Wingmen shooting each other?
- Thread starter OldCrow
- Start date
HouseHobbit
Charter Member
WOW!! that is a first for me..
Never had this, is it in missions or QC ??
Never had this, is it in missions or QC ??
Daiwilletti
Charter Member
Yes it is a common problem. When directing your wingmen to attack mission goals (targets shown in purple on the TAC), make sure you do not select the target before pressing "A". In that way your wingmen will singly attack the different targets. I've described all this in detail in an earlier thread around 2011. If you bracket (select) a mission target and press "A", two wingmen will attack the selected target, and therefore you are much more likely to get one wingman shooting up the one in front.
There are all sorts of complications/wrinkles/strategies to this. For instance, if the wingmen cannot "see" the mission objective target (the purple one), and you press "A", they are just as likely to fly off and shoot up another non-objective target which does not help you to achieve your mission goal. When I am flying over the frontline on a CAS mission attacking an armoured formation, for example, I sometimes fly/lead the wing down low and fast, shoot up the target myself, before pressing "A" a few times. In this way it seems more of my wingmen "see" the objective and don't go off and attack other frontline facilities like bunkers and ammodepots. (The thing is to remember that your AI wingmen often have much lower vision attribute than you do, they literally have to be "lead" to the target. You can find out in a campaign what your wingmen's vision attributes are by looking in the latest .cmpstat file generated from the last campaign misison you flew). I tend to modify the pilotattributes.xml to make sure my wingmen have reasonable vision, compared to the stock file.
By selecting the armoured vehicles with the targeting brackets, you will end up wasting wingmen's ordinance as two of them use their bombs/roackets on the same target, as well as shooting each other up. So while its a bit hit-and-miss to tell them to attack without selecting a target, you can find ways to make it work.
One of the things I find is that the flight characteristics of the individual fighter bomber affects the chances of the wingmen shooting each other accidentally. I find for example the Typhoon is more likely to shoot up a wingman that the p47d. I think that is partly because on a bombing run, the p47 dives more steeply and there is less time before releasing the bomb, for the p47 to line up its guns and blaze away on the way down.
HTH,
D
HouseHobbit
Charter Member
I still haven't had this happen to speak of.. True.
WOW!!
I fly mainly my missions because as I build, don't always have time to fly others work..Bummer..
And I often use echelon right or left along with wedge formations.
Never trail ..
They tend to run into each other when in trail formation, especially is I close the gap to .50 or less.. I have seen..
Perhaps expanding the gap in the formation to 2.0 or higher might help prevent this?
Just a suggestion..
WOW!!
I fly mainly my missions because as I build, don't always have time to fly others work..Bummer..
And I often use echelon right or left along with wedge formations.
Never trail ..
They tend to run into each other when in trail formation, especially is I close the gap to .50 or less.. I have seen..
Perhaps expanding the gap in the formation to 2.0 or higher might help prevent this?
Just a suggestion..
Daiwilletti
Charter Member
Hi Owen,
its something I encounter in campaign missions mainly. How about you OldCrow?
Yeah guys, I'm talking about campaign missions. Thanks for the replies.
Strange I've never had my wingmen attack the wrong targets, even from a distance. They are really good at attacking exactly what I choose for them, and only the rookies really miss but still try. I'm using a modifiedpilots system I helped figure out and it's posted in the sticky somewhere so maybe that's why my wingmen "see" the targets I call out.
Anyway, yeah it's usually when a pair of wingmen attack the same target. It rarely ever happens on the bomb run, it's usually the 2nd or 3rd strafing run(guns) or a rocket run which usually has gunfire at the same time. The few times I've witnessed it(watching the whole thing) it seemed to happen both on target and as they both pull up(still firing into the air like idiots).
I was thinking of modifying the convergence of the guns(all seem to be set at 300?) in the Aircraft's XDP file. I'm guessing making them converge at say 600 maybe they won't "spray" widly so much. Not sure how this effects the AI in dogfights though.
The other idea is to modify the gun range. If I shorten it, then maybe they can't hit each other. If I lengthen it, maybe they fire further from the target or space out more? Again, I don't want to alter the realism of the sim, and make the AI do things they shouldn't so I really don't like either of these 2 options.
Strange I've never had my wingmen attack the wrong targets, even from a distance. They are really good at attacking exactly what I choose for them, and only the rookies really miss but still try. I'm using a modifiedpilots system I helped figure out and it's posted in the sticky somewhere so maybe that's why my wingmen "see" the targets I call out.
Anyway, yeah it's usually when a pair of wingmen attack the same target. It rarely ever happens on the bomb run, it's usually the 2nd or 3rd strafing run(guns) or a rocket run which usually has gunfire at the same time. The few times I've witnessed it(watching the whole thing) it seemed to happen both on target and as they both pull up(still firing into the air like idiots).
I was thinking of modifying the convergence of the guns(all seem to be set at 300?) in the Aircraft's XDP file. I'm guessing making them converge at say 600 maybe they won't "spray" widly so much. Not sure how this effects the AI in dogfights though.
The other idea is to modify the gun range. If I shorten it, then maybe they can't hit each other. If I lengthen it, maybe they fire further from the target or space out more? Again, I don't want to alter the realism of the sim, and make the AI do things they shouldn't so I really don't like either of these 2 options.
Daiwilletti
Charter Member
Yes I'm talking about instructing them to attack without selecting a target. In that way they attack individually, not in pairs, thereby minimising the chance of "friendly fire". However if they cannot "see" a target they will return to the formation and tell you about it. Thats why i lead them in low sometimes, over the campaign mission goal, to ensure when I press "A" that they have identified the purple goal which presumably is a higher priority than all the other enemy facilities which only show up as red on the TAC.
One of the mods that helps the AI shooting straight is in the pilotconstants.xml, way at the bottom - called AIwingmenaccuracycap. The default =1, I change it to 3.
I find that trying to modify the gun's range or the converge distance is somehow overriden by the skill level of the AIpilot. The other day I was getting shot up by a particularly annoying hun in a Me109. He was potting me accurately at around 600m! I checked the range in the 20mm gun xdp file appropriate for that model 109, and the range was set to 300m. But this blighter was still pinging me at 600!
. In that install I had tweaked all the skill levels in the UIsel file, so that I was getting highly skilled opposition.
Capt. Winters
Charter Member
Hi All,
Daiwilletti
AI shooting straight is in the pilotconstants.xml, way at the bottom - called AIwingmenaccuracycap. The default =1, I change it to 3. is
it possible that improvng the accuracy of your AIwingmen, that it somehow also effects the accuracy of the enemy pilots as well? allowing the 600m shots.
regards Rob.
Daiwilletti
AI shooting straight is in the pilotconstants.xml, way at the bottom - called AIwingmenaccuracycap. The default =1, I change it to 3. is
it possible that improvng the accuracy of your AIwingmen, that it somehow also effects the accuracy of the enemy pilots as well? allowing the 600m shots.
regards Rob.
I'm going to try your tactic of leading the wingmen all over the area over targets. Thanks.Yes I'm talking about instructing them to attack without selecting a target. In that way they attack individually, not in pairs, thereby minimising the chance of "friendly fire". However if they cannot "see" a target they will return to the formation and tell you about it. Thats why i lead them in low sometimes, over the campaign mission goal, to ensure when I press "A" that they have identified the purple goal which presumably is a higher priority than all the other enemy facilities which only show up as red on the TAC.
One of the mods that helps the AI shooting straight is in the pilotconstants.xml, way at the bottom - called AIwingmenaccuracycap. The default =1, I change it to 3.
I find that trying to modify the gun's range or the converge distance is somehow overriden by the skill level of the AIpilot. The other day I was getting shot up by a particularly annoying hun in a Me109. He was potting me accurately at around 600m! I checked the range in the 20mm gun xdp file appropriate for that model 109, and the range was set to 300m. But this blighter was still pinging me at 600!
Daiwilletti
Charter Member
Hi Capt. Winters,
I think the enemy AI accuracy would be controlled by their skill level. The stuff I am talking about is largely relevant only in the context of campaigns, because in scripted missions, the enemy and friendly skill is easily set. In campaigns, I set the skill by inserting a line in the campaign params part of the uisel.xml file. Its all described in the knowledgebase sticky - "missionenemyskill" parameter. (NB in the QC section of the Uisel, skill=3 confers Ace level skill, but under Campaign params, have to switch to using a setting between 1 and 100)
You might have seen threads on OFF forums about aggression. I think the OFF team know more about the inner workings of the cfs3 engine and that there may be a dynamic between skill and agression. I certainly find those pesky AI in OFF are highly aggressive. But in stock cfs3 and its offspring like ETO and RS, I have not found parameters to set a level for aggression which could be fun
. Is there something in the different mission directives? The directives "sweep" and "intercept" will I suspect confer a slightly different AI behaviour, one mission type will be more aggressive than the other? Where did I read about that?@ Mongoose, yes, I just re-read it the other day, still there in the knowledgebase sticky. Dunno how I found the time to do all that stuff!
Daiwilletti
Charter Member
Hi OldCrow, of course as you and HH say, most of the time friendly fire is not too big a problem. But I do find that early on in stock campaigns flying as a British pilot, that the Typhoon is particularly bad, I lose a lot of wingmen to friendly fire unless I manage them well.
I also like to set enemy groundskill to a high level, so flak is accurate and spending too much time leading your wing down low over the frontline is asking for trouble if you set up "missionenemygroundskill" parameter =100, tee hee. Mind you, I've added a few mobile AA to some stock facilities like artillery and dug in tanks, because the stock frontline facilities don't really come equipped to shoot back at you enough (although that is fixed in ETO IIRC?). I also fixed the ground spawns AA facility (is it enemy_medium_AA or something like that?) which doesn't work in stock so that AA can pop up at random as you fly over enemy territory.
Without these changes one can get rather sloppy about flying low and slow
Mind you, I've added a few mobile AA to some stock facilities like artillery and dug in tanks, because the stock frontline facilities don't really come equipped to shoot back at you enough (although that is fixed in ETO IIRC?). I also fixed the ground spawns AA facility (is it enemy_medium_AA or something like that?) which doesn't work in stock so that AA can pop up at random as you fly over enemy territory.
Without these changes one can get rather sloppy about flying low and slow
I would be very interested in doing some things like that to spice up the CAS missions. The frontline always seems to have no AA danger.
Hi OldCrow, of course as you and HH say, most of the time friendly fire is not too big a problem. But I do find that early on in stock campaigns flying as a British pilot, that the Typhoon is particularly bad, I lose a lot of wingmen to friendly fire unless I manage them well.
I also like to set enemy groundskill to a high level, so flak is accurate and spending too much time leading your wing down low over the frontline is asking for trouble if you set up "missionenemygroundskill" parameter =100, tee hee. Mind you, I've added a few mobile AA to some stock facilities like artillery and dug in tanks, because the stock frontline facilities don't really come equipped to shoot back at you enough (although that is fixed in ETO IIRC?). I also fixed the ground spawns AA facility (is it enemy_medium_AA or something like that?) which doesn't work in stock so that AA can pop up at random as you fly over enemy territory.
Without these changes one can get rather sloppy about flying low and slow
Great! I figured out how to add some AA guns to artillery and dug in tanks from what you said and wow that is cool. Thanks for the tip. Now I don't fall asleep strafing the front line so easily.
Daiwilletti
Charter Member
yes, keeps you on your toes!:salute:
The ETO mods to stock frontline facilities show you some ideas - I think they have some ETO_flak guns in their ammodepots, for example.
If you need different placement of guns or armor_AA_mobile or whatever, the Mission and Facility Editor uploaded by HH to CFS3 Other recently is an easy way to place AA in the facility xml file, the only thing to watch is I find when I save the modified xml file, sometimes the editor seems to lose the # hashtags, which causes the xml not to work. Its really good to use the hashtags so as to add variety and a random element to the facilities, so you don't get the same old.