T2 Fighter/Bomber tunnel vision

[errorblankfield]

Minor thing that irks me sometimes...

If I tell a Fighter/bomber, like a Cybran corsair, to go kill some land target it decides that it's AA weapons no longer work and will only drop bombs until target down.

Which is annoying!

One little inty can just dance around you while you try to kill the land target and you'll never fire back! It's not like it's tailing you the entire time and the corsair can't hit it. The bombering run requires many turns which allow for decent chances for actually firing at defending air units. But alas, the corsair cannot.

Is this intentional?

I don't really see how this happens as every other two weapon unit can fire both at the same time. I'll give them the fact that air units fire oddly (only unit to fire in a cone) so maybe having a cone weapon and a bomb are just so different it can't manage both at the same time... but com'on!

[Ceneraii]

Not sure if it's intentional or not, but I think you have a point. It's probably avoidable with notha/janus by just microing until you are in drop range and then give attack order but if you do that with corsair they will fire their rockets on random ground targets so it definitely might be worth looking into. Maybe someone with good micro (mine is horrible) can test this out a bit?

[IceDreamer]

The code is deliberately written to disable the AA weapons, so I guess it's intentional.

[SC-Account]

If you look at Janus you can see it has 2 modi and will fold its wings if it is in anti air mode. Apparently all FB's have this, but just the Janus displays it...

[Hawkei]

What you say, about secondary weapons firing, is true. But only for weapons which are not slaved to the unit. The behaviour which you describe is typical for many unit behaviours. Your ACU, for example, if told to attack a unit out of range will not attack targets of opportunity while it is getting in range. On the other hand the AA gun on a T3 bomber or a Frigate is considered a secondary weapon and will freely fire at targets of opportunity.

The problem with what you are suggesting is that the Corsair would need turn to get a firing solution on the air unit. Both the ATG rockets and AA missiles are forward firing. It's can't chase the ground unit and the air unit at the same time.

[errorblankfield]

^But that's my problem with the current behavior...

You don't always have to turn to get a valid firing solution in a lot of cases during a bombing run. First off, any planes between you and your land target are clearly easy things to fire at -no need to aim, they are between you and your current target.

But aside from that specfic situation, bombing a target tends to require more than on pass. On turns, you have a huge sweep which would easily allow for a volley or two if planes are near you.

Moreover, the very planes attacking you are likely doing so in a circular path -which also frequently makes them cut in front of you!

So even without changing movement, there are a lot of chances for the T2 plane to fire a few AA rounds off... but they won't.

I know the game doesn't do this with ACU's building, but it's not like they couldn't. If a mantis walks into firing range while your 'locked' building... why wouldn't you fire as well? Again, don't move the body or anything -but the mantis is literally standing in front of your gun so, fire?

(And if you target an out of range for an ACU, you will fire at other targets as you close the gap... not sure what you where going for there is I sub in the building example :) .)

I guess I'll add it to the list of minor annoyances in the game that I think should be changed but really not worth the effort to change/

[Hawkei]

Then don't use an attack command. Control the unit with a move command and the AA missiles will fire as able. If you look at some of my replays with air micro of the UEF Jaunus. You will notice that I am manoeuvring with move commands to simultaneously out micro the interceptors and line up for my bombing run. I issue an attack command on the ground unit only on final approach...

To get the best out of these units you need to micro. Alternatively, with a patrol command or attack move command they will target land and ground as their priorities dictate. But when you are force firing, you need to understand that you are over-riding this behaviour.

[Ceneraii]

Then don't use an attack command. Control the unit with a move command and the AA missiles will fire as able. If you look at some of my replays with air micro of the UEF Jaunus. You will notice that I am manoeuvring with move commands to simultaneously out micro the interceptors and line up for my bombing run. I issue an attack command on the ground unit only on final approach...

To get the best out of these units you need to micro. Alternatively, with a patrol command or attack move command they will target land and ground as their priorities dictate. But when you are force firing, you need to understand that you are over-riding this behaviour.

This is messed up with corsairs though.

[Resin_Smoker]

I can look into this and provide a few amplifying details if you'd like.

Note: I'm not 100% sure but I think the corsairs's AA and AG weapons are one in the same. If not it should be as I do recall it using the same rockets for both land and air attack. The problem with two weapons like this is that the first weapon is considered the primary and thus can over ride a target the secondary has locked onto. On many of the units in 4DC ther are multiple weapons and typically this issue is prevented by either having weapon arcs defined or by allowing similar weapons to all engage the same target. Otherwise it's possible for the unit to spaz out and attack nothing.

Resin

[Anaryl]

Probably targeting priority - as mentioned (although I am not 100% on the getnewtarget method) but construction units that can fire, will not do both unless explicitly coded to do so. If it as resin says, with both weapons slaved to the same physical attribute (dont know much about how this end of modelling works), then it's likely a targetting issue.

Just use attack move then chain your attack order on the end of that. It's really simple stuff.