San Patricio

So I'm a little confused on the proper technique for taking off with a heavily loaded bird from a FARP or other location where you can't get a rolling start. I've experimented with two methods: 1. As suggested during one of the UN campaign missions, I switch the governor to emergency. This shoots engine rpm far into the red but gives me enough power to do a vertical takeoff even with a heavily loaded craft. I then switch back to automatic once I have some altitude and airspeed. Basically this works, at least in the sim, but it feels like I'm cooking my engine. I tried reducing the throttle after switching the governor to emergency (which seems to be what the manual suggests), but this seems to lower RPMs way too drastically. 2. With the governor on automatic, I've tried cranking up the RPMs using the switch on the collective. This also seems to help a little. Is either of these two methods the "right" way to do it? Is there something I'm missing? I've read the manual but it seems a bit vague on this point.

Ah, I finally got it to work fine in quick missions (it turns out I was moving the start up generator switch to standby when it was already in the "on" position, that and the fuel feeding tip above solved things). But while I can now start reliably in missions, I still get hung up in the cold start tutorial at the same point. I follow the proscribed steps and it keeps advancing until I get to the instruction to hit the start engine button, at which point nothing happens. Not a big deal since I now know how to start up, but still a bit odd.

So I am struck trying to figure out how to the get engine to start properly. I did the cold start tutorial (1.2.8) but when I get to the part where you are supposed to hit the engine start button (Home) and hold it, nothing happens. No noise, no rotors turning, no exhaust gases, nothing. I read in some earlier threads that the cold start tutorial had some issues so I tried just a standard ramp start in a quick mission following a guide and ran into the same problem. I turn on the appropriate AC/DC switches along with fuel, etc. but when I hit the engine start button nothing happens even if I hold it for 30 plus seconds. I wonder if I'm not managing the idle setting correctly on the throttle correctly? The tutorial and most of the guides/videos I looked at just had you hitting PgDn but the manual has a more complicated procedure on pp 112-113. I've tried both, though, and nothing seems to work. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but I'd appreciate any tips.

Ah! When you put it like that it makes perfect sense, at least in the context of the ME's logic. Hopefully they will implement the change you suggest above in future iterations. For now, I'll tinker with possible work-arounds but if the logic works as you lay it out above we may be stuck.

Thanks. Messing with the distribution fixed the problem and I got the troops to embark successfully. I ran into the same apparent bug that you did, however, following the drop off. After landing and disembarking its troops at a FARP, the Mi-8 ignored its flight plan, returned to base, and then proceeded to start its flight plan from scratch only without landing at the FARP this time. Also, the troops I landed refused to follow their next order, which was to advance into the nearby town. Instead, they just chilled at the FARP for the rest of the mission. Probably all WIP stuff, but if anybody knows any hacks to get around this problem that would be great.

I've been messing around with the new embarking/disembarking features in the ME, but I can't seem to get AI helicopters to embark infantry. I've spawned an AI-controlled Mi-8 and some infantry at an airfield and used the advanced waypoint features to give embark orders to both the infantry and the copter (along with corresponding disembark orders at a later waypoint). The infantry, however, just mill around and the Mi-8 goes through start up and taxis to takeoff, politely waiting for the infantry to move clear of the runway but never stopping to pick them up. I've tried binding the infantry to the specific AI transport and that doesn't work either. I'm relatively new to the ME so I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong (maybe the takeoff from ramp order is overriding the embark order) or if this is just still WIP and doesn't function with AI. Thanks!