• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

AI bombers passing/ignoring waypoints

_486_Col_Wolf

_486_Col_Wolf

Charter Member
OK, got my Stukas to roll over and dive straight down on their stationary targets(s) from 10,000 Ft (awesome site by the way). But after hitting the targets they fly towards the next waypoint (turn for home) and continue past it in a straight line forever. The waypoint before the attack waypoint is 7 miles out at 10,000 Ft, attack waypoint is at 10,000 Ft, the waypoint after the attack waypoint (turn for home) is 7 miles out at 2000 Ft. I've tried varying the altitude of the waypoint after the attack waypoint, moving it further out and further in in miles, all with no change. I've searched every post in the forum I can find regarding this issue but haven't seen it mentioned or any suggestions regarding AI and waypoints. Any thoughts?
 
Do they have any bombs left to drop after the bombing? Also it’s possible you might need to fiddle with the unit type and plane and I good starting point for that would be from the overhauled Val and if all else fails try the stock Val’s perimeters. Might even be the game itself as getting it perfect is about impossible. There could be any number of reasons but since you have been fooling around with the mission itself without much luck it might be time to check other possibilities as well if haven’t already. First thing for sure you have to have a bomb to drop and if the AI used theirs up they have no unlimited weapons capability the player has if anybody uses that cheat setting still. Plain and simple if they used up their bombs everything else can be spot on and it wouldn’t make any difference if they nothing to drop on the target
 
Another thing it’s possible the aircraft were damaged after the first bombing and the AI they need better air files or a better handling planes then we do so if they have a couple of flak holes that might be enough to keep them from sticking their neck back out on the chopping block again. Kinda like sticking your finger in a fire. Hurt like Hell didn’t it. Don’t do that anymore I’m going home to mamma and that’s that. I’m just touchy up on some basics I’m sure some of the more experienced campaign making modders who have tried the same stunts you are will be along shortly but sometimes we overlook the small stuff and I’m sure more than one spark plug has been pulled or carburetor taken apart when the only thing was wrong was it was out of gas. Embarrassing yes but **** happens.
 
It's probably the Stuka's air file - the PID section in fact. As Deathwind says, try substituting either the Val's or another author's Stuka's air file.
 
Thanks guys! DW, they only have one bomb, they do drop them and hit the targets so no ordinance left. I do have flak batteries at the target so some may be damaged but they all fly together past the post-attack waypoint. My other dive bombers (JU-88, DO-17) don't do this so I'm thinking it may just be a problem with the Air file.

Kdriver, can you tell me what number heading the PID is in the Air file and what parameters within that heading might be altered with to change the results? If the Val Air file works, could I substitute the PID heading from the Val or another working Stuka into my Stuka Air file and leave all other parameters intact?
 
Sorry I misread it I thought you were saying they were supposed to attack an additional target other the first one that’s why I mentioned the bombs.
 
I have seen this problem with both the Ju-87 and the D3A. The SBDs don't seem to do it.
Another strange behavior of all of them is that often they refuse to leave the target area at all. They drop their bombs and then circle around, being easy prey for flak and fighters. I tried all sorts of things, but nothing seems to work.

The other day I had a new idea, but haven't tried it yet: What if we plot the divebombers' route after the attack as an alternate route and then make a trigger/event that makes them change to the alternate route when the bomb count is zero, i.e when all the planes have dropped their bomb? Maybe this resets them so they follow waypoints again instead of circling forever, or going anywhere? Might be worth trying.
 
Maybe take 1101 out of the Hellcat, Dautless etc. air file and replace the Stuka 1101 with it and see what that gives you.
 
Skylane

I've never seen them circle the target unless they sometimes try to dogfight with the attacking fighters. Maybe you have those listed as fighter bombers in the DP file? The Alt waypoint idea might work and I may use it as a last resort if the Air file fix doesn't help.
 
Col_Wolf, I'm afraid the PID controllers for AI section 1199 of the air file is beyond me. I've done quite a bit of flight testing for our Westfront group and experienced AI aircraft, particularly the slow WW1 types, doing strange things. Aussie, Aleatorylamp and AerDaddyO are the air file specialists in our group.

I don't know if altering one set of parameters will affect the others within the air file. I suppose you can only give it a try and find out.
 
OK, here's what I've tried so far....

Used another Stuka in my aircraft folder with different parameters in the 1101 Air file...no change in ignoring waypoint after bomb run. I didn't swap this air file into the Stuka I intend to use since they both seem to do the same thing.

I tried running the mission with my JU-88 and DO-17 dive bomber versions (both set to cat 3 and work well in anti ship missions) and they also began ignoring the post bomb run waypoint.

I added Alt Route waypoints for the Stukas that are triggered by 0 bomb count. This seemed promising in that the Stukas did now turn towards home after the bomb run however saving the mission in MB made bizarre changes to waypoints and created/added waypoints that I never wrote into the mission. Cody Coyote's Mission Building guide does mention strange things like this happening if you try to save a tweaked mission too many times but I've rewritten dozens of mission many times over and never had this happen.

At this point it may be a lost cause to make the Stukas turn for home and return to their base. But because my mission goals are tied to them reaching a "safe area" with an "Object Health " above 75%, I may have to rewrite this goal as success if they are at 75% when their bomb count is zero, or when my flight returns to base and leave it at that.
 
_486_Col_Wolf said:
OK, here's what I've tried so far....

Used another Stuka in my aircraft folder with different parameters in the 1101 Air file...no change in ignoring waypoint after bomb run. I didn't swap this air file into the Stuka I intend to use since they both seem to do the same thing.

I tried running the mission with my JU-88 and DO-17 dive bomber versions (both set to cat 3 and work well in anti ship missions) and they also began ignoring the post bomb run waypoint.

I added Alt Route waypoints for the Stukas that are triggered by 0 bomb count. This seemed promising in that the Stukas did now turn towards home after the bomb run however saving the mission in MB made bizarre changes to waypoints and created/added waypoints that I never wrote into the mission. Cody Coyote's Mission Building guide does mention strange things like this happening if you try to save a tweaked mission too many times but I've rewritten dozens of mission many times over and never had this happen.

At this point it may be a lost cause to make the Stukas turn for home and return to their base. But because my mission goals are tied to them reaching a "safe area" with an "Object Health " above 75%, I may have to rewrite this goal as success if they are at 75% when their bomb count is zero, or when my flight returns to base and leave it at that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update. Man I don’t know either but do what ya got to do. I think I would since we really aren’t air file experts ourselves would have to consider just swapping airfiles altogether but why not replace the Stuka with the overhaul Val and if it works you can then use that air file for the Stuka. You can swap engines out and make other tweaks to make it more Stuka like but I wouldn’t worry much about that as long as it works good. Try the Val and a few others and if it works that’s gonna be your new air file.
 
_486_Col_Wolf,

Did you manage to get this problem sorted? BTW editing entry #1101 won't help, that's the "primary aerodynamics" in fact editing that will only cause more problems. The entry you want to change is the PID entry #1199. If you open the Val's air file in AAM scroll down and select entry #1199, then on the "edit" menu of AAM click "copy". Without closing AAM open the Stuka air file. Again, in the "edit" menu click "paste". Save it and give it a try and let me how things turn out.

Cheers
Aussie
 
Aussie,

I never did get it sorted out right. I now use an alternate trigger of object health of the bombers when my flight returns to base. This way, no matter where they go I will get success if they are still 75% intact when I return to my base.

Thanks for the air file info. I will definitely give it a try and let you know if it works. It would be much better (realistic) if my flight could escort them to the "Detach Escort" waypoint then turn for home.
 
Aussie,

I used AAM to copy and paste the Val's 1199 section of the Air file into the Stuka Air file. However, in testing the Stukas continue to fly past the next way point after thier attack way point then continue on a straight line for miles. It's either something else in the AC files of the Stuka or the MIS/DYN files of the mission. At this point I may just have to go with the plan to use the alternate success trigger.
 
_486_Col_Wolf,

Well, that is strange. An easy test to find if it's in the air file or the mission itself would be to substitute the Stuka with the Val and see if they do the same thing.

Cheers
Aussie
 
Aussie,

That was going to be my next test. But here's the strange thing. This problem only cropped up after I got the Stukas to dive straight down on the target instead of glide bombing which they did when I had them as a Cat 10. I prefer they dive straight down like the real ones did so if this is the trade-off, I can live with it.
 
OK, substituted the stock Val for the Stuka and here's what I got:

Vals pass the attack waypoint, turn around then hit the target from the opposite direction in a glide bombing manner (they don't roll over and go straight down). After the attack they continue on in the opposite direction of the after attack way point. From there they also continue in a straight line without trying to turn anywhere. Unless there's some secret of writing this type of mission that's unknown to me I might have to leave it the way it is. At least the Stukas dive straight down now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top