4.11 - AI debugging

[FC99]

Originally Posted by Lagarto

Aviar, the problem, as I understand it, is of different nature. I don't want my AI wingmen to stay in formation, just the opposite. I don't mind them leading me to enemy aircraft they 'spotted' - provided they're kind enough to inform me that they're breaking off formation to engage something!

Can you give me more details, I checked this a little in the game and if I'm leader they stay with me unless I order attack and if AI is leader they call bandits so I need to know more about the circumstances when they don't behave as you expect them.

Originally Posted by Alien

OK, but it happens every time. Just like in 4.101, 4.09 or any earlier version. That's really annoying.

Theoretically AI will not attack heavily damaged plane but if they already had that plane as a target they might proceed with the attack. Aces and Veterans will check target status and they are more likely to abort the attack. I'll tweak that and hopefully get better behavior.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Of course, what would be amazingly cool is if you could select kill claiming options by realism level and air force.

Maybe one day, this is not the highest priority at the moment. IMO we still have more serious issues with AI.

Originally Posted by Lagarto

When I first read that in 4.11 the AI would check the line of fire before opening up, I hoped I would no longer have to fear my overzealous AI mates firing from behind my back and right over my head to get the aircraft I'm after. However, the current situation seems even worse in that respect. Is that a side effect of the general increase in AI's aggressiveness?

AI gunners are the only ones who have complex friendly fire check. You are right in your assumption that more aggressive AI is responsible for "shoulder shooting", I'll make them more restrained when player is in front of them.

Originally Posted by Fall_Pink?

1st AI bug/request:
- is it perhaps possible for AI to 'recognize' and act differently when they meet heavily defended enemy ground objects while on route? When they fly to a ground attack target they fly sometimes over heavily defended air bases (which are not their target) like nothing's happening at all. Some random behavior would also be nice, perhaps depending on skill level of flight leader.

Possible, in 4.11 we only changed some aspects of AI behavior, there are many areas we didn't touched at all. Ground attacking is one of those things and but it is WIP.

is it possible ground attack planes (or medium bombers like A20) never fly up hill after they've attacked? I can imagine a preferred ground attack pattern will have to be calculated that AI can use. E.g. a small village surrounded by hills can sometimes only be attacked in two ways. North to south and vice versa. It would be great if AI could calculate optimal attack patterns by themselves (within certain limits) if the mission designer or dgen messed things up.

Possible, we need dynamically created routes for proper functioning of the triggers so we will have to deal with that problem if we don't want to crash all of the flights into the hills.

FC

[Lagarto]

Originally Posted by FC99

Can you give me more details, I checked this a little in the game and if I'm leader they stay with me unless I order attack and if AI is leader they call bandits so I need to know more about the circumstances when they don't behave as you expect them.
FC

OK, I'll pay more attention to that phenomenon to see what makes my AI subordinates silently drift away to hunt on their own. I don't claim it happens every time but it does happen and there must be some rule to it.
And thank you very much for taking time to restrain the 'shoulder shooting'. Presently my AI squad mates make me more anxious than the enemy.

[Luno13]

I imagine it did happen though, intentionally or not, so it shouldn't necessarily be eliminated completely, in my opinion.

It's good to hear that more changes are planned!