Fire At Will

When on, Fire at Will mode allows all of your ships to have autonomous control over their gunnery. They will fire main and secondary guns at targets, automatically switch to better or other targets as needed, select appropriate ammunition as well as use star shells.

In conjunction with the previous update "Torpedo Improvements 2", player ships may now act in a more autonomous manner with their crews spotting incoming torpedoes as well as handling gun fire for you if desired.


Change log below:


1 Jun 2021

Additional gunnery improvements and fixes to issues introduced in v1.08e2
Fire at Will mode now correctly allows firing AAA at aircraft
Improved synchronisation between Wire at Fill mode and Auto Flak
Flak correctly ceases fire if all targets shot down/lost
Small calibre guns still fire at aircraft when Auto Flak is off
Guns correctly cease fire on target sunk/shot down

default.txt added new variables;
autoGunneryDefaultOn:true - Fire at Will mode is on for all player ships at the start of combat
autoHazardEvasionDefaultOn:true - auto hazard evasions is on by default

AT WILL button now available on gun panel to set that ship from manual to FIRE AT WILL mode
default/language/english/dictionary/general.txt added AtWillFire
default/language/english/messagelog.txt AutoGunneryOn message clarified with "all guns" as Fire At Will manages both main and secondary guns

Fire At Will display on gun panel now displays target for those guns
Battleships and Battlecruisers use HE shells against Light Cruiser armor and below when Firing At Will
Improved automated Star Shell usage under dark conditions for player Fire At Will mode and enemy ships;
- decreased overall star shell usage
- star shells only fired if target is not illuminated

Gun turret firing data no longer displays spread/spot information for HE shells vs aircraft as not relevant
Gun turret firing data no longer displays spread information for SS as they use a default wider spread

Shot Spread Patterns
config.txt changed;
shellSpreadDeltaAngles:[{"x":0.6,"y":0.8},{"x":0.4,"y":0.4},{"x":0.2,"y":0.2}]
to
shellSpreadDeltaAngles:[{"x":0.6,"y":0.54},{"x":0.4,"y":0.4},{"x":0.2,"y":0.27}]

This makes the following change to spread sizes (% of range fired at);
LOOSE - 6% changes to 4%
FULL - 3% remains unchanged
NRRW - 1.5% changes to 2%


GENERAL
takao_model.txt and myoko_model.txt fixed director setup
north_carolina_data.txt improved torpedo defense system value
aircraft colliding with ships have fire/smoke particles correctly turned off
config.txt added new variable runInBackground:true - to allow app to run in background (or not)




27 May 2021 (BETA)

Fire At Will Mode Added
Fire At Will Toggle added to ORDERS panel
Toggle sets Fire At Will state for all selected ships, when on does the following;
- commence firing primary and secondary guns at detected or upon detecting enemy units
- assign target of primary guns to all directors
- switch to new target if current target sunk or lost contact
- automatically use HE rounds against destroyers, submarines, merchants, oilers
- hides FIRING ORDERS settings on gun panels replacing them with "FIRING AT WILL"

default/config.txt added;
autoGunneryDefaultOn:true - at start of combat, Fire At Will mode is on by default for all player ships
autoGunnerySpotBelow:0.4 - Fire At Will will use spotting fire at solutions below 40%
autoGunnerySpreadAt:[0.5,0.85] - Fire At Will will fire spread for solutions; LOOSE < 50%, FULL < 85%, NRRW >= 85%

Toggle Fire at Will off will cease automatic target selection and gun setting changes (existing targets will continue to be fired upon with current gun settings)
Using RETREAT command from Menu panel turns off Fire At Will mode for all selected ships
Clicking Stop button on gun panel toggles Fire At Will mode off for that ship only and restores manual gun controls

default/language/english/messagelog.txt added AutoGunneryOn andAutoGunneryOff variables
default/language/english/dictionary/general.txt added AutoGunnery and FireAtWill variables
default/interface/styles.txt added auto gunnery sprites to CombatTogglesBase and CombatTogglesActive
default/interface/images/ui folder added autoGunnery.png and autoGunneryActive.png


GENERAL
Reworked combat AI for target selection;
- AI ships (and player ships in Fire At Will mode) make better decisions about primary and secondary gun targets
- AI target selection for torpedo attacks improved to focus on higher priority ships

Firing Orders CEASE command no longer requires a target

torpedo_type93.txt removed wake and corrected damage amount
Target ships in tutorial missions no longer lay smoke or attempt to retreat
War on the Sea application now runs in background