How to make the Wingman attack properly?

[VpR81]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm posting this in the ME section as i know the wingmen AI is on the mental level of Toadwart and it has most propably already been reported multiple times. But how do i make the AI wingman attack properly? Following is the case. I recently created a SEAD mission where i have to protect a strike formation attacking an enemy command outpost. The outpost is protected by 2x SA-2 and 2x SA-6, no other air defense assets on the map, besides my own carrier strike group and the enemy carrier, both are roughly 150nm away from the target. Advanced Waypoint action is set to "SEAD". Once i get in range for the HARMs during the test flights and order my wingman to F1 (engage)-> F4 (Air defense) he always responds "roger" but rarely starts to attack properly and mostly (in about 7 out of 10 times) breaks right and is RTB. Or at least he is heading back to the carrier. I always quit back to ME after 5 minutes instead of waiting for him to realy RTB.  I thought about setting advanced waypoint action "search then attack group/unit" and then order him to F1 (engage) -> F6 (mission and return to formation) but since he does sometimes attack properly via the F4 command tells me, that this (F4 - air defenses) is the correct way and it's just not working properly. Or am i wrong? Does anyone have an idea how to solve this?

 

Thanks a lot in advance

 

Cheers

[toutenglisse]

It is because "reaction to threat" has changed some times ago. By default actually the wingman only takes safest possible shot, meaning he goes back and engages from as far as possible, relative to threat.

If you set for your flight the option "reaction to threat" - evade fire (see manual p.272), then your wingman will shoot as soon as ordered by you.

Edited April 9, 2021 by toutenglisse

[VpR81]

Hey toutenglisse,

 

Interessting, but "reaction to threat" was already set to "evade fire". ROE is "priority designated" (as there also are intercepters incoming). "Enroute task" is 1. SEAD and 2. Search than engage - Air defense. Tried it with "search than engage unit as well, but that somehow kills realism when showing up all target locations in the Missionplanner while 2 out of 4 SAMs are hidden on the SA page. No joy with the wingman command anyways. I guess i'll have to try "reaction to threat" - no reaction tomorrow.

 

Anyways thanks for your reply.

 

 

[toutenglisse]

4 hours ago, VpR81 said:

Hey toutenglisse,

 

Interessting, but "reaction to threat" was already set to "evade fire". ROE is "priority designated" (as there also are intercepters incoming). "Enroute task" is 1. SEAD and 2. Search than engage - Air defense. Tried it with "search than engage unit as well, but that somehow kills realism when showing up all target locations in the Missionplanner while 2 out of 4 SAMs are hidden on the SA page. No joy with the wingman command anyways. I guess i'll have to try "reaction to threat" - no reaction tomorrow.

 

Anyways thanks for your reply.

 

 

 

The only other "parameter" I can think of is : be sure that "reaction to threat" comes first in 1st Wpt advanced list.

 

Edit : "source" : AI F18 only fires HARM at max range - AI Bugs (Non-Combined Arms) - ED Forums (eagle.ru)

Edited April 11, 2021 by toutenglisse

[Exorcet]

Are you able to post the mission? There are a few variables here. AI won't attack what they can't find, and they won't attack if they are preoccupied defending themselves. All of this is influenced by time of day, flight altitude, weapons carried, etc.

 

Both the F4 and F6 commands are correct, but they do different things.

 

F4 tells the AI to look for enemies on its own and then attack them how it sees fit.

 

F6 basically turns your wingmen into a separate AI flight (almost, they have extra limitations) that will follow the commands given in the mission editor, this gives you more control over how the AI acts (but some tasks don't seem to work with it).

 

In your case I think I would use the F6 command in combination with an attack unit and orbit tasks set in the ME. That way when you press F6 the AI will specifically attack the correct units (Attack unit also forces the AI to detect the target I believe) and then orbit afterwards. Don't put the two tasks on the same waypoint as wingmen can't make sense of that for some reason. If this still doesn't work try deleting the orbit.

[VpR81]

On 4/10/2021 at 11:32 PM, toutenglisse said:

The only other "parameter" I can think of is : be sure that "reaction to threat" comes first in 1st Wpt advanced list.

Thanks for the link. I tried this but it didn't work for me. 

 

On 4/11/2021 at 1:25 AM, Exorcet said:

Both the F4 and F6 commands are correct, but they do different things.

 

F4 tells the AI to look for enemies on its own and then attack them how it sees fit.

 

F6 basically turns your wingmen into a separate AI flight (almost, they have extra limitations) that will follow the commands given in the mission editor, this gives you more control over how the AI acts (but some tasks don't seem to work with it).

 

In your case I think I would use the F6 command in combination with an attack unit and orbit tasks set in the ME. That way when you press F6 the AI will specifically attack the correct units (Attack unit also forces the AI to detect the target I believe) and then orbit afterwards. Don't put the two tasks on the same waypoint as wingmen can't make sense of that for some reason. If this still doesn't work try deleting the orbit.

That is very interesting, i didn't know that. I tried it with F6 and how described, but it doesen't realy work for me. Orbit or not didn't make any difference, only that they just didn't orbit without the orbit parameter. All of my wingmen break formation and follow the waypoints as intended. just with a very tight column formation while "formation" is set to "Echelon right" in advanced waypoint action. They don't attack targets either. I'm pretty sure i'm doing something wrong, maybe set too much advanced waypoint action parameters. I don't know. What i found out was, that if i call them  to attack mission target by F6 and let them just fly to the target, they will instantly attack the enemy SAM units when i use the F4 command to attack air defenses. Otherwise they will just orbit around the target area in a tight column. So a combination of both commands works. For me this is not a show stopper, but when sharing the mission with friends it might be as no one realy knows what to do. It's still in a very early stage, so i'm not in a hurry. I would just like to solve this before adding more stuff to the mission.

 

Cheer

 

  

Mud Spike.miz

[Exorcet]

Strange, I downloaded the mission and also ran into the problem of the AI not following tasks with F6 command. I then made a new mission to see if it was a problem with the file and the same thing happened. Like you said, issuing F6 and then F4 made them attack, but that should not be necessary.

 

This might be a bug.

[VpR81]

Ok, that's not very promising. Did you take a look on my advanced waypoint action settings and if, are these ok so far? Hmm... well if it's a bug, i'd consider it rather beeing AI related than ME. Or am i wrong? I guess i'll have to deal with it and just add a description to the briefing of how to make them attack properly. Thanks a lot for the help though.

 

Cheers

[StevanJ]

47 minutes ago, VpR81 said:

Ok, that's not very promising. Did you take a look on my advanced waypoint action settings and if, are these ok so far? Hmm... well if it's a bug, i'd consider it rather beeing AI related than ME. Or am i wrong? I guess i'll have to deal with it and just add a description to the briefing of how to make them attack properly. Thanks a lot for the help though.

 

Cheers

This was really nice work!
Great Mission!

Your priority tree is wrong..
ROE should always be ONLY DESIGNATED in SEAD. This make it there number 1 mission.
Priority Designated, should only be used if in an open battlefield.
Deleted the clutter, this now works, Your FA18s now expend there 88C missiles.
Then are wiped out by Su33's



88C's

 

Target destroyed


F-14's dont advance though as theyre on a timer (Make that a unit destroyed trigger, or a moving zone on the FA18s)



Great work all the same though.

A real nicely well thought out mission.

Edited April 14, 2021 by StevanJ

[Exorcet]

1 hour ago, VpR81 said:

Ok, that's not very promising. Did you take a look on my advanced waypoint action settings and if, are these ok so far? Hmm... well if it's a bug, i'd consider it rather beeing AI related than ME. Or am i wrong? I guess i'll have to deal with it and just add a description to the briefing of how to make them attack properly. Thanks a lot for the help though.

 

Cheers

 

I did look at the actions and they looked OK to me, the only one I was cautious about was RoE since I rarely use it. I tried changing the setting and deleting it but neither worked for me, which seems to be different than Stevan's experience:

 

 

55 minutes ago, StevanJ said:

This was really nice work!
Great Mission!

Your priority tree is wrong..
ROE should always be ONLY DESIGNATED in SEAD. This make it there number 1 mission.
Priority Designated, should only be used if in an open battlefield.
Deleted the clutter, this now works, Your FA18s now expend there 88C missiles.
Then are wiped out by Su33's

 

Out of curiosity did you test this more than once? Now I'm wondering why this didn't work for me. I'll probably try again myself later to rule out the possibility that I accidentally didn't change the setting somehow.

[StevanJ]

6 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

 

I did look at the actions and they looked OK to me, the only one I was cautious about was RoE since I rarely use it. I tried changing the setting and deleting it but neither worked for me, which seems to be different than Stevan's experience:

 

 

Out of curiosity did you test this more than once? Now I'm wondering why this didn't work for me. I'll probably try again myself later to rule out the possibility that I accidentally didn't change the setting somehow.

Did you program the AI?
 

[Exorcet]

1 hour ago, StevanJ said:

Did you program the AI?
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you only had to change the RoE setting in the provided mission and left everything else as was? That is what I did.

[VpR81]

2 hours ago, StevanJ said:

This was really nice work!
Great Mission!

Your priority tree is wrong..
ROE should always be ONLY DESIGNATED in SEAD. This make it there number 1 mission.
Priority Designated, should only be used if in an open battlefield.
Deleted the clutter, this now works, Your FA18s now expend there 88C missiles.
Then are wiped out by Su33's



88C's

 

Target destroyed


F-14's dont advance though as theyre on a timer (Make that a unit destroyed trigger, or a moving zone on the FA18s)



Great work all the same though.

A real nicely well thought out mission.

 

Thank you sir, but it's way too early for the laud   Doesen't "ONLY DESIGNATED" prevent the Wingmen from defending (engaging) these Flankers? The Tomcats are supposed to orbit at the rendevouz point until 30(?) seconds after the SEAD flight recieved the message to push from Waypoint 2 (the Harriers follow after 120 seconds) and then orbit over the AO until the Harriers have left the area (can't recall wich trigger zone now). Not sure why this didn't work for you, because that worked good for me. Except for the fact, that the Flankers were in attack range before the Tomcats entered the orbit. Still a lot of fine tuning to do 

 

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

the only one I was cautious about was RoE since I rarely use it

Total opposite with me, i always set ROE for the AI as they attack everything they can see with the default setting. Had them too often leave the flight course and attacking tankers, AWACS or other aircraft not part of their mission.

Edited April 14, 2021 by VpR81

[StevanJ]

1 minute ago, Exorcet said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you only had to change the RoE setting in the provided mission and left everything else as was? That is what I did.

So, the first thing i do when creating a mission is delete data link EPLRS(on) -a.
This task bar suggests to me that the AI, 'should attack' what weve designated for them. But allow them to decide to do something else if they feel there is something more important (higher priority).

From my thoughts and watching the Mission, The wingmen were seeing the SU33's (who could see their radar from miles out) moving to intercept their radar signature and 'deciding it wasnt worth doing' because of the threat.

After i deleted the Data link, and explained to them that they should turn OFF their radar (as they are firing HARMS with their own seeker), and attack ONLY the targets we told them to, the parameters change slightly, the SU33's seemed to take a little longer to see them, so the FA18's ignore the SU33 for longer, and carry on mission- destroying the SAMs, until they run into the SU33's.

Whatevers at the top of that list is what the AI will do.

If you put 'Refuelling' at the top, and Search then engage underneath it, the AI will refuel then kill the bad guys.
If you put 'Search the engage' at the top, and Refuelling underneath it, the AI will destroy the bad guys, then refuel.

They carry this 'to-do' list all the way through the waypoints add to the list as they come, and dont ignore them, until they either do the task and check them off, or something that effects their task troubles them.
So you have to tell the AI to ignore the trouble, or deal with it (ROE).

 

ie Scenarios, You want to drop bombs on an airfield with CAP defences.
 

Wp1 ROE only designated.

Wp2 Search then Engage>Tank
The AI will ignore CAP and do its utmost to destroy the ground target first- and unless it gets fired upon by CAP and its in iminent danger- it will look to do this first.

 

Wp1 ROE Priority Designated.

Wp2 Search then engage>Tank

The AI will make an assessment of the danger and clear the iminent danger first (sometimes Jettisoning stores) to complete what it thinks is the bigger issue (clear the CAP).

Wp1 ROE Return

Wp2 Search then engage>Tank

The AI wont do anything, until you tell them otherwise, or until theyre fired upon.

4 minutes ago, VpR81 said:

Thank you sir, but it's way too early for the laud   Doesen't "ONLY DESIGNATED" prevent the Wingmen from defending (engaging) these Flankers? The Tomcats are supposed to orbit at the rendevouz point until 30(?) seconds after the SEAD flight recieved the message to push from Waypoint 2 (the Harriers follow after 120 seconds) and then orbit over the AO until the Harriers have left the area (can't recall wich trigger zone now). Not sure why this didn't work for you, because that worked good for me. Except for the fact, that the Flankers were in attack range before the Tomcats entered the orbit. Still a lot of fine tuning to do 

 

Total opposite with me, i always set ROE for the AI as they attack everything they can see with the default setting. Had them too often leave the flight course and attacking tankers, AWACS or other aircraft not part of their mission.

 

Youve done great, just a few more tweaks and itll all come alive!

The FA18's do try to fight the SU33's, you have the right ideas, but in the wrong orders..
Have them turn on their radars the minute the radar UNIT is destroyed. This trigger should be the green light for the Harriers and the F14..

All i could hear when i played the mission..

[VpR81]

Wow, that's some realy useful information. This explains a lot to me about why the wingman AI acts like it acts. I somehow never considered the order of the AWA-list to have any affect on the AI. While it totally make sense. I always thought the wingman AI is the reason why i'm only crafting 2P coop missions where i didn't have to deal with the AI wingman and have my brother taking over the wingman part. But from this new perspective, the reason in fact has always been me putting all the stuff in a weird order i have a ton of missions to update and convert into SP now...

 

What about the orbit over the AO for the Tomcats? If i set...

 

WP 2. Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

WP 3. Orbit

 

They will engage the Flankers (as long as these are detected/in range) and THEN orbit between WP 3 and WP 4, right? 
 

And if i set...

 

WP 3. 1) Orbit 

           2) Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

 

They will orbit between WP 3 and WP 4 and THEN engage the Flankers as soon as in range/detected, true?

Will they return to orbit after the Flankers have been destroyed and repeat if more fighters incoming?

 

You just answered an important question for me, that will propably create more questions. A very big thanks to you guys!!

[Exorcet]

3 hours ago, VpR81 said:

Total opposite with me, i always set ROE for the AI as they attack everything they can see with the default setting. Had them too often leave the flight course and attacking tankers, AWACS or other aircraft not part of their mission.

 

I solve this with the enroute tasks since they have limitations and start/stop conditions. So for example with Search then Engage I will set a range (maybe 30 miles) and configure the checkbox options for what to attack (fighter, bomber, etc). Then also use a stop condition like time or last waypoint. This usually keeps the AI from doing wild things I don't want them to do. I think both approaches are valid, we just solved the problem in different ways.

 

3 hours ago, StevanJ said:

So, the first thing i do when creating a mission is delete data link EPLRS(on) -a.
This task bar suggests to me that the AI, 'should attack' what weve designated for them. But allow them to decide to do something else if they feel there is something more important (higher priority).

From my thoughts and watching the Mission, The wingmen were seeing the SU33's (who could see their radar from miles out) moving to intercept their radar signature and 'deciding it wasnt worth doing' because of the threat.

After i deleted the Data link, and explained to them that they should turn OFF their radar (as they are firing HARMS with their own seeker), and attack ONLY the targets we told them to, the parameters change slightly, the SU33's seemed to take a little longer to see them, so the FA18's ignore the SU33 for longer, and carry on mission- destroying the SAMs, until they run into the SU33's.
 

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to do some testing on my end. I never remove the datalink, I haven't connected it with any problems in the past. I would also think Evade Fire would make the Su-33's a non issue since they should be ignored until they started launching missiles.

 

One thing I tested last night was changing the flight from player lead to AI lead, and that made it more successful. I don't know why the AI had a harder time following the plan when they were player lead.

9 minutes ago, VpR81 said:

Wow, that's some realy useful information. This explains a lot to me about why the wingman AI acts like it acts. I somehow never considered the order of the AWA-list to have any affect on the AI. While it totally make sense. I always thought the wingman AI is the reason why i'm only crafting 2P coop missions where i didn't have to deal with the AI wingman and have my brother taking over the wingman part. But from this new perspective, the reason in fact has always been me putting all the stuff in a weird order i have a ton of missions to update and convert into SP now...

 

What about the orbit over the AO for the Tomcats? If i set...

 

WP 2. Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

WP 3. Orbit

 

They will engage the Flankers (as long as these are detected/in range) and THEN orbit between WP 3 and WP 4, right? 
 

And if i set...

 

WP 3. 1) Orbit 

           2) Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

 

They will orbit between WP 3 and WP 4 and THEN engage the Flankers as soon as in range/detected, true?

Will they return to orbit after the Flankers have been destroyed and repeat if more fighters incoming?

 

You just answered an important question for me, that will propably create more questions. A very big thanks to you guys!!

The list order matters but so does the type of item in the list. I don't think the order of options (RoE, Restrict AB, etc) matters, though I habitually place them at the end. Also Tasks take priority over Enroute Tasks. This is really important for your second example:

 

WP 3. 1) Orbit 

           2) Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

 

This won't work if Orbit is a task and Search then Engage is an Enroute Task. The AI will just orbit forever and never attack because they can only do one task at a time. If you reverse the order then they will attack OR if there is nothing to attack they will orbit. It works this way because the Enroute Task only gives the AI the task to attack when certain conditions are met. Orbit task is always active.

[StevanJ]

22 minutes ago, VpR81 said:

Wow, that's some realy useful information. This explains a lot to me about why the wingman AI acts like it acts. I somehow never considered the order of the AWA-list to have any affect on the AI. While it totally make sense. I always thought the wingman AI is the reason why i'm only crafting 2P coop missions where i didn't have to deal with the AI wingman and have my brother taking over the wingman part. But from this new perspective, the reason in fact has always been me putting all the stuff in a weird order i have a ton of missions to update and convert into SP now...

 

What about the orbit over the AO for the Tomcats? If i set...

 

WP 2. Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

WP 3. Orbit

 

They will engage the Flankers (as long as these are detected/in range) and THEN orbit between WP 3 and WP 4, right? 
 

And if i set...

 

WP 3. 1) Orbit 

           2) Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

 

They will orbit between WP 3 and WP 4 and THEN engage the Flankers as soon as in range/detected, true?

Will they return to orbit after the Flankers have been destroyed and repeat if more fighters incoming?

 

You just answered an important question for me, that will propably create more questions. A very big thanks to you guys!!

So- You want balance and order.
Your plan- Send FA18's in to disable the air defences, then send Tomcats in to disable the enemy interceptors, then destroy all ground units was a good one.

But to have all the units do the job in order you have to make them all know when its their time to do their job.
Thats what the flags are for.
If you break it down.

Your First WP instructions mean they'll search then engage the enemy at a cost of fuel, and if they cant find the target or its out of range, they'll Orbit, until the get a ping on the Radar.
However, if they do what youve asked them to, and the FA18's havent cleared the SAM's theyll have to deal with them.

Your second WP instruction, youre saying they should orbit first conserving fuel, then go find the target, they will only fire upon the enemy if the enemy come within range.
They will only return to an Orbit if you put that in their list of instructions after theyve destroyed their target or they hit their next waypoint where its on their list of 'todo's.

This is where YOU make the decisions as a mission commander.
Do you want them taking the risk or do you want them waiting for the all clear.
If you want them to have a clear run, then really you should put them behind the FA18's on takeoff, Youre sending them ahead of you to wait, while you pass them and do your job.

 

Breaking the mission down.

Destroy SAM's Flag 1 -
Keep it simple, always have ground groups in increments of 5 units, and have a trigger set up where group alive less then 95%- This means if the Harms hit there target (which will always be a radar disabling the SAM) flags on or for multiple groups a value increase.
If you need to make it more specific, add a 25 value for each group, and then have another trigger, to when the value is more than 99. Then Flag then comes on.

Send interceptors upon Flag 1 - Orbit at waypoint with a condition stop for FLAG ON 1.
Your F14's will stay where they need to until you hit the mark and gain that flag.

Upon Unit Dead (SU-33), Flag on 2

AV8B's Orbit with a stop condition of Flag 2

You were gonna get there anyway. We just pointed at the right bit.
As i said, youre instructions were perfect, just in the wrong order. Your AI were getting a bit confused and going home to save mission integrity.

[StevanJ]

17 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

I solve this with the enroute tasks since they have limitations and start/stop conditions. So for example with Search then Engage I will set a range (maybe 30 miles) and configure the checkbox options for what to attack (fighter, bomber, etc). Then also use a stop condition like time or last waypoint. This usually keeps the AI from doing wild things I don't want them to do. I think both approaches are valid, we just solved the problem in different ways.

 

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to do some testing on my end. I never remove the datalink, I haven't connected it with any problems in the past. I would also think Evade Fire would make the Su-33's a non issue since they should be ignored until they started launching missiles.

 

One thing I tested last night was changing the flight from player lead to AI lead, and that made it more successful. I don't know why the AI had a harder time following the plan when they were player lead.

The list order matters but so does the type of item in the list. I don't think the order of options (RoE, Restrict AB, etc) matters, though I habitually place them at the end. Also Tasks take priority over Enroute Tasks. This is really important for your second example:

 

WP 3. 1) Orbit 

           2) Search then engage > Fighters/Multirole

 

This won't work if Orbit is a task and Search then Engage is an Enroute Task. The AI will just orbit forever and never attack because they can only do one task at a time. If you reverse the order then they will attack OR if there is nothing to attack they will orbit. It works this way because the Enroute Task only gives the AI the task to attack when certain conditions are met. Orbit task is always active.

Enroute tasks work, Search then engage is Zone is cool too, that gives the AI a firewall they cant fly past but ideally you want to leave the range to the AI to deal with.
Ive seen enemy fire long range missiles at my wingman for him to evade, then do nothing as the Enemy would turn and run and leave the zone, they would always fly away when out of missiles, which was dumb.

I just find Datalink increases the parameters, and i prefer my AI ordered closed to do what i say, and not give them ideas.
Some people use the Datalink, I prefer not to.

Order of options does make a difference, If you set ROE Fire at will, Followed by Search then engage group, then Restrict AB. Your AI will mostly fly full burn to intercept meaning their Wingman have to go Full burn to follow them, then they RTB sooner.
If you Restrict AB, Then Search then engage, Then ROE FAW. They will fly at the parameters of speed set on the waypoints.
Its a grey area, but in the long term it makes big differences.

Backwards i know, but I once built a full F-16 Mission for PG. And only the lead would arrive, the rest would RTB.
For weeks i couldnt figure it out, then i shuffled that list, and then they all arrived with bags on too.
Delivered the payload and went off to refuel.

You can physically set the AI in this game to do anything, Its not that bad, but it is when you dont know how to program them.

[Exorcet]

3 hours ago, StevanJ said:

Enroute tasks work, Search then engage is Zone is cool too, that gives the AI a firewall they cant fly past but ideally you want to leave the range to the AI to deal with.
Ive seen enemy fire long range missiles at my wingman for him to evade, then do nothing as the Enemy would turn and run and leave the zone, they would always fly away when out of missiles, which was dumb.

Yes, since the AI follows limits to the letter you do have to watch for edge cases or unexpected situations. When I set the range I tend to be careful to avoid making it too small.

 

Quote

Order of options does make a difference

It does, I went and double checked in the manual and you are right. However since I use Enroute Tasks 99% of the time, Commands and Options take priority, effectively making their order not matter the way I set them up. Unfortunately for me when I do mix tasks and enroute tasks, I do have to pay attention to the order of everything. I had forgotten this. Manual page 211 explains.

 

Thanks for pointing out the priority system. I hadn't considered it in so long that I needed a refresher.