homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation IL-2: FB, AEP, PF Another DGen how-to: unwanted spawns

Are these flights spawned at the mission start together with your flight on the same runway? If yes, they are no random flights and belong to the mission.

Juri, these flights are spawned on the same runway shortly after my flight takes off. Sometimes they explode the very moment they pop up, which probably means that too many planes are spawned at the same time in the same place.

Btw, I added two more lines:

oUsPatrolConvoy {UsArmyCAP}
oUsDefendConvoy {UsArmyCAP}

thinking that perhaps I'm inventing things and the DGen will crash on hitting this mission but hell no, I got a mission defending/patrolling over (don't know which line actually worked) a moving convoy of ships!

This shouldn't happen. I did some tests and don't have this problem in my New Guinea campaign when I disable random flights. I have no idea what causes this problem.



Yes, defend and patrol missions will work too, I just forgot to mention it. For static ships you can also add:

oUsPatrolPort {UsArmyCAP}
oUsDefendPort {UsArmyCAP}

Maybe it's because I added an extra pair of fighters here and there, for example:
UsArmyAttack 10622:50814:A USN 6Y 6F 2F IJN 6F 2F

It has never caused problems in European scenarios but perhaps in PF it triggers some conflict

That's possible. Remove these extra flights and see what happens

Removing those extra flights seems to have cured the problem.
Currently I'm trying to include some hydroplanes and transport planes in the operations. I've found this line in the Guadalcanal MIS file:

JpArmyRecInt 10622:50814:A USN 1Hr IJN 3Y

So I know it's possible to generate a mission with land-based Japanese fighters intercepting a reconnaissance hydroplane (presumably PBN1) but I can't make it happen on Guadalcanal map. All I get is Japanese fighters take off and circle in vain (I do have PBN1 listed in DB and DAT files). Any ideas?
Also, is it possible to generate a mission with some transport planes (say C-47s) fly, for example, from Port Moresby to Milne Bay area, and get intercepted on the way by Japanese fighters?

Don't know. In my own campaigns I never use the Hr entry. When I want to generate a PBN1 in a mission I usually set it to Reconplane.




I am not sure if transport plane escort or intercept missions like the ones in ETO campaigns really work in PTO campaigns. But you can add transport to other mission types as additional targets.

Juri, I did as you suggested and the PBN turned up as Reconplane - the only problem is that after the mission it landed on the ground, not in the water!

I found these entries for the A6M2-N. I wonder if using the HyRecon code instead of Reconplane woud do the trick?

• Axis Japan Hydroplane A6M2N 400 3000 3000 default 1
• Axis Japan HyRecon A6M2N 300 1000 1000 default 1
• Axis Japan HyFighter A6M2N 300 1000 1000 default 1

Wheels

I used HyRecon but in combination with "Hr" designation (instead of "R") in ops file; maybe HyRecon in combination with R will do the trick, I must try it
By the way, what's the correct designation for Hydroplane and HyFighter in ops files? They are neither bombers (B), nor fighters (F). What type of missions can they perform? Anyone knows?

By the way, I noticed that using A6M2-N as reconplane doesn't make much sense because as soon as enemy a/c show up in its flightpath, it attacks like a fighter.

The answer may be in the DGen studies thread in the archive.
DGen studies: http://simhq.net/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1708223/DGen_Studies.html


Change the loadout from default to empty none and it won't be able to fight. Makes it an easy target but at least it will act more like a recon plane and not a fighter.


Wheels

If you want to stop fighters on recon missions from attacking, you can set their armament to none in the PacificPlanes file.


Edit: Oh, wheels was faster

I was wrong. I used what is shown in the FMB dropdown (empty) instead of the "none" .dat code. I edited my prior post to show the correct code.


Wheels

I think Hr is the wrong code combination. I found these in the DGen studies thread for the PTO codes.
Source: http://simhq.net/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1708227/Re_DGen_Studies.html#Post1708227

• rR, // recon
• rP, // para
• rH, // hydrorecon/rescue
• rHr, // hydrorecon/rescue, mid range airstart

You will need to scroll down quite far in the post to find the PTO codes list.


Wheels

Wheels, I must give it a try but I've never seen codes starting with small "r", like in rY (??)

Give the man a cigar!!

I've been around long enough to remember that PF was almost still-born, and it shows. My foremost gripe about PF's DGen system is the randomization feature, or rather the lack of it. The system tends to generate the same type of mission many times in a row (usually scrambles or CAPs), while ignoring other options, some completely. For example, I finally got to flying some convoy patrol/defend missions only after I deleted all other options from the ops file!

If the work on the new DGen.exe version goes according to plan, maybe it will be possible in the future to fix some of the shortcomings of the Pacific campaigns.

That would be very much welcomed fix.


Wheels

I ran into all the problems you've mentioned when working on True Pacific. For a while, I was forwarding findings onto Starshoy, and a couple of small bugs got fixed, but then he stopped responding and dissappeared. I finally gave up on modding DGen after I figured out that some of the missiones (such as the carrier-based Bomber Intercept) simply did not work for one side (or both). Tough to have a Midway campaign where you can only run scrambles . . .