Scenario Design help needed

Grant1pa · #1 December 3rd, 2014, 04:00 PM

I'm having some difficulty in executing naval infantry landings on an opposed beachhead.

I'm working on a scenario where Russian Naval Infantry are attempting to land in port (dock areas), using an assortment of LST's, hovercraft and smaller infantry craft (Ondatra,KVP, K61). In unopposed beaches they disembark their troops without issue. However, in the port area, they merely tend to sit there as targets.

I'm not familiar with the issue marine landings in the SPMBT game engine. I have to presume that when the Game IA controls these units, a problem exists in landings in built up areas such as a port.

Can someone offer me some assistance to overcome this issue?

Tom

DRG · #2 December 3rd, 2014, 07:28 PM

I'm going to leave this for an experienced scenario designer. I may be a developer but I'm very little interest in building sceanrios

Have you read the GG section on waypoints ?? A lot of players treat waypoints as voodoo but Pyros wrote about them at length and made good use of them in his ANZAC campaign and they may be what you need here.

Don

Suhiir · #3 December 3rd, 2014, 11:30 PM

If you're trying to get the AI to perform an amphibious landing it doesn't work, the game engine just doesn't handle it well at all.
I'm actually surprised you got any of the landing craft to work, CONGRATS!

Grant1pa · #4 December 4th, 2014, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DRG

I'm going to leave this for an experienced scenario designer. I may be a developer but I'm very little interest in building sceanrios

Have you read the GG section on waypoints ?? A lot of players treat waypoints as voodoo but Pyros wrote about them at length and made good use of them in his ANZAC campaign and they may be what you need here.

Don

Thank You!!

I'm presently at work, but I tried it with a basic (no structures or obstructing landforms) and it seems to work well with designated waypoints.

I'll work over the weekend to test it with my port scenario map and see if it replicates.

I appreciate the help and repost if it allows a good representation for naval infantry/marine landings by the AI.

Tom

Mobhack · #5 December 4th, 2014, 08:08 AM

Do you have objectives set with a value of 50+ in the enemy zone - the AI navigates to objectives...

Do you have your landing troops loaded inside barges, or inside heavy (and light) amphibians? - the ambibian classes, not APCs - the AI in a beach assault only moves those to the beach. (It may also move APC etc with swim capability too, but I have not ever tried that).

Do you have the scenario set as a beach assault?. The beach AI only works on a beach... Simply placing sea hexes will not work. gBeach must be set - easiest way is to have the beach and assault set in the scenario designer, but the map tool to replace half with beach will also set gBeach.

Is the scenario set to play left->Right or Right->Left (The only directions the AI knows about!). Up/Down the map wont cut it.

Make sure the player map sides are correctly set with respect to the above.

Have you set the number of scenario turns?- one I often forget..

Do you have objectives dotted on islands, or the enemy side cut in two by a big bay or river?. The AI will likely go for the nearest objective(s) and be stranded on the individual land masses as it knows nothing about picking non-swimmers up again. (Amphibious vehicles may go to them, but usually without uplifting dropped passengers). For simplicity's sake - the defended land mass must be one zone, and all the objectives on it. NO offshore islands, sandbanks or whatever.

Make sure there are beach (open hexes) for the landings to go to and unload on - landing craft cannot enter buildings for example (or rather are extremely reluctant to crash into them!). Buildings right down to the shore, or impassable terrain wont be any help. Hovercraft need open terrain as well - they dont like woods.

Grant1pa · #6 December 5th, 2014, 01:16 PM

Thanks Mobhack.

The issues you raised in your reply definitely have made me rethink my map and deployment. I considered some of those issues in the design, but not all.

When I finished work yesterday I redeployed some of the units I originally assigned and still had difficulties. I can see now part of the reason is the designated landing areas.

One problem I did note is that assigning waypoints for the command unit for some reason starts to the upper far left (assaulting left to right) of the map for the initial waypoint, regardless of the actual location of that commander. Can't figure that one out right now but I'll work on it.

I'll start over again this weekend and incorporate the additional factors you showed me in your post. If I can't finish this weekend, I start leave shortly and will have time to finalize the fix and design.

Thanks again troops!

Tom

Mobhack · #7 December 5th, 2014, 03:19 PM

Waypoints are probably useless for a beach assault since the beach AI is basically about driving straight for the nearest valid landing zone. The AI may well indeed clear any such that were set.

So just lay down the barges opposite to where you want them to come ashore and let the AI do its thing.

Beach assaults and wide river crossing assaults are weird things. There is just enough AI code to handle them, but little else. Trying to do anything that does not fit the stereotyped limits will go wrong. In both cases - the AI is really only there to provide target practice, beach and river assault scenarios are really only suitable for the human to be the attacker, with the AI as the defender.

DRG · #8 December 5th, 2014, 03:25 PM

Here's a couple more things to consider

1/ did you make the map as a beach assault map or did you just put water into a normal map and save it. ? You have to use the "add a strip of beach" button to actually make it a beach map

2/

Quote:

One problem I did note is that assigning waypoints for the command unit for some reason starts to the upper far left

is it set to enter as a re-enforcement ? Another reason this can happen is if you put a unit on the grey edge hexes

Mobhack · #9 December 5th, 2014, 08:28 PM

the waypoint at the upper left is because the A0 is a passenger on a barge. So he is at -1,-1 (offmap) and that will be where the waypoint is plotted from.

Waypoints for passengers are probably invalid/superfluous - just plot the transport.

Grant1pa · #10 December 7th, 2014, 09:11 PM

Thanks for all the suggestions you've provided. My learning curve was successful and I think I've come a long way in learning how the AI works in naval landings.

I'm working on the play balance for the scenario and hope to post it in the coming weeks once I get the battle sequence developed. Since I've only been able to meek out a draw so far, I need to tweak it a little.

Tom