Suggestions for AI Improvements

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Marabekm

Does this help?

The existing method of specifying attack type aren't bad, and has the virtue of simplicity, but could be better.

Say you've got an aircraft which could attack in three different ways, like a solid-nosed B-25 armed with guns, bombs and rockets, or a TBF armed with guns, torpedoes and rockets. Say that the target is a small ship.

By default, the B-25 will glide or level bomb first, then use rockets, then use guns. The TBF will make a torpedo attack first, then use rockets, then maybe guns.

But, suppose that you wanted to create a patrol mission where you take out the small ship first, then attack a larger ship later. In that case, you'd want to keep your heavy ordinance for the bigger ship.

So, you'd want the option of making the planes make rocket or gun attacks first, and hold onto their bombs/torpedoes.

Or, say that you want the B-25 to use skip bombing rather than glide bombing. Currently, there's no way for the FMB to specify that attack preference.

Or, suppose you have a Ju-87 flying at 1,200 m. Currently, if set to bomb, it will make a level bombing attack rather than a glide bombing attack. Why couldn't it make a glide bombing attack instead, or just try to gain the 100 m needed to get sufficient altitude, and then make a dive bombing attack?

I can think of several ways the GAttack command could be made more useful.

First, give more attack options, and the option of different attack sequences, like I've described.

Second, have a flag in the FMB that reminds mission builders of the parameters required for planes to make certain attack types, and/or which automatically adjusts the planes' altitude to the minimum/maximum height required to make a particular attack.

For example, paratroop drops are always going to be at a minimum of ~200-300 m altitude, torpedo attacks are always going to be at 200 m or less, skip bombing attacks will always be at 100 m or less, dive bombing attacks will always start at 1,300 m or higher, and guided bomb attacks at 4,000 m or greater (plus whatever standoff distance is needed).

Originally Posted by Marabekm

You can't have a mix of say bombs and a torpedo, or regular bombs and 1 guided bomb on the same aircraft.

Why not? Is this a limitation of the game's AI, or just something that happened historically?

I can't find historical loadouts to make my case, but I could imagine that a big patrol bomber might carry a mix of torpedoes, bombs and/or rockets, or that if guided bombs were scarce that a bomber might carry a mix of guided and "dumb" bombs.

Originally Posted by Marabekm

There are no depth charges or mines currently in game, so I have no idea why this was even brought up?

These types of ordinance are available as mods, and would be highly appropriate to patrol bomber and bomber ops were they added to the official game. Since those weapons use slightly different attack techniques I included them [in brackets] as potential options should they ever appear.