AI is on top of my list

[planespotter]

I have been reading and tonight just reloaded BOB WoVII to my PC and updated to latest patch. I already have Cliffs of Dover but not beta patch, just latest Steam patched version. I don't think that makes a difference to AI?

I played a 4 vs 4 dogfight with both sims in quick mission builder/instant action, where I was in Spitfires vs 109s. Here is my notes I wrote while pausing and playing, just the AI I was considering:

Cliffs of Dover: Merge is good, both sides trying to swing around ea. other / no one opened fire during merge? / wtf 2 109s go away from fight / one 109 shot down by RAF AI / I have not been targeted yet after two minutes / help shoot second 109 down / look at map, 2 other 109s running away, so chase / catch up and fire, they do not react, shoot one down, no reaction from last 109 / boring so leave him to fly away. no one shot at me in whole dogfight.

Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory: Merge, 109s open fire with MGs at long range, one Spitfire damaged / I have two 109s on my tail / call for help on radio / Spitfire comes to help, 109s break off my tail / I get onto tail of 109 but he dives away / he extends and turns back at me! / I get hit with cannon / I spin and recover at sea level / I climb back up to fight (rudder damage I think) / I fire at passing 109 and he breaks off / I follow and fire and he makes evading turn / I cannot maneouvre good and break off, so does he.

This was only one fight but it is as I remember. You cannot compare these two games for single player AI. BOBII rocks, CoD sux. Very sad for such a beautiful sim.

[nearmiss]

It's good you did a recall of a personal combat event. No one really connects with competent AI performance until they really experience it.

Keep it up and you'll get very absorbed in the air combat experience. Actually, it is a very excellent training tool as well for Online air combat

You will be a pro at it, if you stay with it. When you go online you'll not get your head handed to you near as often.

I haven't run the BOB II for awhile myself. I, like many others was waiting for a multi-player. It's not that offline play is that bad, it just gets old flying aircombat hour after hour with no human interaction. Guess it's OK for reclusive personalities, but I'm not one of those types. LOL

Anyway, my interest has been tweaked so I may reload and run it as well. Last time I fired that puppy up I was using XP and Vista. Now I'm on Win 7 64bit. Guess there may be some startup issues, but like always I'll know to stay with it until I get it. LOL

[nearmiss]

I recall there was a more competent AI performace created by "Certificate" when the IL2 mods were a hot commodity. He made a few changes, and made a world of difference in ai. Actually as I best recall the AI were more aggressive for friendly flights. the enemy ai were about the same

[He111]

AI yes! Defiants aren't suppose to do continual barrel-rolls .. the gunner would be sick all over his turret!

Pity we don't have scripts that could be changed. eg Tactics of a defiant is going to be a million miles different to any single-seater fighter!

He111.

[buddye]

The strategy of the BOBII AI has been a major topic of player discussion. Do the AI fight, how long, when do they break off and then what?

In BOBII we have evolved to a different strategy for our Instant Action Missions and our two Campaigns (Single Player and Commander Campaign).

In Instant Action (IA), we have assumed that the player is interested in a good scrap (a longer dog fight where he can practice his combat pilot skills). In the Campaign, the AI Squad will break off sooner to prevent unrealistic Squad losses. In both the Campaign and Instant Action Missions, the AI will break off when the Squad losses reach a certain level or the Squad is outnumbered by a certain number.

A individual AI will disengage when he is out of ammo, at bingo fuel, or has damage that prevents effective fighting. When disengaged, the AI will head for home after diving away but the AI will take evasive action if shot at (either a bullet hit or a bullet near miss).

[Les]

Originally Posted by buddye

The strategy of the BOBII AI has been a major topic of player discussion. Do the AI fight, how long, when do they break off and then what?

In BOBII we have evolved to a different strategy for our Instant Action Missions and our two Campaigns (Single Player and Commander Campaign).

In Instant Action (IA), we have assumed that the player is interested in a good scrap (a longer dog fight where he can practice his combat pilot skills). In the Campaign, the AI Squad will break off sooner to prevent unrealistic Squad losses. In both the Campaign and Instant Action Missions, the AI will break off when the Squad losses reach a certain level or the Squad is outnumbered by a certain number.

A individual AI will disengage when he is out of ammo, at bingo fuel, or has damage that prevents effective fighting. When disengaged, the AI will head for home after diving away but the AI will take evasive action if shot at (either a bullet hit or a bullet near miss).

Interesting points Buddye, a good reminder that developing the AI is about more than deciding how the individual planes dogfight each other. Anyone who's ever tried in vain to get through an IL-2 series campaign with minimal squad losses will understand how crucial the development of the strategic aspect of the AI is.

On a related note, I'm guessing that similar to how the individual AI are dependent upon the flight models of their planes, the strategic or tactical aspect of the AI as a group would be dependent on the game having an effective way for the player to command their AI team-mates.

Is working on the command system a part of developing the AI, or is that as separate as the flight modelling is? Seems to me there might be a bit of a grey area or overlap there in terms of what the AI are coded to do, as opposed to what the player can tell them to do. I imagine there must be some kind of heirarchy or order of importance that would have to be determined. For example, did refining the BOBII AI require fixing things like the tendency we see in the IL-2 series for several AI to form a conga-line behind a single enemy AI, often following it to the exclusion of all other considerations? Would be good if stuff like that could be written out of the picture once and for all.

[buddye]

BOBII uses Radio Commands to permit the Player to get information from the AI and command the AI. Some Radio Cammands are indpendent and some must work with the AI. The problem with many AI attacking a single enemy was solved with a option permitting the player to select the max number of AI that are permitted to engage the same enemy.

Here is a list of the BOBII Radio Cammands taken from the User manual:

Radio Keys Fighters Fighter Bombers

Group Info
R-1-1 Report in Report in
R-1-2 Report position Report position
R-1-3 Fuel check Fuel check
R-1-4 Report status Report status
R-1-5 Tight left turn now Tight left turn now
R-1-6 Tight right turn now Tight right turn now

Pre-Combat
R-2-1 Test guns Test guns
R-2-2 Patrol position Patrol position
R-2-3 E/A vector E/A vector
R-2-4 Airborne Airborne
R-2-5 Give freedom Give freedom
R-2-6 Take command Take command

Combat
R-3-1 Bandits! Bandits!
R-3-2 Sighting request Sighting request
R-3-3 Break! Break!
R-3-4 Covering? Covering?
R-3-5 Attack my target (Help!) Attack my target (Help!)

Post-Combat
R-4-1 Regroup Regroup
R-4-2 Send all home Send all home

Tower
R-5-1 Mayday! Mayday!
R-5-2 Home tower Home tower
R-5-3 Nearest tower Nearest tower
R-5-4 Surface wind Surface wind
R-5-5 Wind at altitude Wind at altitude
R-5-6 Land at home Land at home
R-5-7 Land at nearest Land at nearest

Ground Attack
R-6-1 N/A Begin your Bomb run
R-6-2 N/A Strafe the target
R-6-3 N/A Leave area