How to determine wingmen fuel state?

[norman99]

As we all know, AI wingmen in DCS are atrocious, and need to be hand held throughout every mission. Because of this we, need to be able to identify their fuel state, to determine if any AAR is required, before they suddenly eject without warning. How can I get his information?

 

The "other F-16 sim", has a number of extremely useful wingman radio commands, such as "Say Fuel", "Say Weapons", "Say Position" & "Say Status" (which basically combines the three previous into one call). Is there any similar function in DCS? If not, is the information available anywhere else, such as the F10 map?

 

So far I can't find anything, and I'm sick to death of my wingmen spontaneously ejecting. Their general behavior is currently ruining the entire SP experience for me, but I guess that's an argument for another day...

[Exorcet]

You must use scripting. The following script outputs % internal fuel (over 100 means carrying external tanks) to a continuous message, but you could change it to a custom F10 radio command:

 

u0 = Unit.getByName('a') -- Get unit to measure fuel
qt0 = u0:getFuel(Unit) -- Get fuel amount as a fraction of 1 (1 = internal fuel only)
qt0 = qt0*10000 -- rounding
qt0 = math.floor(qt0) -- rounding
qt0 = qt0/100 -- rounding to %

trigger.action.outText('Unit a: ' ..qt0 .. '%', 10, true)

 

EDIT

 

One important thing I forgot to mention, the script will crash DCS if unit A stops existing (dies or lands and despawns) so make sure that you disable scripting error messages if you use it.

 

EDIT 2

 

I decided to go through the task of converting the script to a custom F10 radio command to refresh my scripting. See the triggers in the attached mission. It works for one wingman, that must have the unit name "a" (no quotes), but you can add extra units to cover your entire flight including yourself, or even other flights:

 

env.setErrorMessageBoxEnabled(false) -- Prevent error popup

u0 = Unit.getByName('a') -- Get unit to measure fuel
qt0 = u0:getFuel(Unit) -- Get fuel amount as a fraction of 1 (1 = internal fuel only)
qt0 = qt0*10000 -- rounding
qt0 = math.floor(qt0) -- rounding
qt0 = qt0/100 -- rounding to %

u1 = Unit.getByName('b')
qt1 = u1:getFuel(Unit)
qt1 = qt1*10000
qt1 = math.floor(qt1)
qt1 = qt1/100

u2 = Unit.getByName('c')
qt2 = u2:getFuel(Unit)
qt2 = qt2*10000
qt2 = math.floor(qt2)
qt2 = qt2/100

u3= Unit.getByName('d')
qt3= u3:getFuel(Unit)
qt3 = qt3*10000
qt3 = math.floor(qt3)
qt3 = qt3/100
trigger.action.outText('Unit a: ' ..qt0 .. '%       Unit b: ' ..qt1 ..'%       Unit c: ' ..qt2 ..'%       Unit d: ' ..qt3 ..'%', 10, true)

 

As for wingman fuel management, you can search threads for similar complaints. The main issue is that the AI is not very smart about afterburner usage. When they fly formation with you they are reasonable efficient. However when they need to reform with you, they will burn as much fuel as possible in doing so.

 

To prevent this, make sure you never get too far from them. You can also add a custom F10 radio option to trigger the "Restrict Afterburner" option when you know your wingmen will try to reform.

 

 

Wing Fuel Command.miz

Edited March 31, 2021 by Exorcet

[norman99]

Wow, thanks for the reply and script. I'll definitely have a look at adding that to my missions.

 

To be honest however, I'm completely blown away that it requires writing custom scripts for something as simple and fundamental as a fuel check of your wigmen. If anyone from ED is paying attention, it's core functionality like this that's completely missing, which is really hurting the single player experience in DCS. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by norman99

[Stearmandriver]

This doesn't solve the DCS shortcoming in general, but if by chance you were flying the Hornet, I thought I'd mention that you can see your wingman's fuel state on the SA page if you have datalink turned on.  TDC over his symbol on the SA page, and you'll see his fuel state in the data block in the lower right hand corner. 

 

Dunno which other modules - if any - might support that though. 

[norman99]

Thanks, I do fly the hornet and always forget about that feature. Unfortunately I’m fly a 90s campaign at the moment and D/L is disabled, oh well.