[FIXED] Incompatible Flight Plans and Aircraft Armaments - Investigating a Potential Issue

[Uzabit]

Greetings, after a long absence, I have recently been engaging with the new strike planner.

The new options are quite nice - however, I have noticed one issue, and I am uncertain if I am simply overlooking something.

Some of the aircraft bomb armaments and their release parameters appear to be incompatible with the pre-made flight plan suggestions from the database. Of course, I can edit the flight plan in advance, but this fails if a new flight plan is generated, for instance for an AI side.

An example would be database (DB3K_499) entry #2611 MiG-23M Flogger B, database ID #10801 FAB-500M-54 GPB, Lo-Lo-Lo, Longrange.

The flight plan generated by the mission generator sets the altitudes, apart from the form-up phase, to a constant 200 feet, however, the minimum drop altitude of the FAB-500M-54 GPB is 1500 feet. This results in the weapons not being dropped automatically at the target. I can, of course, fix the problem manually, I am merely uncertain if that is the intended goal.

I suspect this is not the only database entry causing such a "mismatch", as I have now noticed this already in two or three cases. I am not sure if I should label this as a database error or a bug. Perhaps I am simply overlooking a feature that allows me to circumvent this problem easily.

Maybe it would be an idea to incorporate an additional check for the generation of flight plans to take these additional parameters into consideration.

I'm using CMO v1.05 Update - Build 1307.6

If you need further information, I can of course try to provide you with that.

Best regards, Uzabit

[Deserere]

Hi Uzabit,
can you post a savefile in order to help us replicating the issue?
Thanks

[Uzabit]

Hi, I can create two savefiles as an example for demonstration purposes later. The thing is, I guess it makes sense to have one prior to the automatic creation of a flight plan by the mission AI, then one with the auto-generated flight plan that was not edited in any form.

[Uzabit]

Hi, here I have two .scen files: One is prior to the auto-generated missions by the mission AI. The second one has a .scen file for flight plans that were auto-generated while running the mission. BLUE is the side with missions.

As you can see, the ingress altitude for all flights is too low to successfully drop the bombs on the intended targets. The attackers are forced to RTB without dropping any ordinance.

[boogabooga]

I have a feeling that this issue is related to this:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0&t=392455
(Only group lead obeying custom speed/altitude settings after IP)

For a long time, the strikers would pop up or down in the target area to get themselves into weapon launch parameters.
I also noticed what OP describes after the fix was applied for the issue that I linked above. Which would make sense, if the fix was to enforce strict adherence to flight plan parameters.

Is there any change in behavior between Ignore plotted curse yes/no?

I think that the overall goal in these situations is for the aircraft to be able to drop their weapons, but for the flight to try to stay together and to stay out of known threat envelopes (via altitude specification). FWIW, I feel like the logic that was used in the late stage 1147 branch handled this well.

[Deserere]

Hi Uzabit,
thanks for reporting this issue.
We have added a more detailed calculation of the altitude in weapon release waypoints alongside a better feedback system when the altitude of a weapon release waypoint is changed.
Attached a screen with some of the new features.
As you can expect this change need some testing so is possible that will not be included in the next update release but testing against the issue you described are successful.

[Uzabit]

Hi Deserere,

that sounds like a working solution, thanks for the feedback.

Do you think it might be helpful to add, let's say, 100 ft of extra "safety" in the flightplan regarding the minimum release height of the ordnance? In the past I can recall observing some short height deviations while flying over rough terrain ...

Best regards,

Uzabit

[boogabooga]

I really like where this is going, but as of 1307.10, it seems that an error occurs when the interface thinks that 0 ft is the maximum release altitude. I suspect that this has to do with specifying min altitude AGL vs. max altitude ASL(?), which is done for many iron bombs in DB3000. At any rate, it is now impossible to change the IP waypoint's altitude, and the interface gets stuck on the warning box.


I recommend a check against the max release altitude being less than the min release altitude, and the ability to over-ride the error message.

[Deserere]

Hi, boogabooga, good point, thanks
I've added the check

[Quark73]

Hi,
for fun I made the check by setting the altitude to 0 ft. This time the check calculated a minimum launch altitude of 999999 ft.

Zero_ft_Check.png (62.77 KiB) Viewed 763 times

Than I took a look into DB. I guess the root problem lays there. There are two pairs of LaunchAltitudeMin and LaunchAltitudeMax. One is ASL and the other one I guess is AGL. There some different cases I cannot say if it's intentionally or an incensistency.
Case 1: LaunchAltitudeMin & LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL defined / LaunchAltitudeMin_ASL & LaunchAltitudeMax = 0 (line 118)
Case 2: LaunchAltitudeMin & LaunchAltitudeMax defined / LaunchAltitudeMin_ASL & LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL = 0 (line 120)
Case 3: LaunchAltitudeMin & LaunchAltitudeMax defined & LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL / LaunchAltitudeMin_ASL = 0 (line 121)
Case4: all defined (line 126)

DB_Excerpt.png (101.9 KiB) Viewed 763 times

I am not sure if problem of Strike Planner or DB or both.

[blu3s]

Surely a developer can give you a more precise answer but as I understand it is:

Case 1: LaunchAltitudeMin & LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL defined / LaunchAltitudeMin_ASL & LaunchAltitudeMax = 0 (line 118)

This case could be a weapon that needs a minimun altitude over the target so it needs to define a LA(launch altitude) over Ground Level and the LA maxium over sea level is the maximum altitude the weapon can be launch since sea level is 0m, if the target is 100m altitude, the maximum altitude the weapon could be launch will be LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL-100m = 19 712m. If it would be define as AGL the altitude would be 19 912m

Case 2: LaunchAltitudeMin & LaunchAltitudeMax defined / LaunchAltitudeMin_ASL & LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL = 0 (line 120)

This is for weapons that is only affected by the altitude referenced over the target. So in a hypothetical way could be launch for any absolute altitude if the target is in the above range

Case 3: LaunchAltitudeMin & LaunchAltitudeMax defined & LaunchAltitudeMax_ASL / LaunchAltitudeMin_ASL = 0 (line 121)

In this case the target altitude it doesn't affect the weapon launch and only affects is absolute altitude.
Think of above sea level as an absolute reference and above ground level as a relative reference.

The Case 4 i don't know how to interpret it, bc if you have a target at 4000m, in theory you have a limitation over ASL (absolute reference) from 3048m, so you can not engage the target. But as I said, all of this can be junk and a developer can blow it out of the water.