Escorts & other questions.

[CIA_Yankee_]

Hi there!

 

Does anyone else have any issues with escort missions, or attack missions where you should be escorted, and the escort/attack flights fail to meet up properly?

 

It seems like there's something funky going on with the escort timings: if I'm the escort flight, I almost never see the flight I'm meant to escort, and if I'm the attack flight, the AI escort rarely links up properly.

 

Note that I usually use autopilot for getting to the objective (using time acceleration), and this is with latest version of the unified PWCG.

 

Also, I have a couple of questions:

 

• Does anyone know if air starts can mess up missions?
• What about NOT generating climbing WPs? Does anything know if this option causes any issues?

 

Thank you.

[PatrickAWlson]

I usually test from takeoff using climb WPs.  I have generally not had issues in picking up my escort when I am being escorted.  It's been awhile since I have tested escort missions where I do the escorting.

 

I have not yet tested escorted missions with air starts and I can definitely see where that could be an issue if I mistakenly cut out the rendezvous point. 

Escorted missions without climb WPs should not be an issue as the pickup WP is definitely after the climb WPs.

[CIA_Yankee_]

I usually test from takeoff using climb WPs.  I have generally not had issues in picking up my escort when I am being escorted.  It's been awhile since I have tested escort missions where I do the escorting.

 

I have not yet tested escorted missions with air starts and I can definitely see where that could be an issue if I mistakenly cut out the rendezvous point. 

Escorted missions without climb WPs should not be an issue as the pickup WP is definitely after the climb WPs.

 

I should note that my escorting problems where from takeoff using climb WPs. I was asking about the rest out of curiosity.

 

How are escorts handled, anyway? At what point should I expect to pick up the escorts (or the bombers that I should escort)? Right after the climb WPs?

[354thFG_Leifr]

On 9/12/2016 at 7:12 PM, PatrickAWlson said:

I usually test from takeoff using climb WPs.  I have generally not had issues in picking up my escort when I am being escorted.  It's been awhile since I have tested escort missions where I do the escorting.

 

I have not yet tested escorted missions with air starts and I can definitely see where that could be an issue if I mistakenly cut out the rendezvous point. 

Escorted missions without climb WPs should not be an issue as the pickup WP is definitely after the climb WPs.

 

This is a really old bump but I think it is relevant.

We are playing through an IL2 campaign in Stalingrad now, and find that without an AI as flight leader it is impossible for us to trigger the AI escort above. I have flown to the rendezvous WP at the right altitude and speed, circled beneath for several minutes, popped flares, flashed lights, but the AI will never attach itself to a player-only flight in Co-op... we have to take an AI flight lead.

The AI escort will simply circle over the rendezvous point for the entire mission.

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Leifr

[IckyATLAS]

32 minutes ago, Leifr said:

 

This is a really old bump but I think it is relevant.

We are playing through an IL2 campaign in Stalingrad now, and find that without an AI as flight leader it is impossible for us to trigger the AI escort above. I have flown to the rendezvous WP at the right altitude and speed, circled beneath for several minutes, popped flares, flashed lights, but the AI will never attach itself to a player-only flight in Co-op... we have to take an AI flight lead.

The AI escort will simply circle over the rendezvous point for the entire mission.

 

 

Some comments about Escorts below:

 

An AI flight escort to a Player leaded flight is working.

The flight escort will indeed fly above the Player flight. The behavior of the flight escort is depending on what the editor of the mission has programmed.

The flight escort will behave depending on a priority parameter of the MCU Cover that is :

 

Low: The flight escort will attack enemy planes in the area even if not directly attacked and will do so until there is no more threat. The problem here is that if the Player flight continues to fly towards a target far away, the escort will not follow and will continue to attack the enemy planes. After a certain distance the escort  may get lost.

 

Medium: The flight escort will attack enemy planes only if attacked themselves. So if not attacked by enemy planes that are flying around then their priority is to fly escort that is to follow the players flight planes.

 

High: They will do nothing and continue escorting the player flight that is just flying above.

 

The editor of the mission can also program in case the player flight is attacked to cancel the Escort order which will severe the link between Escort and Player and have the escort do whatever the editor of the mission had foreseen in his scenario.  Later he could recreate the link through a new MCU Escort command if both flight may not be too far between each other.

 

What is not possible is to have the player give orders to the AI escort flight leader. 

 

Multiple and staged escorts

You can have multiple escort flights for a same player flight. You can thus stage the escort with a Low escort and a High escort.

You can have a High Escort that is an escort to a Low escort which was a typical configuration in WWII. All this works fine but you have to define priorities and according to your scenario define the behaviors of your escorts. This has to be programmed.

 

It is a pity that the MCU_Behavior command does not allow to change the Priority parameter of the various MCU's like the Cover one.

This would allow to have the AI be changed in flight according to events. Again a limitation that show the Editor has still missed here another great mission design opportunity.

There are ways to do this by canceling an Escort command and activate another Escort command with a different Priority setting but all this increases the clutter on the mission design screen and using Behavior is much more clean and lean.

 

 

 

[354thFG_Leifr]

3 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

 

Some comments about Escorts below:

 

An AI flight escort to a Player leaded flight is working.

The flight escort will indeed fly above the Player flight. The behavior of the flight escort is depending on what the editor of the mission has programmed.

The flight escort will behave depending on a priority parameter of the MCU Cover that is :

 

Thanks for the comments IckyATLAS.

I suppose then that this relies upon whatever Pat has set for the PWCG? I am not sure if it changes with each newly generated mission.