Notes on AI Behaviour using Naval Units outside of the Campaign.

[Commander Red Vega]

This is just a small list of notes to add on discussions already had on Naval AI behaviours. If I remember to some back to this, I'll add some more notes in the comment section if I can't edit this initial post. The only reason I'm doing this is that we've all noticed Eugen is giving the game some love, and the quality of the AI out of campaign should be no exception.

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Notes:
Plausible
Highly Plausible: AI will not use anti-ship planes on a naval map where it starts off with a naval route already controlled.

-Highly Plausible: AI will not use ships, river boats, or other naval craft on a map less than 4v4 size.



Proven:

-AI can and will use Anti-Ship planes on a naval map where it has to capture a naval zone, even on Wonsan Harbor.

Unknown:
-It's rumored the AI will use Anti-Ship Helicopters or Land-based platforms. But if so, it has been, in my experience, rare to ever see either of them deployed. Conditions for the AI to utilize these is unknown to me at this point in time.



Suggested Tweaks:

-Suggested AI Tweak: AI should have set counter to amass planes with at least 3-4 planes instead of a single one to help ensure ship kills. It could use better pathing for engaging with Anti-Ship Missiles, it should amass planes in a direct line behind it's spawn, first bringing out all the planes, and then engage a single target with all the planes it has airborne.

-Suggested AI Tweak: Probably near impossible to implement this, but the AI should try to time out the flight path of different speed aircraft and the range of their missiles so their collective fire will be within range in a short time over the target that they are trying to hit, and that this window matches up with no more than a 2 second window. Lest the AI will ripple fire it's missiles and they'll effectively get downed coming in "one-at-a-time".

-Suggested AI Tweak: AI definitely needs to be given the script to use naval vessels on smaller maps, not doing so is a hinderance to it's capability and leaves out significant portion of the game which people could genuinely be trying to use.

-Suggested AI Tweak (Debatable): Tone down the effectiveness of CIWS fire of ships by reducing their accuracy. This is to force aircraft to be more present in the meta to defend ships from aerial attacks. If the cone of dispersion on the CIWS is increased, perhaps it would shift the Anti-ship missile meta of stacking multiple ships in a single spot to prevent anti-ship missiles from even hitting, would effectively become less effective at lower quantities of ships. This could be done by giving the CIWS systems a "Bloom" effect whereby as they fire continuously longer, they would become more inaccurate become, or simply force a random dice roll for the CIWS to jam if it fires for more than 2 seconds in a 10 second time frame. Realistic? Maybe not, or maybe so. But CIWS being such a effective hard counter to Anti-Ship missiles means there is little need to protect ships from anti-ship planes with aircraft as long as you have enough ships stacked close enough together to protect one another from anti-ship missiles and is honestly one of the biggest inhibitors to wanting to play against naval using anything but artillery shells.

-Suggested AI Tweak, give Anti-ship guns AP or just remove Armor on ships altogether. Ship duels are long, tedious, unrealistic, and worst of all; annoying. Even when the shells do hit, they do an unrealistic amount of damage. All ships should have 0 Armor, or 1 at most. I can get where the initial thoughts were to try and nerf these things by not giving them AP, but all it has done is render gun duels between ships a slog that nobody wants to play with.

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Disclaimer:
If you're a person who hates naval, understandable, have a nice day. Just please understand you're not original if you're gonna leave a comment below saying "Ha don't play naval" or some unoriginal commentary we have heard before plenty before. Please only add notes about AI behaviour concerning the use of cards of units from the naval tab as you see it worth noting here.

[Nightshade]

I noticed that the AI on some maps will use the Command Ships ((or at least spawn them)) on some maps, but only one at a time. and Often they will just sit idle. I have never seen them use any smaller ships, coasters or river boats. I really hope they fix this as I love naval units and it was a big selling point to me.