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RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:56 am
by ExNusquam
ORIGINAL: JPFisher55
Sounds like 1.11 will resolve most or all of the refueling/ tanker issues. In the past, I did not post a saved game file in which an aircraft attempting a very long range mission with more than one refueling stop would bingo fuel when it could barely reach its home base on internal fuel. I didn't consider it a bug to report.
This requires a bit more micro-management than most would care to do- but the key to doing those kinds of missions is divert fields. These feature heavily in real-world flight planning. A diplomatic incident is much preferred to losing an airframe because it was to turbulent to refuel or the equipment broke.
By moving the home base forward, I've managed to get B-2's all the way from Whiteman to CENTCOM with no issues.
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:08 am
by Dimitris
ORIGINAL: ExNusquam
This requires a bit more micro-management than most would care to do- but the key to doing those kinds of missions is divert fields. These feature heavily in real-world flight planning. A diplomatic incident is much preferred to losing an airframe because it was to turbulent to refuel or the equipment broke.
This.
Considering how many real-world missions end with "...and the third element diverted to airstrip xyz because it was low on fuel", it's amazing how little attention most scen designers put on adding diversion bases, friendly or less so. RL planners factor them for a reason. By not having them, one is essentially throwing a much harder (than RL) problem to the refuelling AI.
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 5:13 am
by magi
ORIGINAL: Sunburn
ORIGINAL: ExNusquam
This requires a bit more micro-management than most would care to do- but the key to doing those kinds of missions is divert fields. These feature heavily in real-world flight planning. A diplomatic incident is much preferred to losing an airframe because it was to turbulent to refuel or the equipment broke.
This.
Considering how many real-world missions end with "...and the third element diverted to airstrip xyz because it was low on fuel", it's amazing how little attention most scen designers put on adding diversion bases, friendly or less so. RL planners factor them for a reason. By not having them, one is essentially throwing a much harder (than RL) problem to the refuelling AI.
That's a good point......
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:41 am
by FlyingBear
How about a behavior, controlled by a setting, to have aircraft automatically divert to any available runway if refueling is looking sketchy and they are below bingo for their home base?
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 1:28 pm
by Tailhook
ORIGINAL: FlyingBear
How about a behavior, controlled by a setting, to have aircraft automatically divert to any available runway if refueling is looking sketchy and they are below bingo for their home base?
A good idea, but the problem persists that scenario designers don't include possible divert fields much of the time.
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 5:54 pm
by ComDev
Hehe okay this one's tricky. It works a lot better in v1.11 than in v1.09 but we don't want aircraft to crash out of fuel so they are very careful about stepping beyond their max unrefuelled range.
So when they are down to ca 70% of mission fuel they start looking for suitable tankers as an alternative to returning to base. The reason we start earlier than 50% of mission fuel because the last leg of the target ingress route may use Military throttle and lower altitudes which means fuel will be burned faster. Ditto for CAP which may use Afterburner to chase down a target. So better start looking for tankers sooner rather than later.
In any case, all strikers and fighers in the scenario hooked up with the tanker over the holding area and were refuelled. No manual control was necessary.
ORIGINAL: Mini_Von
Hi Emsoy,
Here is a game that I was playing last night. I didn't set the aircraft to attack any targets yet. I made a mission to "Form Up" after takeoff and assigned a few aircraft. The aircraft initially headed towards the mission area and then aborted and automatically started heading for the tanker with around a 50% fuel load. I wish we could manually postpone running for the tanker until our aircraft are routed to the area of our choosing (within fuel parameters).
I realize that my game was not optimized such as having the aircraft fly at a high enough altitude to reduce fuel burn. My tanker track may have been a little to far away, but I was prepared to adjust it. I was just casually playing and had that "wouldn't it be helpful if" moment, and thought a little manual control over my aircraft might be helpful.
Thanks
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 6:02 pm
by ComDev
ORIGINAL: JPFisher55
I would simply like to designate which tanker an individual or group of a/c uses to refuel. This would permit micromanaging when necessary, but not make it mandatory to prevent fuel outages.
Added in v1.11 [8D]
Maybe being able to override bingo fuel status would help in some situations.
The Unassign functionality has been adjusted and you can use that to take control. The super-careful AI has been given a powerful override and will not 'force' the aircraft to RTB on Bingo. Just be careful to not forget that you have actually overridden the Bingo functionality hehe. Getting aircraft home safely then becomes a manual task [8D]
You cannot have planes go on missions that require more than one refueling stop because the AI has the plane go bingo if it cannot reach home base on the fuel
that it contains. The AI ignores any tankers between its location and home base for this calculation.
Im pretty sure this has been fixed in v1.11 also. Would be great if you could post a savegame from 1.09 where tankers don't perform as expected, and we'll test it in 1.11.
Thanks!
RE: Tanker Request
Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 8:27 pm
by Mini_Von
Emsoy,
Thanks for looking into the refueling. I'm sure the adjustments you made will be very helpful![:)]