AI is on top of my list

[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.