Thinking of an MCU sequence for ground attack ...

[PatrickAWlson]

Fly in formation to the target.

Cancel the formation command when the planes reach the target

Activate individual target MCUs for each plane

Independently for each plane have bingo bombs deactivate the target MCU and activate a target egress waypoint some kilometers away.

The individual egress WPs would be quite close to each other

When the flight leader reaches his egress WP activate another WP on the return path.  Also reactivate formation.

 

The idea is as follows

Ground attackers individually choose and attack targets

Ground attackers individually egress when they are out of ordnance

Once the ground attacker flight lead has completed his egress the formation is reformed and the flight goes home.

 

Thoughts?

 

[DN308]

Nice idea. I’m wondering how to make a formation acting independently for a moment and come back in formation 

[Jaegermeister]

I hate to be a party pooper, but...

When you have a flight with the wingmen targeting the leader, any command given to any member of the flight goes up the chain just like it goes down the chain. 

You can link a wingman plane to a different waypoint and it will trigger it, but whatever waypoint is triggered first will attract the whole flight. If other waypoints are triggered, they will head for those also, or next.

If you trigger various waypoints at exactly the same time, you might get some interesting results.

Or only 1 might be active?

 

You would have to test, but I can demonstrate that logic goes up the wingman chain as well as down if needed.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Jaegermeister

[DN308]

Could be interesting 

[PatrickAWlson]

8 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

I hate to be a party pooper, but...

When you have a flight with the wingmen targeting the leader, any command given to any member of the flight goes up the chain just like it goes down the chain. 

You can link a wingman plane to a different waypoint and it will trigger it, but whatever waypoint is triggered first will attract the whole flight. If other waypoints are triggered, they will head for those also, or next.

If you trigger various waypoints at exactly the same time, you might get some interesting results.

Or only 1 might be active?

 

You would have to test, but I can demonstrate that logic goes up the wingman chain as well as down if needed.

 

Good point.  The object link back to the leader will still be in place.  Not sure if that can be broken and reinstated later.

 

Maybe keep it simpler.  Just monitor bingo on the leader or any of the planes.  As soon as one goes bingo set off a 30 second timer.  The way that the AI lollygags about over the target zone I just know that is going to cause some to go home with ordnance attached.  

 

Since the waypoint commands are never truly, exactly in parallel, last one wins.

Edited May 3, 2021 by PatrickAWlson

[PatrickAWlson]

So I am down to the more limited version suggested by @Gambit21.  Bingo bombs ties into a counter that equals the number of planes in the flight.   Each bingo bombs increments the counter.  When the counter triggers it sets off the egress.  Much simpler and in the end a big improvement on what is there.

[Habu]

I'll do the same suggestion from Gambit.

 

Another solution could be using a timer. You estimate the playtime on the target, and when the timer is off, it activate the RTB waypoint. In that case, those who don't have anymore bombs can continue to straffe. But, you can have some plane which come back with bombs.

 

There is no way to break a link between leader and wingmen.

[Jaegermeister]

8 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

So I am down to the more limited version suggested by @Gambit21.  Bingo bombs ties into a counter that equals the number of planes in the flight.   Each bingo bombs increments the counter.  When the counter triggers it sets off the egress.  Much simpler and in the end a big improvement on what is there.

 

Keep in mind that you can also set a timer from the leader bingo bombs, and then trigger a force complete with "Emergency Ord" checked. It's supposed to be "emergency ordnance drop", but the text in the MCU box is not fixed yet.

 

The rest of the flight will drop their bombs if they still have them and join up for the egress. That way they would not circle for too long a time and they would all be clean.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Jaegermeister

[PatrickAWlson]

I just did the first part and the results were disappointing.  The Ai has a few dozen targets below it and it just sort of takes its sweet time thinking about all of the nice stuff it can blow up.  

 

@JaegermeisterAppreciate the tip.  Still can't do anything about the flight lead lingering but at least he's the only one to worry about.  My current implementation requires everybody to drop and that is just asking too much.

[Jaegermeister]

Just now, PatrickAWlson said:

I just did the first part and the results were disappointing.  The Ai has a few dozen targets below it and it just sort of takes its sweet time thinking about all of the nice stuff it can blow up.  

 

@JaegermeisterAppreciate the tip.  Still can't do anything about the flight lead lingering but at least he's the only one to worry about.  My current implementation requires everybody to drop and that is just asking too much.

 

You can make them all drop by using attack ground instead of attack ground targets. If you have enough distance from your last waypoint, they will all drop 1 set of bombs on the 1st pass and hit the area of the "Attack Area" icon in the pattern of the formation you set.

 

That may not work if you have moving targets of course.

 

 

@PatrickAWlson ignore that last remark. I just realized you want your bomber formation to target various targets all in the same general area.

 

Have you considered putting a spotter vehicle or plane in the area? With a FAC, you could target the whole flight to a specific target and as soon as it is hit, they would all move to the next target. That would continue until they go bingo bombs. A specific target might get more direct results than a target area would. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Jaegermeister

[PatrickAWlson]

The ground attackers and dive bombers attack individual ground targets.  I think your idea still works.  The aircraft get attack area (Ground Targets) with a timer of 300 seconds.  When any flight member goes bingo it triggers another timer of 30 seconds, giving the rest of the flight one last opportunity to do something.  At that point the force completion is invoked and the attack is over.  Time to go home.  fact is that if they have not dropped anything by then odds are pretty good they are just going to get themselves killed.

 

Level bombers attack ground.  The logic is similar but with tighter time windows since they all drop in unison.  60 seconds to drop.  10 seconds after one goes bingo the rest get force complete. More than enough time for everybody to unload.

[PatrickAWlson]

@Jaegermeister @Gambit21

 

Question on the counter.  I set it to 1 and linked it to the leader bingo bombs event, expecting it to trigger when the leader had expended his payload.  It triggered right away.  I increased the count to 2 and then it triggered after the leader was out of bombs/rockets.  I could just shrug and go with it but I want to understand what is happening.  Any ideas why it triggers when I set the counter to 2?  Or why it triggers right away if I set it to 1?

[Gambit21]

If the plane has bombs, and it’s triggering right away, then this is a new bug. It’s not going to work with rockets. If the plane only has rockets then the report will fire immediately.

[PatrickAWlson]

29 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

If the plane has bombs, and it’s triggering right away, then this is a new bug. It’s not going to work with rockets. If the plane only has rockets then the report will fire immediately.

 

 

Tries with both bombs and rockets and the results were not different. 

 

OK, I will set the value to 2 and let everybody trigger in the flight it.  The attack will end 30 seconds after either the first or second goes bingo depending on what makes the code happy. Either way it is better than excessive loitering.

[Jaegermeister]

2 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Question on the counter.  I set it to 1 and linked it to the leader bingo bombs event, expecting it to trigger when the leader had expended his payload.  It triggered right away.  I increased the count to 2 and then it triggered after the leader was out of bombs/rockets.  I could just shrug and go with it but I want to understand what is happening.  Any ideas why it triggers when I set the counter to 2?  Or why it triggers right away if I set it to 1?

 

It may have to do with the bomb load. What plane and loadout?

[IckyATLAS]

I have three HE111 flying in formation to do some carpet bombing with only the leader firing a bingo bombs event, and it works. The bingo bombs triggers only when the leader has expended its bombs. These can also be unloaded if the leader is attacked and does let go the bomb payload in emergency to evade the attacks. As long as the leader is not killed or destroyed it stays the leader. Normally in this case the other planes not having been attacked do not unload their payload and continue following the leader. So here having the leader only trigger force complete would not work well as the attack would be canceled for the whole flight.

 

Now one possible thing is to have a counter set to three and have each plane in the formation trigger bingo bombs on the counter. Only when the three have unloaded all the bombs then the counter will fire a timer or not and then the Force Complete MCU. In this way the new waypoint of the formation after the Attack Ground will be activated only if all planes have emptied their bomb load.

Edited May 5, 2021 by IckyATLAS

[PatrickAWlson]

8 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

It may have to do with the bomb load. What plane and loadout?

 

I tested two loads.  One with six bombs.  One with 8 rockets.  Same results.

 

I used a count value of 2 on the counter and the results are good in one full test in PWCG.  The counter did go off at a reasonable time.  My plane, being flown on autopilot, still had two rockets on the rails.  It ejected them properly and we went home.  Did the counter trigger after one or two flight mates went bingo?  Not sure.  Don't know how much I care TBH.    The goal was always not to have planes loitering around getting shot and this accomplished that goal.