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Originally Posted by Pursuivant
I agree. If you're a wingman, your standing orders are to keep enemy planes from attacking your lead.
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Which is one of the very most difficult task to master, it is very rare to see it well performed by human players playing online BTW. Rarely have i seen it performed correctly...But that's just my limited experience of the game you may say.
The saving wingman, well that works especially in theory.
As wingman you must have a superior SA, a good intelligence of the dynamic of a fight, and you have to have a good aim too, qualities that are never ever found by less skilled fighter pilots, not to talk about the will to protect that must be stronger than the greed and the call of glory...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
A wingman who doesn't do that unless you specifically tell him to do so isn't much of a wingman. Maybe for Rookie AI, but certainly Average or better wingmen should move aggressively to drive off enemy planes threatening his lead - WITHOUT BEING COMMANDED TO DO SO.
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Right, though you are actually describing an expert pilot as wingman, certainly not an average one. That's maybe the other ace of the squad and his wingman you are talking about in your post, perhaps not the direct wingman. Perhaps more than by wingman, cover should be provided by the 2nd (or other) element (ZVENO, Red Flight, Rotte), but anyway they should not be able to obey orders if engaged, and they should chose their life by disengaging over saving the leader in case of encountering superior enemy.
Only a very small elite of human pilots are "much of a wingman", perhaps your standards are set too high. Wingman, it is not easy job you can comply just by obeying orders...Wingman able to give protection = very high skill level! The only diffference with aces (apart from kill ratio obviously) is a different kind of aggressiveness, less "primal" i would say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
The only exception would be if the wingman has been forced to take evasive action himself and/or has lost Situational Awareness as to where his lead is.
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Yes, but one should note that these exceptions come in particular cases: especially if the leader did not plan the attack correctly, and did not spot the danger (call it again human pilot mistake) or if the flight is attacked by surprise, in which case there would not be much to wait from the unlucky wingman...If the leader does something really too dangerous i doubt the wingman will risk his life to save the greedy leader. Even in the real world i'm sure they would rather save their own life instead. This should be taken into consideration too when programming AI. It would be strange to have an AI just to sacrifice it when things go wrong to allow a last card to be played. This just would not be realistic at all...On the contrary, good planning of the attack, waiting to see and chosing not to engage should be somehow rewarded instead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
If the AI wingman doesn't do this automatically, then there should be some way of making it do so, by creating "standing orders" for AI.
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I can't see why Ai should automatically do something as difficult as finding the lost leader in the middle of a fight when it is only the very best human fighter pilots that are able to do so in real life and in game (no icons, close cockpits of course). Often the flight is scattered by the attackers : this is actually why the surprise attack is the best.
When surprised and scattered there's not much you can do but try to save your life if your ac performance allows it. Otherwise i can not see why human player would not be shot down. It happened all the time during WW2 even to the very best.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
Actually, the ability for mission builders and/or players to "program" the AI using standing orders would be an incredibly cool addition to the game, and would be a very simple way to deal with a whole host of tactical situations that would otherwise drive an AI programmer nuts.
I could see it working sort of like a macro or script, where the player/mission builder could order certain units to do things like hold a certain course or altitude relative to another plane, fire/not fire at certain targets, avoid/attack certain planes or classes of planes, etc. Variants of this programming could be used to do things like make fighters stay within a certain distance of the bombers they're escorting, make bombers divert to a secondary target if clouds cover the primary target, fighters only drop drop tanks if they encounter fighters, or have planes in your flight trail enemy planes back to their base.
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These are all great ideas but to me they should only work if the wingman AI is veteran or ace, and only when the flight has the initiative of the attack with a great margin to exploit or when the flight controls the situation. If suprise attacked or against superior enemy AI "protection" skills should be decreased drastically, even to a lower point that what we have now, if possible (ie finding oneself alone against a whole enemy squadron).