Question regarding ME possibilities for Reflected

[markturner1960]

Hi, I was hoping I could ask Reflected ( as the top tier campaign / ME guy) some questions regarding what is possible within the ME. Of course, anyone else who has that degree of knowledge etc also feel free to chime in! 

The mission editor is I feel a great tool, that gets limited use as its capabilities and abilities are generally unknown and not understood by the vast majority of users. Myself, as a personal example, can make basic missions and follow along YT tutorials on some more complex stuff, but I have no idea how to do, or get the knowledge to do other things. One example of this - I wanted to make an aerobatic training mission, simply have an AI jet perform a series of manouvres I could follow, like for example, a loop, followed by a barrel roll, then a cuban, another loop etc. I found the advanced aero options in the ME, and some sketchy info on YT, but nowhere, how to string them together and make the flow smooth and natural - all my attempts ended with failure.....

ANYWAY.....My main question / request, which is along similar lines and probably involves similar triggers & programming: In the same vein as your excellent Speed & Angels campaign ( still on 1st Mission!!) I would like to make a simple single player mission to practice tactical formation turns. For this I need the AI jet to simply fly a series of 30, 60, 90 45 degree turns. Being formation turns, they are of course assisted, which means that depending on the side you are and the direction of turn, either the wingman or lead gives assist to the turn, to make the cross over at 90 degrees. Obviously, a voice over, for each turn, such as "Wolf, 90 left, 90 left, GO!" would be great. Thats pretty easy, I could probably do that. But the rest....? 

It sounds simple, so, with your knowledge of DCS ME , how easy is this to do? In this mission here, the author, Shagrat has managed to make the AI turn slowly and there are good voice overs. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3317763/?sphrase_id=21743257

 

Thank you! 

[Reflected]

It's quite easy. You can use 'switch to WP' commands, and place those WPs accordingly - you get more gentle turns, but it's not dynamic at all. Or, like I did, you can push 'aerobatics' tasks to the AI, and there you can specify the angle of bank, and many other parameters.

[markturner1960]

Thanks, good to know its possible, although was hoping for a bit more of a how to! I have not been able to find instrcution on how to use the aerobatic waypoint actions - do you know if there is any detail on this? 

For example, what does the "start immediately" check box do? If you dont check this, is there a delay to the start of the manouvre? And why is the "initial speed" less than the speed I set for the section of the flight? Once you have started using aerobatic commands, do you need to program the whole flight as a sequence? Whats the difference between a "turn" " forced turn" and a "military turn" ? 

Thanks!

[markturner1960]

So I just tried a simple 90 degree turn left mission. Both me and the AI at 400 IAS, 3900 ft. 

I used the aero advanced instruction for the turn waypoint 1. I set military turn, left 90 degrees, 3.5 G. Speed and altitude remain the same

When I fly this, the AI, at the turn point, does not turn, goes into a climb to approx 15,000 in afterburner, the levels out with airbarke on....... WTF? 

Have included my .miz file and track file for reference. 

Turns.trk Assisted turns formation training.miz

[Reflected]

I use normal turns. 
 

also don’t use climb or dive, those aerobatics have been broken forever. 

[markturner1960]

Thanks, so I have spent the day doing this and made a passable first attempt I think! 

I would really appreciate yourself, or someone who has the skillz in this, to take a look and see where it could be adjusted, and improved. I made my own sound files in audacity, they would be cool with some radio squelch and static, but I dont know how to do this....I also set up a pairs straight in approach formation landing at the end...

A few issues I noted:

Speed the AI turns at could do with adjusting?

Straight in approach heights need tweaking

On touchdown, Lead goes full AB and takes off again....? 

Anyones input gratefully recieved! 

 

 

Assisted turns formation training1.miz