Don't go back to base!!

[AFIntel]

Quick newbie question: How do I keep an aircraft from returning to base prematurely? I assigned two P-3 Orions to a "Patrol ASW" mission. Soon after arriving station, an FFG detected a sub contact nearby. I ordered the two Orions to intercept. They patrolled around until contact was lost. As soon as that occurred, I received a "returning to original mission" message. This immediately ordered them to return to base (RTB), even though they had over 12 hours endurance remaining.

As one of them was returning, he inadvertently overflew the "lost" sub and detected him via MAD. I ordered him (and the other returning Orion) to attack. This did not change their mission (RTB). They have plenty of endurance, and haven't expended their weapons. How can I stop them from RTB'ing???

Edit: I checked the mission listings. The aircraft show as still assigned to their original mission (Patrol ASW), but they still are RTB'ing

[hermanhum]

Wow.  You certainly come up with the most interesting situations.  [:)]

I think that when you have a/c on Missions, you are pretty much giving control over to the AI.  This means that the AI decides when it is best and time to RTB.  Unfortunately, it does not always choose the most opportune moment to do so.

The simplest solution might be to hit the "Unassign" hotkey "u" and then either 1) take manual control of the aircraft, or 2) create a new mission (i.e. a sub strike mission) and assign the newly unassigned aircraft to it.  Of course, this messes up your missions because there might be an aircraft already on its way out to relieve the one that you just unassigned.

The mission editor does a good job of relieving the monotony of repeated missions, however, it isn't perfect.  Welcome to the world of Harpoon. [;)]

[danrhayes]

ORIGINAL: AFIntel
As one of them was returning, he inadvertently overflew the "lost" sub and detected him via MAD.

Didn't this used to occur with alarming regularity at one time. It was fixed wasn't it. Was this just a fluke or has anyone else seen this?

Daniel

[NefariousKoel]

I have seen it quite a bit on a previous version.

I always had to unassign their mission and manually give them orders as if I put them in another mission, there'd be a good chance it would happen again.

[ETF]

Sounds like a definite bug to to me. Is this going to be fixed on the next patch?