This is how I perceive things work: Assuming that the planes are on the human side.

 

Part 1

 

1. A missile contact is acquired by AWACS or by other means.

2. Aircraft launches air-to-air missiles at incoming missile group.

3. A percentage of missiles are shot down.

4. Another set of air-to-air missiles are launched at the incoming missiles.

5. On the way to the incoming missiles contact is lost and the missile group turns into a yellow triangle.

6. After launch the air-to-air missiles track towards the incoming missiles base on the info from the radar that was detecting the missiles.

7. At the appropriate time the missiles do active and either find the correct contact or the nearest contact no matter what it is and attacks it causing your own planes to be shot down.

 

My question is does the AI for the side launching the planes have the ability to work in this matter.

 

Part 2

 

1. Air-to-air missiles are launched at incoming missiles that are in a yellow triangle,

2. Air-to-air missile goes into terminal guidance at the calculated point and attacks the first detected contact no mater what it is.

 

 

Does the AI have the ability to take the original course and speed of the incoming missiles and calculate at what point the air-to-air missiles should go into terminal guidance and shoot down the missiles.

 

Does the AI have the ability to know where all planes and ships are for the human side and not attack the human side shooting down its own planes or hitting it's own ships.

 

 

Something else I have seen:

 

1. I have an identified contact both in the Group and Unit windows.

2. When I go to launch a missile at a specific target in a group or base (example: YS008 and AD unit) it is comes up as a bearing only contact.

 

 

I don't understand how this can occur.

 

How does the AI process this info?

 

I have seen the AI launch bearing-only Sandboxes and Shipwrecks on a long, thin ESM hit, and get it too short, killing their own ships. Had a Kirov kill a Slava while the Slava killed two Sovremennys. So, sometimes the AI does stuff like that, yes. As far as from the code side, I can't answer that.

eeustice, thank you for taking a go at trying to improve missile guidance. I'm not going to directly answer your questions because I don't see a lot of value there. Instead, here are some assumptions I think are fair to make and some pointers to guide everyone's investigation of missile guidance. All of the questions below are rhetorical, I'll leave it to you all to pose the real questions and formulate answers.

 

Assumptions:

1. The AI can fire on targets that are not localized just like the player.

2. The AI will not make entirely blind BoL shots. The AI will fire torpedoes down the bearing of an incoming torpedo without a detection on the firing platform but I don't consider torpedoes "missiles" for the purpose of the missile guidance discussion.

3. A missile knows where it came from (so you can check if the firing platform still has the target in its sensor arc).

4. A missile can store an expected intercept lat/lon as well as keep track of an expected time to intercept (in seconds).

5. A missile can store a reference to a prospective target.

6. Assume the missile is already fired, we are not figuring out how to decide whether a missile can be launched. It has been launched at a specific target unit that may have an exact or a estimated position.

 

Pointers:

1. Consider each of the missile flags/codes in the PE (Platform Editor). How should they interact? Does a missile with both Semi-active and Inertial flags keep on towards a target if the shooter is destroyed or stops guiding?...

2. Missile guidance is handled once per game second so you do have some fine-grained control.

3. How should missiles navigate to the target (lead, lag, pursuit, ...)

4. When should missiles switch from one type of guidance to another (does it depend on missile speed, target speed, time to expected intercept, type of guidance, ...)

5. Consider other missiles as well, not just AAMs. Most of the rules will most likely apply to most of the missile types.

 

Thoughts:

1. If a radar guided missile's launching platform is killed, should third-parties (i.e. an AEW plane) be able to keep giving that missile updates on the target position? What about other missile flags...

2. If a missile is fired to intercept a missile, should it be allowed to hit a plane instead of another missile?

3. In what situations should a missile only strike the intended target versus any target in the vicinity?

4. I looked through the H3 paper rules and there is very little to steer the discussion. I have not examined the H4.1 rules for such information.

 

Missile Guidance Flags:

Inertial guidance

Terminal guidance

Semi-active guidance

IR/laser guidance

Radar guided

Mid-course guidance

Command guidance

Anti-radar (more a capability than guidance type)

All-aspect (not strictly guidance but could affect seeker cone)

Dogfight (not strictly guidance but could affect seeker cone)

Land attack (more a capability than guidance type)

Ship attack (more a capability than guidance type)

Anti-radar (more a capability than guidance type)

Pointers:

1. Consider each of the missile codes in the PE (Platform Editor). How should they interact? Does a missile with both Semi-active and Inertial flags keep on towards a target if the shooter is destroyed or stops guiding?...

Generally speaking, there's no going back once a guidance system transitions from inertial to terminal semi-active radar homing (SARH). And if the shooter is destroyed or guidance is interrupted, the missile goes stupid (and explodes).

 

3. How should missiles navigate to the target (lead, lag, pursuit, ...)

Some generational issues here, but on the assumption that the code will not be able to accommodate them, pick the one that best serves game play.

 

4. When should missiles switch from one type of guidance to another (does it depend on missile speed, target speed, time to expected intercept, type of guidance, ...)

Complex!

 

5. Consider other missiles as well, not just AAMs. Most of the rules will most likely apply to most of the missile types.

E.g. SAMs.

 

Thoughts:

1. If a radar guided missile's launching platform is killed, should third-parties (i.e. an AEW plane) be able to keep giving that missile updates on the target position?

CEC comes to mind, but generally no.

 

2. If a missile is fired to intercept a missile, should it be allowed to hit a plane instead of another missile?

Yes, if it is active radar or IR guided. Not if it is SARH or command guided.

 

3. In what situations should a missile only strike the intended target versus any target in the vicinity?

SARH or command guidance. And there may be a further complicating factor with in-formation aircraft. Although quite possible and realistic in the previously mentioned instances, do we want ships potentially shooting down their in-formation air while attempting to engage hostile targets?