AA gun only attacking once on offence … Help!

Cernel

You've found a bug, quite clearly.

I agree that the behaviour should be expanded as to keep the infrastructure in combat also if it has "offensiveAttackAA" and for as long as specified in "maxRoundsAA", where "-1" means infinite. I encourage you opening an issue in GitHub, about that.
I've tested that it works fine when the AA gun is in defence, thus this behaviour is surely meant to be supported, and this limit must really be a bug (so, it should be reported).

Meanwhile, until a developer will eventually allow it to work properly, you can hack your way through by using a support 0 to itself; that will keep the unit in combat. For example:

	<attachment name="supportAttachmentAnti-AirOffend" attachTo="Anti-Air" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitSupportAttachment" type="unitType">
		<option name="unitType" value="Anti-Air"/>
		<option name="faction" value="allied"/>
		<option name="side" value="offence"/>
		<option name="dice" value="strength"/>
		<option name="bonus" value="0"/>
		<option name="number" value="0"/>
		<option name="bonusType" value="Anti-AirOffend"/>
		<option name="impArtTech" value="false"/>
		<option name="players" value="Russians:Germans:British:Japanese:Americans"/>
	</attachment>

But, especially if that "Anti-Air" is representing stuff like the German 88 mm or the Italian 90 mm etc., then I strongly suggest you having actual attack and defence powers (more defence than attack) for it, and it being a true combat unit, not an infrastructure, as such guns were really fully able to work very well both as field artilleries (with regular HE shells) and as anti-armour guns (with AP shells); you can really think to such kind of guns as to anti-armour guns, having all the abilities of dedicated anti-armours, as well as field artilleries, but costing a little more and being also able to target aircrafts, as an additional ability.
If the "Anti-Air", instead, is representing fast-firing 12 to 40 mm guns, those are more specialised for the role, but they have still a good value against land targets, basically working as very heavy machine guns, and very powerful in taking out lightly armoured vehicles, like armoured personnel carriers or armoured scout cars.

Also, I really don't like the name. "Anti-Air" what? I would end it in "weapon", "gun", "cannon", "autocannon" or something, mainly depending if it is representing the medium (like the 88 mm) or the small (like the 40 mm) AA cannons. Just a suggestion. Or maybe it is called just "Anti-Air" because it is representing whatever AA stuff, like also barrage balloons?

redrum

@Cernel @Frostion If there is a bug here in the engine, please open a github issue with a way to reproduce the problem. Thanks.

Frostion

@Cernel
Thanks for verifying the behaviour. I will open an issue and link to this thread, unless someone beats me to it. I have tried out a lot of AA stat configurations but have not made up my mind about the final configuration of the unit. If I was to rename the unit, it would probably be Anti-Air Unit, not canon or gun, just to keep it as a generic unit with lots of possible weapons. But I would like to keep names as short as possible, so I kind of like Anti-Air.

Cernel

@Frostion Maybe call it Ack-Ack, then; but if you are using American English (idk) check if that is a thing there too (idk).

Zim Xero

@Cernel or Redrum: Units with AA shots (not AAgun), used to be moved by the AI as a normal attack unit until after version 1.3.2.2 Has this been resolved? I had a number of games I was working on where (as a PvE game maker), this became a huge constraint. The ability to add AA first shots to select unit types added a huge factor to TripleA, but not if the AI wont move those units in attack movement.

An example would be an archer unit that has a small AA capability versus air units. There is no reason an archer unit would not move with a combat unit on offense and also contribute.

Zim Xero

Not sure how to edit posts in this new forum, so sorry for the double post. Just wanted to add that I "was" an avid mod maker for TripleA: Made Stellar Forces, Pacific Solo Challenge, Fantastic Forces, and a few other mods that I wanted to perfect. The AA change, along with the slow-down of AI wait time is specifically why I abandoned my projects. I do love TripleA, however, and will probably always follow it.

Cernel

@Zim-Xero AA offensive attacks are surely a must, in my mind, also in the standard WWII scenarios, because, in the moment in which you invade a territory, and in that territory there are defending aircrafts, of course you bring your AA guns and use them to fire on the defending aircrafts that are defensively attacking you (besides, medium AA guns, like the German 88 mm, are very good guns, that you want to use as anti-armour or field artillery, as well). AA guns able to AA attack both offensively and defensively makes the only sense. Plus, of course, whatever other stuff that can AA shot in defence and can move (like the archer you mention).
Actually, a thing that really bothers me is that AA guns are not supported in casualties selection; so units AA strong but otherwise weak are selected first as casualties, and it is quite annoying to remanage the autoselection each time; if it is not going to be supported, it would be good if there would be at least an option for not having any autoselection of casualties at all, for maps making extensive use of AA attacks for combat.

redrum

@Zim-Xero To my knowledge, the AI handles units with AA shots targeting particular unit types just fine. Frostion's latest map "Iron War" uses these pretty extensively. I haven't really been around long enough to comment on before/after 1.3.2.2. My suggestion would be to fire up some of you maps and play against the Hard AI (or Fast AI if you don't like waiting or have a very large map). It should handle a much larger portion of the game features and be much more competitive than the old "Moore N Able AI".

@Cernel Optimal casualty selection with some of the advanced TripleA features is an extremely difficult problem to solve quickly. If you have certain maps that handle casualty selection particularly poor and have ideas on how to improve it then I'm open to updating that logic.

Frostion

@Cernel said "Actually, a thing that really bothers me is that AA guns are not supported in casualties selection; so units AA strong but otherwise weak are selected first as casualties, and it is quite annoying to remanage the autoselection each time"
This is one of the reasons why I would like AA guns in Iron War to be isInfrastructure, so auto select does not kill them instantly.

@Zim-Xero In Iron War (BETA and found in Experimental maps) the unit "Tank-Destroyer" is attacking just fine with the AI. It has an AA shot called "anti vehicle canon" and gets a bonus attack every round. So guess that old problem with AI not moving AA into combat is no more. This here problem in this thread concerns if the unit is also isInfrastructure, as I understand it.

Sadly attacking units that are isInfrastructure + AA do not seem to stay in the battle for more that 1 round, unlike if they are defending, which let's them stay.

@redrum
I have not have time yet to make a Github post concerning my original problem. Hope to do it soon.

redrum

@Frostion The PR to allow AA to participate in all rounds on offense has been merged: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/1992

Please test it out on various maps to ensure it functions properly and has no unintended side effects.

beelee

@Zim-Xero
in case you're not aware of how to edit your posts yet Zim, it's the 3 vertical dots to the right of the reply quote thing. I had a hard time figuring it out and then forgot how I did it : )

Frostion

@redrum
I have been testing the latest TripleA version .5470 and its AA infrastructure ability to attack every round, and it seems to work. I tested several instances with one or more AA guns as attacker and defender. Also tested if it had any unfortunate side effect on the AA cruiser at sea. Everything seems to work fine

I don’t think the following has to do with the new changes, but it seems that the AI does not really buy AA units like the one I use in Iron War currently. Is there a difference, in the eyes of the AI, if the unit has isAA and a unit that has the following without isAA?:

    <attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="Anti-Air" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
        <option name="isInfrastructure" value="true"/>
            <option name="attackAA" value="1"/>
            <option name="offensiveAttackAA" value="1"/>
            <option name="attackAAmaxDieSides" value="10"/>
            <option name="offensiveAttackAAmaxDieSides" value="10"/>
            <option name="maxAAattacks" value="1"/>
            <option name="maxRoundsAA" value="-1"/>
            <option name="isAAforCombatOnly" value="true"/>
            <option name="isAAforBombingThisUnitOnly" value="false"/>
            <option name="isAAforFlyOverOnly" value="true"/>
            <option name="mayOverStackAA" value="true"/>
            <option name="isAAmovement" value="false"/>
            <option name="isRocket" value="false"/>
        <option name="destroyedWhenCapturedFrom" value="Germany:Balkan:USSR:Finland:France:French-Colonies:Italy:Britain:British-Colonies:South-Africa:British-India:Iraq:Iran:ANZAC:KNIL:China:Japan:Thailand:USA:Brazil:Neutral:True-Neutral:Pro-Axis-Neutral:Pro-Allies-Neutral"/>
        <option name="transportCost" value="1"/>
        <option name="movement" value="1"/>
    </attachment>

The above unit only cost 3 PUs, and that is very little in Iron War. If the unit gets a 1 in defence at cost 5 PUs, then the AI seems to buy it. But I kind of like the unit as an anti-air only unit.

redrum

@Frostion The AI doesn't really value AA attributes and only buys them to guard factories. So it looks at HP/attack/defense for choosing what units to buy.