[BUG] Enemy AI planes vanish after prolonged dogfight

[19//Moach]

This has happened twice to me in the last couple of days:

 

Flying in a career mission, (escorting bombers) I engaged enemy fighters and happened to take an unusually long time to get a good firing solution on the target.

 

All of a sudden, the enemy plane simply vanishes! Like, "Poof!"  Now you see me, now you don't - blink, gone! Magic! Right in front of my nose.

 

 

First time it happened I shrugged it off as "weirder things have happened" and carried on.  Yet on another occasion, a similarly prolonged dogfight left me going in endless turns against an ex-foe who abruptly  discontinued to exist. "Poof!" Again....

 

 

It struck me that it may have happened after the flight I was part of (I was not leading it) had become separated and went home.  It seemed like once they went out of range of my still ongoing fight with the persistent enemy, the game decided there was no point in keeping that AI going. Then it just "unspawned" that flight as if nobody should've been around to see it go.

 

It also seemed like not only that one plane went away, but really his whole squadron got culled off at that same time.  

 

 

 

Could it be that the game assumes too much and happens to mistakenly "optimize away" enemies that are outside of a flight leader's range?  Even if a human wingman happens to have stayed behind, when an AI would be, as expected, long gone from the area?

 

It did feel like that is what happened, but I haven't had another chance to try making it happen again yet.  Has anyone else noticed anything as bizarre as this happening?

 

 

To try and reproduce:

 

1. start a career as a fighter pilot.
2. options:  runway start, realistic speed, any frontline density.
3. go on a bomber or ground attacker escort mission flying as wingman (not flight leader)
4. find and engage the enemy
5. do not kill all air targets, make sure to remain behind one and just hold behind his tail
6. do not die.
7. keep tailing the foe until the bombers/attackers turn back home
8. keep at it until your own flight "gives you up for dead" or whatever they do when they just leave you behind
9. keep the fight stationary, typically near the mission target area.
10. behold.

 

The unexpected result to expect, is that you should witness a very unnatural case of sudden disappearance of your prey.  "Poof!" No explosion, no debris, no nothing. Just air....

 

...and you don't get a kill either for any damage done to the vanished plane.

 

 

version:   4.002

 

 

 

Edit --

 

Note to moderator:   Sorry, I've noticed this was posted on the complaints board instead of bug reports.   Could you move it there, please?

thanks!

Edited December 16, 2019 by 19//Moach
oops!

[unreasonable]

This has been noted a long time ago - goes back to RoF days: I even had it on film.  I do not think it is a bug, strictly speaking: I think it happens when an AI plane gets too far away from his flight leader, or possibly the player's flight leader, (cannot remember), presumably for some technical reason.

 

I agree it would be good if this did not happen.