Post by dizzy on Oct 30, 2019 11:15:31 GMT -6
With the advent of the new [1.10] patch, bomber AI will now change as follows:
There's two problems with how air ops run with these two new changes. Firstly, I really LOVED the new target location readjustment, but after a while, with larger air wings, it interrupts the flow of the game and becomes tedious when you start having to click on the map for each squadron you launched to a map coordinate. So I don't love it anymore. Here's a better way to do it.
Remove the new 'opportunity to adjust the target location when strike is spotting' introduced in 1.10 patch. We don't need it. Instead, have AI be smarter. Currently bomber planes would fly to location and fly a tight circle. Have them instead perform a widening circular search pattern until they either find a target or need to return to base to refuel. If pilots are smarter and expand their search pattern upon arriving at a map coordinate, this would eliminate the need to update map coordinate readjustment clicking introduced in 1.10. Pilots would simply fly a larger circle until they find the ships that have moved away from their target location.
The second problem is with AI targeting priority. In the new 1.10 patch, "Tweaked airstrike target selection so that they will ignore non-carrier targets" will see your planes routinely fly over and ignore an enemy BB/BC line in order to find enemy CV's. The way the game used to play, whenever your planes would detect enemy capital ships, they'd lay the smack down on them. That was good and we still need this but as you can see, you aren't going to get it both ways. Your bomber planes will either attack the BB line when they detect it as was pre 1.10, or they will overfly the BB line and look for CV's as they now do since 1.10. This new change isn't entirely welcome. So while improvements have been made, new problems have been introduced and need to be addressed. Here's an idea how to fix it.
First of all, there are two types of ways to launch planes in an Airstrike. Selecting one over the other will change the behavior of the Airstrike AI priority.
Priority1.gif (63.58 KB)
In the picture above, you'll see the Airstrike panel opened with the 'Target' menu showing a drop down list of enemy sighting reports detailing ship classes. By selecting 'Target', each sighting report details the class type as in the Red Arrow above. By selecting this, the behavior of the planes should, by default, prioritize that class type listed for that particular sighting report. Let's use that. If you select the CV sighting report as in the Red Arrow above, when your bombers fly out they will automatically over fly any BB/BC line to attack the CV from that sight report. If you should select the sight report for a BB, then that should be prioritized. In any case, plane AI should prioritize a CV over a BB when they see one in case both are listed in the same sighting report.
The other way is to use 'Location' by clicking on the map. If we wish to attack capital ships in an area on the map as I discussed earlier in this article, planes will need to attack the 1st capital ships they come across. In this case, AI planes need to have a default behavior mode as follows:
When planes are flying to location, they should:
1. Attack 1st enemy Capital ship they come across that's not already dead in the water.
2. Planes should prioritize from first to last, CV/L,BB,BC and bomb the hell out of it. If none are present, they continue to location.
When planes arrive at location and they see a target, they should:
1. Prioritize from first to last, CV/L,BB,BC,CA,CL,DD,XX and bomb the hell out of it
2. If no target is present, planes begin widening circular search pattern that continues to widen until they see a target or they need to return to base to refuel.
You can't really have the above both ways in the sense that 1.10 has our planes overfly an enemy BB line to look for CV's and often times that will be problematic because we need to hit the BB line instead and there's no way to do that in 1.10. Using my method above to attack carriers as illustrated above, you can have your cake and eat it too, you'll simply need to pinpoint their location by clicking on the map in a 'Location' attack, or you'll need to use a sighting report. I really think the 1.10 changes are great ideas that just don't work well in practice for carrier warfare. So I hope this is changed.
Thank you.
There's two problems with how air ops run with these two new changes. Firstly, I really LOVED the new target location readjustment, but after a while, with larger air wings, it interrupts the flow of the game and becomes tedious when you start having to click on the map for each squadron you launched to a map coordinate. So I don't love it anymore. Here's a better way to do it.
Remove the new 'opportunity to adjust the target location when strike is spotting' introduced in 1.10 patch. We don't need it. Instead, have AI be smarter. Currently bomber planes would fly to location and fly a tight circle. Have them instead perform a widening circular search pattern until they either find a target or need to return to base to refuel. If pilots are smarter and expand their search pattern upon arriving at a map coordinate, this would eliminate the need to update map coordinate readjustment clicking introduced in 1.10. Pilots would simply fly a larger circle until they find the ships that have moved away from their target location.
The second problem is with AI targeting priority. In the new 1.10 patch, "Tweaked airstrike target selection so that they will ignore non-carrier targets" will see your planes routinely fly over and ignore an enemy BB/BC line in order to find enemy CV's. The way the game used to play, whenever your planes would detect enemy capital ships, they'd lay the smack down on them. That was good and we still need this but as you can see, you aren't going to get it both ways. Your bomber planes will either attack the BB line when they detect it as was pre 1.10, or they will overfly the BB line and look for CV's as they now do since 1.10. This new change isn't entirely welcome. So while improvements have been made, new problems have been introduced and need to be addressed. Here's an idea how to fix it.
First of all, there are two types of ways to launch planes in an Airstrike. Selecting one over the other will change the behavior of the Airstrike AI priority.
Priority1.gif (63.58 KB)
In the picture above, you'll see the Airstrike panel opened with the 'Target' menu showing a drop down list of enemy sighting reports detailing ship classes. By selecting 'Target', each sighting report details the class type as in the Red Arrow above. By selecting this, the behavior of the planes should, by default, prioritize that class type listed for that particular sighting report. Let's use that. If you select the CV sighting report as in the Red Arrow above, when your bombers fly out they will automatically over fly any BB/BC line to attack the CV from that sight report. If you should select the sight report for a BB, then that should be prioritized. In any case, plane AI should prioritize a CV over a BB when they see one in case both are listed in the same sighting report.
The other way is to use 'Location' by clicking on the map. If we wish to attack capital ships in an area on the map as I discussed earlier in this article, planes will need to attack the 1st capital ships they come across. In this case, AI planes need to have a default behavior mode as follows:
When planes are flying to location, they should:
1. Attack 1st enemy Capital ship they come across that's not already dead in the water.
2. Planes should prioritize from first to last, CV/L,BB,BC and bomb the hell out of it. If none are present, they continue to location.
When planes arrive at location and they see a target, they should:
1. Prioritize from first to last, CV/L,BB,BC,CA,CL,DD,XX and bomb the hell out of it
2. If no target is present, planes begin widening circular search pattern that continues to widen until they see a target or they need to return to base to refuel.
You can't really have the above both ways in the sense that 1.10 has our planes overfly an enemy BB line to look for CV's and often times that will be problematic because we need to hit the BB line instead and there's no way to do that in 1.10. Using my method above to attack carriers as illustrated above, you can have your cake and eat it too, you'll simply need to pinpoint their location by clicking on the map in a 'Location' attack, or you'll need to use a sighting report. I really think the 1.10 changes are great ideas that just don't work well in practice for carrier warfare. So I hope this is changed.
Thank you.