wip George doesn't engage targets anymore

[TED]

I’ve just started getting this exact same issue this evening. I’ve been shooting target since day 1 without any problems then suddenly today in mp servers he does exactly as the OP describes. All parameters are met, he says “engaging” or “firing” but never actually fires, I tested with different ranges, heights, laser codes, LOBL, DIR, HI, LOW, LOAL. nothing. In the end I left the server and gave up. 

[Toumal]

On 3/24/2022 at 3:00 PM, BIGNEWY said:

Thanks for the track, 

from what I can see you were getting some locks with george but also some seem to be on the horizon or at long ranges, or possible line of sight issues. 

 

Hmm... Well he did say "Engaging..." and he did see the target and had the TADS pointing at it. If he has LOS issues, it would be helpful if he said something to that effect, just like he says when out of range.

[NineLine]

It seems like a LOS issue here, make sure you have a good view of the target, also understand George can see a little too good right now, and he is going to be dialed in better to make sure he is using his sensors, so if you even give him a sniff of a target he might call it out and try to engage only to immediately loss sight of it.

[Renko]

I dont have a track but yesterday in a MP server after spending all the ammo and then rearm i experience the same. George wont fire the MSL as if he didnt WAS it. I had to making th AI lock on a tgt, then WAS msl myself and fire it.
Not a problem of LOS.
Other time i experience this with the last msl left, without rearm before

Maybe he thinks there are No hellfires left aboard

[Butcher59]

My workaround for  this is switching weapons until missiles are visible again, then telling him to slave and it worked again

[BIGNEWY]

A lot of the tracks we are seeing is either line of sight is blocked or range is to long. Its worth switching position left or right for engagements depending on range. 

thanks

[fencible]

I have observed this problem as well while operating from back seat, with George as CPG. After a few attacks, he no longer fires missiles, even though targets are clearly in range and visible. It occurs only after I having been playing for a while, so that hints at possible memory leak issue to me.

[Zap921]

6 hours ago, Butcher59 said:

My workaround for  this is switching weapons until missiles are visible again, then telling him to slave and it worked again

Same here,  I keep manually assigning him an area to slave to and look for targets ( I don't know if there are any there but I want him to check, that's what the Government is paying him for while I fly .  After several times of him de-slaving and not finding anything he will no longer slave to an area unless I switch to rockets or guns and come back to missiles, then he's good to go again for a bit. Not sure if I was doing anything wrong but I do encounter this. How else would you have him find targets on his own without pointing him is certain directions to look.

[NineLine]

5 hours ago, fencible said:

I have observed this problem as well while operating from back seat, with George as CPG. After a few attacks, he no longer fires missiles, even though targets are clearly in range and visible. It occurs only after I having been playing for a while, so that hints at possible memory leak issue to me.

We need all your info for that, tracks, logs and dxdiag file. 

[KoN]

Same as above multiplayer . 

Targets right in front of me , put TADS cross and short up to slave target . 

No slave or lock  even though right in front of me  . 

Very odd . 

Gun seems way off also . I thought gun fires onto cross . 

[NineLine]

We need tracks guys, please.

[Zap921]

8 hours ago, NineLine said:

We need tracks guys, please.

What's the easiest way to record a track for you?  Also for the record, I'm in VR when my issues occur.  Last night flew a short mission I created with several enemy threats about 4km from airport.  I even assigned George the guns with 10 round burst and Green light to shoot.  Being shot at left/right, and flying straight into enemy fire till right over top of the target at 100ft.  George just sits there, I even tried slaving him on the target with nothing helping him having stage fright.  I would think he should shoot back.  Tried guns because previously he wouldn't lock on to the same enemy targets with helfires, two of which are tanks.  This is green / yellow conditions of ROE and pointing him to slave right on the targets.  I got it to work a couple times in the past with helfires but don't know what I have changed, don't think anything.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Zap921

[Toumal]

On 3/27/2022 at 1:34 AM, KoN said:

Same as above multiplayer . 

Targets right in front of me , put TADS cross and short up to slave target . 

No slave or lock  even though right in front of me  . 

Very odd . 

Gun seems way off also . I thought gun fires onto cross . 

That does sound like IHADSS alignment issue? Are you sure you're aligned properly? If you put Aquisition Source to TADSS, does the cross in your IHADSS slave to where you tell him to?

On 3/27/2022 at 1:55 AM, NineLine said:

We need tracks guys, please.

FYI, with the latest update I am getting much more consistent behavior. I haven't had George refuse to fire yet. The only thing I noticed is that sometimes after repeated shots, the hellfire doesn't seem to immediately pick up the laser (no obstruction, no vegetation, range < 7000). In those cases I just have to be patient, and the box becomes large after a few seconds. Since I don't know if this is an actual limitation of the sensor, I don't know if it's a bug or just how things should be. Plus it fixes itself so... I am no longer frustrated

[BIGNEWY]

15 minutes ago, Toumal said:

FYI, with the latest update I am getting much more consistent behavior.

good to hear, yes in my testing George does seem better with targets now. Enjoy!

[Nobody Special]

Happened to me just now, seems to occur when I (unintentionally) tell George to set LOAL. With many attempts I could not get George to fire either hellfires or guns. The squares (dashed or solid, small or large) that I normally see in the HMD with Hellfire selected were not present.

dcs.log George not engaging.trk

Edited April 20, 2022 by Nobody Special

[BIGNEWY]

On 4/20/2022 at 6:34 AM, Nobody Special said:

Happened to me just now, seems to occur when I (unintentionally) tell George to set LOAL. With many attempts I could not get George to fire either hellfires or guns. The squares (dashed or solid, small or large) that I normally see in the HMD with Hellfire selected were not present.

 

Thanks for the track, sometimes you need to give George time between commands, especially if there are line of sight issues, in this case the tree tops seem to be creating the issue. 

When I take control of the track and increase altitude to mitigate the LOS problems George is firing. 

The team will continue to tweak George and hopefully the next patch will help. 

thank you

[petsild]

I have a track where George is unable to use hellfires on targets within range.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bbrmjr6ijkp0ugb/Through_The_Inferno_SYRIA_v3.1.0-20220421-175235.trk

DxDiag.txt

[Nobody Special]

On 4/21/2022 at 1:36 AM, BIGNEWY said:

Thanks for the track, sometimes you need to give George time between commands, especially if there are line of sight issues, in this case the tree tops seem to be creating the issue. 

When I take control of the track and increase altitude to mitigate the LOS problems George is firing. 

The team will continue to tweak George and hopefully the next patch will help. 

thank you

It's not a LoS issue. I replayed the track to check - once the artillery barrage starts and I'm getting too close to the column, I do a right turn to re-position back toward the river. At that point I re-engage, with very clear LoS visible in TADS, and hellfires are properly set to LOBL direct. There is still no constraints box, and George will not fire. Here is a screenshot:

I've played this mission once or twice on most nights for the past 3+ weeks. I'm very familiar with the LOS difficulties from trees and buildings, and where I can and cannot get LoS and attack. The second pass (after I turn around and re-commit) should be good from an altitude, position and LoS perspective -- the location just beyond WP2 is exactly where I usually position myself for a successful attack. There is a "window" through the trees and along the road there, and you can engage from even lower altitude.

I just tried taking control from this point. The hellfire constraints box does appear after I WAS hellfires myself, and I can fire. But I still can not get George to engage, even here; the constraints box never appears, and "MSL NOT READY" never goes away. There is "MSL TYPE?" showing in the bottom-right of the TADS display, I guess there is something wrong with the missile setup, but I can't find a way to fix it.

[Frost 77]

Yesterday online me and my friend experienced exactly the same issue. No constraints box and George is unable to use HF. The gun and rockets work just fine.

[Kharrn]

i think it was reported earlier but could not find it on a fast search of the forum:

MSL TYPE? appears when George sometimes switches the missiles from SAL to RF - this seems to happen from time to time reason unknown afaik (which was reported).

You need to jump to the CPG (key 2) then and manually switch missiles back to SAL.

 

MSL NOT RDY should go away after missile is spooled up (sometimes 3-4 sec after WASing). George seems to de-WAS hellfires sometimes after an engagement (which is beeing investigated) and then it always takes times to get the MSL rdy.

 

And again (3rd times i think) my note...might put it into my sig : imo, HF in military terms is in most cases the abbreveation for High Frequency. Can we not just use the term MSL for hellfires when talking about the AH64D!? thy   (dont take this too serious ok ^^)

 

EDIT:

tried to watch your track from earlier, but the track seems to be broken - maybe cause of patch. I even disabled all my control inputs, but the helo always crashes shortly after startup -.-

Am 20.4.2022 um 07:34 schrieb Nobody Special:

Happened to me just now, seems to occur when I (unintentionally) tell George to set LOAL. With many attempts I could not get George to fire either hellfires or guns. The squares (dashed or solid, small or large) that I normally see in the HMD with Hellfire selected were not present.

dcs.log 102 kB · 0 Downloads George not engaging.trk 3 MB · 3 Downloads

 

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Kharrn
trk reply

[Rogue Trooper]

Yes I have had this error many times.

George just stops firing. LOS is sweet.

I do not get it if I set him to hold fire and I press permission to fire throughout the mission or if I just set him weapons free and let him waste hellfires on bad LOS.

If I keep switching him between hold fire and permission to fire (hold up long), george just seems to stop working, especially after a reload but even with the first load of 16 Hellfires... Slurp!

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Rogue Trooper

[Frost 77]

On 5/5/2022 at 1:24 PM, Kharrn said:

i think it was reported earlier but could not find it on a fast search of the forum:

MSL TYPE? appears when George sometimes switches the missiles from SAL to RF - this seems to happen from time to time reason unknown afaik (which was reported).

You need to jump to the CPG (key 2) then and manually switch missiles back to SAL.

 

You can't jump to CPG in multiplayer. Therefore, after the last patch, Apache became completely unflyable for me.

Edit: I found the workaround. This problem is clearly related to reloading. Because Hellfires stop working after the next reload. You should reload Hellfires on other pilons to make them working again.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Frost 77

[DJ_9mm]

There are actually two separate issues that prevent George from using the hellfire. One is that after the first time, he no longer slaves the TADS to your helmet sight. He will do it the first time I ask, but after he successfully fires a hellfire, he won't slave again. That means you can't tell him to attack any other targets. I think I've found a workaround for this. If you short press W (up) he will say "roger ceasefire", and then he will slave again.

The second issue is that he will say "engaging" but will never fire. Like others have said, the constraints box does not appear. Again, this happens some time after the first few hellfires have been used. This problem seems to be unique to, or at least much worse, in multiplayer.

Here is a track from me playing on BuddySpike Blue Flag, Persian Gulf. The first flight, I'm attacking a FARP from a position in the mountains. George slaves the TADS at first, and shoots a hellfire. Then he refuses to slave again. He does say "slaving, deslaving", but the TADS doesn't move, or only moves a tiny bit and not to where I was looking. Then I tried the ceasefire workaround and he starts slaving again. Then I'm shot down by a jet.

The second flight in the track, I take off at Sharjah and fly over water to Abu Musa. George attacks a few targets with hellfires, then I start having the problem where he says "engaging" but doesn't. I'm in range and have a clear shot. Even if I didn't, it's a bug that he says "engaging" when he clearly is not engaging. I never got him to fire again, and I quit to desktop. This problem is extremely frustrating. The Apache is unusable in multiplayer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10cXVf8x2ur2H_Tyu0KSkQAD_oblV9L7a/view?usp=sharing

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, I tried to take a look at

12 hours ago, DJ_9mm said:

There are actually two separate issues that prevent George from using the hellfire. One is that after the first time, he no longer slaves the TADS to your helmet sight. He will do it the first time I ask, but after he successfully fires a hellfire, he won't slave again. That means you can't tell him to attack any other targets. I think I've found a workaround for this. If you short press W (up) he will say "roger ceasefire", and then he will slave again.

The second issue is that he will say "engaging" but will never fire. Like others have said, the constraints box does not appear. Again, this happens some time after the first few hellfires have been used. This problem seems to be unique to, or at least much worse, in multiplayer.

Here is a track from me playing on BuddySpike Blue Flag, Persian Gulf. The first flight, I'm attacking a FARP from a position in the mountains. George slaves the TADS at first, and shoots a hellfire. Then he refuses to slave again. He does say "slaving, deslaving", but the TADS doesn't move, or only moves a tiny bit and not to where I was looking. Then I tried the ceasefire workaround and he starts slaving again. Then I'm shot down by a jet.

The second flight in the track, I take off at Sharjah and fly over water to Abu Musa. George attacks a few targets with hellfires, then I start having the problem where he says "engaging" but doesn't. I'm in range and have a clear shot. Even if I didn't, it's a bug that he says "engaging" when he clearly is not engaging. I never got him to fire again, and I quit to desktop. This problem is extremely frustrating. The Apache is unusable in multiplayer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10cXVf8x2ur2H_Tyu0KSkQAD_oblV9L7a/view?usp=sharing

I watched the track, sneaky going the long way around the back using the terrain cover. 

My thoughts, once you settle to start engaging you switch george to a green state for free fire. 

you then slave george to look at the targets and the list appears

you select the target, but before george has got a good shot ( large solid box ) you tell him to engage, then once the box is up again you give him permission to fire and he fires. Note in the green state there is no need to give permission to fire, george will engage once he is ready.

But after this you seem to be trying to give many commands to quickly, the AI needs to to think. In short I think you confused the AI.

I will see if I can reproduce this in a shorter scenario for the team so it can be tweaked, but may advice for now, is take your time between commands. 

Personally I dont use the green state, I keep him yellow and use down long to re-engage the same area, waiting for the solid box before giving permission to fire.

When you are in the green free fire state there is no need to give him permission to fire, he will engage once he is ready after target selection. Also in this state ensure the target is within the missile constraints box, george likes to be looking square at the target 

[DJ_9mm]

Thanks for your reply, Bignewy. I'm a bit confused about your statement about me giving George permission to fire. I put him in the green state to allow him to engage. I never use the "consent to fire" button. I don't even have it mapped. Were you thinking I was pressing consent to fire?

If George needs time to think and can't respond to a command, it would be very helpful for him to say something about it, like "standby".

It sounds like you only watched my first flight in the track. That's not the one with the more serious problem where George won't fire the hellfire. Please watch the second flight where I'm attacking the air base on the island. That's where you will see George saying "engaging" but never firing. This is the more serious of the two problems because there is no workaround for it.