[RESOLVED] Bombing glitch when dropping Mk-82s in pairs

[tstorey37]

So, my usual bombing practice is, load up 10 Mk-82s, set to drop as pairs, which is 5 passes. After 2 passes, 4 Mk-82s, the next six passes result in only dropping one Mk-82. Even though the Jester A/G menu still shows "Pairs" as the selected mode. Today's test, after dropping six Mk-82s (4 in pairs, then 2 singles), I recycled Jester to drop pairs, and still only dropped one at a time. I have noticed this happening to me the last few weeks, first in the Caucasus map and lately in the PG map on a multiplayer server.

Edited November 1, 2019 by IronMike

[IronMike]

Thank you, I will see if I can reproduce it.

[tstorey37]

IronMike, did you have time to test this issue? Yesterday, I went out with 8 Mk-83s to see if a different bomb would have different results. In short, same glitch, dropped 2 pairs and the last four came off as singles. I tried recycling Jester to pairs for the last two with no avail. So it definitely is a pairs issue not associated with the type of bomb.

[tstorey37]

Bumping to see if you have had a chance to look at this issue. Listening to some Wing mates last night, I wonder if this could cause other issues as they were talking about bomb release order problems they noticed from the backseat.

[tstorey37]

So I went out today with 14 Mk82s and they all dropped in pairs. Did HB sneak this fix in during the last update?

[tstorey37]

So on 9/14. I actually thought this was fixed, but last night I went up for some night training and the problem is still there.

 

I went up with 10 Mk-82s. Intial setup was, pairs, as usual, two runs both drop pairs. On the third run only one bomb drops with pairs still selected. This time for the fourth run I set ripple quanity to 6, just to dump the rest of the bombs. Only three came off. I'm not sure where the problem might be, but it's not good if we can't drop bombs like we want in missions or training.

 

I believe there is a bug, that needs to be looked into. Thank you

[IronMike]

Hey buddy, sorry for keeping you in the dark for so long, can't believe how quick time moves. I honestly did not get to test this yet, please keep poking this thread, I will try to get reproduce it this week and see if we can find a fix finally. Thanks.

[gyrovague]

So on 9/14. I actually thought this was fixed, but last night I went up for some night training and the problem is still there.

 

I went up with 10 Mk-82s. Intial setup was, pairs, as usual, two runs both drop pairs. On the third run only one bomb drops with pairs still selected. This time for the fourth run I set ripple quanity to 6, just to dump the rest of the bombs. Only three came off. I'm not sure where the problem might be, but it's not good if we can't drop bombs like we want in missions or training.

 

I believe there is a bug, that needs to be looked into. Thank you

 

Could you paste your exact loadout please?

 

Edit: I reproduced it with 4x Mk82 on stations 6&3, and 1x Mk82 on stations 4&5 (i.e. 10 total). The single drop after first two pair drops is expected, but not the non-release of all remaining once ripple is set to more than what's left.

Edited October 28, 2019 by gyrovague
more info

[gyrovague]

I know what's happening now. For that final ripple of six, it's trying to release stations 3,5,6,4,3,5, but only 6&3 still have bombs left, so it only drops 3,6,3 (i.e. three bombs).

 

We have some queries out to SMEs about whether the WCS had any feedback about whether bombs were still remaining on stations, docs we've seen thus far don't indicate that such capability existed, hence why currently we're counting release pulses towards ripple count and not actual bomb drops.

[gyrovague]

From feedback so far, it sounds like it had the capability to detect whether or not the hooks holding the bomb lugs were open or not, so could indirectly tell whether a particular station has bomb/s remaining or not, so would thus make sense that it should skip trying to release (and count) stations that have no more bombs left.

 

Still a bit unclear what the pair behaviour should be when one of the two paired stations is empty, since the docs we have specify that pairs are only ever dropped in certain station combinations for weight&balance and separation reasons (1&8, 3&5, 4&6).

Edited October 28, 2019 by gyrovague
added 'and separation' to reasons for paired weapons

[tstorey37]

Thanks Gyrovague, You had the loadout correct, 4 each on stations 3&6, 1 each on stations 4&5. You said after dropping the first two pairs that the single was expected. Is that cause of a release sequence or something in the WCS IRL? If the real Tomcat acted the same way all :thumbup:

 

Thank you for looking into this, if you need more information let me know.

[gyrovague]

Thanks Gyrovague, You had the loadout correct, 4 each on stations 3&6, 1 each on stations 4&5. You said after dropping the first two pairs that the single was expected. Is that cause of a release sequence or something in the WCS IRL? If the real Tomcat acted the same way all :thumbup:

 

Thank you for looking into this, if you need more information let me know.

 

It's because the pairs logic only releases pairs in specific station combinations, namely stations 1&8, 3&5 and 4&6, for weight&balance&separation reasons. AFAICT from the docs we have, this would mean that if one of those stations in a pair is empty, it will only drop one bomb (but this is not clearly spelled out, like many things in the F-14 docs where edge cases apply). This logic might change if we get solid contradictory information, but for now I'm sticking with that. I haven't seen anything which indicates that it would skip to a non-paired station if one of the paired stations is empty.

 

A fix for the ripple count is in the pipeline though, should be in next OB patch (whenever that is). Specifically, it won't count empty stations anymore, so the total released will be what is selected on the ripple count (assuming you have that many left, and stores release was held in throughout the sequence etc.). If you have pairs with ripple, and your 10 bombs loadout, and you select 10 or more ripple sequence and hold in pickle, it will now drop 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 for instance.

[tstorey37]

Thank you sir, appreciate the detailed response :thumbup:

Edited October 30, 2019 by tstorey37