donaldseadog

BS=Medc2003, DB=HCDB2-170909 & GE=2024.006
Situation: SG ABS (blue) comprises two units, AB00 I believe is not detected by the red enemy or at least they have no indication of location. AB01 they have exact location. They fire missile at both units. I believe that the missiles are targeting AB00 as if they had an exact location but they do not.

Two saved games are zipped, AShM-SL005 is a couple of seconds before SLSSMatNotKnownTarget. Open game AShM-SL005, the red enemy has approx fix on AB01 and no fix on AB00, within a sec (or two) an exact fix is obtained on AB01 and missiles are fired at both units although red enemy still has no location of AB00.
SLSSMatNotKnownTarget simply shows this situation at time of firing missiles.

SLSSMatNotKnownTarget.zip

AAR

**SPOILER ALERT**

Well this was quite a long campaign. I should have kept a log

At the outset I figured the locals were pretty evenly matched so decided to let my allies take care of their neighbours with only a bit of anti radar strikes from my carrier to get them started, in the main I'd set up a long range CAP, AEW and EW shield of my carrier group to north and east, take out the enemy establishments ahead of me to the west and saturate the immediate areas ahead with asw patrols. This seemed to go well enough for some time while I picked of plenty of long range AC coming down from the enemies bases to the far north.

But then I missed a key strike and had a saturation of missile coming in at VHigh alt where I had limited ability to defend and lost a screening escort and suffered minor carrier damage.

Meanwhile my friends ashore where doing well taking out SAM with the CAS loaded Fitter then coming in with numerous assault attacks to slowly destroy all enemy bases along our departure path.

My own small surface group supposedly securing the exit to open ocean didn't do so well. A later investigation showed that an insufficiently experienced officer-of-the-watch was in place at a critical time, and a sub got through their asw screen to take a ship before they could track and sink her. They at least tried harder after this setback and proved more than useful in sending an enemy SG to the bottom once it was soften up with anti-radar strikes from the carrier. That success started to show political favour with declarations of a partial win.

Our final hurdle, which had remained undiscovered for quite some time, was a heavily defended missile base on a lonely little island. With no aircraft defense it was just a matter of maintaining a continous line of anti radar then bomber attacks and it was destroyed and the declaration of total success issued.

Thanks for putting this together Enrique. Another nice scenario.

@TonyE

I think I have something concrete. (if my export.dll game data collection is correct). I have two saved games (a couple secs apart) with a player surface group of two units, one goes from approx fix by enemy to exact while the second remains undetected or at least no detected location. Two enemy subs fire missiles at both units (including the non localised unit) and all missile appear to have targets (non are BOL).

I've attached here but do you want a new issue report?

SLSSMatNotKnownTarget.zip

3 hours ago, TonyE said:

........ My first thought on submarines is to add a couple of Los Angeles on the Blue side, each in their own group of course but in support of the CVBG then add a Kilo variant of some sort as well as bring the Victor out of the Kuznetsov group and into its own group.

Enrique probably knows a likely submarine deployment for the period.  A situation where the main stategic threat is submarines and the surface groups are for area defense and 'show' could be interesting.

There's room for two good scenario here I'm sure, a bit of updated action from classic times would be nice.

Progress is a bit slow. Here's the long story so far ...  I have the game halting when an attack is executed then I look at the contact quality (within my AIWindow tool).

I have a case where the player has a group that includes two ships, both ships have had missiles fired targeting them, one ship the enemy has an exact fix, one it has no location but knows its there (knows side). I Split the group and destroy the missile targeting the not localised ship. Now there is a group with one unit and enemy has exact fix, another group having one unit with no localisation. The original attacking sub fires again at the (new) group with localised unit but does not fire at the old group with only non localised unit. later the unit is localised and the sub fires.

My current best guess is that if a fix is known on at least one unit in a group the whole group (or perhaps all units of group that are known) will be fired on, but if no units are localised in the group then it won't fire.

I'll keep playing with it.

4 hours ago, broncepulido said:

On holidays to 12 September or so, later I'll see.

"On Holidays"! How can you have holidays when you're retired

I can give you hand eg for testing or other is you wish Enrique, I'm also "On Holidays"

Don

On 9/5/2024 at 11:40 AM, TonyE said:

2024.006 posted.  My fear is that submarines will fire missiles at targets that aren't localized but I bet you can validate that isn't true @donaldseadog.

That should be easy to check.

Homework for tonight

(Update)

There are firings at units without a position (edited) but side is known and another unit of group has exact fix. I'll fiddle a bit more to try to see if they will fire as soon as any contact is made.

(Update2)

I'll fine tune my AIWindow tool to get more info on the contact the enemy sees, but indications are that the sub launches missile at units where no position (exact or uncertainty) is known, possibly only when in a group with a unit that is localised.

On 8/26/2024 at 11:23 PM, TonyE said:

Thank you for the writeup.  That performance is disappointing.  I'll have a look, eventually...

I'm wondering TonyE what should we do next. I'm guessing it relates to no ENEMY_AI_EVENT for the sub only group (I'm assuming there should be). Do you need the original test pruned down to a minimum number of platforms (eg one sub one surface target one awac) ?

And on the side, in the second test where Enrique has added a surface unit to each sub group, they fire a very expensive salvo of missiles at the defenceless merchant men. 

On 8/28/2024 at 6:59 PM, broncepulido said:

Same applied to the Red side, see here the modified test scenario:

2024-08 TEST RED SUB LAUNCHED AShM WITH SHIP.zip 4 kB · 1 download

That certainly made a difference. The ENEMY_AI_EVENT is now occurring which might be a clue for Tony.

I didn't get as far as you Enrique. I'd seen a sub fire at about the range of its torpedo so wondered if it was somehow ignoring coming into missile range before deciding what to fire.

I will post a bit more tonight, (I'm at breakfast on tablet today) but saw that maybe subs aren't doing same 'plotting attack' that surface ships do. Its a code event (ENEMY_AI_EVENT) I don't understand much but it never seems to be attributed to subs (but does to surface ships) and relates to planning an attack (I think).

I'm reading this on my tablet while having lunch. I'm wondering would the subs actions be different if part of a group including surface combatants with suitable range missile. 

I'll also have a play tonight, I wonder if the subs have a solid fix on the targets?

And thanks for reminder the aam missiles, I just realise I wasted I don't know how many $M last night firing sparrow and sidewinder at vhigh alt incoming missiles 🙊

will do chief

From australia ABC 

Chinese and Philippine ships collide again in disputed waters, and the countries are trading blame

Uploaded NEW ver 2.10.6
Added code trap for case where attempting to cover an invalid enemy unit would cause game crash.
Changed AirGrpFrm page unit list to show aircraft range in nm (at current speed) instead of endurance in mins.
reset Attack page Egroup (and EUnit) when time compression is altered, signifying that player is manually 'doing stuff'
Updated help text.
IN group page added information for missile units: alt band, numbers, target and guidance phase.

Generally smoothed out the auto selection of player groups and non-player units from current selections in the game window.

In the scenario section added a three scenario pack of walk through simple play scenarios illustrating some of the features.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-21/australian-navy-tests-naval-strike-missile-us-hosted-exercises/104124170?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

The OP situation seems to remain. I've attached two saved games played in westpac BS, HCDB2 170909 DB, originally saved in 2024.003 (80% certain) and now saved in 20224.004.

RunDryB.0006 was opened and group ABS had incorrect patrolling choppers, they were removed from the group by F8 split command and sent F6 Land back to ABS.

Once refueled one was set to patrol and it was patrolling correctly. The game was saved and reopened and the patrol was incorrect, it was saved as RunDryB.0006A.

RunDryB.zip

I can confirm the fix in 2024.004 only in respect of the reproducible version of the problem that I'd found, only time will tell I guess regarding a broader fix.

I'll run some of my saved games that seemed to have a high propensity to error ...

confirm fixed in 2024.004

At least in one of five places

(AAR)

After Action Report

** SPOILER ALERT**

Thank Enrique, another nice scenario and interesting.

I decided that a plan was to put 2 AC patrol units of F-16 around the edge of the northern area of the large SAM coverage of my enemy and a couple of AEW planes well out of reach but hopefully giving good coverage of the 'danger zone'.

A number of attack attempts came out for me, and most were successfully dealt with with my SAM units, but (in the attached detail report) it is clear that my teams fired a large number of SAM to little effect, I better write off to my friends and ask for more.

Here's a summary, the blow by blow action is noted in the attached zipped up report text for anyone interested in the stats.

[Initial Start]
Actual Date=8/08/2024 14:33:38
(Report Generator=AARdata.dll v 1.5.0.6, downloaded from Harpgamer Forum)
Battleset=HDSJ
Scenario=C:\Matrix Games\HCDev\addons\medc\hcdb2\2024-08 F-16AM UKR.sco
Player=Blue

[Session Summary]
Session Game Start=8 Aug 2024, 05:00:00
GameTimeDuration ThisSession=4Hrs50 Mins
TotalGameTimeDuration=4Hrs50Mins
GameTimeToGO=43 Hrs: 9 Mins
Session End RealTime=8/08/2024 15:43:12
RealTimeDuration ThisSession=1:09:34
==== =====
Session Game Start=8 Aug 2024, 09:50:55
GameTimeDuration ThisSession=3Hrs37 Mins
TotalGameTimeDuration=8Hrs28Mins
GameTimeToGO=39 Hrs: 31 Mins
Session End RealTime=8/08/2024 17:20:44
RealTimeDuration ThisSession=0:33:56
==== =====

[Victory Summary]
Time=08 Aug 2024, 08:48:00  The BLUE side has met their minimum victory conditions
Time=08 Aug 2024, 10:48:01  The BLUE side has met their total victory conditions

[Kill Detail Red Side ]
Su-30SM Flanker G 13/Plane=4
MiG-31BM Foxhound 15/Plane=4
A-50U Mainstay/Plane=1
Su-35S Flanker E/Plane=4

[Kill Summary Red Side ]
Planes:=13

[Damage List Red]
ZYa: 00 Taganrog damage=888/5000
ZZa: 00 Belbek AB, occupied Ukraine damage=1851/9000

[Kill Detail Blue Side ]
F-16AM Falcon 16/Plane=3

[Kill Summary Blue Side ]
Planes:=3

2024-f-16-Ukraine.zip

We're making good progress here, but I have relied a bit on the fixed SAM, trying not to get the shiny new planes scratched.

Uploaded a new version, 2.10.4

Removed a debug notice that would sometime popup and make no sense to player.

Groups Page, added information regards NOE, IFR, and MAD capability for AC units in the unit details window.

Attack Page, fixed a code error that left the toolbox enemy unit selection only working for enemy units selected in the game unit window, not for manual selection in toolbox window.

The Group page (surface/sub group in older toolbox version) now with the selection of the toolbox entry by selection of the player group in GE group window gives a very quick reference to aircraft and ship/sub capability, some of which such as AC's MAD, IFR and NOE capability isn't available in the game.

attached is a zip of a simplified version of the last comment.

Use BS westpac, Database HCDB2-170909
I used GE vers 2024.003
start with saved game Patrol-good.hpq, where airfield AAa has a group formation patrol of two Hawk, select the base and split off one of the patroling Hawk, enter a new course for the split off AC (eg RTB). Look at the patrol editor for AAa, the patrol notation is now wrong for the remaining Hawk (this is one of the indicators of this problem).

This gets you to the included Patrol-bad.hpq file.

If you let the game play on the hawk in group patrol will run dry and crash.
This is reproducible every time.
This might not be the same cause as in the original post report but it appears to be the same effect.

patrol-good.zip

A possible new track, but still needs some testing.

Two choppers in a group formation patrol, I split off one chopper to go on individual patrol and the remaining chopper still in group formation patrol was incorrect with the 'faulty' notation in the formation editor.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-04/ukraine-says-it-has-sunk-russian-submarine-off-sevastopol-coast/104181806