[TEC] Dumb enemy aircraft behavior

[Bubblehead1980]

I have probably never noticed this since I dive for planes or believe they are far enough and not closing, will turn my stern to them to present low profile and slow to a crawl, works well, esp if a light haze in the sky.

However, twice on this patrol (August 1943 Dunkers Derp Area) have noticed dumb behavior from planes.

Scenario 1... While en route from Pearl (I added airbases to Wake and Marcus Island for for first part of war they are real concerns, later in war, reflecting the repeated carrier raids which essentially destroyed their viability as airbases, may see a sporadic patrol plane but nothing like 41-early 44) I was on surface in day time when SD reported a contact at just 6 miles. Ordered a dive, as was going under could see plane diving, as we passed 100 feet, expected explosions nope, nothing. Then about three minutes later a number of explosions not close. I had the external camera off so not sure.


Scenario 2... After two straight days of combat and two long, drawn out( 7 and 9 hours respectively) depth charge attacks, crew was exhausted and had some damage needed repaired so headed to east area of Dunkers Derp away from the likely shipping lanes. After an all day dive, repairs completed, crew rested, surfaced into the dark . At 2346 SD made contact at 8 miles, it was dark and semi cloudy so presented stern and observed from aft end of conning tower. Suddenly contact was closing range, spotted us or has radar. Would likely catch us if tried to dive, so ordered AA guns manned.

AA guns banged away as a flying boat dove out of the night sky, appeared to be an EMILY. Gave hard rudder to port, plane pulled out of dive, dropped no bombs. Ordered a crash dive. As passed 91 feet, explosions, but not close.

So issue is why do they do these silly dry runs? Really eliminates the effectiveness of patrol aircraft because once sub has time to submerge odds of doing any damage are quite low.

Is there a fix? I am surprised because TMO planes are usually quite on their game overall.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

I have probably never noticed this since I dive for planes or believe they are far enough and not closing, will turn my stern to them to present low profile and slow to a crawl, works well, esp if a light haze in the sky.

However, twice on this patrol (August 1943 Dunkers Derp Area) have noticed dumb behavior from planes.

Scenario 1... While en route from Pearl (I added airbases to Wake and Marcus Island for for first part of war they are real concerns, later in war, reflecting the repeated carrier raids which essentially destroyed their viability as airbases, may see a sporadic patrol plane but nothing like 41-early 44) I was on surface in day time when SD reported a contact at just 6 miles. Ordered a dive, as was going under could see plane diving, as we passed 100 feet, expected explosions nope, nothing. Then about three minutes later a number of explosions not close. I had the external camera off so not sure.


Scenario 2... After two straight days of combat and two long, drawn out( 7 and 9 hours respectively) depth charge attacks, crew was exhausted and had some damage needed repaired so headed to east area of Dunkers Derp away from the likely shipping lanes. After an all day dive, repairs completed, crew rested, surfaced into the dark . At 2346 SD made contact at 8 miles, it was dark and semi cloudy so presented stern and observed from aft end of conning tower. Suddenly contact was closing range, spotted us or has radar. Would likely catch us if tried to dive, so ordered AA guns manned.

AA guns banged away as a flying boat dove out of the night sky, appeared to be an EMILY. Gave hard rudder to port, plane pulled out of dive, dropped no bombs. Ordered a crash dive. As passed 91 feet, explosions, but not close.

So issue is why do they do these silly dry runs? Really eliminates the effectiveness of patrol aircraft because once sub has time to submerge odds of doing any damage are quite low.

Is there a fix? I am surprised because TMO planes are usually quite on their game overall.

this is a SWAG, but it is possible that the enemy aircraft detected you but had to get close enough to identify you as enemy.
then, in order to properly attack, it had to separate, climb and reposition for a proper attack.
that would be an SOP and may be the AI used in these situation.
just a SWAG, though, based on experience, training, etc.
do not deviate from your current practice of diving when detecting aircraft.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

this is a SWAG, but it is possible that the enemy aircraft detected you but had to get close enough to identify you as enemy.
then, in order to properly attack, it had to separate, climb and reposition for a proper attack.
that would be an SOP and may be the AI used in these situation.
just a SWAG, though, based on experience, training, etc.
do not deviate from your current practice of diving when detecting aircraft.

Valid point. Only thing is the usually identify and drop on first pass but will see if happens again sometime. lol don't worry, will still dive for planes, they alert other units, bring in more planes and sometimes patrol vessels, which can make contacting convoys difficult, spoil future attacks even when limiting player movement for a while due to heavy air presence.

Plus gunning it out with planes is rather unrealistic and in TMO near suicidal, the planes are difficult to shoot down (by design i recall Ducimus saying). Usually a desperation move if engage them with AA guns. Last time recall actually shooting at a plane other than the incident described above was off China coast in 1945, being chased away from a convoy, shallow waters so could not dive (35 ft of water ) and a night flyer showed up, radioed in by escorts obviously, the escorts were one knot slower than my boat, so could keep up but could not out run them. Then came the plane, 40 MM gun set it on fire, it eventually crashed but provided some harry moments with bombs landing close exploding, shells exploding from the escorts. lol eventually got away but one shell left a hole in boat, so had to head back home after.

[propbeanie]

If you look at the AirBase, and / or CV and / or specific airplane calls in the game, they are oftentimes "Competent", or maybe "Veteran" at the most, for a CrewRating number, which would be 2 or 3. For the airplanes to "fly" realistically, they have to be "Elite", or "4" in the text files. This includes the ship or land AirBase they fly from, since that is where those planes acquire their "CrewRating" from. I mention this, because you say that after you dove, you then heard explosions. This could be the airplane crashing into the ocean... seriously. They are that bad at flying. What happens is they dive on your submarine, attempt to pull out of the dive, over-react, then "stall" their airplane, which then falls out of the sky. Turn on the external sometime and watch them. Try not to laugh too hard though. Even on "Elite" they will sometimes do that. The main disadvantage of setting airplanes to "Elite" of course, is they can then drop a bomb down the conn hatch like they're Luke Skywalker's cousin...

As for the not always dropping on their first approach, this can have to do with the Loadout for the airplane. Several things, the first being that it might be that the airplane's Loadout does not match between the cfg file and the eqp file. But that usually will result in a fail-to-respond issue, where the airplane just flies on by you, even if passing directly overhead. But other times, it is the order and type of the Loadout components. If a "DummyBomb" is the next weapon to use, all you will get is a strafing, and if they're out of 37mm ammo, well, they just pass right on by. If a regular "250kgBomb" is next in the list, then on the next pass they'll drop a bomb... imagine them also dropping a dye stick their first pass, and that's what they aim for the 2nd pass... or like KaleunMarco mentions, pass it off to an identification issue, with the navigator arguing with the pilot and co-pilot "I tell you, I ~know~ it was a US sub!", so they finally turn around and do another approach and attack run... lol

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

If you look at the AirBase, and / or CV and / or specific airplane calls in the game, they are oftentimes "Competent", or maybe "Veteran" at the most, for a CrewRating number, which would be 2 or 3. For the airplanes to "fly" realistically, they have to be "Elite", or "4" in the text files. This includes the ship or land AirBase they fly from, since that is where those planes acquire their "CrewRating" from. I mention this, because you say that after you dove, you then heard explosions. This could be the airplane crashing into the ocean... seriously. They are that bad at flying. What happens is they dive on your submarine, attempt to pull out of the dive, over-react, then "stall" their airplane, which then falls out of the sky. Turn on the external sometime and watch them. Try not to laugh too hard though. Even on "Elite" they will sometimes do that. The main disadvantage of setting airplanes to "Elite" of course, is they can then drop a bomb down the conn hatch like they're Luke Skywalker's cousin...

As for the not always dropping on their first approach, this can have to do with the Loadout for the airplane. Several things, the first being that it might be that the airplane's Loadout does not match between the cfg file and the eqp file. But that usually will result in a fail-to-respond issue, where the airplane just flies on by you, even if passing directly overhead. But other times, it is the order and type of the Loadout components. If a "DummyBomb" is the next weapon to use, all you will get is a strafing, and if they're out of 37mm ammo, well, they just pass right on by. If a regular "250kgBomb" is next in the list, then on the next pass they'll drop a bomb... imagine them also dropping a dye stick their first pass, and that's what they aim for the 2nd pass... or like KaleunMarco mentions, pass it off to an identification issue, with the navigator arguing with the pilot and co-pilot "I tell you, I ~know~ it was a US sub!", so they finally turn around and do another approach and attack run... lol

lol its funny because now I am en route to Pearl Harbor are expending last torpedoes on September 4th. About 100 miles SSE of Marcus Island, SD contact. Stayed on surface presented stern but it spotted me, we dove and I watched it with periscope as it closed in. We went under and explosions occurred, it dropped on first pass. Few minutes later, more depth charge explosions. I have the airbases all set to Elite. Have seen them crash into water before or stall out but its rare in TMO. Also, with EAX sound there is a distinct sound(one reason consider EAX a must have mod, enhances the whole sim) difference between depth charges/bombs exploding and when plane crashes so did not crash either time, sure of it.

Update: lol as was typing this a Betty (likely Marcus Island) flying low, probably 300 feet zoomed, so SD only picked it up at 6 NM. Ordered crash dive, it came in strafing. As the boat passed 91 feet, depth charge explosions shook the boat, no damage though. May have been a one off thing when they did the first pass, perhaps because I was surfaced. I'll check the Mavis and Emily loadouts as you suggested.



Glad its Sept 43 now and next patrol the dud torpedo issue will be solved. Having started in Dec 41, I am burned out on torpedo issues (lol). Upside,changes are working as I designed, when had magnetic exploder, it kept tonnage reasonable level, offsetting the overall easier AI in first part of the war (even though I've made it where they are not complete pushovers usually) Player running realistic settings, will be lucky to sink more than two ships a patrol( especially before the torpex torpedoes come about in late 42, which are represented in the sim by hit points on torpedoes increasing) between the premature explosions, duds, deep runners, and the rare gyro issues, circle runners. One patrol in 1942 had something resembling Tinosa's attack on Tonan Maru No 3 in July 1943...four premature explosions, 4 duds two deep runners in one attack.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

AA guns banged away as a flying boat dove out of the night sky, appeared to be an EMILY. Gave hard rudder to port, plane pulled out of dive, dropped no bombs. Ordered a crash dive. As passed 91 feet, explosions, but not close.

So issue is why do they do these silly dry runs? Really eliminates the effectiveness of patrol aircraft because once sub has time to submerge odds of doing any damage are quite low.

Something similar happens in SH5 as well, we had a thread about it in SH5 Workshop forums:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=248833

There, this issue seems related to submarine speed: if the player stays still or sails slowly, plane will drop bombs on first pass, but when going at flank speed it will constantly make dry runs without ever being able to hit the player. No idea how much of this translates to SH4 though.

[propbeanie]

SH3 & 4 are very similar in their strafing behavior if the loadouts for a plane have "dummy" bombs. No "dummy" bomb, no strafing run. The game does seem to choose though, whether to strafe, bomb or 'nothing' during an attack run, which could well be based upon what the player is doing with their submarine... I have not tried Ahead Flank & turn versus diving & turning against a possible initial attack, since I pull the plug whenever I see a plane... but I did have a bomb dropped down the conning tower hatch as we were diving during an unrelated test the other day, and the boat had probably slowed from 10 knots to 3 at the time of the impact, while turning... I'll have to do some experiments myself for that. Of course, SH4 does not have any scripting, so the game does what it does from hard code, and "tricks" we play on it with the dummy bombs.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

SH3 & 4 are very similar in their strafing behavior if the loadouts for a plane have "dummy" bombs. No "dummy" bomb, no strafing run. The game does seem to choose though, whether to strafe, bomb or 'nothing' during an attack run, which could well be based upon what the player is doing with their submarine... I have not tried Ahead Flank & turn versus diving & turning against a possible initial attack, since I pull the plug whenever I see a plane... but I did have a bomb dropped down the conning tower hatch as we were diving during an unrelated test the other day, and the boat had probably slowed from 10 knots to 3 at the time of the impact, while turning... I'll have to do some experiments myself for that. Of course, SH4 does not have any scripting, so the game does what it does from hard code, and "tricks" we play on it with the dummy bombs.

based on experience (and physics) it is highly recommended that you dive to a safe depth before turning.
diving and turning uses a great deal of energy and the boat not only slows but is therefore much less agile in the turning.
so you get the worst of both worlds: you lose speed and the ability to turn.
drive her to 100 or 150 feet at decent speed and then vary your course.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

SH3 & 4 are very similar in their strafing behavior if the loadouts for a plane have "dummy" bombs. No "dummy" bomb, no strafing run. The game does seem to choose though, whether to strafe, bomb or 'nothing' during an attack run, which could well be based upon what the player is doing with their submarine... I have not tried Ahead Flank & turn versus diving & turning against a possible initial attack, since I pull the plug whenever I see a plane... but I did have a bomb dropped down the conning tower hatch as we were diving during an unrelated test the other day, and the boat had probably slowed from 10 knots to 3 at the time of the impact, while turning... I'll have to do some experiments myself for that. Of course, SH4 does not have any scripting, so the game does what it does from hard code, and "tricks" we play on it with the dummy bombs.

It's possible that the unmodded airplane script of SH5 is similar to hardcoded behaviour of SH3/4. In case you don't have SH5 installed and would like a look at the script, I spoilered it below:

 

#Airplane Strategies

strategy AirplaneStrategy(Plane)
{
strategies
{
Flock,
PlaneAttack,
Lead
}
}

strategy Lead(Plane)
{
precond
{
!Plane:HasCommander() or !Plane:HasSameContactAsCommander()
}
strategies
{
PlaneNavigate,
FollowWaypoint
}
}

#Follow leader
strategy Flock(Plane)
{
precond
{
#The commander does not allow us to attack other targets than his m_pContact.
Plane:HasCommander() and (Plane:HasSameContactAsCommander() or (!Plane:HasTorpedoes() and !Plane:HasBombs()))
}
action
{
Plane:Flock();
}
}

strategy PlaneAttack(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:ContactDetected()
}
strategies
{
PlaneTorpedoAttack,
PlaneBombAttack,
PlaneCannonAttack
}
}

#Attack the main contact using torpedoes
strategy PlaneTorpedoAttack(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:CanFireTorpedoes()
}
action
{
Plane:FireTorpedoes()
}
}

#Attack the main contact using bombs
strategy PlaneBombAttack(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:CanFireBombs()
}
action
{
Plane:FireBombs();
}
}


strategy PlaneCannonAttack(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:CanFireCannons()
}
action
{
Plane:FireCannons()
}
}

strategy PlaneNavigate(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:ContactDetected()
}
strategies
{
BombCourse,
TorpedoCourse
}
}

#Position the plane so we can fire bombs at the contact
strategy BombCourse(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:HasBombs()
}
action
{
Plane:SetCourseBombs();
}
}

#Position the plane so we can fire torpedoes at the contact
strategy TorpedoCourse(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:HasTorpedoes() and !Plane:HasBombs()
}
strategies
{
#FindAGoodAttackPosition, #default, seek for a good attack position //Seeking A good attack position
#MoveToAttack,
#AvoidFireAfterTorpedoDrop #LAUNCH_TORPEDOES_STRAFE
AvoidImpact,
PrepareToLaunch,
SetOnTarget
}
}

#Avoids impact with the water.
strategy AvoidImpact(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:StrafingTooClose()
}
action
{
Plane:AvoidWaterImpact();
}
}

#Find a good attack position.
#Also used to avoid fire after a torpedo lunch
strategy SetOnTarget(Plane)
{
precond
{
Plane:FiredTorpedo() or ( Plane:HasTorpedoes() and (Plane:LaunchTorpedoesStrafe() or (Plane:ShouldSetOnTarget() and !Plane:MoveToFireTorpedo() and !Plane:ShouldPrepareToLaunch())))
}
action
{
Plane:SetOnTarget();
}
}


#Move the plane in a good attack position
strategy PrepareToLaunch(Plane)
{
precond
{
(!Plane:CanFireTorpedoes() and Plane:ShouldPrepareToLaunch()) or Plane:MoveToFireTorpedo()
}
action
{
Plane:Strafe(30.0);
}
}

#If we have no torpedoes or bombs, and waypoints are set, we need to follow waypoints.
strategy FollowWaypoint(Plane)
{
precond
{
!Plane:HasCommander() and
( !Plane:ContactDetected() or (!Plane:HasTorpedoes() and !Plane:HasBombs() ) )
and Plane:HasWaypoints()
}
action
{
Plane:SetCourseWaypoint();
}
}

According to this script AI would indeed not start an attack run if it doesn't have bombs or torpedoes equipped, making it necessary to use dummy bombs. Modded IRAI scripts made by TDW contain additional "CannonCourse" type of approach for planes with cannons only, so dummy bombs are no longer needed.

[propbeanie]

Sometimes I wish we had scripting in SH4... then again - complications, eh? lol