Creating a sense of threat in a mission

[TP_Silk]

We are currently engaged in a campaign based around II.(Schlacht)/LG2 during the period October to December of 1941 in their E7s. Now obviously the E7 with bomb racks on is going to want to mostly avoid any air combat at least until the primary ground targets have been hit so I could just include air action on the return leg. That has two problems.

 

Firstly it would get predictable. Clear flight out, hit the ground targets, meet IL-2s on the way home.

 

Secondly there is no sense of threat. No scanning the skies with a worried expression expecting to be bounced at any moment.

 

How, then, can a sense of threat be introduced without having a regiment of Mig-3s and I-16's tear through the vast majority of the Gruppe and allow the pilots to concentrate on their main task of putting steel on mud? Some ideas that I have considered are:

a) having enemy flights pass by while having their waypoint priority set to high and pilot AI set to low

b) I haven't looked yet, but if the patrol 'Attack area' command could be set to a sphere instead of a cylinder. I know this is possible with check zones, I just haven't yet looked for the Attack Area MCU. this would allow it to be set at a given height and provided that nobody climbed to meet the Russians, they may get away with not being 'seen'.

c) make the Attack Area MCU quite small. Maybe 15 meters or similar. The downside to this that I can see off the bat is that on reaching that point the enemy aircraft may go into a steep circle around that point.

 

Does anyone have any advice that may assist?

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

Certainly having an enemy squadron stream past would raise the anticipation level. Fighters are lose cannons though so perhaps in addition to using a High WP, have them also attacking a ground target which "might" keep them in check from attacking your squadron unless provoked. 

 

Another way to keep folks anxious if you can anticipate the ingress route, altitude and relative speed for your E-7 squadron is to try using a frontal engagement which carries over and through your squadron.

I used this method to good effect and with few additional AI added to lower the footprint.
Have perhaps 110s or another E-7 group spawn in front of your squadrons ingress at a higher altitude, can be just out of eyesight or perhaps under cloud cover and moving in the same direction with slightly less airspeed. Don't overtake them before they get attacked.

At the same time have the Migs/I-16s spawn in approximately 20 kms out on a reciprocal heading with speed at higher altitude with one WP set at the higher altitude, target linking an Attack Area MCU, (used medium, 18,000m span with a 8 minute window) located in the middle of both AI squads and "set to the same height as the friendly group in front of yours".

Merging in front of your own, the attacking AI are locked in to the other group as they run over and in many cases through your formation. You'll of course need to test the timing.
A Force Complete after the 8 minute window then delete and or Complete Damage ends the AI action once your squad has passed through.

 

For additional immersion have some dummy AI using the same aircraft as the friendly frontal AI group take off or in some other way be shown and heard by your squad early on and then get canned out of sight.

Tip 

[SCG_Schneemann]

And don't forget if they are just passing through and your group is avoiding them, set them to German instead of Russian. Deactivate after you are past, and activate another group of Russian planes on the return journey.

[Gambit21]

Tip has a good tip there.

 

1. You can also have a flight of enemy fighters merge, but with a waypoint set to "high", which will cause them to fly right through without engaging.

Make this happen while your formation is near a cloud layer, making it plausible that the enemy flight lost the Emils in the clouds.

 

2. Have an AI escort flight, and place an enemy patrol as normal.

   Let the escorts take them on while your fighter-bombers remain in ingress toward their target. This will play out differently every time, here and there an enemy fighter might latch on to one of your Emils, but normally this won't happen, especially if you've target linked the enemies to your escort flight. Leave out the target link if you want more unpredictability.

 

3. Sometimes you get jumped on the way to your target and have to drop bombs and fight, that's life on the front. Let it happen sometimes.

 

[TP_Jacko]

12 hours ago, TP_Silk said:

having a regiment of Mig-3s and I-16's tear through the vast majority of the Gruppe

Just do this once and from then on they will all poop themselves with a flybye

[TP_Silk]

Or a FlyBe ??  ?