Artillery emplacements spotting targets without sensor coverage

[wzdev-ci]

keyword_artillery_sensors resolution_Needs reevaluating for current version (3.2.3) type_bug | by Stratadrake

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Artillery emplacements are said to be "assigned to nearest sensor or CB tower".

This is not actually true in current versions of WZ; the truth is that artillery emplacements will attack anything within your ENTIRE at-the-moment sensor coverage, regardless of whether or not there is an actual sensor spotting the target -- in fact regardless of whether there is anything that can currently see the target at all.

This is an easy thing to reproduce:

• Start a single-player skirmish on Sk-Rush (T2).
• Fortify your HMG hardpoints with basic mortar pits.
• Drive a truck out to the nearest oil resource (do not build on it) and back again.

The results you get are:

• In the original retail WZ (up to 1.10), nothing happens. Your truck might come under some enemy HMG fire but that is all.
• In the 3.1 beta11, your mortar pits open fire on the enemy defenses the moment they become visible to your truck, and continue attacking until the enemy derrick and all four HMG hardpoints are destroyed. In other words, you just improvised a truck as a mobile sensor.

The ramifications are:

• ANYTHING can spot for artillery emplacements, a job that only sensors (and commanders) should be able to perform. Drive a truck within shooting range of enemy hardpoints and your mortar pits will open fire; fly a suicide VTOL over enemy airspace and your howitzer emplacements will start raining down shells.
• Even an oil derrick or rearming pad can spot for artillery (albeit from only 8sq instead of 16).
• Even a VTOL Strike or VTOL CB tower (which only spot VTOL's) can also spot for artillery (and at 16sq too, which is more than the standard mobile sensor turret).
• Artillery emplacements continue firing until ALL known targets are destroyed. This is especially serious when the target is a structure: The only way to stop artillery from attacking it is to take out the actual artillery emplacements.
• Reduces the usefulness of the "Radar Detector" turret (which targets enemy sensors instead of enemy artillery); even once the sensor is silenced, enemy artillery emplacements will still attack if something else (like an AA site) can still see you.
• Significantly increases the difficulty of campaign mission Beta 7, due to the close proximity of your LZ to Collective sensor coverage. The moment any Collective unit gets within fighting distance of your LZ, their Ripple Rockets take aim and fire (and continue to fire) even though your LZ is not within range of their actual sensor towers.

In other words, fixed artillery emplacements have an insidious advantage over their mobile counterparts when it comes to spotting targets; mobile artillery can only spot at their sensor's acquired target, but fixed artillery can spot anything.

This may or may not be an easy fix. It should be that when an artillery emplacement is about to attack, it is validated against similar rules as mobile units. E.g. the game must validate that the target is either (a) within the emplacement's own sight range, (b) within the sight range of a (standard) sensor tower or turret, or (c) a known target to CB or radar detector.

Forum topic and screenshot here.

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Issue migrated from trac:3672 at 2022-04-16 10:34:34 -0700

[wzdev-ci]

Stratadrake _uploaded file wz2100-20120819_112446-Sk-Rush-T2.png (469.4 KiB)_

Note how my mortar pits are still firing even though literally nothing can see the targets (my active sensor range ends near the oil resource)

[wzdev-ci]

Stratadrake _uploaded file wz2100-20120820_083831-Sk-Rush-T3.jpg (115.5 KiB)_

Note that I'm using a CB tower to spot targets for my Bombard fortifications.

[wzdev-ci]

Per uploaded file quickfix.diff (1.0 KiB)

A quick fix for this issue. Please test. A better fix would involve keeping tab of which sensor we are using, but this is potentially buggy, so perhaps for master later..

[wzdev-ci]

Stratadrake commented

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A better fix would involve keeping tab of which sensor we are using, but this is potentially buggy,

...and probably unnecessary. It's okay for the internal game engine to slightly "cheat" the rules of its own system, if it doesn't get caught. (Which it did ;) ) Since the player has almost no way to look up the actual target of a sensor tower, they won't mind if the system cheats it a little by just making sure the artillery is firing at something the sensor tower could be targetting anyway.

[wzdev-ci]

Per commented

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I'm not concerned about the cheating, only the inefficiency. Looping potentially long lists in that function would be a concern. Fortunately, the sensor list tends to be short.

[wzdev-ci]

vexed changed status from new to closed

[wzdev-ci]

vexed changed resolution from ` toNeeds reevaluating for current version (3.1.0)`

[wzdev-ci]

vexed commented

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Need to know if these issues still happen with the release of 3.1.0.