Any advances or improvements to the player side must not result in a disadvantage for the AI.

 

Ok...

 

so why not start with a general improvement?

 

For both sides giving the self defense of each single Unit more weight over Area defense for a whole group.....

 

this should eleminate situations where ships with full SAM loads get sunk, only because the longer ranged SAMs of another Ship (without change to hit within time) already engaged the incomming SSM.

 

And as a side effect this would reduce the number of wasted long range SAMs.

 

At a later Point manal control for the player could be tested...

 

the AI controles the selfdefense for each unit. It checks if the incomming threat is aimed at a particular ship and when the missile gets within range of the point/self defense system (missile, gun, etc tagged/flagged as self/point defense) it will engage the incomming threat.

 

if the incomming misile is not pointed at the ship, it wil be handelt as an Area defense case => (longer) ranged SAMs will engage, when the missile enters an intercept vector even when the ship carrying the SAMs is not the target...

 

And the incomming SSM is not already engaged by a selfdefense SAM.

 

 

added: the settings for light medium and heavy fire could IMHO be 2^0 for light, 2^1 for medium and 2^2 for heavy, assuming that it is normal practice to fire 2 SAMs on a single Target....

We need to keep in mind that the manner in which weapons are ordered in a ship's Mounts (within the DB) will also affect which weapons fire firstly. Because of the way this works, it is my habit to put the longest ranged, most capable air defense weapons into the ship's Mounts first.

 

In your example, the Anzac ASMD's Mounts have the 8 cell Mk 41 VLS placed firstly, so correctly the longest ranged, most capable RIM-162 ESSMs fire first.

 

I did a series of tests on this topic.

 

Attacker armed with 100 "testmissles" castrated Harpoon SSM with 0 DP

due to magazine and mount desing firing salvos of 8 every minute.

 

Defender: Modified F-124, F123, K130

 

1vs1 only the F-124

 

1vs3 in the center the F124, than F-123 most outside of the inner Ring, the K130

 

red and blue got some eh101 AEW to ensure sensor coverage.

 

1vs1

1vs3

Atack form long range

Atack from medium range (within the Range of the ESSM)

 

Weapons on the F-124 sortet from short range to long and vice versa.....

 

 

Result:

 

 

1. Case Long range:

 

It makes no difference how the weapons and mounts are sortet by range as long as the incomming SSM are out of Range of the medium range weapons. The weapon with the longest Range engages first.

But when the SSM enters the Range of the Medium Range SAM, the sorting starts to influence the weapon handling.

 

Sortet from long to short: the LR SAM engage until the mount is empty

Sortet from short to long: the MR SAM engages as long as MR SAMs are availbe, siwthing back to LR-SAM in the case all MR-SAMs are used

 

the number of ships did not influence the tests except in some cases (depending on Range) the Sea Sparrow on the F-123 did engage too

 

2. Case Medium Range

 

the way the mounts and the weapons inside the mounts are sortet count!

 

Sortet from long to short: the LR SAM engage until the mount is empty, than swithing to MR-SAMs

Sortet from short to long: the MR SAM engages as long as MR SAMs are availbe, siwthing back to LR-SAM in the case all MR-SAMs are used

 

the number of ships did not influence the tests except in some cases (depending on Range) the Sea Sparrow on the F-123 did engage too.

 

 

If the sorting from short to long did influence the time needed to calculate the engagement could not be observed, but should bee there simply because more weapon calculation needs to be done... No idea if it might get significant in larger scens/ with larger groups!

 

The setting light, normal, heavy did influence the number of SAMs fired vs a target, but the obverservations show that those number are not a hard rule! The oberservation showed a beahavior best described by: Setting x leads leads to y - z SAMs fired vs a target, with 0 =< z < y. But the player has no chance to understand why 2 incomming SSM are engaged by 3+1 SAM (example) and the next 2 are engaged by 4..... Range setting trough all tests was "optimum".

 

 

My Conclusion:

 

Sorting the AA Systems from short to long helps the AI getting closer to a more realistic Multi-Layyer AAW. It might increase the cpu load but it saves longer Ranged SAMs in cases the incomming SSM is getting closer to the defended group.... because the shorter ranged weapons are prefered due to sorting. And this is IMHO the more realistic behavior in real world AAW, chosing the best suited, shorter/as long as needed ranged SAM, instead of firing the longest ranged SAM all the time . (correct me if this assumption is wrong!)

 

 

Comment: i did not test the beahaviour with faster SSM and i did not check for effects on the point defense behaviour!

We need to keep in mind that the manner in which weapons are ordered in a ship's Mounts (within the DB) will also affect which weapons fire firstly. Because of the way this works, it is my habit to put the longest ranged, most capable air defense weapons into the ship's Mounts first.

 

In your example, the Anzac ASMD's Mounts have the 8 cell Mk 41 VLS placed firstly, so correctly the longest ranged, most capable RIM-162 ESSMs fire first.

 

I did a series of tests on this topic.

 

Attacker armed with 100 "testmissles" castrated Harpoon SSM with 0 DP

due to magazine and mount desing firing salvos of 8 every minute.

 

Defender: Modified F-124, F123, K130

 

1vs1 only the F-124

 

1vs3 in the center the F124, than F-123 most outside of the inner Ring, the K130

 

red and blue got some eh101 AEW to ensure sensor coverage.

 

1vs1

1vs3

Atack form long range

Atack from medium range (within the Range of the ESSM)

 

Weapons on the F-124 sortet from short range to long and vice versa.....

 

 

Result:

 

 

1. Case Long range:

 

It makes no difference how the weapons and mounts are sortet by range as long as the incomming SSM are out of Range of the medium range weapons. The weapon with the longest Range engages first.

But when the SSM enters the Range of the Medium Range SAM, the sorting starts to influence the weapon handling.

 

Sortet from long to short: the LR SAM engage until the mount is empty

Sortet from short to long: the MR SAM engages as long as MR SAMs are availbe, siwthing back to LR-SAM in the case all MR-SAMs are used

 

the number of ships did not influence the tests except in some cases (depending on Range) the Sea Sparrow on the F-123 did engage too

 

2. Case Medium Range

 

the way the mounts and the weapons inside the mounts are sortet count!

 

Sortet from long to short: the LR SAM engage until the mount is empty, than swithing to MR-SAMs

Sortet from short to long: the MR SAM engages as long as MR SAMs are availbe, siwthing back to LR-SAM in the case all MR-SAMs are used

 

the number of ships did not influence the tests except in some cases (depending on Range) the Sea Sparrow on the F-123 did engage too.

 

 

If the sorting from short to long did influence the time needed to calculate the engagement could not be observed, but should bee there simply because more weapon calculation needs to be done... No idea if it might get significant in larger scens/ with larger groups!

 

The setting light, normal, heavy did influence the number of SAMs fired vs a target, but the obverservations show that those number are not a hard rule! The oberservation showed a beahavior best described by: Setting x leads leads to y - z SAMs fired vs a target, with 0 =< z < y. But the player has no chance to understand why 2 incomming SSM are engaged by 3+1 SAM (example) and the next 2 are engaged by 4..... Range setting trough all tests was "optimum".

 

 

My Conclusion:

 

Sorting the AA Systems from short to long helps the AI getting closer to a more realistic Multi-Layyer AAW. It might increase the cpu load but it saves longer Ranged SAMs in cases the incomming SSM is getting closer to the defended group.... because the shorter ranged weapons are prefered due to sorting. And this is IMHO the more realistic behavior in real world AAW, chosing the best suited, shorter/as long as needed ranged SAM, instead of firing the longest ranged SAM all the time . (correct me if this assumption is wrong!)

 

 

Comment: i did not test the beahaviour with faster SSM and i did not check for effects on the point defense behaviour!

Thanks for sharing these test results,great job!!