Please Help - Petrovic hates me: No Crosshairs and only four shots max?

[cfrag]

After finally getting a (moderate) handle on flying the Hind, I'm now trying my hand at enlisting Petrovic (who until now just sat happily in front of my, thankfully abstaining from commenting on my 'landings') to shoot our missiles at some targets. I set up a shooting gallery, with tanks set up visible on a runway. Now, I can get Petr to loosen a couple of missiles, but usually after the fourth missile (sometimes after the second), she show is over. Now, I counted the tubes - I loaded up 8 of them. Do I have to throw some switch to enable the other set? Why can't I shoot 8 missiles? What am I doing wrong?

 

Worse, sometimes Petr withholds his target crosshairs. I sometimes do get a target selection list, but no crosshair to steer to appears (there's also no crosshairs after I designated him an area to observe). When I get lucky, I get a tone and Petr (since I use Free Fire) will then loosen a missile at a vehicle. But it's quite random to me, and seems to be a bug - unless, again, I'm missing another command to issue to my comrade. What am I doing wrong in this case?

 

Oh, and this is all in MP, with a friend of mine flying their own Hind, and he has reported similar issues. I'll see if I can re-recreate these issues in SP.

 

Thanks for any pointers. 

[71st_Mastiff]

4 hours ago, cfrag said:

After finally getting a (moderate) handle on flying the Hind, I'm now trying my hand at enlisting Petrovic (who until now just sat happily in front of my, thankfully abstaining from commenting on my 'landings') to shoot our missiles at some targets. I set up a shooting gallery, with tanks set up visible on a runway. Now, I can get Petr to loosen a couple of missiles, but usually after the fourth missile (sometimes after the second), she show is over. Now, I counted the tubes - I loaded up 8 of them. Do I have to throw some switch to enable the other set? Why can't I shoot 8 missiles? What am I doing wrong?

 

Worse, sometimes Petr withholds his target crosshairs. I sometimes do get a target selection list, but no crosshair to steer to appears (there's also no crosshairs after I designated him an area to observe). When I get lucky, I get a tone and Petr (since I use Free Fire) will then loosen a missile at a vehicle. But it's quite random to me, and seems to be a bug - unless, again, I'm missing another command to issue to my comrade. What am I doing wrong in this case?

 

Oh, and this is all in MP, with a friend of mine flying their own Hind, and he has reported similar issues. I'll see if I can re-recreate these issues in SP.

 

Thanks for any pointers. 

Did you force the hot fix update from today?

 

Did you do a repair, and reboot your PC?

 

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by 71st_Mastiff

[admiki]

You need to load using presets, not manual station selection. Crosshair dissapearing usualy means that target is below your nose. There is no separate command to fire missiles 4-8. Just in case, bind station selector and try forcing Petrovich to select next station.

[cfrag]

6 hours ago, 71st_Mastiff said:

Did you force the hot fix update from today?

 

Did you do a repair, and reboot your PC?

 

 

Thank you for the headsup, I don't see a hotfix (I'm on Steam), but will of course apply any patches as soon as they become available. And yes, I tend to reboot my PC before I start an MP server because I make myself believe that this reduces the likelihood of other factors impinging on the PC's stability

 

55 minutes ago, admiki said:

You need to load using presets, not manual station selection. Crosshair dissapearing usualy means that target is below your nose. There is no separate command to fire missiles 4-8. Just in case, bind station selector and try forcing Petrovich to select next station.

 

Thank you for the kind advice. I do use only presets from ME, and start on the ground hot to minimize other factors. My apologies for not being clear about this: the targets were some 4.5 miles in front of me, while I was at 1500 AGL and no crosshairs came up, even though when suddenly, at 3 miles I got a tone, and Petr launched a missile 2 seconds later.

 

I'll try the <station selector> bind as recommended.

 

[admiki]

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

 

Thank you for the headsup, I don't see a hotfix (I'm on Steam), but will of course apply any patches as soon as they become available. And yes, I tend to reboot my PC before I start an MP server because I make myself believe that this reduces the likelihood of other factors impinging on the PC's stability

 

 

Thank you for the kind advice. I do use only presets from ME, and start on the ground hot to minimize other factors. My apologies for not being clear about this: the targets were some 4.5 miles in front of me, while I was at 1500 AGL and no crosshairs came up, even though when suddenly, at 3 miles I got a tone, and Petr launched a missile 2 seconds later.

 

I'll try the <station selector> bind as recommended.

 

Setting range and sight to AUTO?

[cfrag]

15 minutes ago, admiki said:

Setting range and sight to AUTO?

 

I really appreciate the help - I double checked: yes and yes. I'll try SP next to see if this is a MP issue only  

[ARM505]

Petrovich takes time to aquire and guide the crosshairs onto the target - they've simulated a real human taking the time to do this, which results in some delays that don't really have any feedback to you, the player - also, when the crosshair does 'lock' onto a target, it snaps onto it faster than a real human would do it, further enhancing the idea of a 'lock on', when IRL it's supposed to be a progressive movement towars the target, with some 'wobble' around it (see multiplayer videos on YT with human CP/G). Is that what you're encountering maybe? This is obviously in relation to the OP's second paragraph (Petro not putting crosshairs on tgt, not the first problem) Give it/him a chance to actually do it maybe, see if that helps?

[admiki]

Can you upload track file?

 

[cfrag]

My apologies for being unclear: the crosshairs do not appear at all, and I still sometimes get a tone when placing the aiming reticle over the vehicle I know Petr is aiming at (since it's the only one around). That's ok when there's only one target. But when turning the hind around, and them telling Petr to observe another target area still no cross hairs and occasionally I may get a tone when I happen to be aiming the Hind's nose towards the vehicle Petr is aiming at. It's probably a bug, I'll investigate further.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by cfrag

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, admiki said:

Can you upload track file?

 

It now appears there is another problem. Enclosed is a track file (see note below). It should show how I take off, circle once, and then head for an airfield where I placed many targets on the runway, due north. I overfly the runway, having Petr fire twice (free fire, although the first time I had to help, by pressing fire, free fire notwithstanding). Then I come about for another pass. I fly over the runway once more. At the end, after the third or fourth missile, Petr refuses to fire any more missiles and ignores my 'fire' commands (they are 'printed' on-screen, though) even though I have a tone.

 

Now, when you play the track, the start is very similar similar to what I originally did. However, after some time (some 120 seconds in), the view suddenly calms down (this is a VR track, so it should be a bit shaky), and nothing is any more as it was: all Petr commands fail (because the menu doesn't track my view), no missiles are fired. Plus, the dang thing misses the runway by about a mile to the west. Oh, and occasionally, while playing the track, DCS crashed on me, hard (restart required).

So the mystery why I only get four missiles deepens, and may have something to do with VR...?

 

Thanks again for any tips. 

 

Note:

Sorry, for some reason the track file (all glorious 8 minutes) is 7 MB, larger than the max I can upload. So, no more than three/four missiles for me, and no track for you it seems. 

[hreich]

Same problem for me.. After 4 missiles i have to change weapon selector to something other , than back to missiles after that petrovich can fire other 4

Sent from my M2003J15SC using Tapatalk

[cfrag]

Ah! I have to try that, thanks, @hreich! I've also found out that with some loadouts, four missiles (5-6) will not give me a green light on the missile selector switch. This is when I load the gun pods - I then only get green lights for missiles 1-4 even though I have 8 loaded. Is there some documentation available what loadouts we can mix and which are no-gos?

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by cfrag

[SnuggleFairy]

@cfrag If you load gun pods or S-24 rockets on the inner pilons 3-4, you'll render ATGMs on the middle pilons 2-5 inoperable. The manual is not fully complete yet, but you can use standard loadouts and you won't have a problem. Check my video - it might answer some of your questions: