certificate Wrote:Yes, the maneuvers class has some 65 odd different maneuvers to perform, and they appear to be called on by the pilot class depending on skill, position and energy states. I was messing around with it trying to figure out what "maneuver" that slow roll down is. The tough part about adjusting the ai is that it's very difficult to test. I'd be more than happy to try to impliment some changes if you guys have some suggestions as to how to improve the ai and were willing to test it.
Sounds pretty good to me, but it will be one hell of a job to get it done I guess ;-)
65 maneuvers and the way it's set up sound already pretty impressive to me. I guess Maddox already did a very good job...
Well, a lot of things could be improved of course, but I do not know if all are caused by AI (when to egress, cruising speeds, formations, go home if damaged or low fuel state etc, etc: are they also all in there?) and if they are easy to fix.
Well, anyway, just flew a short mission and I have already seen this bad AI behavior many, many times:
plane1: high energy state (e.g high altitude or simply faster plane like me-262)
plane2: lower energy state (e.g. lower altitude or old fashioned T&B plane or slower bomber)
A lot of times when plane1 tries to attack by swooping down on (still unsuspecting) plane2 it miscalculates, descends too fast and compensates by performing lots of yo-yo's and scissors to get into a good firing position. This pretty much ruins the B&Z attack and leaves the attacker very vulnerable because it too now has little energy left after this kind of attack. If situation permits of course, it should attack by making a single pass and zoom right up (or even further down and up). If a high speed (or high energy) plane engages a low speed, low energy plane the AI usually makes a wrong decision.
- Another bad AI example is the fact that enemies (e.g. 2 vs 2) nearly always try to shoot the leader of a flight and totally disregard the wingman whereas they're in a much better position to shoot the wingman. They fly next to each other and both wingmen simply provide cover.
- There are many situations where 4 or more planes chase one single plane while other enemies are close.
- Attacking bombers slowly on their 6-o-clock is usually not the best way to attack. Although not all fighters do this. Some try to get above and dive down, attack and dive away (maybe some special AI for certain fighters is already in there?)
There are of course many more, but surely others can give you many more examples.
I know its very hard but the AI should, apart from skill, position and energy states, also try to assess and prioritize the situation (fighter vs fighter, fighter vs bombers, escorts, no escorts, advantage or disadvantage wrt. number of planes, altitude, modern plane vs old plane, flak or no flak etc, etc), but that's asking too much I'm afraid ;-)
A high speed plane or typical B&Z plane should of course never enter a slow speed turning fight with a typical T&B plane; that's one of the things to fix in the current AI.
Mark
