Air Unit on Strike Mission Circles Waypoint

[DWReese]

Here is a strike mission. Other units have carried out their mission, now it's time for Flight Thunder 12 to carry out his. The plane group launches, as it should, and goes into its HOLDING pattern, as normal, before proceeding onto the target. But, it never does. It remains with the last Waypoint (#3) and just circles that waypoint. AS you can see, it's been circling for a half of an hour.

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[thewood1]

I've seen this as well and happens in the post from the other thread. They will eventually run out of gas and crash.

[Raptorx7_slith]

Thanks guys, looking into this one as well.

[DWReese]

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I don't believe that that will provide any more info, but this is the same scenario, played again, with similar results. In this scenario, I eliminated all of the other HARM-armed units, so this only deals with the Harppon-armed units. The same thing happened. The first group of 4 attacks while the second group stays at Loiter speed and circles around a waypoint. As you can see, it's still circling, and it's been at last a half of an hour.

It's possible that have multiple targets is the problem. I have been trying to test it, but real life things are delaying me. I'd like to see if each plane had a single target (4 missions instead of just one with multiple targets) would make any difference.

[DWReese]

This info may be some help.

If I assign one play to attack one ship, then everything works perfectly.

I believe that the issue may be the fact that there are multiple targets, and an uneven number of missiles to attack.

In the scenario that I attached there are 6 targets listed and I have four planes armed with two missiles each (8 missiles). Because this isn't evenly distributed (8 into 6), the program may be having trouble computing how it should handle it.

I don't know that this is true. Right now it's just a theory. But, the fact that everything seems to work fine one-on-one is promising. This may give you something to look into.

Please let me know if you find anything so I can stop testing this and move on to something else.

[DWReese]

Last bit of info:

I tried one plane firing at 1 target---worked perfectly.

I tried two planes firing at 1 target---worked perfectly.

I tried two planes firing at 2 targets---worked perfectly.

I've reached the conclusion that if the weapons are evenly divisible for the number of targets, then it will likely work perfectly.

If, however, the weapons (missiles) aren't specifically designated to attack targets with an equal distribution of weapons, then it will likely do what happened in the sample scenario. In other words, a group of planes firing at a group of ships without an equal distribution of weapons, or without specific targets, then the problem will likely occur as the program can't figure out the logic, so the planes merely circle around trying to figure out what to do.

That's all that I can do.

[DWReese]

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One last thing that again has to do with multiple targets.

On this one, I have 4 planes attacking 4 ships. I've assigned two missiles from each plane at each of the 4 ships.

That doesn't happen. Three of the 4 shoot at 3 of the ships. The fourth plane does not fire, and the fourth ship is not targeted. The fourth plane returns home, still carrying its missiles.

The only thing that I can think of as to why this happened is two of the four ships are exactly the same type of ship (both Sovermennys). The non-targeted ship is one of the Sovermennys, the one that is the one that is furthest away.

[Raptorx7_slith]

We've been able to reproduce this and were working on a fix, thank you for these reports they've helped a lot!

[DWReese]

Someone in another thread just reported this issue. I believe that the solution may be found in the testing that I conducted. It has to do with an uneven amount of weapons and targets. I am passing this along with the hopes that it cam be used to correct this issue.

[rmeckman]

Last bit of info:

I tried one plane firing at 1 target---worked perfectly.

I tried two planes firing at 1 target---worked perfectly.

I tried two planes firing at 2 targets---worked perfectly.

I've reached the conclusion that if the weapons are evenly divisible for the number of targets, then it will likely work perfectly.

If, however, the weapons (missiles) aren't specifically designated to attack targets with an equal distribution of weapons, then it will likely do what happened in the sample scenario. In other words, a group of planes firing at a group of ships without an equal distribution of weapons, or without specific targets, then the problem will likely occur as the program can't figure out the logic, so the planes merely circle around trying to figure out what to do.

That's all that I can do.

I've just come across this issue with somewhat of a twist. In the attached save, a strike mission is starting to take off from CV Kennedy with just a single target: a S-300 unit in western Cuba. The strike includes 6 Hornets carrying 2 HARMS each along with some fighter and Prowler escorts. The Hornets are split into three flights with somewhat different approach directions to the target. Only the first Hornet flight actually heads towards the target as expected. The other two, Marlin93 and Risk53, just circle around waypoint 3 as described in earlier posts in this thread (image below).

In this case there are 12 weapons for one target, so there is no issue about having to distribute weapons among multiple targets. Since the HARMS can target either the Clam Shell or Flap Lid radars used by the S-300, maybe the two radars are treated as separate targets in the game. But that would still allow 6 HARMS for each radar.

[DWReese]

I know that I talked about the equal distribution of weapons, and that (I believe) was one problem, but I believe that yours is a similar issue that deals with saturation. If your total EXCEEDS the necessary amount to hit the designated target, then the Mission won't send them, hence they circle around a waypoint. I have not thoroughly tested yours, but I do believe that this is the case.

While both issues appear to be different, the solution is likely tied to the same. It's a WEAPON ALLOCATION issue. That's my opinion.