Engage target - only once?

[Hoggorm]

I've ordered an aircraft or chopper to engage an enemy submarine. I then would expect the aircraft to engage until the assigned target is destroyed, however it does not. It will fire one torpedo and then continue on its previous orders. If the torpedo missed, the aircraft will not fire again even though there is a red line from the aircraft to the sub, indicating that the aircraft is targeting it... I've tried to speed up time (to see if it will try to attack it later) but no further attempts to engage the sub is done from the aircraft.

Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug?

If this is correct behavior, might I suggest an option that says something like "Destroy target" that will make the attacker continue his attack until the target is destroyed?

Thank you

 

[unmerged(255172)]

Hi Hoggorm,

No, you aren't doing anything wrong. Thank you for feedback.

We have been going back and forth on automatic re-engagement and what you see now is where we've landed so far. On the one hand, if you give a unit an engagement order you will want it to destroy the target. On the other hand, ammo is very limited and you as a player will want detailed control of how it is expended.

Example: You detect a "nice to kill but not essential" surface target, and decide to take a shot at it from your surface unit, which will have bigger fish to fry later. Now, as the missile approaches, you find out that it is in fact an entire group of pretty worthless surface units you should not waste ammo on. Your missile misses. If the unit automatically re-engages you can end up wasting all your missiles on worthless targets and there is nothing you can do about it.

So we decided to err on the side of player control.

 

[Hoggorm]

Your idea makes sense although I have not come across a situation yet like the one you explain.

I would still rather see that an "Engage target" order instruct my unit to take out the target selected. If a situation like the one you describes arises, I should still be able to tell it to stop engaging by issuing another command or simply "Stop engaging target". Or as suggested in the initial post, you could add a "Destroy target" command.

But who am I to suggest? It's your game and I guess you've spent some time trying out different solutions and selected the one that works best.

 

[unmerged(255172)]

All feedback and suggestions are very welcome. We have been going a bit back and forth on this issue ourselves, and we probably will again