At least on two occasions in PE I have encountered a bug where enemy anti-air around observation balloons doesn't shoot.
First time I was doing a balloon busting mission and the AA around target balloon didn't shoot at all. During the same mission I attacked another balloon: the AA didn't fire and additionally the Ball was indestructible, it didn't take any damage despite several passes and hundreds of hits.
The second times I was doing a balloon defense missions and afterwards head into enemy territory to destroy a balloon (the same one that had been the destructible one in the previous example). Again the AA was not firing and the balloon was indestructible.
The flight AI pilots don't react to the indestructible balloons like they normally would, they just ignore them. Air field and other AA still seems to be working just fine both near the home field and over enemy territory.
I added a picture with the rough area of the two balloons in question marked with red. Date is February 1917.
Last edited by mvp7; 10/20/1908:59 PM.
#4493831 - 10/20/1909:39 PMRe: Balloon defenses not shooting
[Re: mvp7]
I’ve burned 3 balloon since PE (even got a photo of one in the screenshot thread) but, now that you mention it, I did note the defenses weren't shooting but attributed it to the horrible weather.
And where did you get that map from in your picture?
#4493835 - 10/20/1910:12 PMRe: Balloon defenses not shooting
[Re: mvp7]
Reporting Indestructible Balloon - normal campaign. I put 140 rounds into the designated target balloon along with two of my flight. Then I put 140 rounds into the second balloon. Neither showed any damage.
Last edited by Stache; 10/21/1911:58 PM.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A. Einstein
Reporting Indestructible Balloon - normal campaign. I put 140 rounds into the designated target balloon along with two of my flight. Then I put 140 rounds into the second balloon. Neither showed any damage.
New secret weapon - balloons made of stainless steel canvas. Next time forget incendiary ammunition and ask for armor piercing.
#4494003 - 10/22/1908:53 AMRe: Balloon defenses not shooting
[Re: mvp7]
A front line patrol/rear area observation. Notice that, when patrolling the front, or even the enemies rear, cannon-based AA is not near as active as it used to be.
This is NOT a complaint as I thought it was always much too prevalent in the old days. I get AA around defended targets and AA positions but it seemed to be everywhere when you were over enemy territory.
I wonder if in fixing that (if intentional but it needed fixing) the ballon AA got caught up in it. I have not attacked one in clear weather yet but just throwing it out there.
#4494263 - 10/23/1904:15 PMRe: Balloon defenses not shooting
[Re: mvp7]
I just went and flew campaign, shot down several balloons no problem. Yep sometimes they will take a lot of hits to blow up 140 rounds might not do it. Rockets work best. Spread the bullets around on more than 1 area of the balloon may help too.
Remove all mods to test.
With a vanilla WOFF PE if you can repeat it and the balloons never ever blow up please send a mission to support.
I will be testing more, I did not mean to imply it was an issue all the time or one that could be replicated on demand at this point.
I just tried a different pilot with my current configuration (yes a few mods active) and he had no issues destroying a balloon with 77 hits.
p.s. noted above the first balloon took 140 rounds from me and 140 rounds from flight members - total 280 rounds, classified as HITS, the balloon was all we were shooting at. Sorry no rockets on Tripes or SE5a.
I have not had issues before dropping balloons with guns.
Not sure what is meant by send a mission - this is campaign mode.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A. Einstein
Thanks Stache, we have had a few reports recently, we spent time looking and to find it's a mod or other issue so something I can't stress enough.
You can drop balloons with guns usually no problem but what I am saying is sometimes maybe it will take lots - it will vary.
Campaign Missions, if you get the issue exit, then look in \WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\missions\historical and copy out and send the OFF_Camp_Mission.xml. Also if you can note the location of the balloon it will help - and logs from LOGS folder.
For me the balloon invulnerability seems to often correlate with the balloon defense weapons being silent. It's as if the balloons and weapons are never fully "activated" when the player approaches (if that's something that the cfs3 engine does). Also my flight members never reacted to the indestructible balloons like they would normally react to balloons.
I'm using the blue triangle fix mod for performance and I have applied some parts of multimod which is not really meant for PE.
In case I fly some un-modded missions, where do you want us to send the log and missions files?
#4494531 - 10/25/1902:45 PMRe: Balloon defenses not shooting
[Re: mvp7]
Balloons don't get "activated" as such, but we'd need the logs etc too, and the mission we can reproduce the issue on (i.e. please say exactly which balloon otherwise we may never find anything) sent to support email address (see last page of the WOFF FAQ how to find logs, and the email address). We don't post email addresses here as spam bots gather them..
I can't find an issue so far, sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not to down a balloon. Also note ground fire doesn't use tracers now if I remember... so you may think they are not firing. I can often hear them firing just can't see the bullets...
Thanks for looking into it. When this happened I passed slow and low over the AA zooming in to see if they were doing anything and they were definitely not reacting to the player in any way (and the AI planes were also completely ignoring the balloon). I'll use all of my ammo on the balloon and send the log and mission files if I run into this in the future.
#4496855 - 11/11/1911:41 AMRe: Balloon defenses not shooting
[Re: mvp7]
OK myself and WM looked into this spend and spent several hours checking things.
It is fine. In Vanliia WOFF PE:
Railyards ------------
Are not broken.
Things you must note:
1) All Railyards are the same object. We do not have some that do not have guns, or are broken. They have the same buildings, same crates, same trains etc. 2) Railyards only have a couple of guns and they have a LIMITED ARC and are often blocked by buildings. If you fly over them or behind them, or behind buildings they will not shoot! MG crew can only fire in a forward arc, they cannot fire behind them - same at front lines
3) We have removed tracers - this is more historically accurate. So you will not see ground fire. 4) The sound range was changed in PE so you may not always hear the guns - more realistic. 5) If you are more than 2 in the flight, sometimes OTHER aircraft may be targetted not you. 6) You can edit facilities and add 50 guns if you prefer to die. 7) You need to destroy (not just hit) supplies, trains, carriages etc to get a credit - buildings won't count and neither will trees. 8) Also you will not always be sent back even if you fail to destroy supplies
Try flying a Railyard Attack with just you and enemies set to 20 miles away. Fly low, and try to circle. You will be shot at.
You can set the ground gun difficulty to hard if you want more of a challenge.
Balloons ----------- Are all identical for a given country.
1) However to kill one will vary dramatically we made them so, as 303 rounds will often make little holes in the giant balloon and do no damage. Try various angles end on, sides, top whatever if you are having no success. We specifically made it so you could get lucky and a few rounds will blow it up, or sometimes it's tough and the bullets do not ignite anything. They gave kills for balloons because they were not easy.
2) Next time a balloon seems to be indestructible, see 1) and if you still think it's indestructible, try colliding with it. It will blow up.
We add randomness to all things in WOFF we want that and it makes it cool - like real life. Not like a "beat the game" sim. We do not want it to take exactly X bullets to kill a balloon or whatever. Boring. It's meant to be simulating real life where possible and within our sanity.
(If you have or did have mods installed maybe your game is broken - we cannot test or support that).
For me the fact that there is sometimes randomness, that there could be a real life, is bonus.
EDIT: If you set a QC mission as a Brit Pilot, select Flanders as the Region, just you in a Sopwith Camel, No wingmen, Loadout = none, Diatance to objective 4 miles. Set Quick Flight Type as "Observation Balloons" (you need to change situation to "Attack", set the enemy distance from player to at 20 miles away. Fly, enable auto pilot, watch him take out the balloon. repeat half dozen times. Watch where he shoots and how.
See how easy it is to take out a balloon.
Now in Campaign do the same approx manoeuvre and you too will easily take out the balloon.
All balloons you meet in campaign or QC will use the exact same object.