Stonehouse

Yeah that is the value that is pure playtesting. It originally was like 18 (long time ago) as per a fighter when the B29 first was released by DOL. You've upped the life value to 200 (I believe this is the only one that counts for how hard it is to shoot down an AI aircraft that is not fully modelled from a systems point of view) but really it's going to be a sort of gut feel for what is ok. Probably best to come up with some numbers via playtesting and then average them for an "official" number. Also probably should use the latest lua I posted up a little while ago (the one you uploaded was basically the quite early version of the B29 slightly tweaked) as in the latest lua the B17s shoot back now quite hard and that also helps them survive.

I *think* these are final but see how you go with them. B-29 now carries 12 .50cals and a 20mm as per a factory fresh B29A and has two different bomb loads - 40 500lbs or 12 1000lbs - I can add more if the bomb sizes are available and it seems useful. B17G largely unchanged other than I adjusted the fire_pos to match what Markindel had put into the model. PBY also had fire_pos adjustments. Since the AI currently has no fire discipline at all I reduced the fuel loads on all three and increased the amount of ammo for the turret positions so the bombers all remain a threat to attacking fighters for a longer time. I hope they work for you but obviously let me know of issues. Again note the already mentioned problem regarding shipping strikes on mod ships not working. Also to reiterate that the B29 is courtesy of DOL and the fact that he allowed me ages ago to offer up a modified version of his original lua does not take any of the credit for his work away from him. IE this plane is 100% his and he should be always given full credit for it as should Markindel for his aircraft and ships in any published mission. Cheers, Stonehouse B17G.lua PBY5Catalina.lua

Sorry for the resurrection but since this thread seems to be the closest to a reference for adding ships to the game as a mod I feel I should add some recent news. While helping markindel test out some mod aircraft I discovered that ships (all so far tested that is) introduced by the mod/tech method are not regarded by the AI as a valid shipping strike target. That is, if you pick a stock or modded aircraft with the anti shipping role, arm it appropriately and give it a waypoint action of Attack Group or Attack Unit the aircraft will ignore the designated mod ship target completely. In fact if a stock DCS world ship is nearby then the AI aircraft will attack that in preference to the designated target. I am guessing this is because of the default anti shipping role characteristics. This implies that the ship introduced through a mod is not regarded as a valid ship from DCS Worlds point of view. This has been confirmed by at least two independent tests by other forum users. For what it is worth I have an unconfirmed hunch that it is because the mod ships are not listed in db_units_ships.lua

Thanks Razor and don't worry, I took two goes before I realised my F18 test AI pilot was hitting the wrong ship and ignoring his target :music_whistling:. I guess it is confirmed then that there is an issue with mod introduced ships. You probably have better contact with the author of the CVN George Bush mod than I do, would you let them know or arrange for the news to be passed back please so perhaps they might find a solution eventually? I think they are also the authors for a couple of the other mod ships you mentioned as part of your CV group and Markindel sees this thread anyway. That probably covers 50% or more of the ship mod authors.

You might PM Skatezilla. I know he has done DCS aircraft modelling in the past and was willing to look at the B-29 a bit when it wouldn't drop bombs. Possibly also luckybob9. They may be able to give you some clues about what to check if you describe the issue to them or perhaps have had similar issues in the past and can suggest what steps you might try to fix the problem. I don't know anything about modelling but did notice in one of the aircraft you posted recently that it seemed that the box was quite big when you looked at it in the viewer and I happened to look at some of the DCS aircraft while trying to figure out the fire_pos table and their box only just encompasses the model with little or no extra space. I'm guessing you have already played around with that though. Does the user box have anything to do with that or is that something different? PS Silver_dragon may also be willing to offer suggestions or ideas. PPS that IJN carrier looks fantastic! @Razor, thanks. It will be interesting to get your feedback about what happens when the only target is a mod ship. So far as you would have seen both myself and TwoLate have not been able to get the AI to do a ship strike on a mod ship.

@TwoLate, yes to the behaviour of ignoring the mod ship in preference to a stock one. Saw an F18 that was tasked with a shipping strike on the Bismarck turn away 30-40deg to instead attack a stock tanker elyna even though it wasn't the allocated target. @Shahdoh, there is a bombing script floating around that has a lot of features that may interest you. If you look through the B29 thread you'll find it or if you can't I will dig it out when I get home and post it up. <edit> link to bombing script. Note the B29 package at the link is out of date. Fire objects there too. http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2418128&postcount=142 In summary: The issue we are seeing is having an aircraft with a role of anti shipping (or whatever it says unit the group name in the editor I am at work right now) and then given a waypoint action of attack ship where the target is a mod ship then the AI will not execute the attack and will either ignore the allocated target or instead hit a stock DCS ship if one is present. Using ground attack and bomb on a point could be used to attack a stationary ship but it isn't an actual shipping strike per se and bomb on point isn't too great for a moving ship. Issue seems to be a bombs only one as I believe Razor has managed to get a AI Tu95 to use it's anti shipping missile on the mod CVN George Bush.

As mentioned I downloaded the CVN from the VFA113 thread and gave that a go without any success. Someone replied over in the other thread but I don't think they understood what I was getting at. In the end I got the impression that no-one had tested their CVN as a shipping strike target either. I have a hunch that the issue is related to the ships not being listed in db_units_ships.lua in the scripts folder and their lua not sitting under DCS World\Scripts\Database\navy in the red and blue folders as are the other stock ships and therefore the ships are not 100% installed correctly from DCS's viewpoint right now. It may change with LN and ED bringing in new ships and making the Mods folder 100% usable. So for now it seems like the PBY is fine re shipping strikes (it's the ships that are wrong) so I am parking this one and will go back and look at the fire_pos for the B17 and the guns and alt bombload for the B29. If I get spare time after that I will look at the Zero bombing thing and then perhaps try to get time to play around with the ships. If you can try to confirm my findings TwoLate so there is an independent view on it that would be good.

Yes tried a variety of ships although didn't try more than one stock ship (used the tanker) also had two different coalitions for targets - Russian for the stock tanker and German for the modded ones. So probably worth a quick test of Russian and modded to see if it is a coalition based issue. Probably should also try some other stock ships including naval ones to try to eliminate the mod aircraft. Have to put the ships on weapons hold though. @Shahdoh - no that is something in DCS and requires ED to update the core AI side of things to act according to aircraft era. There are some workarounds that will minimise the issue as much as possible but essentially the bombers will act as a normal modern era bomber acts which is to break and evade. <edit ship strike checking> I believe I have confirmed that ships introduced via a mod have an issue or DCS has an issue with them. Not sure if every ship has the problem. I tried putting in an F18 to strike the Bismarck and gave it a bombs only load out. What I found was that even though the waypoint action specifically listed the unit and group name for the Bismarck what happened was the F18 ignored it and instead sank the tanker (stock ship) sitting about 6 kms away which was the PBY's target. Even telling it to attack the Bismarck or a USS Walker (think that is not Markindel's mod? ie it is not just a problem with his ship mods) via the game master slot is ignored. <edit2> asked the question over here in case anyone can help http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=167846 and specifically http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2803682&postcount=17 <edit3> hmmm just downloaded their CVN from that thread. Tried it with a PBY, didn't work as previously. switched to a Su24 with bombs only and it didn't attack the mod CVN. So will wait but it is looking like all ships introduced by mods so far tried have not been legitimate AI shipping strike targets.

OK I was just attacking a tanker and it worked. Will check again, unfortunately it is possible that the waypoint actions and these mods are a bit quirky for some reason. I tried to use the B17G from my earlier link in a simple mission and where before it drops the whole bombload as instructed it now does a bomb at a time so it's got me scratching my head as to what is going on. The B17 lua isn't different than before so I can only think that somehow the mission is triggering bad behaviours. <edit> reporting back. PBY attacks a tanker elnya (Russian) happily but does not attack the Bismarck. Don't know why. Obviously it may be because the Bismarck is a mod and is missing something in DCS files that a std object has. I have some other ship mods so will try those too. You may want to confirm that it works on std ships TwoLate. Additionally the one bomb at a time disease for ground attack/bombing waypoint action has struck the PBY now too.:bomb: - again I don't know why at present. So I will revisit all the lua's yet again to see if I can figure out what is happening :cry: <edit2> strange and yet unconfirmed - it seems that changing the ROE on waypoint 0 to weapons free was the cause of the single bomb at a time issue. Really don't understand the connection or why it overrides the qty I selected on the bombing waypoint action on waypoint1. TwoLate are you changing ROE at all on your missions? <edit3> setting ROE weapons free doesn't cause single bombitis when it is set on the waypoint after bombing. So it seems the ROE affects all weapons and is a higher override than individual waypoint attack actions. PBY also did not attack the SS Jeremiah O Brien mod ship but sank the std tanker elnya......which implies the modded ships are not complete somehow. <edit4> It does seem to be mod ships that cause the issue. I set up two identical PBYs with the same orders but one attacks the tanker elnya and the other attacks a mod ship (DD Walker, Bismarck, OBrien, Kummings, Rebel boat (armed fishing boat). Consistently the tanker is sunk and the other is not attacked at all.

Saw this, don't know if you have already seen it and whether it gives you any clues http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1479855&highlight=sinking#post1479855

No worries I have to come back to the B17 so will look at that too

Corrected PBY lua below. Guns, pylon and fire pos table updated. Fire Pos table does make a difference so I will have to revisit the B17G lua as well. Confirmed that anti shipping strike works as does selecting the number of bombs to drop per attack. PBY5Catalina.lua

Hi TwoLate, Yep sounds good. I checked that normal ground attack and runway attacked worked ok before posting the lua. Didn't have time to check naval attacks or double check that the guns still work (well as well as they can anyway as they are pretty weak)

Just got back home a short while ago and am catching up on things. How about wheel hitboxes Markindel? Someone I know tried to build a stuka and had problems where the aircraft was doing stuff like floating off the ground. I will check with him and see if he also had problems like yours or had any memories of workarounds or suggestions. Unfortunately he's been away from DCS for a year or so and may not recall too well the details. <edit>I was lucky and saw him in steam not long after posting here. He said he didn't remember having issues like that but his comments were "don't think it exploded but if the contact points for wheels weren't setup properly in the attachment points then it just wouldn't take off(stuck to ground)" and "but they did change the way the plane makes contact, 1 was with a "container mesh" the other was with the attachment points , can't remember which was the later method or if they were both needed". He's last thought was "if u bring up a model in the viewer and you go to the attachment pts you should see a point on the bottom of wheels maybe as well as some sort of container (or 2) in the mesh view, it would have to be one of those I reckon, best is to check out the p51/fw190 models and lua" and "possibly check the bounding box and user box" - I don't really know what they are sorry. Note that he last worked on modelling for DCS over 12 months ago so his comments may no longer be relevant anymore. Hope it helps you Markindel. If you wish to do so feel free to PM the lua to me and I will see if I can see anything but unless it is wheel positions and diameters there is nothing really wheel/undercarriage related in the main lua that I know of. @X39crazy, only way to do it at present is to carefully plot the waypoints of individual aircraft and minimise turns and test run the whole formations flight path using time accel to check for issues.

Ok I believe this version works. Cause was the speeds and seemingly how they related and not any individual speed as far as I can tell. Which makes things pretty difficult without knowing the relationship or formula. The max speed at height is therefore too high for a PBY simply because it makes it work for bombing. Things to do still: -investigate gun positions: so that nose turret has two guns. Noticed in the weapons luas that a .303 is now there probably because of the Spitfire that is on it's way. Not sure if I can use it or not. Ditto for B29 as currently it has roughly half the real life number of guns. -investigate the pylon type: Current pylon type is 1 for external but type 0 is more correct as that is underwing racks. Not sure if it will break bombing or not -investigate firespos table and see if making co-ords in table match firepos in EDM will correct the error I noticed with the flame position being displaced from the aircraft when it had been shot and was heading down on fire. Ditto for B17. -play around with the speeds a bit more to see if I can figure out how make the speeds all match real life numbers and still have bombing and guns work. please give the attached a test and advise how it goes. As I said I will be away a couple of days so if there are issues I won't be able to look at it until Sunday my time. PBY5Catalina.lua

It's the speeds that cause it to happen. The second I changed the landing and take off speeds to the correct real life values the PBY didn't complete it's bomb run. The other speeds may also have an impact and I am still testing whether it is all speeds or just some speeds and what the lowest speed value is that is ok. Something in the FM engine must be set up for modern aircraft only and has a problem with speeds that are too low. The "turn and wander off in a random direction" action you are seeing is usually what happens when an aircraft is given an invalid waypoint action by the way.

Ok went back to Markindel's lua and slowly started updating it to match mine. Found it was something in this block: V_opt = 208,-- Cruise speed (for AI) V_take_off = 80, -- Take off speed in m/s (for AI) 288km/h V_land = 75, -- Land speed in m/s (for AI) V_max_sea_level = 140, -- Max speed at sea level in m/s (for AI) V_max_h = 160, -- Max speed at max altitude in m/s (for AI) Vy_max = 2.68, -- Max climb speed in m/s (for AI) Mach_max = 0.53, -- Max speed in Mach (for AI) H_max = 9720, -- m being changed to V_opt = 56,-- Cruise speed (for AI) V_take_off = 39, -- Take off speed in m/s (for AI) 288km/h V_land = 42, -- Land speed in m/s (for AI) V_max_sea_level = 87.6, -- Max speed at sea level in m/s (for AI) V_max_h = 90, -- Max speed at max altitude in m/s (for AI) Vy_max = 5.1, -- Max climb speed in m/s (for AI) Mach_max = 0.26, -- Max speed in Mach (for AI) H_max = 5547, -- m that seems to cause the issue for me. It's just gone 11:40 pm here and I'm completely stuffed after today and have to head off to bed. I basically plan to alter the above one by one until I find the cause. Possibly it is the very first line because for the B29 when I lowered this value it affected the bombing and suddenly it would only drop 1 bomb at a time.

Ok strange I usually use runway attack to test with because it is quick and easy to set up, on the action select bombs and all and attack above tickbox and that has worked fine. It's been really terrible at work today and have just got home at a bit after 9pm so don't know if I will have time to look at it much. Away after work tomorrow for a couple of days so may not get to it until Sunday afternoon my time. <edit> did a quick runway attack and it works for me, try it and see if works ok at your end. Will try some other types of bombing and see how it goes. <edit2> ok sorry guys it looks like runway attack is the only one that works. I will try to sort it out. pbyrunway attack.miz

hmm looking at the pic I am not sure if this is me mucking about with the lua or something not quite right in the model??? I notice there is a firepos table that doesn't match the model so perhaps that is it? It seems to be the one from the B29. If this is the case and it needs to match each model which seems sensible then the B17 will be wrong too and I will need to update it. I will have a play around if I can get some more spare time. Meanwhile I did find some time this evening and got quite lucky with references although I had to guess a bit to convert litres of fuel to kg not know the specific density of the fuel. So lua as where it got to is attached. Bombs drop, guns fire but the poor old Cat is a sitting duck for a 109 and gets chopped down very quickly. No guns point connectors in the model at all this time I notice so even more confused as to what purpose they serve. Same method as before - download Markindel's package and replace with the attached lua below to try it out. PBY5Catalina.lua

Ok will have a look at it, busy week at work though this week and I am away this coming weekend so I might be a little slow getting it done. Did the revised lua for the B17 work ok for you?

Hi Markindel, Did you need me to look at anything with the PBY (which looks great by the way) or all is good? Cheers, Stonehouse

Ok here's where I have got the B17 to, still fiddling around with the B29 trying to get the alternative payload to work properly. Attached is revised B17G.lua file and a simple test mission showing the two different payloads and the revised turrets in action. So people need to download the mod from Markindel's link and then grab the lua and overwrite the one in Markindel's download package. @Markindel, ball turret fires not sure about the waist guns but I think people will need to be careful attacking forts in any case if the two AI 109s experiences in the testing mission are much to go by. Still confused over gun points and connectors and the relation to the lua - I was really surprised to see the ball turret open fire. Maybe someone who is more informed could give us some clues please. In any case hope it works ok. Best wishes, Stonehouse B17G.lua test b17g.miz

Ok will do but I have a feeling you won't see any gunfire from the waist or ball turret without the gun points. I'm having a few hassles with bombs at present and for some reason - might be DCS or might be my changes to the lua - it's only dropping two bombs at a time even though I specify ALL on the bombing waypoint action. The plane circles around dropping a pair of bombs each pass rather than the lot in one go. I'll keep going on it over the weekend in between moving and stacking a couple of tonnes of firewood and some other winter tasks. Hopefully give you an lua file my Sunday/Monday evening.

Hi Markindel, I'm looking at the crew and guns set up in the lua and was trying to check back against the model in the model viewer to ensure that the crew positions and muzzle positions seem ok. I noticed that there are only 6 gun points in the connectors list and while I don't know the modelling side at all really it seems that the waist and ball turret guns don't have a gun point for each 50cal and I think it needs to have a gun point connector for the lua to assign a gun mount to the location. Have I misunderstood how it works?

fyi - done quite a bit of the aircraft performance value updates to match a B17G and updated the bomb load to be correctly 12 500lb bombs 6 per rack. Found a correction in the B29 values too which was nice. Edit - and just got 6 1000lbs bombs 3 per rack added as an alternate bombload. I'm going to have to look at the B29 and add some more choices and see if I can sort out an incendiary load out too. Edit 2 - nope no incendiaries available.