Why are all the 109s in campaign mode flown by superior AI?

[Ace_Pilto]

My last three sorties attempting to successfully complete ground attack went like this:

 

Sortie 1

 

1)Take off and begin to fly to target.

2) Escort abandons duty to chase non-mission target

3) Reach target and try to find it.

4) Wild 109 appears

5) 109 uses "Holy Headshot"

6) It's super effective.

7) Limp home with red screen.

 

Sortie 2

 

1)Take off and begin to fly to target.

2) Escort abandons, chases non-mission target

3) Reach target and try to find it.

4) Wild 109 appears

5) Not this time chum

6) Deprive 109 of left wing

7) Another wild 109 appears

8) 109 uses "Holy Headshot"

9) It's super effective.

10) Limp home with red screen.

11) Congratulations, here's 12 points.

12) Rage.

 

Sortie 3

 

1)Take off and begin to fly to target.

2) Potato escort uses "Flee"

3) Wild 109 appears

4) 109 kills wingman in one burst

5) Wild Flak Jesus appears

6) Flak Jesus uses "Holy Headshot"

7) It's super effective.

8) Continue on, reach target and try to find it.

9) Find target and lose it again

10) Wild 109s appear

11) 109s use "Gangbang"

12) LaGG counters with "Fly low and defensive"

13) Find target again and destroy 1 x Artillery

14) 109 Jesus gets angry at me

15) Uses "Stack Ability" combining "Holy Headshot" and "Contemptuous disdain for all humans" from outside 300m

16) watch as single cannon round arcs towards me.

17) It's super effective.

18) RIP in peace.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Bearcat
I edited the title of this thread.

[[CPT]milopugdog]

It's not just 109s, but all AI have sniper aim. It just seems like it's the 109s because Germany only has them in the campaign mode.

[LLv24_Zami]

If the AI escort fighters would actually behave like escorts, life would be a lot easier for the ground pounder.

[Ace_Pilto]

@ Milo, I don't have the same problem flying for the Luftwaffe. Sure the enemy AI will hit you if you let them get behind you and within a certain range but they don't have the "Holy Headshot" ability that allows the first round from every burst to hit the pilot.

 

Back to the campaign, on my fourth mission (just for something different) I ran into a flak gunner who must have been the direct line descendant of Nostradamus. 

 

Here's the story:

 

Thinking that I would outfox the AI by flying above the clouds and just diving through a convenient gap to attack the target (a train). Joy of joys I made it to the target without harassment from 109s, we only bumped into 4 x He-111s at 2,000m whose escorts were tangling with other fighters nearby so our escorts took it on themselves to chase Heinkels for a change. Anyway, I neared the target with my trusty flight in tow and there just happened to be a gap in the clouds that I could see the train tracks through.

 

I made for the gap, knowing that the train must be nearby and sure enough, as I came out of the clouds I saw the smoke from the engine dead ahead! I also saw my perspex shatter and the screen go a bit pink as I took a round to the face the VERY INSTANT I emerged from the cloud!

 

But, we killed the train, I got shot up by Jesus again in a 109G-2 and then I did a nice big crash at home base.

Edited August 5, 2015 by JimmyBlonde

[Comes]

Bomber Gunners also seem to have sniper aim. Would be nice, if we could set the enemys skill level in the campaign. 

[=EXPEND=Dendro]

Those AI NEVER miss!

[Ace_Pilto]

I got a bit annoyed with the situation and decided to land and discuss it with my German friends.

 

(Was actually trying to see if I could whack one with the prop, no you can't)

 

 

 

@DendroAspis It turns out you can but it's not easy. If you have enough speed and roll under their nose at the right moment they will miss. (But only if you can pull enough 'G' and have recently confessed your sins)

 

 

[Neil]

 

2015_8_5__6_26_34.png

 

 

The Soviet Pilot: "Hey Sorry! Can I borrow one of your plane??" 

[I/JG27_Rollo]

I got a bit annoyed with the situation and decided to land and discuss it with my German friends.

 

(Was actually trying to see if I could whack one with the prop, no you can't)

 

 

2015_8_5__6_26_34.png

 

@DendroAspis It turns out you can but it's not easy. If you have enough speed and roll under their nose at the right moment they will miss. (But only if you can pull enough 'G' and have recently confessed your sins)

I love how the gun crew just doesn't care about that LaGG nosing over right next to them.

[Ace_Pilto]

That's true Chief, on the next five missions it only happened once. It's a part psychological thing for sure. You can have a 99% chance to win and still lose 100 times in a row!

 

It's just one of those things that I'm stashing away in my mind for a list entitled "Things that must really discourage newbies".

 

P.S. The 109s in multiplayer are flown by Jesus too... Sucks to be me.

Edited August 5, 2015 by JimmyBlonde

[Willy__]

A tip for those struggling to evade shots from the AI: some yaw action (aka rudders) can do wonders! 

[SharpeXB]

No. Jesus wouldn't shoot you in the head.

[Brano]

Jesus was a carpenter.He cant fly messer.But he can walk upon the water.

[6./ZG26_Custard]

 

 

Jesus was a carpenter.He cant fly messer.But he can walk upon the water.

Being that he was a carpenter, was he the VVS "go to guy" for the construction of all those wood-laminate airframes on the LaGG-3?

[Ace_Pilto]

No. Jesus wouldn't shoot you in the head.

 

Traditional Jesus wouldn't. Gung ho Texas Jesus might.

 

(I joke, no disrespect intended)

[Brano]

Being that he was a carpenter, was he the VVS "go to guy" for the construction of all those wood-laminate airframes on the LaGG-3?

He might be called upon when comrade Lavotschkin was depressed/out of ideas,but soviet government officials would not aprove/admit that.On top of it,delta drevesina was composite material about which Jesus had also no idea how it is made.

[6./ZG26_Custard]

 

 

Jesus had also no idea how it is made.

He was a miracle worker, he knew!

[216th_Jordan]

Well it really kills immersion to have an AI that knows the exact position and range to shoot at, also it does not seem to have a visual obstruction of what it is able to see. It's got wonderwoman view and can pull maneuvers on you the plane would forbid for design reasons.

[Brano]

Behavior of AI gunners has been tweaked several times.If devs knew the way how to make them think and act like real humans,they would stop developing games and started to produce androids to replace us all

[LLv24_Zami]

I think the sniper AI issue at later levels of campaign is caused by campaign design. All AI flights are at ace level so they are shooting at maximum accuracy.

It doesn`t make sense, there should be random level AI pilots in missions, no matter what level you are in campaign. Aces should be pretty rare.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Zami

[SharpeXB]

Gung ho Texas Jesus might.

 

"Don't cross me, and say hello to my Dad when you see him." Chachuk BLAM! Edited August 6, 2015 by SharpeXB

[LukeFF]

[Skoop]

I have played quite a few missions made by the community that are based around dogfighting flights of AI. I can say that I see some of these sniper issue in these missions as well.

 

The Ai can be dangerous because of its gunnery skills, but I would like to see it revamped to perform more like a human. When dogfighting the AI it does some weird things at times, when you get on its six, it will side slip around like a ufo. It's hard to describe, I'll have to make a video of it.

 

Also, it seems to always engage in turn fights at low alt, even when it's in an energy fighter. I'd like it to perform more unpredictable maneuvers, or do some scissors of yoyos instead of just constant circles turn fights.

 

Don't take the ai on in the head on unless your in a 190 with all 4 cannons.

[Jupp]

~S~ Everyone,

 

This would explain other anomalous behaviors of the Artificial Intelligent aircraft as well.

 

Blue Skies,

 

!S -Jupp-  

 

[AbortedMan]

You survived and made it home 2 out of the 3 times you flew out and even saw combat (and shot an aircraft down)...not sure what the problem is here. You expect to not be in any danger of damage or injury on every sortie?

[Ace_Pilto]

If you don't see the problem you're either trolling or can't read.

 

It's not normal to be hit in the cockpit 80% of the time someone shoots at you. (5 sorties out of 8 this happened). It was just an unlucky run.

Edited August 7, 2015 by JimmyBlonde

[AbortedMan]

If you don't see the problem you're either trolling or can't read.

 

It's not normal to be hit in the cockpit 80% of the time someone shoots at you. (5 sorties out of 8 this happened). It was just an unlucky run.

Not trolling, but I am still working out this reading/typing thing. I just mash fingers on the keyboard and hope for the best

 

The AI probably has a center point of aim when choosing what angle to shoot at. That center point is probably the actual player model rather than the entire aircraft model. The squishy pilot being the weakest failure point of any aircraft, I wouldn't be surprised if pilots back then IRL were trained or hoping for a cockpit shot on target. Depending on the skill of the AI you're playing against this could be modeled and dubbed as "accurate" and working as intended. If you're really feeling like the AI is too accurately hitting pilots, then I'd do some testing in the QMB with the various AI difficulties...I personally would expect an ace difficulty AI to put their rounds right where they wanted/needed them while a rookie difficulty AI would have rounds spraying all over your aircraft when they connect (and that's what I've seen), but that's just me. 

Edited August 7, 2015 by AbortedMan

[Ace_Pilto]

Lol yeah OK, I thought I made it pretty clear what the problem was so your comment made me a bit suspicious. Erm, sorry about that.

 

Anyway, I agree with you in much of what you say except, from what I have read, it seems that only a gifted few were able to land rounds where they wanted them in combat while the rest were lucky to hit the aircraft they were aiming at and not the one behind it. Aiming for meat of metal is the way to go if you're that good and the AI reflect that on high settings.

 

I think the problem was that some missions probably generate more "Ace" AI than others and I just got a bunch of them strung together so I came on here have a bit of a whine/laugh about it.

[FuriousMeow]

AbortedMan is correct, the pilot is the aiming point for AI. That's why the ground fire will fire at your pilot when he bails out and continue firing on him until they kill him, because they are still programmed to keep shooting and going after him until he is no longer active in the world.

[AbortedMan]

As an aside to seemingly magical forehead-seeking ordnance...going out on a sortie, making contact, getting into fisticuffs with the enemy with these odds and performance differences, and getting home two out of three times seems like a plausible ratio of success/fail if what history resources I've read is correct (aside from the outlier aces and very lucky people, etc).

 

I thought the ratio of success/failure was what you had issue with at first. I was going to bring a discussion of "if you play with fire, you're going to get burned" type reasoning in regards to survival/getting shot down.

[Ace_Pilto]

I probably bucked the average to be honest. Ground attack over a target AAA and a CAP covering it is like standing between the horns of a bull and the hind quarters of a donkey and letting off a bunch of fire-crackers.

 

They used to have a saying in the RAF for Beauforts and such that attacked shipping in the Med. "Occasionally one comes out the other side." 

[AbortedMan]

I probably bucked the average to be honest. Ground attack over a target AAA and a CAP covering it is like standing between the horns of a bull and the hind quarters of a donkey and letting off a bunch of fire-crackers.

 

They used to have a saying in the RAF for Beauforts and such that attacked shipping in the Med. "Occasionally one comes out the other side." 

Hah! Love the analogy.

[wellenbrecher]

Bomber Gunners also seem to have sniper aim. Would be nice, if we could set the enemys skill level in the campaign. 

The funny thing is that gunners are pretty much useless in MP.

There is NO comparison between how hard and often and how accurately I get hammered by them on my lvl 9 account in "SP" and dive on them from angle or when I hop on a server and fly in a straight line behind a player in a plane with a gunner for three minutes.

 

Which leads me to believe that as Zami said:

 

I think the sniper AI issue at later levels of campaign is caused by campaign design. All AI flights are at ace level so they are shooting at maximum accuracy.

It doesn`t make sense, there should be random level AI pilots in missions, no matter what level you are in campaign. Aces should be pretty rare.

 

The way the campaign is designed is likely the issue.

Remember when the first folks reached lvl 10 and reported ultra über accurate AAA fire and gunners in the "campaign"? Yeah, it's that.

[LLv24_Zami]

The way the campaign is designed is likely the issue.

Remember when the first folks reached lvl 10 and reported ultra über accurate AAA fire and gunners in the "campaign"? Yeah, it's that.

 

Anyone can easily check it with mission editor. Latest campaign mission can be loaded from data/missions folder. I have checked quite a few and usually all AI flights are at ace level.

[LukeFF]

[Cybermat47]

Please elaborate.

[FuriousMeow]

Please elaborate.

 

Seriously? Raaaid posted his usual mental diarrhea.

[Cybermat47]

Seriously? Raaaid posted his usual mental diarrhea.

Ah, I thought it was a response to the OP, not to raaaid. My mistake

Edited August 9, 2015 by Cybermat47

[Ace_Pilto]

Hi Bearcat, I see you've been editing...

 

...And I was wondering, could you please do me a solid and change the posts again? I understand that you feel the need to change them from the original copy and that's cool. In my defense I unthinkingly wrote the first name that came to mind when I thought of a highly recognisable, infallible entity that has supernatural or otherwise extraordinary abilities to reference. I'm very sorry that people's sensitivities are so exquisitely sensitive that this may have been determined a slight on the unmentionable deity in question or that my usage might have been misconstrued as some kind of disrespectful provocation worthy of your intervention.

 

Well, done is done but the thread loses a certain jene sais quoi without such a reverential figure don't you think? 

 

Here are some uncontroversial suggestions that follow the spirit of the original:

 

Superman

The Terminator

Clint Eastwood

 

(I'm especially inclined towards Clint Eastwood, he displays the requisite attributes and I generally hold him in the highest regard. In fact, if I had a time machine I'd go back and smack myself upside the while shouting that I should put that instead in the original post.)

 

Would you be so kind as to humour my vanity? I'd appreciate it.

 

Cheers.

 

P.S. Congrats on your young lass getting hitched. Hope you had a great party.

[Porkman]

Chuck Norris!