4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Pugo3]

I agree with and appreciate the various inputs and opinions re my inquiry, and want to state again, I think it is absolutely great that the AI are as deadly as they are in ACE mode. I would also re-emphasize that they do veer away if you stay steady and have them on dead center gun sight - I have fired a very brief burst on several occasions to deter them from continuing, a sort of warning shot if you will, and they most times veer away, again, a notable and welcome improvement from 4.10 and earlier. Of course, sometimes they take me out or we collide, no complaints here, my bad all the way!

The part I wrote about my plane veering down or away and the subsequent "magic bullets" is the aspect I mostly question. If you try this a few times in Invulnerable mode, and watch the tracers from the AI, you'll notice a pattern somewhat as if you spread your fingers of your hand as wide as possible, then altered the angle of various fingers upward and downward. Either those armament guys have performed some feat of field shop engineering, or that pilot has somehow acquired 'Jackie Chan' levels of mastery in dancing those tracers from each individual gun to cover an amazing spread up, down and sideways in a few seconds! It appears to me that the tracers are angled downward towards me while the AI aircraft is flying over me

Test this yourself and see if you find the same result; again, shells coming downward while the AI plane is in process of overflying me directly front above, and look for the 'W' spread of tracers, which of course should be parallel.

Not to worry, just thought to bring it to TD's attention, but I can live with it (adapt) either way.

p3

[Feathered_IV]

Would it be possible to see some shots of the Tobruk map that is coming? I'd really appreciate it!

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pugo3

Test this yourself and see if you find the same result; again, shells coming downward while the AI plane is in process of overflying me directly front above, and look for the 'W' spread of tracers, which of course should be parallel.

Would this be explained by the AI shooting at a distance way beyond convergence(say 600-800m)? So their bullets would drop quite a bit below their planes direction of travel, and thus come downwards to you -while AI passes overhead - and when fired from wing guns, bullet paths would cross in front of you and then angle outwards while passing you?

In general avoid head on attacks - with two exceptions:
-Bombers - you can hit the vulnerables (engines,crew) while spending very little time in the zone where defensive fire can easily hurt you. Against the better armed bombers this may be the easiest way to get good results, and one of the safest if you don't get target fixated and miss the pull out.
-Faster plane, not maneuverable, not good in the climb - against AI you may be out of other options, e.g. Bf110 vs AI Hurricane - and while it is still a bit of a crapshot game, you can get quite good at it - and its only a game so you can afford to get hit once in a while.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Pugo3

The part I wrote about my plane veering down or away and the subsequent "magic bullets" is the aspect I mostly question. If you try this a few times in Invulnerable mode, and watch the tracers from the AI, you'll notice a pattern somewhat as if you spread your fingers of your hand as wide as possible, then altered the angle of various fingers upward and downward.

I think that what you're seeing here is bullet dispersal. That's normal and it's a welcome bit of realism.

All weapons have an "inherent accuracy" which represents their ability to consistently put shots into the same location. Less than perfect accuracy means that bullets get randomly scattered around the aiming point. The smaller the amount of scatter, the better the weapon's inherent accuracy.

Realistically, due to imperfections in the gun barrel, recoil, differences between individual cartridges, wind, and other factors, even a perfectly "zeroed" gun in a bench rest is going to have less than perfect inherent accuracy. Weapons fired from a vibrating, bouncing vehicle traveling at high speed are going to have much lower inherent accuracy, so a larger scattering pattern.

Effects of errors in inherent accuracy become more obvious at increasing ranges, giving that scattering effect you're seeing. As an example, fly a QMB mission against an Ace Wellington III and try attacking it from the rear. It will start shooting at about 500-600 meters, but rather than seeing a perfect rectangle pattern of tracers from the tail turret guns, you'll see an irregular pattern.

Additionally, in a dogfight, an enemy attacking while simultaneously moving in all three axes (i.e., shooting while making a diving, banking turn) will also be scattering tracers across the sky, since each individual bullet is actually going to be aimed in a different direction. That will also give the scattering effect you're seeing.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Arcade mode ... doesn't give you info about hit percentages. If there's a game feature which allows you to see what the enemy's hit percentages are after each shot, I'd love to see it!

Concerning my own hit percentage statistics, I'd love to see the QMB feature extended to FMB missions too, perhaps in the form of an (optional) AAR report. QMB and FMB missions are basically the same, so technically it shouldn't be a major problem.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

In some ways, Rookie AI now best represents "average" pilots of most air forces who lacked the aggressiveness and skills to even shoot down one enemy aircraft (approximately 90% of U.S. fighter pilots, even in combat zones. Probably similar for other air forces).

Rookie AI is below that level in many aspects - their aiming and shooting is beyond useless. And maneuvering is at best okay. What I think could and should be corrcted is their awareness, its quite a rare ocassion shooting down one of them pursuing a friendly - they seem to know or guess where you are pretty good - an ability even a regular and if in a bigger furball even a veteran should not have. Over the years I have become a better pilot - but I still lack the SA to track more than a few planes - and as a rookie I could track one plane barely - which more often than not got me shot down.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Pugo3

I also encounter this flying ROF in the ace mode. In every case, the AI is almost without exception able to track the most aggressive evasive measures; skidding, jinxing, speed variance, anything.

My experience with head-on shots against Ace AI is that it's not that unrealistic in terms of gun accuracy, but the AI is too aggressive in refusing to avoid collisions, and it's downright "rookie-like" in failure to avoid fire and willingness to accept such shots in the first place.

If you take a straight-on head-on shot at an enemy ace within 300 meters/yards, expect crippling or lethal damage to your plane, especially if you're flying an inline engine plane and/or your foe is armed with cannons.

But, if you're a halfway decent shot and you're flying a well-armed plane yourself, you can also give as good as you get. Typically, that results in a lot of "double kill" results, both in player vs. AI and AI vs. AI duels.

Also, unless you are willing to break off the attack with at least 100 meters to spare, you're almost certainly going to collide because the AI never gives way. Again, player vs. AI and AI vs. AI results in a very high number of double kills due to collisions.

The last two factors are where I think that the "Ace" AI gets unrealistically stupid. If you're good enough and experienced enough to be an ace pilot, you won't willingly take a shot where you're likely to collide or otherwise suffer crippling or fatal damage.

Instead, you'll avoid that sort of shot and maneuver for a better position. At the very least, you've going to try to attack from above or below, or maneuver during your attack run to avoid making yourself an easy target. You'll also have an "exit strategy" planned so that you don't just collide with your opponent.

Ace AI also doesn't seem to take relative fragility and firepower of various aircraft into account. This means that fragile planes like the Ki-43, A6M2 or CW-21 will unhesitatingly accept head on duels against tough, well-armed planes like the P-47, F4U or IL2.

To my mind, that's another rookie mistake. An Ace pilot flying a fragile plane against a tough, heavily armed one would instantly realize that he's playing to his opponent's strengths and refuse to play along. It's even more glaring when a pure maneuver fighter like the A6M2 makes a shot from 12 o'clock level against a plane like the F2A-2 Buffalo, whose only ability to strike such planes is via head-on attacks.

As for game play, if you want to have any chance of surviving a head-on attack against a decent opponent, you have to be moving fast along all three axes relative to your foe. If you bore right in at 12 o'clock level expect to get shot up. If you can make a fast "slashing" diving and curving attack from 1 o'clock or 11 o'clock high, not only do you have a bigger target to shoot at, it's much harder for the enemy to bring his guns to bear, and you're in a better position to swing around onto your foe's tail if your initial attack doesn't take him out. It's a much tougher shot, but not beyond the skills of a reasonably competent shooter.