There's an interesting discussion
here regarding the thinking behind this style of airfield layout. The layout features the minimum number of takeoff points (two, although one is also possible) each with an 'open' taxi pathway and associated parking or stay points (in this case at Tangmere, sixteen per landing point). I've found this is the most efficient layout for a custom 'modded' airfield (as opposed to the 'stock' airfields, which follow a very rigid and limiting layout, and are difficult for a modder to replicate). This layout has been by far the most reliable I have found in regards to AI pathfinding, both in the overhead and on the field.
It's not
all beer and skittles though, and there has been one remaining issue I've been trying to get my head around. I'll illustrate the problem here, with my Etain-Rouvres layout:
If I, as the player, park my aircraft
here, the airfield layout functions as intended, as shown by the AI Hurricane landing on the main runway. (Tip: click on the image to open it in Photobucket and use the zoom function.)
But, if I park
here, my position on the field 'shuts down' the airfield layout to the AI Hurricanes circling in the background. They simply won't land, just 'going around' again and again. Effectively, this closes off a large part of the airfield to use by the player, and also to the mission builder.
It turns out (as far as I can tell) this 'no-go-zone' is a radius roughly half the length of the runway, centred on the landing point in play for the mission, as illustrated by my position in the following two frames:
Here, the layout is shut down.
If I park a little further back from the landing point, the layout is open again as shown by the AI Hurricane landing on the main runway.
After a fair bit of testing different layouts, it turns out the solution appears to be quite elegant and simple. In this frame, the problem has been solved, and I can park arbitrarily close to the landing point without shutting it down. UPDATE: Oh dear! It now looks like this was a false result. It appears that the problem was actually being solved by allowing the auto pilot to fly most of the mission (on fast forward) up to and including the last leg prior to manually landing. If I fly the whole mission manually - the problem returns! This is too random a problem to let it hold me up from accomplishing my goal - to create some nice airfields and missions then go fly - so I'm shelving this issue and returning to my original layout. My rule of thumb for mission builders and pilots is simply to park at the opposite end of the airfield from the landing point.
The solution is to close the two 'open' taxi pathways into a single loop with the runway points (similar in this regard to the stock layouts). This test version has a single twelve-spot parking area on the taxi 'loop'. The AI fills in the parking spots in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, depending on the landing point selected. This is preferable in my opinion to even the stock airfields; stock airfields link parking areas with multiple runway points and taxi pathways, which causes the AI to select parking spots in a much less predictable order. In all other regards this layout appears to be as 'AI friendly' as the Tangmere layout at the top of this post. We have some interesting possibilites as far as parking areas are concerned. We can design two or three parking areas at different locations aroung the loop, and the mission builder can anticipate which parking spots the AI will use, depending on how many aircraft are in the mission, and design 'parking dioramas' and landing objectives accordingly - when the mission plays the AI will be landing, taxi-ing and parking in proximity to the player, helping to bring the mission to life. With three six-spot areas around the loop (for example) the airfield can recover extra fighters over and above the twelve the runway is designed to launch.
More testing to followKB
Author
Topic: RAF Kenley, Hornchurch, Manston & Biggin Hill 1940s update - Channel Beta (Read 18544 times)
