Dogfighting -does 4.11-4.12 patch address this?

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by X-Raptor

m8, whatever you say you have to admit what the reality of il2 1946 is now with A.I. : IT CHEAT. and it cheat more and more patch after patch. It is UBER A.I. EVEN IN AVERAGE LEVEL. They shoot at you at incredible distance with no challenge to survive. I know what you are tell about "my mistakes" but you have to discern Your mistakes to UBER-& CHEATING A.I. coded by DT that is a FACT. Is simple to verify. try to make a clean copy of your game patched just to 4.7 (still is a possible and easy downgrade of the game..) try to load a quick combat 8-8 spit/me109 (whatever version just same year of production..43, 44, 45 eg.) -and that is however a Historical dogfight set all to -average- level (just to notice that I want to give chance even to a medium level player..) Now try to challenge this quick mission and you will notice how more "real" is the balance between you and your team vs A.I. - Now try same mission in 4.12.1 game version and tell me how many SECONDS you survive (....) sun or not sun help.. clouds or not clouds help....altitude advantage help.... energy management strategy.... speed management ... m8, you can argue and try whatever tactic you want but the sad and frustrate result is always the same: you not survive more than about 30-60 sec after engaging the dogfight. this is not possible. .. and isn't historic... is this a SIMULATOR? Then I would like to SIMULATE WWII aereal combats! ..not to challege with a UBER-CHEATING A.I. for just 60 sec every mission ending with a prompt bullets salvo into my tail or in front of my engine just every time.

Tried 8 vs. 8 Bf109(regular) vs veteran SpitIXeLF25lbs, co alt, 5000m. In the merge I tried to shoot at one of them, no hits. Went right trough the whole pack, on full blast, course no more than 20 degrees of the original, now followed by them Spits. Went on on a shallow climb until Spits about behind me 3-4 km. Turned, tried to set up a shot, missed. Out again, and this time there were some Spits ahead (~30 degrees) and below, so I gradually turned and descended towards them. Tried to get a gunnery solution, but the rapidly banking and turning made shooting impossible without risking to get caught from these Spits behind me. Went out again and could have stopped there and flown home and as a real life pilot probably would have.
But as an online pilot I want KILLS. So I went back in, and spotted some Spits far below me, and though I knew there had to be Spits at near my alt, went for them down there(Bad move#1). Then I tried to get a gunnery solution and turned with the Spit (Bad move #2) -I want KILLS. Shot, missed, and discovered that Spit had some mates, and they were behind me. Went for rolling scissors guns defense, that worked surprisingly well (They AI not beeing able to make the split second high angle shots you present them helps-better since 4.11), and really got one of them in front of me, and damaged that one. Now I was down to about 3k (Spits now can match or exceed my speed), slow and alone with three veteran Spits. Next to no way getting out there alive. Someone really good at scissoring the enemy may have been able to do it -but I didn't.

Only thing I find a bit troublesome with the AI in that particular fight is that they do not use their planes strenghts very well, and do TnB in an 109 vs Spit. And they do not cooperate with you against the enemy.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Only thing I find a bit troublesome with the AI in that particular fight is that they do not use their planes strenghts very well, and do TnB in an 109 vs Spit. And they do not cooperate with you against the enemy.

Similar experiences here:
1. Very little cooperation: wingman with "follow me" doesn't call me when attacked, doesn't warn me when I'm attacked, and doesn't attack when enemy is at my six and in front of his guns;
2. AI does use the vertical quite well, but not zooming out properly to perform a real BnZ tactic;
3. Veteran AI opens fire from 600-500 m, making occassional hits, but wasting ammo;
4. Rookie AI gunners are sometimes able to kill me with one single lmg shot from far.

[X-Raptor]

ok then all this aces m8 who state to be SO brave:

gaunt1, Derda508, IceFire, please post here a track 8vs8 spit/me109 average level whatever year and then show how brave you are. Is simple to say just theoretical WORDS about how to be an ace-player like you all are arguing to be.
I'm waiting..

[Laurwin]

well, I play lot of QBM but maybe I'm not so good even still at this game.

I played moscow winter, 4 american p47Ds vs 4xbf-109E4s + 4xfw190A5s
Americans were ace, Germans were rookie. Altitude Americans at 3000m, Germans at 1000m.

I killed 4 planes in total. My allies killed maybe 1 plane from the Germans which was despicable performance. All American aces were shot down by rookie germans except my plane hehe lol

I tried to drag remaining focke wulfs to high altitudes. Remaining bf109 went home. Although I must say their performance didn't seem much hampered at all, I was trying to fight turn fight fw190 co-alt at 9000m, but they did have pretty good speed still, and turn performance! Stalemate in the end I should say, conga-line of enemies chasing you

[gaunt1]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

well, I play lot of QBM but maybe I'm not so good even still at this game.

I played moscow winter, 4 american p47Ds vs 4xbf-109E4s + 4xfw190A5s
Americans were ace, Germans were rookie. Altitude Americans at 3000m, Germans at 1000m.

I killed 4 planes in total. My allies killed maybe 1 plane from the Germans which was despicable performance. All American aces were shot down by rookie germans except my plane hehe lol

I tried to drag remaining focke wulfs to high altitudes. Remaining bf109 went home. Although I must say their performance didn't seem much hampered at all, I was trying to fight turn fight fw190 co-alt at 9000m, but they did have pretty good speed still, and turn performance! Stalemate in the end I should say, conga-line of enemies chasing you

Dont even think about a turnfight even with a bomber in a P-47! It is absolutely the worst turning fighter plane of the game, even the Fw-190 is able to outturn it easily.

[Laurwin]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Dont even think about a turnfight even with a bomber in a P-47! It is absolutely the worst turning fighter plane of the game, even the Fw-190 is able to outturn it easily.

we were flying over 9000m alt though. Absolute service ceiling for fw190 is 11,000m (not enough for sustained turn fighting, keeping it's altitude, in reality, it means plane can hold level flight barely)


I wondered only, if the AI gets unrealistic high altitude power boost regardless of plane which it's flying? Does anybody know about this?

Or maybe I should have climbed even higher LOL, to the aforementioned 11,000m

[K_Freddie]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

I wondered only, if the AI gets unrealistic high altitude power boost regardless of plane which it's flying? Does anybody know about this?

The AI also suffers at high alts - it's problem is that it's not as gentle on the controls (the last time I did this) and loses height after a while. Just fly very gently keeping speed up and you'll out-turn it, although the most effective way to get behind it is up-n-down yoyo-ing, top turning with a lot of rudder, keep the wings level as possible to maximise lift.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

I suppose the rookie level AI is a little bit too good in this game.
I mean, we are talking about the lowest level skill pilot we can have in game. One could argue they're quite a bit better than the new pilots Germany had in 1945 for example (re-assigned bomber pilot into fighters, practically no advanced fighter training etc....)

rookies were the guys who confused their flight leaders for enemies (like erich hartmann once did ) and tried to dogfight them. Or then they would just get lost in the skies. I mean these people were given limited training before sent to the front (for example, even American flight training was quite limited in scope, before pilots were sent from flight school to the front). And compared with most countries fighter training, it (American) was the most comprehensive one. There wasn't top gun school back then, only the basic courses, and a few flights on gunnery training.

rookie should be nerfed further, to replicate that they would be lowest skill pilots. (greenhorns, newbies)

-aircraft identification (esp headons). So they don't always know to blast away, would such a thing happen in real war? Before you can know if he's friend or foe? Merge happens for example, because of IDing bogey. In WW2 it meant silhouette ID or the insignia, if you wanted to be certain of friend-or-foe.

probably not unless you could visually ID the rest of the silhouette of the plane from a slight angle, before committing to headon attack. (special exception would be radial vs inline and such things... i.e. p3
-AI tracking skill (situational awareness) Rookie should be significantly worse than veteran, and ace.

I agree ..

Originally Posted by K_Freddie

P3:
While there are problems with the human interpretation of the AI (trust me DCS is a lot worse wrt AI).. TDs IL2 AI (v412) is.. repeat, IS the best I've seen for a long time. AI long term tactics, I'm sure are still a problem.. but QMB seems to suffice in this regard.

What a lot of people seems to forget, is that the 'relative performances' of the IL2 aircraft seem to reasonably accurate - and there are a lot of aircraft. An aircraft's specific RL performance might not be up-to-scratch.. but for online WW2 'jousting', it is the best so far - even for a 13 year old engine.
What it always comes down to.. is knowing your a/c, whether it's IL2/DCS or RL, and the limits you can push it too.

True ...

Originally Posted by gaunt1

AI in 4.12 is absolutely the best ever in the history of the sim.
However, these points are sadly true, and need fixing:

Further problems are:
-AI opens fire at ridiculous distances, (up to 6-700m) with great accuracy
-Sometimes, exclusively under the player's command, it is really stupid. For example, they spot the enemy, you order them to attack, and they just fly huge circles aimlessly.

I agree but some of the other issues can be addressed.. I make all the friendly AI Ave or veteran as I said .. Anything less and they may not behave.. Also often you have to command them frequently .. Attack Fighters.. Target All .. Cover me... etc. Like someone else said it also helps to kind of roll into a head on ..

Originally Posted by IceFire

The AI has been given a huge makeover and is so much better than it used to be. It can deflection shoot, it takes shots and guesses in a more realistic way, it can't see through itself like it used to... this is considered more cheating?

If the friendlies are set right they also respond very well to calls for help. have also found.. and this may be just a coincidence but it seems to me that when you respond to the A like they are live as well it helps.. I also noticed that they do not steal your kills as readily either.. They will back off if you keep shooting.. or even if you shoulder shoot them..

Originally Posted by sniperton

Similar experiences here:
1. Very little cooperation: wingman with "follow me" doesn't call me when attacked, doesn't warn me when I'm attacked, and doesn't attack when enemy is at my six and in front of his guns;
2. AI does use the vertical quite well, but not zooming out properly to perform a real BnZ tactic;
3. Veteran AI opens fire from 600-500 m, making occassional hits, but wasting ammo;
4. Rookie AI gunners are sometimes able to kill me with one single lmg shot from far.

I have found that one of the best things for using the AI is some sort of Voice Activated Command system like VAC..
Yeah some of that is still true.. but this AI is actually the best ever... The only thing missing from the QMB now is the ability to program individual pilot AI skill levels like you can the individual skins..

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I have found that one of the best things for using the AI is some sort of Voice Activated Command system like VAC..

Thought so, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work. I see that I need Microsoft Speech, which is unfortunately not included with my non-English (minor language) Office 2010. Anyone could help what to try?

[Il-2Crew]

I was hoping this was about the QMB A.I. all ganging up on the only plane that is not A.I.

I set up a few QMB with 26X26 planes, and have reduces it to 16X16, but always the same thing, they all come after me.

I've consistently been caught in the cross fire of several planes, and my wing man is usually flying in formation with them. I've tried everything, from diving right in with the rest of my flight, to orbiting, and waiting for the A.I. to become engaged with each other. It seems that once I enter the furball, every enemy wants me dead. Maybe I'm just paranoid

And this is with A.I. in rookie mode.