Recommend courtmartial of flight leader from "Patrols" mission.

[WildBillKelsoe]

This guy not only wants me hugging his face (within a 100 meters), he wants me to mimic his silly, sudden, altitude keeping maneuvers which, if performed, can lead no doubt to entering his rotor wash and my death.

 

This is a rant. Imagine crossing the pass where Rodriguez got shot by Igla, just to assess the state of his shot bird???

 

Well if it is shot, dumbass, it can't fly no more..

 

Then 30 minutes exactly before being home plate, a 20 min fuel warning pops up. I try to keep up with him, but prevailing winds are headwinds, even at 6000 feet! So I lose him AFTER we agree to leave the damn area and the mission continues normally, where if that happened during the landings, the mission abruptly ends.

 

At this point my concern grows intense as the fuel gauge reads 100, 50, 30 lbs of gas, then when I'm about 5 clicks from the airport with goodwill to 'try and make it', barely seeing the outlines of hangars in maximum zoom, the fuel is cutoff and I splash to a building.

 

The worst thing about this mission is the parameters which to a newbie, are very much edge of pants type.

 

Here is what I recommend:

 

1- remove the flight leader for the following reasons:

a) he goes to a crash site just to check airworthiness of a downed helicopter, sacrificing precious pounds of fuel, his wingman and their gunners (me) in a known enemy territory, demands closeness even after exiting the mountains and the enemy zone (the trigger to detach from him should be around my waypoint 8, where I can leave him to f@&$! up his bird as he pleases, not 10-15 miles or so from Madrid).

b) he pulls insane, simplified flight model pull ups, that will definitely lead to losing him visually, getting into settling with power (VRS), or worse, losing the mission.

c) he crosses to known enemy territory without gunships or ground forces protection.

 

2- If flight leader can't go, turn him into a ground vehicle based commander. At least these guys we can support and feel the battle, and keep up with even when they're spewing dust. If that is not possible, set his speed to match my average speed (81 kts), not 97 kts.

 

3- If revisiting the crash site is a reason to increasing the volume of troops in that area, put some army photographers in my helicopter, at least I qualify for photoshoot missions ("Reporters" mission passed). Recommendations:

a) increase fuel to match playable mission time (currently crash-less and with reserve 836 lbs + 30-40 minutes fuel (average burn at 550 lbs per hour).

 

4- If fuel can be increased, so can temperature, which can be lowered to say 10° C to better suit the extended performance and maneuvers.

 

5- If the same route is to be followed originally including wreck inspection. set prevailing tailwinds on exiting the mountains in direction of Kobuleti and Madrid, not crosswinds with small headwind component. That would be helpful saving fuel.

[whitehot]

The distance from the flight leader is not limited to 100 mts, in fact I finished the mission staying mostly at 300.

You get a mission failed if the distance gets >1000mts I believe

[ebabil]

which mission is this , from campaign?

[WildBillKelsoe]

Yes campaign mission 5 I believe.

[SFC Tako]

The distance from the flight leader is not limited to 100 mts, in fact I finished the mission staying mostly at 300.

You get a mission failed if the distance gets >1000mts I believe

 

Me too, I believe flying within 100m just makes this mission impossible.

But good rant anyways :)

[Socket7]

The AI is terrible at flying helicopters. I feel your pain. Keep practicing though, It's possible to complete!

Edited May 1, 2015 by Socket7

[Ultra]

It took me about 5 tries, but I did it. ;)

[NeF]

As you said, following that AI dude is impossible and frustrating. Hope they take good note of all the above before making any other helicopter campaign.

On the positive hand, the briefings and the story are well written.

[DrDetroit]

I've been working on this mission for the last 3-days, and can't even keep up with the guy yet. I feel your frustration!

 

DrDetroit

[mj3437]

I just completed this mission yesterday. I used a saved track to continue after losing the leader when RTB. Landed at base and got the "Mission Complete" message. When I went to continue the campaign, I had not advanced to the next mission:mad: I guess using a track as a sort of save game does not advance the campaign. I'll call it well needed practice:joystick:

MJ

[WildBillKelsoe]

Even if you manage to cross the hump with him, you wont have enough fuel to get back to Madrid, and to increase fuel without decreasing temperature will mean less lifting capacity. Flawed on all levels.

[kevinsue]

Just completed this mission and I must say that it was a most unenjoyable experience! The first time round, I did manage to stay with him but with a lot of cursing and swearing which made my poor dogs nervous. I ended up in vortex ring state while looking for him when the other pair dropped off their troops and crashed.

Second time round I completed the mission but just looked forward to getting it over and done with. :badmood: I've enjoyed the missions so far except this one, so here's hoping the next mission will be challenging but enjoyable.

Also if it would have been possible, the sarcastic copilot would have accidentally "fell" out of the aircraft on the ferry flight to the base! :evil:

 

EDIT: not sure if this is a campaign problem or related to Beta 1.5, but on a few occasions so far, my monitor has just faded to black during the mission. I fairly sure that it isn't a hardware problem on my end because it happens at exactly the same spot each time. When it happens, if you press pause then unpause it, the image is back on screen as per normal. My PC should have no problem because it's a mid range i7 gaming rig with 32 GB ram and a STRIX GTX 980 Ti video card.

Edited October 13, 2015 by kevinsue

[WildBillKelsoe]

Well I have not progressed into this mission or flown it again since this thread was opened. I think I'll edit the mission so the commander is in a truck or a fast ground vehicle (4X4) so I can catch up with him. Probably edit his routing and speed too.

[kevinsue]

The AI fly the way they do because their waypoints are set to an altitude using "Above Mean Sea Level" and quite often that enroute altitude is actually set below the actual terrain level which makes the AI fly nap of the earth (NOE). This is fine for a single aircraft, but it makes trying to fly formation a nightmare.

If you want to enjoy the formation flying with the AI, just edit the leaders waypoint altitudes and speeds with the Mission Editor to something 1500 feet and 85 knots. This seems to be a fairly standard altitude and speed according to the various Vietnam doco's I've watched lately.

The AI then fly smooth and predictably and you don't have to maintain power setting above redline just to keep up. You then start to actually enjoy the formation flying and tucking in tight with 2 rotor discs separation. :pilotfly:

[WildBillKelsoe]

OK I shall do as you said. Nice to know things about AI.

[fastfreddie]

I think I passed this one on my first or second attempt but yeah following AI helicopter in these types of missions is a pain in the ass. Whoever creates these missions is setting the AI aircraft speed way too high (reminds me of trying the Blackshark follow the Hind introduction mission) when you have to maintain almost 100% just to keep up.

[QuiGon]

It's been a while, since I played the campaign (last year, a few weeks after Huey beta release), but I remember playing this mission. It was kinda frustrating indeed, especially if you made it pretty far and then loose him. But I managed to complete this mission after the 3rd or 4th try. I don't know if AI behaviour or other stuff changed since then that makes the mission even more difficult? The only change I know of is that Vortex Ring State is less likely to happen now. That was really dangerous back then, especially when the flight leader stepped on the brakes suddenly. It didn't helped, that I was playing with an Xbox360 gamepad back then, using simpe buttons for the collective (no axis). :joystick:

But after all, it was doable. :D

Edited October 19, 2015 by QuiGon