I have a number of missions which upon completion most of the wingmen crash/fly into the ground while approaching the runway. Needless to say i loose too many of them to succesfully complete a mission or campaign. any solutions to this dilema????????????


michaelmichael

Hit X before they have a chance to crash.

Many of these problems are caused by the flight dynamics of 3rd party aircraft used, the way the mission is set up & the way you play them. Many missions are intended to work in real time. Warping messes up the sequence of events which can completely spoil the mission.

The only sure way that your wingmen survive is that you hit the X to end the mission. I tested this a bit maybe a year ago, it also has some info about taking off from a carrier. The crashing wingmen are the reason why the newer missions that I have made start and end mid.air. If you run into problems with too many wingmen lost, edit the pilotlog with notepad. The line saying wingmenlost should read 0.

Though my notes dont say this I think that Japanese wingmen were more able to land their planes safely.

testnotes:

I tested changing the landing position (in both mis. and airbases.dat) from 500 to 50 but there was no joy, the planes crashed the same way. I did not test what if anything happens if one puts in a negative value for the touchdown position.


Test:
Airfield: Torokina
Plane: F4U with both default airfile & modified
# planes:8
Testing through mission builder Fly now! option

When using default airfile 4/7 wingmen survive the landing regardles of the landing touchdown distance.
When using modified airfile I was lucky to have one wingman alive.

Some wingmen make a go around and start circling the airfield but mostly crash while doing so. (may take a while)

I also made tests on taking off from a carrier. The results were much the same, with default airfile your wingmen have a much better changes of surviving.

With modified airfile I noticed that the "safest" formation in wich to start in was FINGERTIP. With other formations the losses were numerous. (at least if you take off asap, look below)

But I also tested a work around for that:

When taking off, instead of rushing things and taking off as soon as possible, wait for the wingmen to circle around. Take off when they are on the downwind leg, or otherwise flying straight and level.

This because when you take off, they will try to form up asap, making them to turn to you instantly. And if they are in the middle of turning the other way, they start turning towards you and usually stall and crash.

ckur

Thanks CKUR and all other for the info.

michaelmichael

Hi Kev. I could be wrong but think that AI aircraft can use flaps. The animation works anyway.

The AI aircraft are controlled by values in the AIR file entries. These can be different to those in Aircraft.cfg which define the flyable aircraft. I'm not sure there's an entry for landing/take off speed. This might be in the DP. As I've mentioned before I'm out of touch with all this.

What is wrong with pressing X?

Nothing if you are just interesting in achieving the mission goals.

Personally I think the main goal for most mission should be getting as many of your boys back home as possible.

A little while ago I set up a short mission to simulate a BoB scramble. The test being that if maximum climb rate was achieved in the Hurricane Mk1a  you will meet the incoming 109e's on level terms.

The dogfight then ensued with planes being spread over most of the Channel.

Towards the end once I was out of ammo I watched 1 of my wingmen chase 2 109's towards France.
I tried to marshal the rest of my wing to finish off the 109's then brought them back down to Hawkinge. Of the 3 wingmen near me, 1 crashed on landing but had no visible undercarriage (The others did). Could this have been battle damage! 1 landed and stopped on the field. The 3rd landed but taxied off the field and was last seen heading along the A260 towards London!

now there I was, taxied to dispersal, engine shutting down and contemplating the letters I'd ned to right to my missing wingmens families when winging his way over the White Cliffs came the wingman who had chased the 109's to France. He then proceeded to land perfectly on the field and stop with the other successful lander.
This was a full 5 minutes after I had landed.
It really brought a lump to the throat. Possible the finest moment so far in single player missions.
I try to care for my wingmen much more now!

I don't fly that mission much now as I'm sure it will never be that good again.

That is why I don't press X

If we could just get them to land safely more often.

I have noticed that the ai are able to land on the grass fields of the BoB scenery much better than on runways. Don't know why as the ai only see a single section of the field as a grass runway!

Kev

I've been trying to run a ground crew BoBHurricane campaigns without the Kenley base, &  in one mission ALL the wingmen crash on take off  i've started take off & then pulled off to one side sharpish to watch, the wingmen adopt a nose down attitude as they try to take off(this is off grass)& dont make it
Happ