Effective airbase cover without AI slaughter

[PatrickAWlson]

The title states the goal: have airfields have effective cover without slaughtering AI.

 

Rules:

1. AI should be able to overfly an airbase.  I do not want to prevent this.

2. AI should decide to go away under the following conditions:

- AI is below x meters.  If the AI is higher then it should not be affected.

- AI has been in the area for some period of time, lets say 60 seconds

 

The first part I can do by triggering a check zone when AI enters the airbase area below a certain altitude.  After that, it is what - Force Complete to get the AI to stop?

 

What is the effect of Force Complete on the AI?  Let's say the AI has decided to follow you back to base.  Force complete is triggered and now the AI breaks off ... and does what?  Goes back to to planned waypoints?  Are they now passive?  

 

Looking for input from anybody that has tried this.

[Jaegermeister]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

The first part I can do by triggering a check zone when AI enters the airbase area below a certain altitude.  After that, it is what - Force Complete to get the AI to stop?

 

What is the effect of Force Complete on the AI?  Let's say the AI has decided to follow you back to base.  Force complete is triggered and now the AI breaks off ... and does what?  Goes back to to planned waypoints?  Are they now passive?  

 

Looking for input from anybody that has tried this.

 

Checkzone triggers Deactivate MCU targeting Attack Area or Waypoint at airbase which must be medium priority

1 second timer to Force Complete object linked to EAC

2 second timer to trigger home waypoint set to high priority

 

They should leave, but if they are in the middle of a dogfight, they will keep fighting until there is some distance from their adversary. 

Edited May 15, 2020 by Jaegermeister

[PatrickAWlson]

@Jaegermeister

I'm really concerned about the idea of a high priority waypoint.  That really makes the AI passive.  I can foresee all sorts of bad things happening.  The AI might go passive and get slaughtered by other AI planes.  The player might turn on the AI and then complain that the AI didn't put up a fight ... but thanks for the feedback

Edited May 15, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[Jaegermeister]

I agree completely. It's the only way top make them leave though. If you can catch them as they are leaving they just tool along and let you shoot them down one after the other. If you overshoot, you don't even need to worry about it. They don't fire even right on your 6.

 

It's not really an issue with the AI, they seem to know and ignore each other. I have had enemy AC follow me back to base and they fly right up to my wingmen, get in formation with them and creep up through the formation until they get in range of me to open fire. It's kind of silly. I can order the wingmen to attack and they all just go around in circles for a bit while I make my getaway.

 

You might try setting the home waypoint for the enemy AI at a very high speed so they take off at full throttle and friendlies cant catch them.

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by Jaegermeister

[PatrickAWlson]

@Jaegermeister Thanks for the assist.  The break away worked for medium priority as well, which is nice.  On medium fighters will at least take evasive action.  On low the fighter does what one would expect: ignores the WP and continues the chase.

 

Tiny mission attached.  The player is in an FW190 flying over a base with a CZ.  The 190 is being chased by a Spitfire.  When the CZ triggers the Spitfire is told to break off.

Run Away.zip

 

 

Now for the next problem: I only want this to trigger for the plane near the airbase.  If i set up a CZ with a trigger as I did in the sample mission how do I know which plane caused the trigger?  The obvious answer is that I have to do this once for every enemy plane for every airbase ... yuck.  

Edited May 15, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[Jaegermeister]

@PatrickAWlson, or this... I took it one step further in case they are supposed to be attacking you and not just following. The EAC followed me to the airbase, he turned away, I went back after him and he defended and chased me back to base again. I went outside the CZ, drug him back to base back and he broke off again.

 

It does work, good idea.

RunawayV2.zip

 

 

41 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Now for the next problem: I only want this to trigger for the plane near the airbase.  If i set up a CZ with a trigger as I did in the sample mission how do I know which plane caused the trigger?  The obvious answer is that I have to do this once for every enemy plane for every airbase ... yuck.  

 

Why not set up the CZ for Axis or Allied instead of a specific plane? It would apply to all EAC.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Jaegermeister

[PatrickAWlson]

 

3 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

@PatrickAWlson, or this... I took it one step further in case they are supposed to be attacking you and not just following. The EAC followed me to the airbase, he turned away, I went back after him and he defended and chased me back to base again. I went outside the CZ, drug him back to base back and he broke off again.

 

It does work, good idea.

RunawayV2.zip 4.41 kB · 0 downloads

 

 

 

Why not set up the CZ for Axis or Allied instead of a specific plane? It would apply to all EAC.

 

I can't have that.  has to be a specific plane.  Not too much of a problem though since it is all software generated. I already have it coded.  Going to run some tests to at least make sure it does no harm.

 

I coded it such that only fighters are affected, and fighters that are flying offensive patrol missions are not subject.  

Edited May 15, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[Jaegermeister]

Well if you already have it coded, I guess enemy planes will be packing up and heading home before they bother people trying to land now. That should make some people pretty happy. As you know, there are lots of gripes about being followed all the way home and harassed while trying to land, which would have been impractical in the real world.

 

Thanks for putting in the effort to make it better! You rock.

[Gambit21]

@PatrickAWlson Force complete, then high priority waypoint, however a LOW priority waypoint is also piped in to the AI aircraft, both say 2 miles out. (or whatever distance you decide)

After a decided upon time after the "bug out" is initiated, you activate a proximity trigger and if 'positive' for opposition, the LOW priority waypoint is activated (along with Force Complete LOW) instead and the aircraft engage.

 

Or instead of the low priority waypoint, use an Attack Area Command.

This will keep the retreating AI from being non-reactive drones in the case of being engaged.

 

There are other ways to skin this cat, but the basic idea is after the initial "high" priority/bug out waypoint is triggered, you let the AI check for perusing aircraft.

Then of course you need another logic set that again let's them disengage and retread. You can see how this stacked logic can get very time consuming very quickly.

Thus I tend to keep these things as simple as I can.

 

In my own campaign, I have the AI bug out, then the player flight get's the "form up" command with it's own Force Complete/high priority form up waypint, so I don't have to worry about the retreating AI being attacked. (player is following command of AI flight lead)

 

AI flight leads solve a lot of problems (and create a few)

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by Gambit21