JU 88 career missions and bombsight weirdness (video inside)

[1Sascha]

Pretty sure this isn't a bug report, but I suppose you could call it a technical issue, so I'm putting it here.

 

Started my very first Ju 88 career today and ran into some odd behavior. I'd flown the 88 in the QMB before to practice this bird and I was using cold/parked start there. Besides a multitude of crashes on take-off (my fault), I'd never encountered any issues there.

 

1. Since there don't seem to be cold starts in career mode, I'm always using runway starts. When it was my turn to roll, I had set engine RPM already to "Start"/max and advanced my throttles.. just to see/hear that nothing, or not much, happened, even at max/max. I couldn't even get full manifold pressure, but I knew that my throttle/RPM mappings were working, since the in-cockpit levers for those all moved like they were supposed to. Plus I had flown and taken off in the 88 before, as I mentioned. Couple of head-scratching minutes and some looking around in the cockpit later, I saw that the props were set to "Segelstellung" (feathered) in the cockpit by default. And I'm very sure that I didn't set them this way. Corrected that, but then had to run the RPM levers back to zero % and back up to 100% before the engines finally produced some thrust and the plane started to roll. Not sure why the props are set this way on a runway start, but I did restart the mission and it was the same thing.. so I guess it wasn't a glitch. Not a huge deal anyway, once you know about it.

 

2. More importantly ...

 

 

 

I was trimmed for level flight with autolevel on, flying straight and level and at constant speed. Same thing I'd done with the 88 in QMB-missions before where everything worked as it should. I thought this might be some sort of unwanted keyboard/HOTAS input I was getting that was messing with the bombsight somehow. Couldn't have  been the plane-controls themselves IMO, since those worked flawlessly and the plane was holding auto-level without problems. I tried it in all three modes (view, auto, manual) and it was always the same.  I went into the keymapper and deleted all mappings related to the bombsight, including the couple of reset commands in there because that's what the behavior looked like to me... like some sort of unwanted reset of the bombsight. I'm not using anything but the mouse for the sight, so no great loss getting rid of those mappings. I also, rather needlessly, paused Opentrack just for $hits and giggles, but that shouldn't be a factor here anyway, since I don't think you can move your head while on the bombsight. Plus I tried leaving the plane in manual mode (no autolevel) but that, too didn't help. In any case: Nothing I tried worked and the sight was still jerking around like it is in the video. Even if it was some sort of unwanted input, I'd have to wonder why I never encountered that in the 88 while in QMB or in any of the fighters I fly on a daily basis?

 

Can anyone ID this problem and tell me what's going on here? I'll gladly accept everyone's mockery for missing something obvious here - if it'll let me finish my first career mission... ?

 

Thanks!

 

S.

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by 1Sascha

[DEDMANcjp]

Yeah I have had this too.  It comes and goes over the past few years.  I have learned to check the bomb sight on the ground before T/O.

If its doing it, I  just exit and respawn.  I cant correct it in flight.

Edited May 1, 2022 by DEDMANcjp

[BBAS_Tiki_Joe]

This is a bug that has been around for years, I have to restart the game completely for it to go away. It doe not happen all that often but when it does it's pretty annoying. Seems to happen to me in MP more than SP though.

[JG7_RudeRaptor]

Same here. We got new clouds but they still havent fixed this yet. Best thing to do restart or exit MP. I noticed that when you look down the bombing sights 

at low level it triggers this more often. 

[Majakowski]

I noticed that when you are on the ground and go into bombsight mode and change the bombsight speed setting, then the "bug" on the angle indicator changes accordingly. When you then restart the mission and go into the bombsight view, the "angle bug" initially is still on its old position from the earlier session and only moves to the right setting  after you enter the bombsight view. So maybe the developers could cure this problem with resetting a variable that somehow "remembers" the bombsight view setting from a previous mission.

 

In trying to recreate the problem I made the following test A:

1) Takeoff from cold and dark

2) climb to about 600m and go into bombsight mode

3) Set speed in the bombsight mode (say 350km/h)

4) Open bomb bay, drop the bombs, close the bomb bay

5) Land and shut down the engines via E key

 

Then I hit either "Finish spectate" and then restart or immediately restart, I don't remember exactly now but then came test B:

1) After restarting the misison, I unpaused the game and went into bombsight view: now I had a little flicker, with a couple of seconds in between

2) Hit Escape and then "Restart Mission"

3) after restart, I unpaused the game and went into bombsight view: now the flickering was more pronounced, happened more often

 

Then I tried to recreate after restarting the entire game with test C :

1) Start misison, go into bombsight mode

2) Set bombsight speed (350km/h)

3) Hit Escape and "Restart Mission"

4) After restart, go into bombsight mode: the "angle bug" adjusts to the current speed setting (this was reset through the restart so it is the lowest possible value) from the value (speed 350km/h) it was in the last mission (so before "restart" was hit) so somehow although the game has reset all the altitude and speed settings on the "wheels" in the bomb sight, the calculation of the "angle bug" remembered the 350km/h from the previous mission.

But this time there was no flickering no matter how often I restarted. 

 

This happened on a mission created in mission editor, Stalingrad map with only the "ALL_AIRFIELDS" group loaded and my Pe-2 s35 plane that was parked on a runway. No further adjustments to the mission were made, I only placed the plane and imported the group as said above.

 

After restarting the game though I have not been able to recreate this as it was but I continue trying. Just wanted to post my findings so far.

 

EDIT: To make it easier to understand:

Say initially the "angle bug" is at 20°

Then you change bombsight speed to 350km/h

Now the "angle bug" is at 60°

Now restart the mission

Go into bombsight view

The "angle bug" now jumps from 60° back to 20°

 

EDIT 2: I have managed to get a "flicker" that can be reproduced

1) All while on ground: go into bomb sight mode and change the bobsight altitude to 9km

2) observe how the view flickers when the "angle bug" crosses the 0° mark, then also the "left - right" for view mode moves

3) after the bombsight has "settled" hit Escape and restart

4) unpause the game and go into bombsight mode: now when the "angle bug" is on its way to the correct position, it has to cross the 0° mark and thus flickers

 

Although this flicker is not continuous (meaning the view settles eventually), it may be the cause of the problem, that just comes in certain combinations?

Edited May 9, 2023 by Majakowski
Found a way to reproduce erroneous behaviour

[Regingrave-]

16 часов назад, Majakowski сказал:

I noticed that when you are on the ground and go into bombsight mode and change the bombsight speed setting, then the "bug" on the angle indicator changes accordingly. When you then restart the mission and go into the bombsight view, the "angle bug" initially is still on its old position from the earlier session and only moves to the right setting  after you enter the bombsight view. So maybe the developers could cure this problem with resetting a variable that somehow "remembers" the bombsight view setting from a previous mission.

 

In trying to recreate the problem I made the following test A:

1) Takeoff from cold and dark

2) climb to about 600m and go into bombsight mode

3) Set speed in the bombsight mode (say 350km/h)

4) Open bomb bay, drop the bombs, close the bomb bay

5) Land and shut down the engines via E key

 

Then I hit either "Finish spectate" and then restart or immediately restart, I don't remember exactly now but then came test B:

1) After restarting the misison, I unpaused the game and went into bombsight view: now I had a little flicker, with a couple of seconds in between

2) Hit Escape and then "Restart Mission"

3) after restart, I unpaused the game and went into bombsight view: now the flickering was more pronounced, happened more often

 

Then I tried to recreate after restarting the entire game with test C :

1) Start misison, go into bombsight mode

2) Set bombsight speed (350km/h)

3) Hit Escape and "Restart Mission"

4) After restart, go into bombsight mode: the "angle bug" adjusts to the current speed setting (this was reset through the restart so it is the lowest possible value) from the value (speed 350km/h) it was in the last mission (so before "restart" was hit) so somehow although the game has reset all the altitude and speed settings on the "wheels" in the bomb sight, the calculation of the "angle bug" remembered the 350km/h from the previous mission.

But this time there was no flickering no matter how often I restarted. 

 

This happened on a mission created in mission editor, Stalingrad map with only the "ALL_AIRFIELDS" group loaded and my Pe-2 s35 plane that was parked on a runway. No further adjustments to the mission were made, I only placed the plane and imported the group as said above.

 

After restarting the game though I have not been able to recreate this as it was but I continue trying. Just wanted to post my findings so far.

 

EDIT: To make it easier to understand:

Say initially the "angle bug" is at 20°

Then you change bombsight speed to 350km/h

Now the "angle bug" is at 60°

Now restart the mission

Go into bombsight view

The "angle bug" now jumps from 60° back to 20°

 

EDIT 2: I have managed to get a "flicker" that can be reproduced

1) All while on ground: go into bomb sight mode and change the bobsight altitude to 9km

2) observe how the view flickers when the "angle bug" crosses the 0° mark, then also the "left - right" for view mode moves

3) after the bombsight has "settled" hit Escape and restart

4) unpause the game and go into bombsight mode: now when the "angle bug" is on its way to the correct position, it has to cross the 0° mark and thus flickers

 

Although this flicker is not continuous (meaning the view settles eventually), it may be the cause of the problem, that just comes in certain combinations?

That's great, I'll try it today. Thank you very much for the details!

[Majakowski]

@RegingraveCould you find the culprit?

[Regingrave-]

23 минуты назад, Majakowski сказал:

@RegingraveCould you find the culprit?

No, I wasn't been able to reproduce the original bug.

[SIA_Target]

Haven't given this the fully scientific method (repeated attempts), but I'm always missing at least one file upon any validation that I might do at any given time. Not sure why, or what causes a file to be in need of re-requiring, I mean, where do they go?

 But last time I had the bomb sight jump it started after the second server I entered, the first server saw me fly a whole mission without incidence. Got out of that server and entered at least three others and all three had my bomb sight jumping.

 So thought maybe I'd validate my files and see how many were gone(?), corrupted(?), or whatever else might be the issue with these wayward files. Anyway, after 5 files were re-acquired bomb sight jump was gone.

 As stated, the full scientific method hasn't been completed as I have only had one instance to see this hypothetical process produce results. Your mileage may vary.