[FIXED] [486] Refueling Still Aggravating

[Primarchx]

Build: 486
Scenario: Shamal

Issue:

1) Sent a pair of F-15Cs off to refuel. They head to the tanker track and then just stop there without refueling. When I prompt them to refuel again they just keep an Unassigned mission. In frustration I RTB them.

2) Prompt a EF-111 (Wild Boar #02) to refuel after its' transit to the AO. It starts heading back south to a very distant tanker instead of the very close group I had 'parked' it near in the first place.

[mikmykWS]

Sorry that happened. Logged.

Mike

[AndrewJ]

Here's another refuelling anecdote to add to the fun.

Playing Hunter Killers (Build 486), I launched a Bison tanker from Kola Airfield. Once that happened a Blinder on recce at the south end of the North Sea and a Badger on recce of the coast of Newfoundland(!) both immediately deleted their plotted courses, switched over to maneuvering to refuel, and started heading for the tanker. In both cases this would have taken the vulnerable aircraft to their doom in contested airspace, and since the tanker was headed out over Greenland the Blinder could never have caught it before it ran out of fuel. The Blinder had plenty of fuel to get home to Kola on its own anyway.

I'm starting to appreciate what a difficult thing this would be to code. We simultaneously want planes that will decide to refuel themselves and planes that will decide not to refuel themselves. Tricky! Good thing we have a dev team for this! [:D]

EDIT

Hmmm.. Not as funny now. The Blinder has been reset to the desired course, but the Badger refuses to reset. The Badger is on RTB Bingo, and is plotting a straight line course back to Kola, right across the NATO airfield on Iceland. I need it to head north to meet its tanker over Greenland. Unassign clears the RTB, and I can plot a new course which the Badger briefly follows. However, 10 seconds later the Badger's status switches back to RTB Bingo, it clears its course, and once more heads across Iceland. It looks like the pilot's desperate desire to return to the Rodina ASAP will be his doom...

Is there any way to clear an RTB Bingo in this circumstance?

EDIT 2

Another strange change. A couple of hours later with the coast of Iceland approaching the Badger once again begins responding to the unassign command permanently, allowing me to turn north to safety, without being immediately switched back to RTB.

[Dimitris]

AndrewJ <-- If you deem that an aircraft should not be involved in refuelling ops, simply set it so in its Doctrine. Problem solved.

[AndrewJ]

Ah, but I did want them to do tanker ops. Just not to clear their manually set course to respond to a tanker half a world away. [;)] When they did I switched off the doctrine to redirect them manually.

However, the Badger's inability to be redirected afterwards, and its persistent reversion to RTB Bingo behaviour despite repeatedly unassigning it and replotting, do seem to be a problem.

[KewDok]

I have an issue with refuelling as well (B486).

I have a tanker support mission a little in front of my first surface group in the included save. Two Hornets are inside the tankers refuelling box and there are two tankers performing the mission, with two more tankers on their way. For some reason one of the Hornets insists on flying off towards the two tankers on their way to the mission area instead of using the free tanker that is there. The other Hornet behaves as it is supposed to.



Keep up the good work, guys! [&o]

[mikmykWS]

Thanks Andrew

Yes the case logic on this is very complex but as players post saves and explain issues we will hopefully solve most of them.

Thanks for your help!

Mike

[Shemar]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Thanks Andrew

Yes the case logic on this is very complex but as players post saves and explain issues we will hopefully solve most of them.

Thanks for your help!

Mike

I appreciate how difficult it is to program AI in such a complex environment as modern warfare. What I would love to see is a "Ignore all AI behaviors" ROE that we could temporarily set for a unit that misbehaves, until we can get it to the a situation where what we want it to do (RTB or air refuel in this case) is more obvious to the AI.

[AndrewJ]

Here's a few more situations (Build 486) where refuelling isn't happening as expected.

I've had a couple of cases where aircraft won't refuel, despite repeated "Refuel (if possible)" commands.

Here's one where I have a recce Badger approximately 13 miles behind a tanker Badger.



I want the recce Badger to top up his tanks before heading on for the rest of his mission. Both aircraft are set to "Use Refuel/UNREP", none of them are assigned to a specific mission, but the recce Badger resolutely refuses to refuel, and his status remains "Unassigned". (Is it possible that aircraft won't refuel if they already have large amounts of fuel on board?)


A few hours earlier in the scenario I had a related situation, where I sent a recce Blinder and a tanker Badger down into the North Sea together, intending to top up the Blinder before it made a supersonic dash past some UK radar sites. In this case the Blinder did respond to the refuel command, but instead of heading for the Badger tanker right beside it, it headed NW towards an outbound Bison tanker that was well on its way to Greenland. The Bison certainly had more fuel on board than the Badger, but the Blinder would never have got there to use it.

Since there are so many tactical conditional variables involved with refueling (fuel loads, courses, speeds, threats, etc. etc.), would it be worth considering a completely manual targeted refueling option?

I'd like to suggest the already existing 'Drop Target' command as a model for this. 'Drop Target' lets you specify exactly which plane will do the 'dropping', and which target will be dropped.



For a 'Manual Refuel' you would right click on the plane that needs refueling, select 'Refuel (manual)', and then click on the specific tanker you want to refuel from. Both aircraft would have their refueling permissions turned on, and the course of the fuel recipient would be directed towards the specified tanker. (For extra graphical fun, and added clutter, a blue dashed 'refuelling' line might be added to show where it's going.) Automatic refueling would be retained through the normal ROE settings, etc.

EDIT Forgot the savegame...

[AndrewJ]

Another quick question on the tanker subject...

If you have two tankers, and you want to top one off with the other, can you specify which one will do the refuelling? For example, could you fill up a 90% tanker with fuel from a 20% tanker, or would the game always want to do it the other way around, from fuller to emptier?

[mikmykWS]

Thanks for looking at this Andrew. Reported.

Thanks!

Mike

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: Primarchx

Build: 486
Scenario: Shamal

Issue:

1) Sent a pair of F-15Cs off to refuel. They head to the tanker track and then just stop there without refueling. When I prompt them to refuel again they just keep an Unassigned mission. In frustration I RTB them.

Fixed.

The second is significantly harder to crack.

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: Primarchx
2) Prompt a EF-111 (Wild Boar #02) to refuel after its' transit to the AO. It starts heading back south to a very distant tanker instead of the very close group I had 'parked' it near in the first place.

Fixed.

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: AndrewJ

Here's a few more situations (Build 486) where refuelling isn't happening as expected.

I've had a couple of cases where aircraft won't refuel, despite repeated "Refuel (if possible)" commands.

Here's one where I have a recce Badger approximately 13 miles behind a tanker Badger.



I want the recce Badger to top up his tanks before heading on for the rest of his mission. Both aircraft are set to "Use Refuel/UNREP", none of them are assigned to a specific mission, but the recce Badger resolutely refuses to refuel, and his status remains "Unassigned". (Is it possible that aircraft won't refuel if they already have large amounts of fuel on board?)


A few hours earlier in the scenario I had a related situation, where I sent a recce Blinder and a tanker Badger down into the North Sea together, intending to top up the Blinder before it made a supersonic dash past some UK radar sites. In this case the Blinder did respond to the refuel command, but instead of heading for the Badger tanker right beside it, it headed NW towards an outbound Bison tanker that was well on its way to Greenland. The Bison certainly had more fuel on board than the Badger, but the Blinder would never have got there to use it.

Fixed. In this case the recon Badger will not be served by Badgerclaw #1 because it does not have enough fuel to serve it and also get home itself. It does, however, make a rendezvous with the incoming Badgercalw #2.