Defect Name: Air patrol runs out of gas

Build: HCE 2007.000

Repeatable: Y

Operating System: XP

DB used: HCDB-071223

Scenario used: Saved game - Air patrol runs out of gas.hpi

Long Description: Formation air patrol AA29 runs out of gas on its own.

 

Sequence to reproduce:

1. Run saved game for about 10min. High compression is okay.

 

 

Expected behaviour: Formation air patrols should never run out of gas

Observed behaviour: Formation air patrol runs out of gas.

Air_patrol_runs_out_of_gas.zip

Herman, is it possible that unit AA29 had been joined to the group from outside? Perhaps you sent it off to kill a sub and then had it rejoin? Years ago I learned not to add P-3s to ship groups because they tended to run out of gas while on patrol, so I'm wondering if something similar could be happening here.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I never do that anymore. I have done it in the past and also found them to run out of gas so I stopped doing it.

Agreed, if this is a patrol set for the base, from base A/C they should never run out of gas.

Moved to Mantis #2435.

Confirmed in 2008.002.

I've never seen this happen before within a formation, but I have seen the other manifestations listed, too.

Herman, is it possible that unit AA29 had been joined to the group from outside?

 

It sounds like, that there shall be a check by joining to surface group or base; if the AC is able to land on surface group / base the user shall be asked that the surface group / base shall be the new home base. When the AC is not able to land on surface group / base or it is not accepted as new home base, the user shall be advised about bingo fuel as in usual AC units.

I've had the same problem with F-14 Tomcats in HDS4.

 

Could it be that they return to the location where the carrier was when they launched, but run out of fuel and crash if the carrier has moved further away?

 

It doesn't seem to happen to F-14s that are launched ahead of a carriwer that is moving in the same direction.

I haven't looked into it very deeply but I think it happens when the carrier the planes are trying to land on is meaningfully far away from the group center. The bingo fuel calc is probably done from the group center, not the actual location of the carrier.

This may well have been fixed in 2008.060/2008.061. Please recreate the situation to verify.

 

http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?s...ost&p=10128

Herman's original save gives the "Invalid Version" error, and so can't be tested.

I still haven't seen this problem occur as originally described.