Quote:
Originally Posted by Storebror
[*]When AI is outnumbering human players but a single human player has the fastest plane in the set and can run away from the fight, if he's managing the distance to AI planes (keep it at slightly above 1km, never separate further than 1.5km from the closest opponent), he can group up all AI planes behind him in a big swarm and drag them away to a point of choice on the map, then run away and leave them there, completely confused.
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To some extent, that's not unrealistic, since aggressive, inexperienced pilots can get "target fixated." But, a good leader is going to eventually get his flights back in formation, and perhaps position flights so that they can be mutually supportive vs. a faster opponent making repeated diving attacks.
Lack of effective section and flight tactics, like the classic "drag and bag" or "Thatch weave"/beam defense, is where 4.13 AI is currently weakest. This isn't just a fault in IL2; I can't think of any combat flight sim that does AI group tactics well.
[*]When human players are outnumbering AI and AI planes have no option to climb and run away, AI sucks big times in defending their lifes. They
will do a couple of weird maneouvres but this will stop quite soon, so all a human player has to do is stay on an AI's six for half a minute and wait for it to go straight - it will keep going straight, even if you start shooting parts off the plane, until you finally kill it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Storebror
[*]Outnumbered AI will immediately stop helping each other, instead they'll all fight a fight on their own.
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Again, this might be realistic. Information overload and panic can easily overwhelm training in situations like this. Historically, it was very common for formations of aircraft to break down into a "furball" consisting of many confused individual fights. (In fact, many aces took advantage of this feature of aerial combat by exiting the furball as quickly as they could, orbiting above and outside it, and picking off enemy aircraft which had lost Situational Awareness due to getting "sucked into" the furball.)
That said, Veteran or Ace AI should have good methods of being able to retain mutual support while badly outnumbered.
[*]AI bombers don't try to stay in formation when being attacked - when you hit one, he will bounce out, even if he could stay in as well.[/quote]
Heavy or medium bomber AI behavior in IL2 just isn't that good, probably because the sim was never designed to to take those sorts of bomber ops into account.
Bomber crew behavior is grossly simplified, and frustrating for anyone who want to play a bomber crewman. No intercom warnings about incoming bandits or aircraft maneuvers. No ability to aid other crewmen. No ability to coordinate fire. No ability to jettison guns and other equipment to lighten bomber weight. No crew ability to fight fires. No ability for crew to assume proper locations within aircraft for ditching or crash landing. G forces have no effects on gunnery accuracy or bailout ability.
Likewise, bomber "box" or formation behavior isn't modeled well. No loosening up formation when there's flak ahead but no fighters. No tightening up formation when fighters are spotted. No ability for lead bomber to order other bombers in formation to drop bombs on the lead bombardier's command. No ability to command bombers in your formation to do certain things - drop bombs, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Storebror
Because if we'd just tone down AI's situational awareness, this would have to be compensated elsewhere, and with AI's current abilities the only compensation available would be to give the superpowered AI flightmodel even more super powers of to make the snipers even more sniper like.
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I don't think that anyone will object to AI gunnery becoming worse. Most players won't care if AI can fly their planes to the absolute limit of performance and have radar-like vision, as long as they can't shoot straight.
I think it's highly realistic for inexperienced AI aircraft - or even some veteran bomber AI - to start shooting at long ranges. But, if they do that, they should be wasting ammo except for lucky shots.
For shots in dogfights, I think it's realistic for AI to get their lead wrong - sometimes badly wrong - based on relative speed, distance, and G forces involved. But, if there's no obvious effect from their fire, they should stop shooting.
If you want historical accuracy - vs. "realism" based on dogfight server human behavior - it's also realistic for any pilot of less than Veteran quality to absolutely suck at deflection shooting.
Also, unless they're fanatical or otherwise highly motivated, most pilots aren't going to go out of their way to engage in combat. If they lose sight of friendly aircraft, they'll fall back to a rally point. If they can't make contact with friendlies and have any reason to return to base, they will. If they see a big formation of enemy AC over enemy territory, they'll probably find an excuse to not attack.
Remember, just 10% of all US combat fighter pilots accounted for over 50% of all US fighter kills. All the other fighter pilots didn't have the piloting or gunnery skills to get a confirmed kill, or didn't have the aggressiveness and situational awareness to be a winner in aerial combat. To be utterly brutal, they were nothing more than targets, or "turkeys," although they might have been effective pilots in other roles, such as ground attack or bomber escort.
Pilots not selected for fighter pilot training were probably going to be even worse, although there were notable exceptions.