Any advice for mitigating the stupidness of my wingmen?

[d0ppler]

I'm working on a mission where sometimes me as the player and my AI wingman needs to refuel in the air. I have a tanker that flies a simple racetrack in the center of the map. For the most part my wingman can do his refueling without acting like a monkey, but sometimes, especially when the tanker flies straight at us, my ACE skilled wingman flies straight into my tanker making a nice mid air explosion taking obviously the tanker as well as himself down to the fishes.

 

Are there any tricks/features I can do in my mission editor I can set on either my wingman or the tanker to mitigate this mid-air crash?

Edited December 12, 2022 by d0ppler

[TEMPEST.114]

Make the tanker immortal?

[Yoda967]

As flight lead, it's your job to make sure your wingman doesn't fly into other traffic.

Assuming that your wing man is a conventional AI wingman (not the type that only responds to F10 commands, as used in several campaigns), you might try passing the tanker at a greater lateral distance, or passing at least a few hundred feet below. (You want to be able to keep the tanker in sight as you pass.)

IIRC, ATP56 is the tanker publication, and there are outdated, publicly released versions available via Google. You'll find rendezvous procedures in that pub.

Basically, the tanker is assigned a set pattern and is expected to stick to that, while the receiver (anyone getting fuel) is expected to safely maneuver into position while avoiding flight path conflicts like you describe.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Yoda967

[TEMPEST.114]

That's a great link/reference @Yoda967 Thanks for that!

[jross194]

I've found that you have to, as mentioned above, treat your AI wingman like they are of very limited capabilities (cus they are). Drive around with the 'Bot' in mind at all times, to include departing the field (once you've been able to keep him from colliding with you on the taxiway or during takeoff). 

Departing: make sure you actually get airborne first, ahead of them; if you rotate too soon before Bot does then extend a bit, wait for the "Airborne call" [from him]; keep your RPM at around 90 percent-ish - they are horrible at joining up (related to AR below) and tend to follow a bread-crumb trail to you, not understanding lead pursuit so much. Keeping your speed below max will help them rejoin sooner. This, to me, kinda of makes sense in real world terms too - if you understand it is Training Day 1 for your wingman (they are new to flying).

AR: I like to have them move in closer (F10..."Close Formation") and if doing AR from the KC-130 (2 baskets) put them on the left (not a big deal but why not). Then I 'fly' us up to about 1 NM behind the tanker before giving Bot the "Goto Tanker" command. I've not examined this in great detail (would be easy enough I guess to watch the replay) but there's a point behind the tanker they will move to regardless of where you are when you give the command; roughly 1 NM seems to work fairly well - they get on the basket much quicker.  It also appears they set their speed to about 5 knots faster than the tanker no matter how far back they are - give the command too soon and you will be waiting a long time for them to creep up to the basket.

You can also give them a "Rejoin" command to prevent them from filling up to 100% in cases where you don't need them too. It's very helpful to know how much gas they actually have but I had to write a script for that (keeps them from running outta gas during the mission by checking with them at various points along the way). I _think_ ED has added this? Or will. I'm so used to using my own script so haven't paid much attention to this historically missing feature.

Edited December 13, 2022 by jross194
Clarity

[d0ppler]

Thanks for your replies! It makes sense!