Can't get ATO to task some units....why?

[Sherlock]

I am editing Allied Force, vanilla Korea, using a SP4.2 .CAM file along with all AF object directory files (including mission.dat file).

I cannot get MD-500 (RECON), OH-58D (RECON) or E-2C (AWACS) to perform any auto ATO generated sorties. However, I can manually task these same units just fine. I've looked at these units/vehicles in F4Browse and cannot find (with my untrained eye) any glaring difference between the non-working units and other units that work with the ATO. I'm beginning to wonder if one of the differences between the SP4.2 .cam files and the later AF .CAM files might have something to do with the RECON and AWACs functions? However, as far as the AWACs is concerned, I can put an E-3 in the SP4.2 .CAM file and they get auto-tasked by the ATO just fine. I can't get any helos or fixed wing to perform a RECON in the SP4.2 .CAM file.

Anyone have any ideas how to overcome this lack of auto-generation?

[Sherlock]

Nobody has any ideas / suggestions regarding my question?

[Echo300]

Sorry... I have no idea.

[derStef]

my observations during campaign tweaking..

about E-2C: maybe too near or too far from a good station area.
about RECON: if the team has satellites, much less or no Recce flights are generated..

hope it helps

cheers
Stef

[Snake Man]

about RECON: if the team has satellites, much less or no Recce flights are generated..

Can you share some more experiences about satellites, how do they really effect the campaign reconnaissance?

[Echo300]

Satellites!?? I didn't know Falcon modeled them...? I'd be interested to see your findings on how much they affect.

[derStef]

In TacEdit, load a campaign, go to Teams.
there is a box called "has satellites".

IMO it will show you more enemy groundunits/airdefense in the beginning of a campaign, when "has satellites" is flagged. then very less recce flights are generated...


btw OH-58/MD-500/F-101 fly reccemissions in my Taiwan mod..

[Echo300]

Cool.

[Sherlock]

Ok, I think I am begining to detect a correlation here. Let me explain....

For the units that won't get tasked they repeatedly have a squadron mission rating of "No rating" in sim when you right click and display the status of that particular squadron. All other squadrons which are being tasked have "Excellent" or other rating.

Now my next question....hows does one change this rating? I've noticed that when I set the "Speciality" for these units from General (0) to either Air-to-Air (1) or Air-to-Ground (2), they will be tasked (usually just Air-to-Ground though in the specific cases of the MD-500 or E-2C).

Anyone know how to set/control the "Mission Rating" field in the .CAM file with TacEdit or, perhaps, using another method? Perhaps with tcl script?

[Sherlock]

Ok, I think I am begining to detect a correlation here. Let me explain....

For the units that won't get tasked they repeatedly have a squadron mission rating of "No rating" in sim when you right click and display the status of that particular squadron. All other squadrons which are being tasked have "Excellent" or other rating.

Now my next question....hows does one change this rating? I've noticed that when I set the "Speciality" for these units from General (0) to either Air-to-Air (1) or Air-to-Ground (2), they will be tasked (usually just Air-to-Ground though in the specific cases of the MD-500 or E-2C).

Anyone know how to set/control the "Mission Rating" field in the .CAM file with TacEdit or, perhaps, using another method? Perhaps with tcl script?

Ok, I was wrong about the above. There is no correlation there. Those units fly just fine with the "no rating" when dropped into AF with no changes to the SAVE0.CAM.

I'm beginning to believe that changing the starting time of the campaign from 9am to 4am may have caused the problems instead for some unknown reasons. When I keep the same MD-500 squadrons and put in other MD-500 / OH-58D squadrons they also generate RECON PATROL missions just fine. E-2C, however, is still having problems generating any sorties automatically via the ATO.

[lamurt]

for testing purposes,
have you tried zeroizing the
MinimumAWACSDistance = 110
value inside ...campaign\falcon4.aii file?
you know when compared to e3, e2 has a very limited detection and identification range, and iirc those are well shorter than the above min awacs distance of 110 and who knows maybe ATO is taking that into account!

also 1 more thing i noticed while i was going tru F4Browse that the e2 doesn't have any Squadron Stores whereas the e3 does, despite the fact that e3 doesn't have any hardpoints defined...

some food for thought.

[toonces]

I've run into this problem a number of times- although with different aircraft, not necessarily MD-500 or E-2s.

I haven't figured out precisely what causes it. My initial gut feeling is that it is related to DB inconsistencies.

This has become very apparent in FF5 where creating/editing units in the .cam file using tacedit and the SP.x database leads to very unpredicable behaviour in campaign. I don't know how the AF and SP.x databases differ, but there is definately a possibility that an incompatibility is causing your problems.

Having said that, I've had issues in my Nevada campaign where I added several different F-5 squadrons at different airbases, and at one airbase in particular, they simply would not be tasked by the ATO. There was no obvious reason. They had the exact same settings as the other F-5 squadrons- they just didnt' get tasked. Could it be related to supply or something else? I just don't know.

I'd look at DB problems first though.

[Luk]

You are possibly right toonces. But to your F5 squad takeoff problem - there is an error in database, ACs can not take off from one AB type (06_20 or something) - when I changed it to the almost same (only with slightly different name) but another AB, problem was solved.
Luk

[toonces]

Awesome! I had no idea about that- that makes a lot of sense and answers many questions I had.