investigating AI Wingmen never drop the external fuel tank

[OLD CROW]

AI's never drop the external even entering an air combat situation. No track attached because it can be easily reproduced in any mission of the 'Big Show' Campaign. It is not specifically to the campaign nevertheless to the AI. 

Closer A/C is mine and the rest are AI wingmen in RTB after a huge air combat over France in Mission #5. 

Edited November 12, 2023 by OLD CROW

[NineLine]

I will look into this, but the AI is more simplified in how it sees its fuel load. I will ask our AI guys if something can or needs to be done with this. Thanks. 

[streakeagle]

There is an option that can be enabled on the waypoint that give AI permission to jettison fuel tanks when they are empty. If you enable that option on the first waypoint, they will drop them. Air combat looks a lot more realistic once this option is enabled. The AI will readily shed their drop tanks to fight. I have not tested this with Spitfires, but it has worked on many different aircraft types.

Edited November 22, 2023 by streakeagle

[Reflected]

Did you tell your own flight to engage bandits using the built in, stock radio menu? The F10 menu only affects the other flights.

[SUNTSAG]

For me clearly, the spitfire AI does jettison it's tanks as can be seen in the three trks provided: 1). pure AI aircraft setup. 2). Player radio instructed to engage 3). Player dead AI engages. I hope this helps. Cheers.

LEADDEADJETFUELTANK.trk RADIOJETFUELTANK.trk JETFUELTANK.trk

[OLD CROW]

Sorry but this an AI oddity. Here you got another example out of the Spitfire (First engagement against an Anton 4 elemet flight). Same situation and the worst of all is that they did a break: didn't drop the ordnance (whatever they carry: bombs, fuel tanks, ice cream tanks or beer tanks). They can perform high G turns with the full bell without loosing a pound of energy, also the script choose to deploy flaps but not dropping the ordnance. This is an AI issue and not specifically attached to the spitfire AI script. As soon as they detect an oponent and perform any defensive/ offensive maneuvers they should jettison whatever they carry in their bellies as a default automatic  option and if the mission creator thinks they have to keep their ordance till the end of times then should be an option to override the automatism, not the other way arround... It has ZERO logics from the human user/player angle.

 

4 hours ago, Reflected said:

Did you tell your own flight to engage bandits using the built in, stock radio menu? The F10 menu only affects the other flights.

I've normally order to my own flight wingmen to cover me in the stock radio menu and use the F10 to send the rest to confrontate the bandits, but it doesn't matter whatever I tell them all: they all keep the tank with them all fases of the flight: my own flight or any unit from the rest after the dogfight and in RTB: They all fight with the tank on and RTB with the tank on too.

 

We can be conprehensive with the fact AI units use a simplified FM-DM and all that bla,bla,bla... but inside that disorder, could be a bit of logic order?... Just a bit. If AI detect a fighting situation then it should actuate according to that situation and the first thing a human pilot does is to asset the situation and then take decisions according to the situation. If you've decided to do a defensive break because you're entering a possible dogfight in a dissadvantage position the most logical decision before even do the break must be dropping anything that can drag your combat energy, but due the simplier AI FM-DM that is not a requirement to enter a fight at all, so AI's, in fact, enter in pitbull mode in a blink of an eye and keep the ordnance with them. This is because nobody has scripted them to do in the correct way by default.

[Doughguy]

if you place vanilla ww2 planes in the editor the jettison fuel tanks restriction is usually on per default.

[NineLine]

On 11/22/2023 at 2:18 AM, Doughguy said:

if you place vanilla ww2 planes in the editor the jettison fuel tanks restriction is usually on per default.

This might be the biggest issue right now with this and not so much any AI logic issue. 

[NineLine]

Ok, I just did a quick test, I can't do much more without tracks or test missions. 

I set 3 190Ds, one CAP, 1 Ground Attack with default actions, 1 Ground Attack with default actions but jettison turned off (so the AI will jettison)

Initial engagement by me all 3 turned out but did not dump tanks yet.

CAP was the first to engage me, that unit dump tank.

The ground Attack Dora's took a little longer to engage me, the one with the jettison turned off dumped his tank when they engaged. The other never did. 

Same thing if I removed all default waypoint actions, the Ground Attack Dora took longer to engage, and didn't dump tank until engaged.

To me this makes sense and seems correct. 

So with my own tests, I am not seeing an issue, I will leave this open if someone wants to share tracks or missions showing something wrong. It should be fairly easy to reproduce with a short track if you are seeing a problem. Thanks!

[OLD CROW]

I couldn't attach the trk file due it's over 50Mb's, but I took an screenshot of the IA's settings for the FW190 A-8's in the mission editor. They all are carrying a SC 500 J belly bomb.

These pictures are taken from the mission #5 in the big show spit campaign. Original settings and triggered ones can be observed in the following pics.

I put this mission as a reference for you in the case you would recreate a similar situation with the same AI settings. AI's are carrying the external 45 gal slipper tank

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by OLD CROW

[Wolfy Yiffington]

This is very much still an issue in the tail end of 2024 this is sad, while it may seem like just an aesthetic issue, to those of us that care about realism and the additional maneuverability dropping those tanks adds it is baffling that this remains untouched by ED, at the very least an option should be added in the commands so i can just manually tell them to jettison their fuel tanks just as i can with weapons.