First post updated with general process.

Any help in working up and executing test refuelings would be appreciated. Donaldseadog and I have thoroughly tested the following cases:

1. Long range tanker auto refueling multiple short ranged recipient air units.

2. Multiple long range tanker auto refueling multiple short ranged recipient air units.

 

Ideas for tests:

1. Short range tanker refueling long range recipients

2. Long range tanker manually refueling short ranged recipients.

3. Lots of recipients (i.e. spread the tanker thin).

...

 

I would love to see scenarios, saved games, and ge.log files (with refueling logging turned on) zipped and uploaded to the thread

Went to refuel a group. Then group consisted of 2 10 plane groups of B-1B's and 10 Tankers. Only one of the B-1B groups received fuel. The other one got none.

 

During refueling game time stopped for some reason. Had to save game and restart. This happened twice.

 

I was using the old refueling dll.

 

Let me know if you guys have any questions

Went to refuel a group. Then group consisted of 2 10 plane groups of B-1B's and 10 Tankers. Only one of the B-1B groups received fuel. The other one got none.

 

During refueling game time stopped for some reason. Had to save game and restart. This happened twice.

 

I was using the old refueling dll.

 

Let me know if you guys have any questions

I think you'll find the notes that came with the refueling DLL (refuelDemo.txt) indicate the DLL will pause the game when a refuel event is being processed. That allows you to modify the parameters of the refuel operation. Each plane requires 3 minutes to refuel so the second 10-plane unit of B-1B's wouldn't start refueling until 30 minutes after the first clump finished.

Hmm, didn't read you

Went to refuel a group. Then group consisted of 2 10 plane groups of B-1B's and 10 Tankers. Only one of the B-1B groups received fuel. The other one got none.

 

During refueling game time stopped for some reason. Had to save game and restart. This happened twice.

 

I was using the old refueling dll.

 

Let me know if you guys have any questions

Hmm, didn't read your post well enough, 10 tankers if all in the same aircraft unit should have done the refuel of the first 10 plane clump of bombers in 3 minutes. If you are able, run it without the refuel ExportDLL and turn on the refuel logging so we can look at the details. Zip and attach the log file.

Went to refuel a group. Then group consisted of 2 10 plane groups of B-1B's and 10 Tankers. Only one of the B-1B groups received fuel. The other one got none.

 

During refueling game time stopped for some reason. Had to save game and restart. This happened twice.

 

I was using the old refueling dll.

 

Let me know if you guys have any questions

The refuel dll have been written mostlly to see what was happening and trial modifying the data to see what we can get away with. The game gets paused at certain times to let you make changes or to just let it run - when it pauses you need to hit the 'resume' button. In the second version of the dll you can let it run by 'unbclicking' the 'auto pause' button and it should go thru cycles updating the available fuel until it get to a low level then the tanker will do the normal requext to return to base.

There is definitely a hickup if you fly your group to far without a full tanker waiting on the way home. A problem to look at at some time once other stuff is going well I think.

Another hurdle is to be able to split a tanker that still has available fuel then re join and get more refuels, I've tried doing this by leaving a recipient (fighter escort) in the group and this seems to let you get by and I guess for the short term is OK as an escort isn't a bad idea.

I've done some tests with F/A 18Es (mixed loadouts including tankers) and it is very easy to get the group far enough out that the none of the aircraft can make bak to base without tankders posted some where on the return route.

This raises a question as to whether we want the dll to work out all of that (a bit hard as the player I assume will often station tankers for the return leg) or put the fuel managment in the hands of the player?

Also worth noting I havn't made any filtering of 'side' so if you have enemy tankers in use you';; see them coming up and seemingly taking advantage of the multiple refuels. This could allow scenario writers to put up some longer range intercepts.

Thanks for putting in some testing this is all at the outer edge (a bit beyond) my ability so testing by others is very helpful.

Thanks also to Tony for spending time on it and doing GE edits - I've always wanted to get a good refuelling happening as I think it adds a lot to the strategic challenge.

I'm assuming at the moment we should concentrate on playing blue and not getting concerned about what red is doing, is this right as I had a bit of a look playing red and things didn't seem to be happening quite right?

I'm assuming at the moment we should concentrate on playing blue and not getting concerned about what red is doing, is this right as I had a bit of a look playing red and things didn't seem to be happening quite right?

I don't recall if the AI tanks but if you are playing Red and things aren't working that should be reported.

Another hurdle is to be able to split a tanker that still has available fuel then re join and get more refuels, I've tried doing this by leaving a recipient (fighter escort) in the group and this seems to let you get by and I guess for the short term is OK as an escort isn't a bad idea.

This is the initial reason I got involved other than to help (the ability to keep track of fuel remaining in the tanker). The fixing of unit names whole ball of wax is going to dictate a change to the scenario file format (first one on my watch). I'm intending to add a refuel data field so that the amount of fuel left follows the tanker. I can't commit to when I'll have that in place though.

What caused my issue the other night was that my air group said NO FUEL. I did not know refueling had not been completed yet. I just assumed that when I saw NO FUEL for my air group I thought refueling had been completed. Tony set me straight yesterday and that I need to wait until the Tanker requests to split from the air group to Return To Base (RTB).

 

I didn't realize the pause was supposed to be there. I skimmed over the DLL that was created instead of reading. Tony showed me the errors in my ways! I read the txt file that came along with the dll.

Tony and I discussed a possibility of 3 Refueling states:

Refuel Available
Refueling
No Refuel

 

This would lead to a little less confusion.

 

I did run my scenario from the point in my game that the refueling issue occurred and the refueling worked as it was supposed to. I just wasn't patient enough to wait for the tankers to request the RTB.

 

Sorry for the confusion guys.

 

attached is a zip with game save, ge.log and text comments including a run down of data I collected in game.

game is NACV EC2003 with HCDB140909 using GE 2015.007

while the fuel allocation figures are closely consistent they aren't the same,

the main things to me seem that the GE recalcs fuel allocation at the time of executing the refuel irrespective of what is in the 'event' data (queued before hand)

and that the ge.log is stating a cruise range which is quite different to what the in game unit report is giving. This difference, if wrong in the GE calculations could be the/part of the reason for the over fuel supply (fuel range after refuelling is usually significant;y more than cruise range from takeoff).

this test is a single F14A TARPS and F14D tanker, a similar test with F16/F14A/F14D was similar

Don

 

refuelreport_F14.zip

In real life what would be the norm for a cruising plane group including aerotanker - near continuous top up of fuel tanks or periodic top up?

would some units fly at different altitudes and then fly up/down to the tanker when their turn for fuel?

near continuous top up of fuel tanks or periodic top up?

would some units fly at different altitudes and then fly up/down to the tanker when their turn for fuel?

Periodic for sure, refueling being a risky operation it isn't done just to keep everyone topped up. Different altitudes is above my pay grade though my gut says tankers are only going to stay with groups of planes for any length of time when doing a long transit so they may as well stay in the same altitude band.

 

near continuous top up of fuel tanks or periodic top up?

would some units fly at different altitudes and then fly up/down to the tanker when their turn for fuel?

Periodic for sure, refueling being a risky operation it isn't done just to keep everyone topped up. Different altitudes is above my pay grade though my gut says tankers are only going to stay with groups of planes for any length of time when doing a long transit so they may as well stay in the same altitude band.

 

I'll try to get a delay in the extended refuelling, at present what I have created is a near continuous refuelling once refuelling starts.

This might let us get some where useful without needing to do the GE code changes to provide exportDLL with the necessary info to completely control it externally.

 

I still need to look at red play, but I did look at AI playing red and if missions with tankers are set up in the scenario they seem to be running OK.

Sounds great Don! I made very good progress on game changes yesterday and introduced a new field on the unit's AirRec called FuelToOffload. I aim to work it into the shared pascal code tonight and get a GE and SE build outby the end of the weekend.