Ju52 dropping OK - C47 dropping buggy ?

[jollyjack]

 

I have a group file of J52 for dropping paras that works OK:

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/v1v8zsva0r4lfke/Dropping_tester_Ju52_working.zip/file

 

So  now when i convert the setup to a C47 flight (has only Cargo), and added a player to watch the 'show',

the darn planes wont drop. It drives me nuts, spent hours trying to figure why.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/yxdrgp2rbrrz7h1/Dropping_Tester_C74_not_working.zip/file

 

Both files includes mission and group files in regards of the same setup on the Laprino map.

 

PS I found a reply with extensive testing from Sketch here; his setup seems to work at times, but for a C47 it seems buggy at least (???)

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/66772-airborne-cargo-drops-from-the-c-47a/?tab=comments#comment-1021267

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by jollyjack

[Stoopy]

Dude that's quite a rat's nest working against you that you got there.

 

Fixes:

1.   You had no less than 3 different ways in which the waypoint after the paradrop zone was being activated - one of them being a timer set to go off 2 seconds after the waypoint beforehand was reached.  So the poor C-47 pilots were being told to go to the next waypoint 2 seconds after being told to drop the cargo.  No wonder they were confused.  So, simplify, simplify per below and attached ZIP file with second version of your mission which works.

2.  This one's not your fault but the C-47's seem to have trouble when you select the weapon loadout for the 6 under-belly canisters in addition to the 14 cargo canisters.  Go with just the internal paradrop load and omit the 6 additional canisters.   Not sure why this is but you can see for yourself that it works per fixed example below.

3. Again, not your fault but the C-47's also do not report "OnBingoCargo" after dropping the internal 14 canisters.  They report "OnBingoBombs" instead.  Again, not your fault and I'm not sure why this is, but you can also test for yourself by making individual icon subtitles and event link them to each event to see.  

4.  One of your timers - notably the one marked as a 2 sec timer - was actually set for 4 seconds and for some reason I do not grasp, was set to a 0% random success rate so never would have fired.  This had me scratching my head on why the fixed logic didn't activate the RTB waypoint until I looked and found it.  So you got me.   I will get you back... someday. Somehow...

5.  I take back what I said about points 2 and 3 above - this is all your fault.  ?

 

Simplified logic triggered by OnBingoBombs to activate post-drop waypoint.  Easy-peasy and much unnecessary stuff deleted.:

 

 

Fixed mission (and dude please consider getting a Google drive account - it's free and has no clickbait like that Mediafire cr@p....)

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dOhKM_9MlAgulH5iNhIkQEO89lQ2WEtK/view?usp=sharing

 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Stoopy

[Stoopy]

Couple other things worth sharing:

 

It' could just be superstition, but I've gotten into the habit of orienting Attack Area MCU's to align with the compass direction of travel of the attacking aircraft as they approach the target.   In your test mission the C-47's approach the drop point from the West-NorthWest, so notice in the fixed mission the Attack Area MCU properties' "AY" value is now set to 070.   I swear I have seen this make a difference in allowing assigned aircraft to more quickly follow the Attack Area command assignment as opposed to half-circling the target and then dropping when the stars align just so... but it could also be my imagination, or the pattern in which the tea leaves and chicken bones end up on the floor, multiplied by the day of the week divided by the relative humidity outside. 

 

You probably already noticed, but a sure-fire way to tell that the Attack MCU is being followed is that right before the bomb or parachute drop occurs, the lead aircraft will give a little wiggle of it's wings and then nose up slightly.  The lead C-47 in your original test mission already did this, which told me the Attack Area command was being followed, and the reason that they didn't drop parachutes was because of something else - in this case, probably the presence of the 6 under-belly canisters and premature RTB waypoint activation.

 

Sorry to go on about it but I've spent many more hours and days than are healthy in fiddling with and troubleshooting issues with the Attack Area MCU and paradrops, to the point that Nurse Ratched has had my medication doubled and am only allowed on the computer for 15 minutes at a ti

 

[Gambit21]

2 minutes ago, Stoopy said:

Couple other things worth sharing:

 

It' could just be superstition, but I've gotten into the habit of orienting Attack Area MCU's to align with the compass direction of travel of the attacking aircraft as they approach the target.   In your test mission the C-47's approach the drop point from the West-NorthWest, so notice in the fixed mission the Attack Area MCU properties' "AY" value is now set to 070.   I swear I have seen this make a difference in allowing assigned aircraft to more quickly follow the Attack Area command assignment as opposed to half-circling the target and then dropping when the stars align just so... but it could also be my imagination, or the pattern in which the tea leaves and chicken bones end up on the floor, multiplied by the day of the week divided by the relative humidity outside. 

 

You probably already noticed, but a sure-fire way to tell that the Attack MCU is being followed is that right before the bomb or parachute drop occurs, the lead aircraft will give a little wiggle of it's wings and then nose up slightly.  The lead C-47 in your original test mission already did this, which told me the Attack Area command was being followed, and the reason that they didn't drop parachutes was because of something else - in this case, probably the presence of the 6 under-belly canisters and premature RTB waypoint activation.

 

Sorry to go on about it but I've spent many more hours and days than are healthy in fiddling with and troubleshooting issues with the Attack Area MCU and paradrops, to the point that Nurse Ratched has had my medication doubled and am only allowed on the computer for 15 minutes at a ti

 

 

 

It's funny how you can spend endless hours in the editor, and not pick up on something.

In my case, the orientation of the Attack Area MCU...never occurred to me. I'm way past doing any experiments or changing anything however.

 

Same goes for wind direction and attack logic...I've heard this can change behavior. 

Both (if they do indeed have an effect on attack behavior) could have/would have been very valuable had I known before!

 

That said, I'm on to new headaches and hair-pullers.

[jollyjack]

4 hours ago, Stoopy said:

Fixed mission (and dude please consider getting a Google drive account - it's free and has no clickbait like that Mediafire cr@p....)

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dOhKM_9MlAgulH5iNhIkQEO89lQ2WEtK/view?usp=sharing

 

Thanks for all the work & tips. PS sorry for the ads, do not have them LoL

As i have 2 lifetime Mediafire accounts, 50GB each, but i will look into the Googledrive thing, only use Mediafire since the files never seem to die on you so far.

The random success was there since i got this logic from some download, did not know it was there me dumbo.

 

2 hours ago, Stoopy said:

Sorry to go on about it but I've spent many more hours and days than are healthy in fiddling with and troubleshooting issues with the Attack Area MCU and paradrops, to the point that Nurse Ratched has had my medication doubled and am only allowed on the computer for 15 minutes at a ti

 

 

Ah,so it's really you Jack?

 

 

2 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

That said, I'm on to new headaches and hair-pullers.

 

Yep, should have know better before getting involved with Il2 ...

 

 

Any way i made another PDF file with both your input in the folder along with Jim's manual ?....

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by jollyjack

[jollyjack]

IT WORKS !! (14x cannisters, bingo bombs, NOT bingo cargo ..)

Edited March 11, 2021 by jollyjack

[Gambit21]

Yes - bingo cargo is only for ‘on the ground’ delivery.

[jollyjack]

Staying safe while delivering goods in corona times means also weird logic for IL2 too ..

[Gambit21]

1 hour ago, jollyjack said:

Staying safe while delivering goods in corona times means also weird logic for IL2 too ..

 

The beer is way more dangerous 

[Stoopy]

10 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

Yes - bingo cargo is only for ‘on the ground’ delivery.

 

So, as it turns out, both the C-47 and the Ju-52 generate both an OnBingoBombs and an OnBingoCargo event after dropping their payloads.   I was using a really stupid way to test what events were being generated by having each event trigger its own subtitle at the very same time, and in retrospect that just caused a race condition which resulted in each subtitle message indicating a different result based on which one got randomly triggered first at the same mili (or nano) second.  

 

The attached, improved simple test mission can be used to compare the behavior of both aircraft with different payloads and the effect of different parameters such as altitude, speed, wind, target area orientation, season & phase of moon etc. and has a suitable gap between the subtitles that indicate which events are being triggered by the aircraft.  As you'll see, both "OnBingo" events are actually tripped.

 

I also believe I am full of bunk regarding compass orientation of the AttackArea MCU, since playing with it here didn't really do much.  But I'll still probably continue to set it anyway, for the same reason I don't step on sidewalk cracks or walk under ladders. 

 

Paradrop Test.zip

 

 

22 hours ago, jollyjack said:

Ah,so it's really you Jack?

 

 

Nope.  More like this, particularly when I'm trying to figure out what the he11 I did wrong and why the thing in the mission is doing almost, but not quite, the exact opposite of what I intended it to do....

Edited March 12, 2021 by Stoopy

[jollyjack]

2 hours ago, Stoopy said:

..... for the same reason I don't step on sidewalk cracks or walk under ladders. 

 

Thanks. Funny, the C47 takes a right turn, some hulk must be throwing the containers out upwards.

Or the laws of gravity don't apply fol IL2 missions ...

 

 

BTW it's best to avoid sidewalks totally, you might step into something ....

Edited March 12, 2021 by jollyjack

[jollyjack]

On 3/11/2021 at 2:40 AM, Gambit21 said:

It's funny how you can spend endless hours in the editor, and not pick up on something.

In my case, the orientation of the Attack Area MCU...never occurred to me. I'm way past doing any experiments or changing anything however.

 

Same goes for wind direction and attack logic...I've heard this can change behavior. 

Both (if they do indeed have an effect on attack behavior) could have/would have been very valuable had I known before!

 

That said, I'm on to new headaches and hair-pullers.

 

A PS on (compass?) aiming the last waypoint direction before an AttackArea: indeed, also with bombing.

It also speeds up a bomber's action with the Attack command. Good tip!

[TP_Silk]

I had a Deathmatch mission that I constructed for our online squadron recently that involved a token 12 C-47s dropping cannisters (as they have no paratroopers yet) as part of Operation Varsity. While testing the group seemed to frequently bug out and crash the whole DServer if the C-47s were hit by defending flak while actually dropping. The weird thing is that on the night of the mission we flew on two separate servers with the exact same mission files and one crashed while the other didn't.

 

Very frustrating.

[Stoopy]

3 hours ago, TP_Silk said:

I had a Deathmatch mission that I constructed for our online squadron recently that involved a token 12 C-47s dropping cannisters (as they have no paratroopers yet) as part of Operation Varsity. While testing the group seemed to frequently bug out and crash the whole DServer if the C-47s were hit by defending flak while actually dropping. The weird thing is that on the night of the mission we flew on two separate servers with the exact same mission files and one crashed while the other didn't.

 

I think that behavior makes sense if it were related to consumption of system resources and the two DServers were running on systems that were not identical particularly in terms of CPU and/or memory.   When paratroopers are dropping, I can press the LCTRL-F2 or LSHIFT-F2 button (depending if they are enemy or friendly paratroopers) and each one is an individual object that can be viewed, just like an enemy or friendly AI aircraft.  And they are aircraft of sorts in a way, since they have to float through the air and drift with the wind, etc. -  they're just not very maneuverable or good at defending themselves.  So 12 C-47's dropping 12 paratroopers is kind of like suddenly introducing 144 small new aircraft with very short flight paths into the mission within a few seconds, which sounds like it's bound to cause some burps and flatulence from the IL2 engine.   I limit my Ju-52's and C-47's to no more than 4 at a time.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Stoopy

[jollyjack]

Well, that means if you plan one of your terrific campaigns etc for Normandy, like commemorating the 82nd Airborne Division at Ste. Mère-Eglise,

you'll be missing out the massive amounts troupers popping out of the sky ... Oops, they can only drop cargo sofar with a c47 in IL2.

That doggone c47 should be fully functional IMO, i'll buy it as collector plane if necessary. Or: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101st_Airborne_Division

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by jollyjack

[TP_Silk]

Hi Stoopy,

 

The only things with that assumption, are that my server (the one that had issues that night) is the one that generally is able to handle the higher load and in a practice run that I did just beforehand, the mission ran perfectly fine and dropped all of the cannisters. It was really odd.

Edited March 17, 2021 by TP_Silk

[Stoopy]

3 minutes ago, TP_Silk said:

Hi Stoopy,

 

The only things with that assumption, are that my server (the one that had issues that night) is the one that generally is able to handle the higher load and in a practice run that I did just beforehand, the mission ran perfectly fine and dropped all of the cannisters. It was really odd.

 

Huh!  That's indeed very puzzling then, thanks for clarifying.  

 

[IckyATLAS]

I suppose that the C47 Paratrooper drop is a candy that will be delivered with BON. ?

[Beebop]

On 3/17/2021 at 11:45 AM, TP_Silk said:

The only things with that assumption, are that my server (the one that had issues that night) is the one that generally is able to handle the higher load and in a practice run that I did just beforehand, the mission ran perfectly fine and dropped all of the cannisters.

I have discovered the same thing when testing.  The test run flawlessly but as soon as real people join in it goes South.

Maybe I should join a squadron of AI's.  ?

[jollyjack]

4 hours ago, Beebop said:

Maybe I should join a squadron of AI's.  ?

 

That's the best way, press autopilot 'n jus' watch the show.