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Getting the AI to land with out crashing?

Allen

Allen

Styles Editor/Admin
Staff member
Dose any one know how to get the AI to land with out nose diving into the ground or make the AI not land at all but fly around airfield?
 
Allen,

I haven't had that problem in along time but I know someone did a post about this a while ago..I think it was Bearcat.
 
Allen said:
Dose any one know how to get the AI to land with out nose diving into the ground or make the AI not land at all but fly around airfield?
Click to expand...

These two options require entirely different approaches...which do you actually prefer and what model are you working with? The first part of your question requires some air file tweaks in the primary aerodynamics 1101 section. For the fly-around option, you only need to set it up in MB. You set the final waypoint just a little beyond the home base on an approach directly over the strip your flight is returning to and select the option to "land anywhere" instead of "land at base". As you are returning on this waypoint, your flight path will take you directly in line with a landing approach on the base and while you land, your flight will either continue on the actual final waypoint before returning to circle or they will disregard the waypoint and just commence to circling above you as you land.
 
I know about the MB "land anywhere" option but since I'm trying to make some .air files that work with the OHs going back and editing ALL of the stock missions is NOT an option.

When that AI is ordered to "land at base" it must land with crashing or not at all by some edit in the .air file.
 
Allen said:
I know about the MB "land anywhere" option but since I'm trying to make some .air files that work with the OHs going back and editing ALL of the stock missions is NOT an option...
Click to expand...

Well, pardon me but i assumed you didn't know because you did also ask how to "make the AI not land at all but fly around airfield?", that's why i mentioned both options.

But regarding a fix for the landing crashes, use the dynamics of the stock Wildcat's air file section 1101. IMO its one of the best stock fighters at landing on airfields. Just copy its 1101 and paste/overwrite to that of your subject's air file. You may afterwards need to tweak the aircraft.cfg further to get the overall flight performance you had in the kite before.
 
The MOI (moment of inertia) is one thing to look at. A high MOI will cause the plane to be to heavy for the AI to pull up. next would be the autopilot. i'm not sure what needs to be changed. check the "Handbook" for more details. if this is a player aircraft you will have to add the MOI to the CFG file. Start with that. do some searching in the forum. there has to be posts on all of this. I know I did a couple.
 
A trick I've found effective is to let the AI land first, rather than landing in front of them. It isn't 100% effective, but seems to work most of the time.
 
Bearcat.
I thought every one knew that. I've done it for any mission I made but since I'm tying to make some new .air files that the AI can use so I can clear some room in my aircraft folder (keep maxing out). The current AI overhual .air files arn't working too well so I AI overhuals under a new name so they don't conflict with the stock AI aircraft. If I can make a .air files the AI can use than I can get at lest 7 new aircraft if I can get all of the single engine AI overhual aircraft working with the AI.

Blood_Hawk
I tried everthing I could think of to the MOI. Low MOI, hight MOI but both didn't help. The 1199 *Autopilot/Secondary Aerodynamics for both Zeros and the F6F3 are the same. You would think there would be a different but there isn't.

Ettico
I'm using a test mission that has 8 AI aircraft land by there self. I'm just watching them land and mostly crash.
 
No Allen, not "everyone" knows that. Just like with model designing, there a still many who are into this sim but haven't ventured into mission building, so they won't be aware that "land anywhere" will force airfield orbiting in AI when the final waypoint is near, but just beyond the landing strip. And since this MB thing is the only way to program airfield orbits in AI - again, which you asked about - i injected it into the discussion. I figured you knew that airfield orbiting obviously cannot be programmed into an air file.

MOI controls the inertial forces exerted during maneuvers, like diving and pullouts, rolling and yawing. As you've surmised, these values have nothing to do with landing behavior on touchdown. What you have is either an excessive tailplane lift problem (several causes for this), the brakes are too strong or both. Both of these issues will force a nose-over on landing. And both are controlled by values within section 1101 of the air file. Either way, you can just use the stock flight models to refit the OH models, since they all have the same dimensions and scales. Untouched, the stock flight models do very well at landing and takeoffs without air file related incidents.
 
I was hoping some one knew of a setting like Vertal Speed that the AI used to land that I could change that would keep the AI from landing.

My planes are chashing before they get to the airstrip. They slam into the ground or water well out side of the defense perimeter. I tied to use a stock aircraft that could land as a base to make new ones for the OHs. I used an aircraft was close to the OH I'm trying to make work. The Ki-43 is working fine after the Wing span, Wing area and fuel load was changed. The Kate and Val as well. All others not so much.
 
Something else that will force some AI to orbit is not having all AI land at some base, not just yours but the enemies as well. The big problem are 3rd party aircraft not landing. The stock AI AC seem to do ok accept the stock P38.
 
Allen said:
...My planes are chashing before they get to the airstrip. They slam into the ground or water well out side of the defense perimeter...
Click to expand...

Whoa!...now THAT'S really weird. BTW, you're not experimenting with all this at one of those "sunken in a bowl, difficult to land" airstrips are you? Sometimes terrain topography can play a part. If the AI don't like the lay of the land on approaches, they get confused on the approach and just give up.

In typical crashes, the worst i've seen is nose-overs on touchdowns. But i think you're on the right track on the point of landing speed and stalls and increasing wing lift by increasing wing area. Unfortunately, air files don't have an exclusive setting for regulating landing speed itself, so the work you're doing on the wings and fuel weight seems the logical course. However, you might note that since the AI engine doesn't use fuel weight in operating AI models (that's for player aircraft only) most of your efforts in the fuel load category will be wasted for this purpose. But you can decrease the aircraft weight factor in 1101, thus making your kites a bit lighter overall without changing the actual loaded and empty weights.

The other thing worth noting is flap lift. Even though AI don't animate their flaps, the sim still uses the lift, pitch and drag parameters in 1101 of the air flie in AI flight dynamics. I've experimented with this so i do know a thing or two about it. But be warned that this is where things can get whack if you apply a heavy hand. Too much lift and the AI kites will float the length of the runway before touching down and then rolling to the next hill before stopping...LOL
 
My test airstrip is Munda. You can see a map below. The blue arrow is the landing directionand the red box is splash down zone.

I see fuel has no effect on AI but I do need to get it added and balanced to the aircraft for the player. I think the TBD-1 has too much lift for the AI with wings 50 feet long and wing area of 422 Sq Ft. This gives stall speed of around 60 knots. I will try the 1101 weight factor and see if I can load up the TBD-1

I know flaps work with the AI but adding flap lift makes the AI want to roll left and right when landing in my work.

View attachment 93574
 
Allen, you can experiment with the air files indef -- it will not suffice as a complete solution. As tedious as this may seem, the harsh reality is that you must change the landing speed in your newly created missions. If you're actually building new missions this can be done going forward - just make the speed greater than 85 knots. If you have to retro-edit old stuff, do it selectively within notepad or whatever text editor you use. You do know you can hand edit the final approach speed of any landing flight in a mission file within 5 seconds without the need for opening MB.
 
That AI is set so that I can watch it. When that AI enters the landing corridor it slow down, climb and line up for landing after slow down and climb. When that AI drops gear things go wrong. That AI will start "porpoising" it dose this rise and fall BS and never a straight line down.

Also 1101 weight factor is no good. I loaded the TBD-1 to max AirEdit would let me (2147483647 lbs) and it had no effect on tha AI at all. It should have fallen like rock but didn't.
 
Allen,

just to make sure that your AIs have the correct airfield information a look at the entries of your Munda in the aribasis.dat would be helpful. I can't check myself because I don't have a working Pacific install.

Cheers

Achim
 
Allen said:
That AI is set so that I can watch it. When that AI enters the landing corridor it slow down, climb and line up for landing after slow down and climb. When that AI drops gear things go wrong. That AI will start "porpoising" it dose this rise and fall BS and never a straight line down.
Click to expand...

I think that must be the most detailed description you've given us yet. These flight models are really screwed up. I've seen porpoising in level flight cruise speeds, but never at landing.

Try this as an experiment: take the stock air file from the best performing stock a/c you have and apply it to all other poorly performing models across the board. Also, change the flight tuning and weight factors in the aircraft.cfg files of all of the poorly performing models to match the good performer's cfg data. When you've finished setting up this experiment, you should have the exact same aircraft.cfg flight data and air file in every model. Make this the baseline flight model from which you rebuild all offending flight models. Test each model first to make sure they all do exactly as expected before tweaking anything.

If this works, you can go back and tweak the engine data, propeller parameters, fuel weights and all the other little details that set these models apart in historical performance.
 
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