Wingman going bingofuel
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if you are flying at 100% rpm, you wingman will had hard time staying your wing… fly at 98% you will see in long misions that AI manage fuel better than you, if you fly smoothly ofcourse.
2-ship sure, but in 4-ship, 3 and 4 keep ending up with the lowest fuel by end of flight. I usually fly 95-98%
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Frankly, what annoys me is that your flight doesn’t automatically break off and fly home if their fuel is low.
LOL… that is a feature…
indeed when i coded AI wingmen flying back home by themselves when needed, people complained about it because they wanted to be able to control AI wingmen for AAR.
So i chose that if leader is human then AI wingmen will call bingo but this is the duty of the leader to send them home or not…
if leader is AI, everything is automatic and they will come back homebase safely
so learn to manage your wingmen and autorize them to go back home when they call it. dont do that and you will just be a bad leader
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Except on missions where the tanker is farther than your airbase, but even when I am on top of it, keeping track of his fuel state, if we run into fighters and end up dogfighting/intercepting on the way home, you tend not to ask for fuel state until after its over, by that time, you find out that your wingman isn’t particularly conservative with their fuel, going from 5000 to 2000 lbs cause it went full afterburner the entire fight, while you managed to keep 3500lbs by the end yourself.
Worst part is whenever they do have enough fuel to get home, but get stuck in traffic, refuse to declare an emergency for whatever reason and crash on final.
I’m not saying the game is bad because this happens a bit too often, but it’s annoying when it does happen, a situation most human players would safely resolve with relative ease.
Perfect example yesterday was when my 4-ship sweep took out 10 planes, I check fuel and 4 has about 2500 left in tank when we reach our airfield, but during landing a second flight comes in to land and pushes 3 and 4’s landing back to allow this incoming flight to land first. (They were separated from my flight because they ended up clearing our six from mig-29 during our run on a pair of IL-28s. I didn’t want them to afterburner to catch up so I told the element to return to base on their own.) 4 doesn’t declare emergency, runs out of fuel, crashes in final approach and I get a partial mission failure because 4 crashed despite an otherwise kickass mission with 10 collective kills.
landing queue management has been greatly improved for next version
on the other hand next version will feature real airbase limitations so you will have to check carefully weather and divert airfields
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I see wingman will break formation when bingo and then state “heading to alternate field” especially during Barcaps when he will fly figure 8’s around me on afterburner. He ain’t that smart I guess. Now in 4.33u1 default is loading wingtanks thankfully!
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I know, but even when you do, it’s sometimes already too late and they end up running out of fuel on the return.
It was the case before. And ppl asked to have the full authority on their wingmen. So now, when he reach the joker and or bingo status, he told you, up to you the leader to manage a safe return for both a/c or give him the oder to go home.
Edit: as said by JP …
In any case, it is your job as fligh leader to manage this and anticipate anything that might happens. It is exactly the same IRL.
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I’m curious how others monitor the AI wingie fuel states? I generally call for fuel at Feet Dry, the waypoint before the IP(to get a feel or how much loiter time we have), and Feet Wet.
I will admit this is a bit of the Falcon Magic I’ve never really figured out. Generally, you’d think the wingmen would have less then you(they have to hold formation,right?) That’s not always the case.
Obviously, there are a LOT of variables to this. -
There’s bingo and there’s emergency fuel. AI should still leave on their own at the absolute minimum fuel but stay after bingo until then.
The AI before they reach bingo when they calculate flying to whole rest of the route (including alternate) for fuel needs. For human players approaching tanker in a few minutes within gliding range of friendly airbase but with a long flight ahead it was annoying to have wingman abort due to fuel. Now he will give you a verbal warning but will still fly formation until really in trouble.
Formation size and shape matters much too. Turning a large formation without thinking can make some members really sweat JP-8 to keep formation. Tight formations keep these geometry problems under control. Rejoins you want 300-350 level! to give lots of overtake potential. When everyone is holdings hands is the time to climb or speed up.
Wingman commonly lands with more gas than I do. If you fly a gentle mission you find AI takes less fuel per hour than you both do the same flight.
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There’s bingo and there’s emergency fuel.
BMS bingo and minimum fuel are the same. AI do not consider the divert fuel (alternate field)
Wingman commonly lands with more gas than I do. If you fly a gentle mission you find AI takes less fuel per hour than you both do the same flight
Maybe not true in 4.33 anymore, we had a bug in 4.32 and IA didn’t had the same FF than a human player for the same RPM, same load, same speed. This has been fixed. So what you say here is maybe not more true in 4.33 (?)
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Another important fuel flight fuel conservation protocol is to fly slow (270 knot) S-curves immediately after take-off until your flight is formed up. Saves your wingies alot of fuel. I usually fly 90D to the flight path at 4-5D climb rate until full flight is airborne, then 180 back towards flight path.
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After your wingman reported “Bingo” or “Joker”, wait for “running on fumes” then give him the order for RTB and he’ll head straight to an alternate plate nearby. It mostly works and your wingman will land safely. Especially during 4 ship sweeps, this procedure saved me a lot of missions.
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@VpR:
After your wingman reported “Bingo” or “Joker”, wait for “running on fumes” then give him the order for RTB and he’ll head straight to an alternate plate nearby. It mostly works and your wingman will land safely. Especially during 4 ship sweeps, this procedure saved me a lot of missions.
Bad advice I do not recommend doing this.
If IA can reach a divert field is pure luck and there might be no divert field available close enough since “running on fumes” state is not a distance computed value. Decision to give the RTB order to your IA wingman or to lead him to homeplate is to be taken at the IA Bingo call or at human computed bingo state. Otherwise, safe return is seriously jeopardised. -
I’m guessing that the next permutation of the discussion would head towards the suggestion that maybe AI should head/land at the nearest airfield, even if it’s not the main or the alternative airfield. I mean, in RL, that’s what a pilot would do right? Not enough fuel for either main or alternative, might as well land at the closest friendly airfield.
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in RL, that’s what a pilot would do right?
Nope. Not necessarily. He will land on the fields suitable for a proper recovery and depends on many factors. Basically, unless in case of a serious trouble requiring an emergency landing, a pilot will expect to land on fields that he has planned to land on and has studied weather forecast, runway means availability, … etc … before departure. The closest runway might be his divert field, but it will be planned at mission preparation, not improvised in flight. In BMS, you are free to change the recovery field. Read again my blog about Fuel management.
A pilot will not wait until no more option , at computed bingo, he will abort and will not wait to reach the fumes.
Again, as flight lead, fuel management of your wingmen is YOUR job.
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I didn’t realize you could change alternative landing field.
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I use VAC (Voice Activated Command) though any voice program should work, to control my AI wingmen. I simply add the “Say Fuel” Command onto the other commands, i.e. "Attack my Target, Say Fuel “, “Fence In, Say Fuel/out, Say Fuel” etc… I also added a command “Sitrep” where I ask for " Status, Damage, Position, Fuel state” all in one command.
Keeps me in the loop. -
I didn’t realize you could change alternative landing field.
Alternate field won’t change anything. As explained, IA do NOT take the divert field in account for fuel calculation for now (unless I’ve missed a “recent” code change). Cf again my blog page about fuel management.
What you can do to MAYBE increase (or lets say lowering) the bingo is to replace your recovery filed closer to the FLOT.