Anti-Tank Guns on auto-pilot.

If you are like me you have probably experienced the frustration of having AT guns and Tank Killers exhibit peculiar behavior when allowed to operate on auto-pilot. Perhaps it's my imagination or maybe sour grapes but the CPU player's AI seems to handle this much more effectively then the Human players AI.

1. Units on lock-down seem to traverse to a different location when not watched closely. I have seen three Marders L/D in a battery pointing in different directions that seem incompatible with any targets they might have had.


2. The AI doesn't seem to have a prioritization for AT vs vehicles. it seems to target infantry as often as not even when a suitable target is in sight. Particularly galling in this regard ATG's have been nerfed in various patches to be less effective against infantry.


3. What AI files types need to be compared, analyzed, and improved to improve the Human player's AI?


4. Vaguely OT: I have built Firebases set up to cover particular zones of fire. Sometimes, not always I am not allowed to target a barrage within these setup limits. What am I doing wrong?
   

The Marders will rotate to fire on any enemy they see within their range. If the target leaves their LoS or range, they will remain looking at the last known enemy position.

All AT weapons have priority for tanks and vehicles. Unless you order otherwise, they will prefer to fire on these. They do have a slight priority bonus for the unit they're currently firing at over other targets but it is not enough to prioritise infantry over tanks.

Arty will sometimes not fire when it's on uneven terrain. This is a Relic bug that will actually hopefully be corrected in the next EF patch since someone seems to have found a fix.

Thanks Dennis.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
...All AT weapons have priority for tanks and vehicles. Unless you order otherwise, they will prefer to fire on these. They do have a slight priority bonus for the unit they're currently firing at over other targets but it is not enough to prioritise infantry over tanks...

All to often I see locked down ATGs firing at infantry when Tanks are within very short range. The OF Wolfheze -1 scenario demonstrates this frequently both early in the game when there is not much action and again later when things get hot and heavy. Do you have a link to where these priorities are indicated? Thanks again.

I'll use the Marder as an example. Tanks have priority 80, LVs priority 60, emplacements priority 30, infantry priority 10. Priority +10 for current target.

Otto wrote:
Thanks Dennis.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
...All AT weapons have priority for tanks and vehicles. Unless you order otherwise, they will prefer to fire on these. They do have a slight priority bonus for the unit they're currently firing at over other targets but it is not enough to prioritise infantry over tanks...

All to often I see locked down ATGs firing at infantry when Tanks are within very short range. The OF Wolfheze -1 scenario demonstrates this frequently both early in the game when there is not much action and again later when things get hot and heavy. Do you have a link to where these priorities are indicated? Thanks again.

I have never seen this happen before.  Are you sure the tanks are within the AT gun's cone of fire or you're not just manually targeting the infantry instead?  Remember that the closer the tanks are to your AT gun the smaller the cone of fire is, and the more you must turn your AT gun to adopt.

Remember that Marders have pretty narrow cone of fire and if you ordered them to attack a current target it will stick with it unless said target is not a priority or you order otherwise.

Otherwise:

Yauz wrote:
I have never seen this happen before.

I think that I have a different problem, when left the (mobile) Zis guns only attack tanks even when there are none in view. Rather than attacking the infantry units presented to them within the arc of fire, they just sit there and get killed off without shooting anything.