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[OzyMandias]

Hello Friends

Recently started experimenting with missions using taxi to takeoff waypoint for both player and AI planes and I see some strange behaviours form the AI aircraft:

1. When player aircraft is the flight leader, the AI aircraft do not follow the flight leader out to the runway after engine start. They stand on the apron and do not taxi and takeoff after the player/flight leader aircraft has taken off. This is the same whether the autopilot is turned on or if player manual taxis and takes off.

2. Coming into land, AI aircraft do not follow the leader into the landing pattern set in the the landing waypoint - they just fly around and then either crash or despawn.

Don't know what I'm doing wrong in the FMB - is AI taxiing behavior changed by the number of taxi waypoints, or is there any reason for this behavior? Same for landing - don't why why they don't follow the leader around the landing pattern. Never saw this happening in older versions of the game.

I should say that I am running the latest BAT v. 4.1.2 of the game with update.

Any advice, and comments would be welcome.

Ozy

[tomoose]

Not sure if I understand your problem completely but are you giving your AI the "Start Engines" command? 
Also check your waypoint spacing and the location of your last waypoint for taxiing and where it is located on the runway.  You should have one for turning onto the runway then yet another a little further along the runway then the next one IIRC should be your first 'fly' waypoint which will be well away from the runway and at an altitude.

There's probably a post on the correct method somewhere in the Forum.

AI landing as far as I know has always been problematic.  If you are the leader you can send the command 'Return to Base' and they will land but at their own sweet time.  Do not expect them to follow you perfectly in the landing pattern that'll almost never happen.  This is particularly true if you have missed any of the returning waypoints near the base as the AI gets a bit confused when that happens.  Your best bet (unless one of the experts here corrects me) is to simply give the 'Return to Base' command and concentrate on your own landing.  The AI will do their own landing approach etc.

[bomberkiller]

...or press the "A" button (autopilot on/off) before takeoff.

Your comrades then start their own engines and roll on.

You can roll to the starting point with the automatic, but you can also press the "A" button again when your comrades' engines are running and roll to the starting point independently.


Landing:

Set a last waypoint just before the "Landing" waypoint. Before reaching this final waypoint, you should give the command to land.

Your comrades will then fly back to the penultimate waypoint and will then turn around and prepare to land.

On some maps (with smaller airfields), unfortunately, the disappearance of landed machines cannot be prevented (no idea why that is).

If you set up missions yourself, make sure that you don't have parked planes or vehicles on all spawn points!

Leave enough room for your comrades to park their planes. If you then save the mission, click away the displayed airplanes of the "spawn points".

Good luck and best regards

 

Gerhard

[Spider16]

I've been having the same kind of problems reported by OzyMandias for a long time, but I've never commented before.

Cheers

Carlos

[bomberkiller]

And what is that supposed to tell us now?

[genXgamer]

G'day Ozy

I use taxi to takeoff in all my missions.
Most of the time on complicated taxiways such as those found on the Green Hell 43 map.
I currently have B.A.T. 4.2.1 but also used VP Modpack in the past without issue.

Can you post a screenshot of the taxi points in the FMB and/or provide me with a sample mission where the problem occurs.

[OzyMandias]

Thank you friends for your helpful replies

If you set up missions yourself, make sure that you don't have parked planes or vehicles on all spawn points!

This was the problem causing the strange behavior FYI I was using the North Sea Map, and the Honington Airfield on this map. I set my fight to taxi from the main parking apron on this airfield, but when I switch on the spawn points display on this map I see that there are no less than sixteen aircraft spawn points on the apron and taxi points leading of the apron My aircraft were on these spawn points so I think the AI get confused by being on the map spawn points - they wouldn't move.

I moved my flight away from the map spawn points to a dispersal on the perimeter, set new taxi waypoints and now the AI planes taxi out, follow the leader to the runway and takeoff no problem!

So the rule is: don't set your aircraft to spawn on or near map spawn points. Also seems to be better to set taxi to takeoff waypoints away from map taxiways.

Landing:

Set a last waypoint just before the "Landing" waypoint. Before reaching this final waypoint, you should give the command to land.

Your comrades will then fly back to the penultimate waypoint and will then turn around and prepare to land.

Yes, this works fine on Autopilot - still have to test when flying approach and landing on Manual.

Anyway, mision works the way I want it now - thank you my friends!

One last question: Is it possible to edit/remove aircraft spawn points and taxiways on maps?

Ozy

[Dimlee]

I didn't use FMB (and Il-2 in general) since early 2020 so I could forget something.
My problems with AI behaviour during the take-off were usually caused by:
- spacing between a/c
- number of waypoints
- ground objects located nearby. Vehicles caused the most trouble.
Saying that I found some fields more difficult for AI take-off than others. Maybe spawn points caused troubles there but I didn't understand that.

[vonofterdingen]

Someone here will be able to get this sorted, but you will have to post the mission in question. Taxi-to-takeoff is fiddly. Without seeing the actual mission there is little we can do.

[OzyMandias]

My problems with AI behaviour during the take-off were usually caused by:
- spacing between a/c
- number of waypoints
- ground objects located nearby. Vehicles caused the most trouble.
Saying that I found some fields more difficult for AI take-off than others. Maybe spawn points caused troubles there but I didn't understand that.

This doesn't seem to be problem for me. As long as the aircraft spawn points are not too near any ground objects and movement of AI a/c from spawn point to first taxi waypoint does not conflict with any ground object or vehicles there should not be a problem.

For anyone who wants to look, here are mission files:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/3rhaf5c9g76p3/Mossie+Mission

Ozy

[vonofterdingen]

I just took a quick look at this; just one flight so far and run entirely through AI.

First let me say that it is a fun mission. Good use of the C&C objects too. But I could not reproduce any of the issues you cite. The four Mosquitos took off as expected. We lost two of the flight over the target, but the remaining two returned to base and landed normally.

Are the problems you see intermittent or constant? Looking at your mission in the FMB, I could see no problems there either. So, in my brief testing so far, everything looks good and plays correctly. Sometime later today I will fly the mission myself and see if that makes a difference.

[OzyMandias]

First let me say that it is a fun mission. Good use of the C&C objects too. But I could not reproduce any of the issues you cite. The four Mosquitos took off as expected. We lost two of the flight over the target, but the remaining two returned to base and landed normally.

So sorry - I should have been clearer with my last post: the mission I uploaded is the fixed version, so no problems with the AI taxiing and taking off normally

If you look at the mission in FMB, you will see that spawn points and taxi waypoints for the leader and AI flight are placed well away from the map spawn points which are all on the big parking apron.

Anyway, glad you like the mission - I made it because I wanted to practice low level bombing and I love flying the Mossie. 

Ozy