Gunners do not fire if WP is high priority

[PatrickAWlson]

What the title says: gunners do not fight if the waypoint is high priority.  Any ideas as to how to get around that?

 

The corollary is that bombers fly like fighters if they waypoint is medium priority.  This is why getting gunners to shoot at high priority is highly desirable for me.

 

 

[Gambit21]

Known phenomenon.

 

The fix is getting the Devs to stop bombers from acting like fighters at medium priority.

 

Which bomber?

[Nolly]

I have a bomber mission with multiple bomber waves: PE2 old and New, Ju88, He111, all waypoints set to medium. im finding they generally hold the line. PE2s and JU88s in particular will jink a bit in close passes, but quickly reform. Its not ideal, but not a dealbreaker im finding - as the waypoint speed is slow (300kmph) they get more than a wingspan or 2 out of formation before the threat has passed and they wiggle back into line.

 

Video of recent test below of the HE111 wave which seem to hold rigidly to their lines

 (note the AI is all set to low on these bombers - i have since jacked it up so that my shoddy gunnery and reckless manouvering gets me a lot more perforations  ): 

 

 

Latest iteration is up on the RS squadron server

 

[IckyATLAS]

7 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

What the title says: gunners do not fight if the waypoint is high priority.  Any ideas as to how to get around that?

 

The corollary is that bombers fly like fighters if they waypoint is medium priority.  This is why getting gunners to shoot at high priority is highly desirable for me.

 

 

No clean solution. Stay Medium priority.

Other possibility is to shorten as much as possible the distance between a Medium or Low waypoint prior to the one with high priority, and playing also with the radius of the waypoint detection. I have managed to have the period of time where bombers do not fight back to be short enough to be acceptable.

 

[Stoopy]

For me, the A-20 and B-25 maneuver quite a bit with waypoints set to High priority.  The He111 by comparison,  flies a rock-steady straight line between waypoints no matter what.  But the AI gunner behavior is consistent for all, they're quiet as a mouse.

 

 

[PatrickAWlson]

I am working under some restrictions. 

1. My flights must spawn.  

2. Because my flights must spawn I cannot make use of the formation MCU (not sure if being able to use the formation MCU helps bombers or not)

 

I flew a mission yesterday that was supposed to emulate a bombing raid.  Medium priority WPs.  Maybe 12 bombers spawned against my 4 Me262s.  I had A20s and B25s doing split-S, making 70 degree bank turns ... basically flying like fighter planes.  It was pretty absurd.  

 

Setting WP priority to high causes them to keep to the flight plan, but obviously a little too much so.  And, of course, quiet gunners.

 

@Gambit21 Agree that bombers should not be flying like fighters on med priority WPs.  Want to add, however, that it is not OK to shut down gunners on high priority WPs.  

 

@-RS-Nolly Were your bombers spawned or did they start enabled?  Can you post a sample mission?

 

@IckyATLAS To date I have been sticking with medium.  With larger bomber formations I really can't.  See above.  The results are completely ridiculous.

 

[IckyATLAS]

2 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

I am working under some restrictions. 

1. My flights must spawn.  

2. Because my flights must spawn I cannot make use of the formation MCU (not sure if being able to use the formation MCU helps bombers or not)

 

I flew a mission yesterday that was supposed to emulate a bombing raid.  Medium priority WPs.  Maybe 12 bombers spawned against my 4 Me262s.  I had A20s and B25s doing split-S, making 70 degree bank turns ... basically flying like fighter planes.  It was pretty absurd.  

 

Setting WP priority to high causes them to keep to the flight plan, but obviously a little too much so.  And, of course, quiet gunners.

 

@Gambit21 Agree that bombers should not be flying like fighters on med priority WPs.  Want to add, however, that it is not OK to shut down gunners on high priority WPs.  

 

@-RS-Nolly Were your bombers spawned or did they start enabled?  Can you post a sample mission?

 

@IckyATLAS To date I have been sticking with medium.  With larger bomber formations I really can't.  See above.  The results are completely ridiculous.

 

Correct with large formations and I did up to sixty bombers, no way you have to be high. The only way is to have the protection fighters in sufficient numbers to disrupt the attacks from the enemy fighters. You will loose a few but so did also bomber command.

For example if you look to my slide show on bombing a city 

In this case the bombers where in multiple groups that just after bombing split in various directions so as to create more distance between them and then they were on medium. In this way they became even less predictive for the FLAK inferno.

[Nolly]

@PatrickAWlson I redid the test last night, and I think I misspoke, in line with the comments above.

 

I think AI level makes a difference also.

 

Experience With pe2s:

 

On Low, they jink slightly to a believable and managable level and return to formation

 

On normal, they pull sharply all over the place. But not as much as you describe. They only go a few wingspans and return to formation.

 

I have the bombers disabled then activated when its their turn (multiple waves)

 

1 V of 5 aircraft, with another V of 4 covering the first V.

 

I think the formation and/or cover command may be helping somewhat.

 

The mission logic is giving me some issues, but I 'll post it for you tonight (au time)

[Habu]

On 4/7/2020 at 2:42 PM, PatrickAWlson said:

I am working under some restrictions. 

1. My flights must spawn.  

2. Because my flights must spawn I cannot make use of the formation MCU (not sure if being able to use the formation MCU helps bombers or not)

 

I flew a mission yesterday that was supposed to emulate a bombing raid.  Medium priority WPs.  Maybe 12 bombers spawned against my 4 Me262s.  I had A20s and B25s doing split-S, making 70 degree bank turns ... basically flying like fighter planes.  It was pretty absurd.  

 

Setting WP priority to high causes them to keep to the flight plan, but obviously a little too much so.  And, of course, quiet gunners.

 

@Gambit21 Agree that bombers should not be flying like fighters on med priority WPs.  Want to add, however, that it is not OK to shut down gunners on high priority WPs.  

 

@-RS-Nolly Were your bombers spawned or did they start enabled?  Can you post a sample mission?

 

@IckyATLAS To date I have been sticking with medium.  With larger bomber formations I really can't.  See above.  The results are completely ridiculous.

 

We touch the limitation of bombers which has not been developp. It's one of my fight with dev since a few year, and i put the subject on the table as soon a new bomber is add to the game.

 

To minimise the effect, you can have a very long distance between the last waypoint and the Command attack area that you set on High. it minimise the fighter effect and gunner fire.

[JG7_X-Man]

I did some testing tonight - It seems the AI level for the bombers (B-25 specifically) affects AI gunner accuracy but not bombing accuracy.

29 B-25s flying in a tight combat box were attacked by 8 Fw 190A-8s

AI Level 1 (Low) - Gunners fired with not hitting a single fighter.

AI Level 2 (Normal) - Gunners fired and hit a few fighters.

AI Level 3 (High) - Gunners fired very long bursts and hit several aircraft.

AI Level 4 (Ace) - Gunners fired very long bursts hyper accurate targeting. All fighters were destroyed at the 1st pass.

 

I think Bombers set to AI Level = Normal is the most historical accurate setting. 

 

United States Eighth Air Force Mission No. 115: The Schweinfurt Raid. Target:  Ball bearing Plant

 

This was an unacceptable loss. To put it in perspective, the 291 aircraft were from 16 of the 39 bomber groups in England. As such losses would not have been sustainable for very long, it's a fact that the bombers needed fighter escort. Setting bombers to "High", let alone "Ace" did not accurately simulate their vulnerability to enemy fighters. That said, I think "High" does correctly simulate how deadly gunners would have been to enemy fighters...if that makes any sense.

[Motherbrain]

You can use the formation command after spawning units.

 

Set up your activate MCU. Then place a timer MCU next to it, set it to about two seconds, then target that to a formation MCU, then that your lead unit.

 

Set it so the activate and timer are triggered by the same event. The units will spawn, then two seconds later will trigger a formation MCU. The formation must be triggered after the units spawn, not at the same time or the command won't register.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Motherbrain

[IckyATLAS]

The bomber accuracy is a more difficult  parameter to define. 

 

First you have the AI parameter with the choices you have mentioned.

Second you have the waypoint parameters. If the next Waypoint Parameter is:

 

-High then the pilot flies to that next Waypoint and nothing else will happen. No defensive or evasive flight maneuvers to avoid incoming fighters, no gunner firing, no bombing. Just plain straight flying.

-Medium then pilot will do evasive maneuvers only if attacked, gunners will fire somewhat and no bombing.

-Low pilot may be free to follow targets and attack them even if not attacked, and then come back to its initial route. That's fine for fighters but for bombers its another story.

 

Third you have two possibilities regarding the bombing action:

1) Attack Area for which you can specify Ground or Ground Targets. And you have to specify the area size. Then you have again the three parameters High, Medium and Low.

2) Attack a specific target linked object. Here you have the possibility to either attack one object or a group of objects target linked together. And here again you have the three possible parameters High, Medium, Low.

 

This brings us to the following conclusion. In total you have something like 240 combinations. Which means that I am still looking to understand the behavior of bombers.

and in reality you have even more combinations because the behavior will depend on what is attacking, fighters or ground based AAA artillery, I saw that reactions will differ.

 

Good Luck

 

 

[Habu]

9 hours ago, Motherbrain said:

You can use the formation command after spawning units.

 

Set up your activate MCU. Then place a timer MCU next to it, set it to about two seconds, then target that to a formation MCU, then that your lead unit.

 

Set it so the activate and timer are triggered by the same event. The units will spawn, then two seconds later will trigger a formation MCU. The formation must be triggered after the units spawn, not at the same time or the command won't register.

You can't use the formation command with units which spawn.

[JG7_X-Man]

On 4/7/2020 at 8:42 AM, PatrickAWlson said:

I am working under some restrictions. 

1. My flights must spawn.  

2. Because my flights must spawn I cannot make use of the formation MCU (not sure if being able to use the formation MCU helps bombers or not)

 

I flew a mission yesterday that was supposed to emulate a bombing raid.  Medium priority WPs.  Maybe 12 bombers spawned against my 4 Me262s.  I had A20s and B25s doing split-S, making 70 degree bank turns ... basically flying like fighter planes.  It was pretty absurd.  

 

Setting WP priority to high causes them to keep to the flight plan, but obviously a little too much so.  And, of course, quiet gunners.

 

@Gambit21 Agree that bombers should not be flying like fighters on med priority WPs.  Want to add, however, that it is not OK to shut down gunners on high priority WPs.  

 

@-RS-Nolly Were your bombers spawned or did they start enabled?  Can you post a sample mission?

 

@IckyATLAS To date I have been sticking with medium.  With larger bomber formations I really can't.  See above.  The results are completely ridiculous.

 

Hey PW, are the bombers flying in formation and straight before they are attacked?

Also, I noticed the bombers don't react unless there is some sore of attack command MCU?

I can't post the one I have for a few weeks, PC crash. I have 29 bombers spawn at random and they fly straight in their box in formation and bomb cities. fighters are triggered, they taxi, takeoff and intercept. The B-25s fire back and their escort even engage and return back to cover the bombers home.

 

@Jade_Monkey has a B-25 vs Me 252 example.

 

[Jade_Monkey]

Hi @PatrickAWlson, I'm assuming you are very familiar with this but checking just in case:

 

Have you tried activating instead of spawning? It's the same thing (unless you need to spawn the same planes multiple times) and it solves the formation issue as well as not having to link objects waypoints and commands to all members of the flight instead of just the leader.

 

Not sure about fighter behavior, that sounds like an AI issue.

[JG7_X-Man]

13 minutes ago, Jade_Monkey said:

Hi @PatrickAWlson, I'm assuming you are very familiar with this but checking just in case:

 

Have you tried activating instead of spawning? It's the same thing (unless you need to spawn the same planes multiple times) and it solves the formation issue as well as not having to link objects waypoints and commands to all members of the flight instead of just the leader.

 

Not sure about fighter behavior, that sounds like an AI issue.

Bingo! The 'ol Activate vs Spawn! @Jade_Monkey, you did activate your B-25s, correct? So did @Alonzo and @Jakerthesnak in the Mitchell's Men mission.