Community help needed with AI and Radio Comms
 

Hi everyone,

We are hard at work on the next Cliffs of Dover patch. We’d like to get more input on some elements of the game, and we also need some help tracking down a mysterious issue. Here’s what we have:


1. AI (Artificial Intelligence)

While the forum consensus is that AI needs work, we could use more specific suggestions. Ideally they would come in the shape of “when plane X is in situation Y, instead of Z it should do ABC”. I’m afraid that more general issues such as “we need more historical tactics” or “fighters should work better in groups” are not there because we don’t know about them, but rather because these tasks are insanely complex and take an incredible amount of work to improve.
So we’d like to hear some specific suggestions if possible, or any bugs or other problems. Screenshots or videos or giant scientific works are all very welcome.


2. Radio Comms

We’ve been gradually improving on this part of the game for some time. We’d like to make sure we’re on the right track, and we’re doing exactly what we need to be doing. So we need your help as well!
We’ll listen to any suggestions ranging from bug reports to ideas on completely overhauling the system or redoing it from scratch in a completely different way.


3. Mysterious joystick lag

Every once in a while people will email us a bug report mentioning “joystick lag” that needs to be fixed, or we’ll see it mentioned in passing on the forums. Unfortunately, we still do not have enough detail from anyone to track down this bug, or as a matter of fact replicate it.
If you think you experience a delay in response to your joystick input, we need details! Which plane, what map, on-offline, if online what server, system specs, joystick model, exact maneuver you are trying to do when experiencing it. Please provide as many details as possible!


Experience a bug? Please fill out this form:

Error description:
Details:
Can it be consistently reproduced?:
Screenshot or video:
OS, system specs:

Or use this format for general suggestions:

Suggested improvement:
Detailed description:
Proposed benefits:

If your idea does not fit this format, we can take freeform text as well.

Thank you!

Radio Comms:
we have no ground targets commands.

When plane X is On Fire, it should stop attacking, and pilot should bail out ASAP.

Here are my observations:

1) I have never got input lag in SP, only in MP, however 95% of time I play MP only.
2) It has happened on various servers.
3) Almost always everything around feels like there is 40-50 FPS (and FPS counter shows that), but plane reacts to controls like it is 5-10 FPS only. Or in other words, it feels like controls are being polled multiple times less frequently than they should be.
4) Very often, input lag is accompanied by some lagging plane in proximity. Once such plane flies away or is destroyed, input lag disappears.

Maybe there is some synchronization issue in netcode, because of which one lagging client can "slow down" other clients?

When plane X is flying it's waypoint route and is attacked and badly damaged (injured pilot or airframe), instead of continuing along it's assigned route, it should attempt to return to base or land at nearest friendly airfield. Note - This applies especially to bombers. ie. abort it's mission.

When plane X has lost power or engine, instead of gliding in random direction & crash landing even when base is closeby, pilot should randomly (1) attempt bail-out if high enough, or (2) attempt an emergency landing at nearest friendly airfield, or (3) attempt emergency crash landing in field/roadway etc if glide path gives probable successful outcome.

May I give an advice? If you give suggestion about AI, think in what way your suggestion can hurt the game. There is no such thing as common sense for AI, so even obvious things for humans, must be explicitly told for AI. That is the reason, why BlackSix asks for help, because it is huge task to describe AI behavior in formal way, while covering most situations.

I.e. plane state "on fire" needs more precise definition. In CoD, lots of parts of plane might burn, and some of such fires might be extinguished. If you tell AI to bailout because of any fire on its plane, it will become very easy to down planes with rifle caliber incendiary rounds, because such rounds can create small temporary fires very quickly.

I suppose there should be 3 types of fire defined: minor, major, extreme.

Minor would be all small temporary fires, which is easily extinguished without much effort and AI should ignore them.

Major fire would be a fire, which needs reaction from pilot (i.e. if aileron is on fire, commence a dive, so that airflow extinguishes the flame).

Extreme fire is one which threatens to the life of pilot (i.e. fuel tank fire, fire in cockpit and so on). In case of extreme fire, pilot should bail out ASAP.

When landing wingmen will continue to stay in formation and crash, they should leave formation and rtb.

If Plane X is firing at plane Y and plane X does not score any hits within 2 seconds, Plane X should stop firing for a certain time (may be at least 1 second).

As far as I can imagine, in the programming language:

After Plane X has stopped firing (because of no hits), the programm should go back to decide again (may be after 1 second) if Plane X should fire.

Right at the moment, Hurricanes are wasting their whole ammo whithout scoring any hit...

AI planes should use exactly the same flight modell as the player can use!

BlackSix, thanks for you work, but is there and estimated time for the beta patch? thanks

- Plane X should respect roll rate, and not 360 in 3/4 of a second.
- AI should have a delay wehn moving the stick. Example: load any default track ( blakc death ) and enable view. choose F1. watch the stick moving. it goes from full right to full left instantaneusly, giving the AI a strange warping feeling who lokes incredably mechanic and unrealistic from outside.
- AI should responde to situations more naturally. Example: 4 AIs are in formation, when a enemy is spotted they ALL twist at the same time, break foramtion using the same angle at the same time in a perfect linear mechanicly executed maneuver.
- AI should turn ahrder. Example. im on a 109E, plane X is on the italian biplane. im on his six. the g50 will do a small turn not pushing the limit of his plane and as such i will easely outturn him.


Regarding joy stick Lag, im not experienced with it, but if you could bring back the old 1946 calibration stile ( that thing with 10 axis that could go from 0 to 100 ) it would be nice, beceouse right now, my stick is higly unresponsive to small adjustments evne at highest sensivety settings. ( i used 100 at all the bars in 1946

This thread is on our 1C forums

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=25973

Our member buddye has led the efforts for AI improvements with the BOB II Wings of Victory. The BOB II has the best AI performance of any WW2 air combat simulator program.

It would be very wise to have discussion with him. He will gladly share information as he has done in the thread.

He has hundreds of hours of work in the AI performance programming.

He discusses very insightful information in the thread about improving AI as well. Below are some postings from the thread.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...9&postcount=24

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...4&postcount=45

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...6&postcount=50

+1 This would be a huge improvement to dogfights.

Also for AI:

Some aircraft fires are put out within a few seconds of catching fire: Example:

Plane X hits plane Y's aileron and it catches fire. Currently Pilot of plane Y would INSTANTLY bail out in panic. As for programming language I think an aircraft fire that does NOT deal damage to the pilot, should have a 5 sec delay to allow the AI to "discover" the fire and bail out.

So again: Plane X hits plane Y's aileron and it catches fire. Pilot of plane Y waits 5 seconds before deciding to bail out. If fire is extinguished BEFORE 5 seconds has passed, it will ignore the fire and keep fighting.

2nd example: Plane X hits plane Y and cockpit catches fire. Pilot bail out instantly.



Also a huge improvement for me:

AI evasive manouvers:

Based on Pilot Y's skill level:

Example rookie:

Plane X fires at plane Y: A second or two after Plane Y takes damage, it tries to do a violent evasive manouver and has a chance % of stalling the aircraft. (panic)

Example ace:

Plane X fires at plane Y: Almost instantly after plane Y has taken damage, the plane will perform a defensive manouver to try and throw off plane X. (Ie: Barrel roll, sharp turn, negative dive, etc...)

Thanks for asking us for help :)

Plane X fires a plane Y:

Just a suggestion, not sure if feasible:

When a group of BF110s are attacked they should fly in a defensive circle to cover each other. Ive read about this tactic in multiple books and sounded very common early on. It would be cool to see AI doing it. More info here:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=15311

IL2 1946 had awesome AI and radio coms!

I have seen AI going straight while attacked, or diving into the water simply because they did'nt pull up on time.

Joystiock lag, I've opened up a thread to explain my case.
Regards
JF

This year will not exactly. Then the weekend in Russia from January 1 to January 9. :confused:
Only then we will start working again. Now it is impossible to predict.

When flight of planes X land, instead of all landing exactly the same, they should have slight variation in landing pattern, perhaps based upon individual Ai pilot skill level. ie roookie pilots may land off runway centre, or land long way along runway. Same for takeoffs.

AI suggestion...

When you get on plane X's six and fire, plane X turns into a Sukhoi Su-29 and does a series of dives, rolls and spins that would be improssible for the plane, pilot and situation. Worse...is that while doing these manuvers plane X will waggle its wings in a bizarre, unrealistic way suggesting a programming bug. These moments take me right out of the game and that's why I'm playing ROF until this thing gets fixed. I appreciate the opportunity to provide constructive criticism :grin: but it sounds like you are just getting to this stuff and that the next Beta is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off. :(

I'm not sure if it's in the game already or not but you should give the A.I the same engine overheating limits as the human player, like team daidalos now have done for "old" IL-2 1946.

AI damage modelling needs to adhere to the same physics as player aircraft.- When twin engined fighter/ bomber X has one of its engines inoperable the performace should fall off dramaitically. Instead the ( especially in the case of the twin engined fighters) they continue along at the same rate of speed with no degradation in its evasive manuvers.

Bombers should jetison bombs and head for friendly territory, usually with a fighter escorting them. Same with a damaged fighter when sufficent damage has occurred it should head for friendly territory with its wingman for cover.

This seems more like work for the next patch after this upcoming one? The next one is more graphics and performance I thought... anyways...

I agree on the "jerky" movements of the AI planes under fire. As well as the damage ratio, like couldnt there be a percentage of damage = pilots action. Depending on the amount of damage the pilot will try and make it to the nearest base, or bail out etc... I know nothing of programming AI, but sounds realistic to do...

On top of that, would it make sense to put some sort of variable in there, where AI pilot A may be less inclined to break from combat, and AI pilot B bails out because of minimal damage? If that makes sense...

As for AI behavior,

Blenheims and BR.20s flying evasive maneuvers that my Hurricane cannot match.

Online I've see AI Blenheims maneuvering like an SU 26, climbing faster them my Hurrricane 1 Rotol, and have a roll rate like an FW 190, meanwhile a human piloted Blenheim can barely get off the ground without blowing an engine.

Joystick lag...

I have also experienced this. I only play online. It always happens when in close proximity to 2 or more aircraft, typically under 3000 ft. altitude, though sometimes in close proximity to bomber formations of 6+ aircraft. I only fly on the big Channel Map.

Specs...
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.
Intel Core2Duo E8500 at 3.5ghz.
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R motherboard
6 gigs, PC2-6400 Mushkin memory
EVGA Nvidia GTX 570 Superclocked, 1280 mb onboard Vram
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality Gamer sound card.
Complete CH HOTAS setup with Throttle Quadrant.
Samsung Sync Master PX2370 running 1920 X 1080 res in game. (16 X 9)
TrackIR 4 Pro.

+1E100000000000000

When being a lonely bomber and attacked and driven by a veteran it should do some evasive manoeuvres suitable for a bomber such as quickly altering its altitude, weaving, eventually barrel rolling.

If bomber is flying in formation it should stay in formation instead of trying to play fighter (what it sometimes does).

Fighters should ALWAYS start evasive manoeuvers as soon as it realizes that it has someone on his tail (currently after a while they just fly stubbornly home despite shooting at them).

Flights lead by veteran pilots that are tasked with close cover of a bomber (formation) should fight off fighters and return to the bombers. Less experiences flights may stick to the fighters instead of turning back to cover bombers.

Roockie pilots may occasionally not stay with his wing leader but go chasing alone as soon as he sees an enemy plane nearby or after a while in a dogfight. He may randomly loose his flight at all during a dogfight and return home alone.

AI formations should use bank and not rudder for turning even in shallow turns. Rudder should always be used only to annihilate side slip. Preferably all pilots will have more or less capability to annihilate side slip. Rookie pilots will have more chance to have side slip than ace pilots.

AI should - depending on skill level and situation - occasionally overlook one when it is fixed on another target. A target that is going to be attacked by the AI plane will get some sort of priority level to this AI plane. If the AI plane is then itself targeted it will either shift its focus to the attacker (for instance the player) or stay with the original target until it gets damaged. If it shifts its focus should depend on the skill level and may include some randomisation. Near comrades of the AI may warn it. So if a friendly AI is nearby the AI plane shall most likely shift its focus.

Agree on the evasive manoeuvres, the He111 is particularly agile both before and after bombs gone and can perform almost aerobatically.

The bits in bold are I think more to do with the flyable FMs, and as you know quite a few of the chaps are having a great time with the Blenny. ;)

I don't want to derail this thread, but I must make one comment.

Dutch, just because it can be flown does not mean it's correct. As we know, NONE of the FMs are currently correct, some are closer to reality than others, but none are right.

The Blenheimn and G.50 are flying jokes at this point. I have great respect for those players that have struggled to deal with the FM shortcomings of the Blenheim and G.50, but I repeat, they are not correct, and just being able to fly them is not proof that they are, regardless of the well earned sense of accomplishment in being able to operate them.

Please don't subscribe to the sim pilot's false paradigm that higher difficulty always equals higher realism.

It simply isn't true.

Cheers.

Error description: Launcher.exe Crash
Details: Playing online after 5 to 60 mins the whole game crashes to desktop. This happens even faster when more aircraft are in one place.
Can it be consistently reproduced?: Yes, have 12 pilots take off from 1 airfield and the whole game slows down and then crash. Same with large formation flying...
Screenshot or video:
OS, system specs: As my signiture.

Think you already have the German brevity codes as I hear them in game.

Heres a link anyway:

http://www.gyges.dk/Operatonal%20bre...Ver%2010_1.pdf

Dead is Dead !!!!- When an aircraft AI/Player becomes a flamming comet- kill the pilot or have him bail. In either option the aircraft , should roll over and do the proverbial " lawn dart " to final destruction. It should not continue on as the eternal flame or do the 45 min. flamming death spiral.

I've seen them already doing this, but the main annoyance for me is that aircraft in a flight will follow the leader even when he is severely damaged, going down or breaking for home. I would like to see AI group up and continue their missions, preferably seeking cover amongst into the nearest larger formation. Either way it appears that the AI find it far too easy to neglect their missions whether it be bombing or escort.

AI findings

AI takes off without warming it's engine, as player you are too late to follow.

AI keeps flying in formation when being attacked. As player it's easy to down these aircrafts.

AI crashes when player lands instead of landing at home base.

AI congratulates player for a kill too early not visible yet that the aircraft goes down. As player you have an advantage not wasting ammo.

AI bailing out too early out of small damaged aircraft.

AI continues flying in a burning aircraft.

AI not dropping their bombs on target, they fly home with their bombs.

One annoying thing about the AI radio is during a huge battle you hear the whole squad talking at the exact same time, saying the exact same thing. We need some variety!

Change up a few of phrases the pilots say. Just 2 or 3 different phrases that mean the same thing would be a breath of fresh air and make the radio feel less like a bunch of robots and more like human beings.

Is there any footage of a real WW2 squad talking on radio during a dogfight? I would try to replicate that.

Gentlemen!

The most things i read about the AI behavior are consequences of incorrect mission building. If you do the things correct in FMB, the AI is a very good and realistc one. If you behave wrong in FMB, than you have some Problem. This belongs also to the Quick Missions, from what, imho, most must be "rewritten". By spending now more than 1.000 Hours in the great FMB of CloD and over 770 Hours in Combat tests for the builded Missions, i realy stay on that point of view.

But i think this will not bother the AI discussion ;).

Cheers
Thomas

Were you drinking heavily and/or under the influence of pyschtropic drugs during or preceeding the creation/testing of FMB ?

Well, my personal "peeve" with the AI is the lack of what really separated experienced pilots from utterly green rookies - situational awareness.

A totally green pilot put into a combat aircraft will barely be able to do more than cling to his leader (and losing sight of him often enough, though). Such a pilot's attention is completely occupied by keeping the aircraft in the air and not losing sight of his formation. You can read that often enough in veteran's memories - they almost never saw the enemy aircraft during their first air combat.
Experience is gained through flying missions (and coming back in one piece ;)) and the first thing that improves is the situational awareness. Suddenly the pilot does have more and more routine in flying the aircraft so that he can keep most of his attention outside, scanning the skies for contacts or other unusual things. There are varying grades of situational awareness, there are pilots with little and pilots with a great load of it and often training or experience have nothing to do with gaining it, but only after a certain amount is gained other aspects of flying other skills improve (such as aerobatics, combat tactics or even shooting skills).

This brings us to what is my main "booo!" with the AI - it does know (always!) when an enemy aircraft is on its tail. There is no way to surprise the AI, once you get into shooting position it will start "waggling" from left to right so badly, that I get headaches after watching it for a while. There is no tactics involved - no sharp break turn, no steep dive, just that insane "wag the wing" stuff.

My 0,02 € ...

Error description: Launcher.exe Crash
Details: Playing online after 5 to 60 mins the whole game crashes to desktop. This happens even faster when more aircraft are in one place.
Can it be consistently reproduced?: Yes, have 12 pilots take off from 1 airfield and the whole game slows down and then crash. Same with large formation flying...

Win 7 64 bit

Asus Mobo
8 Gig of Ram
CPU I5 @3.0Ghz
5770 ATI Radeon

Hey,

for now i think the most important feature for the AI would be some kind of debug output. Reading some very good suggestions like having rookie pilots react in a slow / panic like way could easily interpreted as further bad AI behavior, even though it was intended. Lacking this feature a proper discussion with everyone talking about the same situations / reactions is hardly possible in my opinion.

Hence the AI should state what its trying to achive and why, of course this should only be enabled as a debug for example in track recordings or as a text file.

An example to illustrate:
Player P attacks a formation of fighters F(1-4). He hits F(4) on his first attempt and breaks of not overtaking the formation. F(4) starts a slow turn, not going fully defensive, but leaving formation.

From a player standpoint of view there a several "bugs" to report, for example:
* AI reacts not defensive enough if shot at
* AI formations don't form a defensive circle when attacked
* AI turning performance is bad

From an AI standpoint of view there might have been reasons for this behavior, for example:
* AI tries to simulate bad leadership by a slow reacting formation leader
* AI pilot is dead, the rest of the formation has not noticed
* AI plane is damaged, course can not be maintained, AI is still in the process of communicating

To resolve messages like this could help:
*F(4): i have been hit, i do not know by what or from where, i am a rookie i am waiting for a 3.14 second time to properly react
*F(1): communication with formation ongoing
*F(1): i am a rookie i am waiting for a 5 second time to decide what to do next
*F(4): i am a rookie i have a 79% chance of panic, i panic and hence leave formation, i am trying to find the attacker
ect. ect.

Of course this would be very verbose, and could not be used all the time. But for the sake of a proper improvement of single, isolated situations and reactions it is very important.

Madog

P.S. Oh, first post... Hello everyone :)

Hi Madog43, welcome and good post. Output would be helpful. It is possible to get damage model information (see my sig) and this would be great for AI debugging.

Suggestions:

1. Remove wing wobble when the AI can't make up its mind which way to roll. Just pick one and commit!

2. Reduce roll rate. I don't care if the rate is technically possible, there's no way it could be controlled well enough.

Just a thought but ideally AI players would emulate human players. Would it be possible to interrogate server tracks to get common responses to scenarios? You would get a range of skills from players like me through to people who know what they're doing.

+100!

Oleg would never admit it but BoB2 is the benchmark in AI and all you need to do is buy some time from Buddye. Just look at his list of manoevres which the BoB AI code can choose from, there are hundreds, depending on the tactical situation (not just a few as in CoD).

But here is my big AI wish...

If a flight of luftwaffe fighters flies directly past, within ten feet of a flight of Blenheim bombers, they should bloody well attack them!!!! How hard is that to program for goodness sake!

I just set up a mission in fmb with blenheims bombing france, three groups of luftwaffe fighters set to free hunt all at same altitude, clear skies and even when the blenheims gunners fire at them they ignore the blenheims. Try it yourselves. It sux.

This is from a Buddye post...Read it and LEARN!


The design of the AI Maneuver Selection

The design of the AI maneuver Selection Criteria was driven by the need to become more deterministic and less random in selecting AI maneuvers. I felt the need to move in this direction to improve the AI offence and defense so the AI selection software had more control...

Here is a summary of how the AI selects from the (more than 80) available manouvres:

1. Altitude (how much altitude and rate of change)
2. Speed (how much speed, and rate of change)
3. Position of A/C to each other (nose to tail, tail to tail, nose to beam, tail to beam or left, right, front, back) This is what makes the AI really 'smart' - it is constantly testing to see if it is 'offensive' or 'defensive' and chooses its response dynamically as the fight progresses.

To implement the new selection criteria I built a 3 X 6 matrix (a truth table) and many new programs. For each A/C (the unfriendly and the AI or the player), I designed programs to look at Altitude, Speed, and position and to first try and select the best maneuver option (aggressive or defense) based on AI skill level.

Altitude and speed can also be thought of as “energy” as altitude can be turned into speed.

I also gave the Terminator AI a bit of boost in performance and tune-up so you might want to try it out. With the boost in Terminator performance, he was getting “cocky” so I implemented a spinout feature. The Terminator flies so close to the edge now that he has a tendency to “spinout”. This is when you can get him. (BOB2 has a 'Terminator' skill setting, which guarantees the AI will fly offensively/aggressively against the player in all situations. It isn't superhuman, it still makes mistakes and follows the laws of physics, but it will, in every way, be out to kill you!)

I also implemented a new AI feature called “Flying Factor (FF)”. This is the knowledge of the AI pilot to fly a given maneuver (experience) and how well the AI pilot will actually fly the given maneuver (skill). The FF is based on the Skill Level (customer selected in Instant Action Missions and software assigned in the Campaign). The Terminator is assigned a Skill Level of Hero2 (the highest in the game) so that is where he gets his boost in performance (edge). BOB2 has since 2009 had up to 4 mixed skills within a flight Novice, Veteran, Ace or Hero. So you might get lucky and bag a novice with limited abilities, to then be up against an ace who has the full range of AI talents available to it.

AI Maneuver Selection is the KEY

First, the BOBII AI has a special case for selection called “Evasive maneuver selection”. The Evasive maneuver is required when an AI is shot at (either a hit or near miss). The AI will select a defensive maneuver randomly based on the criteria/data for both Player and enemy AI (speed, altitude, and the position of the targeting AI and the AI being targeted with respect to each other). Of course, the AI will evade the players quicker, if and only if, the AI can see the enemy (remember in BOBII, the AI vision is blocked just like the player's vision is blocked by the cockpit, wings, sun, and distance).

The first key decision to be made is to select either an aggressive or defensive maneuver. This is a complex decision based on the available information on both the Player and the Enemy AI or the friendly AI and the enemy AI. The data considered for both Player and enemy is speed, altitude, and the position of the targeting AI and the AI being targeted with respect to each other.

After selecting either an aggressive or defensive, then a random approach is used to select a category (choose good, choose bad, or choose “neither” good nor bad maneuver). This also makes the AI very human, the chance that it will choose a 'bad' maneouvre in the circumstances.

Maneuvers are then divided into three parts Vertical, Horizontal, and dive for each of our categories (choose good, choose bad, and choose neither good nor bad maneuver).

The individual maneuver selection is then based on speed, altitude, and position of both the player and the enemy AI.

In BOBII we have over 80 complex maneuvers for selection (both the aggressive and defensive maneuvers) for the fighters (Spit,Hurri,109.110) and over 50 maneuvers for selection for the JU87 and Defiant. The following are BOBII’s complex maneuvers: (My comments in bold on some of the less obvious labels)

MANOEUVRE_SELECT
MANOEUVRE_LOOKROUND
MANOEUVRE_WELDEDWINGMAN
MANOEUVRE_BAILOUT
MANOEUVRE_TOPCOVER
MANOEUVRE_FORCETOPCOVER
MANOEUVRE_LINEABREAST
MANOEUVRE_PINCER
MANOEUVRE_MULTIWAVE
MANOEUVRE_DIVEANDZOOM
MANOEUVRE_INSIDELOOP
MANOEUVRE_LAGPURSUIT
MANOEUVRE_SPLITMANOEUVRE
MANOEUVRE_HEADON
MANOEUVRE_LINEASTERN
MANOEUVRE_VICATTACK
MANOEUVRE_BARRELROLLATTACK
MANOEUVRE_SCISSORS
MANOEUVRE_MILDSCISSORS
MANOEUVRE_TURNINGFIGHT
MANOEUVRE_SPLITS
MANOEUVRE_ZOOMANDDROP
MANOEUVRE_STRAIGHTANDLEVEL
MANOEUVRE_SPINOUT
MANOEUVRE_DIVEFORHOME
MANOEUVRE_GOHOME
MANOEUVRE_MAKEFORFRIENDLY
MANOEUVRE_MOVEAWAY
MANOEUVRE_QUICKROLL
MANOEUVRE_IMMELMANNTURN
MANOEUVRE_IMMELMANN
MANOEUVRE_STAYWITHPREY (forces AI to ignore eg fighters and concentrate on bombers)
MANOEUVRE_CLIMBFORHOME
MANOEUVRE_STRAIGHTDIVE (for LW, this is a bunt, for the RAF Merlin engine fighters, they will roll to invert, then dive)
MANOEUVRE_OUTSIDELOOP
MANOEUVRE_SHOOTTOFRIGHTEN (eg if AI detects a comrade under attack within range)
MANOEUVRE_SHOOTTOOEARLY
MANOEUVRE_GAINHEIGHT
MANOEUVRE_LAGROLL
MANOEUVRE_EXTENSION
MANOEUVRE_DIVINGROLL
MANOEUVRE_REVERSETURN
MANOEUVRE_SELFASBAIT (or 'drag and bag' in other parlance - one AI will fly steady and slow, luring the player, while its wingman stalks)
MANOEUVRE_JINK
MANOEUVRE_BREAKTURN
MANOEUVRE_LAZYTURN
MANOEUVRE_BREAKLOW
MANOEUVRE_BREAKHIGH
MANOEUVRE_BREAK90
MANOEUVRE_BREAK180
MANOEUVRE_HIGBARRELROLL
MANOEUVRE_PANICTURN
MANOEUVRE_TURNANDRUN
MANOEUVRE_LOWALT
MANOEUVRE_ZOOM
MANOEUVRE_INTERCEPTHIGH
MANOEUVRE_INTERCEPTLOW
MANOEUVRE_GAINSPEED
MANOEUVRE_HEADONATTACK
MANOEUVRE_LUFBERRY (a special manoeuver for the Bf110s)
MANOEUVRE_STEEPDIVE
MANOEUVRE_UPANDUNDER
MANOEUVRE_STALLTURN
MANOEUVRE_SLASHINGATTACK
MANOEUVRE_CLIMBTURN
MANOEUVRE_ROLL360
MANOEUVRE_STRAFFE
MANOEUVRE_TRANSITION
MANOEUVRE_PEELOFF
MANOEUVRE_SNAPSHOT
MANOEUVRE_STAYONTAIL
MANOEUVRE_FLYTHROUGHCLOUD (a defensive manouver available if clouds are present - the AI dives for the nearest cloud)
MANOEUVRE_REGROUP
MANOEUVRE_DISENGAGED
MANOEUVRE_SPINRECOVERY
MANOEUVRE_COLLIDE
MANOEUVRE_LAST
MANOEUVRE_ALIGNMENT
MANOEUVRE_DROPANDZOOM
MANOEUVRE_COLLISIONAVOIDANCE
MANOEUVRE_TURNTOHDGANDPITCH (turn to heading, a waypoint command)
MANOEUVRE_SCREWYOUGUYSIMGOINGHOME (when damaged, out of fuel, or low on morale - unlike in CoD, the AI will still evade if attacked when running for home).

The AI Performance Criteria/Dependencies

Skill Level

The AI performance is dependent on AI Skill Level (which is customer selected in Instant Action and SW assigned in the campaign). BOBII AI do make mistakes (spin, crash, dumb maneuvers, bad judgment, shoot late , shoot bad, etc) which is after all very human.

The skill level of the AI is key in making decisions on about everything with respect to AI performance like (1) how well the AI fly, shoot, shoot fast, slow, accuracy, or not shoot, (2) how well the AI fly, what maneuvers are selected, and how well the AI will fly the chosen maneuver.

Random Numbers (Luck of the draw)

The BOBII AI A/C is also dependent on luck (specifically on random numbers). Random number decisions are coded through out the AI code. BOBII’s random approach keeps BOBII from doing the same thing each time. Even something as simple as the direction to start a maneuver (left or right), I will use a random number to decide (why hard code something when you can use a random number).


For example, most BOBII vertical maneuvers use a random number to assign a length of time to for a specific vertical maneuver (Like Zoom). The AI pilot will sometimes cut off early, or late, or somewhere in the middle. If early, the maneuver may carry too much speed, and if late, the AI may slow down so much that control is lost (very human).

The bottom line is that the customer will always see a somewhat different maneuver (very good, good, not so good, and loss of control) both because of the random implementation and the different physic’s parameters (speed, roll, heading, pitch, and overall energy) going into each maneuver.

The very real downside of random numbers is it is very hard to test (not repeatable) and the processing power used.

Conditions

The conditions for each maneuver are always different (energy, speed, altitude, skill, damage, and enemy position). This also changes how the maneuver is performed. A damaged AI will not fly as well as an undamaged AI (damage is always taken into account in the AI flying performance).

Thomas Desastersoft....Interesting, yes and no. I have also spent many many hours in fmb and successful built some great fights. But how to explain what i describe above? Opposing aircraft sailing past each other without engaging? All with fuel, ammo, fighters set to free hunt (but same if set to attack bomber or attack fighter)...there is no logical situation whatsoever in which fighters set to free hunt should totally ignore bombers...it is my biggest AI groan, along with AI blowing off all their ammo in long pointless hosepipe bursts. And the ace AI is just silly the manoeuvres it uses the barrel rolls...i never set AI to ace in fmb. And ps instead of saying this what you write, if you have learned so much of the fmb, why do you not share it with us, some of your tips for maximising the ai would be very helpful!

Problem: Ai have repetable, predictable behaviours.

Suggestion: develop Heuristic rather than scripted (repetative) Ai code.

Rationale: Ai often perform predictable manouvers. Heuristic logic would produce more human-like Ai performance.

Thanks for hijacking the thread everyone :( BlackSix asked for SPECIFIC information about Ai behaviour. Can we stick to the format below & not wander off into discussions which have been canvased many times in other threads ...

“when plane X is in situation Y, instead of Z it should do ABC”

Error description:
Details:
Can it be consistently reproduced?:
Screenshot or video:
OS, system specs:

Or use this format for general suggestions:

Suggested improvement:
Detailed description:
Proposed benefits:

Yes, fair

Error: aircraft do not engage in 1 vs 1
Details: if only one aircraft is in a flight, it is 'invisible' to other ai
Reproducable: yes, set up 1 vs 1 in qmb or fmb, or even 2 vs 1. Set aircraft for head on merge at same altitude. Set to autopilot to eliminate player actions.
Observation: setting enemy as 'target' in fmb does not help either.

Error: aircraft do not engage enemy aircraft in clear view
Details: despite good visibility and proximity ai does not engage
Reproducable. Yes, in fmb set one flight blenheim to bomb target. Set 3 flight 109s to patrol target. Set 109s to free hunt, veteran, full fuel and ammo. Blenheims will attack target and exit without being attacked despite proximity to 109s.
Observation: this seems to have something to do with ai ability to 'see'. I have made mission where ai will not engage, then I move waypoint a little, laterally not higher or lower, not closer or further away and start again and ai engage. Is not a 'proximity bubble' problem either as ai formations can sail through each other eithin metres without engaging.
Suggestion: ai in free hunt should always target nearest visible enemy. Implement option for ai to 'always see ' enemy. Need code preventing more than eg 2 ai attacking same enemy.

Error: bombers not releasing full bomb load on default setting shallow dive
Details: bombers sometimes release only one bomb at target, going home withmore in bomb bay. This is without any player adjustment to bomb load, timing, fuses etc.
Reproducable: set a Blenheim to bomb a target with shallow dive.
Suggestion: default ai should always release full bomb load

Error: ai does not evade when attacked
Details: when ai is in 'go home' state...eg landing, low fuel, no ammo, it does not evade when attacked but stays as sitting duck. Or, maked only one evadive manoeuvre and then returns to level flight even though still under attack
Reproducable: easily
Suggestion: ai should stay active and execute defensive moves as long as enemy is within eg 500 metres.

Error: ai does not attack player
Details: player can participate in large furballs where ai never attacks player despite player shooting at multiple ai.
Details: this is a gameplay design quedtion/issue. One or more ai should always be 'assigned' to attack the player. Maybe customisable by player. Or, an ai which is shot or near missed by player, should try to attack the player in return.
Reproducable: choose large quick mission and observe multiple times how many times player is actually attacked by ai. Is few.
Suggestion: implement code like in BoB2 which has line in config: 'max ai attacking player=X'

As i read in the other thread that we should post general suggestions here as well, here is one more:

Suggested improvement: Disapearing Mouse Pointer

Detailed description: Mouse Pointer disapears after not being used for maybe 3 seconds. When the mouse is moved again, the mouse pointer appears at the old spot.

Proposed benefits: Easier Handling, Mousepointer doesn´t disturb you because you have to move it away.

Yes and no... probability can be programmed. Human behaviours can be determined with high degree of probability, not perfect of course.

If a pilot is veteran and he is engaged in a certain fashion by 1 or more fighters there is high probability he will make several responses. One choice might require difficult maneuver, another might be a safer move, another a risky move but could be very effective, etc. Yes there should be some reliance on skill for responses, yes there should be reliance upon the condition of the pilot and/or aircraft (tired, injured, damaged, out of fuel).

Many factors need consideration, but the trial and error portions of creating a competent AI performance can be programmed. The probability aspects of various action and responses can also have a low probability of a "random responses" as well.

Simple example of probabilities, if a enemy is diving on you head on from higher altitude at high rate of speed with a lot of E. 30% chance you will turn up your nose and try to hit him on pass which will also lower your E and airspeed, 60% chance you will nose over negative G's and try to gain E and airspeed in opposite direction, 10% chance you will turn hard and maneuver to get behind him, and then there is the random choice - yaw hard and try to deceive the enemy of your flight path.

Yes there are many scenarios that can play out with 360 degree attacks, speed and E, but with enough probabilities, trial and error a good AI performance can be achieved. The package doesn't have to be done all a once. It will have to be developed over time, with help from the community as it was done with the BOB II WOV community.

There is no AI performance package comparable or as competently programmed as the BOB II WOV AI. The sim is over 10 years old and it cannot be a state of the art application with the old code and graphic capabilities.

I would be very content to have a fairly competent AI package to start, which has options for the community to have access to areas of the source code where AI is programmed.

Anyone that thinks a competent AI cannot be done just needs to go the BOB II WOV site, buy the download of BOB II and apply the update patches. Spend some time with the BOB II in action and you will be astonished what can be done.

The BOB II WOV has no multi-player or programmable mission builder, but the campaign is very good. The action is air combat, but that is what the Battle of Britain was for most part.

Regarding comms, this is a proposal for formatting a list for only the most basic functions that we would like to have:

a) Navigation:

a.1- on route, ability to request from the ground control and while on radio range, bearing to:
- the next waypoint
- The own airbase
- current map position as given from the radar, and true bearing of target (interception), if radar is active; if it is not, the last position and bearing given by ground observers and the time of this observation.

- On landing, permission request and recommended bearing.
-Out of radio range or in case of any comm failure, the answer to any of those questions could be a radio noise.

a.2) on route, ability to request from the flight leader if on his radio range :
- current true bearing and altitude.

- Here also, out of radio range or in case of any comm failure, the answer to any of those questions could be a radio noise.

a.3) Being the wing leader:

- The planned orders for forming, attacking, break, and leave mission and go home both for the whole flight unit, for the wingman, and for each flight team under command. i.e. if you lead a finger four, you can select as recipient: 1) the wingman 2) the other team of liden and wingman both together 3) the whole finger four.



Please feel all free to comment, add, or criticise:)

+ 1000

Please B6, take some time to study it and talking to Buddye.

Buddye has made several postings in the AI thread and expressed a willingness to help.

There is an old saying... "Never look in the mouth of a gift horse".

In other words, you are getting a free horse, there is no reason to find something wrong with it.

Tell that to citizens of Troy :twisted:

Would be helpful, really, if MG was talking to external contributors. I met a wall of silence for months, same for foo.bar and his railway stuff ... :(

Cannot use mouse on pop up windows after flying.
 

Error description: Cannot use mouse on pop up windows after flying.

Details: Mouse works fine when I start the game and until after I fly. It still works on main windows but not on the pop-up windows (the ones that ask for a yes/no response).

Can it be consistently reproduced?: Yes, happens almost every time I fly.

Screenshot or video: Can't take one

OS, system specs: Vista 64, AMD II X4 635, 8GB RAM, nVidia 550Ti 1GB

Scop, press either the F9 or F10 key that should fix your problem. TC

Suggested improvement: Can we have a variety of actor voices instead of just the one or two?

Detailed description: I've been wondering about this for a while, sorry if it's been posted/explained previously. It sounds to me like the same voice is being used for every pilot, or at the most there are two different voices. It is not only confusing in general, but doesn't do much for immersion when every voice on the radio sounds identical. I know there can't be 10 different actors, but at least 4 would really help.

Proposed benefits: More varied sounding chatter, improved immersion, increasing the general sense of 'polish' of the game. If money were an issue, perhaps see if volunteers from the community could help record additional voices.

-thanks for starting this thread.

AI issues I've seen so far:

- generally, the planes behave too much like synchronized swimmers when they're in formation. Especially in pre-combat mode (e.g. just before they engage enemy fighters) this interlinked behavior can be seen when one wingman slightly banks to create some distance or get into position, the other one does exactly the same. Bomber formations show same behavior: when one banks, all seem to bank at exactly the same time.

- when the leader turns, the wingman usually looses sight and flies dangerously close to and just above its leader (but it's unable to see it). It should keep more distance and fly behind its leader and try to keep a clear line of sight.

- formation changes are deadly right now. Tell 12 bombers to close up or spread, likely 2 will crash trying to do so. The formation change is performed far too quickly. Formation changes in old IL2 were very slow and very gradual and looked far more real.

- when wingmen need to close some distance with their leader, they rush in and seem to hit the brakes real hard at the very last moment. All of a sudden they fly exactly the same speed as their leader. Speed, inertia and drag (or FM if you will) do not seem to be active for AI at those times.

- AI/FM: AI should use player flight model. Ufo-like behavior of fighters and bombers kills immersion and does not look good. Maneuvers are far too sudden and executed too quickly and seem to defy rules of FM.

- Bombers are usually big and heavy, but are able to turn at the flick of a dime. Course corrections seem to be instant and also defy FM.

- In old IL2 each wingman looked to be more of an individual and somewhat oscillated around a fixed position relative to its leader to make it look more real. It was sometimes a bit closer to its leader, sometime further away. This was quite convincing AI behavior I think.

- Shooting: they're empty their magazines far too quickly and keep firing when tracers should tell them they're way off. Shorter bursts and aces and veterans should get better at deflection shots. They're wasting too much ammo right now.

- AI bombers and targeting: when a flight of e.g. Ju88's targets a pre-set ground target (I set an altitude of 2000 meters and set mode to slightly dive on a group of ground targets), they drop their first bombs at the target when they're straight and level (usually they fall short), but then the entire flight of Ju88's turn and scatter the remaining bombs over a wide area while turning.

- When AI fighters encounter each other head on they simply pass (or collide). They make no evasive maneuvers or try to gain altitude to get a better position. Only after they have passed each other, the combat/attack mode of AI starts and the flight splits up into pairs and engages any enemies.

- AI six 'o clock radar: the moment the player is in a good firing position, the AI seems to 'know' and immediately starts with defensive maneuvers.

- AI bombers and formation: when I give the command 'line abreast' to line up the bombers for a bomb run, the AI auto pilot overrides and automatically decides to use a echelon right/left a few moments before the IP is reached.

- Radio commands: please make the ones present right now work first. Right now, it's hard to assess if they're sufficient or not since most of them don't work right now. Although TD's latest additions look very nice to have as well: Drop Bombs On My Command, Drop Bombs At Will, Keep Ordnance and Drop Ordnance At Will.

But, please also talk to Team Daidalos :-)

Surely, allowing them to further improve the original il2 will also mean all the knowledge they've gained and improvements (largely based on communities' suggestions and bug hunting) will also flow back to CoD as well? I mean, there ought to be some reciprocity here, right? The stuff they did with 4.10 and now 4.11's AI, visibility, detection and deflection shooting in general looks quite promising and I'd love to see those features in CoD as well.

Regards,
FP

I volunteer. I am English and can do a good officer, or common sgt pilot if required ;) Just give me the instructions.

+1

he can. Speacially the angry one when you screw up. :grin:

You deserved that! lol

Lol, I'm not joining your squadron, you'd end up doing nothing but shout at me :)

You know the CLoD AI is bad when you start thinking the '46 AI was good.

Doesn't work for me, I can manage to Tab around some of the windows.

Not going to read all the replies but: AI=AI, Player=P ... = then a p not a :grin:
1. If AI plane/s in formation are attacked by P then formation should scatter. this does not happen in many fights, maybe they are out of ammo or have a assigned route? Its silly though when they dont react at all until they get blown out of the sky, in reality the pilots would break hard to escape.
=SCRAME/escape attempts etc
2. Get the ground control comms working, they hardly if ever seem to respond to me when I have used them in missions. Also if you declare an emergency it would be cool if firetrucks and ambulances rushed to the runway!
3. If a hostile AI is chasing an allied AI and you fire on and hit or near hit the hostile AI it should re-assign itself to escaping you asap, no chasing the other aircraft if it puts the ai in the middle at high risk.
4. Better directional communications and help, headings in NSEW, or ability to request them. More squad interaction.
5. Change the UI/interface so that comm number menus dont overlap with top info/announcement panels.

I will jump in to agree with the people posting about asking Buddye for his help. His work on the BoB2 AI is very good. The air combat tactics in that game are pretty good (more than what I think should be satisfactory for a modern WW2 combat sim) and he seems to be very willing to offer help.

I sometimes imagine BoB2:WoV with CloD's graphics and damage model and I salivate.

If it's at all possible, put Buddye to work!

A competent AI is a requirement to really enjoy COD. When you get large groups of aircraft in engagements even when online you stll have to have AI in the mix. It might take days to put together enjoy people to make large air combat scenario. I just don't see large numbers sim pilots of aircraft on British and German sides to enable those scenarios without AI.

AI should NOT immediately recognize the death of an enemy Pilot.

Suggestion: After firing 5(or more) seconds at a not moving plane whose pilot is dead, AI should "assume" that the enemy pilot is death and end the attack.

I would more say, align with it and check for pilot movement, when no other battle or enemy plane is near.
If there are still enemys around, go further for the kill or break up and search another target (dependend on skill, possibility for break up rises).

THIS.


Get in contact with user Buddye asap is about the best I can recommend. As a programmer he might find better words for your programmer to work to than simple gamers. And get a copy of BoBII:WoV urgently for your team studio, very small expense and might help your judgement and study of AI performance tremendously.

Good luck!

The AI running out of ammo should be very rare, IMHO. For anyone that is interested in how the AI shoot and kill, I will offer a short discription of how BOBII implements the AI shooting.

If you do not care how the AI targets and shoots bullets, then just skip this the data below..

I think the shooting/targeting attention to detail must be very high priority with respect to how the AI achieves a bullet hit.

A player can shoot any time he wants. He can be very accurate or he can just shoot, spray, and pray. The player either hits or misses his target. What does the AI do to hit a target?

To hit something in BOBII the AI A/C must fly and maneuver until its pitch and roll are within a box that can be placed around the target. This means that the AI must fly and maneuver until the target (enemy A/C) meets the error box criteria before a single AI bullet is ever fired. To calculate where to place the error box the software must determine the “lead” (not the A/C “current position” but where the A/C “future position” will be when the bullets arrive). The lead calculation is rather complex and difficult in a real time fight simulation game and sometimes BOBII does a poor job. The player will usually say, “wow, he is right there why doesn’t the AI just shoot”. Actually, it is very human for the AI pilot to have a difficult time with the “lead” calculation (deflection shooting).

The AI skill level controls the "size" of the error box (biger for Novice and smaller for Hero) and the range (Novice shoot too fast too early but Heros shoot upclose and on target). This design results in the Novice using more ammo than the higher skilled Hero.

Even a human WWII pilot had a hard time calculating lead in his head (deflection shooting). In his book “The Most Dangerous Enemy” by Stephen Bungay (one of my favorite BOB history books), Mr Bungay is talking about deflection shooting and states, “It will come as no surprise to learn that not many pilots ever mastered this, and that the vast majority of kills were made from within 15 degrees of dead astern.”

As everyone can see, your the expert! Just go on please...:) Such (and much more) knowledge is needed....

I would like the AI to be effected by the unlimited ammo and fuel option in the realism panel. After a quick fire fight for the enemy fighters to start flying circuits is very boring.

Also the fact AI fighters will only engage under certain conditions, like they must have more than one plane in the flight needs to be changed.

+1

i know it is getting boring to refer devs to BoB2 but in that sim you can still get a good ten to 15 min furball with the ai even when they are on limited fuel and ammo because they don't blow the whole wad in one or two hosepipe bursts like in CoD. You don't even need to make it as sophisticated as Buddye proposes to start with, what about One line of code that means

Ai max firing time = 2 seconds, pause 5 seconds

Also the ai will attack single aircraft units, if they have already been 'triggered'... I created a mission with fighters escorting one bomber, the enemy fighters engaged the fighters first and they also attacked the bomber. But if i take the fighters out of the mission, they do not engage the bomber!

I actually think there is a simple piece of guidance to the devs about how to identify the ia issues...play the game yourselves! Instead of spending all day with your heads in the code, spend just one day playing your own game! You wont need us to show you what is wrong, it is so very obvious when you play.

Then, get Buddye in to fix it ;)

I think the general concensus is that ai like BoB2 WoV would be absolutely fine thank you. I hope Budeye would be prepared to contribute his expertise to CoD. Paying for his input would put the series in good stead for years to come.

Good suggestions in the other points of your post. This last one is fixable currently:

The radio menu always appears in the same place, its position is fixed. However, the info panel can be moved and resized.

Alt-click on it to select it, right click to get the pop-up menu and select options. There you can enable the borders (which are needed to drag and resize) and title bar (which is needed to drag and move). When you are happy with the placement, you can just make the borders and title bar invisible again, or leave it as it is. Hope it helps.

Quote below from upcoming Team Diadolos 4.11 patch manual (see thread HERE). If TD can do it, and since COD was supposed to be the "next stage in sim development" , I wonder why COD started with such poor Ai ? My request to the COD dev's is impliment more human-like Ai performance such as the many points indicated below.

AI IMPROVEMENTS
AI routines in 4.11 have been modified extensively in order to introduce several limitations that human pilot would experience. Below is a list of things player can expect to see in 4.11:

• Various new AI maneuvers have been added. Number of maneuvers is increased by 25%.
• AI planes will no longer detect enemy planes automatically inside certain radius. Position and size of enemy plane is the main factor here. Bigger plane will obviously produce a bigger and more visible "dot" and it will be more visible to AI.
• AI skill will generally determine how well AI can spot targets. Also every gunner on board will contribute to enemy spotting by covering their own sectors. Generally pilots will keep looking more forwards than backwards.
• Occasionally fighters execute fishtail maneuver to get better view behind. Planes will be less visible against dark background like land, but more visible against brighter background like sky and clouds.
• Clouds & land mass blocks AI's ability to see other planes behind them. For example it is possible to evade attacking AI plane by hiding in clouds. AI planes will also try to hide in clouds in certain conditions.
• AI's own plane will block their line of sight. This is calculated from the plane's collision model. For example basically all planes cannot see directly below them, unless the plane has ventral/bottom gunner that can cover the underside. For example plane like Blenheim has blind spot rear & behind since it has no tail/bottom gunner. Plane like B-17 with bottom/rear gunners cannot be surprised from rear & behind like Blenheim (during daylight).
• Occasionally fighters will execute roll maneuvers to get a look directly below them.
• When fighter is pulling positive G's to get a lead shot and target goes invisible under nose, AI will not see the target. Instead of aiming at the actual target, AI is shooting at estimated target which position is extrapolated based on the last real observations. Much like human
  brain would do.
• AI pilot's ground collision detection is improved and now they will detect ground obstacles in front of them better. Previously AI always crashed into certain kind of hill/mountain which has too steep slope.
• Environment factors such as darkness affects how well planes can be seen. AI is blind against attack from sun and planes show up better as silhouette against moon.
• Planes are spotted more easier if they emit smoke, fire, condensation trail or have lights on or are illuminated by searchlight.
• Also ships & ground AAA and aircraft gunners have the same clouds/ground/environment restrictions as AI pilots.
• AI gunners check before shooting that there is no friendly planes in front/behind their enemy target.
• AI gunners don't keep shooting while the gun is turning towards target and the target is nowhere near when the bullets would go. So gunners will no longer waste ammo for stupid shots.
• Gunners will be less accurate shooting targets that move fast. In other words target that forces the gunners to turn guns fast is less likely to get hit.
• Gunners that experience too much positive or negative G's cannot fire at all.
• AI plane's engine will overheat forcing AI to reduce throttle and open radiators.
• AI planes respect diving limits of their planes.
• Changes have been made in AI deflection shooting. AI calculate deflection better but it is still not perfect. AI's ability to chose correct deflection and to hold steady aim vary with the skill. AI Aces shooting ability is now at human aces level and if they get into your close six you will be
  in trouble.
• AI flights doesn't go into attack as soon as they spot the enemy anymore. Depending on the situation AI might try to avoid fight or try to improve their position before commencing the attack.
• AI skills are now divided internally into sub-skills and thus provide finer distribution of skill. Aces are still better than Veterans and Averages are better than Rookies but not all AI pilots with the same skill are the same. Some fly better, some shoot better. Some are braver and some see better. This makes their behavior less predictable.
• In addition to the maneuvers, AI fighter defense is completely reworked, no more constant rolls. AI will perform diverse maneuvers and provide bigger challenge to the player.
• AI will make mistake too. They will stall and spin occasionally, panic and “freeze” and sometimes they will even bail out before you fire a single bullet at them.

Suggested improvement: Replace Alt-Click requirement for info window activation with Double-Click

Detailed description: See Above

Proposed benefits:

It now requires two hands to manipulate the info boxes. This is cumbersome & counter-intuitive to say the least. If something in a chat or server messages window is missed BOTH hands must leave the controls just to scroll up. Also, depending on the aircraft, it is sometimes necessary to move the info boxes around.

--Outlaw.

Control lag:

- I have been able to reproduce the lag to an extent on every computer I've tested (only 3) when FPS drops to medium levels. If you are just flying around with 60+FPS when you test it's impossible to notice.

- In this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7HSR452ttA I tried to capture the seemingly low update of the control. It's not that easy to note on the video but you should be able to see how the stick's position is only updated about 5-10 times per second or something like that although everything else is smooth. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the actual update, but I suggest you give the users the option to set poll rate for controllers in order to troubleshoot this aspect of the control lag issue.

Error description: Lead plane in an AI group doesnt bank at the same angle to the rest of the group but follows the same flight path.
Details: If you watch any mission with a group of AI aircraft, one plane, usually the leader I think, is always banking at a much shallower angle than the rest of the group, yet still follows the same collective flight path. I think this also happens if you switch your plane to autopilot, the rest of your group/squadron will be banking as they turn at what looks to be the correct angle, but your own plane, under the autopilot, will be banking far less in the turn, yet still keeping in formation.
Can it be consistently reproduced?: yes watch any mission with a group of ai planes, or your own on autopilot in a group
Screenshot or video: Difficult to see unless at full screen res in this shot, the plane second from right is hardly banking compared with the rest of the group: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...656?tab=public

OS, system specs: see below.

Suggested improvement: AI should stop firing at Planes if they are on heavy fire

Detailed description: No Pilot would have vasted ammo on a plane that is burning and it´s clear that it won´t "make it" (home).

Proposed benefits: More Realistic Gameplay

I thank everyone who responded to our request for help!
The list of your suggestions was given to Ilya Shevchenko today.
All new suggestions and bug reports fall into the list of number 2.
Thank you!

@ Black Six: this list ist going to be opened soon? Or is there already one?

One more:

Suggested Improvement: Give the player the opportunity to warn his commerade. As it is now, I often meet the situation that I see it comming that one of my AI-commerades ist going to be shot down but the AI-Commerade doesn´t recognize the enemy on his 6. Due to this I lose my wingman who is protecting me...

The new list is open. I continue to gather suggestions.

Suggested improvement: see IL2 4.11 AI improvement list - very impressive...

When Plane x starts out on its flight with an assigned target that is Moving. It can be 20+ minutes before it is over the original target area.. In the 20 mins a Plane, tank or ship can have moved a great distance.

AI logic or Script logic needs to be added for one of two options.

1) Plane x AI checks assigned target position every couple of minutes
or
2) Plane x AI Checks for closest target of same kind and chosses to contionue on original or attack new targets. (ship, plane or vehicle).

This will build in more dynamic and life like decisions into the AI

Suggested improvement: Tower/ground radio commands, for example: request for landing/take off, emergency landing, route to base etc...

Proposed benefits: In case of emergency you will acquire the priority to land

Error description: Mouse Delay
Details: Mouse movement feels like its about a second behind your actual movement
Can it be consistently reproduced?: Yes
Screenshot or video: n/a
OS, system specs: 2.4 quad, nvid 560Ti, 4gb, ssd drive

AI Pilots Reactions on Sighting Enemy Aircraft

1. Friendly AI (your wingman/flight/squadron) spotting enemy aircraft.
(i) When enemy are spotted at long distance friendly AI should not immediately break formation to attack them. Instead a call on comms giving an o'clock position should be made - eg "Bandits at 3 o'clock low".

Friendly AI pilots should generally maintain discipline and await orders from flight leader as to when to attack or break formation unless...

(ii) Enemy spotted close in and attacking, friendly AI should give "Break" warning and/or take avoiding action. (lots of scope here for those with acting ability to create some drama - "Bloody hell - 109s...BREAK!!", etc, etc :grin:

2. Enemy AI
(i) Enemy formations should display a range of behaviours after spotting your formation - not necessarily attacking immediately. Enemy formation may attempt to get up-sun, or move into more advantageous position for attack, or split formation into separate flights, etc.

---------------------------------------

I suspect some attempts have already been made to code for varying reactions in the existing AI routines, certainly Luthier said that enemy AI can be slow to react to (unseen) hostiles on their six. Unfortunately I think this feature has been mistaken at times by the uninitiated for bad AI (though it does seem to perhaps require some tweaking as to 'when' the AI start to react after planes start taking hits). Having said that there are real-life cases where near entire flights have been picked off one at a time before survivors realised what was happening!

Unfortunately, attempts to implement routines for the above have to balance on a thin edge between over-predictable, all-knowing infallibility, and inaction in cases where they should react

A way to let your flight (leader) you've seen some boogies (with subsequent direction (1'o clock, etc.) and altitude (high/(level)/low etc.)

Joystick 'lag'
 

I'm not sure if this is the problem you are referring to but.....

Error description: Hurricane Elevator 'twitch' when stick is moved backwards
Details: When the stick is eased back to about 10-20 degrees (nose goes up), there is a point when the nose suddenly twitches up slightly and ruins our gun aiming. The angle where this happens may be slightly different on different sticks.
Can it be consistently reproduced?: Every time
Screenshot or video: I haven't video'd this but it happens to everyone I talk to. Devs should find it easily.
OS, system specs: Win 7, see signature

for the AI

there should be 3 different levels of skill rookie experienced or veteran

for rookie the AI should behave as if he has just got his pilots wings he should try to stay with his wingman but have slow reaction times to his wingman turning say 1/2 seconds.

when attacked he should have a delayed reaction to seeing danger such as only looking when hit or fired upon or have a 3 second delay before he sees a enemy about to fire upon him,
his evasive maneuvers should be half done or poorly done for example a right turn he will turn towards the right and end up doing a roll instead, when hes landing he will bounce due to inexperience when shooting he should have a 5% hit rate when bailing out the rookies should panic and have a 5% of not being able to escape

experienced when in combat they will see bandits behind him about 1.0 out his maneuvers should be done correctly but with some delays say 1 second when landing he should land fine when shooting he should have a 25% hit
rate when bailing out they should have a 2% chance of not being able to

veteran will see 90% of enemy's behind him and be able to take evasive action perfectly with no delays, when landing he should land with no problems shooting he should be able to have a 70% hit rate when bailing out they should have a 1% chance of not bailing out for example canopy is stuck

damaged aircraft as soon as a plane is damaged and the AI has escaped the bandit on his tail he should immediately try and return to base if the damage more then 40% or is critical for example water coolant or oil radiator, ect then he should try and land as the nearest airbase if landing is not a option then crash land or bail out at nearest field or over the sea

when fire is minor the pilot should try and put it out for example wings or tail, if the engine is on fire or in the cockpit pilot should bail out asap,

The only negative note(s) I can make for this game are;
1/ the manual is to short more details should be added an example the Spitfire and BF109 controls are not the same at all and the manual does not give enough details about each plane. Also more details about the Full Mission Builder.
2/ radio communications with other members of your squadron or flight are OK but with the ground control I get never any answer even when the other members of the squadron/flight do receive an answer per example when asking for permission to land even if flying a damaged airplane I get no permission to land ever!
Otherwise a fantastic game, nobody should forget this is a game about the beginning of the war where communication where not good and perfect. Better than in 1914/18 but still not good.

Maybe is it possible to land at more than one airfield? Wind direction indicator, control tower authorization!
:rolleyes:

I'd like a hot key to remove comm text from the screen. Is there anyway now to remove the comm text....it's very distracting.

Please too add radio com - wingman, group ect rtb!
Comms for attack for wingman dosent work too.
Please add too comm for wingman return to formations.
Improve too communications with tower - always we havent confirmation for take off and landing.

Ect.

Its very easy too check all il2 series comms and add here in CoD.

AI:

By far the most glaring issue is that AI planes need to use the same flight model as the player and most importantly, stop performing extremely fast ''F16'' barrel rolls! This has always been the biggest issue with the AI.

The AI doesn't bail out of an extremely crippled aircraft on many models such as the Ju88 or He111. The Do17z is fine. They currently only bail out when the aircraft catches fire. When it's obvious the aircraft won't make it make down safely they just insist on slowly turning circles trying to keep altitude and hold off the inevitable until they stall and plunge into the ground or sea. If the aircraft is obviously not going to make it they should abort the aircraft just like Il2 1946 had it. Hope this is what you are looking for.

Fighters badly leaking coolant or oil still go looking for fights. They should break off and return to base as it will inevitably lead to their death.

Thanks Black6!