4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Laurwin]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

AI should also selectively take out the first vehicle in a convoy, or the locomotive, when making ground attacks against vehicles or trains. If possible, Veteran or Ace AI should also try to line up strafing attacks so that they can shoot down the length of a train or convoy, or across a line of parked aircraft.



I think that this problem has mostly been fixed. But, the rolling behavior seems a bit odd; it's my impression that the "Tail End Charlie" mostly checked his 6 by making rudder turns and banks.

Finger four formations would often have planes in each section weave across each other's paths to check mutual blind spots.

Fighters in close escort with bombers didn't need to "check 6" since they could rely on all the eyes in the bomber formation to keep a look out for them.

In any case, "check 6" behavior should happen a lot less frequently. Some doctrine said to not fly more than 10 seconds in a straight line in the combat zone, other doctrine suggested no more than 30 seconds. I'd split the difference - Ace maneuvers or otherwise checks 6 about every 10 seconds, Veteran about every 30 seconds, Average about every 30 seconds, but often forgets, and Rookie either doesn't check or doesn't check much beyond every 1 minute.



Agreed. AI programming is an art, and DT has mostly got it right. Certainly, it's a joy to fly offline dogfights now. Ace or Veteran AI is quite challenging, and if you can win in a 1:2 or 1:4 fight against an equally matched Ace or Veteran plane, it's a real achievement.

I'd like to see better AI-ground attack capability for sure. It's annoying when they can barely hit targets on the ground with bombs rockets or cannon. Yet they have the mechanical precision deflection shooting sometimes LOL. 'This is annyoing when you play ground attack campaign with fighter-bomber, and your teammates suck. Well, more glory towards me I suppose.

About being outnumbered in dogfight... Some pilots became aces by exactly speaking avoiding bad situations... avoiding such disadvantages, and gaining advantages.

Erich Hartman said that it's ok to bag one or two kills per day, but survive back to home base. War continues in the next day.

Better to become ace by stacking all the advantages in your own favour, especially when in war deployment.

That being said, there exists offensive flying, and defensive flying. Defensive flying is important for surviving, but... being defensive is not usually good, but certainly it's better to be defensive than DEAD. But even so, defensive fighting is to be avoided, it's an indicator of bad things to come.

Pete Bonanni said this in "Art of the Kill" video. Pete who was an F-16 pilot, said that he wished there was some magical manouver which would tip the scales against bandit, like in the movie top gun "slamming the breaks". He said that sadly no such manouver exists which is guaranteed success in defensive flying.

Think about the so-called UFC fighting/mixed martial arts. It's always better to be the one who is giving strikes and submissions against the opponent, rather than receiving and suffering and defending.


There is also so-called neutral situation dogfight, where neither side is especially advantageous over the other.

traditionally these are some advantages that can exist in dogfight.

-detection advantage, allows you to manouver for time period against immobile bandit (he's immobile or sluggish relative to your own movements)

-positional advantage, you start behind bandit's tail (behind 3-9 line, measured from bandit's clock positions)

-energy advantage, you start with more energy than bandit

-numbers advantage, over bandits

-sun behind your own back, and the bandit in front of you. This simply causes shadow formed from your aircraft and makes it difficult for bandit to locate you against backdrop of the burning bright sun!