What's the criteria for secondary battery targets?

[capncrunch21]

Okay, a little rage here....

 

What is the criteria for secondary gun targets?

 

I just had a game where my aircraft carrier secondaries refused to fire at a DD as it closed in on me. It wasn't in smoke, and was well within the fire arc of the guns and range. I started backing away to give get more time to fire  - the most annoying part? It only had 112 health left and wasn't dodging at all.  All I had to do was nick it and it would have blown up.

 

As it got closer about (2.5 km), an enemy cruiser that was following came into range of the secondaries - - AND THEY OPEN UP ON HIM! wth!!! An enemy DD with next to no health, that is a kilometer and a half closer to me, in the open, about to launch torps, and the secondaries shoot at the frikin' crusier??!?!!

 

Seriously, what is up with the crappy priorities for secondary fire?? Needless to say I got torp'd and sunk and the DD went on it's merry way.

 

(This isn't the only time this has happened. I've seen my crusier and BB secondaries fire at farther away targets than what my CLOSER primary target is.... ugh).

 

Come on WG, this should be common sense 101 for coding. ALWAYS have the bot gunners shoot at the CLOSEST target.

 

[SergeantHop]

A ship in range is a valid target, but the secondary guns need to be in firing arc to engage. It's not like AA, the guns have to be able to see the target to shoot it. A lot of secondaries on early carriers have weird firing arcs, so that would be my guess as to why they weren't firing.

[Jiggiwatt]

Not sure what the rules are...but if you ctrl + click on a ship (or planes), it becomes a designated target for your secondaries.

[RipNuN2]

A ship in range is a valid target, but the secondary guns need to be in firing arc to engage. It's not like AA, the guns have to be able to see the target to shoot it. A lot of secondaries on early carriers have weird firing arcs, so that would be my guess as to why they weren't firing.

 

Like Sergeant Hop pointed out, a lot of the earlier carriers have really poor secondary arcs because they werent originally designed as carriers, like the USS Langley is an ad hoc CV converted from a collier. You will see many of the higher tier purpose built cvs having some rather potent secondary armaments with wide arcs like the USN dual purpose 5 inch guns. Which cv were you driving btw?

[Macabe]

A ship in range is a valid target, but the secondary guns need to be in firing arc to engage. It's not like AA, the guns have to be able to see the target to shoot it. A lot of secondaries on early carriers have weird firing arcs, so that would be my guess as to why they weren't firing.

 

This. There is also a minimum engagement range. Ships closer than it can't be fired upon. I think it's under 1km but i don't remember.

[OOM911]

It really depends on the ship... My best advice as a CV player is take a close look at the model... for example on the Hakuryu you might not see it at first but there is  sort of cage around several of the turrets, so if you want to bring them to bear you have to go in at a angle... especially if you want to get all 6 twin 100's fireing on target.

[CPT_Nelson]

Anyway if you don't have manual secondaries, which I highly doubt on a carrier, your gunners are more likely to just shoot at the local bird population than an incoming threat. 

[KaptainKaybe]

Guns have to aim in that direction. It also needseems line of sight to the center of the ship. So if only the nose is pointing out, they won't fire.

[goldeagle1123]

 

This. There is also a minimum engagement range. Ships closer than it can't be fired upon. I think it's under 1km but i don't remember.

 

It's not a set range. It's just the mechanics of how secondaries work, if the secondary gun doesn't have line of sight on the enemy waterline, they are ignored, which is why at point blank range secondaries don't work.