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Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 8:04 am
by Correcaminos
Hi everyone.

I created a mission to bomb a target located at 500 nm using F-16s loaded with 12x MK-82 bombs, which give them an operational range of 450 nm.
To extend their reach, I placed an aerial tanker mid-way along the route (the tanker is airborne).
I set up a LAND STRIKE mission and verified the following conditions:

Target destroyed : Continue mission
Fuel state RTB : NO
Weapon state RTB : NO
(Both in general ROE and mission-specific ROE)
The mission was created with waypoints generated automatically according to the aircraft's loadout. Then, I added waypoint 4 (Refuel ) for inflight refueling on the ingress leg, and waypoint 13 for refueling on the egress leg after the strike. I positioned both waypoints near the tanker to ensure successful refueling.

When launching the mission, the aircraft take off, successfully refuel at waypoint 4, and execute the strike on the target. However, after the strike, they always RTB directly to base , ignoring the entire return route, including waypoint 13 and the planned egress path. They completely ignore all waypoints until attempting the return refueling, which results in them crashing due to fuel exhaustion .

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"Once all MK82s are dropped and the target is destroyed, aircraft RTB."

This could be an issue because if a specific egress route was needed after the strike — such as avoiding a SAM site or navigating terrain — the aircraft won't follow it at all.

As you can see, this mission goes beyond the 450 nm range limit imposed by the aircraft’s loadout. My question is: Is this a bug, or am I missing something? I've thought about it a lot and tried multiple configurations without success.

Thank you.
Best regards.

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 9:09 am
by Nikel
You should post the scenario or a save, zip the file before attaching.

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 10:36 am
by Correcaminos
Thanks for your reply!
I've uploaded the mission file. Just hit "Play" in the scenario and you'll see the behavior described.

I have also tried bringing the TGT to 300nm (within the operational range of the loadout) and on the way, they do refueling, drop the MK82s on the TGT, and return to base (RTB) in a straight line without following the flight plan. However, unlike the previous test, now they do go for the tanker on the return to base

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 3:08 pm
by blu3s
What version are you playing?

This appears at the top bar Build XXXX

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 3:50 pm
by Correcaminos
V.1.07 build 1567.6

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 3:54 pm
by Nikel
blu3s wrote: Sun Jun 01, 2025 3:08 pm What version are you playing?

This appears at the top bar Build XXXX
The build is not embedded in the exe?

So you are running build XXXX, probably in a computer located in the new Area 51 :)

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 5:36 pm
by DWReese
This issue was reported before, and was corrected.

I currently have version 1662 and it works perfectly. No more darting directly for home.

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 8:59 pm
by Correcaminos
Perfect I’ve updated to version 1662, and the aircraft now correctly follow the return flight path to base without initiating RTB prematurely

However, the issue I now notice is that upon reaching the target (TGT), the flight package does not split up to perform individual attacks along different axes as expected — instead, all aircraft stay grouped together, following the lead aircraft’s flight path. The “Allow Multi-Axis Attack” option is enabled, but regardless of the attack profiles I’ve tried, all aircraft remain in formation and do not execute independent attack routes.

In the previous version 1567, the flight package would properly divide before executing the strike

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Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 10:28 pm
by thewood1
You know every version of windows since Win7 has a snipping tool to capture screenshots.

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2025 5:50 am
by blu3s
Correcaminos wrote: Sun Jun 01, 2025 8:59 pm Perfect I’ve updated to version 1662, and the aircraft now correctly follow the return flight path to base without initiating RTB prematurely

However, the issue I now notice is that upon reaching the target (TGT), the flight package does not split up to perform individual attacks along different axes as expected — instead, all aircraft stay grouped together, following the lead aircraft’s flight path. The “Allow Multi-Axis Attack” option is enabled, but regardless of the attack profiles I’ve tried, all aircraft remain in formation and do not execute independent attack routes.

In the previous version 1567, the flight package would properly divide before executing the strike

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That should be fixed in the recent update 1674. You can download it from the forum and soon will be available as a public official release at steam and Matrix page

Re: Aircraft ignore egress route and RTB directly in missions beyond combat radius

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2025 5:05 pm
by Correcaminos
Tested on beta 1674 and everything works correctly, thanks for the help and support.