Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

May I humbly request that air strikes be altered to not ignore every other target in the area to concentrate on a single crew?
In a typical result I had 4 aircraft attack an artillery battery, the second managed to knock out a gun which created a crew, the last two totally ignored the other artillery pieces to concentrate on the crew, which needless to say they failed to destroy.

Since air will remain low accuracy can it at least not ignore useful targets in favor of useless ones?

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Haven't we already established that you get rather "unique" results for air attacks ?

?

..Now, I don't say this cannot happen because it can. The AI LIKES things that are moving, it attracts it's attention like crows are attracted to shiny things. The game doesn't register it as a "crew" it's a "target". That's why people cheat by running cheap trucks around as soak up targets but it seems like EVERY TIME you get something you don't like in regards to air it turns into a new thread

As I said before...... we get you don't like the way air works in the game. We've established our position

Don

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Thank you for your reply.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Crews are a very low priority item in the air target selection process.

That does not mean they they will never choose one - I have seen it happen.

Andy.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

I hear you Don but I thought I'd throw this out there since she made this post in response to results of testing a campaign I'm designing. There were 3 other Artillery pieces still working and almost certainly spotted but not in FO LOS. 1st strike missed, 2nd destroyed artillery generating new unmoving crew, 3rd and 4th strikes ignored 3 other working Artillery within 300m, 1 of which HAD to be within 100m, to attack that crew. It wasn't moving. Artillery piece within 100m, yeah lets shoot the crew?!? Just seems odd.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

But the crew was probably now the only spotted unit in the area.

Actually spotted units get more priority assigned than unspotted. (Planes can "magically" find unspotted units in the immediate target area, something built into the original SSI code).

Me, if I am attacking an area target and I'd like the planes to beat up on several things, then I assign impact points 250-300m apart. Not all on the same hex. Thus the spotting algorithm may find different things to assign for each one.

Andy

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Had the arty that remained been fired in the previous turn at all ?

Don

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Yes.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

.......and was there "smoke" over the guns from that firing ?



Don

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Over 2 or 3 yes.

The attack was well behind the lines (artillery position) so I had no line-of-sight with any unit much less an FO.

1st aircraft attacked a smoke puff and did no damage with cannon, rockets, or it's bomb (bomb hit 1 hex short of the artillery which seems common when aircraft carry only 1 bomb).
2nd aircraft attacked the same hex as 1st in spite of having been targeted on another smoke puff. Missed with cannon, hit with rockets, missed the hex with it's bomb.
3rd and 4th aircraft ignored their targeted hexes (different artillery units) and made a bee-line for the crew created by the 2nd aircraft's attack. Where they strafed with cannon and rockets and one even hit the target hex with it's bomb.

####################

Over time I have seen many, many instances where aircraft will ignore other targets if there is a crew within about 5 hexes of their their assigned target hex. This happens frequently enough it seems crews are the priority target for aircraft.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

...and Andy already addressed that issue yesterday.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

I did say "seems".
While no doubt they're not as Andy stated the results I see make it "seem" they are.
As I mentioned in another thread perhaps the random number generator code used by this laptop is faulty and generates an abnormal amount of low results.
I totally agree with you I seem to experience an unusual amount of low odds results (recall the abysmal results of test of FC on aircraft a couple weeks ago).
All I can (and do) do is report the results I get.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

The random number generator code is not dependent on your computer in quite the way you assume. Unless the Software engineer has goofed in a cosmically screwed up way. Which is unlikely since after "Hello World!" and "Hello John/Jane", "Hello Random" is like the 3rd (possibly 4th maybe 5th or 6th depending on flow control and variable assignment but right up there in top 10 things to do) thing described with examples in any programming language.

Please hit me with a dead fish as I put this subject to bed...

The Random Number Generator (henceforth RNG) takes as input the current Tick (1000th of a second) Count of the CPU Clock. Which is a Long Unsigned Integer counting number of Ticks since the System was Booted (some archaic systems used unsigned shorts and even more ancient systems used unsigned bytes).

The RNG takes this Tick Count does a bunch of math to it involving things like prime numbers and various digits of PI plus often a constant seed (the signature often being the a value similar to known values of the author aka his nickname) and spits out a pseudo-random number.

If the author of the software spitting out the Random Number is a total idiot he would declare the RNG Function as a Global Stored Constant. In other words this value is known to all other bits of Code and is Saved upon program exit. So that each consecutive call of RNG() yields the same sequence from A to Z no matter if the call is made from canIHitIt() or canISeeIt() with exiting and restarting the program making no difference. We know this isn't the case because restarting a save game will result in differences based on the RNG().

Since we assume that the Engineer is not foolish (properly that Don and Andy are not idiots :D no matter how much we vehemently disagree with them on some aspects of this game) it is understood that RNG() is a Local Unstored Function. Every single individual call to RNG() is a unique state (every request asks for the current tick count and does the magical math dance at the time of request), not dependent on saved status or the function calling for it.

So that... in earlier examples in this thread, it was described that varying the location of AirStrikes around a known identified point would probably create a whole different set of results.


:deadhorse: :hammer: :clap:

*scJazz ducks down in the HMG Foxhole Pit waiting for the totally ineffectual waterborne incoming*

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Without going into techweenie detail that will make most forum readers skip this post cause they were lost after "The Random Number Generator (henceforth RNG) takes as input the current Tick (1000th of a second) Count of the CPU Clock."

Not all RNGs are created equal, and some do have flaws. Also depending on the exact code WinSPMBT uses to access a random number minor (but significant) bias can be introduced.
One reason the gambling industry took a looooooog time to adopt electronic slot machines.

Now I'll put this specific issue to rest as well.

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

OK but... yer computer is not it... and neither is the code in SPMBT... unless... well...

shifting the airstrikes from the 1 known datum to alternates nearby would generate different spotting and firing results in a 1 known datum plus nearby assumed situation.

It is like Andy telegraphed the algorithm... there is no way that anything VISIBLE could be ignored if it is in the same or very close hex of an airstrike. The big catch here is that the new visible unit is a crew that almost certainly didn't have the smoke cover available that the original firing arty did. There is no whoops we blew it up check. The check for crew while last in priority also fails since it is right in the same hex ( a failure in logic ). Only possible approach is the one Andy suggested... without FO with LOS spotting spread them out. Who knows... they might ignore that crew?

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Foos call planes in SP - but have nothing to do with what the target selects, just the drift for the "impact" hex which it will then search around if the FOO is in LOS to that hex.

Planes then make their own individual target decision, on what they knew about before the pass, what they spotted in the pass before firing, and also they can "magically" reveal previously unspotted units (by the original game designers design).

The target decision is based on priority by class and also nearness to the "impact" hex, random factors etc.

Andy

Re: Air Strike PriorityTarget - Crews
 

Thank you Andy.
It helps a lot to know FOOs have no effect on target selection. And explains why aircraft will sometimes ignore what your FOOs can actually see and wants blown up for some other target in the general vicinity.