Jump to content

Mission editing questions


bunraku

Recommended Posts

Hi

I am trying to add AI planes to my missions.

I appear and so do vehicles'but planes don't though they appear to have the same start time as me in the editor.

Also could someone explain exactly the time format as it appears in the editor?

It follows a 000:00:00 format.

What does each bunch of zeroes mean?

Thanx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adding AI planes have never been a problem... you just add them and they're there...

 

The first three zeroes are the day.. .but I'm not sure exactly how that works.

The last four are the time of day, 24 hour clock.

i7-2600k@4GHz, 8GB, R9 280X 3GB, SSD, HOTAS WH, Pro Flight Combat Pedals, TIR5

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The timing in the editor looks like this

 

ETA 00 : 00 : 00 001

which is hours:minutes:seconds day

 

Generally you would not need to touch the day setting unless you were setting up a mission where the action took place around midnight. That might possibly be a reason for your problem.

 

But my first guess of why you are not seeing the AI aircraft is because you have them taking off from the same airbase as you? Once you have taken off and are a distance from the base, then they should appear.

 

Note that the only way to get a flight of AI to appear on the same base as you is if they are another flight from the same country as you and you have set Waypoint 0 as TYPE takeoff and ACTION as From Parking Area. This way they will all appear, and you can see them taxiing to the runway with you.

 

For example,

 

you make your first flight of 2 A-10's (yourself and a wingman on the PILOT line using the <> button as shown on the pic below)

 

iqg27k.jpg

 

Then using the <> button on the FLIGHT line (4 lines above PILOT line) you create 2nd flight eg 3 F-18's to fly SEAD and a 3rd flight of 2 F-15's as escort.

 

Note that even though these 3 flights all share the same waypoints, you can point each flight (use the <> button to swap between the 3 flights) to different targets using the TARGET button from an ATTACK waypoint. Thus you can have the F-18's attack SAM sites, the F-15's attack enemy MiG's whilst you and your wingman are tasked to attack some vehicles.

 

If you get annoyed that your AI aircraft all start on the other side of the airbase to where you are then choose your airbase carefully they are not all like that. Also the time the AI take to taxi to the runway varies a lot too. See this thread for airbase details of taxi times and AI starting near to your pilot.

 

http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=10922

 

One final thing. As you probably already know there is no way to identify an airbase as friendly or hostile. If you have an aircraft take off from the airbase, then Lockon knows which side the airbase belongs to and AI aircraft will only land there if it is a friendly airbase.

You can set an aircraft to take off from a base far in the future (a day or two) - it will not interfere with the mission you have designed but will ensure that the airbase is not used by the AI aircraft of the other side. Mission designers often use this trick to force the AI to return back to their own airbases.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Sorry Death, you lose! It was Professor Plum....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But my first guess of why you are not seeing the AI aircraft is because you have them taking off from the same airbase as you? Once you have taken off and are a distance from the base, then they should appear.

 

Exactly right there.

I was in parking area and i had F-16's taking off from runway.

 

Thanx for all replies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry but can i ask another question?

 

I am trying to get the B1B Lancer to bomb an airfield.

But i can't get it to bomb using the Runway Attack role.

I can only get it to bomb the runway if using Ground Attack role.

And this is a process that can be quite fiddly to get a perfect length of runway straddle.

 

So how do i get it to do a perfect runway straddle using the Runway Attack role?

 

Thanx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wierd, as I have no problems with this. My first thought would be did you have the attack waypoint set a good distance from the target?

The bigger the aircraft, the more they seem to like the attack waypoint further away I guess to give them time to manouevre in for the attack.

 

Also (I am sure you already know this) each time you change the TASK, it can zap the weapon loadout to EMPTY again. Often the reason an attack does nothing is because of no weapons. Easy to tell on small aircraft, as soon as the mission starts I always F2 around all the AI to check they have the loadouts I want. Cant tell with a B-1 obviously!

 

I set up a B1 as RUNWAY ATTACK with Mk-84 weapon loadout and 50% fuel and waypoints all at 20,000ft and 500kts. The ATTACK waypoint was 13nm away from Saki, with the next waypoint the other end of the runway so the line between the two waypoints was along the runway (and in the direction that aircraft would land on it - not sure if that makes any difference). I pressed the TARGET button, checked OBJ button was lit and put the mouse over middle of Saki airbase and clicked, and double checked that OBJECT now said Saki. Save and FLY. Pounded the runway nicely from 20,000ft.

 

Tried it again with the next waypoint missing, it descended to attack from about 3,000ft but still plastered the runway.

 

Of course it is good that you have learned the fiddly process of setting waypoints and TARGETing with a co-ordinate to make a B-1 attack using GROUND ATTACK task, because several airbases have 2 runways. Saki (which I used in my example above) would need 2 B-1's to put it totally out of action, the first B-1 with runway attack to hit the more Northern runway, the second B-1 with ground attack to hit the southern runway.

Others with two runways are Simpheropol, Krasnodar-Pashkovskiy and Sochi-Adler.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Sorry Death, you lose! It was Professor Plum....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first thought would be did you have the attack waypoint set a good distance from the target?

The bigger the aircraft, the more they seem to like the attack waypoint further away I guess to give them time to manouevre in for the attack.

 

Again you solved it for me mate.

Thanx.

 

It did'nt like the same waypoint that it used for Ground Attack.

Put it further away and it's ok now. :p

 

Now the last piece of the puzzle. :confused:

 

Artillery.

 

Sometimes i can get Artillery to fire and other times they do nothing.

 

So i have some questions.

 

1) Can Artillery fire from where they start the mission?What i mean is they have no waypoints apart from the starting one and that is set as an attack waypoint.

 

2) Does it matter what direction they are facing in relation to the target?

I know they can turn'but does it affect if they will fire in the mission?

(bug?)

 

3) Is there a minimum range that certain Artillery won't fire under?

 

Thanx again mate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=400102&f=99610606&m=956103725&r=850106825

 

This (rather long) 18 month old thread should answer your question of sometimes they fire sometimes they don't..... and maybe other questions you havent asked yet regarding arty / groups / target(s). You need to read it all the way to the end as myself and Colt were figuring it out as went along.:D

 

To answer your other questions,

1) Yes, arty can have just one waypoint that is an ATTACK waypoint, if you want.

 

2) Yes, for Grad,Smerch and Bereg and likely also MLRS. In real life they can only rotate so far (probably around 45deg). In addition, the rocket launchers will not fire directly forward over the driver's cab (Hey Dimitri, is it gettting hot and smoky in here or is it just me? :redface: )

 

3)I never experimented to figure it out. Would be a service to the Community for someone to do a proper job of this - go for it Bunraku!

 

I did a very quick look myself and had a SAU Akatsia in flat terrain firing at a medium size building from only 0.15nm away. The shells all went way over by miles! So just because the arty will open fire from a close range doesnt mean they are gonna hit anything. Even funnier when I replaced the arty unit by a BTR-70, its bullets were landing an amazing 9km away!

 

So I guess the arty doesnt care much about min range.

I very quickly tried a Grad and min range seems around 4.7nm?

Smerch - somewhere between 10nm and 11nm.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Sorry Death, you lose! It was Professor Plum....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Which SAM Missile systems require Radars that are independent of the Launcher(Such as Patriot) and how do you put these in the editor?

 

I mean which Radars match which Launchers and how many Radars does each particular system use/need and what dimensions and shape should the complete battery be?

 

Thanx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The easiest way is simply to use the preset SAM batteries, usually they are at the bottom of the pulldown menu when you choose the ground unit type.

It will place the correct launcher vehicles, radar vehicles plus other vehicles (trucks, etc) that the battery would have. Far easier than putting a SAM battery together yourself and having to remember which radar vehicle goes with which launcher vehicle.

 

But if you really want to know exactly which radar vehicle goes with which launcher vehicle, then place a preset battery of that type and just look at the units it places to make up that battery.

S300 for instance uses several radar vehicles, some are search radars, others tracking.

KUB has a single radar vehicle that contains both the search and tracker radar.

BUK has a radar vehicle that carries the search radar, each missile vehicle has an integral tracking radar.

PATRIOT has one radar vehicle that performs both the search and tracking functions. Note that it does not rotate, it can only engage targets it is pointing at (180 degree sector), so when you place a PATRIOT battery in your mission, make sure you point it toward the enemy.

 

Adding a Dog Ear search radar system nearby to OSA, Strela, Shilka etc to give them advance warning of targets can enable them to engage earlier so I am led to believe. Sure I have seen posts on the forums that this behaviour is modelled in Lockon.

I assume that adding the German Roland "radar on a stick" near to a Roland fire unit would do similar.

 

As for the dimensions and shape, the preset battery will be laid out in a realistic shape, but feel free to mess around with the placings. I recall reading that some Lockon folks had experimented with moving a launcher miles away from the associated radar and it had still engaged.

I would expect that in real life, no more than a kilometre would be realistic, the personnel on a site need to balance two aspects (1) dispersal of units to make air attack more difficult (2) keeping units close together for security against ground attack.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Sorry Death, you lose! It was Professor Plum....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

Su-33 is the only player aircraft that can use the Kuznetsov.

 

Add the Kuz first, then add an Su-33 nearby, add a few waypoints for your route, then go back to your 1st waypoint and change it to takeoff, then the waypoint will "snap" to the Kuz automatically (provided the Kuz is nearer than any land airbase).

Ditto with you last waypont if you want to land back on the Kuz......

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Sorry Death, you lose! It was Professor Plum....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...