"cover me"

[von_Michelstamm]

what exactly does this  command make your ai wingmen do?
Do they ignore enemies and stick with you until they or you are attacked? Incase someone comes near? Unclear how this works.

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Forget "Cover Me", has anyone gotten "Return to Base" to do anything?  The game doesn't even seem to acknowledge that you selected it.

[Feathered_IV]

1 hour ago, hrafnkolbrandr said:

Forget "Cover Me", has anyone gotten "Return to Base" to do anything?  The game doesn't even seem to acknowledge that you selected it.

 

Return to Base works.  The AI will stop what they are doing and head home en-masse.   You need to use the command sparingly though, as the AI become blind to their surroundings after receiving the order and will allow themselves to be massacred. 

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

22 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

 

Return to Base works.  The AI will stop what they are doing and head home en-masse.   You need to use the command sparingly though, as the AI become blind to their surroundings after receiving the order and will allow themselves to be massacred. 

 

Are there certain conditions that have to be met for it to work?  As flight leader I have never had it work in the slightest.  What's the trick?

[Gretsch_Man]

11 hours ago, von_Michelstamm said:

what exactly does this  command make your ai wingmen do?
Do they ignore enemies and stick with you until they or you are attacked? Incase someone comes near? Unclear how this works.

 The manual says:

 

"Cover me: orders your flight to remain in formation and provide protection against enemy aircraft" 

 

But I also wonder whether this should/does apply to the whole flight or only your wingman. I noticed that after giving this order, the AI sometimes does reform on your wing (in case you are the flight leader).

[JonRedcorn]

The flight leader commands are probably the single worst thing about this game.

[von_Michelstamm]

I’ll play with it. Reading how vital wingmen were, I really want it to work properly

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, JonRedcorn said:

The flight leader commands are probably the single worst thing about this game.

Nope. Fly a Focke Wulf not as leader, get a radio callout about enemy aircrafts and follow them with 300km/h. This is when you want to bite in your joystick.

[Feathered_IV]

21 hours ago, hrafnkolbrandr said:

 

Are there certain conditions that have to be met for it to work?  As flight leader I have never had it work in the slightest.  What's the trick?

 

As far as I can tell it is dependant on proximity.  If the AI wingman seem to respond to the rtb command if they are in roughly visual range. 

 

5 hours ago, JonRedcorn said:

The flight leader commands are probably the single worst thing about this game.

 

For me it is the radio chatter.  I would swear all the other [edited] tastes like chocolate if that one part of the game was done well.  

Edited September 8, 2019 by SYN_Haashashin
Lamguage

[Gambit21]

1 hour ago, Feathered_IV said:

For me it is the radio chatter.  I would swear all the other [edited] tastes like chocolate if that one part of the game was done well.  

 

What? I've never heard you mention this before...you should have let us know sooner. 

 

 

?

[danielprates]

I have a beef with some of the radio orders but "cover me" isn't one of them. Wingmen will fall in and stick with you -heck, they may even try to shoot your own target, which is too much help, as it sometimes makes you the unintentional victim.

[MaxTurn]

One of the early combat sims (Aces of/over the Pacific/Europe) had the ability to tell your wingman to break right or left (and maybe up or down?).  Or that is how I remember it.  That was so long ago, you had to write a batch file to get the sims to boot. 

[Jaegermeister]

In my experience which is mostly scripted missions, using the “cover me” command gets the wingmen to actually pay attention to attacking EA and attack them in return. It is almost the same as “attack nearest aircraft” except that it does not limit the defense to whatever EA happens to be closest. They don’t stay in formation but they  do divert the bandits so they don’t all gang up on you while your homies pretend nothing is wrong.

 

Whenever I have used the RTB command, the flight just bugs out and heads for home base. It doesn’t seem like you can countermand it with rejoin formation later either. I don’t think I have ever seen it not work except when my flight is all dead. ☠️

 

That’s just my impressions, your mileage may vary.

[-332FG-Hank_DG]

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by -332FG-Hank_DG

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

When I try to hit Return to Base, the command menu doesn't even disappear like it does with the other commands.  It will just stay there no matter how many times I hit the key.  Any other command will close the menu and issue the order as normal though.

[unreasonable]

1 hour ago, hrafnkolbrandr said:

When I try to hit Return to Base, the command menu doesn't even disappear like it does with the other commands.  It will just stay there no matter how many times I hit the key.  Any other command will close the menu and issue the order as normal though.

 

Your keyboard has a dead key?

 

It certainly works, but your wingmen have to be reasonably close to "hear" it. The other thing I have noticed in Career mode is that after an RTB command they do not necessarily return to your original base but to the nearest friendly active base on the map. I have not specifically tested this, but observed it during career flights. I do not think the wingmen doing this were damaged.  

 

I have tried "RTB" to get my flight to land when close to your own base, to prevent them following you and causing accidents when you are trying to land. The disadvantage is that they all act independently and not only will they ignore enemy aircraft they will ignore one another and not take turns on landing. So I have seen all three wingmen collide on final!   The alternative is to hand over command so that they use the normal interminable AI landing pattern. Trouble with this is that it only works if you have already hit all the waypoints - otherwise they will go to the last waypoint you missed first.

 

People go on about the combat AI but it is these procedural problems that made me give up on career mode.  

[Luftschiff]

Meanwhile in ROF, your friends WILL land, but they're [edited] at it and so typically approaches the runway from the wrong side and you can sit on the aerodrome and leisurely watch an entire flight SLAM into the side of a hangar, one by one. I can't decide if that's better or worse?

Edited September 12, 2019 by SYN_Haashashin
Language

[Yogiflight]

9 hours ago, unreasonable said:

People go on about the combat AI but it is these procedural problems that made me give up on career mode.  

Absolutely this. Yes the dogfighting has some issues, but for those of us, who want to have the whole thing, play a career/ campaign, it really is a pain to see AI behave the way they do in the normal flying routine.

[Jaegermeister]

12 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Absolutely this. Yes the dogfighting has some issues, but for those of us, who want to have the whole thing, play a career/ campaign, it really is a pain to see AI behave the way they do in the normal flying routine.

 

By mid war, the allied procedure was to fly the downwind and peel up at intervals to bleed speed and create spacing. They went through the pattern and landed in turn without making repeated 3 minute circuits of the field. I would love to see this behavior implemented and space the landing aircraft much closer.