Runway swaggering of 6 bombers taking off.

[jollyjack]

Waypointing 6 He111H16 planes. Concrete strip runway.

 

Takeoff set, they all take off nicely in a row, but some start swaggering off the runway, crash into a tower or other ground objects.

 

On TakeOff at 1st waypoint, formation set to safe BTW, triggered by first waypoint (set 70m height, high, 20m range), formation timer 2s delay.

 

Now i can't get that right ... any ideas what i do wrong?

 

Added: set formation to dense, messed with waypoint height and area, seems to improve ..

 

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by jollyjack

[DN308]

Your planes are going just one side off the runway or everywhere ?

Is just one side, maybe is it the take off path that is not well aligned with the center of the runway.

 

[jollyjack]

It was one side first, and the testing second set up (wp and settings/distance experimenting) everywhere.

The secret seems to be the right settings for the first waypoint, and using dense instead of safe sofar.

Edited May 18, 2021 by jollyjack

[RedKestrel]

What’s their loadout? Some of the bomb loads can’t be carried in the 111 with normal amounts of fuel, they become difficult or impossible to take off in.

[jollyjack]

about 0.6

[JG7_X-Man]

I would double check they are talking off into the wind and extend the 1st waypoint and make sure the initial altitude isn't too high.

[IckyATLAS]

Check your MCU Take-Off parameter, with our without taxi.

 

If it is without taxi then the planes will take off according to where the plane axis of direction is oriented.

If it is with Taxi and all planes are on the runway ready to go then they will take off according to the runway axis. But for that you must have an Airfield object oriented correctly.

You should not have a formation MCU activated before all planes are airborne and have reached the first waypoint. 

You normally activate the first waypoint with an event link (OnTakeOff) from the leader to the first waypoint. You should have a formation MCU activated after the first waypoint has been reached. And if your first waypoint is very far (not a good idea) then you can have a timer activated by an event link same as the waypoint but this time the timer will give you some time before you activate the formation MCU.

This is to give enough time for all the planes to reach a stabilized situation with distances between them before they start moving into a formation. Planes will do some avoidance moves when they are too near to each other. Maybe this is happening at the beginning with planes moving aside to avoid a potential collision.

This is typical with large planes on runways were they are pretty near to each other relative to their size, which is typical of concrete runway. It is easier in wide open grass fields where they can be more evenly dispersed.

You will have to play and test various configurations until it works fine but there will be limitations due to the management of flights and take-offs.

Another way is to have each plane indipendent with its own waypoints and there you will have more freedom to precisely control their behaviour for a given take-off pattern, but then having them flying well in formation for the whole time of the mission is a lot of work. Ideally it would be nice to be able to break up a flight and reform it. The Behavior MCU could be enriched with certain of these possibilities.

I would like also to have more formation possibilities for planes like "line abreast" or flying in "column", the choice of staging down or up according to the leader etc.

 

[jollyjack]

That it has to do with larger planes i found out by analyzing other bombing missions. Most mission makers use a max of 4 in a group together,

so for 7 a group of 4 and one of 3. But the straying off i also had with Tempests grouped; i'll check that one, thanks.

Edited May 23, 2021 by jollyjack