How to create big formations?

[VSN_Razor]

Is there some tutorial/video/guide around that shows how one can create some big formations (around 20 or more bomber)?

 

I've taken a look at Tips combat box formation, but since I'm quite new to the ME, I didn't really understand it (and couldn't adjust it).

 

I've also tried several different approaches, but they all ended not being that what I wanted it to be.

[IckyATLAS]

It is pretty easy to do with some practice.

For all that are interested let me attach here a Bomber Box with carpet bombing mission with 36 bombers, escort fighter planes, attack fighters, AAA ground artillery,  etc.

 

B25 New Bomber Box Mission.zip

 

There are searchlights already installed. Up to you to control them. Check how artillery is controlled and you can add that functionality to searchlights and create the corresponding night mission.

Use this as a starting point from which you can study how it is done etc..

You should have a robust rig with a powerful CPU I suppose as you want to handle large formations.

When you will be good at ME practice, such a mission can be built in as little as three-four hours if you know exactly what you want. What takes longer time is testing and tweaking to have the behavior of all what is involved to be right.

 

Have fun ? 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by IckyATLAS

[sevenless]

Thanks Icky,

 

I think the smallest bomber formation they used was 27 planes wing box (3 sqd with 9 planes each) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_box .

However I just started your mission for a spin with the expected results for my i7-2600k@4000. FPS were stable 40-50ish but internal timer went down to a near crawl. It was impressive to see the defense fire against the german attackers though and I observed that the defense BOX shot down 2 of the 3 attacking germans. Just for watching that picture it was worth starting that mission. I guess I need an i9 9900k with a 2800ti to get this running smoothly.

 

That german plane in the center of defense fire...

 

Got 1 of em

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by sevenless

[IckyATLAS]

To improve things, what you can do very easily is to open the editor and reduce the number of planes. You have at the moment 45 Planes.

You are the leader of the P51 Escort flight group (three planes, you and two wingmen)

 

The box is made by flights of three bombers, one leader and two wingmen. You have 4 flights of three per level (12 planes per level) and there are three levels. Each three plane flight is numbered G1, G2, G3, up to G12.

 

You can take away the flights G4, G8 and G12. You can do this without changing anything else in the control logic. It will work the same. 

 

This will reduce the number of bombers by 12. You will have a total of 24. Take away also the P47 flight (three planes) and now you have 15 less planes. You will end up with 30 planes. This should diminish the load on your CPU. The P47 flight (which is flying at low altitude) was there just to have the short range Flack 36 guns to fire. The Bombers fly higher and are attacked only by the long range Flack 37.

 

Reducing the number of Bombers and deleting the P47, has domino effects. Less planes, but less firing and so bullet trajectories, less Flack units firing, all this adds up in the positive direction of reducing resources and processing.

 

For those learning about the Editor here is how to proceed:

 

You will just work on the Mission tree on the left side of your main ME window. You do not need to go on the map and work with the objects themselves.

Go onto the main mission tree with all the entities that are on the map and correspond to the mission.

The list is the one with all the objects group names.

Leave aside the Airfields, Bridges and Cities groups these are the default ones that come with the BoBp Rheinland Map and that you do not need to touch here.

I have not grouped them together into a "Default objects" group simply because I plan to modify some buildings in the future to test larger destruction effects of the bombing.

 

1) Open the "Carpet Bombing Mission" group. You have three subgroups that are "Top Flight Group", Center Flight Group" and Low Flight Group"

2) Open each of these subgroups. You will have the list of the bomber planes. They are named "B25-Gx-x". By putting your mouse arrow on the selected plane you click right on your mouse and then click on "delete". The planes will be deleted from the list.

Do this for the 12 following planes named: B25-G4-1,2 and 3 then B25-G8-1,2 and 3 and finally B25-G12-1,2 and 3.

If you delete just these ones there is no need to touch the control logic.

3) Right click on P47 Flight group at the bottom of the list and delete the group altogether.

 

And you are done. Pretty easy, quick and simple.

 

If you want to reduce even more the number of planes and still do not touch the control logic then you can do as follows:

 

Do the same as in the steps 1) and 2) above. You can delete the wingmen in the bomber three plane flights (remember one leader two wingmen)

Wingmen are named B25-Gx-2 or 3. You can delete any of these. Do not delete the leaders that are named B25-Gx-1.

If you do this the control logic will work perfectly. Same for the Escort Flight group (you are the leader) and of the FW 190 A8 attacking flight group.

Wingmen have the 2 and 3 final numbers. If you do it this way the control logic will function the same.

 

All this means that the absolute minimum number of planes with the same control logic would be 12 Bombers, 1 escort fighter plane (you)  and 1 attack fighter plane: total 14 planes.

 

Up to you now to reduce the number of planes to the ideal number compatible for your system.

 

Let me know if this has improved and by how much your  game speed, and what is the ideal number of planes for your system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sevenless]

2 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

You can take away the flights G4, G8 and G12. You can do this without changing anything else in the control logic. It will work the same. 

 

This will reduce the number of bombers by 12. You will have a total of 24. Take away also the P47 flight (three planes) and now you have 15 less planes. You will end up with 30 planes. This should diminish the load on your CPU. The P47 flight (which is flying at low altitude) was there just to have the short range Flack 36 guns to fire. The Bombers fly higher and are attacked only by the long range Flack 37.

 

Let me know if this has improved and by how much your  game speed, and what is the ideal number of planes for your system.

 

Icky,

 

thanks for the tipps and for creating this gem. I followed your instructions and reduced bombers to 24 and deleted that P47s, and that did the trick for me. FPS are still in the 50ish ballpark, but the internal timer is working in realtime now for me so I would consider it playable for me (defense.zip).

 

I adapted that reduced mission to allow the player attacking that defense-box formation in 190 A8s (180A8.zip) or 262s (262A.zip).

 

Man that gives you some good impression how deadly it must have been to attack those formations back then. Absolutely murderous defense fire.

 

My Hardware is i7 2600K@4000Ghz and 2x GTX 980 in SLI with 16Gigs Ram.

 

B25 Box 24 Defense.zip B25 Box 24 Attack 190A8.zip B25 Box 24 Attack 262A.zip

Edited October 22, 2019 by sevenless

[VSN_Razor]

Thank guys, I was able to make it work with your help!

[VSN_Razor]

Well, I have now the next problem. The Formation is perfectly fine in Singleplayer. I've now made it a multiplayer mission, but then the AI didn't spawn. So I added the Spawn MCU, which works fine. All AI spawn. But only the lead plane of the 3-ship formation is flying towards the waypoint, the rest of the flight immediately enters an orbit. 

 

I've tried it with the AddReport option, when spawned, command formation or Trigger Waypoint, but neither of them works. Could someone help me out with the mission/keep the formation together?

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by VSN_Razor

[Deacon352nd]

I've made some of these groups within the mission part of various templates. I've gotten the planes to fly toward a target I made rather than the target within the mission. I did not change the attack command area mcu's in any way other than to move them to cover my new target area. They are still on the original waypoint routes. They fly to my targets but don't drop bombs. This was also within a multiplayer environment as opposed to single. 

[Alonzo]

4 hours ago, VSN_Razor said:

Well, I have now the next problem. The Formation is perfectly fine in Singleplayer. I've now made it a multiplayer mission, but then the AI didn't spawn. So I added the Spawn MCU, which works fine. All AI spawn. But only the lead plane of the 3-ship formation is flying towards the waypoint, the rest of the flight immediately enters an orbit. 

 

I've tried it with the AddReport option, when spawned, command formation or Trigger Waypoint, but neither of them works. Could someone help me out with the mission/keep the formation together?

BomberDefenseEdit.zip 888.05 kB · 1 download

 

You unfortunately cannot spawn planes in formation, you can only activate them. When I create formations on my maps, I have the planes set to "enabled = false" and then use an MCU_Activate to activate the leader. Then I wait 2 seconds and issue a formation command. Wait 2 more seconds and issue my first waypoint command.

[IckyATLAS]

Not being able to spawn complete formations (planes, vehicles and ships) is a strong limitation. I hope it will be possible in a future ME update.  

If the formation has been modified during the game, like loosing some elements due to combat or other, then we should be able to spawn the formation in its latest state or initial state. The two different cases should be possible to do.

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by IckyATLAS

[VSN_Razor]

11 hours ago, Alonzo said:

 

You unfortunately cannot spawn planes in formation, you can only activate them. When I create formations on my maps, I have the planes set to "enabled = false" and then use an MCU_Activate to activate the leader. Then I wait 2 seconds and issue a formation command. Wait 2 more seconds and issue my first waypoint command.

 

Hmm, I kind of tried to reproduce your steps, but it didn't quite work for me. They didn't get activated at all.

 

Would you mind take a look at my setup?

BomberDefenseEdit.zip

[Alonzo]

4 hours ago, VSN_Razor said:

 

Hmm, I kind of tried to reproduce your steps, but it didn't quite work for me. They didn't get activated at all.

 

Would you mind take a look at my setup?

BomberDefenseEdit.zip 887.07 kB · 0 downloads

I can’t as I’m on the road and on vacation. I’m sure there’s something in Jim’s manual on this, though. Try that?

 

off the top of my head you want 2 (or more) inactive planes with their target set to whoever is flight lead. Then (on MCU begin + 10 seconds) activate on the lead. Then wait 2 seconds. Then formation on the lead. Then wait. Then waypoint for the lead (then whatever after that).

[JimTM]

4 hours ago, VSN_Razor said:

 

Hmm, I kind of tried to reproduce your steps, but it didn't quite work for me. They didn't get activated at all.

 

Would you mind take a look at my setup?

BomberDefenseEdit.zip 887.07 kB · 0 downloads

 

Clear the "Cooperative Start" checkbox for all the planes. That checkbox is used to set up planes for players in co-op missions.

[VSN_Razor]

That worked, thanks!

 

But now my next problem is, that they don't follow the waypoint anymore. Should I change anything there too?

[IckyATLAS]

That's normal. The waypoint knows to which plane it is connected. But if this object disappears then that object link from WP to Plane is broken.

A new plane appears through spawning. This plane must create a link to the waypoint and activate it.

Put the altitude or Y value of your Spawn MCU to the altitude you want your plane to be spawned.

If you go in the Advanced Properties Dialog of your plane then you will see on the bottom right the On Report properties dialog. 

Click in there and you can have the OnSpawned event and you can then with the Target button select the waypoint you need. 

This will create a blue link between the waypoint and the plane and will activate the waypoint. 

Your spawned plane will fly towards that waypoint.

[Feldgrun]

I have really been enjoying these bomber box missions, @sevenless! I'd love to see these with AI B-17s in the future. Until then, how about AI B-26s? They're somewhat like a mini-B-17, which also has a twin .50 cal tail gunner. Also, how about a mission with FW 190 D9? I'm enjoying experimenting with the R4M rockets.

[LeLv30_Redwing-]

42 minutes ago, Feldgrun said:

I have really been enjoying these bomber box missions, @sevenless! I'd love to see these with AI B-17s in the future. Until then, how about AI B-26s? They're somewhat like a mini-B-17, which also has a twin .50 cal tail gunner. Also, how about a mission with FW 190 D9? I'm enjoying experimenting with the R4M rockets.

I used this formation by @IckyATLAS with some tweaking and results were great on a film. Timestamped for anyone interested: