Improved AI Directional Control for Carrier Takeoffs

[JacksonsGhost]

I know this issue has been raised before for previous versions, but it seems we still need improvement to AI directional control for carrier takeoffs.

I just did 10 test takeoffs using a rookie pilot in an F4F-4 as the number 1 aircraft in a flight taking off from USS Essex. Two of the 10 takeoffs resulted in this aircraft steering off the starboard side of the deck and losing its wheels on the ships antenna rigging. I've observed this over and over again at about the same 1 in 5 frequency regardless of the position of the aircraft's number 1 waypoint. I think it's a fair expectation that any combat pilot, even one fresh out of carrier pilot training, will have a much higher chance of a damage-free takeoff than 4 out of 5.

[Music]

What was the weather like, I have found anything more, (worse) than good makes them wipe out, no matter what the wind direction, (looked at that as a cause, did not seem to make a difference, no problems when Clear or Good, but lots of accidents when Hazy and worse).

[JacksonsGhost]

Thanks Music. You may be right in saying that it's related to weather. My test mission was one that I've put together for an upcoming historical mission in the Atlantic. Cloud Type is Blind because, at best, that's what the historical cloud type was. In fact, to be more correct, there should be rain squalls in parts.

Now personally, I still think it's a bit exaggerated to have Rookie combat pilots sliding sideways off the deck in 1 in 5 takeoffs, even in full overcast conditions. Directional control on takeoff is way more basic than landing after all, and I think overcast conditions would have been routine for a combat pilot in Atlantic carrier ops at least.

But if TD have thought about this and have decided that's the way they want things to be, or if it's simply too difficult to change it, then I'm fine with that. I'm just posting in case they haven't considered the situation and it's an easy fix.

Just to give the full picture to anyone who's interested, here's a bare bones version of the test mission file I used, showing only what's relevant to the takeoff situation.

[MAIN]
MAP CoralSea/load.ini
TIME 14.716667
CloudType 4
CloudHeight 600.0
player USN_VF_4A01
army 1
playerNum 1
[Wing]
USN_VF_4A00
USN_VF_4A01
[USN_VF_4A00]
Planes 2
Skill0 0
Skill1 1
Class air.F4F4
Fuel 100
weapons default
[USN_VF_4A00_Way]
TAKEOFF -238523.72 -742437.03 0 0 0_Chief 0 &0
NORMFLY -241352.15 -739608.60 300.00 350.00 &0
[USN_VF_4A01]
Planes 2
Skill0 1
Skill1 2
Class air.F4F4
Fuel 100
weapons default
[USN_VF_4A01_Way]
TAKEOFF -238523.72 -742437.03 0 0 0_Chief 0 &0
NORMFLY -241152.15 -739408.60 350.00 350.00 &0
[Chiefs]
0_Chief Ships.USSEssexCV9 1 0 0 1.0
[0_Chief_Road]
-238631.31 -742360.06 120.00 0 2 13.88888888888889
-240809.88 -740815.69 120.00

[Music]

Yeah, Cloud Type 2 is all they can handle in my experience. (I also do not use 100% fuel, I see you did, just had a passing thought maybe the planes are not heavy enough, that's not it).

Carrier footage shows them routinely taking off in gales, even the Doolittle raid was launched in a storm, Cloud Type 3 at least with Cloud Type 4 on the horizon.

The planes would clear the deck most times if the could fly through the superstructure, & that crane or netting just aft, (!!listen to me, like a old salt, arrr), is usually what the get caught on.
I wonder if their tail wheels lock? They seem to arch towards it, like they are trying to fly the other way, but the torque has them locked.
Maybe have them at rookie level for take off, like that Un_Realistic Takeoff and Landings function. The plane will not turn while on the ground, you have no rudder at all. Then back to full sim at first waypoint.

Cheers!

[KG26_Alpha]

Adjust the weather to suit in the mission then set the carrier course to head into it or vice versa.

Wind direction 180' (South)
Carrier heading 360' (North)

You will have to experiment with the speed and other settings to get the flavour you require :).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v119/alpha1/miscond_zpskv9yiwd4.png (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/alpha1/media/miscond_zpskv9yiwd4.png.html)

[Marabekm]

Adjust the weather to suit in the mission then set the carrier course to head into it or vice versa.

Wind direction 180' (South)
Carrier heading 360' (North)

You will have to experiment with the speed and other settings to get the flavour you require :).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v119/alpha1/miscond_zpskv9yiwd4.png (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/alpha1/media/miscond_zpskv9yiwd4.png.html)

Your wind direction is wrong Alpha ;)
Wind with a direction of 180 means its blowing from south to north. Its always where the wind is coming from. So a direction of 180 degrees means if you release a balloon, it will float north. Easy trick to remember. If its confusing, just always make your carriers heading, and the wind direction the same!

Therefore to fly into the wind, your carrier needs to be heading 180. The wind will blow over the deck, simulating more forward speed for the aircraft. Also, make sure you carrier is going fast. Remember in mission builder, speed is in km/hr. Ship speed is in knots. you want to be going around 25 - 30 knots. This is around 40 - 50 km/hr.

[stovak]

Heading into the wind doesn't help and it makes no difference if you have rookies or vets either. It's entirely due to the weather.

With CloudType 3 and up, the ships roll a lot and the planes will lurch in whatever the direction the ship is leaning. On the USS Essex at least, that means some planes will hit the rigging and lose their wheels, or run into the superstructure.

Maybe TD could reduce the amount the ships roll in bad weather?

[JacksonsGhost]

Thanks for your thoughts guys,

Takeoff into wind does make a difference to the results, as would speeding up the ships, though maybe more because the takeoff distance can be shortened and aircraft can be in the air before reaching the obstacles, rather than actually improving directional control. However, they’re still just work around solutions to an issue that maybe shouldn’t exist at all. And those work arounds can each have their own negative effects on a mission design.

For sure, taking off into wind and increasing ship speed will increase airflow over the wing and improve take off distance and (to a lesser extent) directional response, but should a low headwind situation on an overcast day cause loss of directional control to the point of steering off the deck on 1 in 5 occasions in the first place? Probably not. So maybe the modelling of ship roll effect is excessive as stovak says, or maybe pilot response to it is insufficient as I suggested. In any case I’m happy to leave it to TD to judge if any change is appropriate and worth the effort.

Oh ... and apologies to anyone who tried loading my test mission file into the FMB. I didn’t cut the Chief Road in the right place in the shortened version so it wouldn’t load up properly. I’ve edited my previous post now to fix that.

[stovak]

Takeoff into wind does make a difference to the results, as would speeding up the ships, though maybe more because the takeoff distance can be shortened and aircraft can be in the air before reaching the obstacles, rather than actually improving directional control.

Yes, sorry, re-reading my post I wasn't clear about that at all. I meant regarding the aircraft slewing about the deck. Going full-speed into a 5kt wind will certainly let them get airborne sooner so they won't hit the rigging at the end, but you'll still get the odd one veering into the superstructure for no good reason and exploding.

I basically copied your mission but gave it a full deck of 14 F4s. Whether I set the wind to head- tail- or sideways, my number 9 usually manages to steer into the superstructure. Occasionally number 7 joins in too.

[KG26_Alpha]

Your wind direction is wrong Alpha ;)
Wind with a direction of 180 means its blowing from south to north. Its always where the wind is coming from. So a direction of 180 degrees means if you release a balloon, it will float north. Easy trick to remember. If its confusing, just always make your carriers heading, and the wind direction the same!

Therefore to fly into the wind, your carrier needs to be heading 180. The wind will blow over the deck, simulating more forward speed for the aircraft. Also, make sure you carrier is going fast. Remember in mission builder, speed is in km/hr. Ship speed is in knots. you want to be going around 25 - 30 knots. This is around 40 - 50 km/hr.

Yep my bad, been a while since i was in the FMB messing with weather.
It was more a heads up where to adjust the settings, and as all ways experiment experiment experiment :)

I removed all weather due to its unrealistic nature being globally applied to the maps (no Local weather) now my missions have fast carrier speed to assist aircraft load outs and no deck rolling around or locked out cloud base across the whole map.

Not realistic at all.

[JacksonsGhost]

I removed all weather due to its unrealistic nature being globally applied to the maps (no Local weather) now my missions have fast carrier speed to assist aircraft load outs and no deck rolling around or locked out cloud base across the whole map.

Not realistic at all.

Add Local weather objects to the wish list ;)

I'll +1 that!

[JacksonsGhost]

A follow up on this one ...

For the specific mission I was working on I was able to use the headwind work-around at 5 m/s and redid the Task Force waypoints so that they were turning into the wind for aircraft takeoff and retrieval. So after repositioning about 130 waypoints and readjusting mission timings this solved the problem in this case and makes the mission more realistic also, but I'd still like to see improved directional control in itself.

So thanks to those who offered work-around suggestions. It has allowed me to produce a better behaving mission as a result. And some of you may have noticed this historical mission, titled "Wildcat Ace over the Norwegian Sea" is now uploaded to mission4today as below:

http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=5464

[wheelsup_cavu]

Thanks for the upload JacksonsGhost. 8)


Wheels

[JacksonsGhost]

I’m bumping this old thread up for consideration again due to issues with my latest upcoming historical mission design which show that the AI directional control problem is still unresolved in the 4.14.1 patch. ;) I do hope that the team is considering fixing this issue as it is a major problem for those wanting to produce carrier missions using historically poor weather.

My design requires 8 Hellcats to takeoff from an Essex class carrier in overcast (Cloud Type 4) to work historically. The work-around of having the second flight as an air-start doesn’t fit this situation, and doesn't fully stop the crashes anyway. Unfortunately the Hellcat is even more prone to crashing than the Wildcat. Those taking off from the port side just lock on starboard rudder without allowing for deck roll and very frequently and explosively crash into the gun turrets or island structure!

Despite discussion on Mission4Today (see link below), and much experimentation, I am unable to achieve the above scenario without frequent AI crashes on takeoff (sometimes 3 out of 8!), even when a realistic headwind is added. We know that the cause is the deck roll that the game automatically introduces with the poorer cloud conditions. But carrier operations were often in poor weather. In fact they generally relied on cloud cover to screen their location from the enemy, so it is extremely frustrating not to be able to produce workable carrier missions with even just an overcast sky.

This is even worse than the situation I noted in this thread a couple of years ago in regard to the Wildcat. It is especially bad when you consider that a sufficiently bad crash on takeoff can cause damage to the carrier and cause it to lose speed and formation and collide with its escorting fleet! :o

If Daidalos can’t fix the directional control issue when there is deck roll, can you please give the mission builder the option to choose the amount of deck roll separately to the cloud cover? :)

https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=ForumsPro&file=viewtopic&t=25003