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[CWMV]

Hi all. Im reworking the palm sunday massacre and need to get the damn 109's to escort the 52's.
How are you FMB guru's doing it?

[Fusek]

At the waypoint tab, use 'set' to link the escort fighters to the flight of bombers. You may have to do this for every waypoint the bombers have so they will stay overhead.

[vpmedia]

to have the fighters escort your bombers you need to select the 2nd waypoint of the fighters and with the set button you need to link them to the bombers first waypoint, if you do this with the 1st waypoint of the fighters it wont work

[CWMV]

Im still getting nothing. Ive done as above and all that happens is the escorts will stop and circle at the waypoint that they are linked to. Then if I give them another waypoint they just continue as normal.
Is there a way to make them stick to the transports?

[SAS~Riken]

Is there a way to get them to zig zag or fly at pace rather than fly in circles around the bomber formations? Fighters usually burn alot of fuel and fall behind the bombers when they are attacked. I was just wondering that part.

[CWMV]

Actually I was a bit off.
Fighters are escorting as long as all waypoints are set to an escort aircraft. Problem is that after about 200km the escorts bug out. I dint think its a fuel issue as I tried it with BF109+drop tanks and BF 110's.

[CWMV]

Here's a random thought I'll chuck out there FWIW.  The outbound leg is 200 km plus right?  What is the average distance between the waypoints?  For example the entire leg could be 2 waypoints 200 kms apart, or it could be five waypoints at 50km intervals.

Would adding more waypoints help?  Maybe the 'next' waypoint is to too far away for the AI to figure (with 'Escort' set at least)?

Just a guess...

And one more daft idea for luck!   Let's say something in the code precludes the 'escort' waypoints working after 200 kms, but the AI has plenty of fuel remaining.  Could you re-design the mission so the fighters join up with the bombers at a later point, fly close-escort on the bomber stream for say 150 kms then break off to navigate under their own steam for the remainder of the mission - you could think of them as escorting for a while, before steaming off ahead on a sweep to clear the skies of the enemy?

Holy crap dude get out of my head!
I did just that. With the transports it was good enough to just add a spawn and then end point. With the escorts I had to make their spawn point (0) then set their Wpt #1 to the transports wpt #0. Then set the fighters last wpt to the transports last.
With that setup the fighters would leave their transports about half way through the escort and continue to their last wpt.
I added another wpt half way between the fighters first and last, for a total of three. Now the fighters leave the transports a little more than 3/4th of the way to the end.
Added another wpt and adjusted the previous one so that the fighters have 4 evenly spaced waypoints along the flight path, with only the first and last set to the transports. Went all 300+ km from Tunis to Sicily.
Seems they just needed some more direction...

I was really jazzed and came here to post it and then found theat hey...you came to the same conclusion!
By the way that cent med mod map is REALLY big!

[CWMV]

Now the next question's:
Is there a way to change the AI aircraft formation in FMB?

Can you adjust the altitude the escort aircraft perform escort at?

[CWMV]

So the mission I'm working on now has a large amount of planes: 60+ju52, 20 109's, 48 P-40's and 12 Spitfires.

Now, all that placing them 4 at a time is becoming...tiresome.
Is there a way to place units of larger than 4 aircraft? The only way I know how to do it is to place 4 and then have its accompanying aircraft escort it.

[CWMV]

Bump...?
So is there a way to place units of aircraft larger than 4 at a time?
I know you can in CoD, but I figured that was just an evolution of the FMB from IL2.

[Stratodog]

Simple answer, No.
And you're right, it does become "tiresome" placing many 4 aircraft formations on one mission.
One thing I've found to make more efficient use of your time is to place many of the same type of aircraft that will be flying together at one sitting.  For instance: say you want to have dozens of Ju52s all flying the same route together.  Place one, 4 plane formation of them and place the entire route.  The FMB will 'remember' the last altitude and airspeed entries you typed and will repeat them for every new waypoint you place for any aircraft.  So, the next task is to to back to the first waypoint of the Ju52 formation you just set and place all of the other 4 plane formations with only their first two waypoints.  The first waypoint will place them in their relative position to the other Ju52 formation and the second waypoint is just a place holder so you have something to grab and stretch to the next turn point.  Then when you have them all set up, drag all of those second waypoints to the second waypoint of the initial Ju52 formation, clicking the map and creating a third waypoint each time, that you can use to repeat the process etc..  Hope that makes sense. 

[rhinofilms]

I am able to get the fighters to escort (zig zag and loop and generally stay with the bombers), but once enemy arrive, they engage and don't return or they engage so long that they fall way behind and the bombers are left naked.

The AI logic is probably not sophisticated enough to force the escorts to disengage and return to the bomber formation once they are a certain distance away from the bombers, but I thought I would ask if anyone has solved this.  The objective is to have the escorts engage but not stray too far away from the bomber group.

Really fun watching the first wave of enemy and jumping from station to station within the bomber to fend off any attacks,  I just wish I could get it to happen the whole mission, not just for the first way of attackers.

Help anyone?