The bomber drone spacing post made me think of this again and we have another scenario coming up where a staged mission would help preparation for the bombers in the scenario. I have posted this problem in the Beta forum and it is not considered to be a problem by HTC. Thought I would get the community input. The wish is that the program recognizes when a player has been assigned to the lead bomber in a staged mission 3 plane bomber formation and then implements the same drone programming used in the main arena rather than the semi independent AI for that formation only.
Ok, to describe the problem, practicing hitting cargo ships, 1000 lbs to sink, with Bostons with 4 500 lb bombs per plane. Ships are in convoy and we hope to hit more than one. Staged missions let us warp or in air spawn to the correct place and alt in the minimum time and allows a squad to practice together in custom arena. Now the problem. Set salvo to one and the lead plane with the player in it releases 1 bomb, but the 2 drones release 4 each. The next drop your only option is to hit release multiple times or reset the salvo since the drones have no more ords and of course if the drop is modeled correctly for 3 planes, each plane will hit in a different location. Result is neither the first drop nor subsequent drops will be anything like in the main or scenario arena. Obviously the problem is the same hitting towns, air fields etc. Any time you don't want to drop all ords at minimum delay, it is a problem. This problem comes about because for staged missions, even if the lead plane pilot is a player, the other 2 aircraft in the formation are semi independent AI. They follow the player like drones and drop only on the player command, but cannot be set for salvo and delay and will only have doors open if in a bombing segment. I think the bomber guns in the AI aircraft in the formation also shoot differently than the main arena which makes using the staged missions to set up gunnery practice difficult.
