Strange, non-aggressive AI in a Task Force??

[DragonRR1]

I've done about 6 or 7 patrols with patch 1.2. Generally I've quite enjoyed them.. of course there's a but!

I've just done a patrol and came across a huge task force, the Yamoto, at least 4 huge battleships, a number of smaller destroyers, 2 carriers and the odd freighter.

I was ahead of the group so I positioned myself for a torpedo run dropped to 200ft and waited. Nervously I rose to periscope depth and launched all my torpedos at the Yamoto and 2 of the other large battleships. 4 hits. I also launched all my aft torpedoes at 2 targets.. Anyway.. to save boring you all to death I ended up with zero torpedos, 1 sunk destroyer, 2 huge battleships or whatever they were listing badly and a holed Yamoto....

Knowing it would be suicide I surfaced to see what would happen. Well not a lot really! I spent nearly all my deck gun ammo on the Yamoto (which didn't sink). Only one ship actually fired at me which was a carrier! Even then there were only 2 shots.

What one earth was going on? I've read a couple of posts suggesting that this kind of thing did happen in the war but I should have had swiss cheese made out of me within nano seconds. In the end I just gave up in disgust. I've had more challenges taking on a single armed freighter on the surface... Anyone else experienced this?

[tater]

Yeah, it happened to me as well. the big ships don't seem to shoot at all as far as I can tell. CVs are so absurdly easy to sink I've never had any live to have me try to shell them.

[Scoochy]

Tons of talk about being able to simply surface and hang out. I have actually sustained more damage from a/c than from any warship.

Warships don't shoot much, and when they do, they don't hit much.

[Prof]

This is all probably to do with the level of crew experience in the warships. I tried surfacing on the Mogami in the Torpedo School lesson and the results were disappointing for the Japanese :) Looked like the gunners were all drunk!

I then edited the MIS file and gave the Mogami an 'elite' crew. This time when I surfaced the gunnery was deadly accurate and I didn't last very long!

There is definitely something wrong, but it should be a fairly easy fix...though changing the crew skill level of every randomly generated ship in the campaign might not be so easy!

[DragonRR1]

Prof... Is the crew type set per task force, per ship or is there the ability to do both?

The entire task force basically ignored me as a wandered between them...

[Prof]

Prof... Is the crew type set per task force, per ship or is there the ability to do both?

The entire task force basically ignored me as a wandered between them...I've just checked the Japanese 1941 campaign layers and the skill level is set per ship. In the default campaign, however, all warships in a task force have the same skill level. Interestingly, all ships in task forces are either veteran (second best) or elite (best). Any destroyers assigned to guard a merchant convoy (not a troop convoy) are either poor or novice (the lowest two!). I guess they send the duffers on merchie escort :)

What difficulty rating were you on? It may be that the base-level crew skill is modified by the difficulty level you set at the beginning of a career, so if you played on 'easy' then maybe 'elite' becomes more like 'novice'. Just a possibility.

[DragonRR1]

I was on the hardest setting but I then adjust to have external cameras on, unlimited fuel and no manual firing of torps.

The thing is that in the patrol before this I had loosed all my torps at a merchant convoy destroying most merchants but leaving behind the destroyers (I escaped unscathed at 1/3rd). I surface attacked a single merchant on the return journey in the dead of night and it nearly crippled the sub. I limped back to base with holes all over the place!

[DragonRR1]

Prof.. Do you think this is a fix a modder could do or do you think it is a hard coded problem?

[tater]

The campaign files can (and are) being modified. Some of the issues seem to be hard coded, others can possibly be addressed via mods to sensors, etc.

tater

[SteamWake]

There was a trick in SH3 where you could positon yourself between ships and end up having them shoot one another.

Also if you are too close to a ship their big guns cannot be trained low enough.

I havent seen this behaviour personally. As a matter of fact I ran accross a lone merchant which I decided to try to take out with deck gun only to save torps.

I was a bit dismayed when they started shooting back. On their third round they landed a shell nearly amidship and knocked half my crew silly and did some minor damage.

At great risk we decided to dive and repair and get the heck outa there.

[DragonRR1]

There was a trick in SH3 where you could positon yourself between ships and end up having them shoot one another.

Also if you are too close to a ship their big guns cannot be trained low enough.

I havent seen this behaviour personally. As a matter of fact I ran accross a lone merchant which I decided to try to take out with deck gun only to save torps.

I was a bit dismayed when they started shooting back. On their third round they landed a shell nearly amidship and knocked half my crew silly and did some minor damage.

At great risk we decided to dive and repair and get the heck outa there.
After finding out that I wasn't being shot at I wandered around the entire task force to see whether they thought I was too close. Other than jinking and rotating their guns from time to time they did nothing. I spent at least 4 game hours shooting from the deck gun and just looking at the scenery. My crew were very bored and spent most of the time sunbathing :)

Out of interest - there were two carriers in the task force. Both had small fires burning on their decks at exactly the same position long before I actually fired a shot at them.

Yes I mentioned a couple of posts up that I experienced a single merchant on the previous patrol do more damage to me than an entire task force!

[FAdmiral]

I just ran a test of the crew ratings on AI warships. I had a TF consisting
of 1 BB,1-CA,2-CL,3-DD. When they all were set to Vet, I was sunk in less
than 2 minutes (distance 4000). Then I set tham all to Poor and I didn't even
take a hit till 6 minutes into the game. And yes, every ship fired at me both
times. I finally rammed the CA and it sunk me. Up until that time, I had a total
of 4 shells hit (11 min). Conclusion: They SHOULD fire at you no matter what
the crew rating is. It only seems to affect their aim.....

JIM

[tater]

Wonder what effect weather and time of day has on that...

Cause I should have been nuked by the disabled Kongo, and it didn't fire a shot. I was maybe 1000 yards away on the surface. Nothing. It had been in a TF, so it was likely set to "vet." The sea state, however was a little rough. Not a storm, but pretty choppy such that moving 1/3 back, I was washed below a few times.

[DragonRR1]

I just ran a test of the crew ratings on AI warships. I had a TF consisting
of 1 BB,1-CA,2-CL,3-DD. When they all were set to Vet, I was sunk in less
than 2 minutes (distance 4000). Then I set tham all to Poor and I didn't even
take a hit till 6 minutes into the game. And yes, every ship fired at me both
times. I finally rammed the CA and it sunk me. Up until that time, I had a total
of 4 shells hit (11 min). Conclusion: They SHOULD fire at you no matter what
the crew rating is. It only seems to affect their aim.....

JIM

I don't doubt what you've said. I should, perhaps, point out that this is the campaign not a single mission.. Tater and Scoochy seemed to have experienced a similar issue to mine. Prof suggested above that TFs in the campaign are all either veteran or elite so not only should they fire, they should also hit!

I wonder if I had just have set the game up as HARD without adjusting it if the same thing would have happened?

I can assure you that I spotted no firing on me of any description except for the single carrier that fired a couple of pot shots. The TF was absolutely huge and even after they jinked apart there wasn't a huge gap between any ship. Maybe the AI just couldn't find a "safe" firing solution... Maybe the AI allows too much margin for error in checking for friendly fire...?


I may be jumping to the wrong conclusions but now I think about it:

A single Merchant always seems to fire at the sub - nice open sea just me and the ship and nothing else.
Surface the sub in a convoy - destroyers don't seem to fire much on you if at all... But as you sink more and more freighters they start firing (I've seen this at least once).
Approach a convoy surfaced... The destroyers always come towards you and fire (in my experience)..

It all seems to add up.. but maybe I'm completely up the wrong tree.

[DragonRR1]

Wonder what effect weather and time of day has on that...

Cause I should have been nuked by the disabled Kongo, and it didn't fire a shot. I was maybe 1000 yards away on the surface. Nothing. It had been in a TF, so it was likely set to "vet." The sea state, however was a little rough. Not a storm, but pretty choppy such that moving 1/3 back, I was washed below a few times.

The sea was pretty rough in my case too. I remember that the deck gun was submerged frequently as I was using it..

[FAdmiral]

In my test mission, the Kongo was firing all its guns (both main & secondary)
You could see the puffs of smoke from the different blasts easy.
My weather was very calm seas and a clear blue sky (10AM)

JIM

[DragonRR1]

Fancy having another try in rough seas Admiral? :) (I'm assuming you can set that of course!)

Might help to narrow it down a little if you get the same issue...

[FAdmiral]

Yes, I can try the same mission again after I make some weather changes.
It's also occuring to me that there could (shouldn't be) some differences in
player creating the AI ships (missions) or the ones spawned in the layers
of the campaign or single patrol missions. So far I have only had experience
with player created TFs. In my created "single patrol" mission, I will see if
I can get close to some spawned ones. There should NOT be any difference
but testing will tell the tale....

JIM

[Fearless]

I reckon the gameplay setting has a lot to do with it. I'm currently running at normal setting and find it pretty easy. Prior to this at hard setting, made it a complete different scenario. Much more agressiveness by the AI.

[tater]

The devs answered the difficulty setting directly and said it had zero bearing on AI skill.

I've never had it less than the hardest setting, either.

[FAdmiral]

OK, set the mission to heavy clouds, no rain, no fog and 10 on the wind
scale coming form 180 degrees. My sub is traveling north and the AI TF
is going 90 degrees. Game starts, overcast ceiling with thunder, waves
are moderate with whitecaps showing. I set all the ships to competent.
I watched the TF. At 10:08 I started getting the blinking lights, smaller
ships opened up right away, BB was the last to fire but used its secondary
guns first. Took about 2 min after I was sighted to get the main battery
to open fire. I was sunk by 10:11. Most damage was caused by the BB
main guns when they fired first salvo....

JIM

[tater]

So I spent the last few hours chasing a large task force (days in game time). I was an S-18, the S-40. I had to run at flank on the surface for ages trying to end around this convoy, and I started out in front of it (had to dive as 3 escorts came at me in daylight, then the whole TF must have turned). I have my contacts set low, AND I have edited the mission layers so that ships/TFs are less likely to even generate a contact report.

Aircraft were everywhere, too, carriers...

So I luck out and manage to get past the escorts and fire 4 fish. Kongo listing, CV down at the bow. Some CA burning (fired a spread, no way all 4 wouldn;t hit someone, it was that crowded). Water was shallow, not much under the keel. Scope was down, but I didn't rig silent, i wanted to shoot again (dumb). A DD came right at me FAST and beat the @%$#@% out of me with DCs. I had to blow tanks.

I'm sitting there hoping the boat will move (engines dead, repairing) and started shooting the deck gun. I torched a DD with 3-4 shots, but the CA were driving in on me shooting. Everything was shooting. I was dead in under a minute. I think sea state plays a huge role, it was pretty calm.

[jerryt]

Funny Ai for me too. I was approaching a convoy and got detected by the DD's. They did a really good job of maintaning contact with me and keeping me down, even threading through the ships in the convoy. I tried coming up to PD a couple of times and they would start pinging me.

I finally got in the middle of the convoy and used a merchant to mask my ascent to PD. I then procceded to sink two medium frieghters with three fish from the bow, and three from the aft tubes.

DD's? Stopped and flashed lights at each other, and didn't do anything else. :damn:

I probably could have surfaced and shot up the remaining ships with my deck gun. Kind of a let down. I was really looking forward to having to save my skin, because these guys were doing such a great job earlier.

[Uber Gruber]

Encountered small convoy of two ships. Fired T at one which blew its screw off. It stopped and drifted at about 1kt. What suprised me was the other ship also stopped and just sat there in the water doing nothing...sure i could imagine that it was pinking up survivors perhapps...but even after I fired another T to sink the first ship the second just continued to sit there doing nothing........AI....Arsed Inteligence?

[DragonRR1]

Thanks for the help all. Another poster mentioned a passive TF in the bug thread. I have included it as a bug on my rather long and painful buglist.

Poster on this page:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=112193&page=17

[kakemann]

It's added as a bug in SH4bugs.com. Hope they will fix it

[FAdmiral]

I was testing my latest single patrol and had gotten to the end of the mission
whereas I had sunk the Yamato in the harbor. On my way out of the bay,
(about 260 feet deep in the center channel) I saw 2 subchasers ahead. One of
them was patroling over on the port side of the deep channel so I went over on the starboard side to miss him. That went OK, he passed by with no incident.
The 2nd subchaser was sitting stopped in the middle of the channel. I tried to
stay as much away from him as possible without leaving the channel. As I drew
closer I was hearing his pings. I was at 225 feet, 2 kts amd silent running.
(no thermal) As I got abreast of him, the ping sound changed whereas he immediately started moving and swung in my direction. I watched him pass
just astern of me throwing those ashcans in my direction. They were too
shallow. His 2nd pass was over my stern and the DCs went deeper. (gun dam)
The 3rd pass was directly over me and the DCs exploded on me. SUNK !!
CONCLUSION: Don't get caught in shallow water (260 was too shallow for me)

JIM

[-Pv-]

"...I finally got in the middle of the convoy and used a merchant to mask my ascent to PD. I then procceded to sink two medium frieghters with three fish from the bow, and three from the aft tubes.

DD's? Stopped and flashed lights at each other, and didn't do anything else. :damn:

I probably could have surfaced and shot up the remaining ships with my deck gun. Kind of a let down. I was really looking forward to having to save my skin, because these guys were doing such a great job earlier...."

They don't have radar. If at night your scope is very hard to see and all the props in the area are masking your engines as well as all the noise from the explosions and sinkings. They might be pinging, but you are more likely to hear only the ones directed right at you.

"...Encountered small convoy of two ships. Fired T at one which blew its screw off. It stopped and drifted at about 1kt. What suprised me was the other ship also stopped and just sat there in the water doing nothing...sure i could imagine that it was pinking up survivors perhapps...but even after I fired another T to sink the first ship the second just continued to sit there doing nothing........AI....Arsed Inteligence?..."

Maybe this is just over-done rescue behavior. I've seen this too and if I wait long enough, the other ships eventually start moving off, 1st slowly, then picking up speed.

The one that bothers me more is if I get spotted by an escort the whole convoy slows down to 2 knots while the DDs hunt for me. In other sim games they would hitail it outa there while the DDs keep me busy. Maybe the idea is to keep the noise down so the DDs can hear, but seems to be an inhuman tactic to not run for your life away from where you know the danger is. It gives the impression the tactic is to slow down whenever a sub is encountered regardless of the circumstances.
-Pv-

[FAdmiral]

Actually I had that kind of AI indifference in my first install, nothing happened !!
Now with the reinstall, everything happens (the way it really should) I did a test
a few days back by surfacing in the middle of a merchant convoy (in calm & hvy seas) the DDs fired on me both times as soon as they had clear shots. Only when
I got real close to a merchant did they stop and when I turned away, the DDs let me have it again....

JIM

[kakemann]

Anyone know if there is a file to tweak which has to do with destroyer behavior when attacked?

My guess is that it is hardcoded, but maybe one of the guys behind GWX have some suggestions were to look? Would be great if this was fixed!

:up: