I think my wingman is a conscientious objector
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So I’m doing a DEAD mission from the carrier in a F18F, loadout is 6 AGM-88s (is that even a real world loadout?) Anyway…fly the mission, give wingman weapons free and then go about my business of killing SAM sites.
On egress I look over an notice he has not released a single weapon. I’m thinking that weird, because in this particular mission there are plenty of search radars / AAA around Seoul as it’s the second mission in the campaign.
I land, and discard the mission to test out giving him other weapons like JSOWs, GBUs, etc thinking it was the agm-88s he didn’t like. Did the same mission 3 times and at no time did he release a single weapon.
So is this a known issue? (I did a search but no results) or is there something I’m not doing? I haven’t had this issue with wingmen in the av8b or viper
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AI really suck at using HARMs with self motivation. WF before he has a ground target in mind means he is WF in the AA context, so you did nothing related to his AG mindset by giving him WF unless it is in response to an AG hounddog. So understanding that there is AG-WF and AA-WF we ask him to DL ground target. If he says unable then no amount of permission is going to help. There’s nobody on the ground in his mind he wants to kill. You just told him “shoot at any MiGs you want.”
AI want to kill the mission target not just anything communist. If you make a “bomb the factory” TE with no air threats and you’ll notice when the AI switches to the AG mindset and asks. If you command an AI to attack something it will try provided it’s: enemy, weapon compatible. AI have specific delivery parameters for specific weapons so a GBU-12 delivery commanded at 1,000’ will see the AI climb to somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000’ before releasing which probably means too close on the first pass and a go around for a second.
With HARMs I suggest finding the threat on HAS, locking, and then giving the A-M-T command. Check that it was the right one by asking DL-G-T. GBU-32s should just be a matter of arriving at the assigned target at some radius and giving him the go-ahead to drop or a specific A-M-T if you want to micromanage.
EDIT: I tried a bare simple bomb the thing mission with F-18C wingman and GBU-31. He didn’t ask I had to tell him specific A-M-T. An F-16 wingman would have requested.
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EDIT: I tried a bare simple bomb the thing mission with F-18C wingman and GBU-31. He didn’t ask I had to tell him specific A-M-T. An F-16 wingman would have requested.
Yeah, that’s what I’m seeing too, I’ve tried weapons free at different times and it doesn’t seem to make a difference, so micro management it is I guess if flying the 18s. I’ve even waited until he calls hound dog and no go…just keeps going along at my side.
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I have seen this issue as well. AI wingmen are very difficult to deal with. Sometimes, just plainly dumb. I was thinking perhaps some code like “just go WF on anything near you, doesn’t matter whether it’s air or ground”.
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I think your wingman is not smart.
“Alright, lead wants me to fire some HARMIES. Time to arm them.”
“What’s this HAD thing? I didn’t HAD HARMIES, I HAS HARMIES.”
“Oooooh look at all the numbers”
“Okay, where are all my HARMIES, I selected that I HAS HARMIES, and they’re not there.”
“I guess I had HARMIES, so….ooooh more letters and numbers”
“Guess I don’t got them…I’ll go back to when I HAS them and reserve a table at my second favorite restaurant!” -
There are difficulties with AI command and we can complain about them all day. Let’s not talk about that though. What Truedesea is talking about is an extremely simple sortie where what happens changes when the only change is replace F-16 with F-18. Do everything else exactly the same except the aircraft type is different and get a strange result. That’s a specific issue.
I’ll fly that simple sortie again using F-16s instead and confirm normal AI “AG hounddog” behavior with that type that isn’t there with F-18.
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I agree with Frederef because if I lock up a target in HAS and am not being engaged by threats my wingman will launch on my command though sometimes attack targets works and not attack target
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I just flew an av8b mission with no issues with my wingman earning his keep, he dropped 3 for 3 GBUs on a AAA site an surrounding units. So yeah, definitely looks like something specific to the 18s
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Yes and no, my primary concern is with the automatic prompting by flight members as you fly at the assigned ground target. That’s normal behavior I expect with F-16s and F-18s alike. However I am perfectly able to direct F-18 wingman to A-M-T or A-M-Ts and he behaves the same as F-16 wingman. I’d like to address AMT and AMTs (Group) specific commands separately than the prompted and self-directed AI targeting if I may.
Testing more thoroughly I find that both F-16 and F-18 flight members can use the expected hounddog/WF style preplanned AI-decided targeting method for strikes. That’s the good news. The bad news is that sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t with no obvious reason and when it did work it was like 5nm to go and waaay too close for a first pass delivery.
Further testing is needed to see what a 100% AI flight does (human chase plane in separate flight) and if the TGT-hounddog distance can be improved by altering the flight plan. 100% AI flight triggered to the run-in behavior (fast and 20,000.0’ instead of the flight plan alt) far far away, like 15-20nm. So the AI are able to engage a mission strike target at significant range but are not exhibiting a “let me at 'em” reliably and at such ranges.
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Is his callsign Smokey?
This is not 'Nam, there are rules here!
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Well in the particular mission I was flying, there was a second flight of 4 F18 single seats (can remember which variant) providing cover. Was tuned in to their freq, and they were definitely deploying ordinance…how effectively I don’t know.
I’m no Falcon expert, so I’m not privy to all the tools to analyze… maybe tacview can give us a more scientific idea of what is happening in the battlefield at least.