This was a very informative video. I tried the tactic out while following my girlfriend's painfully slow walk through the shopping mall. The zig zag pattern allowed me to walk at my normal pace without getting too far ahead. Amazing how WW2 tactics still have applications in the modern world
I only recently got into WW2 DCS. When I tried out a generic escort mission in the Mustang I found myself doing the weave just out of necessity. Chuffed to hear it's actually a real tactic and that it's coming to your campaigns!
Always thankful for your effort in updating your campaigns, especially the WWII stuff! I am sure I will refly some of my favorite missions when your update hits the skies. Keep up the great work!
Great ideas. I’m sure I have much more hours into mission creating than I do flying. I enjoy your work very much, and I admit, I always look through your designs for ideas and “advise”. (Solely for private use, and I truly do respect and honor your propriety.). Interestingly, I have been experimenting with this type of scenario too, and I’ve realized that one…pretty formations, and picturesque tactics, while nice and rewarding, are also historically more of an “a great plan works well, right up to the point where it becomes reality”, than it ever was “the norm”. In my opinion, it’s realistic to have a few incidents of coloring outside of the lines in a mission. Especially an Escort mission! I try to establish some guardrails with triggers, and give the AI enough direction to keep them on objective.
This will get me back into the Jug and Mustang campaigns! The escort AI behavior in Big Show and Beware Beware always bugged me so I weaved around all by myself above the bombers lol.
Great new feature. Love your campaigns, but Wolfpack remains my favorite as I love flying the Jug. Would also be great if at some time the B-17 formations could be updated with the new liveries that are now being produced vs the standard/generic. Keep up the good work and looking forward to your new campaigns.
This is definitely a good thing. Much more realistic. I bet in WW2 that speed wasn't overly a consideration anyway once the proverbial sh*t hit the fan!
Hope the AI logic behind fly in big formation will become a update soon. Sadly it is a real pain when you see B17 fly with a sidedrift only to force position in the Formation. Your campaigns build with so much love to detail it deserves a good AI fly with it. ❤
Sounds like a heck of a lot of work on top of adding all the time compression triggers in too. Was there any particular tactic used by the Luftwaffe when escorting bombers?
Yes, this changelog is gonna be massive, there are many other things coming as well. Not sure about the Luftwaffe. I know during the BoB the fighters were pissed at Goering because he ordered them to fly close formation on the bombers.
@@ReflectedSimulations thanks, interesting. In my head being too close for fighter cover would be counter productive & they would have preferred dropping in from above to pick off attackers coming in
Hi reflected ! I'm pretty new to your campaigns and to DCS in general to be honest, currently doing your Blue Nosed Bastards. Just did the mission 4 on Paris, that's awesome leading all those mustangs over the heavies. But I was wondering what the escort tactic would be in real life. I found myself pursuing bandits well below and behind the bombers, leaving them alone to face any other incoming threat. Should I break the engagement earlier to stay with them ? Cause at the end of the day your primary objective is to stay with them right, not shooting down enemy aircrafts. Also, should I drop my tanks at the first encounter ? I was worried that I could not do the entire mission by dropping them so early, especially since at that time I just got to the 25 gallons limit in the fuselage tank. I tried to estimate the fuel needed to perform the mission and rtb but did not find any distance/flight time per flight leg in the kneeboard tabs (just altitude and bearing), nor fuel consumption data. Could this be implemented for future campaign or did I miss something ? Thanks in advance, and thanks for your awesome work. Cheers
Hi! Those are very good questions and as squadron leader it’s entirely your decision :) In 1943 the fighters would probably stay with the bombers. In 44 they were more free to go and hunt. fuel consumption was never provided to the pilots in real life, not on the nav plan, because it highly depends on what power settings you use.
I'm curious. Is it correct that you create your campaigns solely from the ME, using triggers, zones etc? No Lua scripting? I got into scripting myself 18 months ago and, while not trivial, I just feel what you just did would be way easier with normal scripting. Are there benefits to staying away from Lua in your campaign building? Or do I just misunderstand, and you do in fact rely on scripting to achieve advanced AI behavior like this?
No, mostly stock ME triggers, like 99%. I only use scripts when absolutely needed - because I don't really understand scripts so if they break I'm not sure how to fix them.
@@ReflectedSimulations I find it very impressive you can even sort the amount of triggers I imagine you'd need to pull off advanced stuff, like is in your campaigns. You must be an extremely disciplined and structured kind of person. One huge advantage with scripts is their reusability and portability. In your clips you often mention the problem of having to pretty much redo everything, rather than just port your features from one map to another. Lua is actually quite simple to learn and if you're up for it I'm happy to get you into client-side scripting. Over time I'm pretty sure you'd be able to do even more with much less work
This was a very informative video. I tried the tactic out while following my girlfriend's painfully slow walk through the shopping mall. The zig zag pattern allowed me to walk at my normal pace without getting too far ahead. Amazing how WW2 tactics still have applications in the modern world
Hahahaha brilliant
I really appreciate your dedication to realism, reflected. Keep up the awesome work.
Thanks!
I only recently got into WW2 DCS. When I tried out a generic escort mission in the Mustang I found myself doing the weave just out of necessity. Chuffed to hear it's actually a real tactic and that it's coming to your campaigns!
I did the same!
Love the continuous updates and improvements! Stellar work!
Thank you!
Your neverending quest for improvements is amazing and inspiring! Thank you for your commitment to quality and your customer-base! Love your work!
Cheers
I'm just getting into DCS after upgrading PCs. Starting off with just the P-47 and I'm extremely excited to try your missions!
Always thankful for your effort in updating your campaigns, especially the WWII stuff! I am sure I will refly some of my favorite missions when your update hits the skies.
Keep up the great work!
Thank you!
Great ideas. I’m sure I have much more hours into mission creating than I do flying. I enjoy your work very much, and I admit, I always look through your designs for ideas and “advise”. (Solely for private use, and I truly do respect and honor your propriety.). Interestingly, I have been experimenting with this type of scenario too, and I’ve realized that one…pretty formations, and picturesque tactics, while nice and rewarding, are also historically more of an “a great plan works well, right up to the point where it becomes reality”, than it ever was “the norm”. In my opinion, it’s realistic to have a few incidents of coloring outside of the lines in a mission. Especially an Escort mission! I try to establish some guardrails with triggers, and give the AI enough direction to keep them on objective.
Nice work as always. Can’t wait to try the new campaign!
Thanks, I can't wait to release it.
This looks so epic my friend👌👍. Another big step für DCS WWII. Thanks for all your amazing effort
Thanks!
Going above and beyond as usual!
Just wish ED would showed WW2 DCS some love. It feels very much like the unwanted stepchild.
This will get me back into the Jug and Mustang campaigns! The escort AI behavior in Big Show and Beware Beware always bugged me so I weaved around all by myself above the bombers lol.
I couldn't implement it in the Spit campaigns as the AI - and you - would just run out of fuel flying a longer route by weaving :(
@@ReflectedSimulations Ouch, they still haven't fixed the fuel consumption?
@@DCS_World_Japan nothing to fix there, the Spit had really short legs.
Great new feature. Love your campaigns, but Wolfpack remains my favorite as I love flying the Jug. Would also be great if at some time the B-17 formations could be updated with the new liveries that are now being produced vs the standard/generic. Keep up the good work and looking forward to your new campaigns.
This is definitely a good thing. Much more realistic. I bet in WW2 that speed wasn't overly a consideration anyway once the proverbial sh*t hit the fan!
Hope the AI logic behind fly in big formation will become a update soon. Sadly it is a real pain when you see B17 fly with a sidedrift only to force position in the Formation. Your campaigns build with so much love to detail it deserves a good AI fly with it. ❤
All AI do that, that's the current AI FM. I hope the new GFM will improve this.
@Reflected You mean you add triggers along the fly path and you add it manually to each mission?
Not along the flight path, I use dynamic 'inside moving zone' triggers, but yeah, manual update of each mission + testing.
Sounds like a heck of a lot of work on top of adding all the time compression triggers in too. Was there any particular tactic used by the Luftwaffe when escorting bombers?
Yes, this changelog is gonna be massive, there are many other things coming as well. Not sure about the Luftwaffe. I know during the BoB the fighters were pissed at Goering because he ordered them to fly close formation on the bombers.
@@ReflectedSimulations thanks, interesting. In my head being too close for fighter cover would be counter productive & they would have preferred dropping in from above to pick off attackers coming in
@@lankypilot778 yes, the entire Luftwaffe would have agreed with you in 1940, except for the fat bastard :)
I remember the ai escort doing this in il-2 1946
Really? That’s cool, I can’t remember
Hi reflected ! I'm pretty new to your campaigns and to DCS in general to be honest, currently doing your Blue Nosed Bastards. Just did the mission 4 on Paris, that's awesome leading all those mustangs over the heavies. But I was wondering what the escort tactic would be in real life. I found myself pursuing bandits well below and behind the bombers, leaving them alone to face any other incoming threat. Should I break the engagement earlier to stay with them ? Cause at the end of the day your primary objective is to stay with them right, not shooting down enemy aircrafts. Also, should I drop my tanks at the first encounter ? I was worried that I could not do the entire mission by dropping them so early, especially since at that time I just got to the 25 gallons limit in the fuselage tank. I tried to estimate the fuel needed to perform the mission and rtb but did not find any distance/flight time per flight leg in the kneeboard tabs (just altitude and bearing), nor fuel consumption data. Could this be implemented for future campaign or did I miss something ? Thanks in advance, and thanks for your awesome work. Cheers
Hi! Those are very good questions and as squadron leader it’s entirely your decision :) In 1943 the fighters would probably stay with the bombers. In 44 they were more free to go and hunt. fuel consumption was never provided to the pilots in real life, not on the nav plan, because it highly depends on what power settings you use.
@@ReflectedSimulations allright thanks for your time !
Can you elaborate on the triggers you used to make the escorts weave?
I’m pushing 2 different follow tasks combined with inside/outside moving zone
I'm curious. Is it correct that you create your campaigns solely from the ME, using triggers, zones etc? No Lua scripting? I got into scripting myself 18 months ago and, while not trivial, I just feel what you just did would be way easier with normal scripting. Are there benefits to staying away from Lua in your campaign building? Or do I just misunderstand, and you do in fact rely on scripting to achieve advanced AI behavior like this?
No, mostly stock ME triggers, like 99%. I only use scripts when absolutely needed - because I don't really understand scripts so if they break I'm not sure how to fix them.
@@ReflectedSimulations I find it very impressive you can even sort the amount of triggers I imagine you'd need to pull off advanced stuff, like is in your campaigns. You must be an extremely disciplined and structured kind of person.
One huge advantage with scripts is their reusability and portability. In your clips you often mention the problem of having to pretty much redo everything, rather than just port your features from one map to another. Lua is actually quite simple to learn and if you're up for it I'm happy to get you into client-side scripting. Over time I'm pretty sure you'd be able to do even more with much less work
Cool, I see it will be implemented on BNBOB
Yes it will