downed planes staying on ground

[kaizerhund4]

in career mode is there a way to edit a file that would have the plane you shot down remain on the ground, instead of disappearing? 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Well, I suppose, per mission, you could edit the generated mission file and uncheck the Delete After Death property of every aircraft. Other than that, there's no single setting I know of that automatically does that, no.

[Vishnu]

I recall a mod to do exactly that, but I can't seem to find it.

[LukeFF]

38 minutes ago, kaizerhund4 said:

in career mode is there a way to edit a file that would have the plane you shot down remain on the ground, instead of disappearing? 

 

No

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

That would be cool in the future to have a wreck in place of a downed aircraft… say from PWCG since we have the after action report (AAR) would show where a plane went down.. to spawn a crater with skeletal remains of a plane… 

I know it’s a way to save on performance by getting rid of the planes..

I would imagine there would be scrap heaps for at least a week or so until they were collected by either side…

or did that even happen?  Would either side try to collect for intelligence purpose or junk to melt down?

[Youtch]

Do you mean from one mission to another or within the same mission?

 

Is there any mod modifying the parameter to keep destroyed planes slightly longer than what they do today, disappearing almost immediatly after 1 minute.

[Zooropa_Fly]

I see no reason why such a decision can't be put in the hands of the misson maker, via the editor.

 

My expectation of how this should work :

Delete checked - the game removes the object itself.

Delete unchecked - the object remains.. but can be deleted via Timer + Delete (or deactivate) command.

 

As is, the object either has to remain in the game, or it's deleted by the game far too quickly.

Resulting often in planes disappearing in mid-air.

That's what they call an immersion-breaker.

 

S!

[Jaegermeister]

13 hours ago, [APAF]VR_Spartan85 said:

.. to spawn a crater with skeletal remains of a plane… 

 

I would imagine there would be scrap heaps for at least a week or so until they were collected by either side…

or did that even happen?  Would either side try to collect for intelligence purpose or junk to melt down?

 

You can't spawn a crater

 

Some wrecks were recovered for intelligence purposes, most were not, except for souvenirs or to reuse the guns

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

I see no reason why such a decision can't be put in the hands of the misson maker, via the editor.

 

My expectation of how this should work :

Delete checked - the game removes the object itself.

Delete unchecked - the object remains.. but can be deleted via Timer + Delete (or deactivate) command.

Ehm, I don't get your point? This is exactly how it *does* already work.

[Zooropa_Fly]

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Ehm, I don't get your point? This is exactly how it *does* already work.

 

I thought somebody might say that

 

I'll look at this again. But I've been unable to get things to exit the game if 'delete' is unchecked.

[Jaegermeister]

9 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

I'll look at this again. But I've been unable to get things to exit the game if 'delete' is unchecked.

 

It works. I have recently been experimenting to see if frame rates are any higher if I delete linked entities instead of deactivating them when they are out of range of the Player.

 

They go away either way, and I cannot tell the difference in CPU usage. Just use any trigger to a timer or directly to the delete or deactivate MCUs

[IckyATLAS]

I did not test recently, but in the past when Delete was unchecked it did simply make the time the wreck remained visible before deletion longer, but still limited and not staying until the end of the mission.

 

To have continuity between missions (perfectly) you must know where the plane fell on the map (X,Y coordinates) and this is not known in advance.

If you could have this information stored somewhere during the mission in a logfile, then you need to be able to read this information and spawn static objects like plane wreckages at those coordinates at the beginning of the next chronological mission. At the moment even if you could do this you have another issue, you cannot spawn and delete objects anyway.

 

It does not seem that the editor as well as the game engine was made for dynamic campaigns, where you can use dynamic data form the previous mission to set up in the new mission. 

 

For static objects (buildings, static planes and static vehicles) on the map that you know will be destroyed in the mission because it is part of the scenario, you can have that object destroyed set in your next mission. It is okay to have you tricked into some kind of continuity but that's all you can do.

 

[EAF19_Marsh]

When I dabbled with the FMB in the old Il-2, you could set an aircraft to low altitude and zero fuel. It would then glide in and make a gentle belly-landing. With very little damage it would stay visible for the rest of the mission. Not sure if this works in GB?

[Jaegermeister]

On 6/6/2022 at 3:13 AM, EAF19_Marsh said:

When I dabbled with the FMB in the old Il-2, you could set an aircraft to low altitude and zero fuel. It would then glide in and make a gentle belly-landing. With very little damage it would stay visible for the rest of the mission. Not sure if this works in GB?

 

All AI aircraft despawn shortly after they land  or crash. Its somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute

 

edit... see below

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Jaegermeister

[EAF19_Marsh]

23 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

All AI aircraft despawn shortly after they land  or crash. Its somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute

Ah, roger. Did not know that.

[Youtch]

On 6/6/2022 at 12:31 PM, Jaegermeister said:

All AI aircraft despawn shortly after they land  or crash. Its somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute

Is there anyway to increase it slightly through a mode to 5min. I hate witnessing a plane magically disappearing while you are checking your kill or a plane freshly landig. It is breaking the immersion.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

17 minutes ago, Youtch said:

Is there anyway to increase it slightly through a mode to 5min.

Not without manually editing the mission, no. 

[Jaegermeister]

12 minutes ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Not without manually editing the mission, no. 

 

True, but I don't think there is any way to change it at all, even with editing the mission. Once the AI plane is in the landing pattern, their "identity" is removed and they are only controlled by the AI landing routine and ground taxi waypoints that have a limit to how many you can place. The complex trigger is the only one I have found that does still work, but I don't know how you might prevent the plane from despawning with it.

 

When a plane lands or crashes, you can still have a complex trigger detect it as stationary or whatever and trigger events, but "don't disappear" is not on the list. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

49 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

True, but I don't think there is any way to change it at all, even with editing the mission. Once the AI plane is in the landing pattern, their "identity" is removed and they are only controlled by the AI landing routine and ground taxi waypoints that have a limit to how many you can place. The complex trigger is the only one I have found that does still work, but I don't know how you might prevent the plane from despawning with it.

 

When a plane lands or crashes, you can still have a complex trigger detect it as stationary or whatever and trigger events, but "don't disappear" is not on the list. 

When landing, yes, but we're taking about crashes here

 

I tested with two planes that I kill shortly after mission start (Damage MCU). Plane A has Delete After Death checked, Plane B unchecked. Plane A disappears after 30s or so, as expected. B's wreckage, as expected, remains on the ground until I delete it 2 minutes later using a Delete MCU, whereupon it disappears, again as expected.

 

Based on these results, it should be possible to prevent despawning after crashes by unchecking their Delete After Death property. If you want to delete them afterwards to save CPU cycles, that should be possible with a Delete MCU (although that may of course be a problem if the aircraft is in a formation).

 

On 6/6/2022 at 12:00 AM, Jaegermeister said:

It works. I have recently been experimenting to see if frame rates are any higher if I delete linked entities instead of deactivating them when they are out of range of the Player.

 

They go away either way, and I cannot tell the difference in CPU usage. Just use any trigger to a timer or directly to the delete or deactivate MCUs

CPU usage shouldn't matter. If there's any difference, it'll likely be in RAM usage (and probably in the order of a couple of kB).

[Jaegermeister]

3 minutes ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

When landing, yes, but we're taking about crashes here

 

I tested with two planes that I kill shortly after mission start (Damage MCU). Plane A has Delete After Death checked, Plane B unchecked. Plane A disappears after 30s or so, as expected. B's wreckage, as expected, remains on the ground until I delete it 2 minutes later using a Delete MCU, whereupon it disappears, again as expected.

 

Based on these results, it should be possible to prevent despawning after crashes by unchecking their Delete After Death property. If you want to delete them afterwards to save CPU cycles, that should be possible with a Delete MCU (although that may of course be a problem if the aircraft is in a formation).

 

CPU usage shouldn't matter. If there's any difference, it'll likely be in RAM usage (and probably in the order of a couple of kB).

 

I guess that makes sense that they would not disappear after they crash with "delete after death" unchecked. Good to know. I think if an attacking aircraft crashed on your home airfield it would be very strange that it was not there when you land. I will keep that in mind.   

 

Watching the CPU, RAM and GPU activity, I can't tell a difference in any of them with delete vs deactivate for AI. If there is one, it would be very small. There are likely other reasons for my declining frame rates and increasing time distortion with existing missions. I would say it is the increased resolution from upgrading my VR headset and needing a better graphics card.

[jollyjack]

On 6/6/2022 at 8:45 AM, IckyATLAS said:

I did not test recently, but in the past when Delete was unchecked it did simply make the time the wreck remained visible before deletion longer, but still limited and not staying until the end of the mission. .......

 

For static objects (buildings, static planes and static vehicles) on the map that you know will be destroyed in the mission because it is part of the scenario, you can have that object destroyed set in your next mission. It is okay to have you tricked into some kind of continuity but that's all you can do.

 

 

Icky, cant you think of some clever trick(y) being a ME wizard?

Like spawning of some sort of damaged version of a static or even later unlinked entry of the crashed plane?

Edited June 11, 2022 by jollyjack

[Vishnu]

Try this.   Not sure if this is what you’re looking for…