Non Friday 2010-04-15 Development Update :)

[constant]

Eheh, you make alot of really good points, if I was gonna quote you it would be the whole post You're not wrong especially when it comes to first person shooters eating computers alive these days!

However the level of difficulty for creation of the game types is still the same.

Physics is physics no matter how you roll the dice, its the implemented design that brings you flaws and limitations, not the type of game. I've used physics libraries that are powerful and fast and can be used for any game type. Aerodynamics is something else on its own, but with programming its not any different than say the basic ai: "if this occurs, do this".

Speaking of AI. FPS games do have really sad AI. Any AI is difficult. But the truth is in il2 the AI is the same as in FPS games. When I had the chance to peak at the AI code for IL2, I was amazed at how simplistic it was. I also saw code that seemed to give AI an unlimited and unreleastic "afterburner" (I believe that is exactly what they called it in the code, too)

Simplistic is not wrong, especially when it comes to programming, its always the best solution if its simple. But the AI you talk about and that actually exists are far from each other, flight sim or first person shooter.

The truth: The AI basically have pre-programmed flight manuevers and "characteristics" that are "executed" whenever a given situation exists, it is not "greater" than any fps AI, it's the same thing actually.

This is why the AI can go all wonky or do nothing at all independant of skill level, because they get caught in a situation not pre-programmed.

I was also surprised (but not completely..) to see in the code that the AI always were given the player's exact speed, location and altitude and maybe some other stuff as well, for all levels of ai skill (rookie, average, veteran, ace).

And if you watch the AI land, you can clearly see they are not actually "flying" like you and I would be flying.

FPS AI does the same thing. They get pre-programmed things to do in certain situations, but of course, and more common these days, they don't receive enough programming and therefore lack the neccessary reactions for many situations they run into.

FPS games these days are sad, focusing only on fancy shader/graphic technology, slamming the gpu with wasted effort just to put out a mediocre (or less) game that looks "pretty".

AI has not evolved much in games, no matter what type it is.

Don't get me wrong, AI is not easy, but again, the AI you talk about and the AI that actually exists are not the same.

I should wrap this up, so again, my point is the same. What it really comes down to is the game company and how well they pay their programmers.

I'm an atheist but Thank god 1c maddox is on il2 and sow

Also for an example of a non-pc killer fps game, check out Darkest Of Days was a history channel game, it uses a good physics engine, and for the most part has lots n lots of enemy on screen (and friendlies sometimes too) Of course the game isn't that great, but fighting off 100 or so enemies with a musket and a six shooter is ALWAYS fun. I run that baby on a CELERON (worst of them all!) 2.4ghz oc'd 2.9, 1.5 gig mem, geforce 850 or something like that, i forgot its model name, anyway, the same system i run il2 on and il2 still has comparable trouble with more than 8 planes. (not to mention ground units) and I've tweaked il2 as far as I can. Anyway.. time to switch class!

[TheGrunch]

Oh yes, of course, much of what the AI do is just reaction-based "if this happens, do this", but like I say, the complexity involved is quite different. In an FPS you have "point gun at player and shoot" then "oh no you're out of ammo, walk behind a wall" (if you're very lucky!), where in combat flightsims there's quite a lot more involved in producing an AI that even vaguely challenges the player.
What I think would be an interesting experiment would be to run a neural networking AI through playing a game, and then take snapshots of this AI at various stages in its development and use these snapshots to produce a rule-set for the actual game's AI implementation with each snapshot being a different difficulty level or "personality" of AI. Although I have no idea how feasible that idea would be.

[constant]

Interesting.. Don't forget even Quake3's bots had the programming to "collect armor if low on armor", "get ammo", "run away if hurt and find healing, avoid player", and I believe the bots even stuck with teammates if their teamwork level was high enough. Also capture the flag has a completely different set of rules that older games ran all the time! Stuff you don't see anymore.. The same bots could play capture the flag, team deathmatch or free-for-all. Anyway.

I have no clue as to what neural networking AI is.

I can't wait to see what they did for sow.

[TheGrunch]

It's sad isn't it, how generally AI has declined rather than improved - have a read about neural networking if you're interested. Obviously it would be necessary to give the AI a much more complex starting point that the robots which learn not to crash into things or whatever. Looking forward to seeing SoW's AI as well, although I'm not holding out that much hope since the quality of the AI stayed pretty much static for all of the Il-2 series.

[constant]

I can understand that AI not improving over the il2 series, basically each new "game" was simply a mod, just added content. Generally you wouldn't expect too much engine-revision in mods like ai-programming. They did let the AI stay in the lower-end aspect of game improvement. However its good to know Daidalos has already done some AI improvements for 4.10 .. I wanna lose ai in clouds so bad it hurts

I read the wikipage, I get a basic understanding. I might read more cuz it kinda makes me want to give it a try. I've always tried to program ai systems, never really getting much out of it, 10 years ago. maybe I've learned something since then.. The hard part is recognition of adaptative (?) changes and adapting.

[He111]

Oleg should just state, SOW is 64 bit, end of story, you want da best then upgrade! i know I would, I actually plan to buy 64 bit computer soon. I suspect many here would upgrade too! Oleg could then get ahuge kick-back from DELL computers or Microsoft! (joking)


Another disturbing point on chutes, I just watched a doco on the Luthwaffe's desparate act of ramming enemy bombers late in the war ... apparently American fighters would gun down german pilots in their chutes, who were lucky enough to survive the collision!! .. made my blood run cold.

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[BadAim]

To the best of my knowledge, "kill the pilot" was standing orders for US escorts for a time (I don't believe the method was specified), which kind of makes sense in the horrible math of war. It's a testament to the Moral fortitude of these guys that it wasn't a more common practice. (I think it's safe to say that the average warrior won't do to his enemy what he doesn't want done to him, if he's thinking that far ahead)

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by He111

Another disturbing point on chutes, I just watched a doco on the Luthwaffe's desparate act of ramming enemy bombers late in the war ... apparently American fighters would gun down german pilots in their chutes, who were lucky enough to survive the collision!! .. made my blood run cold.

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I believe there were chute-shooters on both sides in that war. No one can say which side started that practice first. Enough blame to go around, I suspect. If you want to think about making your blood run cold, think about the airmen who parachuted safely to the ground from burning fighters or spinning bombers only to be captured and killed by hostile civilian mobs. War is Hell. It should make your blood run cold. A chance to kill an enemy was just that, and both sides took advantage of it. That's the reality of it.
Flyby out