Problem with refuel doctrine

[koketsu]

Hey ther all, I'm having a problem with refuel doctrine, I'm playing lightning strike scenario, and the airplanes doesn't follow the mission doctrine and in general the game doctrine for refuel aar. The situation is the following: I set up an aaw patrol over Afghanistan (4 f16) and a support aar mission off the coast of Pakistan, I set up for the aaw mission over Afghanistan a no aar refuel doctrine, but the airplanes just ignore it and when they are like 75% before reaching bingo they simply head south toward the tankers...i realized this just minutes before they where crossing the pakistani border, I checked all the possible doctrine for aar not allowed (game doctrine, mission doctrine and even for the f16s tasked for the aaw patrol mission when they are airborne) and nothing changes...they just head toward the tankers...i made a screenshot, now i set up two huge no nav zones for avoiding this, but i noticed this problem also on other scenarios...the airplanes just ignore the doctrine or pick a different refuel mission instead of the one tasked for the mission...so, i don't know what's going on...am i doing something wrong?

[thewood1]

Can you post a save? Refueling is so complex and has so many variables, it is very difficult to analyze without some kind os save.

[koketsu]

Of course! Here is the file, thank you

[Lowlaner2012]

Hi...

Its a weird one, I can reproduce the problem in your save, but when I started a new Lightning Strike scenario, setup some tankers and let my F-16 Bagram CAP mission run there fuel down they just RTB...

[mavfin]

Now, I don't know why this didn't use the Inherited setting, but, this is why your Hail units are going to tanker, I think.

On the units themselves, not on the mission, etc., but on the Hail 1 and Hail 10 units themselves, they're still set to Misc --> Use Refuel --> Allow, but not tankers refueling tankers. If you change it to Misc --> Use Refuel --> Not Allowed on Hail 1 and Hail 10, even after they're headed to refuel, they'll go back to where they should be till they bingo and RTB.

As I said at first, why this didn't inherit down, I don't know, unless you changed the mission setting after Hail 1 and Hail 10 were already in the air. But, from the save that's why they're headed off to refuel, and nearest tankers are out on the coast, so I guess it's figuring requirements needed to fly 100+ miles to tank before Bingo.

[thewood1]

There is all kinds of weirdness going on with that save. I deleted the original AA BAG mission and created a new one from scratch. Has basically the same behavior. That AA Patrol is really jonesing to suck on a Hess tanker. The very weird part is if you watch distance to tanker, the patrol thinks its only a few miles from the tanker. In reality, its almost 1000 miles from it. And as it starts heading towards the tanker, the distance to the tanker starts increasing.

I can only take a wild guess that the patrol is somehow mixing up Bagram airbase with the Hess tanker. It thinks the tanker is Bagram from a refueling standpoint and the distance is reflecting that. Again, its the only thing I can figure out. As above, if I start fresh, it seems to work.

[thewood1]

That might be the answer. I played it a little more and I think the tanker distance thing might be related to the no nav zones in the south. The patrol doesn't know how to get to the tanker, so its confused on its path to Hess.

Again, I created the mission from scratch and it should have set the unit's fuel rules. I'll play around with it a little more.

[mavfin]

OK, here's a twist. I checked Mission Doctrine, and Side Doctrine, and they're both set to not allow refueling at all on the Misc --> Use Refuel.

However, attached is the OP's save, played a bit, with Hail 1 and 11 'fixed' by turning off Misc --> Use Refuel on the units themselves.

In the attached save, Hail 12 (I think it was 12) just off the runway at Bagram to replace the near-bingo units...has the Misc --> Use Refuel --> Allow, but not tankers refueling tankers flag set.

Not sure why it's not inhereting from the mission.

Yeah, you may want to start a new game, after reading what Wood ran into while I was playing with things.

[thewood1]

That's what I found also. I completely deleted the mission and the units still didn't follow the doctrine.

[TyphoonFr]

Strangely,in this scenery, the units have a default "UNREP selection" set to "allow but not tankers refueling tankers" instead of "Inherited, ..."
So the units do not take into account the "doctrine & ROE for side" or "doctrine & ROE for mission" settings.
The solution is to modify the doctrines settings "UNREP selection" of each unit on "Inherited, ..."

[mavfin]

ORIGINAL: TyphoonFr

Strangely,in this scenery, the units have a default "UNREP selection" set to "allow but not tankers refueling tankers" instead of "Inherited, ..."
So the units do not take into account the "doctrine & ROE for side" or "doctrine & ROE for mission" settings.
The solution is to modify the doctrines settings "UNREP selection" of each unit on "Inherited, ..."

Problem is, as Wood and I found out, sure, you can fix the airborne ones, but, you'll have to fix any new ones as well.

Hmm, might have to reload and see what the doctrine on the airfield is.

Sure enough, if you check unit doctrine of what's sitting on the airbase, refueling is allowed. Now, I'm going to see what settings you get if I launch one.

[TyphoonFr]

Do this with the editor, add airplanes to the air base, and look at the doctrine of planes that you have added.
Or, always with the editor, copy one of the units (Hail # 1 or Hail # 10) and look at the doctrine of the copy you have created.
Open another scenario and look at the doctrines "UNREP selection"

[mavfin]

Hmm. So, I reloaded OP's save, Fixed Hail 1 and 10, which are airborne, by changing Misc --> Refuel to Not Allowed. Then I went to Bagram Airbase, and changed the same Doctrine Setting on the two on the mission that are on the ground. I let things run a while, till near Bingo for the airborne units...

OK, if you fix the 2 in the air *and* fix the two sitting on the ground on the airbase, when the new ones launch, and the airborne ones land, they're all set correctly.

I'll pull a fresh scenario, create that mission, with the diff refuel rules, and see if it gets to the a/c assigned if you do it on mission creation. It may just that if you make changes later, you may have to 'push down' the new changes from the top.

I made a new mission in a new scenario, and made sure the settings were there before any aircraft launched, and it worked correctly. No refuel for that mission's a/c. It seemed like in the OP's description that he turned off the refuel as a reaction, not as an initial scenario condition, so, I guess it never got applied to the actual units in the scenarios. However, once you 'fix' it for all the units, airborne and on the ground, and it seemed to be fine.

Mav

[koketsu]

Thanks for the hints, I deleted all the air missions over Afghanistan, set the game doctrine for AAR and created the new air missions and set the doctrine for the mission and set the doctrine for all the airplanes before tasking them for the mission, and yes, everything seems fine now.
In the meanwhile I started another scenario (operation allied force) that was giving me the same problem with AAR, and followed the same 3 steps; game doctrine > mission doctrine > aircraft doctrine, let's see how it goes.