Expendible Conscript

[ChopperDave]

I just noticed that under my name on the left that I am an Expendible Conscript. That doesn't sound good.

[FreekS]

So am I; this must be the only army where TALK gets you promoted !

[Aries]

That's a default guys. I for instance am who I am by choice.

It should be a function choice inside your Control Panel ie User CP (that's found near top of this page). Look inside there under Edit Profile.

[ChopperDave]

FreekS

You responded to one of my posts on Maxis site about stopping the automatic defensive behavior. One of the Maxis people, I think, responded that you can try putting your ships on a mission. You may want to go back there and take a look. Sounds like putting you task force on a simple mission such as 'go there' may keep them from firing on their own.

[Herman Hum]

You responded to one of my posts on Maxis site about stopping the automatic defensive behavior. One of the Maxis people, I think, responded that you can try putting your ships on a mission. You may want to go back there and take a look. Sounds like putting you task force on a simple mission such as 'go there' may keep them from firing on their own.

Sorry, I believe that to be a totally incorrect presumption. I've tried any number of permutations and combinations to try and reduce that silly Auto-Defense behaviour to no avail, including the use of Missions as you described.

The simple fact is that once you place a unit on ANY mission, you are turning control over to the AI. If you have a specific instance of this working, I'd be very happy to know your settings and conditions. I haven't run across a single instance of this happening, though.

[ChopperDave]

No, I havn't tryed it yet. I haven't played Harpoon in days. I've been posting, posting, posting. I'm slow to compose and slow to type. When I get to it I'll let you know if it works.

[Herman Hum]

I just did some testing, too. I made up a number of missions and assigned aircraft/ships to them. Each and every instance resulted in total and abject failure to control this auto-defensive response.

I certainly hope that you have more luck.

[FreekS]

So that then makes it more likely we're talking about a bug that is being disguised as a feature!

I suspect too you may see other undesired behaviour when placing your units on a mission; ships and planes on patrol missions will start to become inquisitive and deviate from the course you want them to sail.

Also when I make scenario's, making the missions is by far the longest and hardest - it needs endless tweaking to get the missions to do what I want them to do. The thought that I'd even go there in the GE while I'm playing a game never occured to me. Could be good topic to do a poll on.

Freek

[TonyE]

Sounds like a good poll. I do occasionally use missions when playing, especially on the larger scenarios to get some fighters up and doing their thing. In the small scenarios and pretty much all of the multiplayer sized scens I'm plotted all the way baby!

[VCDH]

So that then makes it more likely we're talking about a bug that is being disguised as a feature!

Heh...this is amusing. A thread that decries the ability of platforms to defend themselves.

Platforms will continue to defend themselves in the manner that you see for the foreseeable future. Certainly until we modify our AI for adoptive planning. It is simply not realistic to expect platforms to NOT defend themselves. I know that if I was the CO of such a vessel I would take every effort to defend the personell and hardware to the best of my ability. If they relieved me for defending my ships I'd be on CNN in 3 seconds flat. If fact, I'd rather be relieved for that than be part of any organization that prevents me from protecting my people.

This behavior isn't going to change guys.

Later
D