Enemy contacts at 1st waypoint... every mission?

[runsilent]

Is the above behavior normal?  I've generated maybe 15 or so missions over Stalingrad and recently Kuban, and every single time we have had contact and immediate fight before we reach the first climb waypoint.

 

This is on default everything, except high flight contact,  I changed it halfway through to Medium and still the same result.  I love the amount of planes, I just wish the contact happened more at the mission objective waypoints instead of before the climb ones complete. 

 

Thoughts?

[TheSNAFU]

I have the additional climb waypoints off in the advanced settings. Makes missions faster and I don’t see what your experiencing. 

[runsilent]

Ok I'll try this and report back, didn't know that was a setting thanks for the info.

[PatrickAWlson]

If your squadron is located very close to the front then it is quite possible.  One thing you can do is move the climb waypoints away from the front lines.  Something I can do is review squadron placement and try to move some of the closer units back a bit.  Then I get into overcrowded airfields ... things can domino very quickly.

[runsilent]

No criticism just confirming this behavior was normal and that the install wasn't botched or something!

[TheSNAFU]

Did eliminating the climb waypoints help your problem? 

[runsilent]

It “helped” a bit, by not having our climb points directly at the front, but were still having a few instances of it.  Not enough that it seems like somethings wrong. 

Short answer yes thanks for the suggestion!

[TheSNAFU]

Pat, I have to retract what I said earlier in this thread. I haven't had time to play for sometime until today. After flying 6 missions I am getting the same issue as runsilent reported. Every mission began with enemy planes spotted almost immediately after takeoff. The missions were patrols, penetrations and Low CAP and in all of them my flight called out and soon engaged enemy planes right after takeoff. In each case we engaged the enemies and once they were shot down or driven off, the flight ( I was not leader in any of them) resumes flying the mission from the active WP which is often far from where we end up after the engagement. By then I have expended much or all of my ammo in the initial fight. This happened in every one of the 6 missions.

 

In the past, missions went many waypoints before seeing enemy planes or in some never encountering enemies at all (which is a good thing).

 

I am flying in JG52 on the Stalingrad map in August 42. We're based at Kumovka which is far behind the lines. Additional climb WP's is off. I have not had this problem in the past. . I would expect that in some cases we would encounter enemies close to our base deep in our occupied territory but not every time. There are no early WP's anywhere near the front. Something seems to have changed but I don't know  which version introduced this

 

Hope you can take a closer look at this as it really messes with the way missions go.

 

Thanks

[Yogiflight]

This is odd. I had this in the 6 Alpha versions, but since the official 6 version, i had this maybe one or two times in a lot of missions with 190, 110 and a few 109.

EDIT: No climb waypoints either, but Cold Start.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Yogiflight

[dburne]

I am 38 missions into my current Spit Campaign now.

I saw that same behavior in several mission early on, and doing cold start and taxi to runway was causing some difficulties as we

would get hammered before taking off.

 

At some point it settled down some, maybe after transferring to a different airfield I am not sure. Fairly sure this was all in 6.1.3.

[TheSNAFU]

I too am on 6.1.3. I flew 3 more missions and experienced the same thing. Enemy planes spotted and engaged directly after takeoff and no others thru the rest of the missions. Still at the same base. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by TheSNAFU

[Juliu5]

I also get instant action at our Airbase Moscow campaign Luftwaffe fighter , like 5-10 of Soviet planes circling around and shooting or bombing us down every mission , every missions 1 or 2 of our air group cant takeoff without being shot down or bombed , including me , using cold start option , at the start of  Battle of Moscow campaign I./JG51 Gzhatsk Airbase.

[TheSNAFU]

I continue to have issues with the way missions are generating. I'm now on 6.1.5. My campaign began with IIJG52 on the Stalingrad map in August 42. I started based at Kumovka and encountered enemies immediately after takeoff in every one of 11 missions. I saw someone say to transfer so I did moving to 1JG52 at Gachi. There Im not getting any enemies at all. I flew 4 missions, 2 patrols a low alt cap and a penetration. No enemies at all.

 

I don't know if there is something with my install or what but there seems to be something wrong with the way PWCG is producing SP missions.

 

Any thoughts or ideas on this are appreciated.    

[PatrickAWlson]

A quick overview: the current mission design funnels everything into a box.  The box is, by default, 50 km by 50 km.  A smaller box will funnel activity to a smaller area which should increase odds of contact.  In earlier releases of 6.x the box was being created way too far away, sometimes on the opposite side of the map.  Now it's probably too close.

 

I am thinking about ways to alter the center position of the box, depending on the player aircraft's range.  Moving the center of the box between a minimum distance and maximum distance from the player's airfield should solve two problems.  First, the minimum distance should get activity away from the player's airfield.  The maximum distance should help bomber career players get more targeting options.

 

I probably need two separate algorithms, one for single squadron (SP and coop single squadron) and one for multiple player squadrons.  

 

Last but not least are no contact zones.  These would be the product of timing.  The flights are going through the box (I know that to be true)  but it is possible that they are arriving at a totally different time than the player.

 

@TheSNAFUThanks for the squadron info and dates.  That helps.

[TheSNAFU]

Quote

 

Thanks for taking a look Pat. I certainly cant speak to what is causing this but it does seem to me it was introduced at some point after you began developing the Coop feature. I think it's great that you added a coop component to PWCG. It gives this fine program an even wider appeal. But I do think the SP side may have been inadvertently impacted. 

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, TheSNAFU said:

Thanks for taking a look Pat. I certainly cant speak to what is causing this but it does seem to me it was introduced at some point after you began developing the Coop feature. I think it's great that you added a coop component to PWCG. It gives this fine program an even wider appeal. But I do think the SP side may have been inadvertently impacted. 

 

I know that is the case as I have already made a number of corrections  .  it also brought improvements.  The box system that I currently have is much more flexible than the older system and generally works well.  it will take a little more time and feedback to maximize the capabilities. 

 

 

[TheSNAFU]

Looking forward to giving the revision a go Pat. Happy to provide feedback. Thanks for all your work and for this great program. It remains the only way I play the game.