should override user sensor settings are:

On assigning the craft to the mission.
On mission activation (on creation or when a delay is completed)


There are some issues with how sensors are set for missions and before they are changed I would like to get the view of more players.

Thanks,

[FreekS]

Russell,
 
The 2 examples you give are quite OK, I'd anwer yes to both of those examples.
 
However. sometimes it feels the other way around; Mission behaviour seems to override user sensor setting!
 
For example I played Dawn Patrol with sensors passive. My craft detected incoming missiles and the group targetted by the missilles automatically switched Radar on. I was surprised by this. What if the missiles had been ARM? What if they were missiles aimed at another target (or even side) nearby)?
 
Also it would be so nice if the user could click on a group, switch sensors OFF, and then for all craft in the group (including planes, helo's) the sensors to go off. Today I believe if a plane within a group has sensors on, then switching off the group radar does NOT switch off this airborn radar.
 
Also as you know have been reported submarines on ASuW patrols which switch on sonar and radar.
 
For me the general rule should be:
- user setting should override automatic AI/mission sensor setting
- I would like to thoroughly understand the missions/circumstances that Ai/mission switches sensors on; the sub on AsaW patrol I believe exhibits very poor mission radar/sonar behaviour, and I believe a Player-controlled unit should NOT even switch on radars or sonars when fired upon. Its the player deciding the game strategy and the AI should not override that. For an AI controlled unit this may well be the right behaviour. .
 
And maybe thats where the problem is; is the AI/mission behaviour the same for AI and player controlled units? I hope not.
 
Freek

[rsharp@advancedgamin]

ORIGINAL: FreekS


For example I played Dawn Patrol with sensors passive. My craft detected incoming missiles and the group targetted by the missilles automatically switched Radar on. I was surprised by this. What if the missiles had been ARM? What if they were missiles aimed at another target (or even side) nearby)?

If they seem to be intercepting already then that may be the best practice available. Not perfect by any means. If there's a place in the code where it goes active otherwise then I can consider changing that.

ORIGINAL: FreekS
Also it would be so nice if the user could click on a group, switch sensors OFF, and then for all craft in the group (including planes, helo's) the sensors to go off. Today I believe if a plane within a group has sensors on, then switching off the group radar does NOT switch off this airborn radar.

Sounds like an issue of inconsistency in the UI. I'll look at that.

ORIGINAL: FreekS
Also as you know have been reported submarines on ASuW patrols which switch on sonar and radar.

This is part of the reason why I'm looking at this general issue.

ORIGINAL: FreekS
For me the general rule should be:
- user setting should override automatic AI/mission sensor setting
- I would like to thoroughly understand the missions/circumstances that Ai/mission switches sensors on; the sub on AsaW patrol I believe exhibits very poor mission radar/sonar behaviour, and I believe a Player-controlled unit should NOT even switch on radars or sonars when fired upon. Its the player deciding the game strategy and the AI should not override that. For an AI controlled unit this may well be the right behaviour. .

And maybe thats where the problem is; is the AI/mission behaviour the same for AI and player controlled units? I hope not.

Using missions you are essentially putting the assigned craft under some AI control with certain parameters. Currently, there are several differences between the AO (it's not really intelligent) and human played sides regarding missions. I believe 3.10 will solve a lot of these issues with mission profiles. This gives the user greater control by exposing many of these variables while avoiding the necessity of micromanagement. Currently 3.10 is scheduled after 3.9.4 so that's something to look forward to for the fall/early winter season.

[hermanhum]

I am not quite clear on exactly what is being discussed. Is this a problem with all missions (Strike/Patrol/Transit/Ferry)?

For example, this is the behaviour I am currently seeing with an ASuW area patrol mission:
[ol][*] Unit assigned to Mission ASuW area patrol starts in passive radar mode.
[*] ASuW area patrol Mission is set for a delay of 3 minutes.
[*] ASuW area patrol Mission is set for Active Radar.
[*] After 3 minutes elapses, unit starts moving on ASuW Patrol mission, but radar remains off.[/ol]
I believe what you are proposing is:
[ol][*] Unit assigned to Mission ASuW area patrol starts in passive radar mode.
[*] ASuW area patrol Mission is set for a delay of 3 minutes.
[*] ASuW area patrol Mission is set for Active Radar.
[*] After 3 minutes elapses, unit starts moving on ASuW Patrol mission, and radar turns on[/ol]
If that is the case, I am not sure that it is a better behaviour. There are many other considerations. A change of this magnitude will have many significant after-effects. A few off the top of my head are:
[ol][*] Missions will turn off manual sensor settings
[*] Is manual override possible?
a. Can manual override be engaged during a game?
b. Can the AI remember manual overrides entered by the player/designer?
[*] Formation air patrol EmCon may be affected
[*] This behaviour is not apparent for all missions i.e. subs turning on Sonar even while mission is passive
(see Sub goes active on ASuW and Subs activate sonar on ship strike mission )
[*] Intermittent EmCon may cause problems obeying Mission settings[/ol]
I will use a typical CVBG to illustrate a few of these points. In my example CVBG, there is:

• One AEgis cruiser with Radar on Intermittent active. 1 minute active, then 5 minutes passive.
• Different cruiser has ECM constantly active
• Frigate on ASW picket has sonar on Intermittent active
• Formation has an AEW air patrol assigned and it is set for constant active
• CVBG is on the player-controlled side, but has been assigned to a delayed Transit mission that will activate in 5 minutes
• Transit mission is set for EmCon (all passive)
• All other group members are passive

Under the current scheme, nothing changes. All settings are maintained throughout the scenario. However, under the newly proposed behaviour, I think that:

[ol][*] The Transit mission will cancel the Radar Intermittent setting when it activates. This is not a good thing, IMO. I may want / need to set one ship in the CVBG to act as radar picket or lure. The proposed new change does not allow this kind of special handling and EmCon assignment.
[*] Same cancellation will happen to ECM and sonar
[*] Will formation patrols be affected? I may have encountered some problems it the past with aircraft launching from ships that were radar silent. They may not have turned on their systems even though their formation patrol was ordered to be active.
[*] Once a mission has activated, will it be possible to override the EmCon? From the CVBG example, if the Transit mission is activated and units in the group go to passive mode, will a player / designer then be able to override them and set specific EmCon for individual units? I suspect that the Transit mission will simply override and cancel any changes made. (This is pretty much how things are currently done. i.e. create mission with no delay, assign units to it, change EmCon to desired settings)
[*] The Intermittent setting has caused problems in the past for things like waypoints. For example, when a waypoint order was to "Turn Off Radar" for a unit and, because the unit was on Intermittent at the time and on the Passive phase for that setting, the radar did not turn off and the Intermittent wasn't cancelled.
[*] Once a radar has gone active, when does it turn off? For example, SAM units that start their missions passively turn on to intercept a target, but never turn off again after combat is resolved. Is this desirable?[/ol]
In conclusion, I don't think that the proposed change is necessarily better because it eliminates the possibility of manual settings. It adds one new benefit -- the ability to have EmCon settings observed when a delayed mission becomes active. The crux of the matter is the delayed missions because missions that activate right away can have their selective EmCon already set. However, it also sacrifices the ability to manually pre-set special EmCon orders and have them stick. IMO, unless manual settings can be retained, the 'old/current' method allows for slightly more designer control and flexibility. I believe that in some cases, it can be set to cover situations arising from delayed mission, but certainly not all. It isn't perfect, but trading player / designer control for AI control is not advantageous.

[rsharp@advancedgamin]

ORIGINAL: hermanhum

I am not quite clear on exactly what is being discussed. Is this a problem with all missions (Strike/Patrol/Transit/Ferry)?

A general mission behavior for all missions. See the title.

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
[/ul]
Under the current scheme, nothing changes. All settings are maintained throughout the scenario. However, under the newly proposed behaviour, I think that:

[ol][*] The Transit mission will cancel the Radar Intermittent setting when it activates. This is not a good thing, IMO. I may want / need to set one ship in the CVBG to act as radar picket or lure. The proposed new change does not allow this kind of special handling and EmCon assignment.

[*] Same cancellation will happen to ECM and sonar

Only in the case of a delayed mission activating after you have manually set EmCon on the unit level. The two events I listed would otherwise not override the user's settings.

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
[*] Will formation patrols be affected? I may have encountered some problems it the past with aircraft launching from ships that were radar silent. They may not have turned on their systems even though their formation patrol was ordered to be active.

This would be another issue to be investigated, i.e. a possible bug.

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
[*] Once a mission has activated, will it be possible to override the EmCon? From the CVBG example, if the Transit mission is activated and units in the group go to passive mode, will a player / designer then be able to override them and set specific EmCon for individual units? I suspect that the Transit mission will simply override and cancel any changes made. (This is pretty much how things are currently done. i.e. create mission with no delay, assign units to it, change EmCon to desired settings)

No, the two events I listed in the first post do not affect user EmCon settings after they have passed.

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
[*] The Intermittent setting has caused problems in the past for things like waypoints. For example, when a waypoint order was to "Turn Off Radar" for a unit and, because the unit was on Intermittent at the time and on the Passive phase for that setting, the radar did not turn off and the Intermittent wasn't cancelled.

Intermittent sensors work with a series of events posted based on the parameters configured. It sounds like the waypoint does not clear the activation event scheduled. This can be fixed easily.

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
[ol]
[*] Once a radar has gone active, when does it turn off? For example, SAM units that start their missions passively turn on to intercept a target, but never turn off again after combat is resolved. Is this desirable?
[/ol]

Not really. That too can be changed but I'll start a new topic for that.

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
In conclusion, I don't think that the proposed change is necessarily better because it eliminates the possibility of manual settings. It adds one new benefit -- the ability to have EmCon settings observed when a delayed mission becomes active. The crux of the matter is the delayed missions because missions that activate right away can have their selective EmCon already set. However, it also sacrifices the ability to manually pre-set special EmCon orders and have them stick. IMO, unless manual settings can be retained, the 'old/current' method allows for slightly more designer control and flexibility. I believe that in some cases, it can be set to cover situations arising from delayed mission, but certainly not all. It isn't perfect, but trading player / designer control for AI control is not advantageous.

Partially correct. It would only override the user settings in the two cases I listed and that would most often be delayed missions activating. As proposed, it would not affect user EmCon settings set after mission activation and after craft assignement. But what is obvious from your post is that EmCon needs work and I will first investigate working with for the current intended behavior (no overriding of user settings ever). At any rate, it will be in 3.10 as an optional behavior on a per mission basis.

Thanks for the feedback.

[hermanhum]

ORIGINAL: rsharp@advancedgamin

ORIGINAL: FreekS


For example I played Dawn Patrol with sensors passive. My craft detected incoming missiles and the group targetted by the missilles automatically switched Radar on. I was surprised by this. What if the missiles had been ARM? What if they were missiles aimed at another target (or even side) nearby)?

If they seem to be intercepting already then that may be the best practice available. Not perfect by any means. If there's a place in the code where it goes active otherwise then I can consider changing that.

I think that Freek is referring to the bad Auto-defensive Fire behaviour. IMO, it is not the same as mission behaviour and probably deserves a separate discussion.

ORIGINAL: rsharp@advancedgamin

ORIGINAL: FreekS

Also it would be so nice if the user could click on a group, switch sensors OFF, and then for all craft in the group (including planes, helo's) the sensors to go off. Today I believe if a plane within a group has sensors on, then switching off the group radar does NOT switch off this airborn radar.

Sounds like an issue of inconsistency in the UI. I'll look at that.

Having all units within a group respond to a change in the Sensor Menu for the group icon might be good, but I think that there's already a pretty good work-around available for this effect. If you turn on the Unit display and then do a quick drag+select of all the units you want to go radar-silent and then hit the [F9] Sensor Menu to turn them off, I believe that they go off just as quickly and efficiently without requiring any change to the group icon. It is currently functional and doesn't have any potentially undesirable side-effects.

[hermanhum]

ORIGINAL: rsharp@advancedgamin

ORIGINAL: hermanhum
[/ul]
Under the current scheme, nothing changes. All settings are maintained throughout the scenario. However, under the newly proposed behaviour, I think that:

[ol][*] The Transit mission will cancel the Radar Intermittent setting when it activates. This is not a good thing, IMO. I may want / need to set one ship in the CVBG to act as radar picket or lure. The proposed new change does not allow this kind of special handling and EmCon assignment.

[*] Same cancellation will happen to ECM and sonar

Only in the case of a delayed mission activating after you have manually set EmCon on the unit level. The two events I listed would otherwise not override the user's settings.

But that's exactly what I fear. Scenarios have been written (are being written at this very moment) expecting that the individual unit EmCon is not going to get overridden when the mission goes active. The steps being:

1. Delayed Transit mission (with all sensors set for passive) is created
2. Group is assigned to that Transit mission
3. Individual Unit EmCon is now assigned within the group (i.e. one unit acts as jammer / radar picket)

According to your explanation (italicized portion), the Delayed Transit mission will activate thereby re-setting all the individual units to the Passive settings for the group.

Am I missing something? If you say that it isn't going to happen, then all we can do is wait for the release to test for it. Because of the all-encompassing nature of the proposed change, I really want to be absolutely clear on what the effects will be.

[rsharp@advancedgamin]

You're not missing something but you are imagining something. There has been no change so far, only discussion. The scenario you listed and the concerns you stated about it are the reasons I'm going to look into this further before taking any action. That's the point of this thread and threads like this to come. I'm not going to replace an old behavior, if its used, with a new behavior. As it stands, mission sensor override will become an optional feature in 3.10 and not the default.

By the way, the issue that brought this up was facilities with weapons remaining passive when they should go active on a delayed strike mission activation to have a surprise element. This is the mirror situation where the mission not overriding user sensor settings (passive) is the undesired behavior.

[FreekS]

ORIGINAL: hermanhum

ORIGINAL: FreekS

Also it would be so nice if the user could click on a group, switch sensors OFF, and then for all craft in the group (including planes, helo's) the sensors to go off. Today I believe if a plane within a group has sensors on, then switching off the group radar does NOT switch off this airborn radar.

Having all units within a group respond to a change in the Sensor Menu for the group icon might be good, but I think that there's already a pretty good work-around available for this effect. If you turn on the Unit display and then do a quick drag+select of all the units you want to go radar-silent and then hit the [F9] Sensor Menu to turn them off, I believe that they go off just as quickly and efficiently without requiring any change to the group icon. It is currently functional and doesn't have any potentially undesirable side-effects.

You learn every day. that is a good enough workaround! Freek

[FreekS]

Lets also remember that 'delayed missions' are the realm of the AI/AO. I have never used them while playing a game. In fact I rarely if ever use missions in games, though I know others do.
 
The missions are primarily used by the scen designers to program the AI/AO.  Changes in mission behaviours (for example past changes in the speed with which subs travel in missions), therefore very easily scre up past scens. My experience is that repair of scens is very difficult (harder than building new ones).
 
I have nothing against optimising the bahaviour, but lets do it to make the AO into AI and not to give the players better missions (cause they will barely use them).
 
Freek

[hermanhum]

ORIGINAL: FreekS

Lets also remember that 'delayed missions' are the realm of the AI/AO. I have never used them while playing a game. In fact I rarely if ever use missions in games, though I know others do.

I know of at least one fellow who only uses Missions, too. So, we should not discount the play of others just because it differs from our personal style of play.

IMO, there's been way too much of the, "Gee, I'd like to see the game better reflect my personal tastes..." type of thinking.