Taxi points for AI that are air start.

[WWSitttingDuck]

This was just eye candy for a MP mission.  Have a flight of 3 AI 2km out at begin of mission.  They would pass over field, hit their waypoint, which would trigger a land, and then the field had some taxi points, so was hoping after they landed, they would taxi off the runway to the hangers.  I MIGHT be able to get the lead to land, but most of the time, they turn their lights on. put the gear down, and then on approach, change their mind.  When the lead does land, the wing always change their mind, and take off heading for god knows where.

 

Is there any way to get AI that are Air start, to follow the land and taxi points on an airfield?

 

I did try putting the park/taxi/takeoff vpp on another field, and did not seem to help any.

Edited May 9, 2019 by WWSitttingDuck

[Gambit21]

I'm not quite sure I understand the problem.

The AI have a hard-coded land pattern which is a total pain in the ass, completely unrealistic and drives me nuts.

Basically the leader lands, then number 2 re-flys the pattern, then he lands and number 3 re-flys the pattern etc.

 

However each aircraft landing and taxiing to where you've placed the taxi waypoints has never been an issue.

[Thad]

To know the games AI is to love the games AI. ?

[JimTM]

Have you read my Notes on AI Taxi, Takeoff, and Landing? For your scenario, check under "Land command, one airfield object with taxi path", about half way down in the post.

[WWSitttingDuck]

nope, missed that Jim...(but did look the manual)

 

Have been trying all this with a formation, will try it again with single planes, and see if it works on a regular basis.  Can always make it 3 planes with individual waypoints and land commands..

 

 

[JimTM]

Just keep in mind what Gambit21 wrote above: 

"Basically the leader lands, then number 2 re-flys the pattern, then he lands and number 3 re-flys the pattern etc."

 

It may help if you post your formation mission.

[Thad]

Salutations,

 

Attached is a simple mission where two Bf-109 taxi and takeoff from an airfield... make a short flight to another field, land, taxi and park. Check it out when you get the time.

 

It can be flown using the auto pilot. 

Field Transfer.zip

[WWSitttingDuck]

whew,,,what a pain...

 

If the active is in any way in use, approaching planes will do a fly around till the active is open.  So forget about trying to get planes to land in a formation.

My spawn point for the MP airfield had the planes just a tad to close to the active.  Sometimes the approaching AI would consider it open, sometimes it would not and go around and around......

[Gambit21]

Not sure what you mean by "the active" but AI will not land information no matter you do, and will always fly the pattern individually.

[IckyATLAS]

I may digress, but If we talk about a real pain in the ..... then it is the taxi from parking positions to the take off point and then the taking off. If you plan well the taxi points (minimum number to avoid stoppages) on the taxi path the planes will move acceptably fast, but the positioning of a flight made by three or four planes is just INCREDIBLY loooong before they indeed take off. With only one plane it is acceptable but with more than one it is terrible.

 

Thanks to Jim's comment on Taxi we know that if the take-off point is nearer (direct distance) then a taxi point the plane will cut through and go directly there. But you could live with that after all if it is just grass between the taxiway and runway, so no problem ?. But no, in this particular cases the leading plane reaches the take-off point cutting through the field and gets completely stuck in a wrong orientation to the take-off direction and blocks all other planes of the flight.

 

And what if you have two airfield objects each with a different group of airplanes, but sharing the same taxiways. You get it  it is a complete disorganized mess, as the planes mix the taxi points. I found no solution to this problem. Ideally one would deactivate the airfield objects and activate them on request so that each airfield and its taxiway taxi point list is active when the corresponding group of airplanes need to go and take-off. I found no way to do this.

[Murleen]

I've found that if the planes take a long time to arrange on the runway (assuming they didn't skip any taxi points), it tends to indicate there's either too large an angle or not enough distance from the last taxi point to the takeoff point.

[IckyATLAS]

8 hours ago, Murleen said:

I've found that if the planes take a long time to arrange on the runway (assuming they didn't skip any taxi points), it tends to indicate there's either too large an angle or not enough distance from the last taxi point to the takeoff point.

Here is a catch 22 situation. If you put enough distance then your take off point becomes nearer to some taxi point. If you put many taxi points as the planes stop and starts at each taxi point then again it slows the whole stuff. I noted also that the number of taxi points is limited for the take-off branch and the land branch at around 12 max each that is really not much for certain airfield with many curves. I think here the programming of taxiing has not been done properly. After all planes don't stop when they fly from one waypoint to the other, same for the vehicles. The problem may come from the size of the area around the taxi points and unfortunately we cannot define them. This would solve the interference between points. If the logic was the same as with standard waypoints we would have less troubles. I hope they will tidy up this feature that could make airfields very lively.

[Gambit21]

I manage to have quite a bit of airfield activity with the current logic.

I don't have time to post about how I manage everything, but suffice to say with a bit of your own logic, a few timers and some testing you can

make it work.