coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (Full Version)

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Major SNAFU_M -> coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (8/15/2017 5:49:50 PM)

Hi all,

Work forced me away for quite some time, but I am back to this sim.

I ran in to a general challenge that I think I know the answer too (that the helos are of different classes), but I wanted to pose the question in case I have forgotten something I once knew.

The general question, which can apply to many scenarios, is this.

I have a collection of ASW capable ships, each with one or more helos. However, not all of the helos spread amongst the ships are of the same make and model (class?).

So when I create an ASW patrol mission with a collection of these helos, even if I fiddle with the number of aircraft per flight, 1/3 rule, and combinations thereof I always fall short of accomplishing my goal which is to have 1 AC aloft and on patrol (excepting launch and RTB) at any one time regardless of the mixture of the helo types.

What always seems to happen is as soon as the ready AC cycle to a point where there is 1 of each type available, they both launch and patrol at the same time.

I know I can set up the mission and assign and un-assign as needed - but I am hoping to avoid the micro on something like this.

Thanks,




SeaQueen -> RE: coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (8/15/2017 6:36:46 PM)

I've had the same problem, and so far haven't found a great solution for it. Generally speaking I've managed it by avoiding assigning different aircraft types to the same mission. Unfortunately, this is sometimes unavoidable (e.g. a scenario where there's a mix of MH-60R and SH-60Fs). Another solution for patrol missions is to have a patrol mission for each aircraft type using the same reference points, then disable all but one of them. When you see the patrol area is gapped, enable the mission for one of the other types. This allows for a little more "hands-off" approach, but it still requires a bit of attention. Depending on the scope of the scenario it might be adequate.

I hope that helps.

quote:

I know I can set up the mission and assign and un-assign as needed - but I am hoping to avoid the micro on something like this.



Major SNAFU_M -> RE: coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (8/15/2017 9:20:55 PM)

Many thanks.



Gunner98 -> RE: coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (8/16/2017 1:27:05 AM)

This can certainly be a problem for this type of mission when there are a bunch of different nations in a group (STANAVFORLANT for instance).

SeaQueen's solution works well and you can even get fancy and time the activation of the missions.

One other trick to run backstop is to put one type on an ASW Strike mission instead of a patrol, this way it will immediately launch on contact with a sub - good for two things in this case 1) reinforce your patrol, or 2) plug a gap if you have miscalculated.

B



FTBSS -> RE: coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (8/16/2017 1:31:19 AM)

You can set up seperate asw patrol missions for each class of asset. Use same reference points but delay asset type B by 2.5 hours and asset type C by 5 hours in when the mission activates and so on this will get you to rotate pretty close to uptime assuming only 1 aircraft per class is assigned to mission. not an elegant solution but it would work pretty well.



Major SNAFU_M -> RE: coordinating dissimilar helos into a single ASW mission (8/16/2017 2:35:55 PM)

Thanks for the ideas to try.

I tried the three separate missions, with delayed times. That sort of worked, except that the helos did not launch at the correct times because they were not in a ready status. So I played around with that a bit and discovered - unless I really messed something up - that if you assign multiple aircraft to a single mission, and some are ready and others are not, that the sim automatically begins to ready the aircraft that are not in a ready state and they join the mission when they are ready. No need to click the ready aircraft as you add them to the mission.

If, however, you are creating a delayed mission, then when you add the aircraft, and it is not in a ready state and you do not click the ready aircraft button, then the aircraft will not be automatically readied (probably because the mission is not active until the time is reached. My observations so far are that even when the mission becomes active, the AC assigned to the mission will not be readied automatically if it is not already in a ready state.

UPDATE - I cannot duplicate this now. Twice this morning this happened and now I cannot reproduce the results.

I am still running a test to see if, when you click the ready aircraft button the AC will be readied even if the mission is not active. If not, then that is a bit of a spanner in the works.

It would be really nice if, at some point, a relative timer could be put in place in addition to the specified date and time. So instance, Activate Mission #2, at 3 hours after Mission #1 becomes active, etc. and be able to set up a chain of missions and then have them loop.

Just an idea and there are probably more elegant solutions or I need to make the commitment to get in to lua fully.

UPDATE: So in playing around with this more I stumbled across another little thing to note when creating missions.

If you leave the add mission dialog open and create a sequence of individual missions with each one having a specific date and time of launch, you will notice that as the mission list populates they will all be active (regardless of what you set the date/time to) you have to manually select them to be inactive.

If you close the add mission dialog each time and reopen it to create each mission - when you set a specific date and time then the mission is automatically marked as inactive (assuming the date/time is in the future).

This means you need to pick one way of doing this, and stick to the sequence. If you switch between the two methods (as I was doing because I was looking for something different) you will probably trip yourself up with an unexpected behavior.

I remain, very much, SNAFU






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