[MOD] AI Mod V.17 *UPDATE* - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: [MOD] AI Mod V.17 *UPDATE* (/showthread.php?tid=58844)

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- certificate - 30.01.2009

Hello! I had to work for the past few days, should have some time to work on this over the next few! Good to see that .17 is at least somewhat stable, I'll have a look at the mentioned bugs.

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Note - Snail - 31.01.2009

Hi, excellent mod, thanks for doing it. A few notes (as everybody is trying helping )

1) Sudden return to base does't have to be a bug - one of my wingmen returned after being hit into engine - no visible damage, engine running rough, he barely made it back.
2)Is it possible to code something like "stop shooting at a plane with 3 engines smoking, it isin't gonna make it back"? I hope there is a code or something which tells AI to stop attacking burning plane. They attack planes with engine stopped, slightly smoking, but stop when burning. Maybe slight adjustments could be done (I've got a strange feeling, that it sounds easy, but in reality it means hell of work, doesn't it )
3) New AI has obvious problems to handle mountainous areas.
4) Fighter-bombers do not respond to threats at all. If you attack plane other than the leader, they are all sent to oblivion one by one. I do not agree, they should drop bombs and engage. No jabo would allow to be an easy target. I say: "Let them fight! 8) " (Or let them decide upon presence or absence of fighter escort if possible)
5) I don't know, if this is possible, but as you tweaked gunnery AI (It is not as deadly as it was, but still one has to be careful), it is not necessary to have reduced range for defensive guns of planes...
6) If plane's engine has just stopped running, AI should land anywhere but forest or bail out... If you play offline, you care about "your guys", but sometimes they got hit. It is frustrating to see you 20+kills ace landing in the forrest...

Point 3 is the worst one I guess, could you look at it?

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- certificate - 31.01.2009

It would be particularly useful to me if you could provide an example misison of the AI having trouble with mountainous areas. Then I could troubleshoot it, instead of trying to look through code to figure it out.

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- BH_Blue - 31.01.2009

I dont know if others have this but with my AI on ace setting with .17 mod, the enemy will maneuver iinto the ground/water quite often.

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- McWolf - 31.01.2009

Devil952 Wrote:I dont know if others have this but with my AI on ace setting with .17 mod, the enemy will maneuver iinto the ground/water quite often.

:? yes, found similar problem too

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- Yardstick - 31.01.2009

Just came across this little oddity. Playing a QMB mission on the Bessarabia-beta map, I saw two AI (average) Go229s come into land. As they crossed the threshold and began to flare, they went nose up and accelerated in a completely vertical climb, straight up to approx 5,000m. They then nosed over and dived into the ground (engines at idle) about a mile past the end of the runway.

The only time I have seen anything similar is the landing bug on the Spitfire Mk I, but in that case it only climbs a couple of hundred meters and generally makes a good landing.

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- the fox - 31.01.2009

I just found (Guessing its something wrong somewhere) I Used Auto pilot in a TB-3® and just after take off i took a nose drive to the round after reaching about 300ft just reaching the end of the runway. Just thought id point out while were on the convo of nose dives.

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- Scharnhorst1943 - 01.02.2009

the fox Wrote:I just found (Guessing its something wrong somewhere) I Used Auto pilot in a TB-3® and just after take off i took a nose drive to the round after reaching about 300ft just reaching the end of the runway. Just thought id point out while were on the convo of nose dives.

This is not a bug caused by this mod. It was there before. It seems to happen every time you climb too high too soon and then turn on Auto Pilot. Apparently the AI decides you are too high and too fast, so it cuts the throttle and pulls up to slow down, stalls the plane and can't recover in time because of low altitude. If you wait until you are higher or turn on the Autopilot sooner, this problem can be avoided.

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- vtrelut - 02.02.2009

Since I installed version 1.7, I noticed I was easily shot at the engine by bombers' rear gunners (allied Blenheims and A-20s AIs) when attacking from behind; it seems that this already unsafe attacking posture has become suicidal?

Apart from this, what Scharnhost1943 described above is fully correct; it was there before the mods; when taking off, either switch on auto pilot quickly, or only after you reach a decent speed and altitude, or your plane will crash, with a modded or unmodded game.

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- Phantom - 02.02.2009

I'm using 1.6, since that version's AI gunners seem to work out the best for me.

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- fractional - 02.02.2009

v 1.7:

Some observations:

IMO, the AI planes are using the vertical a bit too much. I am seeing hammerheads and stall turns and loops and vertical scissors, all of which are very good, but there seems to be a lack of horizontal maneuvers. Recently I have been flying a lot in the DGEN campaign Disaster on the Fronts, (Moscow map). I flew about 25/30 missions on the blue side flying mostly Bf109F4 and a little of FW190A4 and Bf109F2. Most of my kills came when I caught the enemy hanging in the air. Seems a bit unrealistic.

The AI seems to lose the will to out-turn me after a while. I have seen instances when flying Me109F4 against Yaks and P40M against Zeroes, with the enemy on my tail, when he allows me to separate after a few turns, turn into him and start a scissors. (Don't remember if this was the case with the vanilla AI). IMO planes like Yaks and I16s should try to use the horizontal rather than the vertical more often.

Also, the shooting accuracy for ACE level at least should be higher, I think.

There's another factor that I (and another guy too) pointed out earlier. It has become easier to *surprise* the enemy. They sometime seem to be oblivious to anybody sitting in their six.

certificate Wrote:It would be particularly useful to me if you could provide an example misison of the AI having trouble with mountainous areas. Then I could troubleshoot it, instead of trying to look through code to figure it out.

Scenario 1: DGEN campaign from Disaster on the Fronts, Moscow map

I flew about 25/30 missions on the blue side flying mostly Bf109F4 and a little of FW190A4 and Bf109F2.
There is a bit of a rugged terrain just north and north-east of Vyazma. I didnot see any German plane crash here, but 3 Yaks and 1 IL2 crashed; however since these were already damaged, I would not worry too much, and this statistics is over 25/30 missions, especially since I crashed once myself But I also noticed one IL2, undamaged (as per my beliefs) make a low-level bombing run on an Axis airfield and crash on the rugged terrain.


Scenario 2: NewGuinea map (lots of mountains north of Port Moresby)

Mission #1. DGEN mission.

4 P39D1 vs 4 Betty + 3 Zero

2 A6Ms, undamaged as far as I could see, crashed into mountain walls while pulling up from the valley.


Mission #2. FMB mission.

4 Bf109K14 vs 4 P39Q1 (planes 1 and 3: ACE, planes 2 and 4: VETERAN, both red and blue)

1 P39 (wingman), undamaged as far as I could see, crashed into the mountain wall while pulling up from the valley.


Mission #3. FMB mission.

4 Bf109F4 vs 4 Spitfire Mk 5 LF (planes 1 and 3: ACE, planes 2 and 4: VETERAN, both red and blue)

Nobody crashed.


I think that the AI is crashing after the controls freeze at high speeds; the crashes usually occurred after pulling out after a chase. Testing planes like zeroes, oscars and lightnings (those which have a tendency to be unresponsive at high speeds) and comparing with planes like 109s, spitfires and mustangs might give rise to some interesting observations.

I will try to do a bit more testing on the NewGuinea map with the original and the modded AI.

S.

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- RRuger - 02.02.2009

Hey Certificate, I have some unusual AI behavior to report.

First of all I have a flak test mission that I'm using to test some different sounds for the flak and have noticed that after my bombers pass the 20mm and the 37mm they keep shooting but not at the planes. It seems to be a constant and appears to be related to the bomber gunners firing willy nilly from the other side of the plane when there is no target.

The second one is the odd one.

I also have a mission using Canons 'Channel' map with some high flying visual effects way overhead. There are 28 B-24's and B-17's flying at 10K meters with a Mustang escort and for the purpose of realism only, the player takes off in a Spitfire. What's odd is that some of the bombers break formation and play follow the leader weaving back and forth under the main group. What's really strange about this is that it's the B-24's that start but soon one or two B-17's will start to follow these B-24's back and forth and the rest of that group of 4 remain in formation. It's never (to my knowledge) just the B-24's or the B-17's, it's always a mix of the two and never the full wing of the 4 that they started the mission as.

It's funny to watch at the very lease and I'm not sure if it should be fixed. Keep up the good work, I know this game is more fun than it was before your MOD

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Comments - vassilisukharev - 03.02.2009

Hey certificate,

First off, thanks for your effort on what seems to be sculpting into a very nice mod.

I have three comments:

(1) AI is now more challenging and fun. In QMB dogfights, opponent AI seems to be more aggressive now and stick to you better. You have less leeway to fly around chasing guys and have to check your six non-stop, even with average skill AI. Evasive manuevers are very nice and make it for fun chases, although for somewhat of a gripe, see point 2.

(2) The issue which can be seen either as a chellenge or an annoyance, especially if you are outnumbered against veteran+ opponents is that vets and aces now execute mind boggling defensive scissors that a player can never match without blacking out. So now if you are say fighting an early-war VVS campaign and get in a dogfight with two of your hadicapped wingmen in Yaks or Laggs against 4 vet/ace 109's, there's just no way to win. Even if you get one's six he'd do a series of sharp breaks at 500 kph and not blink.

Now as to a fix.. Since there's no built in blackout code for AI, how about limiting their number of consequtive hard breaks based on their speed? Say for 500+ kph, 1 break, 400-500 -- 2, etc.

(3) Another issue I've noticed, but not 100% positive if this is new to this mod or was present in the stock AI as well.. It seems that all the additional wings in your flight will now engage the first enemy they see, and are otherwise very prone to just separate and do their own thing. You can call them back and it seems to work most of the time. I do beleive in the stock AI they stick to you until you give them a command to attack.

Vassili

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- TH0R - 04.02.2009

Check PM Certificate please.

Thanks

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- ojcar - 04.02.2009

I think the AI is muche better than the stock one, but I agree in one thing: terrain avoidance is not very good. DGEN mission in Balaton map, flying Bf-110 G4 Wild Sau. My patrol takes off and after some hundred metters, two planes crashed into the ground. No mountains, only a little forest. I miss also a little more tunfighting in some planes, as Oscars, Zero or I-16. I think also jabos must fight against enemy fighters. But I like this mod a lot.

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