Community help needed with AI and Radio Comms

[BlackSix]

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!

[NSU]

Radio Comms:
we have no ground targets commands.

[baronWastelan]

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

[ZaltysZ]

Originally Posted by BlackSix

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!

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?

[salmo]

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.

[salmo]

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.

[ZaltysZ]

Originally Posted by baronWastelan

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

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.

[Dano]

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

[Continu0]

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...

[Continu0]

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