4.11 - AI debugging
 

@moderator: please make it a sticky

We will continue to develop and release further AI improvements in future patches. Please help us to identify any 4.11 AI related issues and post them here with detailed description, screenshots, videos, etc. Thank you.

Daidalos Team

Dear Team,
First, thank you so much for patch 4.11!!
Flew a couple of QMB missions. (Crimea Map)
AI BF109F2: crashes into the mountains (very often)
AI BF109F4: same (often)
AI YAK9D : same (now and then)
AI LA5FN : same (now and then)

Best regards,

Pls give more specifications and maybe a mission file?

This is a question, not a bug (please delete if it shouldn't be posted here):

What is the AI skill level on Dedicated servers? Is this by any chance editable?

Thanks.

Do you mean gunners on human flown planes?

Other planes (purely AI) have the skill level set in the mission.

Yes. Human flown planes.

Does each gunner have individual skill or are all gunners the same and what setting is it (average or veteran)?

In case of individual, does it range from novice to ace or also averages on veteran / average skill settings or even all gunners can be ace / novice?

QMB and AI, former*.trk files
 

Successfully installed 4.11 over vanilla 4.101.
Anyway, a lot of work was done. Thanks to DT.
Tried some QMB and single missions.
Some obsevations:
- former *.trk files not accepted by the new version.
- longer than 10 minutes *.trk files recored differ essentially from that what was observed in the flight.
- CTD at Quick mission without any known reason.
- the possibilities of waypoints - take offs aside (=pair) - do not work in QMB , weird places occupied by AI planes.
Surely these and other bugs will be repaired by DT, I hope.
Ik-3 has roundels on one wing upper surface only, second wing lower surface only. Is it correct ?

I've noticed that an old problem wasn't fixed by the new AI. When doing rocket attacks on ships planes pull up very late and will often hit the ships superstructure. I hope this can be fixed in the future.

FW190 often crashes into the terrain also. (I have not tested all FW versions)

FMB, Kuban map (near Novorossijsk), airstart at 500m, 1x La5FN/P-47/P-51/spit etc vs 2x various FW190 version

When I tried to create a ship attack mission for the Mosquito XVIII it showed a strange AI behaviour. It looks as if the planes can't find the correct attack approach to the target and they will just circle around it.

I have uploaded a test mission that shows the problem:
http://www.axis-and-allies-paintwork...quito_test.zip

Replace the Mosquito with another large caliber aircraft (B-25 or Hs129) and the planes will do the attack correctly. There are also problems when flying the mission with a rocket equipped Mosquito VI but not when I use Beaufighters with rockets, so I guess there is an AI issue with the ship attack behaviour of all Mosquitos.

AI bug:

Jet fighters, e.g. me262, have trouble handling engine overheating. Took off with 8 me262's (career center, 1945) with auto pilot on and the engine got overheated. It reduced power after the message appeared, but it was too late and got me a smoking engine.

Rgs,
FP

this is not a bug. its just something TD should look at AI.

ATM AI is so much interesting than in previous releases. its more creative, has more maneuvers etc but it lacks the 101 of every fighter pilot: they dont know how to combat turn!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a58FY...ature=youtu.be
im replacing this video soon for one withou typos. i apologize

every new pilot is thought how to turn, and thats the number 1 defensive maneuver, a hard horizontal turn. specially when you are in such a good turner ( zero ) fighting a lousy turner ( f6f).

i hope this answers previews questions answered by a TD member of why i considered the AI still easy. The AI is very good, hard and realistic if you are on the slower plane, but if you are in the fast plane, its still a piece of cake.

was that an ACE AI? Veteran? or Rookie?

ACE! forgot to put on the title, very important info!

in fact if you start with a regular AI, you will see the beginning is very similar, but midway trow th emerge, the AI will just do a lot of mistakes. like a noob would do :grin:

New gunner killed- autopilot for ever. Pe2
 

I was testing the new gunner in Pe2-110 series, QMB, crimea, scramble, and of course i was stupid enough to shoot the ground (scramble), got the gunner killed, and plane went on autopilot and no way i could turn it of. I could switch through every member crew alive (pilot included), but no answer from the autopilot key or other input. Tryed it again and the same efect. The problem its if the enemy shoots the bottom gunner and plane goes all the way on autopilot. Dont know if this happens in flight, must be tested.
The game is super, thanks team Daidalos! :)

Had similar happen in a PE8 on Crimea while trying a scramble against no AI (just wanted to see how it handled on takeoff). Was unable to use the hatswitch on my stick either, so had to refly.

I was testing the new 4.11 release in Quick Mission Builder.
I attacked 3 enemy planes, TBD-1. I got some hits to a plane that was probably the leader of the group. Smoke was coming out of the damaged plane and it started slowly losing altitude.

the bug: its wingman kept following the damaged plane towards the ground and both AI planes crashed.

In fast vs slow, but good turner scenario (i.e. BF109 vs I16), fast planes try to do same stuff like in the video posted earlier, that results in damage or destruction of fast plane pretty quickly, as AI doesn't waste ammo anymore. It would be good if AI could choose to dive aggressively and extend, instead of all these half turns and rolls.

Thanks for telling your impressions. AI is not considered as final - its just a first step done now and further tweaking is planed, where necessary. Your oppinions help much to this. But please consider also more various situations than just 1vs1, so as big furballs, different plane types (energy fighter/T&B fighter) or disadvantages in numbers. Its also important, how AI work together.

As for the video above, it seems to be an ace- (read minus ... a poor skilled ace), you know, the general skill sublevels may vary randomly.

regarding the ACE- thats a very good implementation. its not seen in this video, but in my previous attempts at something like this, i had a f4f ( slower than the zero) and about 2 out of 3 times, the zero would just extend and play safe, clearly a ace+ choice :grin:

I like the new AI much better. It seems there is a chance that they panic and freeze at the controls. I was killing a lot of AI average level in the QMB, but some were puting up a good fight. So, I switched them to Veteran and the first one I fought froze up after the initial pass and I shredded him. He never moved from straight and level when I was on his 6. So I tried the same senario again. This time he was very difficult to bring down. Even hit me a few times too. I like the chance that they can panic and freeze up. That, and they don't see you coming in from 6 o'clock low too.

AI problem - overheating related:

Taking off in Ta183 with 4 missiles is very hard for AI. At the end of the runway the engine is already overheated and AI throttles back a bit (20 or 30% power), but loses too much altitude and crashes. Others barely escape and fly only a few meter above ground.

Rgs,
FP

He-111 ai problems
 

Hi

First thanks again to DT for all their hard work!!

I have not played a lot so I am not sure if this is new or not but the AI is having a hard time keeping He-111 planes in the air.

pilot carrer -> He-111 -> Stalingrad -> first mission

If start in air the AI crashes at least He-111 at beginning and the players plane crashes if set to AI. If take off from ground the AI makes the planes hug the earth and is having trouble clawing to higher altitudes and is nearly crashing for most of the early part of the flight.

Prob not a big issue but perhaps a clue to an underlying problem with ai flight or engine management or aircraft performance.

Thanks again for all your hard work in making this a greater sim.

Barry

Autopilot movement
 

Hello,
First of all thanks again to DT for all their hard work and quick response with the hotfix!!!

This problem actually has to do with the autopilot, which is sort of temporary AI ;-) This has occured in every mission I have tried so far. When you have a long distance between waypoints and you activate the autopilot I have noticed that about every 20-30 seconds the plane will full rudder right and sometimes turn 90 degrees then quickly back to level and climb to regain the altitude that it just lost. At first I thought it was actually trying to avoid flying through clouds but it still does it in a clear blue sky even when it is right on the line for the next waypoint. You can really see the regularity if you speed up to 8X. It occurs about every 4 seconds.

It's certainly not a game stopper but it looks really odd.

AI 'bug':

Me163 sometimes switches targets and engages enemy fighters instead of bomber stream (tested with pre-set single mission with me163). Me163 should be mainly a bomber attacker and not engage any fighters. Maybe some defensive manouvres when it encounters fighters, but its focus should be bombers.

It's also prone to miscalculate attacks, likely due the large speed difference with bombers.

Furthermore, it does not disengage itself quickly from the fight to glide back home. Maybe it should disengage, fly back to home base and distance itself as much as it can when only 10% rocket fuel is left.

Rgs,
FP

This is possibly a 'fishtail' maneuver. That's how AI checks if there is a threat on his six. I guess it applies to autopilot, too.

Autopilot movement
 

If you want to see it, a good example is in IJN/A6M2-21/Pearl Harbor Attack Wave 2. As soon as it starts press the autopilot key (mine is "A") and then speed up the game to 8X. You can see what I mean. You may be correct about the fishtail move but it sure got my attention.

Not so much a bug as such, but more a request for 4.11.1 or 4.12. Is it possible to add a command like ´disengage´? I now usually use something like get ´rejoin´ or ´cover me´, but that does not seem to work in case of a ground attack in progress. I´d like my wingmen to rejoin immediately.

Secondly, when the command `back to base´ is given, all wingmen follow a route that takes them back to base except the leader which seems to follow the normal waypoints.

Rgs,
FP

By the way. Saw a very nice feature of the new AI with some escorts. My escorts at first prepared themselves to engage enemy fighters, but then backed down and rejoined when they saw the enemy turned away from them followed by other friendlies ;-)

At other occasions some enemy fighters simply passed overhead and failed to notice my flight. AI indeed no longer has the all-seeing 360 degrees view of the world. Very nice ;-)

Ps. I also see all of my real cpu cores are now involved some how. Is this one of the effects of moving AI code to the DT.dll?

Bug: single missions, Hungary, dogfight P51's with Me109G14:

4th wingman of each flight of P51's crashes into the lake because they're too low to the ground. Stacking order of a flight that flies "Reihe" (sorry, only know the German word for it right now...), causes problems for the 3rd and 4th wingman. I'd suggest to use a formation with less vertical spacing when lead plane flies at very low altitude. It would lead to fewer crashes of these wingmen.

Regards,
FP

Really diggin' the new patch, but one persistent problem with the AI continues:

I'm still getting hammered by the AA fire over my own airfield when defending it.

EDIT - Sorry, one more thing later observed. AI formation keeping is much worse now than in previous versions:

Flying Amagi's "Disaster on the Frontiers", Sturmovik campaign, first couple of days in the L'vov map at the beginning of Barbarossa, in the I-153 as a Mladshiy Leitenant. In a 9-ship formation I'm the tail guy in the third fight. In previous versions of the game it was not difficult at all to keep a good formation with the AI. There was only a little bit of "formation wobble" and I only had to occasionally modulate the throttle in small amounts to maintain position.

In v4.11 however, every minute or so the AI (in the third flight, don't know about the first two...) seems to suddenly cut way back on the throttle, drop back for a moment or two, then suddenly apply full power for another few seconds, forcing me to make similarly drastic changes in throttle just to keep up. Also, every few minutes the whole formation will suddenly descend a few tens of meters, then come back up to the assigned cruise altitude again.

As a result, at least as a tail-end junior pilot, it has now become very difficult - in fact, nearly impossible - to keep any kind of good formation with the AI. They're all over the place now.

As a qualifier, I have flown formations as a junior pilot with the AI over several campaigns, and can humbly and reliably state that I have gotten quite good at it.

Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdw0Y...ature=youtu.be

Pe-8 in question lacks the rudder, however I still think it is just showing off, because it eventually returns to level flight and continues its flight nicely. Shouldn't AI be more conservative with maneuvers in such heavies?

Hello gentlemen,
I have been a forum lurker for quite some time now but now I want to help improve that fantastic patch.

I experienced an odd ai behaviour:
QMB 2 bf109 against 4 ai novice il-4. Crimea map.
- 1st pass head-on: damaged no.4. (lost one of his engines -> crew bailed)
- 2nd attack from 6 o clock :rolleyes: : I hit the wingleader. Several hits on one wing, damaged his tailplane, smoking engine -> bomber rolls over, going into a steep dive, slowly recovers (guess due to increased speed) and crew bails.
-> entire AI flight (no. 2 and 3) flipped over as well and followed their leader...
The moment No1 started bailing the other 2 went back to level flight and headed north.

Is that on purpose? Did the ai "thought" their leader is leading them into that dive? Blindly following orders? Or did the ai just didn't switch to "hes going down, no need to follow. No.2 is the new boss"?

PS: I installed that hotfix aswell

AFAIK TRK files works only on the version they were made on.
TRK are inherently unreliable, they are basically mission played again and minor input from the player like changing the view or things like that can get random numbers out of the synchronization and with completely different result of the mission. NTRK's are much better in that regard.

Is Pair Take Off very important to you in QMB? QMB engine reads the template file and than create new mission file according to the QMB setting, obviously it doesn't take into account some of the new features. We can probably enable that but I'd rather work on things that are more important IMO. But if you want it really bad and I find a time anything is possible.

Can you tell me which planes gives you most of the problems?
Rgr, will investigate, thanks for sending the problematic mission, that will help us a lot to correct the problem as fast as possible.

Rgr, we will check is this a problem of AI or it is the general problem with jets.
Are bombers set as target in that mission, AFAIK if bombers are target than plane should attack them first, it could switch the target eventually if it is endangered by fighters.

Miscalculated attacks can look weird but I'd say that it was not easy to do it right in RL too, maybe we can get them better but makeing errors from time to time sounds realistic to me.

AI planes should disengage from combat when fuel is low even now.

Do we really need new "Disengage" command or it would be enough to enforce rejoining under any circumstances with the current "Rejoin" command?

I'll check RTB command but I need more info, are you talking about your flight or it is about other flights under your command?

Better distribution of the CPU load is not the primary reason for DT.dll but it might help in that regard. In some of our tests performance was approximately the same or even better with 4.11 than same missions in 4.10 despite the lot of new code in 4.11.

Can you give me more details, was that during the cruise or it was some sort of ground attack, I'm not sure what "Reihe" is but from your description this could be "Line" formation which is not standard for P-51.

We are aware of that and some other issues with AI ACM. You have to understand that we are doing this in our free time and there is only so many hours in a day. We know that current AI is far from perfect but we thought that it is better to release "improved" AI than to wait another year for a "perfect" one.

Anyway, thanks for input, it's appreciated and we will do our best to improve AI turning ( I hate what they do too so chances are good that this will be better in next patch.:) )

Another old problem, we are aware of that and it's high on priority list.

AFAIK we didn't change anything regarding AAA, they should not shoot at enemy when friendly planes are close but it is possible that something is not working right. Still, we need to give them a chance to be as stupid as humans, people have been killed by friendly AAA(G.Preddy for example)

AI is making "check six" maneuvers from time to time maybe this can be the reason for some of the problems with keeping the formation.

This is same problem reported by slm too. It is the old one and we are working on it, hard part is to decide when to declare the Leader plane as not combat capable and assign the lead to someone else.

Thanks everybody for your input, keep them coming, this can only help us to get the game even better.

FC

All aircraft types with air-to-ground rockets are affected by the late pull up issue during ship attacks and also all large caliber aircraft that are able to do strafing attacks on ships. I have uploaded a mission to demonstrate the problem and to make the testing easier for you.

http://www.axis-and-allies-paintwork...attacktest.zip


There seems to be a problem with the ship attack routine of both the Mosquito XVIII and the rocket equipped Mosquito VI. When bombs are used to attack ships everything is working fine. My guess is that it has something to do with the fact, that the Mosquito VI only had bomb loadouts when it was initially released and a correct rocket attack routine for ship attacks was never added, which also affects the Mosquito XVIII because it uses the same routine - but that is just a hypothesis, let's see what your investigation will find.

From what I've read, when their plane got hit so there was serious damage pilots often knew it soon and announced it to other pilots **long before using parachute**. Of course the pilot doesn't always know how far his plane can continue flying, but I think it would be great if this "unable to continue mission" could be simulated at least in some cases. Especially when bombers are flying in formation towards target and the lead plane is hit and thus cannot keep planned speed/altitude anymore.

Quote:
“Me163 sometimes switches targets and engages enemy fighters instead of bomber stream (tested with pre-set single mission with me163). Me163 should be mainly a bomber attacker and not engage any fighters. Maybe some defensive maneuvers when it encounters fighters, but its focus should be bombers. It's also prone to miscalculate attacks, likely due the large speed difference with bombers. Furthermore, it does not disengage itself quickly from the fight to glide back home. Maybe it should disengage, fly back to home base and distance itself as much as it can when only 10% rocket fuel is left.”

FC > Are bombers set as target in that mission, AFAIK if bombers are target than plane should attack them first, it could switch the target eventually if it is endangered by fighters. Miscalculated attacks can look weird but I'd say that it was not easy to do it right in RL too, maybe we can get them better but making errors from time to time sounds realistic to me. AI planes should disengage from combat when fuel is low even now.

Me > Bombers are set as target for Me163 in that mission I think. You're right, it attacked the bombers first and made 2 (very) wrong passes without firing anything and then started to dogfight with the Mustangs. Mustangs did indeed fire upon the Me163, so maybe that's the logic behind it all. From an AI point of view it sounds logical, but nevertheless, it's not very realistic for a Me163 to do ;-) The Me163 is the odd one out here I think, because gliding back is of course intended. It needs to disengage from the fight to get out of reach of fighters for a safe gliding position.

My main concern here is I think real high speed fighters like early jets (and Me163) need a bit different attack AI most of the time to really exploit their high speed/energy advantage. Jets have so much energy that they cannot make these quick and sudden turns and therefore often miscalculate when they attack relatively slow targets like bombers. Boom and zoom from far away and extend is the preferred tactic most of the time. I think jets generally require a more relaxed and more gentle AI when it comes to attacking. It would definitely look more real that way.

Quote:
Is it possible to add a command like ´disengage´? I now usually use something like get ´rejoin´ or ´cover me´, but that does not seem to work in case of a ground attack in progress. I´d like my wing men to rejoin immediately. Secondly, when the command `back to base´ is given, all wingmen follow a route that takes them back to base except the leader which seems to follow the normal waypoints. Ps. I also see all of my real cpu cores are now involved some how. Is this one of the effects of moving AI code to the DT.dll?”

FC > Do we really need new "Disengage" command or it would be enough to enforce rejoining under any circumstances with the current "Rejoin" command? I'll check RTB command but I need more info, are you talking about your flight or it is about other flights under your command?
Better distribution of the CPU load is not the primary reason for DT.dll but it might help in that regard. In some of our tests performance was approximately the same or even better with 4.11 than same missions in 4.10 despite the lot of new code in 4.11.

Me -> It was my flight under my command (4 F4U's attacking Palau with bombs), a DGEN mission. If the “rejoin” command also implies "disengage" that would also be okay of course ;-)

Quote:
“Bug: single missions, Hungary, dogfight P51's with Me109G14:
4th wingman of each flight of P51's crashes into the lake because they're too low to the ground. Stacking order of a flight that flies "Reihe" (sorry, only know the German word for it right now...), causes problems for the 3rd and 4th wingman. I'd suggest to use a formation with less vertical spacing when lead plane flies at very low altitude. It would lead to fewer crashes of these wingmen.”

FC -> Can you give me more details, was that during the cruise or it was some sort of ground attack, I'm not sure what "Reihe" is but from your description this could be "Line" formation which is not standard for P-51.

Me -> Reihe = line astern. Background: P51's are about to strafe a Hungary position near lake Balaton and fly across the lake. The 4th and last plane in the line is almost leaving a wake in the water and eventually crashes. Of two flights of P51, the 4th one crashed. Line astern position during a ground attack uses a stacking where each wingman flies somewhat below its leader. The 4th one in the flight flies near ground level when the leader flies ~ 100 meters above ground level. The line astern formation during ground attack leads to unnecessary AI crashes if each plane flies beneath its leader. It could be prevented if programmed differently. Let's say: don't use this stacking order when the leader flies at 100 or 200 meters.

Don't get me wrong, 4.11 is a very good patch ;-) 4.11 is a great improvement when compared with 4.10.1 when it comes to AI ;-)

Regards,
FP

I like most of the AI improvements .. but one thing that still sticks in my craw is the fact that AI will still keep flying after getting flamed. I can see if it is an engine fire and the plane goes into a dive .. but a wing fire .. the pilot should bail... or crash ... or bail and then crash .. but he definitely should not continue flying and even shooting..

He is just trying to stabilize his plane, this is not a designed maneuver.

I have something ready for 4.11.1, thanks for reporting the problem and helping with missions.

We have this in mind but what is easy for human is not necessarily the same for AI. That's what is "hard", what info to provide to AI and make him react correctly. Don't worry, we will do something about it.

- I'll do something about jets.
- RTB command will send your flight home,you will continue to fly further. If you want everybody,including you,to go home use "Next Waypoint" command until only one is left, that should send everybody home.(Just a guess about this one, try it :) )

- Wingmans too low during attack, IIRC I made new formation just for that case, I'll have to check if somebody changed it or it is not applied to fighters too. ( I had dive bombers in mind while doing it)

I'm not offended by bug reports and reasonable complaints, this actually helps. Trolling is what is evil and I would never accuse you that.

There is a part of the code which should deal with this, I'll check if something is wrong there.

FC

?

I did the same mission: QMB at 500 m with 3 TBD-1's and everybody was an Ace. I was in an A4.

Disabled the lead, he went in.

Other two kept on their merry way.

Took out new lead--he spun in and the last one kept going.

No bug here.

Thanks for support but there is a sort of bug here. Problem is in the gray area when AI plane is not totally disabled but it can't fly properly either. In such cases AI leader often start to lose altitude and when it's obvious that it is not going to make it it's often too late for the flight to pull out of the dive.

Another annoying example is when you have heavy bombers at high altitude and Leader is damaged. It start to lose alt and lead whole flight down low.

We will do something about it.

I was testing the AI strafing behaviour, and it seems that it just makes one strafing run, no matter the results, and gives up strafing.

The old routine, the one that made the AI get far away from the target before coming in again was not good, and maybe this could be a good time to redo the ground attack logic.

I attached the test mission (I just ran it from the FMB). I tried a fighter (P-47), and a Sturmovik, with the same results.

I don't know how easy this would be to code, but perhaps if 'plane A' shows some signs that it might drag a formation down, the formation leader is switched to a more healthy plane in the flight.

If 'plane A' does then loose altitude, that's fine, but also if 'plane A' does not loose altitude, it can still fly with the formation, even if it is not leading it.

Here is a short video ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCcZ9..._YMf1raIVQSfOY

Now I know that the AI went into a dive to put out the fire... but we were not that high ... and I have heard of engine fires being put out that way but not wing fires ... usually when the wing catches fire .... the pilot bails or dies... Not goes into a dive to put it out .. and then comes out of the dive on his fire damaged wing and continues to not only attack ... but be deadly... It would go a long way to giving the pilots in AI planes with wing fires .. or fires period .. because even though it is my virtual life ... when the plane's on fire ... I'm out of there.... End of story. The AI should be too. Thansk for getting back so quick and thanks you guys for all the great stuff you do to keep this old girl beautiful.

I have a mission with some P-38s tank busting.
They are set to GAttack some tanks that are set as the target at the waypoint.

The P38s approach the tanks at 2.5k and drop their bombs as if they where heavy bombers. Is this normal? I don't remember this behaviour pre-patch.

There may have to be some subtlety there. Not sure how the AI works but if I were flying a multi engine medium or heavy bomber I may stick with the plane with a fuel fire on a wing and see if it will go out. If so the plane may be flyable back to base. On a Ki-84 with a wing fire I would bail immediately.

I suspect that was also the case with many crews during WWII having read so many reports of B-17s coming back with incredible damage and sometimes suffering fires on the way back. Not all of those ended at all in a happy way but some of them did make it back...

So ... we may not want the AI to jump at the first sign of fire. Some sort of judgement calculation maybe? No idea how it specifically works.

Could have something to do with the altitude of the GATTACK point? Mine are always set low (around 500 meters). I'm fairly certain the AI would try for a "level bomb attack" even in 4.10.1 and earlier. Unless the altitude was sufficiently low.

Why shouldn't a fire in the wing go out if you dive? The whole idea is that the hard dive deprives the fire of oxygen and heat it goes out, just like blowing out a match.

Another factor is that, realistically, the pilot could divert fuel from the damaged tank, or else the fire consumes all the fuel. Once the fuel is gone, no more fire, since duralloy aluminum doesn't burn that well.

Mind you, I'm not letting the AI or the damage modeling off the hook here, but if you were in combat and you had a fire that went out, leaving the plane basically flyable, wouldn't you fight on if circumstances demanded it?

Looking at the video, if you told me that a player was flying the Ki-84 that got shot up, the behavior wouldn't surprise me in the least.

The philosophy of Ace AI.....
 

I noticed that Ace AI fighters will keep chasing after and shooting enemy fighters when the enemy fighter is in flames and/or the engine is stopped. Just thought it was a waste of resources and ammo for them.

On the other hand, I have seen a number of times when Ace AI are themselves in disabled fighters or bombers, either on fire or with stopped engines or missing controls and they continue to fly the aircraft instead of bail.

Not a problem for me, and I am sure that in WWII some chose to stick with their aircraft rather than bail, but in the cases I am talking about the aircraft ends up crashing and killing the crew.

Maybe something is damaged or the AI are wounded and they can not bail out? Altitude does not seem to be a factor as sometimes they will bail so low they hit the ground too fast and die.

Sure, sometimes the AI will fly into the ground, but I am sure a lot of aircraft in WWII hit the ground or water while fighting at low altitude also, so it may actually be adding realism to have random aircraft hit the ground, random AI pilots not bailing, and AI fighters shooting at enemy aircraft that are already disabled, maybe even have them shoot at parachutes once in a while?

So depending on how you look at it things with the AI can either be faults or simply imitating humans with all their faults and erratic behavior.

As far as fighting ability goes, the Ace AI is still not as good as the better human pilots flying online, it is damn good but not like human Ace pilots.

I am not saying that I am an ace, but I can probably beat the Ace AI almost every time 1 vs.1 or two. Sometimes I can even take three or four of them out.

When I shoot their aircraft to pieces, I always feel better if they can bail and save their virtual lives. If I disable an enemy AI I often let it limp home and save the ammo for healthier targets. That too might be an interesting trait to put into the AI, some mercy every now and then.

Thanks for your time.... S!

Oh, and yes, I will dive to put a fire out on my aircraft, and if I can I will take a few more shots before the next fire starts no problem....

There was the example in Erich Hartmann's book where an entire flight of IL2s with heavy bomb loads followed their squadron leaders bad maneuver and they all hit the ground.

I have often thought that any fantastic thing we have ever seen happen in this sim probably happened in WWII at least once also!

Thank you for your efforts FC99.
Can you tell me if there is any news on the Mosquito ship attack issue? I am asking because it seriously hampers one of my campaign projects.

All issues in your missions are solved. Mosquitoes attacks and avoid crashing into targets.

Hi, tried your mission and it works as you described. I tried some other Ground Attack missions and in them AI made multiple attacks so it seems that this is situation dependent.

I'll check some of the old manuals for RL ground attack patterns and change AI if necessary.

Well, if you have read some of the responses you can see why is AI programming hard.:grin: Same situation but very different reaction to it by different people. It's hard for AI to satisfy everybody. IMO best we can do is to enable AI to exhibit all kind of behavior characteristic to humans.

First of all, it is good to see you around Jumo, always a pleasure to see that some Il2 veterans are still playing this game.

They can recognize the "kill" sometimes but I'll see what can be done to improve it.

Again, there is a part of the code that should deal with such situations, I'll put it on the TODO list.

That's entirely possible.


Exactly, AI have right to be stupid, after all, we have all witnessed idiotic human behavior on servers.:grin:

Correct 100%, but if we make AI aces as good as some online pilot I met( you included) who would fly this game? IMO for gameplay reasons, it is ideal for AI to be good but just not as good as best humans.

FC

If possible it would be great to have a level above Ace, call it "undefeatable" or "legendary" as if you were flying against one of the great WWII aces.

Just as it is no fun to lose all the time, it is equally boring to always win. People can choose the level they want to play against. If someone loses to the "legendary" pilots in IL2, then they don't have to feel bad as everyone lost to them in WWII also...

You can always increase the number of foes!
Up to 32 aces together may be better than you (maybe not). :D

Fires can go out, engines can be restarted. Also, realistically, a pilot might not notice that an opponent's engine has stopped when he opens fire, or he might be trying to kill the crew before they can bail out.

In terms of the game, it's also possible that the game engine is doing its old trick of not always recognizing a kill as a kill until well after the fact, even if the plane is on fire, has a dead pilot, or has ditched or crash landed.

The decision to bail out or stay with the airplane is heavily dependent on the situation. It would be tough for AI to model all the possible situations.

Examples:

Stuck controls.

Normally: Bail out.

Except: You're over enemy territory on a straight and level course back to friendly territory. Then you stay with the plane and bail out over friendly territory.

Except: You're flying straight and level over water. You stay with the plane and bail out over the nearest friendly territory. If that's not possible, you bail out over land.

Except: You're in a plane where you have access to tools, cable runs, etc. and you're flying straight and level. You try to fix the problem.

Except: You're in an airplane which has wounded crew aboard who are too badly injured to bail out. Then, you have everyone except the pilot bail out over friendly territory and then the pilot attempts to make a crash landing.

Fire or Dead Engine.

Normally: Bail out.

Except: You're too low to bail out. Then you ride the plane down and try to crash land.

Except: You're over a friendly populated area or too low to bail out. Then you point the plane towards an open area and ride it down as long as it's possible to do so, then bail out at minimum safe altitude.

Except: You're over water. Then you try to ride the plane down and ditch, since there is survival equipment in the plane that you'd have to leave behind if you jumped.

Except: You're over water near a friendly ship. You turn the plane so you're near the ship and then bail out or ditch, depending on altitude, hoping for rescue.

Except: You're over water near a friendly coast. You turn the plane towards land so you can bail out over land.

Except: You're over hostile coast, but there are friendly ships off the coast. You turn the plane and try to get near a friendly ship.

Except: You're right over your target with a load of bombs. You hold course and bomb your target, then bail or crash. (Or, for the occasional hero, you suicide dive into your target.)

Lots of planes came back with bits of trees imbedded in the wings. In one notable instance, a U.S. jabo actually flew low enough to decapitate a German soldier! And, one U.S. ace who should have known better (Lt. Col. Francis Gabrelski) flew so low to the ground that he messed up his propeller and had to crash land.

I had a quick QM with a bomber raid with some odd behavior I had TB-3 landing randomly(undamaged and hopping up and down on the terrain) and collisions Two PE-8 ran into each other on the approch to target (average AI Crimieia Map Target Airfield)

Not really a bug, but since the AI rear gunner snipers are gone, it's become ridiculous - attacking a formation of IL-4 bombers... Alone! Downed 6 of them in one pass doing about 280kph in 190 A-4. They were shooting all over the place, except at me. This wasn't a fast boom and zoom, I slowly got onto each and every one's tail, and shot the crap out of 'em. In 4.10 I would be dead in seconds.

I know that before the gunners were a pain, but a slow, lone attack on a bomber formation from behind still should be suicide - now it's a stroll in the park. I was actually eating a doughnut during this, and they gave me and Iron Cross... Bit weird.

I'd like to first note that I'm enjoying the new AI immensely they're much smoother and more human like. One little foible I did notice is that I had my wingman crash right next to me as I landed at missions end when I forgot to give him the "go home" order, just like they've always done. If you have time this might be something to look at.

I have NOT tested it ... however if the wingman still does a CFIT when his leader is landing they most likely also still pancake into hills and mountains when scud running or dogfighting in valleys ... especially on maps like Slovakia while carrying munitions.

My reply might sound patronizing but I assure that that is not my intention, I'll use your post just as an example and try to provoke some thoughts.

In above situation first error was one made by human pilot, in fact AI pilots done what many of the real WWII pilots would do, they followed their leader.
This leads to the next point. Being a leader is not easy, not everybody can be a leader in RL. Leadership brings responsibility, leader have to take care about his subordinates and adjust his actions to match ability of his team.

IMO players should try to get into this leadership role more, great leaders are those who can get the most out of their team, overcame its weaknesses and exploit its strengths. As AI improves and become more human-like, role of the leader becomes more and more important and players are missing a lot of fun if they don't dug deeper into Leader role.

My point being, do what your team can do, don't try to force them to do what they can't do.

Now back to the bug report. You are right, that happens. I made new maneuver for low level flying ( you can now lead your flight few meters above the ground, try it but just don't make descent too steep) and I build mechanism that was supposed to take care about situations like you described.
Obviously it's not sufficient and I'll make some adjustments. Thanks for report and ,please, don't take my post personally, it was just used to ilustrate my POV about the leadership in games in general.

The problem is that if you fly in No 2 position (leader's wingman) and the leader gets shot down, the rest of the flight (Nos 3 and 4) will formate on you. It happened to me last night. I couldn't communicate with them, and the moment I was about to touch down, they both slammed into the ground.

Some nice thing to implement would be that the leadership of the flight gets transferred when the leader gets shot down. That way the AI can always have a commander (another AI or a human, according to circumstances).I saw this in a 4.09 mod, together with new formations and other stuff, but it was incompatible with newer versions.

Again, I know that it's a massive work, so take it just as a suggestion for future versions of the game.

That mostly happens to me if I "request backup" from base , so they sort of latch onto me (sometimes the lead of the flight too!), maybe some sort of that behavour happens when you send "clear my 6" on the radio, I really dont know:confused:

Hehe! Well, yes, indeed I primarly used AI wingmen only for spotting NMEs for me, cleaning my six, when I have screwed it, irritating the NME while I try to sneak in and as cannon fodder when I need to escape. In fact I usually only abuse AI. :D

Damn, this is something we must improve. While we are at it, what do you think about giving the human player an option to inform his flight about nearby bandits even when he is not flight leader?

I think thats a good idea, you would irl.

Awesome work your doing with the AI, really impressive:grin:

Can I add to this that the AI call bandits when the player is flight leader; currently they just break off and engage leaving the oblivious player unaware of their departure!

Hm? Your AI friends are calling bandits for you and as long as you tell them to fly in formation, they also will not departure if they are not attacked.

It's a great idea. I happens to me sometimes that I end up alone against, say, a flight of enemy bombers and I would like someone to come over and give me a hand. I select command 'Anyone help me', only to get an answer 'You're fine' :rolleyes: Not very helpful. How do they know it anyway if they're nowhere in sight?

Fenrir is right, my AI subordinates quietly break off as soon as they 'spot' enemy. I've learned to listen to the sound of their engines and the moment I hear them fade away in the distance I know they did it again.

All you need to do is use your Wingman/Flight 'Rejoin' command and they will get right back into formation....even if they 'see' nearby enemy planes.

Aviar

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!
My AI wingmen are usually better than me in locating enemy in the sky (they don't have to strain their eyes; being computer-controlled, they just 'know' that something's coming), so being a flight leader I rely on them in that matter. All I want is that they call out the 'bandits' instead of just flying away on their own, the way they do now.

Ok, since this is the AI debugging thread, I'll throw one in here that is a real immersion killer, although it only happens under certain circumstances. However, it is still annoying when it does happen.

If I have a small mission (let's say 3 flyable Allied planes) and I host a coop and all 3 planes are manned by a human....when we get near an enemy flight, the 'AI' will scream out the 'bandits sighted' call.

Well, there is NO friendly AI anywhere on the map because all 3 planes are manned by humans. Who is this AI ghost screaming on the radio that they see bandits? It really breaks the mood.

Ok, vent mode off. This is really not a fault of 4.11, as it's been around for years...maybe from day one. It's just that it happened again today and the post above mine reminded me of it.

So, if this small issue can ever be resolved it would be nice.

EDIT: I forgot...this AI 'ghost' also congratulates you when you get a kill....LOL.

Aviar

That happened to me flying earlier with AI as wingman, he'd been shot down and five minutes later he's praised my shooting! Sadly I was shot down later and during that, looking behind I see the P39 firing and next to him the useless AI watching presumably :(, no warning either. They still fly on your dead six where you can't see them, mind you given they now only just fly, unless you order them to do something, (with the reply, negative! negative!). lol!
The enemy AI are much better in 4.11 tho'.

There's lots of little ways that friendly AI radio messages are messed up. Huge amounts of lag before a message is transmitted is just one.

Even more jarring is a "calm voice" "This is [Number] . . ." statements followed by a long period of silence, then a "freak out" message (e.g., "I'm bailing out!").

Another annoyance is that the game doesn't have unit callsigns, just generic "color" names and all units use the same "frequencies." This means, during a big mission, when multiple flights of the same color are in the air, you can have multiple "red 2" (or whatever) calling out different messages simultaneously.

Even worse, since friendly planes never identify their location on the map, you've got no way of knowing which "red 2" (or whatever) is under attack/returning to base/bailing out.

Another annoyance is that periodically someone (I've never figured out who) will call out random numbers. I've been playing IL2 for something like 8 years now and I still don't know what those random numbers mean. Is it ground control calling out altitudes and courses? If so, whose altitude and course? Why?

If you're going to have ground control, it should actually vector you towards your target.

Then of course, there's the friendly AI which calls out "bandits" (or whatever) without giving you any useful information about: A) Number, B) Type, C) Location, D) Altitude, E) Activity.

In a better world, you'd get a report like "2 bandit fighters, 5 o'clock high, inbound!" or "Multiple bogies, 20,000 feet, grid coordinates 20-32, inbound!"

In a perfect world, you'd have even more info, like "2 109s, 5 o'clock high, coming in!" (i.e., actually beginning an attack run) or "Multiple bogies, angels 20, 17 miles off Lunga Point, inbound. Course 137 degrees, speed 250 knots."

Finally, while it's merely a "color" thing, some of the AI dialog just sounds wrong when translated into other languages/dialects. Every air force had its own method of doing things and its own slang.

For example, "He's going to hell" might be a good literal translation from the Russian, but a 1940s British pilot might say "That Jerry's gone for a Burton" when claiming a kill over a German plane, while an American pilot of the period might say, "That Kraut's down for the count!"

The better add-on voice packs get this right. Stock voice packs, not so much.

Just wanna add a few observations of my own;

Generally, AI (friend and foe) will not withdraw from an engagement zone after sustaining damage that causes heavy oil and/or fuel loss. I would imagine that this should realistically illicit a fairly immediate RTB protocol at the first opportunity. There are some exceptions of course, such as with heavy bombers approaching a target zone, but with flights of smaller A/C (singles or even mutli-engine), they should generally withdraw in an attempt to save themselves and their A/C, being that their ability to execute their mission objectives would at that point be severely compromised. I often see fighter AI with critical engine damage just carrying on like nothing's wrong until they fall out of the sky.

Fighter AI (friend or foe) can often pull off spectacular deflection shots, but then fail to hit a non-maneuvering (and often damaged) target that's directly in front of them. This one has caused me some issues. I've seen my own AI wingmen (of all skill levels) pull off amazing snapshots with a single burst, but then fly right up behind a damaged, non-maneuvering opponent and miss repeatedly until they decide to break off (in frustration?:confused:) and leave a potential threat that they should have taken down to become a threat again. They don't attempt to re-engage. I've left several wingmen's wing before when they were literally only moments from serving the coup de grace (ie; sustained guns blazing) on a damaged, straight and level foe, to deal with other threats, only to be later shot down by that very same damaged enemy that my AI wingman let off the hook! Sometimes other wingmen in my flight were right behind me just watching it happen too:!: Almost like the rounds they were firing and missing were actually seen by them as hits, and they broke off their attack cuz they now considered that enemy dead and simply didn't 'see' them anymore. Very strange.

Often, ace AI (QMB) will stay with their A/C after the engine has been disabled in what at first seems to be an attempt at a dead-stick emergency ditch, but ends up becoming a funeral pyre because they don't try to find open areas to attempt the landing. I've witnessed behavior where they actually fly right into a town instead of any of the surrounding fields they had the option to glide to when they still had the altitude available. These pilots are alive when this happens, I fly by and look and then I sometimes observe them in the replay. Dead-sticking carries risks of course, and I'm not implying that every AI should survive when attempting one... but they seem to not give themselves the opportunity because they don't try to guide their planes to open areas.

Most of these observations happened in single-player missions with varying levels of mission complexity, with the exception of the last example.

Excellent work so far! I appreciate all your efforts immensely :-)

...and only then they exclaim: 'Damn, I'm hit!' (or something like that), as if they just discovered that fact :grin:

Seriously, this is one of the reasons why AI units suffer such unrealistically high losses, up to 100% in one go.

At least once this happened in dynamic campaign game: We flew eight Bf109s. Number one crash-landed, but the pilot stayed in the cockpit. Two, three and four continued their patrol route, but the second flight kept circling over the crashed number one.

I don't have many details regarding the "glitch" I've heard reported in my missions, but something to note just incase others are now experiencing it aswell..

Two old missions. AI was in P39's '42
While hosting, twice now, I've been asked by a pilot "Are you still here?"
I waved it off the first time.. but then again today.. different mission but same P39's.. Someone asked again "Are you still here?"
I replied "Yes", and we continued flying..
When we were finished the mission, I asked what the issue was..
He replied that the P39's were flying under the ground and thought that the host had disconnected (the reason for asking if I was sill there).

Like I mentioned at the start.. I don't have a .ntrk or any hardcore evidence, but figured I'd mention it incase others notice the same problem. (It might have been on my end, but I haven't had anyone speak of this problem before now/v4.11)

Please get the kill stealing issue repaired at last! Everytime when I damage enemy plane and get on his tail to finally kill him, my ,,wingmen'' dive on him and tear him apart. And just moments ago I torn an enemy hurri and it was falling without its tail, then got hit by 1!!! MG bullet of my no 3 and when it hit the ground, it wasn't a kill for me. But when I try to do the same, the kill goes to AI. WTF? I know you haven't made this aspect of the game but please get it finally fixed. Please.

More to the point, the program needs to register a destroyed plane as being destroyed at the moment it loses a vital part, the crew bails out, it ditches, or it makes a crash landing.

Having the computer figure out when a plane is destroyed due to damage should be simple. If damage to the plane is sufficiently bad that the crew bails out, the computer should register a kill at the same time.

If damage kills the pilot(s), the computer should also register a kill.

Figuring out when a plane has ditched is a bit harder. But, if the computer detects that a land plane is sinking into water, it should immediately register the kill.

Figuring out when a plane has crash landed is a bit trickier, but it can't be that hard. Just have the computer recognize a kill when a) the plane's propeller is bent, b) the landing gear is up or sheared off, & c) the plane is stationary.

And, as always, for people who don't like "instant kill claiming" there should be an option in the UI so that you can turn it off.

Also, if I inflict critical damage while attacking an aircraft, unintentionally collide with it or even ram it and then have to bail out, and that attacked aircraft goes down, it's never registered as a kill if my own aircraft crashed first. A kill is a kill, even a hard-won one, and should be registered as such.

+1!

First, thanks to everybody who is reporting the problems. This game is so big and complex that no single person knows everything about the game, only cumulative knowledge of many people comes close.

I'll take a look at that, I think that I know why this happen and if I'm right that shouldn't be too hard to fix.

Don't bet on that, AI ability to spot enemies is reworked completely in 4.11, to a point that AI ability is probably more realistic than player's.

I'll check that, this may be related to the problem Lagarto reported so both things might be solved in one go.

Depends on your wingman's skill, additionally, AI's are more restricted in their FM in 4.11 and you as a leader must assure that your wingmans can follow you. That is no different than in RL.

There is a mechanism in game that should take care of that but it probably need some refinements. Hard part with such situations is in finding good general rule because whatever you try to use there is always few exceptions.

We will try to improve that although direct 6 o'clock shots are not that easy really due to the small size of the target. I'll see if they will get better if they allow small deflection in such situations.

That's another old thing, we will try to improve it. It is especially annoying when they try to ditch in the field when they could easily glide to the nearest airfield.

This is probably a connection problem or he is using modded map with changed landscape heights.

We have made some changes in that but people tend to notice more the things where they feel "cheated". Interesting is that during Beta testing one of the testers thought that AI might be too good in estimating the kill and breaking off the attack.

I'm more inclined to make AI better and reduce "kill steals" that way. Occasional "steals" are completely realistic and they happened in WWII, they happen online so AI should not be an exception IMO.

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

I agree completely. After all, IL2 is extremely unrealistic in that the game TELLS YOU when you've gotten a kill, and instantly assigns it to you (or another pilot), as opposed to you having to visually observe the kill, claim it after the mission, get corroboration from another source, and then work out who gets credit.

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

Default would be the current system - more or less instant kill claiming and only one pilot gets credit. But, you could have these options:

1) Different Kill Claim Options.

A) Easy Credit: Basically, make stuff up. If you scored hits on an E/A, you can claim a kill.

B) Strict Claiming: Your kill must be confirmed by at least one friendly unit, or it must fall on land behind friendly lines. Unless you have a gun camera system, solo kills far behind enemy lines don't get counted.

2) Partial Credit: You can claim damaged, probable kills and confirmed kills.

3) Shared Credit: You can "split" kills with other pilots who also scored hits on the plane.

4) Ground killed planes count as air kills.

5) Damaged heavy bombers count as 1 kill. Destroyed heavy bombers count as 2 "kills."

6) Killed planes are sorted by nationality.

7) Kill markings are different based on which air force you're flying for, the nationality of your opponents and/or the theater you're flying in.

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?

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.

I know, it sounds like asking too much, but I would love to see some smart AI behavior here like e.g. flying nap of the earth, temporarily taking a different course or increasing altitude. Now a lot depends on the mission designer, but he/she can only preprare so much and the problem is still there if dynamic campaign missions are used.

2nd AI request:

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.

Rgs,
FP

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!:)

I've also noticed that AI's accuracy is way too good, it counts deflection angle just like a computer, no human has ability to make such crackshots almost head-on and with 500 knots of passing speed. That's impossible. And even a rookie level pilot can do such things. IMO, you should limit their accuracy a bit, because that's unrealistic and only 50+ kills aces have enough shooting experience to shoot in this way.

We have spent ~3 months in tweaking AI shooting ability. I collected plenty of data and current AI shooting percentage is below best human players. Aces AI are somewhere at the very good players level.

OK, but rookies are above rookie human level, IMO.

I have to agree. Although this is not nesecarily a bad thing as it forces us to get better faster.

I do a lot of training in many aircraft in a simple mission I created with some bombers, ships, ground targets and Rookie Zeros at Guadalcanal.

Just the other day I sat on the runway and allowed the mission to proceed while flipping through the camera views to observe AI behavior / tactics / maneouvers etc. To be honest, I didn't set out to perform any tests or anything, I just sorta got caught up in the little AI drama unfolding before me.

The first thing I noticed immediatly was these little AI nuggets knew EXACTLY where to find my AI wingmates. Without missing a beat, they methodically shot down every one of my AI planes turning immediatly to the next plane no matter if it was visable, or in a position to be seen etc. They just turned into the next nearest aircraft and blew it from the sky.

Mind you, the AI planes I setup for my side are mere eyecandy and are just patroling around for ambiance and are not ordered to engage the enemy.

Once all my sides AI were downed, these supposed rookies immediately turned and bee-lined directly for my aircraft - still sitting without the engine running on the runway a few virtual miles away from them - the lead AI pumped copious amounts of lead into my aircraft making me wonder if he would ever run out of ammo (this was after he single handedly downed 6 planes) then his AI wingman failed to pull out of the dive and proceeded to crash his zero into the ground obliterating me in the process. (Kamakazi AI behavior??? LOL )

After all my squadron and myself were dead, the AI went to it's final patrol waypoint as it should.

At this point, I was laughing so hard. =)

I wished I had flipped on the flight recorder, but I guess my point is that the AI still know EXACTLY where their enemies are at all times reguardless of distance. That sounded harsh, but I mean to say, within a certain distance - I think.

I'm not critisizing, just posting my observations.

Which begs the question, do I need to rebuild my mission from scratch to enable the new AI behavior ? I assumed the AI would just fly according to their new 4.11 programming.

No, that's an absurd. You did everything just OK. My first post was to point their experience level in shooting, but your is 1000 times better! A question to Daidalos Team: how did this issue manage to get through beta-testing? I hope that it's a subject to change :D

PS I haven't noticed behavior like this. Maybe even the opposite of it. I made myself a mission where I flew a 109 (alone) and escorted a couple of Heinkels over MTO map. 3 Wildcats with rookie level (I wanted to test their deflection shooting more) attacked us. I dove on them, appearing just below the sun and shot one down. The other two didn't notice it, but when I attacked the second one, they both answered. That was the best combat I've ever had. At first, I tried just to damage one and rejoin bombers, but I missed him and when I was in half-way (Wildcats were about 1-2 kms behind me) I realised that they might continue their pursuit and finally get closer to the bombers. So I turned back. When I got to EFs, they took the challenge. We started to fight equally (the 2 of them, but unexperienced, against me, a killer in a 109). But I got pissed off when 1 of them shot when he was exactly above me (to the right, but I was in a turn) and with 450 kph speed RIGHT into my cockpit (HTF did the ROOKIE do this?!) and hit my leg and sight. I continued the fight, but now they had advantage, so I tried to escape (I was low on ammo - at least I thought so) by hiding in a large cloud. I made a couple of circles inside and when I got out, there was no enemy there - they flew away. So I turned to rejoin the heinkels, but then an idea appeared: now the Wildcats weren't expecting me, so I could do a fast run, kill one of them and the other one wouldn't be any problem then. So I turned into heading leading to the shore, next to the cloud. When I got there, I spotted one Wildcat circling clockwise and the other one counterclockwise (?) above him and a bit to the left. So I dove to kill the lower one. But I overshot and hit him just a few times (remember that I had no crosshairs). The other one immediately jumped on me, but I was flying faster, so I easily got to his tail and damaged him. His entire rudder got off, he also had his left wing looking like a Swiss cheese, so I thought that he was going to crash and just watched, looking out not to get suprised by the other one. But there was only the badly damaged one. After 10 mins of following, I was sure that he wasn't to crash so I dove from the direction of the sun. I had no MG rounds left, just a cannon which, as you know, has really small amount of ammo, so I ,,aimed'' carefully. I hit him with about 3 rounds and got away, watching again. He was shaking a bit more, but that was all. So I attacked again and he literally blew up, about 30 meters before my nose. I had an oil leak and several more damages. I turned to base immediateley and landed without problems. After clicking the ,,quit'' button, I was informed that I shot them all down. So the circling one had got to be killed in that ,,bad'' attack. That was really my best combat experience, thanks!

Once they find enemy flight there is nothing strange that they can locate and attack nearby planes. They must have some sort of situational awareness and ability to communicate with their friends.


I'll check that, if you were distant enough they should not see you and attack you but as you were still on the ground they possibly treated you as ground target and that part of the code is not changed yet.

There is no guarantee that rookies will miss all the time. Chances are that they will miss but it is also possible that they will hit you with the first bullet. Luck plays a big part in game just as in life.

In my shooting tests Rookies were scoring with only 1% of shots fired, anything less than that would be ridiculous IMO.

I don't see anything wrong with this. One flight takes out an enemy flight over the enemy's home airfield. They've got ammo left over, so they go down to strafe before heading home. On the way down, they see an enemy plane on the runway ready to take off. That makes it an obvious, easy, priority target - exactly the sort of thing that any pilot would aim for first.

The only thing strange about the whole scenario is that the wingman crashed, but maybe not so strange if he was a rookie, more focused on keeping station and following his leader than pulling out of his dive.

Actually, I agree!

I really want to be sure the devs saw this in my last post -

I am very grateful for the TD devs continued interest in making this the best sim in history!

I'm sticking with AI smart enough to "decide" to kamakazi. ;)

Torpedo He-111's
 

The He-111 that is torpedo capable, the H-6, will not fly a torpedo run AI routine. Using my "Torpedoes Away" QMB pack, I've tested the Axis, Airfield (Carrier) Attack (no AAA) with the Ju-88's that can carry the LT 5b and LT 5W. I set the autopilot on at mission start and watch what happens. There are no problems with the 88's.

With the exact same parameters, the 111's will not commit torpedo runs, dropping their 5b's and 5W's while flying blissfully unaware over the target carrier, in no sort of flight profile that would work at all for torpedo runs.

I've attached the QMB missions to this for your testing. There are no Bridge or Armor attack missions. For more info on this pack if you're interested:

http://www.mission4today.com/index.p...etails&id=4160

Otherwise, Exellent work on Il2 overall!

EDIT: I've discovered it's not the AI programming. It has something to do with waypoint placement. Apparently the 111's need different waypoint parameters to drop torpedoes. I'm in the middle of experimenting with it and I'll post here if I can figure out what works and why.

EDIT 2: Okay... for some reason the 111's won't use torpedoes only in QMB. I took the QMB mission, saved it as a single mission, deleted all the other flights, ships, etc. until there was just one plane and one ship. I changed nothing of the 111 H-6's waypoints or settings. It worked perfectly. The same mission in the QMB it simply doesn't work. I know that other torpedo carriers work in the QMB, like the 88's, so I'm at a loss now to explain why it's happening. I checked every flyable torpedo-able airplane in both the QMB and the single mission. Every single one of them worked in both... except for the 111's. They simply won't torpedo in the QMB.

Well i'm not experienced with other human players, but here what I found out about AI behaviour:
Was just testing ETO from the beginning upwards and got stuck in 41 flying the 109.

Its not all of AI flewn AC that became a harder enemy, some became comparatively weaker and their fighting behaviour is generaly a bit weaker, because they have not this vast ammount of overspeed ability and no overheat problems, like before.

But you cant hide in clouds. AI can. Clouds are allways dense, when you are in pursuit and allways a little to transparent when you are pursued.
The deflection shooting of especially Hurricanes MkIIc is uncompared. If it happens that AI gets just a little window for a fire solution, it does, and it hits.
The difference of Ace to Rookie is just: The Ace will get you with the first or second round in a devastating manner, like Motor burning, Player AC torn into pieces, at least two of the controls away. Rooky just hits jou with several rounds of his first burst.
You can fight them down as long as you can avoid headons and blackouts, which, with all due respect is more or less unlikely, if you have to mess up in a flight against flight situation.
Fighting man against man will give you a 25% Chance against an ace or a 90% Chance against rookies.
I dont think AI is affected by blackouts, because they can turn very hard, witout giving much energy, even when in the bottom of a low jojo.
Then they come up for a sure kill headon, which to avoid is a little bit unlikely and cost you precious energy.

All in all its way more interesting then before, even if I have no chance finishing begun campaigns when there are to many missions against to many Hurricanes (JG27 campaigns Africa).