Suggestions for AI Improvements in Future Updates

[6BL Bird-Dog]

Would it be possible to alter the default behaviour of formations of aircraft when a mission is started to match that as set in the mission builder .For example I am working on a missions for the Solomon islands and have a Squad of B-17 air start in 2 v formations .By Default the game always spawn in echelon right formation so the two second flights from each v have to drift across into echelon left .The Ai seem to do it ok after trial and error in the FMB but for a large group of players this leads to all kinds of confusion unless a detailed explanation is given in the brief and those joining actually read it . It would be far easier to write the brief also .
eg .Mission Air start at 6000ft: Heading 270deg :indicated airspeed 160mph :
Starting positions follow...
B-17 5th Bombardment Group 70% Fuel 20x250lb Bombs
flight 1 echelon right in starboard section of lead v:
fligh2 echelon left in port section of lead v:
flight3 echelon right in starboard section of v :
fligh4 echelon left in port section of trail v.
Target etc........ Bird

[major.kudo]

Originally Posted by ben_wh

AI emergency landing has been a problem fro day one.
For the landing back at a friendly field issue, perhaps, as Pursuivant mentioned, having airfield marker one can assign side to (Red Vs Blue) would allow a plane to look for friendly airfield close by to land. May still need substantial coding to achieve such AI improvement though.

If AI Decision for landing airfield is range within enemy artilleries, what does AI do?

-

another one.
http://gachopin.no-ip.info/kudo/Bombers_formation.jpg
I have continued thinking that "this is a little strange".

[Furio]

Originally Posted by major.kudo

If AI Decision for landing airfield is range within enemy artilleries, what does AI do?

This is just one of the possible questions. For what I know (I can be mistaken), AIs don’t really take decisions. They react to a list of conditions with pre-set actions.

If the condition is 1, action is A, if condition is 2, action is B, and so on.

Some of the proposals require a rather more complex listing. Something like: if condition here is 1, condition of the plane is 7, condition of the pilot is 14, condition of the nearest friendly field is 2, condition of enemy planes is 16, condition of artillery is 5, then the AI’s action is C, followed by E, followed by B. Change any of the conditions (numbers) and you’ll change the actions (letters).

This is just an example, of course, and I would be glad to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable than me.

If I’m more or less right, this thread is precious, because it shows us how much complexity is required in AIs “decisions” and subsequent actions to obtain a realistic behaviour.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by major.kudo

If AI Decision for landing airfield is range within enemy artilleries, what does AI do?

The same thing applies if an airfield is under attack by enemy planes.

Historically, if they had to, planes would try to land in spite of the bombardment. Otherwise, they'd divert to another airfield or wait until the bombardment was over.

AI planes could be warned to divert or delay landing if the game registers damage to objects on or near the airfield where they were going to land.

Damaged AI planes would still go straight in for landing, regardless of whether the airfield was under attack.

Originally Posted by major.kudo

http://gachopin.no-ip.info/kudo/Bombers_formation.jpg

This is another excellent idea. Currrently, if a lead bomber in formation is damaged, the rest of the planes in the formation will follow it until it is destroyed or the crew bails out. In a few cases, I've seen formations of bombers follow a mortally wounded leader almost down to the ground.

Realistically, if the lead bomber can't hold speed or altitude, it should drop out of formation and leadership of the remaining planes in the formation should pass to the #2 plane in the formation.

Players should also have the option of passing off command of a formation to an AI plane, or taking over command of a formation if they have sufficient rank.

[yak9utpro]

that bomers formation change would be very great. And i think easy or at least not so hard.

[ben_wh]

Hi all,

This is another attempt to summarize the ideas so far (in simplified form):

Combat AI Behavior

1) Gunnery accuracy refinement (toning down) of rookie and regular pilots

2) More detailed engagement/ disengagement / retreat logic based not only on plane status (damage, ammo and fuel level) but also on tactical situation, for example

- Number of opponent Vs friendly
- Whether flight/section leader is lost
- Relative height to opponents
- Skill level of the AI, among others

3) Potentially better BnZ behavior among AIs (This issue can sometimes be seen in set-up such as Ace P-38 AI Vs. Regular A6M Zero AI. This may need to be considered more since this is relative to the plane match-up: one plane is an energy fighter in a match-up but may be a turn fighter in another.)

In-flight Behavior

4) Emergency Landing: potential for AI plane to automatically (or on command of the human player) divert to airfield marked as 'friendly' (e.g. same colour - red or blue - as the AI plane)

5) Potentially to implement routine to let AI recognize distance to different marked landing sites (e.g. take-off way point and landing way point) and make routing decision based on distance to site and its own condition (e.g. damage, fuel status)

6) AI flight leader can yield command if severely damaged so that the next-plane-in-command (AI wingman or section lead) can take over, to avoid the whole AI flight getting 'drag down' by a damaged leader


Communication with AI

7) Better command/communication - ability to ask wingman to check your six, for example

8 ) 'Return to Base' command to individual plane which will ignore any preceding way point to get home

9) Potentially for human player to 'take control' over from the airfield tower to issue command and assign landing priority to different AI planes


Other AI Suggestions:

10) Doctrinal/national behavior by time frame - ideas: Vic formation for Commonwealth planes in 39-40; random (infrequent, occasional) kamikaze behavior for damaged Japanese planes in 44-45 - this one will needed to be teased out more as well; not sure whether AI behavior by nation is feasible / desired by players

11) Potential simple evasive maneuver (with land avoidance) routine for capital ships when under attack

Please feel free to fill in any gap you see and more suggestion welcomed.

Cheers,

[Pursuivant]

Good summary of the discussion.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

4) Emergency Landing: potential for AI plane to automatically (or on command of the human player) divert to airfield marked as 'friendly' (e.g. same colour - red or blue - as the AI plane

4.1) "Smarter" AI behavior for mortally-wounded planes, such that planes that are on fire or which can't maintain altitude after jettisoning ordinance will immediately try to land, crash land or ditch - in friendly territory if possible. If it isn't possible to "land" the plane (i.e., flying over mountains or woods), crew should try to bail out at 500-1,000 meters above ground level. For maximum historical realism, planes that ditch should attempt to do so near friendly ships or land held by friendly forces.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

7) Better command/communication - ability to ask wingman to check your six, for example

7.1. Ability for player to call out the presence of enemy aircraft to AI without having to use the padlock enemy command. Also the ability for a player to warn specific AI planes about enemy aircraft coming at them from a particular vector (e.g., "Red 3, Check your 4 o'clock low).

Originally Posted by ben_wh

10) Doctrinal/national behavior by time frame - ideas: Vic formation for Commonwealth planes in 39-40; random (infrequent, occasional) kamikaze behavior for damaged Japanese planes in 44-45 - this one will needed to be teased out more as well; not sure whether AI behavior by nation is feasible / desired by players

"Weaver/Tail-end Charlie" vic or echelon formations for Western allies 1941-42.

"Combat line" formation for USAAF planes in 44-45, and "section" tactics for USN/USMC planes from 42-45.

Lack of formation for Soviet attack aircraft 1941-43 (they usually flew in irregular "gaggles").

Soviet fighters in 41-42 should occasionally use "taran" attacks (i.e., controlled collisions) if they're out of ammo.

Japanese planes in 1944-45 will very occasionally deliberately collide with heavy bombers.

Mortally wounded Japanese planes in 1944-45 WILL attempt kamikaze attacks against enemy ships.

Pilots of any nationality flying mortally wounded aircraft will occasionally make kamikaze attacks against enemy capital ships.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

11) Potential simple evasive maneuver (with land avoidance) routine for capital ships when under attack

Option for mission builders to make ships automatically travel in formation, keeping station with each other. Option for mission builders for ships (on their own or in formation) randomly zig-zag to simulate historical anti-submarine tactics. Carriers will always turn into the wind and travel in a straight line when retrieving planes and will always travel at top speed in a straight line and in line with the wind when launching planes.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by ben_wh

1) Gunnery accuracy refinement (toning down) of rookie and regular pilots

Yes for rookie. No for regular. They are pretty bad shots already, and are usually unable to get more than two kills/mission even in a target-rich environment.
-Different solution: generate a level below rookie, and make them bad at everything, real bad-representing cannon fodder thrown at the enemy with zero experience and next to no training.

Consider tuning down torpedo hitting ability of rookie and regulars - it may be only due to my limited statistics, but I don't see any evidence that they hit much worse than veteran and ace - even on the contrary.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

2) More detailed engagement/ disengagement / retreat logic based not only on plane status (damage, ammo and fuel level) but also on tactical situation, for example

- Number of opponent Vs friendly
- Whether flight/section leader is lost
- Relative height to opponents
- Skill level of the AI, among others

I would be glad if AI with smoking engines, that are not dead yet, or shot off or out controls or ... would try to get home ASAP for now. Even AI that is hit, without any apparent damage should quit sometimes, real life pilots did that for fear of invisible damage sometimes.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

3) Potentially better BnZ behavior among AIs (This issue can sometimes be seen in set-up such as Ace P-38 AI Vs. Regular A6M Zero AI. This may need to be considered more since this is relative to the plane match-up: one plane is an energy fighter in a match-up but may be a turn fighter in another.)

I don't know if possible, but data like speed of their and enemy's plane, turn time could be made available, with a guessing factor, the worse AI, the more off -representing intimate knowledge of their and enemys plane of Ace.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

Communication with AI

Make it possible to specify WHERE the target is - using pilots "o'clock" system, where directly ahead is 12 and so on. Or simpler, use four quadrants. AI already must know where the enemy is relative to others of your flight, as they do warn you and others with "Bandits on your XX o'clock.

Originally Posted by ben_wh

11) Potential simple evasive maneuver (with land avoidance) routine for capital ships when under attack

Yes, if possible -but if the cost is losing ships due to collisions, then at least make AI's torpedoing abilities versus groups of ships worse.

[Jami]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

I would be glad if AI with smoking engines, that are not dead yet, or shot off or out controls or ... would try to get home ASAP for now. Even AI that is hit, without any apparent damage should quit sometimes, real life pilots did that for fear of invisible damage sometimes.

I couldn't agree more. Sometimes those smoking AIs fly and fight like nothing had happened with their planes. It is understandable that when you chase a smoking enemy it fights back, but if you try to leave it and head to home it may start chasing you. I think that most of the human pilots wouldn't do that.

[sniperton]

As to ships, why not to implement what 3rd party mission generators like DCG already do: to combine them into 'shippacks' or 'convoys'? The concept is here:

A shippack is an abstract naval unit, a fixed formation with slots for individual ships. Each slot represents a relative position to the formation centre (a vector with distance). Once a ship is assigned to a slot, it becomes a subordinated element of the formation, and from then on, the mission designer can adjust the travelling speed and direction of the whole pack all at once. Direction changes can be twofold:

1) individual elements turn, but the formation's heading remains the same (good for zigzagging or for turning into the wind while starting aircraft);
2) elements turn together with the formation (allows only minor direction changes as the 'outer' ships has to travel more/faster, while 'inner' ships less/slower).

Max speed is of course equal to the slowest element's speed, max turning rate ditto.

Ship formation coding on this basic level is pure mathematics, and it seems to be more easy than to 'teach' individual ships to behave more prudently when in company