Mission 6 "Patrols" Ridiculousness

[ScottishMartialArts]

This mission needs some tweaking. Although I'm sure it is in fact completable in its current state, the wonky flight leader AI and the stringent separation requirements means that it takes more attempts than it ought to, frustrating the hell out of the player in the process. It's a mission requirement that you stay within a certain radius of the flight leader, i.e. fly in formation. The trouble is that the leader's pathing AI, in its current state, is extremely erratic once you enter the canyon. He at times makes random changes in altitude, attitude, airspeed and flight path without reason. This is particularly noticeable at the third LZ, where you and the leader provide cover for Springfield 3 and 4: the leader often enters an ascending spinning hover, in which it appears his rear rotor has failed and he's just spinning like a top. Such AI behavior is undesirable sure, but aside from looking silly, why does it matter? Because if you don't know to anticipate that the leader is going to make some random and bizarre flight path change, it's very easy to lose sight of him. If you lose sight of him you can't maintain formation, and if you can't maintain formation then you won't stay in the trigger radius, and once you're out of that radius, it's mission over, even if you were 50 minutes into your 4th attempt on the mission. I don't mind losing missions because of ground fire, or because of entering Vortex Ring in landing, or something of that nature. I do mind losing missions because it's an expectation that you know exactly where the AI is going to randomly spaz out. Repeating a 90 minute mission a half dozen times just to figure out when the AI will do something weird that you can't anticipate isn't fun.

 

Recommendation: increase the formation trigger radius, to give the player more margin for error, and thus more time to rejoin formation, when the AI spazzes. OR sort out and fix what's going on with the flight leader's pathing AI.

[wess24m]

I agree, I got towards the end of the mission where you're doing the last drop and throughout the mission I was able to stay within 100 feet of him despite his crazy maneuvers (as was said above). When I failed the mission we were circling around the choppers dropping off troops making about 60-70 knots and he goes up in a 90ish degree attitude and just stops in about 10 feet (it seemed like). So I go into a blade stall trying to match his stop, I recovered, but i'd drifted too far forward of his position. Quite frustrating. If mast bumping was modeled for AI he'd have lost it when he first gets into the canyon.

[hawk4base]

Agree ,the AI in general can't fly any aircraft at low level . I'm stuck too in mission 6 for more or less the same resons

[Yurgon]

And here I thought I was the only one with such problems.

 

The exact same thing happened to me as well, I had to repeat the mission once.

 

In that second attempt, I cheated the hell out of the game: Whenever I lost sight of #1, I immediately paused, flipped through all kinds of external views to locate him, then unpaused for a few seconds, then paused again to make sure I was actually getting in the right direction.

 

It kills all the fun, having to fly like that. As the AI has never been perfect in DCS, the simplest solution would be to hugely increase the trigger zone while flying in the mountains, or get rid of it altogether. Or maybe decrease overall mission success rate by a couple percent if the player doesn't meet the 100m criteria during the entire mission, I'd be totally fine with that, as long as the mission progresses.

[kam]

This is particularly noticeable at the third LZ, where you and the leader provide cover for Springfield 3 and 4: the leader often enters an ascending spinning hover, in which it appears his rear rotor has failed and he's just spinning like a top.

 

This is where I lost sight of the leader and failed the mission :( Does he do a 360 and go back down the canyon?

 

"follow the leader" should really be "find where the leader has gone".

[Laivynas]

AI is a known problem. Maybe some day...

[3instein]

This is where I lost sight of the leader and failed the mission :( Does he do a 360 and go back down the canyon?

 

"follow the leader" should really be "find where the leader has gone".

 

Heh, heh, tried this mission last night and was failing miserably,

I ended up changing the distance from leader from 100m to 500m but still failed at the exact same point as you. :)

 

Maybe need to make it a few km. Lol.

Mick.

[Buznee]

There is another issue with this mission. The fact that you are way overweight and forced to over perform at that weight. This causes you to redline the engines to the point that you would begin to cook them in order to keep up with the wingman. I would recommend toning down the speeds and climb rates that the wingman can achieve in order to keep the operations more realistic for the operating weight. Also the action of increasing the governor speed for takeoff, is that a normal thing? That also cooks the engine I noticed.

 

Speaking of cooking engines, is there any engine damaged modeled here yet?

[Laivynas]

Taking engine to the limit shortens the total engine's life time. But since a/c technical condition can not be transferred from one mission to another there is no visible effect on engine performance.

[Rogue Trooper]

As you are coming in to land the lead chopper just disappears into thin air.... I was 50 m behind the lead (trying for the second time as it occurred once before in the same place) he just disappears!

Is this an old problem?

Of course you immediately fail the mission.

[Rogue Trooper]

In Patrols mission

[tantonovich]

This mission needs some tweaking. Although I'm sure it is in fact completable in its current state, the wonky flight leader AI and the stringent separation requirements means that it takes more attempts than it ought to, frustrating the hell out of the player in the process. It's a mission requirement that you stay within a certain radius of the flight leader, i.e. fly in formation. The trouble is that the leader's pathing AI, in its current state, is extremely erratic once you enter the canyon. He at times makes random changes in altitude, attitude, airspeed and flight path without reason. This is particularly noticeable at the third LZ, where you and the leader provide cover for Springfield 3 and 4: the leader often enters an ascending spinning hover, in which it appears his rear rotor has failed and he's just spinning like a top. Such AI behavior is undesirable sure, but aside from looking silly, why does it matter? Because if you don't know to anticipate that the leader is going to make some random and bizarre flight path change, it's very easy to lose sight of him. If you lose sight of him you can't maintain formation, and if you can't maintain formation then you won't stay in the trigger radius, and once you're out of that radius, it's mission over, even if you were 50 minutes into your 4th attempt on the mission. I don't mind losing missions because of ground fire, or because of entering Vortex Ring in landing, or something of that nature. I do mind losing missions because it's an expectation that you know exactly where the AI is going to randomly spaz out. Repeating a 90 minute mission a half dozen times just to figure out when the AI will do something weird that you can't anticipate isn't fun.

 

Recommendation: increase the formation trigger radius, to give the player more margin for error, and thus more time to rejoin formation, when the AI spazzes. OR sort out and fix what's going on with the flight leader's pathing AI.

 

I played this one out a few times before I got it. I kept my distance at .2NM and above Springfield11 and was able to make it, with a BUNCH of naughty words along the way. The AI on this mission should definitely be revamped as it was a royal pain to keep along with the erratic movements. My advice for you, in the meantime, would be to keep it above the lead and as close as possible.

[Rogue Trooper]

but did the leads helicopter just vanish into thin air as you approached the base (2km out from madrid)? He just disappeared.... I was right behind him with him filling my cockpit window one second.... next second gone.

[Rogue Trooper]

a bug for sure.

[Rogue Trooper]

It is a great mission though, that commander marcos (?) can't fly for sh£$.

However the mission really teaches the fine control of pitch and collective.

[tantonovich]

but did the leads helicopter just vanish into thin air as you approached the base (2km out from madrid)? He just disappeared.... I was right behind him with him filling my cockpit window one second.... next second gone.

If I remember right, he split off when we were just about back to base, after which I was able to land and get a mission success. Good luck my friend!

[quyes]

but did the leads helicopter just vanish into thin air as you approached the base (2km out from madrid)? He just disappeared.... I was right behind him with him filling my cockpit window one second.... next second gone.

 

I just had this happen to me as well. I was right on his *** with the base insight. Then with a snap of the finger Springfield 1-1 disappears and my co-pilot is yelling at me that he said to keep up and he's taking over the controls. The mission then fails.

[rdop]

Well, I've tried messing around with the trigger radius' for Springfield 1, but I can't even get the flight leader to do anything but fly figure-8s over the base while the rest of my flight heads off on course. I've maintained separation off of the leader to not get yelled at by Pedro, but nothing else happens. Any suggestions? Thanks

[kontiuka]

I managed to do that mission but I had to press the F5 key about a million times to keep tabs on the flight leader. Otherwise, I would have lost him for sure.

[Alireza.kh]

i reached this mission today , but uh-1 leader just orbiting in near of helipads and he never start pre planned route.

 

i tried going to his left within 10 meters and fly with him but no change

 

need help to fix it

[TheThumper]

I'm in the same boat as above. Heck of a good way to practice your formation flying for sure, but not a good way to the start of a mission... Endless loops around the airbase.

[ALT326]

And I thought I did something wrong but also stuck with an orbiting flight leader.

[Lizzard]

In that Mission is a Bug with a set "landing Trigger" on the first WP. You can remove it yourself or try mine. BTW..same Problem in Mission 7:)

en_UN-Pilot_06.miz

[WildBillKelsoe]

The irony is that I flew it today, got around all the way to waypoint 9 including the first drop then he orders 3 and 4 to cover me while I unload, then the bastard suddenly brakes and sets her down and since I'm practically on his tail, I break hard that my finger touches the center trim control on the stick, and I enter quickly VRS, then recover only to find the damn power lines in my face, so I break off those two and re-enter VRS, to land upside down. He was actually facing me when my rotor broke off, and his luck has it that my chopper got so ****ed up that copilot slewing sight was boresighted and could not be moved even though the gatling guns were functional, so I couldnt shoot him for being that moronic, even when I'm upside down...

 

Edit:

Again 31 mins flying behind the so called "leader" and again crashing blades first... Thinking about removing him...

Edited October 26, 2013 by WildBillKelsoe

[ALT326]

thanks for the help Lizzard. But somehow I expected that DCS would fix this because the campaign comes with the product (it is a selling point). I can handle the user campaigns that are messed up after an update but I think that DCS should fix this one.