Guide To Deselecting Focus Fire

[GoldPile]

Are you in a situation where you want to deselect a focus target for your secondaries or AA? You might have tried clicking everything possible to get that target off the ship or plane only to find your efforts are in vain, well here's an easy method to deselection.

 

Hit the P key twice, it's that simple. This turns off your AA & secondaries while removing all focus fire selections at the same time, hitting P again turns your guns back on.

[Lord_Zath]

And here I was expecting to see a link to a mod!

[10T0nHammer]

Instructions unclear, torpedoed two friendlies with my North Carolina

[The_GoDDfather]

Instructions unclear, torpedoed two friendlies with my North Carolina

 

O-o

[poeticmotion]

I don't think I've ever had a strong desire to deselect something unless I had something new to select, but nifty...I wouldn't have thought of that. 

[SergeantHop]

Yeah, not exactly sure why I'd want to deselect something for nothing, but I guess the more you know?

[Cruiser_Senjo]

Instructions unclear, torpedoed two friendlies with my North Carolina

 

mai gud ! i vin riq roled !!! 

[ADM_Dixon]

so confused. why would one not want to shoot at the bad things in close proximity to ones self?

[TazFTW]

so confused. why would one not want to shoot at the bad things in close proximity to ones self?

 

I believe your secondaries will only fire at the targeted ship. The secondaries that cannot fire (opposite side secondaries) at the target ship will stay silent even though there is another ship within range.

[GoldPile]

Hint: Defensive Fire

[The_Necromancer_015]

If you have still have time left on Defensive fire timer you will lose that time by doing it this way.

[SergeantHop]

 

I believe your secondaries will only fire at the targeted ship. The secondaries that cannot fire (opposite side secondaries) at the target ship will stay silent even though there is another ship within range.

 

Only with manual secondaries. 

Hint: Defensive Fire

 

Still not sure. But, why would you want to reduce damage to an air group? Does not having a priority target change how it panics squadrons?

[GoldPile]

 

Only with manual secondaries. 

 

Still not sure. But, why would you want to reduce damage to an air group? Does not having a priority target change how it panics squadrons?

 

Lets say you're focusing 1 squad of something & suddenly a cloud of doom approaches from the horizon. Now you have a choice of focusing down 1 squad or spread your panic among all bombers. Focus firing only targets a single air group for a fixed DPS multiplier while leaving the others untouched (unless they fly within the next AA bubble).

[The_Necromancer_015]

 

Lets say you're focusing 1 squad of something & suddenly a cloud of doom approaches from the horizon. Now you have a choice of focusing down 1 squad or spread your panic among all bombers. Focus firing only targets a single air group for a fixed DPS multiplier while leaving the others untouched (unless they fly within the next AA bubble).

 

Damage per second of large caliber (25mm or greater) anti-aircraft guns increased by 300%(Tier VII US CA).  If you turn off AA with P, and you have the defensive fire consumable active, you will lose the remaining time on your bonus. Word of warning

[GoldPile]

 

Damage per second of large caliber (25mm or greater) anti-aircraft guns increased by 300%(Tier VII US CA).  If you turn off AA with P, and you have the defensive fire consumable active, you will lose the remaining time on your bonus. Word of warning

 

Just went into a training room & can confirm that hitting P does in fact immediately shut down any active Defensive Fire presently on. Now this P method should be done ahead of time in anticipation for a blob of death rather than a reactive "oh crap" situation. On another note you can reduce the cooldown of Defensive Fire by forcing the active time to turn off prematurely.

[SergeantHop]

 

Lets say you're focusing 1 squad of something & suddenly a cloud of doom approaches from the horizon. Now you have a choice of focusing down 1 squad or spread your panic among all bombers. Focus firing only targets a single air group for a fixed DPS multiplier while leaving the others untouched (unless they fly within the next AA bubble).

 

Except that each aura can only engage one target at a time anyways. I'd personally rather get each squad out of the way as soon as possible, and just target whichever squad is the biggest threat.

[GoldPile]

 

Except that each aura can only engage one target at a time anyways. I'd personally rather get each squad out of the way as soon as possible, and just target whichever squad is the biggest threat.

 

That's actually incorrect, unfocused AA targets everything within the respective AA bubble. A simple way to test this is to fly all your planes into the long range AA bubble, you should notice that all of their icons flash indicating they are under fire. When AA is focused only one squadron will be flashing the under fire status.

[SergeantHop]

This isn't the guide that I had originally read this in, and I don't recall where that guide or thread is, but I'm not incorrect. The flashing of the icon is not a good indicator of when the squad is actually being targeted. 

 

 Note: Each aura can attack only 1 squadron at a time and this will be the most dangerous one. Example: There are fighters, TBs flying towards the ship and TBs flying away from the ship – the AA auras will attack the TBs flying towards the ship unless another squadron is focused by the player.

 

[GoldPile]

This isn't the guide that I had originally read this in, and I don't recall where that guide or thread is, but I'm not incorrect. The flashing of the icon is not a good indicator of when the squad is actually being targeted.

 

I just ran my own test in a training room as follows:

 

1. My single Baltimore against all the Hosho bots I can fit on the enemy team on the map Ocean.

2. Straight lined into B while all the Hoshos surrounded me with TBs.

3. Popped DF and watched as multitude of squads melted planes at random.

4. All TB drops were panicked.

 

You can run your own test if you don't believe me, I would say that guide might need updating.

[SergeantHop]

I think this is a question for Sub_Octavian. It's possible that in the above scenario, the planes were dying fast enough that it would look like they were all dying together. I will do more science while I wait for Oc's response.

[vak_]

Now you have a choice of focusing down 1 squad or spread your panic among all bombers

 

I'm fairly certain that all enemy aircraft in your AA aura get panicked when DF is on, whether you use focus fire or not.

 

1. My single Baltimore against all the Hosho bots I can fit on the enemy team on the map Ocean.

2. Straight lined into B while all the Hoshos surrounded me with TBs.

3. Popped DF and watched as multitude of squads melted planes at random.

 

That doesn't actually prove anything, since in leu of focus fire the AA AI will switch targets automatically -- targeting the approaching TB that's currently closest to your ship (and thus assumed to be most dangerous).

[GoldPile]

 

I'm fairly certain that all enemy aircraft in your AA aura get panicked when DF is on, whether you use focus fire or not.

 

 

That doesn't actually prove anything, since in leu of focus fire the AA AI will switch targets automatically -- targeting the approaching TB that's currently closest to your ship (and thus assumed to be most dangerous).

 

I will test this later when I have time so I can get conclusive results.

 

As for the second one that is a plausible reasoning. But if that's the case what is the criteria for "most important" & switching targets? Planes fell indiscimantely left & right with full disregard to squad HP while being seemingly random. TBs that are actively making torp runs can be ignored while a squad that's flying away looses planes.

 

[SergeantHop]

 

I will test this later when I have time so I can get conclusive results.

 

As for the second one that is a plausible reasoning. But if that's the case what is the criteria for "most important" & switching targets? Planes fell indiscimantely left & right with full disregard to squad HP while being seemingly random. TBs that are actively making torp runs can be ignored while a squad that's flying away looses planes.

 

 

Well, the AI is pretty derp. Have you seen how the bots play?

 

That's why I like to take matters into my own hands and force it to attack the biggest threat. Not to mention you do additional damage with your DP guns when you have a target designated.

 

Either way, I've asked Sub_Octavian on his Q&A thread, so we'll get the low down from WG themselves when he gets to it. He said he's working on 0.5.12 stuff right now, so it might be a little bit, but he's been pretty good about answering questions there.

[GoldPile]

Well anyone that's interested I ran some more tests, same as before but this time I loaded up with 6 Haks and did variations between selecting focus fire and having nothing selected.

 

Some discoveries (this is all with DF on):

- Focus firing does still let you panic all other squads.

- Observing the AA animation even while under focus fire non-DP AA guns can still fire off in random directions at other squads.

 

So there's various possibilities on why this is happening I'm too tired to continue for tonight & maybe Sub will grace us with his knowledge. You can run your own tests if you're curious.

[SergeantHop]

Sub_Octavian, on 27 September 2016 - 11:01 AM, said:

There's been some recent confusion about how AA works, and I would like it clarified if you have the time. My understanding of the mechanic is that each aura can only engage one target at a time, but another user has posted that multiple squadrons were being engaged by his AA while unfocused. Which is correct?

 

Each aura (and aura includes all AA guns that fire at the same range) can engage ONE target. However, when an aura is affected by AA supperssive fire, debuffs ALL squadrons in range.