What Does "Cover" Really Mean?

[PatrickAWlson]

So ... If I cover one plane with another, what does that mean?  I know the AI will fight ti protect the plane and I know the AI is supposed to break off when the thread is gone.  What I do not know are details.  How far will the covering plane range away from its charge before it comes back?  Does altitude count?  Is the AI smart enough to know that a damaged plane  is no longer a threat?

 

I did do a test where I had a player fighter and a second fighter with a cover command on the player fighter.  It seemed to work reasonably well as the wingman was aggressive.  I was hoping other insights or more detailed information might be available.

 

Second: AI request.  Wingman command.  Similar to cover but causes the AI to cover a plane and not the whole flight.

 

Edit: a second part of that experiment was trying it with spawned enemies.  That did not work.  The second spawned plane flew circles and did not react to the cover command.  Not surprising but I was hoping just maybe it would work.

Edited July 11, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[PatrickAWlson]

Another question: if a covering planes charge is destroyed, what does the covering plane do?  I think it flies in circles but I'm not sure.

 

[CanadaOne]

52 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Another question: if a covering planes charge is destroyed, what does the covering plane do?

 

 

Crashes into the forest where no one is there to hear it. 

 

 

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. 

[Guest deleted@210880]

Man, understanding the commands and what they actually do , or not, is one of my pet peeves.

 

"The rejoin formation and continue mission" for example: is that just 'rejoin formation' or does it also really do something about the mission target.

 

For me this is critical as if I have a flight of ground attackers it would be nice to use this command to get them to stop attacking, form up and go home, by simply being '(stop what you are doing and) rejoin formation'. But if it is 'rejoin formation and continue with our mission (to attack x ground objects)' it has a completely different meaning and effect.

 

I wish the developers could clarify the exact action of each, redo the text if necessary, and remove any that are not functioning.

 

(and of course add in the ones I put in the sugestions thread)

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, John_Yossarian said:

For me this is critical as if I have a flight of ground attackers it would be nice to use this command to get them to stop attacking, form up and go home, by simply being '(stop what you are doing and) rejoin formation'. But if it is 'rejoin formation and continue with our mission (to attack x ground objects)' it has a completely different meaning and effect.

In the game's career mode, when you fly fighter escort for ground attacking aircrafts, the leader of the ground attackers will give this command, once he wants to RTB after the target is destroyed. When the ground attackers reach the egress waypoint, you will hear this command for your flight, telling you, you can exit your escort and RTB yourself. The last thing also works in PWCG.

I remember earlier, you also got this command, when flying ground attacks yourself, to tell you to stop ground attacks and RTB, but this doesn't work anymore.

[PatrickAWlson]

Well, let me tell you about my little experiment (it failed).  I wanted to get the player's flight to take off and start hitting waypoints.  Early into the flight a cover command was issued for every second plane to cover the previous - i.e. the odd planes are element leads and the even ones are issued a cover to become element wingmen.

 

Everybody started circling ...

[Gambit21]

9 hours ago, John_Yossarian said:

Man, understanding the commands and what they actually do , or not, is one of my pet peeves.

 

"The rejoin formation and continue mission" for example: is that just 'rejoin formation' or does it also really do something about the mission target.

 

For me this is critical as if I have a flight of ground attackers it would be nice to use this command to get them to stop attacking, form up and go home, by simply being '(stop what you are doing and) rejoin formation'. But if it is 'rejoin formation and continue with our mission (to attack x ground objects)' it has a completely different meaning and effect.

 

I wish the developers could clarify the exact action of each, redo the text if necessary, and remove any that are not functioning.

 

(and of course add in the ones I put in the sugestions thread)

 

You are talking about something different than Patrick.

Patrick's question would have been better posted in the mission editor sub-forum since he's talking about the "Command Cover" MCU in the editor. Thus your confusion (not your fault) 

Getting AI  aircraft to stop attacking, form up and go home is no big deal from an editor/mission design perspective.

This is not the same question as "how do I get a radio command REJOIN FORMATION to work" as this is beyond your control.

4 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Well, let me tell you about my little experiment (it failed).  I wanted to get the player's flight to take off and start hitting waypoints.  Early into the flight a cover command was issued for every second plane to cover the previous - i.e. the odd planes are element leads and the even ones are issued a cover to become element wingmen.

 

Everybody started circling ...

 

Element leads would have waypoints, with the wingman having the cover command.

Should more or less yield the results you're after... but so does a simple formation following waypoints object linked to the leader.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Gambit21

[PatrickAWlson]

11 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

Element leads would have waypoints, with the wingman having the cover command.

Should more or less yield the results you're after... but so does a simple formation following waypoints object linked to the leader.

 

I have a sample mission with that working as an air start. 

 

What I was going for was a bit more complex.  What I was going for was all members of the flight take off in formation.  They fly in formation until an early waypoint.  At that point the wingmen are given new orders to cover their leader.  In an element of four the first man is the flight leader, the second covers the first, the third is the other element leader and he is still under the influence of the formation command, and the fourth covers the third.  I think I'm asking for too much  

 

I could do something where each element is its own flight, the wingmen are orbiting and are issued the cover command while the lead flies his route (the next lead is flying an identical route).  I know that would work.  I don't want to do that.

[=RS=Stix_09]

14 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

I have a sample mission with that working as an air start. 

 

What I was going for was a bit more complex.  What I was going for was all members of the flight take off in formation.  They fly in formation until an early waypoint.  At that point the wingmen are given new orders to cover their leader.  In an element of four the first man is the flight leader, the second covers the first, the third is the other element leader and he is still under the influence of the formation command, and the fourth covers the third.  I think I'm asking for too much  

 

I could do something where each element is its own flight, the wingmen are orbiting and are issued the cover command while the lead flies his route (the next lead is flying an identical route).  I know that would work.  I don't want to do that.

 

In my experience cover MCU  is designed to be used on planes that not in the same formation , (ie don't use cover on members of same formation to cover other members of same formation).

 

The following option "COVER GROUP" ( in the cover command, see below) is supposed to allow the planes to defend the whole formation group the cover command points to, but not sure how effective that is compared to using individual planes not part of a formation with their separate cover commands (one for each plane to be covered)  is (I think the latter is more likely to work better , though less idea as its more work to setup and may be more resource intensive.

Cover Group
Protect all the members of any formation to which the object belongs.

 

Full details of cover command from @JimTM's ref guide below:

I found if all the planes being covered were down(for what ever reason) the planes left doing the cover command returned to where they were issued the command (after all the attacking planes were gone), which was a surprise. They also did not pursue the attackers very far away from the planes they were covering.

You may also need to play with how the priority of the cover command impacts the cover given. ( i used high priority)

 

Sample mission below:

F12 camera is there to help locate planes at start , no player plane and need to be spectator enabled , I also used icons to keep track of all planes.

 

Planes used to test:

Attackers: 3x 109g2,

defenders:3x yak1b's (doing cover)

planes being covered: 3x il-2's

 

BTW none of the planes being covered , survived this test. 

 

You could also try making the covering planes a formation with a single cover command (in this mission they are not and have independent cover commands). See if results vary.

 

 

 

TestCoverMission.zip

Edited July 13, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09
sample mission added