Refueling Notes

This is how I see the refueling working when the tankers are embedded with the air group from base.

 

1. Refueling starts when an air group reaches a certain fuel level.

2. Fuel is transferred until the tanker runs out of refueling fuel.

3. When tanker runs out of fuel the Refueling On/Off goes to “0” Off.

4. The Refueling planes (in the example below the ASW group) have to be split from the tankers to form a new group to continue patrolling after the Game Time is more than the Event Time.

 

My observations:

 

1. If air group is split from the tankers before the Game Time is more that the event time the GE crashes.

2. If tankers are removed from the group after the Game Time is more than the event time the GE Crashes.

3. If air group is split from the tankers and the Game Time is greater than the Event Time everything is fine. No GE crash

4. Embedded tankers do not automatically separate after the available fuel for refueling is 0.

5. If you have a tanker meet up with an air group, they refuel the group until available refueling, fuel is 0 the tankers automatically disengage and RTB.

 

Is this how the refueling is supposed to work?

 

In the new GE release is refueling going to work any differently?

 

Is the lazarus GUI Export DLL box going to change and only have the refueling menu in it or are there plans to make greater use of the menus in the dll?

The refuel-demo.dll is just a quick demo that started from a library file used to investigate what the GE was doing with refuel events. Once the next version of the game engine comes out the refuel-demo.dll will be deleted from downloads. The new GE will handle multiple refuels internally.

With the refuel-demo.dll, tankers should still automatically get sent home after the last refuel is completed and the tanker available fuel is less than 200 nm. Remember that there is a time lag between the event occuring and the 'finish' of refuelling. Problems do occur in the dll if the refuelling tanker unit is removed before the auto RTB.

The demo isn't intended as a long term tool.

lazGUI.dll is itself a tool to investigate what is happening and to demonstrate to dll library file programmers how to do tasks more than to be used in a game for game purposes. I'm currently doing an extension to give more information on specific events and Tony (the author) keeps it up to date with changes in how the export_dll functions, so in that respect it will get more function.

In time once the next GE is released I'll probably work on a stand alone or addition to my toolbox with further enhancements for refuelling and these will be more complete in function for game play.

Hope that explains it, Don