Refueling...

[McCallaway]

No this is not a whine. I just managed my first air refueling yesterday night, and I wanted to share it. Damn it feels good to finally get contact with the tanker, but is it hard to achieve !

 

Some pics of that joyful insertion (big) :

 

http://www.mccallaway.com/ScreenShot_001.jpg

http://www.mccallaway.com/ScreenShot_002.jpg

[SAM-Smasher]

Well done Mcallaway, I understand what a great acheivement it is with the first contact, pleased to hear it :wink: .

 

How many attempts had you made before that contact?

 

Those screenshots might be nice over in the screenshot thread also :) , as they are pretty good!!!

[Megile]

:lol: Feels good doesn't it!!

 

One time I flew a 4 hour mission with some squad mates, and had to refuel 3 times.. I was a little bit frisky with the after-burners. :oops:

Thankfully I was the host, so I could see the boom! hehe, all the clients had to do it blind.

 

But its fun as hell... long missions online where you MUST refuel are brilliant. Not too many of them about though.

And when one of your wing men screws it up and slams into the tanker, you all get to laugh at him. :P

 

Nice shots!

[SAM-Smasher]

I flew a 4 hours mission with some squad mates

:o 4 hour mission, jeez that must have been quite tiring having to concentrate that hard for that long in a LOMAC mission. Good going :wink:

[RedBear]

:lol: Feels good doesn't it!!

 

 

Thankfully I was the host, so I could see the boom! hehe, all the clients had to do it blind.

 

 

Nice shots!

 

 

no so blind all you need to do as clients is to fly the circule on the HUD try to keep it on the center and when you arrived to the boom on correct position you will see it.

 

i have done it with some spanish guy two SU 33 hooked at the same refuler plane :D

 

 

 

there is a trainning misson in the ironhand site i think it is the firts one.

[ALDEGA]

It is said refueling in 1.1 is manual, no "automatic refueling". That should make it a bit more challenging than it has been before ;)

[Drako_MDx]

GJ man. Try and refuel with all the planes you can in LockON and once you're done with that, try to do it at night. Then as an added bonus, make a refuel mission at night with F-15 in Thunderstorm with low to no visibilty. :lol: Now that's a whole lot of fun.

 

Check Thread below for screenshots and on page 2 a Bad Weather Mission download Link. Good Luck. :wink:

 

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?s=400102&a=tpc&m=298003727&f=38610606

[Guest Cali]

I did my first on-line air 2 air refuel 2nite. It took me about 10 minutes I think, but I did it wooooohooooo :D

[SUBS17]

Good going guys, heres a shot of me and my wing man refuelling. BTW get plenty of practice as I've heard its going to be much harder in v1.1

cheers

Subs

[GGTharos]

Mutliplayer refuelling ain't supported due to the possibility or warping. I'd say that's it.

[Drako_MDx]

Nah, the Boom not showing up for the rest of the Clients till you get close enough has nothing to do with LAG. Sorry but that's not a valid excuse. Once the client get close enough to the Tanker the Boom or Basket appears and stay there like it should even when the game lags. Not supporting it is a nice way of telling us that it's not a priorety to fix. Think about it if they weren't plannin on supporting it then why include it in the game. Why do we have to option to refuel in the first place when we are online and also why do they even let you pick which basket you want to connect when flying Russian Planes.(Well actually Su-33 being the only one.) They tried for w while if I remember reading about in LockON's Beta stage to fix it but they couldn't figure out why it was happening. I also remember someone mentioning that they tried again when makin the patch1.01 but yet again failed to figure out why. Not sure if they tried with patch 1.02 cuz I never heard about it but oh well I could care less cuz I still do the Multiplayer Refueling even with the Boom and Basket missing. it's fun either way and beside like I and others have mentioned before it's not that hard to close in on the tanker to see the Boom or Basket. I would rather them spend more of there effort on improving the online experience and adding a Server App. HINT HINT HINT :lol:

[SUBS17]

Hope they sort it out in v1.1, inflight refuelling is very important for combat pilots.

[schimmel]

Ok, here's the whine post :P.

 

How can it be done? I took a tanker by set its task and action to "refueling". Tanker speed was at 400, 500 or 600 kph.

 

I fly nice sinus curves and that's it :D. I tried for hours now and there's no progress... I mean there are other things in game which just seemed FAR easier to me (f.ex. landing on a carrier). Is it really that hard or am I doing something wrong?

 

Even keeping the cirlce on the hud centered is impossible for me. Could it be my joystick configuration?

[SUBS17]

Firstly is the tanker responding to your approach? Does the boom lower or does the hose extend from the tanker. Secondly make your approach in the last 500m slowly and if you're in the F-15 keep an eye out for the lights underneathe the tanker. The left strip is forward back and the right is up down. When those are green then you're in the right place to refuel. Keep in mind that for the F-15 the receptacle is on the left side next to the wing root. As for the 33, line up on the centre hose. Likewise slow approach for last 500m and keep your altitude lined up with the basket. Don't worry about moving left or right just line up on the rear of the tanker. When you get close enough the autothrottle will kick in, then move left or right and the hose will connect.(this method will not work in v1.1)

[TheJedi]

Don't worry about moving left or right just line up on the rear of the tanker. When you get close enough the autothrottle will kick in, then move left or right and the hose will connect.(this method will not work in v1.1)

 

That's where my problem starts. I just tried to refuel a SU-33 several times.

 

The result is always that at the moment I'm closest to the hose and should connect every moment, I get the order to break away and then the autothrottle immediately activates.

 

Now, if I do nothing, I will follow the tanker until it turns. Nothing happening.

 

If I break away, my controls are screwed afterwards, no matter if I retract the refueling connector or try to deactivate auto-pilot and autothrottle, somehow I can't control the plane as I should be able to do (strange behaviour especially when I try to control pitch).

 

I did not dare to try to land with those weired controls. Any solutions?

[britgliderpilot]

Good going guys, heres a shot of me and my wing man refuelling. BTW get plenty of practice as I've heard its going to be much harder in v1.1

cheers

Subs

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/SUBS17/ScreenShot_008.jpg

 

Just tried refuelling in the Su33 in the modded demo - and it's fantastic fun. Challenging, yes . . . . more time-consuming, yes . . . . but it's such good fun! :D

 

 

The basket sticks to the probe, and you get a reasonable amount of horizontal and vertical movement without disconnecting. Tiny, tiny inputs . . . .

 

 

Overall, though, I'd say that if you can snag the basket dead centre with the probe at a 1km/h closure speed, then refuelling the Su33 in v1.1 is going to be reasonably straightforward. The semi-animated hose makes life more fun, too.

I don't know if they've increased the flow rate, or whether I just concentrate harder and the time passes quicker - but it doesn't seem to take as long to refuel in the modded demo.

 

 

Online refuelling was never a supported fixture - something that I'm not sure was explicitly stated anywhere other than on the forums. Doubt it will be in v1.1, although the netcode tweaks may allow for *some* improvement in this area.

[schimmel]

I finally got it! In 1.02 there seems to be a bug though. Sometimes my controls get srewed just as TheJedi described it.

 

Sometimes a make good approach, the auto-throttle goes off and the plane becomes uncontrolable after while. Actually, my first hit was a quite bad approach. Far too fast and I doubt it was centered.

 

I have to say that the refueling is not that much fun for me(like f.ex. landing on a carrier). Fortunately, I see that this will maybe change in 1.1 :D. I didn't play the demo yet.

 

How does it work irl btw? I hope they have a magnet or something build in...

 

oh and thank you for your answers, I didn't know about that auto-throttle thing before.

[SUBS17]

That's where my problem starts. I just tried to refuel a SU-33 several times.

 

The result is always that at the moment I'm closest to the hose and should connect every moment, I get the order to break away and then the autothrottle immediately activates.

 

Now, if I do nothing, I will follow the tanker until it turns. Nothing happening.

 

If I break away, my controls are screwed afterwards, no matter if I retract the refueling connector or try to deactivate auto-pilot and autothrottle, somehow I can't control the plane as I should be able to do (strange behaviour especially when I try to control pitch).

 

I did not dare to try to land with those weired controls. Any solutions?

 

 

Ignore the game when it tells you to break away, but it shouldn't say that if you creep up on the basket. When the autothrottle kicks in the model becomes scripted, if you manouvre to the basket (left or right) usually you will connect. The reason your controls screw up is because of the script engaging. To disengage from refuelling retract your probe and bank left or right. Your controls will re-engage once out of sight of the tanker. I suggest you get the demo and try it.

cheers

Subs

[Guest Cali]

Good job! My first time took me about 10 looooong minutes to do, man I was hurt after that.

[TheJedi]

I finally made it. :) I did almost everything as before...

 

The only thing I changed was that I was even more careful concerning the final approach speed (the supposed "creeping" ;)).

It took a little bit longer that way, but when approaching the last 10-25 m with 0-2 km/h the system seems to recognize my approach better.

 

The other times I got that break away command almost at the same time as the second free for contact call (after which the autothrottle engaged and controlling the plane got problematic).

 

This time I had the second free for contact call, only. Then it seemed as if my plane was "sucked" to the right position. Everything else happened as described by the others. Hands away, everything automatic.

 

 

Looking forward to 1.1 refueling, though I will probably wait till the full version is out.

 

PS: I was so lucky that at about 200m behind, the tanker made his 180° turn. Not funny. :roll:

 

Edit: I seems that controlling problem is still there. I'm continuing the mission on my other computer at the moment and the autothrottle and control weirdness is not gone yet. I could deactivate autothrottle, but pitching is still like I had some kind of counterweight under the plane (like on a sailing boat).

 

I hope it will reconfigure itself, when I'm far away enough from the tanker. How far will that be?

 

Edit 2: Ok, it works again. Though I don't know when it repaired itself, as I had tried the autopilot and altitude hold keys to deactivate it. So I spoiled the test as it could be that I activated altitude hold myself accidentially. However, it was definately activated when leaving the tanker.