Artillery: Its apparent limitations in this sim

[Bahger]

Ever since the early Betas, there seems to me to have been a huge problem with the modelling of indirect fire (artillery, mortars, etc.), one which appears to exist even now. It is: artillery in this sim works by line-of-sight. This is hugely problematic. The whole point of indirect fire is that it needs no LOS but can be directed by coordinate or via a spotter. However, neither one of these is implemented in the DCS world and arty will fire if it "sees" a target, which makes it a direct fire weapon, and therefore no more than a beefed-up tank.

 

In a mission I'm working on at the moment, I wanted arty not to open fire at all, until its targets entered a killzone. However, ROE/Weapons Hold with a condition linked to a flag (All coalition out of zone) did not work. I had to brute force the arty not to fire by disabling its AI via a trigger (Mission Start > All of coalition out of zone > Group AI off). Even though I was able to switch on the arty AI when BLUFOR entered the zone (Once > Part of coalition in zone > Group AI on) this is a kludge, don't you agree?

 

It bugs me that even though you can get arty to "Fire at point", which is appropriate behavior for indirect fire, it will also engage indiscriminately at targets to which it has LOS. This behavior is wrong for any indirect fire weapon system and, as I said before, it makes arty function like glorified tanks.

 

I would think that, with the advent of CA, DCS would be obliged to improve their arty AI to incorporate AI spotters and target grid references. Even without CA, plotting arty realistically in an A-10C mission is a matter of working around its irregularities (LOS targeting being the most egregious) and kludging my way around certain gaping problems such as the failure of ROE/Weapons Hold AI.

 

Once I got all these workarounds in place, the performance of the arty was great, but, yet again, it was dependent on LOS. If it sees it, it shoots it, which is fine for tanks but I want arty to shoot by coordinate or spotter's LOS.

 

I suppose I could post this in the bug forum but I have no idea at all if the devs ever read it and, as a dedicated mission designer, this is my "home" forum. I'd be very appreciative of any knowledgeable comment on this issue, from a visiting dev or ME power user.

[Grimes]

Which artillery unit were you using that ignored the ROE = hold order? Just did a quick test with the Nona in the tester version of the sim and it worked just fine. If you are going to toggle it on/off with the arty not mobile I would suggest using the triggered actions tab for the settings rather than advanced waypoints. All of the start/stop conditions with waypoint actions are dependent on that group arriving at a WP.

 

Generally speaking though, I do agree with you that artillery need abit of an improvement as some of its mechanics are slightly broken. Artillery in itself is a deep enough subject that could probably warrant its own DCS module, although I hope such a thing isn't required to see arty improvements. At the moment the LOS fire can be useful against a moving target as the arty will automatically adjust fire accordingly. But it can also have its drawbacks where they decide to shoot whatever they see when you only want them to be more of a support unit. Which gives me an idea for yet another AI enhancement script. But I digress. As I understand it if artillery are firing on LOS targets or have a fire at point with a radius less than 50 meters, the artillery will attempt to adjust fire accordingly to try and hit the specified target.

[Ripcord]

Grimes, please digress -- if Bagher doesn't mind. I'd like to hear that idea for yet antoher AI enhancement script.

 

Bagher, I think your work-around solution is actually not bad. OK not elegant but still functional and not something that the player might otherwise notice either. Another method might be holding them somewhere behind a hill otherwise out of LOS, until the conditions are met and they are ready to move out into firing position and open fire. Of course all that depends on the terrain, I realize.

[Bahger]

Interesting responses, gentlemen, thank you.

 

Grimes, you are right, as usual, about using triggered action vs. advanced waypoint orders. I'm going to make that change but assumed that non-mobile arty would acknowledge orders given for their static WP because the advanced WP menu for its only WP is available, after all. I'm using Akatsias. I'm hoping that switching to triggered actions will enable the on/off toggle, as I have BLUFOR vehicles in a Russian town and do not want the batteries to be shelling their own people; I want them to hit the Blue vehicles when they emerge into the open, so I have given the arty a fire at point order linked to a trigger but here is the big issue: Once the arty is enabled, I think it will hit everything in its LOS. If there are no vehicles in the fire-at-point zone, rather than ceasing fire until more appear, I strongly suspect that the arty will hit vehicles moving in the town in its LOS. I haven't tested this yet, but that's my hunch. I'm hoping somehow to jury-rig some form of both fire discipline and indirect, supporting fire behavior in the artillery, rather than have them use LOS, which makes them just another visually-aimed direct-fire weapon system, which, by definition, atillery ain't.

 

EDIT: using triggered action for the arty toggle works better than forcing the action via disable/enable AI, thanks, Grimes. One thing, though; with a switched condition monitoring the presence of the Blue coalition in "Killzone EAST", the arty opens fire when "part of coalition in zone" but does not cease fire when they've passed through. So it appears toggle ON works but not toggle OFF yet. Do you think it will be possible to manage the arty with enough ptrecision to have them fire only when Blue units are in the zone?

 

Also -- stating the obvious -- the arty is now so far away that it has no LOS to the town, therefore eliminating the problem I was having with uncommanded shelling of civilians.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Bahger

[Grimes]

Ripcord, simply put the scripting engine was partially implemented so we can more directly influence AI behavior. However while we can change some of the behavior we are still at the whim of how AI operate. In the case of artillery we can assign the AI group a new "Fire at Point" task based on the real time location of any unit. Where as in the mission editor having more than a few possible locations for arty to target with fire at point becomes a burden to setup and use. So overall it is feasible to create a group of support artillery that will automatically support friendly forces that become under attack. The script could then order the artillery to fire some shells at the enemy group. However problems exist within the simulation regarding how artillery operate. The 3 minute setup time is killer, there is no quick/easy way to make artillery adjust fire, nor do artillery "zero in" on a pre-defined target area. But generally yes, it is possible to make a support artillery scripting function.

 

I strongly suspect that the arty will hit vehicles moving in the town in its LOS.

Yes, if they see a moving target the arty will adjust fire accordingly. Considering the artillery still fire as though they are giving indirect fire support I am fine with this behavior. There is simply no other decent way for artillery to adjust fire against a moving target. Doing it via script still has the silly 3 minute "preparation" time.

[Bahger]

Do you think the fact that I could trigger the arty to start firing at a point but not to stop, indicates that giving the unit a two fire at point orders for separate locations, each triggered by the presence of Blue, will not work in simulating adjust fire? The 3 minute prep time might not be too much of a problem if the second location is Blue's last plotted WP.

[Grimes]

Did you use a stop condition with the triggered action or just changed its ROE to hold?

 

Timing might be an issue, but it can work to adjust fire, its just not as quick as adjusting fire from one fire mission to the next, which would be more realistic.

[Bahger]

Did you use a stop condition with the triggered action or just changed its ROE to hold?

Which one of these do you think would work better?

[Grimes]

Stop condition probably works best. The thing is AI artillery can still fire at point even if their ROE is set to hold. They will simply won't target anything that is LOS.

 

When you use the set Task trigger (and LUA function) it is basically overwriting any previous task. Even if you are setting options or performing commands, it replaces their current task with whatever is sent.

[Bahger]

My arty is behaving much more like arty should, now that it has no LOS. Strangely counter-intuitive, giving arty LOS functionality. Anyway, no real complaints now, the batteries are doing what they should, which is providing indirect, supporting fires.

[ENO]

I was wondering why I needed to park artillery next to tanks with similar threat circles- this Los issue definitely clears things up for me.

[Bahger]

Today I placed a mortar battery in my mission, with a fire at point command strictly limited by trigger. When the mission commenced , the mortars opened fire, perplexing me for a moment until I suddenly realised; they had LOS to their target, which overrides their fire at point fire discipline, so I stuck them behind a building. What an odd way to program mortars and artillery, i.e. to invalidate indirect fire orders when there is a direct fire option.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Bahger