Aircraft Ignore Altitude Change at Egress Turning Point

[rmeckman]

In the attached save, flight Killer 71 (two F-4Es) is located about 87 nm southeast of Key West. It has finished a land strike and is approaching turning point (egress) 9. As shown below, the flight plan has the aircraft climbing to 36000 ft ASL when they reach waypoint 9. In v1.09 b1776, however, the aircraft ignore the altitude change at this waypoint and stay at 1000 ft AGL. They also ignore any subsequent manual orders to change altitude.

[DWReese]

This won't answer your question, but it will give you something to think about.

I have experienced the same thing that you have mentioned. Basically, if you allow the program itself to create the Flight Path, with no outside changes by you, I have found that it usually works okay. Of course, you want to make tweaks to the path, and this is where the problems arise.

I have found that ALL CHANGES have to be made prior to entering TIMES. It's really annoying when the changes aren't adhered to.

The biggest issue that I find is the program, for whatever reason, overrides your plans. Often this has to do with refueling, but not in your case.

Most Flight Paths have around 9 Waypoints. You have 11, so I assume that you added two. That's fine, I add things all of the time. Sometimes the program's speed and altitude gets looked in to it's own flight parameter, and that overrides your desires. It's almost as if it is saying, "this is leg 4, and I'm supposed to be flying at this altitude and that speed", even though you have made changes (which you can see), but they aren't adhered to.

The only suggestions that I have are 1) try to stick to the game's original flight path as those usually work fine; 2) make changes first, before adding any times; 3) if you do make changes AFTER the times have been set, then make them very minor.

NOTE: If you go to the Unit's screen, and check the box which says "above terrain" which is the last box at the bottom left, then the plane will head to the altitude desired.

[rmeckman]

Most Flight Paths have around 9 Waypoints. You have 11, so I assume that you added two. That's fine, I add things all of the time. Sometimes the program's speed and altitude gets looked in to it's own flight parameter, and that overrides your desires. It's almost as if it is saying, "this is leg 4, and I'm supposed to be flying at this altitude and that speed", even though you have made changes (which you can see), but they aren't adhered to.

You are correct that I added waypoints 5 and 9 myself. Since 9 was created by first cloning 8 (when Insert Waypoint is clicked), my first thought was that waypoint 9 is internally still using some of the parameters from 8 even though the flightplan editor says otherwise. The takeoff time was the only time I specified for the mission, so the waypoint times were all automatically generated.

I've done quite a bit of work with the Flightplan Editor in the past but have been away from CMO for a while. I am still getting up to speed on what has changed since I last played. My initial impression has been that land strike missions with no refueling are working pretty well up through the target waypoint, but there are still issues on egress. It sounds like some level of micromanagement is often still required in more complicated missions.

[DWReese]

I forgot to mention one important thing that I learned. Waypoint #4 HAS TO BE left as Turning Point Ingress. I tried inserting a Refueling Waypoint there, and all hell broke loose. With #4 being something else, it just doesn't work. If it's there, then you only experience the other things that we have been dealing with.

I love the challenge of the Flight Plan Editor. It is fun, but it is also a puzzle, and it MUST be constructed in the same sequence in order to be successful. Any deviation, even if slight, can cause issues. For example, why does your strike altitude work if I check that terrain box, but it won't work properly otherwise? Why do the other strikes work without an issue? The fact that one requires a button, and the other doesn't is puzzling to say the least.

[rmeckman]

Yes, I was able to reproduce your suggestion regarding my aircraft on a strike mission ignoring manual altitude changes. In the Throttle & Altitude window, the mission aircraft ignored any altitude changes as long as the "Terrain Following" box was unchecked. But checking that box did make the aircraft start obeying altitude changes. Kind of strange. The advantage was that I could keep the aircraft within the mission rather than just unassigning them and doing a manual RTB.

[DWReese]

I totally agree. I try to have the mission within the program handle everything, with no human involvement. Unfortunately, some things don't work as I believe that they should. What's worse, is that I can't always figure out why---just like this unchecked button keeping it from working, while it works fine for other units. Weird.

For the most part, if you rely on the program to plan the flight, and the program plans the strike, then you know that the strike will proceed. It's only when you start to make changes do things go funky. But, the Flight Planning is lots of fun.

[Tcao]

it could be the aircraft loadout triggered an altitude setting overwrite the mission setting as well as manual setting.


This has not been reported but I had a similar issue when playing shifting sand campaign. In one of the missions the IAF has F-4E with maverick missiles that support fast turnaround in 20min. So I sent them out finish the first wave strike then change the loadout to AAW. However in their second mission (CAP and intercept) the weird thing happened. They stick at low altitude at 300ft AGL, no matter how I change the mission setting , or manually change altitude. They refused to change their NOE flight. Only after I sent them to a support mission did they climb to 36kft.

[rmeckman]

This has not been reported but I had a similar issue when playing shifting sand campaign.

The Shifting Sands DLC was one of the reasons I was very interested in the Strike Planner when it later came out in the Tiny update. Playing the Hit Hard Hit Fast scenario (Operation Moked) using manual plotting to thread Israeli aircraft around the Egyptian defenses is a micromanagement nightmare. The idea that one could set up the attacks in the Strike Planner using specified TOTs while adding waypoints to take advantage of radar horizons and terrain masking had a lot of appeal.