[FIXED][1706] Flight Plan Refuel Waypoint Issues

[Blimlin]

Bug report
Game Version:
Build 1706 (Initially found in a prior build)

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Subject:
When using 'refuel' waypoints in flight-planned strike missions, the planes do not attempt to refuel at those waypoints.

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Description:
The attached scenario contains a minimal, reproducible example of this behavior. The strike aircraft flies past its intended refueling points consistently, and when it reaches bingo, doubles back. This occurs three times in the minimal example attached to this post.

When constructing the flight plan, there were minor methodological deviations from a scenario that has been highlighted as a useful example, but these are limited to changing 'Turning Point' waypoints to 'Turning Point (Ingress/Egress)'. Without these changes, the flight plan would create error messages prompting such changes.

The odd/unintended behavior appears robust to changes in doctrine.

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Frequency:
High (If the user attempts to use flight-planned refueling)

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Steps to Reproduce:
1) Create a land strike mission longer than the strike aircraft's combat radius.
2) In the strike's mission settings, configure the plan to 'Launch mission without tankers in place' and 'Proceed the flight with no tankers in place'.
3) Manually ensure that tankers will be in place (done via a support mission typically).
4) In the strike's flight plan, place refueling waypoints close to the tankers.
5) Add 'Turning Point (Ingress/Egress)' waypoints to suppress flight plan errors.
6) Let simulation time roll forward, and observe the odd behavior.

Step 5 is optional. The odd behavior appears to be robust to the presence of ingress / egress points around the refuel waypoints.

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Attached Files:
FlightPlanRefuelScenario.zip: A minimal example reproducing this behavior.
A single plane is intended to fly from its base to strike a single target. There are two tanker support missions. The flight plan intends for the strike to refuel at each one while approaching the target, and to repeat the process while returning to base.

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Additional Comments:
A significant portion of this issue might be attributed to missing descriptions or documentation on how the flight planner is intended to be used, especially when refueling becomes a factor.

What should we expect to occur when an aircraft reaches a 'refuel' waypoint? I have operated under the assumption that the intended functionality is to immediately find a tanker and refuel to maximum capacity, but is this actually the case?

Why does the flight planner require 'Turning Point (Ingress)' waypoints prior to all 'refuel' waypoints? An error message pops up when the flight plan does not conform to this, but what is the actual impact on aircraft behavior?

Thank you in advance for the help. If further information or demonstration scenarios are required, please let me know.

[Kushan04]

This might be the best bug report from a commercial user I've ever seen.

Thank you! I'm sure the rest of the dev team will feel the same.

Take note everyone, this is how you make a proper bug report.

[rosarioed]

Thanks again for the detailed report.
We have isolated and fixed 2 different issues from your report, the fixes will be available in the next build, along with numerous other improvements to AAR.

What should we expect to occur when an aircraft reaches a 'refuel' waypoint? I have operated under the assumption that the intended functionality is to immediately find a tanker and refuel to maximum capacity, but is this actually the case?

Your assumption are correct, this is the behaviour that you will encounter after the fixes are released.

Why does the flight planner require 'Turning Point (Ingress)' waypoints prior to all 'refuel' waypoints? An error message pops up when the flight plan does not conform to this, but what is the actual impact on aircraft behavior?

The error message was mistakenly shown due to a UI flaw (now fixed), a refuel WP should work with no issues even when not adjacent to ingress/egress turning points

[thewood1]

"The error message was mistakenly shown due to a UI flaw (now fixed), a refuel WP should work with no issues even when not adjacent to ingress/egress turning points"

Thanks goodness for that explanation. I didn't realize it was a bub.