How To Change Player AI Airfield Traffic Pattern Landing Order?

[KodiakJac]

How can I change the landing order of the player's aircraft when landing using player AI?

 

In Pilot Careers and most Scripted Campaigns, if you land your plane using AI, it always lands last no matter your position in the flight or your arrival time at the airfield.  In PWCG missions, the player's aircraft always lands first, so I know it can be changed.  But how?

 

I hand fly about 50% of my landings, in particular if my plane is damaged, but I like to use the AI to land the other 50% of the time to watch my flaps and gear drop, to watch in fly-by mode during the flare, etc.  But always landing last to do so is very time consuming, even under time compression.

 

Thanks!

Edited January 13, 2024 by KodiakJac

[IckyATLAS]

I do not know how the Pilot Careers missions are designed nor what is done in PWCG.

To my "short experience" you cannot do what you want in AI. If you are one of the planes inside the formation (not the leader) then if you want to land direct without considering landing order then do it by flying your plane. At best depending where on the pattern another plane is it may avoid you and maybe restart its landing pattern, but if it is in short final or landed and rolling then you have to avoid him.

When you define a flight (in your mission that you have designed) you can define the numbering of the planes in the formation or the order that will be used later on for inflight formation positioning and landing. This cannot be changed inflight.

 

What can be changed inflight based on conditions is the formation type of your flight. You have an MCU for that. But it has to be planned and allows to set the behavior's of your flight accordingly. But the target link used between leader and wingman cannot be modified, deleted or reinstated inflight. I often mentioned that I would have loved to have the possibility to do this because it would allow for Spawning complete flight formations, but as the devs stated they will not implement anything new in the editor except if they need it themselves for the design of their own missions, careers etc.

 

The fact that the Player aircraft lands first in AI mode, is if it is the flight leader and then it has formation number 0. If the Player aircraft has the last formation number then it should land last, again in AI mode.

Now if the plane has damage and depending on the damage level (to be set in the editor), it will do a return to base and land. This means he will quit the battle zone and fly to the base and land and this irrespective of his position in the formation. But for that to happen the plane parameters must be set in advance in the editor.

 

Finally the very long time it takes to land a flight is that the landing has been modelled individually and a flight cannot organize itself in column and land one behind the other keeping a safety distance, but fighters are small and nimble planes so it should be no problem to implement. At present each plane must do an uninterrupted flight pattern and land, and during that time the others will fly around waiting. This is not what reality is in war period, and is completely inefficient. There is a lot to add to AI landing to make it "top notch". And if you have multiple flights coming to the same airfield then go have lunch then dinner and come back after the dessert.

 

[Zooropa_Fly]

It's tortuous.

A 'formation landing' command would be spiffing.

I've had HP's land one behind the other once - no idea how it happened though !

[KodiakJac]

@IckyATLAS

 

Yes, the landing behavior is that of civilian and commercial aviation, not military aircraft in combat conditions in an active warzone during WWI and WWII.

 

But PWCG missions have the player set to land first while under AI control, so I know it can be done ?

Edited January 13, 2024 by KodiakJac

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

On 1/13/2024 at 3:44 PM, KodiakJac said:

@IckyATLAS

 

Yes, the landing behavior is that of civilian and commercial aviation, not military aircraft in combat conditions in an active warzone during WWI and WWII.

 

But PWCG missions have the player set to land first while under AI control, so I know it can be done ?

It’s my understanding that PWCG doesn’t Activate a formation or single aircraft but uses the Spawn mcu instead.

Creating a Spawned formation allows for what you’re looking for.

 

Edited January 18, 2024 by [DBS]Tx_Tip
You’re as opposed to your reading this.

[Zooropa_Fly]

I wouldn't be so sure about that - 'Spawned' objects don't follow Formation Commands, only 'Activated' ones.

Always been a source of frustration !

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

6 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

I wouldn't be so sure about that - 'Spawned' objects don't follow Formation Commands, only 'Activated' ones.

Always been a source of frustration !

No one mentioned they would follow formation cmds. Only that the option for the player to land first was available.

 

Kodiak Jac’s question and observation was could the player being in an activated “formation” always have wait to land as opposed that within PWCG he was not having to.

The ability to have several spawned aircraft behave in the same fashion, flying in close proximity, using the same triggers and most other cmds, with separate or joint landing cmds,  is certainly achievable.

 

[Zooropa_Fly]

Yeah, fair enough. 

[Jaegermeister]

10 hours ago, [DBS]Tx_Tip said:

It’s my understanding that PWCG doesn’t Activate a formation or single aircraft but uses the Spawn mcu instead.

 

 

I was curious about what has been discussed here so I made a few tests. I started a Campaign with PWCG and what I got was a Player flight that was not enabled but was Activated after 2 seconds. There was no Spawn MCU. They followed the formation command and after returning to a Land Command, they followed a normal circuit and as usual, the Player plane landed last, despite being 2nd in formation and the Flight Leader status being passed to the Player as indicated by the double Chevron over the Player Icon. 

 

I have made various tests and I can't make the player land ahead of the rest of the flight. I think what @KodiakJac may be seeing is when some of the flight RTB based on having AI Return to Base Decision triggered by damage so they land after the Player. As you guys mentioned earlier, I think the Player always lands last, but it's certainly easy enough to cut into the excessively wide landing pattern and land whenever you want to.

[Jaegermeister]

On 1/13/2024 at 5:14 AM, IckyATLAS said:

The fact that the Player aircraft lands first in AI mode, is if it is the flight leader and then it has formation number 0. If the Player aircraft has the last formation number then it should land last, again in AI mode.

 

I can not duplicate or confirm this. Even when not enabled and activated as flight leader as in PWCG the Player still lands last. If you can confirm, please post a test mission or track.

 

Land_Test.zip

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

There ya go @KodiakJac.

 

The answers to your question and observations are:

Yes

No

Maybe so

 

 

[KodiakJac]

Thanks for the participation in this thread by ya'll ?

 

In all of my PWCG missions my plane lands first under AI control, even when my wingmen are not damaged and operating separately from my flight.  Here is my most recent PWCG mission...a large flight of Breguets with me leading it.  Everyone came home undamaged, and I landed first under AI controlled landing.

 

Why?

 

Edit:  During the mission below, I'm in and out of AI, autolevel, and manual flight, if that makes any difference.

 

PWCG Mission.zip

Edited January 21, 2024 by KodiakJac

[KodiakJac]

P.S.  I forgot there is an in-game recorder in IL-2 Great Battles.

 

I'll make a recording of my plane landing first in a PWCG generated mission and post it!

 

 

Edit:  How do I get the HUD to display when replaying a track to record it with OBS?  I had my HUD displayed when recording the track to prove I was flying in AI mode, but the HUD doesn't display during track playback, even when toggling the "H" key on and off.  Thanks!

Edited January 22, 2024 by KodiakJac

[KodiakJac]

On 1/18/2024 at 6:49 PM, Jaegermeister said:

 

I can not duplicate or confirm this. Even when not enabled and activated as flight leader as in PWCG the Player still lands last. If you can confirm, please post a test mission or track.

 

Land_Test.zip 4.63 kB · 2 downloads

 

Hi Jaegermeister,

 

Here is another PWCG mission where the player AI lands first.  And yes, I am always the flight leader in my PWCG missions.

 

PWCG Player AI Lands First - Bf 110 E-2 Mission.zip

 

 

 

 

On 1/13/2024 at 4:14 AM, IckyATLAS said:

The fact that the Player aircraft lands first in AI mode, is if it is the flight leader and then it has formation number 0. If the Player aircraft has the last formation number then it should land last, again in AI mode.

 

 

You may be on to something, Icky.  I am always the flight leader in my PWCG missions. 

Edited January 22, 2024 by KodiakJac

[Jaegermeister]

8 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

 

Hi Jaegermeister,

 

Here is another PWCG mission where the player AI lands first.  And yes, I am always the flight leader in my PWCG missions.PWCG Player AI Lands First - Bf 110 E-2 Mission.zip
440.83 kB · 0 downloads

I thought it might be something with being FC planes, but I tested that also and same result. On autopilot, my plane still lands last.
 

I am fairly sure it has to do with something in your difficulty settings

[KodiakJac]

1 hour ago, Jaegermeister said:

I thought it might be something with being FC planes, but I tested that also and same result. On autopilot, my plane still lands last.
 

I am fairly sure it has to do with something in your difficulty settings

 

Thanks for taking a look at it, Jaegermeister.  I'm amazed you landed last in either of the Breguet or Bf 110 missions I posted above.  It only happens for me with PWCG missions.  I land last in all Pilot Career missions, but in all PWCG missions I land first.  And since you've run the mission files I've posted, as you say, it has to somehow lie in my settings for IL-2 Great Battles.

 

I asked Pat Wilson if he was doing anything special with his missions in PWCG, and he said no.  So, for the time being I guess it will remain a mystery ? 

[PatrickAWlson]

On 1/18/2024 at 9:06 AM, [DBS]Tx_Tip said:

It’s my understanding that PWCG doesn’t Activate a formation or single aircraft but uses the Spawn mcu instead.

Creating a Spawned formation allows for what you’re looking for.

 

 

Every flight has a formation and is activated.  Spawn MCUs are not used for player or AI flights. 

 

The player's flight usually has a runway start.  The formation command is triggered immediately after takeoff.  Pretty basic stuff.

 

The AI flights are air starts triggered by player proximity.  To emulate movement the flights are repeated in a series of groups that I call Virtual Way Points.  A series of VWPs describes the intended flight path of the flight, with the planes repeated in every VWP.  The first  VWP is triggered on mission start and lives based on a timer.  When the timer expires, that VWP is killed by disabling the check zone and the next VWP in sequence is activated.  When a VWP trigger the flight instance contained in that VWP is activated (not spawned) with a formation command.  All subsequent VWP instances are killed to prevent duplicate activations of the same flight.

 

Short version is that no flights are spawned and every flight has an associated formation command.

 

I would expect the formation command to define the landing order, but TBH I really have no idea what the game logic is doing.  There is a ton of undocumented behavior in the game, some intentional and some not,  that mission makers have to either find out by accident - or not and you live with the results that you get.