SERIOUS problems with Ju-88 FM!!!!!

[mandrill7]

I'm desiging a mission wherein 2 flights of Ju-88's attack an Allied convoy. The attack is set for 700 meters for one flight and 800 meters for the other. Regardless, both flights go into low level attack mode and............

........ 2 of the a/c in each flight crash into the waves. So much for the brilliant attack! WTF! It happens each time I try this.

Can this get fixed??! Or what?!

[Monson74]

I've noticed strange things with the 88s too - they crash a lot in the QMB as well.

[JG52Karaya-X]

I guess that hardly has anything to do with FMs - seems to be an AI problem

[HotelBushranger]

http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/agreepost.gif FM has nothing to do with it, you should try changing the way you've structured your mission http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/25.gif

[mandrill7]

Originally posted by HotelBushranger:
http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/agreepost.gif FM has nothing to do with it, you should try changing the way you've structured your mission http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/25.gif

Well, I did. I raised the height of the attack by a couple of 100 meters. AI still did exactly the same thing at exactly the ssame height as before. I could go back and break up the flights and make all a/c fly as individuals and I'll probably do that as an expedient. But it's no real solution to a game design problem, is it?

[Tooz_69GIAP]

What is the loadout? If you have stacked those behemoth 2,000 kilo bombs onto the thing, then you need to have their attack waypoint up around 2,000m at least, otherwise they wont pull out!

[JG53Frankyboy]

if you will post the content of the missionfile (no properties needed) , some of us could have a look at it..

[A.K.Davis]

Originally posted by mandrill7:
I'm desiging a mission wherein 2 flights of Ju-88's attack an Allied convoy. The attack is set for 700 meters for one flight and 800 meters for the other.

Why are you using this attack height? Ju-88 is a divebomber and AI generally wishes to use it as such unless tasked with an area target. What behavior are expected from the AI during a low-level approach? The sim does not treat them as strafers like the B-25 and A-20.

Try 2000 meters at least.

[Chuck_Older]

Try mission builder's forum http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

As has been noted, this is not a flight model issue, it's an AI issue

There might be a work-around, ask the mission building experts

[Saunders1953]

Chuck's right, it's an AI problem since about 4.01 or 4.02, I forget which--it happens with most if not all bombers and fighter-bombers at low level. I gave up and now just set all my low level bombing missions with one plane per flight--a pain to be sure, but it's easier to do if you use Shift_E's Quick Mission Tuner (which has some quirks of its own, but that's another matter). This also has the disadvantage for all you control freaks http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif that want to command the whole squadron--you will only be able to command one "flight" of 4.

[PBNA-Boosher]

I'm also seeing weird Ju-88 AI behavior. The AI seems not to be able to climb with 88's. They dive and do random turns just getting up to 4500 meters. If anyone wants to help me troubleshoot the mission I would be grateful.

[LGC_frepi]

Have you tried to change the experience level of the ai to ace?

[mandrill7]

I haven't used Ju-88's before and thought to use them as level bombers at 700-800 meters. The targets are individual ships. I didn't notice any attempt to dive. In fact, Ju#1 of each flight did a nice masthead bomb run and creamed their respective ships. The rest of the flight mainly just sort of bellied into the sea.

At the alt. level I set, I do not think any attempt to dive would be programmed into the game. The AI just seems unable to judge altitude and keep out of the sea.

I'll check load out and post the bombload on the thread.

[LGC_frepi]

I noticed the same kind of behavior with A20 dropping parafrags. The first one flew at 100 m (the waypoint altitude setting) but the following ones tried to gain altitude very steeply when they reach the attack ground waypoint. I thought that it was because my leader was set to "veteran" and the others were either greens or average. I'll test a few things...

[mandrill7]

I checked out the bombload I set: 4 x 500 kg AB on one flight and 4 x 500 kg SC on the other.

Not an expert on LW bombers, but that would seem a moderate bombload for a 2-engine. I stand to be corrected, though.

Played through again. Much the same result.

[Chuck_Older]

Try eliminating the 'target' for the Gattack point. A few patches ago, this was announced as un-necessary for level bombing.

[mandrill7]

Originally posted by Chuck_Older:
Try eliminating the 'target' for the Gattack point. A few patches ago, this was announced as un-necessary for level bombing.

Doesn't doing this produce an "area saturation" effort, as opposed to a pinpoint attack on something like a ship??

[-HH- Beebop]

I discovered the same problem as Saunders had when I made "The Walls of Jericho". I wanted the Mossies to come in at tree-top level (30-50 meters) but only the leader would. Everyone else climbed to around 150 meters. I had to give up the idea of being able to command a group and made individual flights of one. When I tried Shift_E's QMT though, it doesn't yet recognize the new a/c, and all of mine (except for the German resistance) are, so I had to do it the old fashioned way, manually.

AI is sure bizarre lately. Missions are taking longer to make as you need to spend much more time tweaking the AI.

[Chuck_Older]

Originally posted by mandrill7:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Chuck_Older:
Try eliminating the 'target' for the Gattack point. A few patches ago, this was announced as un-necessary for level bombing.

Doesn't doing this produce an "area saturation" effort, as opposed to a pinpoint attack on something like a ship?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gifWhy don't you try it out?

[VVNZ]

The mozzie you can stop from doing wierd stuff down low by speeding it up to about 400 and splitting up the flights into single aircraft helps but speeding them up will make a big difference I found.

As for the 88 you could try raising them up to 1500 or so, they might try to dive bomb from there, not sure how to force level bombing perhaps around 1000m would be the trick, even a stuka will level bomb from there.

[LGC_frepi]

Could this behavior be required to avoid the following bombers to be dammaged by the explosions of the bombs dropped by the leading bomber? Seems logical. However, if this is the case, it should not happen at high altitude.

[mandrill7]

No. They belly into the H2O well before the first bombs go off.

[VW-IceFire]

This isn't a FM issue...I can fly the plane just fine. Its the AI thats a little whacked...and to be quite honest you just need to figure out *how they are wacked* and then you can make them do all sorts of really cool things.

JU-88's behave as dive bombers. I haven't tried them in low level stuff and I'm still having trouble finding their sweet spot with different weapons but I'm getting there. Dive bombing usually seems to work from about 2000m and up.

[LGC_frepi]

I have a question: have the JU88 been flying for a long time before reaching the attack ground waypoint?
I made a few short tests with 2 A20 and the leader was alway higher than the wingman. But since the waypoints were fairly close to each other ( these were "short tests"), I assumed that this was just a temporary behavior.