Naval campaign question

+***Viggen*** · May 30, 2021

Sorry if this has been asked before, but is it possible to have the eye candy of NavalCampaign=True without the enemy sending constant wave after wave of aircraft after the carrier group? Basically I want all the extras that come along with a naval campaign, without the actual naval campaign. Again, sorry if it's been asked before or if the answer to this is incredibly obvious. It's been a long time since I've looked at campaign files.

**macelena** · May 31, 2021

What would you be looking for specifically? For example, something i would have liked to have for SF2 Complete are Carrier Grop mechanics in, say, Desert and Vietnam campaigns (You can mod that, of course, but it would have been nice to have them as stock) or some features, like cruise missile attacks and E-2s for Israel.

Edited May 31, 2021 by macelena

+**Menrva** · May 31, 2021

Naval campaigns were not exactly implemented as we want. AI mission types such as EARLY_WARNING and ESCORT_JAMMER only exist with naval campaigns, but naval campaigns disable night missions altogether. For the latest Desert Storm total conversion, I decided not to make it a naval campaign because night missions are a must to have. The other features I mentioned are missing, but it's a matter of balancing pros and cons really.

Naval campaigns were designed to be about naval battles involving belligerent factions having a navy. Air units will always attempt to engage enemy fleets as soon as they get a higher intelligence value. You can set their intelligence to zero, but then AI will never do any offensive missions since it does not know the belligerent forces' locations. Simply put, you cannot really have exclusive features of a naval campaign without it being a true naval campaign. At worse, you can try to force all enemy AI air units to use only interceptor fighter jets; they wouldn't be able to launch any offensive strike mission then.

With lots of trial and error, maybe a balance could be found (with due pros and cons), in order to do what Viggen suggests. Given that it disables night missions though, I wouldn't waste any more effort on the matter.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Menrva

+***Viggen*** · May 31, 2021

5 hours ago, macelena said:

What would you be looking for specifically? For example, something i would have liked to have for SF2 Complete are Carrier Grop mechanics in, say, Desert and Vietnam campaigns (You can mod that, of course, but it would have been nice to have them as stock) or some features, like cruise missile attacks and E-2s for Israel.

The carrier groups with their escorts and support vessels and the extra aircraft flying around the map on naval search and early warning missions are what I'd like. Menrva's post sums up the issues pretty well.

2 hours ago, Menrva said:

Naval campaigns were not exactly implemented as we want. AI mission types such as EARLY_WARNING and ESCORT_JAMMER only exist with naval campaigns, but naval campaigns disable night missions altogether. For the latest Desert Storm total conversion, I decided not to make it a naval campaign because night missions are a must to have. The other features I mentioned are missing, but it's a matter of balancing pros and cons really.

I forgot that naval campaign disables night missions. Rather irritating, really. Who doesn't want to hunt Backfires at night over the icy North Atlantic? Does make sense that it's a balancing act.

3 hours ago, Menrva said:

Naval campaigns were designed to be about naval battles involving belligerent factions having a navy. Air units will always attempt to engage enemy fleets as soon as they get a higher intelligence value. You can set their intelligence to zero, but then AI will never do any offensive missions since it does not know the belligerent forces' locations. Simply put, you cannot really have exclusive features of a naval campaign without it being a true naval campaign. At worse, you can try to force all enemy AI air units to use only interceptor fighter jets; they wouldn't be able to launch any offensive strike mission then.

With lots of trial and error, maybe a balance could be found (with due pros and cons), in order to do what Viggen suggests. Given that it disables night missions though, I wouldn't waste any more effort on the matter.

So zero intelligence would effect the enemy's ground campaign as well? That's unfortunate. The enemy aircraft only being assigned air to air missions in a naval campaign might work for a border skirmish campaign. I could give that a try since it will still give me some of the results I'm looking for.