fixed internally George doesn't understand VRS

[admiki]

52 minutes ago, AstonMartinDBS said:

You didn't watch my track. I just asked george to get into hover and nothing else - and he ran into a VRS. I didn't command him to descend or turn. Roger?

Yes I did. Look what I circled in red. Your current rad alt is 400, your comanded rad alt is 270. When you initiated slow down, you were at about 370 ft AGL.

You comanded him to slow down into hover and to descend. Don't do that.

Edited to add: you might not have comanded descent, you might be over hilly terrain. Nevertheless, it is up to you to pay attention to your suroundings and act accordingly. Yes, George sucks. It's WIP. That's why I get into hover myself or close to it and only then give control to George. You want fire-and-forget George? It's still WIP.

Edited May 7, 2023 by admiki

[AstonMartinDBS]

On 5/7/2023 at 11:45 PM, admiki said:

you might not have comanded descent

I didn't command him to descent.

 

On 5/7/2023 at 11:45 PM, admiki said:

Yes, George sucks. It's WIP.

That's the point. It's George's job to avoid VRS when I'm sitting in the front seat in SP.

[Hotdognz]

Im with the OP, the point is George should be able to at least fly the helicopter to some form of competency, with someone in the front, its not like he was being asked to dodge in coming missiles, coming to a hover should be a pretty basic maneuver in his flying skills.

 

[admiki]

Yes, he should be, yes, he isn't.

It's WIP, it's a known problem.

Interestingly enough, he is quite able to get me into hover without killing us, so maybe try to change how you do things until George gets fixed?

[Varioss]

3 hours ago, admiki said:

Yes, he should be, yes, he isn't.

It's WIP, it's a known problem.

Interestingly enough, he is quite able to get me into hover without killing us, so maybe try to change how you do things until George gets fixed?

Did you ever try to make george hover in any combat load configuration + in a mountains? No matter how careful you are with the altitude changes he will pitch up too much when transiting from 40 tas to 0 tas, and in doing so he will put the heli in vrs.

[admiki]

1 hour ago, Varioss said:

Did you ever try to make george hover in any combat load configuration + in a mountains? No matter how careful you are with the altitude changes he will pitch up too much when transiting from 40 tas to 0 tas, and in doing so he will put the heli in vrs.

Define combat load?

I just got into hover at 5000 ft MSL/10°C FAT with 1880 lbs of fuel, 1 rocket pod/2 hellfires on each side.

Are you trying to get into hover overweight for the conditions?

Look, I am not saying that there are no problems with the way George is flying, I am just saying that there are ways to circumvent it.

I did get into VRS if I comand him to stop into hover if he is climbing or descending to maintain radalt. I try to fly alongside mountain side when I want to get into hover. That way it is easier for George to maintain radalt and he manages to get into hover.

Edited to add: look at your radalt before you give him comand to slow down. Give him higher radalt that currently is and he will climb into it while losing speed. That way he will not be too low on collective to let helicopter go into VRS.

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by admiki

[Dangerzone]

On 5/1/2023 at 9:51 PM, Inf said:

I like to sit in the CPG seat and get George to chauffeur me around. Problem is when you're in the H/B mode and sliding around there's a high chance George will put the aircraft into VRS and you'll plummet to the ground.

George should avoid killing us both when following commands.

I have experience the same thing recently - there's definitely a problem here. Thanks for providing the track files. 

FWIW - I don't recall having as many problems in HB when it first came out, so I don't know if it's an introduced change with continual work on the FM because I used to be able to slide left/right without issues. 

At present I now have to treat George like he's suicidal. Keeping one eye on everything he's doing and ready to reach for the controls at a moments notice. It's not ideal for high stress environments (certain missions or MP) at the moment, so hopefully there's a fix in the works. Not seeing an rep of ED respond to this thread yet is a bit of a concern - so hopefully it's been reported internally and is already been looked at and responding to this thread was an overlook. Confirmation of this would definitely be appreciated.

The workaround I am using at present is not to get George to make changes unless I absolutely have no choice. Instead, I'll take control - I'll change the attitude/altitude/airspeed of the aircraft and once stable I'll give back to George. Not ideal, but the best I can recommend is accept that these flaws currently exist with George, and don't try to fight them but work with them and around them for now. It's WIP and early access so I really have no other choice, except to get frustrated or leave it until it's resolved.

The other night I had to fly from the front seat while also trying to lead-follow a moving unit with the laser while a hellfire was in flight. Talk about a high-workload situation. Mind you - it was a feeling of great accomplishment when the (second) missile hit and destroyed the target. The new Radar guided hellfires may help to reduce a bit of this workload when they're released if George isn't fixed by then.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Dangerzone

[Inf]

I think there's a bit of expectations management that needs to happen too. Because they've named it George, voiced it, and using language like "commanded altitude" it gives players the impression that there's an AI agent flying the chopper. Like, a system that's aware of how to fly, and will try to do its best to actually fly the chopper and get you on-course. But if it's more direct, ie "commanding a speed-up just starts a speed-up regardless of its current attitude etc" then yeah, we need to think of it less of an agent, and more as just another set of input controls: you're still flying the chopper, you're just using a menu instead of the cyclic and collective.  So don't try any dumb stuff, or anything that needs fine control.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Inf

[Dangerzone]

3 hours ago, Inf said:

I think there's a bit of expectations management that needs to happen too. Because they've named it George, voiced it, and using language like "commanded altitude" it gives players the impression that there's an AI agent flying the chopper. Like, a system that's aware of how to fly, and will try to do its best to actually fly the chopper and get you on-course. But if it's more direct, ie "commanding a speed-up just starts a speed-up regardless of its current attitude etc" then yeah, we need to think of it less of an agent, and more as just another set of input controls: you're still flying the chopper, you're just using a menu instead of the cyclic and collective.  So don't try any dumb stuff, or anything that needs fine control.

 

Oh absolutely - but your first post was about HB mode, and I agree - that sliding left/right, or forward/backwards for a bit shouldn't case the problems to the extent we're seeing at the moment. Hopefully the problem will be acknowledged as reported.

[backspace340]

Yep, he killed me three times today... Doesn't look like this topic has a label, is it wip/reported or is this not going to be fixed?

[BIGNEWY]

we will pass on your feedback to the team, please consider George w.i.p during early access, he will be tuned

thanks

[aaronwhite]

8 hours ago, backspace340 said:

Yep, he killed me three times today... Doesn't look like this topic has a label, is it wip/reported or is this not going to be fixed?

I think they're obviously going to fix it, as it's not finished, and George randomly crashing isn't something that they would want in a final product.

I do wonder if fuel state is an issue as well. I generally fly offline, and I'm usually around 50-65% fuel load, with Rockets/Hellfires. The other night I was online for the first time with the Apache, took off with 100% fuel just in case, but a pretty light load of 4 Hellfires, with 2 on each wing. I got into a hover behind some trees without too much trouble myself, and then switched into the front seat to try and find some targets, and had George move forward a bit, and then once I got close to some trees, had him lower a bit to keep from being too exposed. He seemed to enter into VRS or settling with power, whichever it would be, and bounced us hard off the ground. It broke off the tail (though my tail rotor did stay floating in the air, apparently working) and I was able to continue flying without an issue. Trying to move around again with George flying lead to 2 more bounces, before I decided to head back to base and repair, though I was still able to fly without issue.

Anyhow, not meant as a complaint, just wanted to add a little more of my personal experience, as George offline never did seem to have much of an issue for me, but I also fly with less fuel, though I do usually have a heavier weapons loadout. 

[backspace340]

16 hours ago, aaronwhite said:

I think they're obviously going to fix it, as it's not finished, and George randomly crashing isn't something that they would want in a final product.

I do wonder if fuel state is an issue as well. I generally fly offline, and I'm usually around 50-65% fuel load, with Rockets/Hellfires. The other night I was online for the first time with the Apache, took off with 100% fuel just in case, but a pretty light load of 4 Hellfires, with 2 on each wing. I got into a hover behind some trees without too much trouble myself, and then switched into the front seat to try and find some targets, and had George move forward a bit, and then once I got close to some trees, had him lower a bit to keep from being too exposed. He seemed to enter into VRS or settling with power, whichever it would be, and bounced us hard off the ground. It broke off the tail (though my tail rotor did stay floating in the air, apparently working) and I was able to continue flying without an issue. Trying to move around again with George flying lead to 2 more bounces, before I decided to head back to base and repair, though I was still able to fly without issue.

Anyhow, not meant as a complaint, just wanted to add a little more of my personal experience, as George offline never did seem to have much of an issue for me, but I also fly with less fuel, though I do usually have a heavier weapons loadout. 

The weight definitely has an impact and makes it more likely, but I don't think it was the cause in my cases - I'd kept the weight below 17k lbs (something like 70% fuel, 8 hellfires, 300 rounds, no aux tank) so hovering wasn't a problem for me. Anecdotally, he seems worse over hilly terrain, I don't seem to have as much problem over flat ground - the main cases that got me killed yesterday were stalking through the valleys of low hills trying to stay under the 100ft engagement altitude to get a shot at some SAMs. Once I spotted them, I jumped in the front seat from a stable hover at 60ft, and George immediately rose to 150ft (so was about to get us shot at), commanding him back down to 60ft caused him to VRS and we died.

[aaronwhite]

9 hours ago, backspace340 said:

The weight definitely has an impact and makes it more likely, but I don't think it was the cause in my cases - I'd kept the weight below 17k lbs (something like 70% fuel, 8 hellfires, 300 rounds, no aux tank) so hovering wasn't a problem for me. Anecdotally, he seems worse over hilly terrain, I don't seem to have as much problem over flat ground - the main cases that got me killed yesterday were stalking through the valleys of low hills trying to stay under the 100ft engagement altitude to get a shot at some SAMs. Once I spotted them, I jumped in the front seat from a stable hover at 60ft, and George immediately rose to 150ft (so was about to get us shot at), commanding him back down to 60ft caused him to VRS and we died.

You might be on to something there, with the hilly terrain. When I'm playing my offline mission, I've got it setup in the Caucasus map, flying in the relatively flat Georgian plains, behind trees and open fields. I've used him a bit in some hilly terrain, but I don' think it was as steep as I was over on the Syria map on rotorheads. 

I guess I'm glad my VRS just resulted in some superbounce that shattered the helicopter but didn't kill me. I figured for sure the 3rd one would have done it. I'll have to jump online tonight and try it out. 

[MrShooty]

For the record, George the Pilot regularly just drops the plane into the ground. You don't need to be doing anything very smart - just asking him to slow down to a hover will do it.

[Floyd1212]

26 minutes ago, MrShooty said:

For the record, George the Pilot regularly just drops the plane into the ground.

Even after the most recent patch?

[AstonMartinDBS]

21 hours ago, Floyd1212 said:

Even after the most recent patch?

I think George as Pilot got some improvement in the latest OB. I did some testing and he didn't ran into a VRS so far.

[vfas25]

Yes it's happening even after the latest patch. Seems to have improved a bit but it still happens. Especially with a heavy load.

[Pike]

On 6/13/2023 at 2:08 PM, AstonMartinDBS said:

I think George as Pilot got some improvement in the latest OB. I did some testing and he didn't ran into a VRS so far.

Definitely still happens. 6 times in 8 flights, average 35 minute flights. I recovered 3 of those myself. Simple commands, 500 to 300 ft.  70 to 0, 40 to 0. One command at a time, some hilly terrain, some flat. The last time was a 40 knot flight searching a city and couldn't handle bringing to a hover.

Starting fuel 65%, 100% ammo, 8 114s, occasional rockets on the outers, otherwise nothing on outer pylons.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Pike

[JCae2798]

Not sure if this helps solve the problem but i usually have him slow down to 40 before a full stop, and when i am coming to a full stop i ask him to increase altitude by some toward the very end.  So far haven't had it happen using this method...

[Pike]

Earlier this afternoon George VRSd while in an established hover. Flat terrain and after a couple minutes of scanning a town from a stationary position he elected to decorate the landscape with parts.

<65% fuel, max cannon, 8 hellfires.

Map: PG. Altitude was likely around 1200 MSL, (100' AGL).

Maybe the temperature and altitude is his problem. All of my references in the last two posts were similar conditions on PG. Maybe even up to 2000 MSL in the first, i didnt check terrain elevation i that one.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Pike

[FlippingGerman]

On 6/16/2023 at 2:05 AM, Pike said:

Maybe the temperature and altitude is his problem. 

I'm not that bothered how he deals with insufficient power, but crashing is not an acceptable solution. 

[Delta59R]

I've been having this issue last few days, even with just 60% fuel and 8-114s, 600 round ammo.

 

Slow down to under 20 nts, switch to cpg, and almost right away you can see the heli start to shake like its losing lift and we plummet to the ground.

 

Now sometimes I can retake pilot seat and recover in time and sometimes it's too late and we crash. Very frustrating.

 

Maybe I'm not spending enough time making sure we are in a perfect stable hover before switching but If that's the case it seems awfully sensitive.

[BIGNEWY]

threads merged. 

 

[AstonMartinDBS]

On 6/13/2023 at 9:08 PM, AstonMartinDBS said:

I did some testing and he didn't ran into a VRS so far.

Sadly I was wrong.

Flying the AH-64D in solo missions absolutely doesn't make fun at the moment, as in the majority of cases he runs into a VRS and drops from the sky as soon as I order George to establish a hover after switching to the CP/G seat in the BP.

Edited July 18, 2023 by AstonMartinDBS