[TEC] changing 40mm/37mm to deck gun for AI?

[akdavis]

In my ongoing quest for improved surface action in SH4, I'm wondering if it is possible to have the AI treat 1 AA gun on a sub as a deck gun so that more than two guns can be firing on a surface target simultaneously. (This is assuming that having the AI utilize an AA gun for both surface and air targets is impossible).

Here is my rationale for such a change: I've personally found that having the AI fire on air targets is not important to me at all. I almost always dive, and if I happen to be caught with my pants down, I'd rather man at least one gun myself. However, I find myself continually annoyed that when I initiate a gun action, there are all these automatic weapons going unused.

The ideal solution would be to chose one AA gun to be recognized as a second deck gun. On boats with only a single AA gun + deck gun, the AI would use both against surface targets and you could man the AA gun to turn it against aircraft if needed (or boats with 1 gun could be left as is if you always manned the AA gun during a surface engagement). On boats with 2 AA guns, whichever gun you prefer to use against aircraft would be the second deck gun. When engaged in a surface action, you could could man the pure AA gun and have 3 guns firing against a surface target simultaneously (e.g. AI engages designated target with 4" gun and 40mm Bofors, you engage with 20mm/second Bofors).

Potential barriers:
-although you can take control of multiple AA gun positions, on boats with 2 deck guns, you cannot take control of the second deck gun. Would this happen if the sim treated an AA gun as a deck gun?
-can the AI aim an AA gun at a surface target, or is AI aiming hardcoded to the deck gun sight, i.e. would your Bofors have to exchange the open sight for an optical sight?
-Fleet Boats with 2 5" deck guns might not be able to utilize such a change.
-if you had to give up aiming the deck gun yourself (which I believe is far too easy anyways, and should be left to the AI), could anything be done about the AI's woeful inability to handle any targeting order other than to fire at the waterline?
-you might have to have crew manning both deck guns and AA guns when engaging an aircraft if you wanted the gun to load when you weren't manning the position.
-could an AA gun maintain its position on the sub and still be used by the AI against surface targets?

[Snaptrap]

Why not replace the AA guns with deck guns and just throw rocks at the planes when they attack?

Honestly, I don't see why this couldn't be done, but my guess would be tedious work and ultimately pointless. What I did with my mod was apply the late war conning towers to all the subs, and for most of them, they come with two deck and aa guns. This method would be easiest with a few simple lines to edit for each file.

[akdavis]

That's cool, but I like history and don't think it pointless. Of course, I could give all the subs nuke torpedoes and stop worrying about topside ordance altogether.

[ref]

Try changing the weapon type from AAgun to Cannon in the weapon sim file, at least in sh3 as long as it has AP/HE and AA shells it opens fire on both surface and air targets.

Ref

[Snaptrap]

Originally Posted by ref

Try changing the weapon type from AAgun to Cannon in the weapon sim file, at least in sh3 as long as it has AP/HE and AA shells it opens fire on both surface and air targets.

Ref

Any shell type can be used for this. The important thing is that the Crew AI understands that the gun can be used on either surface or air targets. I was going to do this once but left it out because the shells used in the AA guns were at maximum strength and only used to quickly dispatch annoying aircraft. It would've ended up doing the same for everything else too.

[ref]

Originally Posted by Snaptrap

Any shell type can be used for this. The important thing is that the Crew AI understands that the gun can be used on either surface or air targets. I was going to do this once but left it out because the shells used in the AA guns were at maximum strength and only used to quickly dispatch annoying aircraft. It would've ended up doing the same for everything else too.

A human player can shoot any type of shell, the AI will only shoot if they have the correct type of shell for the different kind of targets, also if the weapon controller is set to AAgun they'll only shoot to airplanes, if it's set to to cannon they'll shoot at both kind of targets only if they have the correct ammo.

Ref

[Snaptrap]

Originally Posted by akdavis

That's cool, but I like history and don't think it pointless. Of course, I could give all the subs nuke torpedoes and stop worrying about topside ordance altogether.

I understand. I used nuke torps once and I think they take too much of the challenge element from the game.