The Perfect Trap -- Almost!

[Bullethead]

It had been a busy morning. Angara, Boyarin and 8 DDs had been spotted on the Korean coast at 0400 and since then the race had been on to contain and destroy them before they got amongst the several marus in the area. There had been 3 actions with these Russians before 0900, gradually whitling them down so that only Boyarin and 5 DDs remained, all damaged to some extent. And now, overwhelming Japanese force had been concentrated against them from all directions.

The 4th engagement was joined at 0940. The most lethal IJN PCs were rushing in from the south. Togo's battlefleet had the western side covered. The curve of the coastline defended the north, and more cruisers and DDs had the NE. It was the perfect trap.... except that the cruisers and DDs to the NE decided that fishing in a lake was more important than killing Russians :laugh:

http://people.delphiforums.com/jtweller/Perfect%20Trap--Almost.JPG

Good thing I'd saved at the end of the previous battle shortly before. When I reloaded, essentially the same battle happened, but it was a couple minutes different in timing, and so all the ships, while still in the same relative positions, were in the ocean, not the lake :).

Yup, SES knows already.

[SunScream]

Those DDs and cruisers are not safe from the wrath of the Russians even when in their own lake.
Don't forget the Russians had their Simon Lake designed submarines with wheels! They can trundle over the landscape and attack you in your own pool, although they would need to fit big tyres to get over the rocky ground and possibly lose the benefit of surprise.
Monster truck subs, anyone?

Lake Protector indeed....:clown:

[Daedalus]

It had been a busy morning. Angara, Boyarin and 8 DDs had been spotted on the Korean coast at 0400 and since then the race had been on to contain and destroy them before they got amongst the several marus in the area. There had been 3 actions with these Russians before 0900, gradually whitling them down so that only Boyarin and 5 DDs remained, all damaged to some extent. And now, overwhelming Japanese force had been concentrated against them from all directions.

The 4th engagement was joined at 0940. The most lethal IJN PCs were rushing in from the south. Togo's battlefleet had the western side covered. The curve of the coastline defended the north, and more cruisers and DDs had the NE. It was the perfect trap.... except that the cruisers and DDs to the NE decided that fishing in a lake was more important than killing Russians :laugh:

http://people.delphiforums.com/jtweller/Perfect%20Trap--Almost.JPG

Good thing I'd saved at the end of the previous battle shortly before. When I reloaded, essentially the same battle happened, but it was a couple minutes different in timing, and so all the ships, while still in the same relative positions, were in the ocean, not the lake :).

Yup, SES knows already.

Talking about Fish in a Barrel now that is it.
Take you time and have target match with each ship lol.

[saddletank]

I caught the whole Vladivostock sqn on that same map last night with the blue team in the same location and heading. I had the Idzuma and Iwate squadron pursuing them from the SW and they reteated NE straight into that bay which is S of Assan, trapping themselves against the shore and allowing me to pummel them into fish food.

I've seen similar odd AI behaviour when faced with shorelines before.

The AI has no concept of where it is on the map, or rather where the coastline is. If it could be given the information that there is a barrier ahead they might behave more sensibly.

[Daedalus]

I caught the whole Vladivostock sqn on that same map last night with the blue team in the same location and heading. I had the Idzuma and Iwate squadron pursuing them from the SW and they reteated NE straight into that bay which is S of Assan, trapping themselves against the shore and allowing me to pummel them into fish food.

I've seen similar odd AI behaviour when faced with shorelines before.

The AI has no concept of where it is on the map, or rather where the coastline is. If it could be given the information that there is a barrier ahead they might behave more sensibly.


In a battle today I had the Japanese ship move to go along the coast. And my fleet pinned them there and tore them up. On of the ships tried to ground it,s self on the shore but did not make it. Or are we not talking about the same thing here? I am trying to find out what is the cause of the ships getting into the lake.

Also I am going to try to get some sleep for a few hours. PM me and we will play later in my day online if you want. I would like to try it and see.

See ya later

[saddletank]

I think the game map sees the lake as sea as that barrier across it is a glitch of the DEM data Norm used to build the map topography. To the AI campaign system that is open sea.

My issue is the enemy ship AI in battle not 'seeing' the coastline until it detects shallow water, and reacts then by which it may be way too late as it has embayed itself.

I once saw Varyag and Korietz steam right up into the big cove north of the large island in the Chemulpo scenario and then just sit there aimlessly going to and fro at 5 knots waiting for me to come in and get them.

The enemy ship navigation AI needs to be aware of shorelines much further away and decide if they are useful (for beaching a cripple) or dangerous (for being trapped against).

[Dogbert]

I think the game map sees the lake as sea as that barrier across it is a glitch of the DEM data Norm used to build the map topography. To the AI campaign system that is open sea.

My issue is the enemy ship AI in battle not 'seeing' the coastline until it detects shallow water, and reacts then by which it may be way too late as it has embayed itself.

I once saw Varyag and Korietz steam right up into the big cove north of the large island in the Chemulpo scenario and then just sit there aimlessly going to and fro at 5 knots waiting for me to come in and get them.

The enemy ship navigation AI needs to be aware of shorelines much further away and decide if they are useful (for beaching a cripple) or dangerous (for being trapped against).

I would assume that the 3d terrain and the movement table/data/whatever are programmatically generated from the same satelite heightmap... at least I would hope so for Norm and Jim's sanity :D

[Bullethead]

I think the game map sees the lake as sea as that barrier across it is a glitch of the DEM data Norm used to build the map topography. To the AI campaign system that is open sea.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. There's probably some routine that says to spawn the ship ini a certain place, then checks to see if that is water or land. If water, then the ship goes there. If land, the ship's spawn point is moved a little. I guess instead of scouring the map looking for lakes and manually putting them off limits, they just need to have a routine to make sure the water the ship spawns in is connected somehow to the ocean.

Apart from that, the spawning system has (or had) problems starting ships too close to land. I remember the other day somebody posted a pic of a neutral that spawned within like 10 feet of the beach and headed directly ashore at 10 knots. Needless to say, that ship wrecked instantly. Hopefully that's been fixed already, but it's hard to tell with no readmes in the patches.

My issue is the enemy ship AI in battle not 'seeing' the coastline until it detects shallow water, and reacts then by which it may be way too late as it has embayed itself.

This is a definite problem. When faced with a bad situation, the AI's automatic reaction appears to be to head directly for the closest shoreline, regardless of where my ships are, and then hug the contours of the coastline in whichever direction it really wants to go.

I suppose it does this because ships are sometimes more difficult to see against a coast from seaward. I recall from 1 iteration of the PA attack that an IJN DD heading east along the coast was invisible from Novik just 1500 yards away directly to seaward and looking towards land, but was visible to other Russians back in the main anchorage looking along the coast ("target ship visible to friendly ships but not selected ship"). The DD remained invisible to Novik until it decided to start shooting, at which point Novik could fire back.

So I think the AI heads for the coast thinking it might become invisible or at least hard to hit. However, it does this even in broad daylight when I've never noticed there being any LOS benefit from being against a coast. It also does this even it has to go right through some of my ships, and regardless of how it will embay itself or at least give me a corner to cut inside of and close in much more quickly. It also ignores clears paths to open sea in favor of heading for the coast.

[saddletank]

I don't think the AI heads for the coast as a tactic I just think it heads away from a more powerful enemy. You can observe this by following the 10 knot Japanese auxiliaries: if you curve around them they also conform by curving away from you continuously trying always to keep their sterns to you. The Marus do the same. So I think the AI is just trying to get away. Trouble is it ignores any land that's in it's path until too late.

[Bullethead]

I don't think the AI heads for the coast as a tactic I just think it heads away from a more powerful enemy.

Look at the picture in my post and imagine all ships shown there moved an RCH to the west so the ships in the lake are just barely in the ocean, which is what happened when I reloaded from the earlier save. Also, all the ships were a little further apart, and the angles between groups were slightly different, although still in the same general arrangement.

When I played that battle out, the Russians ran E directly for the ships that had been in the lake. This was clearly a superior force, as it contained Chiyoda, Takachiho, and Naniwa, plus 7 DDs, while the Russians had only Boyarin and 5 DDs, all with light to moderate damage. Needless to say, they charged on having their T crossed the whole way and were annihilated short of the coast.

If the AI had been smart, it would have run NW towards open water. That's Togo there to the west, but he's pointed south to start with and is slower anyway. To the south is the Chitose group and the remnants of Sai Yen's group, so no sense going that way.

The only reason I can see for the AI heading right towards Chiyoda was because that was the direction of the closest shoreline.

[saddletank]

But of the 3 forces Chiyoda was furthest away I suspect that is why the Russkies went that way.

[Bullethead]

But of the 3 forces Chiyoda was furthest away I suspect that is why the Russkies went that way.

Going toward ANY of the IJN forces was suicidal, because all were vastly more powerful than the remaining Russians. The AI should have run NW, away from all IJN forces and toward open water, where it might have had a chance to disengage and end the battle before it got destroyed. Only the IJN DDs and the Chitose PCs were fast enough to catch the Russians, but the PCs were the furthest away and the DDs wouldn't have had any support if they closed in as fast as they could.

For some reason, however, the AI got fixated on running to the coast. It paid absolutely no attention to the Chiyoda group, continuing to run straight ahead without altering course in the slightest, while the IJN ships kept doing simultaneous turns back and forth N-S and S-N to keep all 3 of their broadsides firing.

[saddletank]

AI pathing always is a tricky thing to get right :)

[Radzy]

The 4th engagement was joined at 0940. The most lethal IJN PCs were rushing in from the south. Togo's battlefleet had the western side covered. The curve of the coastline defended the north, and more cruisers and DDs had the NE. It was the perfect trap.... except that the cruisers and DDs to the NE decided that fishing in a lake was more important than killing Russians :laugh:

Good thing I'd saved at the end of the previous battle shortly before. When I reloaded, essentially the same battle happened, but it was a couple minutes different in timing, and so all the ships, while still in the same relative positions, were in the ocean, not the lake :).

Yup, SES knows already.

If they had long lances they maybe could cut through :D

Regards,
Radzy