How to Get SSGN's to Engage Most Effectively

[LuftWolf]

Ok, here are the ground rules:

In order to get the SSGN's to engage without sensor data, you need to have a linking platform.

The SSGN's will usually fire four missile per target, per salvo. However, if you have more than three targets linked, close together, the SSGN's will fire a continuous salvo at the group.

If you have more than one SSGN participating in the attack, only the closest SSGN will salvo fire on it's own. The other SSGN's will wait until the first SSGN has expended it's missiles before engaging in salvo fire.

Do NOT assign the SSGN's a specific target in the waypoints or main object dialogue, as it will limit it's fire only to that target. If you leave it as "none", the closest SSGN will salvo fire at every target on the link.

In order to get farther SSGN's to salvo fire, you need to use scripts. You have to work out the details of how to do this most effectively for each situation, but clearly the SSGN's are working on the principle of priority fire for the closest SSGN and the game engine limits the total number of missiles in the air for any given target for the ALL the SSGN's. This means, theoretically, that if you instruct each SSGN to fire at a specific set of targets, then each will salvo fire to the best of its ability.

The things you CANNOT do as mission designers:

You cannot get one SSGN or multiple SSGN's to fire more than four missiles at any given target at one time. So if you only have a single target, then the SSGN's will only fire four missiles. However, if you have a number of targets close together, and the SSGN is firing from long range, then it is, for all practical purpose, one long salvo fired at the whole group.

You cannot get two SSGN's to engage one target with salvoes at the same time, probably due to the above restriction of no more than four missiles in the air for any one target, regardless of the number of SSGN's firing.

So, for mission designers, this means that in order to get realistic attack behavior for SSGN's, you need to have them fire with a linking platform spotting for them, against large groups of ships, and use scripts, perhaps linked with a trigger, to make the farther SSGN's fire, and try to find a way (I'm not that familar with the mission editor) to assign multiple, individual, unique targets to each SSGN, if you can find a way to assign at least three targets to each SSGN, and prohibit them from firing against targets they are not assigned, then you should be able to get full, constant salvoes from each SSGN against the SAG as a whole.

Enjoy!

Based on these tests, I'm not hopeful of being able to make the SSGN's salvo fire using doctrines, since this behavior seems to be hardcoded in the engine, with very specific behaviors not accounted for in doctrines, but we can try!