New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

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Major SNAFU_M
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New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Hi all,

Notice: There will be spoilers in this post, so if you haven’t played this tutorial you may want to stop reading here.

I have reached a point in the suface ship tutorial where I need to ask for some assistance.

I want to give a bit of background and then explain where I’ve gotten to. So this will be a lengthy post.

Ingress to AO-A

So the initial part I have no problem with. I have air search on and when the missiles are detected I light everything up and the AI auto-fight the ship.

AO-A

No problem. I use the helo to perform a patrol and sink the Rome with a torp from the Helo.

AO-B

No problem but I have a few observations that I would like comment upon.

1) I finally gave up on the main gun to take out the Arty and I used the hellfire from the helo. The main gun was expending an amazing amount of ammunition with most of the shells missing by a wide margin.
2) When using the TLAMs on the ammo bunkers I noticed that most of the time it take 2 for each bunker. Fine. But is I salvo of 2 sets of 2 TLAMs at the same time, I nearly always have a bunker remaining and I have to fire a 5th TLAM to take it out. If I fire each TLAM separately, with a bit of time spacing, then usually 4 is sufficient. Is near-terminal damage modeled in this sim – meaning is the 2 TLAMs are too close and one hits, is there a chance that the second one will be destroyed prior to impact? Bo-o-o-gus! Now I understand there are three targets, not two.

AO-C

Here is where I am stumped

Initial attempt:

Like an unwise person, I proceeded around the island, with EMCON on and with the helo low and maneuvering around to the opposite side of the target.

I then popped the Helo up and illuminated the target (Helo only). As Ownship cleared the island, the Helo watched the target fire multiple missiles at Ownship.

At this point, I took Ownship off of EMCON and verified all of the boxes were ticked (except SONAR) owing to an issue with this before (PEBKAC). For some reason the AI never fires a single RIMM at any of the incoming missiles. However, I can manually target each of the incoming missiles and destroy them. I have a save and I fiddled with this for quite a while trying to figure out why Ownship will not auto-defend. Whatever I am doing wrong, I cannot figure it out. Again, EMCON is off (unchecked) and all of the individual boxes are checked for all entries except SONAR. (I just checked this again prior to posting, for safety I enabled all of the sensors on the sensor tab and there is again no automatic launch of the RIMMs

Secondary attempt:

After having played with the above for a while and not finding any answers, I moved on to forming a new plan.

After confirming that sending the helo with Hellfires in alone was a bad idea that accomplishes nothing but a downed helo, I went back to the drawing board.

My idea was/is:
Use the island to mask Ownship.
Use helo on opposite side to illuminate target.
Use missiles from Ownship to strike target.
Use Hellfires from Helo as necessary.

So I tried this and illuminated the target with the radar from the helo. I was then able to use manual targeting and fire RIMMs at the target. However they all missed by a wide margin because there was a message saying the target could not be illuminated. This has me completely perplexed as it was illuminated sufficiently to launch the missiles.

So then I moved Ownship close and illuminated the target with Ownship and fired the remaining RIMMS with the same result and message. So the target was, I believe, being illuminated by two separate sources and yet when the missiles got close there was no illumination. So I must be exceeding the targeting RADAR in someway. I will sort this out.

I then closed to engage with main gun at standoff distance. I expended all main gun ammo, but the target appeared to reach a maximum of fire and flooding and all additional hit did not increase either type of damage. During this I tried many passes with helo to fire hellfires but had to turn away due to Gekos (sp) and never got a shot off.

Eventually disengaged as could not figure out how to press attack with out loosing helo or closing range exposing ownship to 76mm main gun on the target.

Reloaded and closed to 10nm before firing missiles, still no hits and as above. I just know I am going to kick myself when someone points out what I am doing wrong.


General questions

How do you populate the manually targeting list with multiple targets at one time? So if you have 6 incoming missiles, how do you get all six to show up in the manual targeting targets box?

It seems like the individual radars, etc. that I have pre-selected before I go to EMCON get deselected, etc. as I play through the scenario. I go back to the Sensors dialog and nothing is checked even thought I left many of them check the last time I was in the dialog. Is there a way to have EMCON presets so that I can pre-define what sensors I want turned on and then use this to make sure what I want is what I selected?

Notes to the devs:

1) The side notes for AO-C mention that the player is using a sub – this is not the case. Well, I guess the player’s ship is a single-submergence submarine ;)
2) Shift+F1 does not work, at least on my system. I have to right-click or use the drop-down to get to manual targeting. Bo-o-o-gus! PEBKAC on my end.
"Popular Opinion? What I suggest you do with 'Popular Opinion' is biologically impossible and morally questionable." -

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One ping to link them;
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comsubpac
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by comsubpac »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTK3g7x ... gB6CM4d9sQ

That's how I solved it.

You can ignore the artillery and you select more then one target by click and drag.
Not sure why shift+f1 didn't work though.
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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Many thanks.

I see a how the Shift+F1 works now. Oddly, I was washing up after dinner and it suddenly occurred to me to try doing Shift+F1 and the drawing the box. I guess I was expecting something in the interface to change when I clicked Shift+F1. Another PEBKAC.

I see now that there are three ammo bunkers. Now that I understand how to multi-select it is obvious why I have to fire the "extra" TLAM.

I still don't understand why my ship won't auto-defend - but now I have just thought of a clue. Once you put it in to manual mode for a target, does it remain in manual mode for all targets? I will try again and make a noted effort to re-select auto target after each manual targeting. If this is indeed the case, then is there a way to easily see what mode the current unit is in? I also found myself clicking into the sensor dialog box to remind myself in the unit was currently emitting or not.

It still doesn't explain why my missiles missed the target so many times. I will again go back and try to use deliberately use autotarget and perhaps there is a step that is performed that way that I am missing in manual mode.

I was impressed that you helo was never fired upon. I think you were flying much higher that I was.
"Popular Opinion? What I suggest you do with 'Popular Opinion' is biologically impossible and morally questionable." -

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One ping to link them;
One ping to promote them all,
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mikmykWS
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by mikmykWS »

Did you check to be sure that your air detection radars are on? There are four arrays that all need to be checked. If you haven't merged sensor rings you can visually see if they are on if you see white arcs or a circle around the unit. If unit obeys EMCON is checked in the sensor dialog you need to uncheck it to allow manual control (this is a switch that allows unit to take on side or mission sensor settings).
If the missiles are detected they will be engaged automatically.

Thanks!
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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Hi Mike,

I have checked and re-checked exactly what you mention. I believe then EMCON is unchecked and all of the manual sensor boxes, excepting SONAR are checked. That is the correct configuration, yes?

The only other thing that just occurs to me is that I have changed the ROE so that the RIMMs can be targeted on surface targets, but that doesn't prohibit them being used for anti-air does it.

Would a movie or recording help?

Regards,

SNAFU
"Popular Opinion? What I suggest you do with 'Popular Opinion' is biologically impossible and morally questionable." -

"One ping to find them all,
One ping to link them;
One ping to promote them all,
and in the darkness sink them"
magi
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by magi »

i remember when i did this lesson... it took awhile to destroy the targets on the enemy base... some of them are mobile if i remember right... good to have the helo as spotter.....
you can use.. 9 key pg up.. to switch between group and unit view.....

i believe these issues are about your settings..... and short cut keys are in the help sub menu...
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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Hi all,

Many thanks for the additional help. I have re-checked all of the thing missing and I still am struggling, so I have posted a (large) picture below. I left the size large so you can read the text on the screens.

Please note the status of EMCON and that all of the boxes are checked. Also, I confirmed that the RIMMs are *NOT* enable for surface to surface targets (only anti-air).

In this run of the scenario, I ran the Stockdale into the open with EMCON off and all systems active. You can see from the log that the Vampires were detected from the moment of launch 15 NM by the AN/SPY system. You can see that they are now 3-6 NM and the Stockdale has not fired a single RIMM. I repeatedly selected Auto-Target in case this might be an issue. No change.


If I do not manually intervene and manually target the inbound Vampires, no RIMMs will be launched and the Stockdale will be lost. If I manually intervene, I can still save the ship at this point.

I will post one more image below after the first missile impact.






Image
Attachments
Rimmissue.gif
Rimmissue.gif (417.34 KiB) Viewed 98 times
"Popular Opinion? What I suggest you do with 'Popular Opinion' is biologically impossible and morally questionable." -

"One ping to find them all,
One ping to link them;
One ping to promote them all,
and in the darkness sink them"
mikmykWS
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by mikmykWS »

That looks right.

Okay lets try this. Post a save game of that for me. I'll take a look at your ROE settings (probably easier than going back and forth with did you check this or that).

You'll need to zip the .sav or .scen file. .sav and .scen files can be found in your scenarios folder.
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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Here is the pic from after the first Vampires hit. Note that CMs were fired, but not a single RIMM.

Hi Mike - Sorry I posted this before I saw your replay. I am collecting the data now.

Image
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RIMMissue3.gif
RIMMissue3.gif (532.69 KiB) Viewed 98 times
"Popular Opinion? What I suggest you do with 'Popular Opinion' is biologically impossible and morally questionable." -

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One ping to link them;
One ping to promote them all,
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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Hi Mike,

Here is the save game file
Attachments
BasicTrai..ntoCbG.zip
(34.3 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
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Tomcat84
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Tomcat84 »

Your unit has "Hold Fire (No AI Attacks) - Selected Unit" selected.

if you right click the unit and go to attack options (alternatively, select the unit and go through the unit orders menu up top) you can deselect the Hold fire option. It has a hotkey A so maybe you accidentally turned it on at some point? Hope this helps!

it'll start shooting when unchecked
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mikmykWS
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by mikmykWS »

You have Hold Fire on for the Stockdale

Right click StockDale, pick attack options from the top of the drop down and deselect Hold Fire (No AI Attacks) Selected Units.

Once deselected SAM should fire per design.

Thanks!

Mike
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Major SNAFU_M
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Major SNAFU_M »

Thanks for your help and patience.

I have no clear idea how/why the Stockdale is on Hold Fire. I must have set it this way by accident somehow.

I predicted that I would kick myself once my error was pointed out. I'm off to do just that.

This sim is amazing. I always loved Harpoon and I am very glad I purchase this after only a few days.

Thanks again for your patience and help.

SNAFU
"Popular Opinion? What I suggest you do with 'Popular Opinion' is biologically impossible and morally questionable." -

"One ping to find them all,
One ping to link them;
One ping to promote them all,
and in the darkness sink them"
Tomcat84
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by Tomcat84 »

ORIGINAL: Major SNAFU

I have no clear idea how/why the Stockdale is on Hold Fire. I must have set it this way by accident somehow.

It must be your name haha [:'(][:'(]

Like I said it's easy to accidentally hit the hotkey "A" and that might have happened.
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thewood1
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RE: New Player - Need assitance on the suface combat tutorial

Post by thewood1 »

On page 46 of the manual is a 5-6 page list of reasons a unit won't fire. Whenever I get into a situation like yours, it is the first thing I look up. Of course, simple operator error moot the list to some extent.

btw, this game/simulation takes a lot of practice to understand it enough be any where near competent. I have been playing for over a year and there are still thousands of things I don't know about it.
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