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

[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.

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.

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/show...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.

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!