Question about how AAA units chosen for CAS

[+malibu43 142]

I found something interesting this morning and wanted to see if anyone can explain it to me. It may be a question for TK, but I'll try here anyway.

 

I have the MF weps pack installed in my Oct2008 WOE. This weps pack includes SA-8, SA-9, and SA-13. All three are set as Mobile_AAA and Common availability. During 1979 campaigns (and I think randomly generated missions as well), I'd noticed that there were a lot of SA-8's, but not many of the -9 or -13. In campagin CAS missions, the AAA defending the enemy ground units was always an SA-8. This wasn't a big deal, but I thought it'd be more fun if there was a little more uncertainty about what I was going up against. Plus the SA-8 shows up the RWR, even further ruining the "surprise". I tried changing the availability to rare and very_rare, but it made no difference.

 

The next thing I tried was to rename it as "xSA-8" (both the folder name and .ini name). Now, all of a sudden, I get SA-13's, SA-9's, ZU's, ZSU's, and SA-8's showing up in CAS missions, all seemingly with equal probability. I also noticed a lot less SA-8's throughout the map in general.

 

So it seems like the issue is with the way the game engine selects AAA units to fill AAA locations or support ground units. For some reason "SA-8" gets selected every time. However, if you remove "SA-8" from the groundobject folder (or rename it), the game engine starts selecting AAA units randomly. What surprised me is that after removing SA-8, the game engine didn't start always selecting something else (I expected SA-9), but it then started pulling AAA objects randomly.

 

Anyway, does anyone know anything about how the game engine selects ground objects to fill AAA locations? Or why it get's so stuck on the SA-8, but not anything else?

 

Maybe someone else with the SA-8 installed can run some 1979 CAS missions (just pick an A-10 or GR3 squadron) and see if they get the same ground object defending the enemy ground units all the time, or if they get different results.

 

Thanks!

Edited December 2, 2008 by malibu43

[Fubar512 1,350]

1 ) Alpha-Numeric

2 ) capability (RADAR)

[+malibu43 142]

1 ) Alpha-Numeric

2 ) capability (RADAR)

 

Does this mean it was selecting SA-8 because when listed alphabetically, SA-8 is the first AAA unit? If this was true, though, wouldn't the game have defaulted to the SA-9 when I removed the SA-8, or is there still some degree of randomness to it?

[Fubar512 1,350]

I gave TWO reasons why the game engine chooses it, did I not? Try this SA-13 launcher data.ini in your install, and you should see a difference. sa_13l_data.rar

[+malibu43 142]

I gave TWO reasons why the game engine chooses it, did I not? Try this SA-13 launcher data.ini in your install, and you should see a difference. sa_13l_data.rar

 

OK, I see. Since you listed them as 1 and 2, I thought the game searched first by alpha-numeric, then searched for capability, which didn't make much sense to me. But I think you were saying that those are two factors it uses to select, not necessarily in that order/importance.

 

It's really strange - I have my WOE install copied onto another computer, and with the other computer I'm not having the weird issues with the SA-8. Hmmm...

 

Thanks for your help!

[Fubar512 1,350]

Another possible problem, and solution: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5885

[Fubar512 1,350]

Fark!

 

 

[+malibu43 142]

Another possible problem, and solution: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5885

 

Thanks for replying in both places!

 

I responded in the other thread.