WWI Observation Balloon woes

[TP_Fritz]

I'm attempting to create a simple Group that contains 1 observation balloon (in this case, a German Drachen), a winch truck, and the logic required to pull the balloon down to the ground (or close to it) whenever an enemy plane is close, and allow it to rise back up to base altitude when enemy planes get further away and aren't a threat.  I didn't think this would be so complicated, but apparently it is.

I've tried two different logic setups - one with Proximity MCUs and one with Check Zone MCUs - the logic for both is in the screenshots below:

 

In both cases, when I thought I had it working and finally tested it, what happens is that the balloon Proximity or Check Zone will correctly detect the incoming enemy plane, Force Complete the balloon's current HI Waypoint, then enable the LO Waypoint (set at about 200 meters).  This works every time - the balloon will then begin to descend like one would expect.  However - once the enemy plane is no longer close, and has fired either the OUT Proximity or Check Zone, it's supposed to disable the LO Waypoint, Enable the HI Waypoint (using Force Complete like above), and the balloon should start rising back up to the default altitude (of 1500 meters in this case).

The problem is that the balloon never starts rising.  It descends fine - but it doesn't seem to be affected by the HI Waypoint once it's been re-enabled through the logic.  I've even tried using an Activate MCU in the logic to see if that helps force the engine to recognize the HI Waypoint, but that didn't do anything either.

I thought I had it working once with 3 Proximity Triggers - one for HI, one for MED, and one for LO altitudes, but it wouldn't rise in that scenario either, and assumed it was the MED logic creating the problem (and I don't need that anyway after thinking about it - just a simple HI and LO is sufficient).

What am I doing wrong?  Is it an issue with the Waypoints themselves... can they only be "used" once (which would surprise me, as I never believed that to be the case)?

[SYN_Vander]

Difficult to see what is wrong with only screenshots -although in the first script there is no object relationship to the balloon from the Proximity trigger, so I don't think this will ever work-.

In any case, here is a group that I use for my missions, It uses 1 complex trigger so it can be used for both single and multiplayer missions:  Balloon.zip

[TP_Fritz]

Well the screenshots were prepared - I was moving the two different logic setups back and forth and just forgot to re-link the Proximity triggers to the balloon for the screenshot.  In my actual testing they were properly connected.

Thanks for the group - I wouldn't be able to use that for my purposes, as the balloon setup I'm trying to create will be placed all along the front (on both sides - lots of balloons on each side of the front).

I've included a Group with both of the balloon setups I'm trying to work with so you can see it in the Editor.

_balloonTest.zip

[JG4_Deciman]

Hi

 

Check this old one

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/90544-lowering-and-raising-aerostats/

I found this thread a short time ago, when I've seen this one...

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/92738-easy-mission-editor-christmas-wish-from-santa-1c/

And attached i've ported the baloon group to BoX

 

Deci

baloon5_BoX.zip

Edited December 19, 2025 by JG4_Deciman

[JG4_Deciman]

In addition...

This 'Group' contains more than simply doing the 'up / down' for a balloon...
It also contains some 'human error possibilities' for 'false alarms' and 'not seeing enemies'
And also it contains the whole 'counting logic' from the time
when the only way to realize these things using the 'complex trigger'
feeding every single event used to identify 'entering' or 'leaving' planes
feeding a more complex array of 'timers, activators and deactivators' to keep the 'number of planes inside' up to date.

Later we were able to 'manipulate' counters (so counting up/down was possible)
what could reduce the logic in this group by a lot.
But we were still not able to use 'trigger check zone' (what would give us 'empty' or 'any object inside') for multiplayer missions.
So the 'counting by timers an ... Part' could have been reduced to 'manipulate counters'
but still the need of 'complex triggers'

Finally the 'trigger check zone' was also working in multiplayer.
So the entire logic from inside this group (and it's massive, I know)
could be reduced to 2 'trigger check zone's and connecting them to the 'actions', where the old (massive) logicwas connecting to on 'no planes inside' or 'first plane isnide'

Deci 

 

[TP_Fritz]

Okay - thank you for that example, and man, you're right... that's insane, lol.

The issue for me though is that I'm creating this for a Multiplayer mission setup / template, so I need to use as few things like Complex Triggers as possible to accomplish this, because there will be a lot of these scattered around the front.  As much as I'd love to use Complex Triggers for some things I try to avoid them whenever possible.

So, to your final point "... reduced to 2 'trigger check zones' and connecting them to the actions'", that's pretty much what I did with the second screenshot example above, and it doesn't work.  The logic will detect the incoming plane, fire the Inbound CZ and enable the LOW Waypoint as expected, but the balloon will never rise after the outbound CZ is fired even though I'm certain (through using Subtitles as error checking) that the LOW waypoint logic has fired properly.  It's simply not engaging with the HI waypoint at all - even if I don't have the HI waypoint actually Target linked, or otherwise "activated", until after the outbound logic is actually triggered.

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe my Editor is not working right (there's other oddities happening in-game too)... would one of you kind gentlemen test the _balloonTest.zip group I linked above and see if that works properly for you?

[JG4_Deciman]

Try this one...

Not tested but myabe it works

 

Deci

_balloonTest_new.zip