How to get an AI wingman to RTB, refuel, rearm, and then take off again?

[DarkFib3r]

How do you get your AI wingman to RTB, refuel, rearm, and then take off again? I am assuming you instruct him to RTB and that he will land, taxi, refuel, rearm, and follow you out if you wish to take off again. But I could be mistaken.

 

In a simple test, I instructed my wingman to RTB, which he did. He landed, and then taxied to the ramp and finally shut down. I was unable to get him to start back up, let alone rearm and refuel so that we could accomplish the mission. Any tips on how to do this are appreciated!

Edited August 5, 2013 by DarkFib3r

[Dusty Rhodes]

How do you get your AI wingman to RTB, refuel, rearm, and then take off again? I am assuming you instruct him to RTB and that he will land, taxi, refuel, rearm, and follow you out if you wish to take off again. But I could be mistaken.

 

In a simple test, I instructed my wingman to RTB, which he did. He landed, and then taxied to the ramp and finally shut down. I was unable to get him to start back up, let alone rearm and refuel so that we could accomplish the mission. Any tips on how to do this are appreciated!

 

DCS is not capable of rearming and refueling AI. So to answer your question, no you cannot do this.

[DarkFib3r]

Thanks for the speedy reply! Now I know what I'm up against and we better finish the mission on our first try :-)

[-Pv-]

Even if you do not instruct the AI to RTB, as soon as you land, the AI goes into RTB mode and you effectively lose him. If you make good use of the Wingie on the first go around, it may be enough for you to go back out alone for a better score after a RTB if time allows.

[WildBillKelsoe]

Maybe there is a script to be used to respawn AI on the runway loaded and fuelled. sort of an F10 script.

[Grimes]

Helicopter AI can actually RTB, rearm and refuel at FARP whenever the player decides to rearm. But that is only true for helicopters at FARPs. For fixed wing and airbase usage it isn't possible. However....

 

If the player slot is set to client and it has AI wingmen, whenever you respawn the AI will respawn. That is about the only way to do it.

[Hansolo]

Even if you do not instruct the AI to RTB, as soon as you land, the AI goes into RTB mode and you effectively lose him. If you make good use of the Wingie on the first go around, it may be enough for you to go back out alone for a better score after a RTB if time allows.

 

I seem to recall I was able to order wingman to "Anchor here" somewhere away from the airport. Then I was able to land, rearm and refuel and then join wingman again.

I may have been in a earlier version 1.2.3 when trying to fly Operation Bactria but it might be wortb checking out.

 

Cheers

Hans

[-Pv-]

I have tried that recently. With the wingie anchored, as soon as I touched down, got the radio calls: "rejoining" and "RTB" after which the wingie landed, parked, shut down and after I took off, the wingie left the sim.

 

I also tried a rejoin command when I was ready to take off and the wingie was not yet parked and shut down. I got the radio call "Ejecting...."

 

I also discovered when ordering a wingie to hover to keep him out of a dangerous AA area, as soon as I got detected myself with RWR alarms going off, my wingie would leave anchor and try to rejoin causing him to promptly get shot down.

 

If it wasn't for the detrimental impact of friendly losses because of the wingmen and the occasional benefit of the added weapon drop they provide, I would not spend so much valuable situation time trying to manage them as they are still too suicidal to be worth this much effort. However, they are an occasionaly comic relief as I watch them make maneuvers made famous by the Jetsons cartoon.

-Pv-

Edited August 6, 2013 by -Pv-

[BackboneOne]

Helicopter AI can actually RTB, rearm and refuel at FARP whenever the player decides to rearm. But that is only true for helicopters at FARPs. For fixed wing and airbase usage it isn't possible. However....

 

If the player slot is set to client and it has AI wingmen, whenever you respawn the AI will respawn. That is about the only way to do it.

 

hi! is there a way to do so with ai helo that is not your wingman (separate group)?

[kerlix]

I also tried a rejoin command when I was ready to take off and the wingie was not yet parked and shut down. I got the radio call "Ejecting...."

-Pv-

 

I've had this happen numerous times. It's actually quite funny to watch. It kept happening so one day I decided to actual look at him and see what was going on.

 

It turns out that he'll just go for a full-thrust takeoff right there on the apron. He'll either slam into a building or go blasting through some trees, tearing himself apart in the process.

[Mike77]

 

 

 

It turns out that he'll just go for a full-thrust takeoff right there on the apron. He'll either slam into a building or go blasting through some trees, tearing himself apart in the process.

 

 

That's awesome; I love that kinda stuff

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. System specs: Windows 7 Pro, EVGA X58 3x classified 3 MOBO, i7 960 @3.2Ghz, 24Gb Ram, Nvidia EVGA GTX 780ti with 3 Gb VRAM.

[JDingo]

The only way to mimic your wingman refueling and rearming on the ground is to create a duplicate flight as a Client where you are going to land/refuel/rearm. After you and your wingman land, you can then switch roles to the new client and act as if you have both refueled and rearmed. You can give them the same Callsigns and Tail #s if you want. If you want to be more realistic you can wait until after your wingman has parked long enough to have refueled and rearmed. That's the best than can be done (at least in version 2.5.5).

 

On the plus side this has the advantages of 1) still being able to just keep going alone if your wingman crashed, etc. You just manually refuel/rearm as usual; and 2) you get credit for any score while you are in either plane.

 

Even with the new LandingReFuAr waypoint there is no way to get your wingman to refuel/rearm even by jumping into another plane or client. Basically once you occupy a lead plane a wingman will never act as lead, for example following waypoints. It will execute the last wingman instruction you gave him as lead (Engage Bandits, Finish Mission, whatever) before you left and then RTB and be done. If you didn't tell him to do anything, he will immediately RTB and be done. The logic is as follows:

 

If you leave as a Client, your plane ceases to exist and the wingman acts as above.

 

If you leave as a Player (jump to another plane), your plane will immediately RTB and the wingman will do as above. If you didn't tell him to do anything he will follow your (old) plane and also RTB. If you reoccupy your old plane before it lands and turns off electric power, the wingman will follow you as before.

If you jump to your wingman's plane, your plane will act as above, and your wingman will effectively be the lead of his own flight. That is, he will never be a wingman again.

 

If you land with your wingman, he will wait on the runway for you to do whatever you want. You can refuel or rearm if you want. And he will take off again with you if you take off, but he won't refuel or rearm. If you landed and turn off your electrical power the wingman will land (if he hasn't already), go to the ramp, park and be done no matter what you do after powering down.

 

If you landed at an airbase different than your original Base (for example a LandingReFuAr waypoint) he will RTB (original Base) as soon as your wheels touch the ground. You can still give him wingman instructions though. If you tell him to Rejoin he will land at the airbase you did, but will act the same as above. That is, either wait for you to takeoff again or, if you turn off electrical power, park at the ramp and be done.

Edited April 25, 2020 by JDingo

[HiJack]

You can command the wingman to RTB and do your first attack yourself. When you then land at the same airport and rearm you can command the wingman to “join up” and he will join you for a second attack. I recently did that on one of the campaigns. I would love to have a command to tell wingman to RTB and rearm for then to join up again. Should be possible to implement?

[Caffeine_High]

Maybe play with triggers to de-spawn the AI after landing, and re-spawn them back in w/weapons and fuel right after? That way you wouldn't have to reslot. You could refuel/rearm and then take off with the re-spawned AI? Reslotting kinda breaks the rhythm.

I'm a mission editor newbie, but this might be worth trying...

[JDingo]

One slight correction to the very end of my post (#12) ...

 

If you land at a different base and then tell your wingman to rejoin you when he starts to RTB, he will park at the ramp and be done no matter what you do.

 

Also you need to be careful with this if the wingman is very low on fuel. The wingman will take an additional loop, and he can run out of fuel and crash on re-approach, closing the airport. In that case the new slot wingman won't take-off with you. (Maybe this is appropriate because the wingman crashed, but the wingman shouldn't have needed to take the extra loop.)

[JDingo]

Scripting only allows AI respawning, not Player/Client unfortunately.

 

The Player can respawn with a key combination (Rctrl-Rshift-Tab), but only after crashing or ejecting, and that only respawns the Player's aircraft, not the whole unit. So unfortunately no improvement over just landing refueling/rearming then taking off again without your wingman.