Author Topic: Point Defense vs CIWS  (Read 5768 times)

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Offline Kurt (OP)

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Point Defense vs CIWS
« on: November 02, 2018, 10:05:25 PM »
I've come across a problem, and I don't want to continue on in my campaign until I've figured out whether its something I'm doing wrong, or if it is a fundamental problem with Aurora. 

I'm using the latest (last) version of Aurora for the Corporate Federation campaign.  The situation is - I've got two squadrons of ships facing each other.  Side A launched a bunch of size 1 AMM's in offensive mode against Side B's ships.  Side B exhausted its AMM's intercepting Side A's AMM's, and then was forced to use its laser, gauss cannons, meson cannons, and CIWS to defend itself.  I had some of the fire controls for Side B's energy and kinetic weapons set to area defense and some to point blank. In the early portions of the battle, everything seemed to be going as expected. 

Then the problem happened.  Side A's missiles were targeted on Side B's cruiser, which had two CIWS installations.  The CIWS acted as expected, but none of Side B's other weapons engaged the missiles, only the CIWS.  I figured I set something wrong, so I changed all of Side B's fire controls to "Final Defensive Fire-1".  This worked as expected for several salvoes, with all of the fleet's energy and kinetic weapons engaging, but then came a salvo that was targeted on a frigate equipped with a single CIWS.  The frigate's CIWs engaged, but no other weapons fired, and a bunch of AMM's got through to hit the frigate.  Almost all of the fleet's energy weapons have a five second cycle time, so I know they weren't recharging.  It appears that if the missiles are targeted on a ship with CIWS, no other weapons will fire in point defense mode.  This has happened twice now in this battle, so it's not a fluke, and it happened with different fire control PD settings as well. 

I can't figure out what, if anything, I'm doing wrong.  Is this a known issue?  I've been out of touch with the board for some time, so things might have gotten by me.  If this is an issue with Aurora then CIWS is almost completely useless as it negates all other point defense weapons.  If it's something I'm doing wrong then I'd like to fix it before the battle goes any further. 

Thanks -

Kurt
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2018, 11:01:36 PM »
I haven't used CIWS in a loooooooong time, so I have not had the opportunity to come across this issue.
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2018, 03:06:57 AM »
I vaguely recall there is an issue with ships that have both AMMs and beam PD, but since I don't build ships with both, have never experienced that issue.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2018, 03:37:00 AM »
Are you sure the weapons was not set to Area Defense since it can be the case they don't have time to fire?

I often have mixed weapons on many ship types and have not experienced this little problem so far.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #4 on: November 03, 2018, 05:10:17 AM »
If a ship has CIWS it will attempt to use those first. If any missiles remain it will use any 'normal' point defence. If missiles still remain, any other nearby ships will use their point defence.
At least, that is how it supposed to work. I just checked the code and I didn't see any obvious problem (which doesn't mean there isn't one)

There hasn't been a report on these lines before but it may be that this situation hasn't happened before.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2018, 05:12:59 AM by Steve Walmsley »
 

Offline Kurt (OP)

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2018, 12:53:13 PM »
Are you sure the weapons was not set to Area Defense since it can be the case they don't have time to fire?

I often have mixed weapons on many ship types and have not experienced this little problem so far.

The first time this happened I had my beam and kinetic weapons on a mixture of area defense and final defensive fire settings, and none fired when the missiles were targeted on a ship with CIWS.  The second time this happened I had changed all point defense settings to "Final Defensive Fire-1", all weapons were charged and ready to fire, and none fired except CIWs on the targeted ship.  Those weapons, with the same settings, had just fired without incident ten seconds earlier against that incoming missile salvo without problem, so I know the settings work. 

At this point, rather than fiddle with it, I'm going to do a little god-mode editing, and remove all CIWS from my combat units, and replace it with either armor or shields.  This should remove the issue without too much trouble. 

Kurt
 

Offline Kurt (OP)

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2018, 04:14:24 PM »
Resolved!

I figured it out and it was me.  Or rather, it was Aurora not working the way I thought it did.  The problem was that I had my available forces divided into separate task groups.  The involved fleet units were the 3rd Cruiser Group, the 1st Attack Group, the 2nd Frigate Group, and the 1st and 3rd Interceptor Groups.  Each of those had their own task group.  The 3rd Cruiser Group was the lead unit, with plotted move orders of "move to waypoint #1".  The other groups all had special orders to escort the 3rd Cruiser Group at zero range, with no offset.  So essentially they were in the same position as the 3rd CA Group, and as they were faster than the cruiser group they had no problem keeping up. 

Apparently the way Aurora handles final defensive fire is that units with that point defense fire control setting only protect units in the same task group, not units in the same location.  So, when the incoming missiles targeted one of the frigates in the 2nd Frigate Group, none of the meson cannons from the 1st and 3rd Interceptor Groups, or the lasers and gauss cannons from the 1st Attack Group, fired as they did not consider a unit from the 2nd Frigate Group a valid target to be defended by final defensive fire point defense setting. 

Instead of deleting all CIWS through god-mode, I simply lumped all of the ships together in one task group, and the problem is fixed.  At least for this battle. 

Is this likely to be an issue in C# Aurora, Steve?  I know it's easier to only count other ships in your own task group as valid targets to be defended by point defense fire, but shouldn't final defensive fire be able to cover all units in the same "location", not just units in the same task group?  Or at least within, say, 10,000 km's of each other?
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Point Defense vs CIWS
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2018, 05:50:53 PM »
Resolved!

I figured it out and it was me.  Or rather, it was Aurora not working the way I thought it did.  The problem was that I had my available forces divided into separate task groups.  The involved fleet units were the 3rd Cruiser Group, the 1st Attack Group, the 2nd Frigate Group, and the 1st and 3rd Interceptor Groups.  Each of those had their own task group.  The 3rd Cruiser Group was the lead unit, with plotted move orders of "move to waypoint #1".  The other groups all had special orders to escort the 3rd Cruiser Group at zero range, with no offset.  So essentially they were in the same position as the 3rd CA Group, and as they were faster than the cruiser group they had no problem keeping up. 

Apparently the way Aurora handles final defensive fire is that units with that point defense fire control setting only protect units in the same task group, not units in the same location.  So, when the incoming missiles targeted one of the frigates in the 2nd Frigate Group, none of the meson cannons from the 1st and 3rd Interceptor Groups, or the lasers and gauss cannons from the 1st Attack Group, fired as they did not consider a unit from the 2nd Frigate Group a valid target to be defended by final defensive fire point defense setting. 

Instead of deleting all CIWS through god-mode, I simply lumped all of the ships together in one task group, and the problem is fixed.  At least for this battle. 

Is this likely to be an issue in C# Aurora, Steve?  I know it's easier to only count other ships in your own task group as valid targets to be defended by point defense fire, but shouldn't final defensive fire be able to cover all units in the same "location", not just units in the same task group?  Or at least within, say, 10,000 km's of each other?

Yes, that is what is happening. It is a bug though. The SQL joins on the fleet ID of the targeted ship instead of the system ID.

C# does check system instead of fleet so I fixed the bug without realising it existed :)