crew auto bail

[Erövraren]

i have my crew ai set to highest initiative and they usually do a good job of putting out fires and healing each other and so on. but whenever a plane from my squadron gets shot down, they never bail out on their own. i always have to manually switch to the plane and order them to bail out or they just stay in the plane until it crashes. is it supposed to be like this?

[Smokey]

I've had them bail on their own but it was when a crash was imminant such as both pilot and co-pilot incapacitated.

[Vox]

I do not think crew initiative settings influences the tendency to bail out.

I'm guessing that you are playing the "Bomber Commander" campaign. In BC you are only responsible for your bomber and crew. The other 5 B17s are under the mercy of the AI and unpredictable. As you observed, they frequently do not bail and end up crashing after sustaining damage.

In the "Squadron Commander" camp you control all 6 B17s and their crews and it plays out differently. Crews often bail too quickly, resulting from Inexperienced pilots allowing engine temps to rise too high or serious control surface damages etc. However. other times they try to land a damage plane or ditch in the channel and are lost , but sometimes crews make it back. A lot depends on their training-skill level, morale, etc. , all of which you can influence. Vox

[tbcon]

I 've had the exactly opposite experience...
Playing BC, crew autonomy set to limited, I was damaged but still with small hopes to reach the english coast at least or ditching near as a secondary scenario.

The crew decided to bail out themselves when I was left with 2 damaged engines and trying to restart another one which was in good shape but with fuel leaking

The plane ditched itself (!) without anyone onboard and the game gave me a new plane for the next mission; too bad, I couldn't see how many fighters I had shot down in the bomber file and I was pretty sure I could somehow save the plane anyway

I searched a bit the R&R and I have found out only a pilot related auto bail-out feature though...

[Smokey]

Maybe when the pilot goes they all go. Messing with that parameter might affect the whole crew.

[tbcon]

Smokey this would make sense as usually the commander gives the abandon order.
But the thing in the R&R seems pretty particular.

DAMAGE_EFFECTS_PilotFireDamageFromHugeFirePerTick = 0.006; //B17 Only : Pilot dies when damage reaches 1.0. Pilot bails when damage exceeds tolerance. Should take 5 secs for pilot death.

Yesterday I had again a similar bail-out experience, I am starting to wonder if I would ever ditch the plane or land it at a non-airport area.
It seems that they auto bail out when is something engine related. At least both of my cases was mainly savaged engines. The plane though had the ability to glide assisted by some minimal thrust...
I am talking about the leading aircraft of a BC campaign.

Regarding the other aircrafts, usually the crew don't bail-out as the OP states.

Also, after altering the R&R for controling the other planes in a BC campaign, I have noticed that they never give first aid, so when I jump into them in order to prevent them from crashing when they land, I usually find half the crew already dead.

I hope that this is not the case on a SC campaign and the crew is in superior autonomy as it is supposed to be when the player doesn't directly control an aircraft.

[Vox]

From SC : Once the pilot decides to bail the crew follows.

High Oil temps in particular, cause bailouts and need to be watched. See the ' Read Me' for patch 2 . The pilot bails when the engine "oil" temperatures remain at critical levels. The cylinder head (CHT) and Carb-Air temps are not as critical and can be controlled . You can see this this happen from the cockpit. Try a test mission and fly back on 2 engines (-see my recent post at GoG b17 forum).

Another factor leading to pilots bailing-out seems to be loss of flying-surfaces control. There are damages to the b17 that we cannot see while flying. Only after the mission and then going to the ground crew mechanic checklist do we get some clues of what has been damaged.

For example, rudder and elevator control cables. I think their is an entry for those in RR. A fellow on the old forum called Blimey? , did some testing. Interestingly, he found that the player could still control the b17 when these cables were damaged but the AI pilot seem not to be able to. I remember him telling me that he made these cables impossible to damage , and found that the pilots seem to fly very damaged b17 back.

Raging cockpit fires should also cause bailout but i have never seen it.

The RR is not the full story, there remains much going on in the source code that remains hidden.
---Vox