Why do some of my ships refuse to autofire?

[Icebird (OP)]

I'm fighting Star Swarm.   I have a big fat swarm of 48 freaking 800 tons little piranhas in front of me. 
Assigning fire control for each of my weapons to each of those critters is giving me a vision of what hell must be. 
So I put all my ships on auto-fire and.  .  .   The result is not really what I expected. 

My task group is composed of three different classes.   Jump Cruiser Resolution, Missile Cruiser Furious, Anti-Missile Cruiser Hunt.   
The only class that actually auto-fire is the Furious.   Its also the worst, their missile are very big expensive long-range ones, so firing those on swarms is a big waste. 
Resolution should be the ones that does most of the job, they have medium range missiles, and some lasers for close range.   They do nothing.  .  . 
Hunt should also help, with short range anti-missiles which could be used offensively rather well on small fast enemies like those swarm.   They are not in range yet, but last time they had enemies in range, they did nothing. 

Is there a solution to make auto-fire work as intended? Or am I doomed to manually target everything?
I am posting the characteristics of my ships, maybe its a design error I overlooked:

Code: [Select]

Resolution MK3 class Jump Cruiser    14 150 tons     1366 Crew     3101 BP      TCS 283  TH 1562  EM 0
5519 km/s    JR 4-50     Armour 6-52     Shields 0-0     Sensors 48/28/0/0     Damage Control Rating 26     PPV 75
Annual Failure Rate: 100%    IFR: 1. 4%    Maint Capacity 2192 MSP    Max Repair 230 MSP    Est Time: 3. 88 Years
Magazine 950    

J14400(4-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 14400 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 4
MCF Boosted Drive E4.5 (10)    Power 156.25    Fuel Use 45%    Signature 156.25    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 350 000 Litres    Range 98.9 billion km   (207 days at full power)

Twin 15cm C3 Far Ultraviolet Laser Turret (5x2)    Range 256 000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 12-6     RM 5    ROF 10        6 6 6 6 6 5 4 3 3 3
Fire Control S12 128-12000 (1)    Max Range: 256 000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.2 AR-1 (1)     Total Power Output 12    Armour 1    Exp 16%

MRM Launcher (10)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 125
MR Jaguar Fire Control FC60-R4 (1)     Range 60.5m km    Resolution 4
MRM Jaguar MK2 (190)  Speed: 25 000 km/s   End: 40m    Range: 60m km   WH: 16    Size: 5    TH: 216 / 130 / 65

MR Active Search Sensor MR63-R10 (1)     GPS 1440     Range 63.8m km    Resolution 10
Thermal Sensor TH2-48 (1)     Sensitivity 48     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  48m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-28 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km

ECCM-1 (1)         ECM 30


Code: [Select]

Furious class Missile Cruiser    14 000 tons     1202 Crew     3148 BP      TCS 280  TH 1406  EM 0
5021 km/s     Armour 4-51     Shields 0-0     Sensors 48/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 20     PPV 100
Annual Failure Rate: 78%    IFR: 1.1%    Maint Capacity 2811 MSP    Max Repair 432 MSP    Est Time: 3.57 Years
Magazine 1400    

MCF Boosted Drive E4.5 (9)    Power 156.25    Fuel Use 45%    Signature 156.25    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 350 000 Litres    Range 100.0 billion km   (230 days at full power)

LRM Launcher (10)    Missile Size 20    Rate of Fire 500
LRM Bear FC270-R20 (1)     Range 270.5m km    Resolution 20
LRM Bear MK1 (70)  Speed: 40 600 km/s   End: 110.8m    Range: 269.8m km   WH: 25    Size: 20    TH: 135 / 81 / 40

LR Active Search Sensor MR270-R20 (1)     GPS 8640     Range 270.5m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH2-48 (1)     Sensitivity 48     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  48m km

ECCM-1 (1)         ECM 30

Code: [Select]

Hunt class Anti-Missile Cruiser    12 400 tons     1386 Crew     2656.5 BP      TCS 248  TH 1562  EM 0
6298 km/s     Armour 5-47     Shields 0-0     Sensors 48/28/0/0     Damage Control Rating 17     PPV 50
Annual Failure Rate: 72%    IFR: 1%    Maint Capacity 2276 MSP    Max Repair 112 MSP    Est Time: 7.01 Years
Magazine 950    

MCF Boosted Drive E4.5 (10)    Power 156.25    Fuel Use 45%    Signature 156.25    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 350 000 Litres    Range 112.9 billion km   (207 days at full power)

AMM Launcher (50)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
AM Hornet Fire Control FC11-R1 (10)     Range 11.8m km    Resolution 1
AMM Hornet MK1 (950)  Speed: 37 500 km/s   End: 2.7m    Range: 6m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 487 / 292 / 146

SR Active Search Sensor MR15-R1 (1)     GPS 112     Range 15.7m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-48 (1)     Sensitivity 48     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  48m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-28 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km

ECCM-1 (10)         ECM 30

[Charlie Beeler]

What is your engagement range?  Odd's are that your fire control resolution is the issue, can't shoot at what the FC can't seen no matter the detection system.  Personally I don't use auto-fire.

[Icebird (OP)]

Some additional info:

Synch fire is NOT checked.   
Active sensors are ON.   
Swarm is now at 26m km from my fleet.   
Swarm is detected as existing, perfectly locked by active sensors.   
All weapons are correctly assigned to their corresponding fire control.
All missiles are correctly assigned to their corresponding launcher.

I have three different kind of fire control installed:
-LR Active Search Sensor MR270-R20, for the Furious.    Since they have fired on the swarm, it locked on them without problem.   
-MR Active Search Sensor MR63-R10, for the Resolution.    Range 63m and resolution 10 mean I should lock a 500 tons target at that distance.    They are 800 tons at less than half that distance.   .   .   
-SR Active Search Sensor MR15-R1, for the Hunt.    It should lock anything bigger than a missile at 15m km.   

I don't want to do this battle without autofire if possible.   Targeting nearly fifty target one by one for about twenty fire control is really hellish.   So I'll wait an answer for a few hours before moving on. 

[Charlie Beeler]

I see that the Hunt class has a max range of 16mkm thus targets at 26mkm are out of range.  But with the FC resolutions involved I see no reason for the Resolution class to not be able to engage Swarm Soldiers at the stated range.

When autofire was first deployed there was an issue with PD assignments and offensive autofire.  I don't recall the final solution that was deployed.

This may need Steve too address. 

[Erik L]

Look in the event log. Should say why the ship is not firing.

[Charlie Beeler]

Does autofire create non-fire event messages? 

[Icebird (OP)]

No event generated, but when the swarm got into Hunt anti-missile range, I finally understood what was going on.
The two Hunt started to fire on the swarm, as auto-fire should do, but only the FIRST fire control did! The 9 others, with 5 AMM each, did nothing.
And when I looked at the Resolution, the first fire control in the list is. . .  the beam one.
I'm sure that is it was the missile one, they would have started to fire.

For me, it's clearly a bug.  Auto-fire should make use of all fire controls on the ship.

[Beersatron]

No event generated, but when the swarm got into Hunt anti-missile range, I finally understood what was going on.
The two Hunt started to fire on the swarm, as auto-fire should do, but only the FIRST fire control did! The 9 others, with 5 AMM each, did nothing.
And when I looked at the Resolution, the first fire control in the list is. . .  the beam one.
I'm sure that is it was the missile one, they would have started to fire.

For me, it's clearly a bug.  Auto-fire should make use of all fire controls on the ship.

I think autofire was only ever envisaged for NPRs and as such Steve had the NPRs design ships with just 1 FC. When he ported it to player races it probably cant handle the multiple weapon/FC mix that most of us make.

[Icebird (OP)]

I just got a case where autofire was needed.  Deeply needed.  Oh god, WHY autofire don't work correctly??

A group of 295 Star Swarm. . . .

I had far enough fire power to annihilate them, but since autofire didn't work for my ships, I had to manually target every single damned star swarm!
4 hours of my life assigning each target one by one and waiting for the result.

Dumbest.

Fight.

Ever.

[Charlie Beeler]

I just got a case where autofire was needed.  Deeply needed.  Oh god, WHY autofire don't work correctly??

A group of 295 Star Swarm. . . .

I had far enough fire power to annihilate them, but since autofire didn't work for my ships, I had to manually target every single damned star swarm!
4 hours of my life assigning each target one by one and waiting for the result.

Dumbest.

Fight.

Ever.

[sarcasm] And this is a problem?  [/sarcasm]

Autofire is a very new feature on the player side, only about a year old.  The NPR AI is not a whole lot older.  Most of the early versions required the player to play all races.  Starfire Assistant, which was part of the foundation of Aurora, was only intended as a player/spacemaster aid and never had an automated tool for handling any race much less combat.  

Yes the autofire has short comings.

Yes the NPR AI has short comings.

If you have constructive suggestions there is a topic for them.

I think the first fire control autofire issue you've found has been previously identified.  Obviously it was not fixed for  v5.3.  Please add a detailed post in the v5.3 Bugs topic and Steve will eventually check into it and see what can be done to address it.
Please disrguard, I see that you've already posted.

[Steve Walmsley]

A group of 295 Star Swarm. . . .

I had far enough fire power to annihilate them, but since autofire didn't work for my ships, I had to manually target every single damned star swarm!
4 hours of my life assigning each target one by one and waiting for the result.

I've added a multiple targeting option to the combat overview window. That should make fighting the Star Swarm much easier without the need to use auto-fire.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,3214.0.html

Steve

[Icebird (OP)]

Thank you! This is (almost) exactly what is needed!

For example, my anti-missile cruiser have 10 fire controls, 5 launchers assigned to each one. If I understand how the new button work, I assign each fire control target manually, and use the button on each fire control so each cruiser in the TG get 10 different target?

[Steve Walmsley]

Thank you! This is (almost) exactly what is needed!

For example, my anti-missile cruiser have 10 fire controls, 5 launchers assigned to each one. If I understand how the new button work, I assign each fire control target manually, and use the button on each fire control so each cruiser in the TG get 10 different target?

Yes, that's correct

Steve

[sloanjh]

I've added a multiple targeting option to the combat overview window. That should make fighting the Star Swarm much easier without the need to use auto-fire.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,3214.0.html

Steve

In the example, you mention firing from a second group by picking an untargetted bad guy.  Picking the untargetted bad guy sounds like a reverse lookup to me - the typical direction is "which bad guy is my ship targetting", rather than "which are the bad guys aren't targetted", IIRC.  Is there a way (perhaps a check box near "Assign Contact as a Target" on the Battle Control (F8) screen) to filter out contacts that are already targetted?

John
John