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UN pilot: awesome and aweful


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I just have to vent some steam right about now.

 

A few days ago, as soon as I felt I could probably handle it, I started to fly the "UN pilot" campaign and I was instantly amazed. The introduction was so well written, I was drawn into the story right from the beginning. I also love how the first mission progresses with no action at all, simply following certain terrain features on a long flight.

 

My campaign continued really well until mission 4 "Race against Time". On my first attempt, I took a wrong turn at the end of the village (or rather: I didn't take the right turn). Up until here, almost every single turn had been announced well ahead of time, quite often with an abundance of information that was very easy to follow.

 

And now, in a mission called "Race against Time", the information is so tight lipped that it's really easy to deviate from the planned course. I followed a valley for 20 minutes until I was sure I was in the wrong place.

 

Second attempt: There was no audio message when I flew over the village, so I flew a circle until my copilot told me where to go. Shortly thereafter, I was instructed to follow the power lines up a valley. Well... the power lines end after a few miles. I was under the impression that I must have missed a trigger zone, so I flew another circle... nothing. Okay, let's continue with the mission. Guess what, I was too late, the patient was already dead. Great, by now I'd wasted some two hours.

 

I succeeded in the third attempt, but I was next to certain that I'd done something wrong and was wasting more time because for a long time, there were no audio messages at all, and it seemed ridiculous to fly across half of Georgia when it would have been half the distance back to base - not to mention that some of those towns in the vicinity surely must have hospitals well prepared for bad injuries.

 

In the next mission, I crashed twice trying to land. 100% my own fault, so when I finally succeeded, it felt as if the campaign was finally back on track.

 

Man was I wrong. In mission #6 "Patrols" I'm supposed to stick to my flight leader on the no.2 position. Huh, that looks surprisingly simple... until we get to the mountains. I've already noticed that the guy tends to drop down on ridgelines and overfly invisible obstacles, but now he's maneuvering as if we're dogfighting. I'm having massive problems keeping him in sight, but somehow I manage to stay somewhat in formation for the time being. He drops off some troops - all is well. We drop of troops together: Wow, I even managed a somewhat decent landing.

Now our wingmen are supposed to drop off some troops and we're supposed to cover them, piece of cake! Uh... what the... where the hell did the leader... "González, stay close to the leader, within 100 meters. I said keep up! Rookie, I’m going to smack your head! Let me have those controls!".

MISSION FAILED.

 

WTF, is this a joke? I've just followed that lunatic for 45 minutes or so, and then just like that I fail the mission? Come on...

 

Second attempt: I take no chances, pause, unpause, check map, check external views all the time whenever I lose sight of the leader. Works, but where's the fun in that? :noexpression:

 

So imagine my delight when mission #7 "Tango" looks to replicate all the fun of the previous one. Erratic AI behavior: check. Not getting fooled by my leader: check. Engage target, no prob... uh... how could he possibly climb like that? Damn you, I'm not gonna let you get away like that... got you in sight... ha, that wasn't so hard, was it? Okay, I have no clue why he crawls up a hill, slowing down to almost a hover, but I won't be VRS'd out of this one! Still in lose formation, looking good.

Okay, let's fly another attack on the target. Quickly descending, I exceed 120 KIAS, but the leader is still in sight. Okay, coming off target, tight turn, right there with hi... uh... he's climbing again, like a space shuttle... damn you, Huey, come on, give me all you've got, I need to... "I said keep up! Rookie, I’m going to smack your head! Let me have those controls!"

MISSION FAILED.

 

That was an hour ago, and right now I'm really frustrated. It's not like the AI was any better in the past, this type of AI behavior is to be expected. The one thing I don't understand is why mission designers would introduce rather tight constraints like the 100m limit (possibly allowing me to exceed the 100m limit by a certain factor - that means it takes like 5 seconds instead of 2 if the guy reversed direction after losing me, great...) at all.

 

Seriously. Subtract from the overall mission success, that's fine with me. Have my copilot and/or the CO yell at me, fine. But calling it a failed mission because the AI outperfomed my chopper, that's just ridiculous and leads to frustration.

 

And that's even worse because it pretty much ruins my impression of a campaign that is just so stunningly well done, well written, funny, fun to fly, and comes with exceptional voice acting.

 

So unless there's a major AI update around the corner, my suggestion would be to entirely drop the 100m constraint whenever the flight is in/near the mountains. Some other things could be tweaked in the way that good missions could be improved a tad, but it's really the erratic wingman AI and the insta-fail that, in my case, leads to frustration.


Edited by Yurgon
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I've waited for the new flight model before continuing the campaign with the second mission. Now I wonder, if I shouldn't just stop after mission 3.

 

 

Seriously. Subtract from the overall mission success, that's fine with me. Have my copilot and/or the CO yell at me, fine. But calling it a failed mission because the AI outperfomed my chopper, that's just ridiculous and leads to frustration.

 

I second that. :thumbup: Please Belsimtek take this into consideration.

Windows 10 64bit, Intel i9-9900@5Ghz, 32 Gig RAM, MSI RTX 3080 TI, 2 TB SSD, 43" 2160p@1440p monitor.

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  • ED Team

We have already made the change distance from 1000 m to 2 km. As long as they were not included in the patch.

 

Нас ввело в заблуждение то, что тестеры проходили миссии без замечаний, поэтому мы посчитали условия выполнимыми. Но мы конечно будем работать по вашим замечаниям.

--->

We were misled that the testers were of the mission without any problems, so we felt the conditions to satisfy. But of course we'll work for your comments.


Edited by Dzen

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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We have already made the change distance from 1000 m to 2 km. As long as they were not included in the patch.

 

Thank you guys! As I understand it, the changes didn't make it into the patch and will be released later. Do you have an estimation, when this could happen?

Windows 10 64bit, Intel i9-9900@5Ghz, 32 Gig RAM, MSI RTX 3080 TI, 2 TB SSD, 43" 2160p@1440p monitor.

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  • ED Team

For all players who should have troubles following the missions' routes. :)

All missions contain kneeboard maps which has an option to mark Your current position. Kneeboard map routs should match corresponding routs given in briefing.

 

I personally don't underestimate anyone but just remind You of that in-game feature.

Best Regards, Dmitry.

 

"Чтобы дойти до цели, надо прежде всего идти." © О. Бальзак


 
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I did "race against time" last night. second attempt I hauled ass like the devil himself was on my six picked the guy up and even dropped him off in time. got back to base got landing clearance landed on "my spot"... then nothing! ended mission and got mission 50% complete. now have to fly it again... Is the injured guy supposed to die?

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  • ED Team

No. Injured man must live! :)

Are You sure the spot was right and the collective finally was at zero mark?

Best Regards, Dmitry.

 

"Чтобы дойти до цели, надо прежде всего идти." © О. Бальзак


 
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well... IT IS possible to follow him... but its not that realistic... i havent got any problems... only that ive done some things wrong.. or doenst understand correctly...

 

But it would be nice, when the leader would fly a little smoother... much smoother... i mean alone you can fly it like you stole it, but not in a formation...

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  • ED Team

AI - is never ending problem.

Campaign creators are aware of this issue. We'll do our best.

 

Thanks for feedback! :)

Best Regards, Dmitry.

 

"Чтобы дойти до цели, надо прежде всего идти." © О. Бальзак


 
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No. Injured man must live! :)

Are You sure the spot was right and the collective finally was at zero mark?

 

Yes and engine shut down. At first i though i hd wrong heli pad so i started up again and landed on the other two as well... no joy. About to fly it again... will see what happens.

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  • ED Team

I just spoke with mission designer. He states that no other rules than already mentioned (injured is safely evacuated, player helicopter lands on a correct helipad and player brings collective stick to zero) are involved.

 

Please check if Your controller axis gets to the zero position. You can use RCtrl+Enter indicator.

Other missions utilize similar logic to determine if player landed or not.


Edited by Laivynas

Best Regards, Dmitry.

 

"Чтобы дойти до цели, надо прежде всего идти." © О. Бальзак


 
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Tried it again worked fine this time round. Think it's time for a pc upgrade seems I get delays in triggers and text when the system is taxed heavily Also had a few hiccups when text came on screen(momentary screen freeze) so I think the problem is I need more than just 4 Gig ram and my I3 chip doesn't seem to always have what it takes.

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AI - is never ending problem.

 

This. In my zero dark thirty mission I messed with the AI's flight path for hours trying to get it to fly nice for the players, if you've played that mission and observed the Blackhawks flying that was the smoothest I could get it.

 

"Laivynas" is there a list of clickable actions? I use the 3035-3036 to trigger door opening when landing/before take off but I had to find that out how that was done from a pre-made mission. Also you mention that one of the conditions of landing was having zero collective, that would help alot with having to set 5 conditions just to trigger a landing option.

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  • ED Team

Sorry, I haven't seen that mission.

 

I'm not sure but most probably the list can be made. We need to ask the BST members.

Best Regards, Dmitry.

 

"Чтобы дойти до цели, надо прежде всего идти." © О. Бальзак


 
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We have already made the change distance from 1000 m to 2 km. As long as they were not included in the patch.

[...]

We were misled that the testers were of the mission without any problems, so we felt the conditions to satisfy. But of course we'll work for your comments.

 

Wow, that's very cool, thank you very much for listening to my rant! :smilewink:

 

You could always go into the mission editor and remove the 100M distance limit. Normally i'd say that was kinda cheating but I've done this mission as well and failed in the same manner.

 

Yup, that's what I'm going to do right now. Been looking forward to the next flight all day long and I don't want to fail it again because of that leader weirdo. :)

 

All missions contain kneeboard maps which has an option to mark Your current position. Kneeboard map routs should match corresponding routs given in briefing.

 

I think this is not going to alleviate the immediate problem with wingmen-AI, but other than that it sounds like a really nice feature. I actually didn't know about that until =STP= Dragon talked about it in another thread. I'm definitely going to use that feature next time I'm about to get lost on my own. :D

 

But it would be nice, when the leader would fly a little smoother... much smoother... i mean alone you can fly it like you stole it, but not in a formation...

 

Yeah, that would be the ideal solution, but I think Belsimtek is not the developer that has to fix this issue, I assume the AI Hueys (and other AI units) are based on ED's code.

 

If that problem was fixed, I believe this campaign would have played out extremely well for me.

 

Well, I'll mod my campaign files and try to get back to enjoying the Huey now. :)

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Yeah, Patrols is a pain in the ass: see my thread from a week or two ago. It IS completable, but I think it took me 5 separate attempts, some of which were over an hour long. Overall, the campaign is quite good, but with average mission length in the 90 minute range, it can get VERY frustrating when you're having to repeat a certain mission multiple times.

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Overall, the campaign is quite good, but with average mission length in the 90 minute range, it can get VERY frustrating when you're having to repeat a certain mission multiple times.

 

Yup.

 

I just flew "Tango" for the second time. I'd already edited the trigger zone to extend 8000m, so no problems there. I lost visual of my flight a few times and had to revert to pause and external views, but at the current stage that doesn't feel like cheating, more like evening the odds.

 

So guess what, when we're supposed to land, I got into VRS from about 100ft and crashed. :D

 

But that's cool, it's 100% my own fault. That mistake is actually going to teach me to be even more careful on my approach, even (especially) near hot LZs.

 

So, off to attempt number 3. :)

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I just finished the campaign, and the worst thing about it is that it ended :))

I really enjoyed it so much!

Especially the missions like medevac or when you deliver goods to checkpoints, just such a great feeling altogether..

I would love to have more of these í call it "usual business" mission, perhaps as additional flights after the last mission, when everything calms down :)

Really great job with the campaign!

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So I managed mission 3 on the first attempt after botching mission 2 countless times. :joystick:

 

Should I continue now, or wait for the fixes? :noexpression:

Windows 10 64bit, Intel i9-9900@5Ghz, 32 Gig RAM, MSI RTX 3080 TI, 2 TB SSD, 43" 2160p@1440p monitor.

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