Thanks for the update, the gunner awareness is welcome. Have you guys found or addressed the issue of the AI only pursuing the lead aircraft in a flight?
I have noticed this many times, where an AI flight will circle endlessly with another enemy fight (AI) behind, often the opposing planes (the AI wingmen) are flying wingtip to wingtip but unaware of any other enemy plane except the leader.

Any new updates for 4.11 coming along?

Thanks TD for your constant support ;)

Regarding this new IA fire friendly behaviour, did you checked it already including the 3rd dimension? I mean, your test is showing us this feature at land level, but it is going to happen the same at 21.000 feet, with a devil Fw190 just in the middle of a B17´s mega-box formation, and gunners not shooting it?? Just wondering... :-P

Regards.

The way the calculations are done... it doesn't matter. Doing it at ground level is just as complicated as in flight with different altitudes.

In a perfect formation box and a Fw190 positioned perfectly in it, theoretically noone would shoot, indeed.
But be sure, that will never happen.
1st: AI is not able to do a perfect formation - its oscillating all the time
2nd: you woulnd't recognise, where the perfect position for you was
and 3rd: you woulnd't be able to reach it, because you would already been shot then. :D

On a related note, what does happen if we run a recording that shows planes being shot by AI crew members who now would hold fire?

That may have happend occationally, and will happen so in game. The gunners are not perfect and there is also dispersion for bullets. In case you can race with your fighter all through a box of bombers, its possible, that a very few bullets of gunners will hit nearby friendly planes. But its not as much as before anymore.

What I meant was, I have a recording of a mission that shows a bomber formation that is being attack by fighters. Some fighters are hit and explode. What will happen if I replay the same recording in 4.11. Obviously, the bombers would not have scored all the hits neccessary to destroy the attacking fighters in question. So will they keep flying even though the recording does not have further information about their movement as they were destroyed originally?

Friendly fire did happen and it was deadly when it did. Though no where near as we have it in 4.10.1. I can not wait for 4.11. :)

Just one more question: do G forces affect gunners now? I used to get hit by a gunner from a torn up bomber spinning and spiraling down to the mother Earth, and I don't even want to mention tail gunners...

Someone correct me please, but... IIRC this was a problem with old track recording system. The current one is just that - a recording. And the old one (.ntrk or .trk, I can't remember) replayed the mission as if you were playing on autopilot.

I see. Yes, there are many problems with the old 'track' format. We try to erase all things from the recording/saving algorythm, that may suffer from changings. Randomisation is a big bugger here. On the other side, we know, 'track' format is a dead horse in fact, there is no help, it will never again work properly. 1C maddox probably came to the same conclusion and thus made a different recording format, that works on all circumstances, namely 'ntrack'.

As T}{OR said, 'track' format is no real recording, its just replaying with the same initial settings. The advantage is, it is small, but since the game has evolved, the 'butterfly effect' have become a much bigger problem.