Developer Diary, Part 36

[smink1701]

A Great update and a very interesting read, too

 

However

why

no

Igromir 2013

Videos

Maybe tomorrow

Edited October 11, 2013 by smink1701

[FlyingNutcase]

A great read! Love the way you guys are pushing for an immersive experience. It's going to be really interesting testing the AI - friend and foe.

[=FB=LOFT]

A Great update and a very interesting read, too

 

                      However 

                          why

                           no

                    Igromir 2013

                       Videos

 

Because we do not have anything interesting. We did not have any special buildings or naked girls. We are a small studio making a niche project. Spending money on decorations rather stupid way, they need to spend on development.

[pilotpierre]

Wow, looks like the AI might be a bit of a challenge at long last. Well done troops.

[BigMotor]

Great read, I'll be really happy if we can get the AI to "boom and zoom" in BOS and ROF (for the B n Z fighters that is).

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Absolutely fascinating! Last update was a bit of a dry haul for a non-techie like myself, but this was well explained and understandable.

 

One thing I miss for Han's explanation was a bit of randomness. One of the things that makes human targets more challenging is the sometimes random manoeuvres they pull. Sometimes rookies do advanced manoeuvres and veterans does stupid ones, sometimes they change tactics for no apparent reason and rarely try the same things two times in a row. I think something like "random short term 2-10 seconds) acedom or rookieness" sparingly applied would help make the AI more "human".

[Bearcat]

Because we do not have anything interesting. We did not have any special buildings or naked girls. We are a small studio making a niche project. Spending money on decorations rather stupid way, they need to spend on development.

 

 

 

You gotta love this...

[Felix58]

Thanks for taking the time to provide the insight.

Patchy AI was a big failing in CLoD. 

Looking forward to duking it out with the AI!

[=RvE=Windmills]

Because we do not have anything interesting. We did not have any special buildings or naked girls. We are a small studio making a niche project. Spending money on decorations rather stupid way, they need to spend on development.

 

Well the whole reason you are there is to show BoS off to press and fans right?

 

Aren't you being interviewed? There's quite a few vids up on youtube from Igromir 13, just dpesn't seem to be anything from you guys online yet.

 

There must've been someone who recorded something interesting.

[AX2]

Great update Han very interesting, Thanks ! 

 

Because we do not have anything interesting. We did not have any special buildings or naked girls. We are a small studio making a niche project. Spending money on decorations rather stupid way, they need to spend on development.

 

Your efforts will be rewarded, undoubtedly ! 

Be patient and naked girls and the money will come. 

 

Off topic

A website with some "fireworks videos" is the ABC for sales and money, only a forum is a little cold.

Maybe all the "olds" are here, but all need of "youngs"  buyers

Apologies I understand everything is money, 

Edited October 11, 2013 by Mustang

[Zak]

There must've been someone who recorded something interesting.

We didn't record gameplay, you know. However we've got some shots showing how we worked there thse 3 days and maybe we'll figure out something. At least I could find some photos if you're interested. But again - there's no new gameplay footage from Igromir. 

 

A website with some "fireworks videos" is the ABC for sales and money, only a forum is a little cold.

Maybe all the "olds" are here, but all need of "youngs"  buyers

Working on it

[AX2]

+ 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000     

Edited October 11, 2013 by Mustang

[DD_Arthur]

Because we do not have anything interesting. We did not have any special buildings or naked girls. We are a small studio making a niche project. Spending money on decorations rather stupid way, they need to spend on development.

 

But Albert! you could have had Jason appear in a Mankini.    That would have been a show-stopper.

[SimFreak]

Nice update.  What about AI decision making matrix based on damage? 

[Volkoff]

Because we do not have anything interesting. We did not have any special buildings or naked girls. We are a small studio making a niche project. Spending money on decorations rather stupid way, they need to spend on development.

 

Loft,

Just the other day we saw some of your fantastic screenies of the LaGG-3. The LaGG-3 is a real looker. I greatly enjoyed looking at your screenies. We had our eye candy a day early, so it is no biggie. As long as the team had time to mingle with the crowd and chat with the press, that is what counts. There will be enough videos of IL2 BOS action come the Beta release. I plan to make more than a few IL2 BOS videos myself.

 

    MJ

Edited October 12, 2013 by =69.GIAP=MIKHA

[Volkoff]

Btw, thanks for the news update, heads up on the new AI, and my new LaGG-3 background!  I never get sick of looking at the IL2 LaGG-3 or any of your other models, for that matter! Speaking of models, we recently had the reveal of the Yak-1 work in progress. The Yak-1 is looking real sharp.

 

 MJ  

Edited October 12, 2013 by =69.GIAP=MIKHA

[piper]

~S~

 

Personally, I'm not 'too' worried about the early release date...yet!  

 

However, I do think that this level and depth of information will help us all to better evaluate the Beta release when we get out hands on it.  'Information', as they say, is Gold, and Friday is full of nuggets!

 

I do, however, as a pilot, have some concerns regarding some of the described maneuvers mentioned...

 

Regards: piper.

[Freycinet]

Piper, tell us a it more about those concerns. I would like to hear.

 

Thanks for the update! It is fantastic to have a development team that takes its customers seriously and actually gives us TEXT TO READ! So much better than an over-the-shoulder hand-held video from a game show of a guy struggling to make the Hotas work. And talking about hotasses, yes, there are other and more specialised web sites for naked girls, we don't need them via 1C and 777 Studios. Let's have the MiG-3 in stead... :-)

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

How about hot asses on a Mig-3?

[Klaue]

S! How about this hottie Furbs

 

 

LOL

[Drum_Tastic]

One thing that has always bothered me in some sims with regards to AI combat is the way AI will shoot at you when rolling through inverted flight, for example in the vertical scissors or in a barrel roll. It seems unrealistic to me to have a bandit on your six upside down tracking you through a G manoeuvre with their guns blazing away when it would seem the pilot would have enough on their hands without also trying to fire upon me. Did real combat pilots do this, I don't know?

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

S! How about this hottie Furbs

 

 

LOL

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!....il be back later..................

[Karost]

Great update Han very interesting, Thanks ! 

 

 

Your efforts will be rewarded, undoubtedly ! 

Be patient and naked girls and the money will come. 

 

Off topic

A website with some "fireworks videos" is the ABC for sales and money, only a forum is a little cold.

Maybe all the "olds" are here, but all need of "youngs"  buyers

Apologies I understand everything is money, 

 

I agree  we need " a youngs gun"  buyers  to challenging this new AI 

 

I  like to see this new AI feature on one of top list for  product feature in marketing promotion.

and  a youngs gun  buyers have to read  AI feature becarefully befor buying this sim  LOL.

[Volkoff]

S! How about this hottie Furbs

 

 

LOL

 

Awe, she is pretty. She just has the look in her face,  like someone just handed her the keys to a Ferrari.

 

 MJ

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

Awe, she is pretty. She just has the look in her face,  like someone just handed her the keys to a Ferrari.

 

 MJ

 

No, that look starts off nice, then it changes to "i followed you today, who were you with? where are you now? ...i hate you...im going to burn your house down" 

 

I know, ive seen that face before.

[Avimimus]

This is torture for me. More than year ago, I have stopped with flying (il2 1946) after decade and sold my PC just to restart my life.... Now I am, and I feel like, the smoker, who quit 14 days ago, standing in front of the crossroads newsstand.

 

O.

 

Maybe you shouldn't visit the forum and look at the news updates? :D Or maybe there are some other life issues that will make the addiction manageable/healthy if these other areas are addressed?

[6./ZG26_Emil]

No, that look starts off nice, then it changes to "i followed you today, who were you with? where are you now? ...i hate you...im going to burn your house down" 

 

I know, ive seen that face before.

 

Exactly! It scares me too

Awe, she is pretty. She just has the look in her face,  like someone just handed her the keys to a Ferrari.

 

 MJ

 

Young and naive

[Cybermat47]

We did not have any special buildings or naked girls.

Messerschmitt Bf-109 > Naked Girls.

No, that look starts off nice, then it changes to "i followed you today, who were you with? where are you now? ...i hate you...im going to burn your house down" 

 

I know, ive seen that face before.

You have?!

[Cavemanhead]

Does anybody know...  Were the pics of the Lagg with clouds from the game or are those just a rendered background?

[=BKHZ=Furbs]

They look like clouds from the game to me, though that pic is a wallpaper, and prob touched up a little.

[LordNeuro*Srb*]

The clouds in rof ar gr8

And theat is on my crap rig, so i dont see whay clouds in bos would not be gr8 too. So i think there is no need to worry about it. So I agree with =BKHZ=Furbs, they r probably from game.

[Klaue]

S! Shadows casting on the ground from the clouds in ROF is also nice

 

[RazzHu]

great looking skins guys!

[...srqbones]

Dear 'Han' –

 

I can hardly tell you how much I enjoy reading your detailed history and development notes about flight simulator models and the models used to run the artificial intelligence enemy planes.  I find them absolutely fascinating, (almost the price of prepurchase without the flight simulator itself!) as they increase my level of appreciation for the task that you guys are accomplishing, as well as to help answer questions about the behaviors of flight simulators that I currently fly and have flown in the past.

 

For example, I have often wondered why certain flight simulators such as Wings of Prey would go instantly from steady flight to an uncontrollable stall without the inkling of a suggestion to me as the pilot, whereas even without a force feedback joystick (I currently run the CH Products Fighter Stick, Pro Throttle, and Pro Pedals) Rise of Flight makes it extremely obvious when you are about to leave your controlled flight envelope – – the sound changes, the controls get "mushy", and the aircraft attitude starts to change as compared with what you would predict based on your control inputs (almost like how you feel a car start to over-rotate/oversteer when you just begin to lose the rear end in a turn at speed)).  Your discussion of flight models with the difference between discrete changes between the states of 'on the ground', 'in control flight', and 'not in control flight' made this quite clear why these behaviors happened in programs like that.  It also explained for me why in programs like Falcon there was such an extreme difference between being on the ground and in the air – – previously I had not understood why as soon as I reached nose up attitude from the ground at rotation-speed, the F-16 leapt into the air and basically "took-off like a rocket."  Even when flying through the air, Falcon and other jet simulators such as F-15 Strike Eagle gave me as the pilot no real feel for "inertial weight" of the plane itself.  These planes flew almost like darts through water rather than like airplanes through air. Once again, I believe that your discussion of flight models explained these behaviors to me.

 

Just a brief biography so you understand where I'm 'coming from': I am a 46-year-old orthopedic surgeon in Florida who has been flying flight simulators intermittently since I was in sixth grade at approximately age 10.  it all started when my friend, who had a TRS – 80, got a copy of Bruce Artwick's TRS-80-FS1 (there was also a matching program for the Apple II called Apple-FS1).  I had always loved airplanes, and thought that this was fantastic, even though the world was only represented by an 8 x 8 grid with mountains (two dimensional, of course) on two sides.  There were enemy planes to shoot down also, but they never seem to behave like planes, and they never seem to look like planes.  Almost always, they would be in range and gun me down while they still looked to me like specks miles away on the horizon.  As time progressed, of course, Bruce Artwick was hired, or his company SubLogic was purchased by Microsoft to drive the Microsoft Flight Simulator for many years.  

 

After this first experience with the TRS-80-FS1, I then progressed into air combat simulators as these became available, including "Fighter Duel" (a World War II era one-versus-one duel over an island in the ocean – – this was a fairly pure form of air-to-air combat, and relatively well-done), European Air War (with some of the most beautiful graphics ever, almost like live versions of Keith Ferris' World War II aircraft oil paintings), and Falcon 3.0 and 4.0 (this and F-15 Strike Eagle were about the only modern aircraft simulators that I flew -- I quickly realized that I prefer wrestling-match-type dogfights to BVR kills where the most important skills are radar and missile management rather than aircraft management).  By then some of the multiplayer simulators started to be developed, such as Aces High and Warbirds.  I dabbled in these, but realized that I must not have been spending enough time on the flight simulators because my kill ratio was extremely low (while my killed ratio was extremely high!).  Oh well, such is the life of a doctor – – patients and medicine come first...

 

I started to do some reading, procuring Fighter Combat by Robert Shaw from the Naval Institute Press.  Everything made great sense in reading the book, as I learned about the angles game versus the energy game, one versus one similar, one versus one dissimilar, one versus two similar, etc. Unfortunately, when I was "in the air" I did not seem to be able to apply my newfound book knowledge.  Whereas looking at "ribbon trails" such as those featured post-engagement in "Fighter Duel" to understand the battles that you just won or lost made things relatively straightforward ("So that's where I went wrong and then he got me..."), being in the cockpit and looking outside the canopy still felt much akin to standing in a field of grass and watching a bunch of bees whirl around your head.  It was not at all obvious how to pull off the maneuvers that I read about in the book, and very difficult to imagine myself on those ribbon trails traveling through three-dimensional space.  For example, when I finally figured out what a lag displacement roll should look like and feel like from the cockpit view, and how you actually DID end up behind your opponent, I felt like I had won a major victory.

 

Since then, with several years of not flying, and then getting back into things with Rise of Flight and then War Thunder, I was doing a little bit better, but still getting beaten by both the artificial intelligence and the human enemies.  Using Track-IR certainly makes things better than using keys to look around me, but I still have trouble visualizing whether I should continue my turn or break to one direction or another as I am looking 120° off my nose and I see the enemy's nose firing at me.  Furthermore, when I have an enemy at my six, I am extremely poor at figuring out what maneuver will easiest allow me to "bug out".  Maybe one day I will just "get it" or maybe it will take some other form of virtual reality such as the Oculus Rift headset to allow me to "see the light."

 

I think that I do better against humans, especially in Rise of Flight.  Most of the AI planes in most flight simulators are either like shooting at drones or like shooting at perfect pilots.  I often think that they are omniscient in their situational awareness, as if they can see through the fuselage of their airplanes, and that they never lose visual contact in the heat of battle.  It was very interesting to read how you formulate rules and protocols for the enemies in Rise of Flight and now for IL-2.

 

 

Here are a few questions:

 

1) How does an AI plane decide whether it wants to enter an angles fight or an energy fight?  If it makes this decision based on historical data about itself versus its opponent, as well as the relative energy states that it has as compared to its opponent at the beginning of a fight, is this knowledge perfect?  Or does it make errors in its identification from time to time?  Perhaps range, Sun, cloud, and attitude of the opposing plane may make a difference.

 

2) How does an AI plane decide, say when approaching a human from the stern quarter at high closure rate with a fair angle-off, whether it wants to go into a high yo-yo versus a lag displacement roll, or maybe just decide to break off and head the opposite direction?

 

3) How do you simulate over-all situational awareness in terms of acquiring bogeys for enemy planes at different levels of proficiency?  Even the occasional ace can be caught unawares when he is "asleep at the switch" or, even in the ideal world, doing necessary utilitarian tasks such as adjusting engine controls or consulting a map.

 

If you have the time, I would be curious to hear your responses.  Even if you don't, keep up the great work, and I look forward to flying some excellent airframes!

 

 

David

[Freycinet]

Good read David, welcome to the forums!

[Freycinet]

....You may like this.

[...srqbones]

Thanks for the video - that was truly excellent!  

 

So I've been thinking about 'break turns' wrong, making them too sharp, losing my energy, and worsening my situation.  All I should try to do is spoil his shot, while ideally working into a rolling scissors.  I don't know precisely how this can work when I am being gunned - my thought is that the enemy is far back enough that he keeps getting a firing solution even as I jig and jag.  Often, I can survive if I get on the deck and run nap of the earth, as its difficult for the enemy to achieve a firing solution without running into the ground, and as he keeps climbing to get a few spendable seconds to take a shot, I continue to pull away, making subtle yaw-turns with my rudder.  most of the time I get killed, though, when the bandit is at my six.

 

I like the 'diving and turning extension' in the video - it's almost like a Chandelle done in reverse.  I have used the Chandelle numerous times in ROF as most planes can't match my climb while maintaining a firing solution.  The ;diving and turning while extending' seems to work similarly - instead of the enemy falling away, the enemy is forced into an overshoot, setting up an effective scissors to complete.

[=RvE=Windmills]

This entirely relies on the attacking player making huge mistakes though. The best you can do against a good player is buying time until friendlies show up. As long as you can see him approach, you should be able to dodge, but it's never 100% guaranteed and the attention it takes for tracking him forces you to give up situational awareness making you vulnerable to anything else attacking you. You also lose energy with each dodge, while the player with the advantage never has to commit when he sees you make a sharp dodge, allowing him to keep the advantage.

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Personally I think that video is terrible. I'll be buggered if I am going to turn away from an enemy with an energy advantage and I would love it is someone else did that for me. It entirely relied on the guy with an energy advantage making a school boy error by trying to turn with you.

[peregrine7]

Personally I think that video is terrible. I'll be buggered if I am going to turn away from an enemy with an energy advantage and I would love it is someone else did that for me. It entirely relied on the guy with an energy advantage making a school boy error by trying to turn with you.

 

Yeah, with a good enemy all you can do is drag along and hope they make a mistake, turning away, pulling and then snap turning will work on rookies though.