AI ganging up on the player

[PatrickAWlson]

I did something to try to stop this awhile back.  I randomized the target order in the attack MCU so that each fighter would have its targets in a different sequence.  it was a total guess on my part as to whether order in the attack list would impact AI target prioritization.  Since the release of 2.0 do people see an improvement or is the AI still focused on you?

 

if it didn't work ... sorry, but I'm out of ideas at the moment.  If it did have an effect then it would be a good bit of information to pass back to the developers.

[Cybermat47]

The AI seems to attack all targets equally.

 

In my most recent mission, my schwarm came under attack from four MiG-3s, which were later joined by another four MiGs. The MiGs engaged my wingmen, actually leaving me alone. When they'd shot down two of us, they turned on me and the other Bf-109. I was hit badly, leaking fuel and smoke, and turned for home, and that's when the AI ganged up on me - and this seems like perfectly normal behaviour for Soviet pilots in 1941, with a 'Lean' at their mercy for once.

 

I crash landed in one piece, with no injuries, and they ganged up on the last Bf-109 in the air, and shot him down.

 

(They had an energy advantage to begin with, but we got four or five of the MiGs, and all our pilots bailed out over friendly territory, while all theirs were either killed or captured, so I think that we came out on top, even after we were all shot down).

Edited September 20, 2016 by Cybermat47

[Azdack]

I tried yesterday something i'd never tried in PWCG before. Before clicking on "accept mission" I choosed to add more pilots to my flight...we were six. I know that it's not absolutely historical but I wanted to see what happens. After a few minutes we were engaged by a flight of AI 109...don't know how many. Immediately i ordered to my squad of six planes (Il24) to engage..what they did. Several 109 were shot down. I could notice that three Il24 were together after one 109..two of them were smoking. Even smoking they engaged my plane and I had difficulties to run away, They kept on pasting on my six. I asked my wingmen to "cover me" what they did I guess but after a few minutes the smoking 109 were still on my six. They only desengaged when i was rather close of our airfield on which I landed smoking and full of holes.

 

Going to tra to fly other mission today to see if AI have thier mostly wrath against player...but wingmen AI have their part too.

Anyway Pat thanks again for your PWCG.

[Bando]

Tried two missions last night, no ganging up on those.

Hope you really nailed it, as it was destroying a lot of fun.

 

Thanks for trying Patrick 

[Azdack]

flown three missions yesterday too.

- one ground attack, Coudn't find the targets on the ground but engaged by two 110 low who were really stuck on me even with my wingmen cheasing them. Got one.

- one patrol. Nothing happened. Met no bandit. Each 10/20 seconds i click on "attack nearest plane". If there are any bandit flying around which I hadn't seen by clicking on "attack nearest plane" (don't remember the right words) my wingmen are engaging right away.

- one escort. Nothing happened too but on the way back on clicking "attack nearest plane" my wingmen dived on two stukas very low. Got both of them but in the debriefing I got the kills for 110 and not ju87.

Always as much fun to fly with PWCG.

[Bando]

Hmmm, been doing a lot of missions, but AI gangs up on me again.

 

I wish the dev's could help with this....

[=CFC=Conky]

Hi Pat,

 

Sorry to say, the ai is ganging up on me in the missions. Funny, I was just thinking about posting something about it...

 

In one mission I was dragged 4 Yaks back to my home base, hoping the flak would thin them out. Unfortunately there was no flak at the base and I ended up crash landing while trying to avoid them, though I did survive the prang. It was the first time this occurred, is there friendly flak at home bases?

 

All in all, it's still a great campaign generator!

 

Good hunting,

=CFC=Conky

 

 

OOOOPS, just realized I'm still using version 1.2 so disregard the comments about the ai. Still like to have some friendly flak to cover my butt though

Edited September 22, 2016 by CFC_Conky

[Mainstay]

Will do some testing Pat

 

Didnt have to time to test the new version yet but now i have.

[PatrickAWlson]

Hi Pat,

 

Sorry to say, the ai is ganging up on me in the missions. Funny, I was just thinking about posting something about it...

 

In one mission I was dragged 4 Yaks back to my home base, hoping the flak would thin them out. Unfortunately there was no flak at the base and I ended up crash landing while trying to avoid them, though I did survive the prang. It was the first time this occurred, is there friendly flak at home bases?

 

All in all, it's still a great campaign generator!

 

Good hunting,

=CFC=Conky

 

 

OOOOPS, just realized I'm still using version 1.2 so disregard the comments about the ai. Still like to have some friendly flak to cover my butt though

 

2.1 (the latest) has airfield FLAK.

Edited September 22, 2016 by PatrickAWlson

[=CFC=Conky]

2.1 (the latest) has airfield FLAK.

 

 

Saw that, thanks!   

[SCG_motoadve]

AI attacks only my plane, ruining the immersion

[LLv24_Zami]

Recently I have had more trouble with AI chasing my plane relentlessly. I don`t know if that has something to do with the latest patch, IMO it was not that bad earlier. I am confused about this, I could manage with AI earlier. I see that Bando made a bug report about it, maybe devs have a look.

 

Don`t know if it`s the same in the stock campaign, will try few missions when I have time.

[Bando]

Stock campaign has it too. It is so bad that I am tempted to quit for a while. I agree it seems to be worse than ever.

I'm glad you speak about it, I did not have the heart to bring it up again, specially since Patrick cannot help it. The devs should be aware now, so hopefully they'll do something about it.

[PatrickAWlson]

I suspect that with 1C more focused on their own SP experience that things like this will get addressed.

[LLv24_Zami]

Stock campaign has it too. It is so bad that I am tempted to quit for a while. I agree it seems to be worse than ever.

I'm glad you speak about it, I did not have the heart to bring it up again, specially since Patrick cannot help it. The devs should be aware now, so hopefully they'll do something about it.

I am also getting a bit frustrated, it`s really bad now. It`s very hard to motivate yourself to play before fix.

 

 

I suspect that with 1C more focused on their own SP experience that things like this will get addressed.

I think it will be fixed at some time. Let`s hope sooner than later because it`s ruining most of the missions atm.

[SCG_motoadve]

I stopped playing it, Single player its no good with this AI.

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

well so far great work, but as usual, I can not finish any SP missions, because flight cover never covers me, AI 109's lazer beam right to me..and shoot me down..

 

running the game in as a co-op we can deal with it, especially in ROF. 

 

But not sure if CO-Op works in BOS yet or not, as we haven't delved into the ME yet.

Edited November 17, 2016 by 71st_AH_Mastiff

[Mainstay]

Tried it today again since a long time but like others already said its ridicilous.

Im not a MP man myself and i like to fly in my own time able to pause etc when i need to step away.

But this whole SP AI situation is just really bad.

 

I know it has nothing to do with you Pat and i really love your app and all thats in it. But this needs to be fixed by the devs.

[PatrickAWlson]

I posted in "Ask the developers".  No response yet.  

[Mainstay]

I did aswell

[Bando]

I asked about the ganging up on the "technical issues" part of the forum.

I asked about hte ganging up during the teamspeak event last month where both Jason and Han were present.

 

The good news: They are aware.

 

The bad news: I had the distinct feeling that (especially Han) they will not give this any priority. Han explained that there was no written AI code for "chasing the player", so there seems to be no reason to investigate.

Furthermore, it was stated that the AI in general needs an overhaul, but again I had the feeling that the priority of this matter is not very high, so maybe after the BoK it will get some attention.

 

Conclusion: No prio, nothing will be done about it in the next 12 month, so I stopped playing missions. I do play the scripted mission now, some circuit flying on SMG, but that's it. I have no fun in the missions anymore. It's so sad....

 

Maybe we should start recording this behavior and sent these recordings to the devs by PM. It may help. Who knows.

[coconut]

Han did say that the leader of a flight gets special treatment. In the in-game campaign the player is always the leader. I don't know how it is in Pat's campaign generator, but if it's not already done, he should consider generating missions where the leader is an AI.

 

Personally, I don't see this "AI always gang up on me" thing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But it's true that depending on mission design, they will sometime chase you all the way back to your airfield, and sometimes they do it in groups. When they do that it tends to make a stronger impression on the player than when they don't.

[Bando]

Hi Coconut. I'm always the number 4 or 3 in the flight. AI ignores everything (literally everything, including being shot at, leaking all sorts of fumes and liquids) to get to me. All of them.

I do not understand why some have it and some not, but for me it's not worth playing anymore.

[LLv24_Zami]

It's sad if the AI is not priority for the devs because it's essential for the SP part of the game.

 

In the questions for the developers thread Han did not seem to understand what 'AI ganging up' means. So more explaining is needed and videos would be very useful.

 

Some time ago I was playing PWCG intercept mission. For testing purposes I was trying to avoid enemy by turning away, flying at the deck with full throttle. Most of the enemies ignored my AI wingmates and turned to follow me. I was over 8km away atm. I was not a flight leader. I had recorded it but it's not working anymore with the 2.006 patch.

[Yogiflight]

As I understood Han, he did not only say, that AI is not chasing player, but, AI does not even know, which aircraft is the player aircraft. And this definitely is not correct. You can easily see, that enemy aircrafts act completely different, when they are in contact with the player or with an AI aircraft.

[SCG_motoadve]

We should ask Han if he even plays single player missions, from listening to the audio I was dissapointed that it didnt seemed to be that important to him.

 

This problem is more noticeable in PWCG, it ruined for me just because of this, its a great campaign generator , but AI ruins it terribly.

[kraut1]

Hi All,

I using some makeshift procedures to reduce these AI issues (by editing mission files with text Editor):

-I am removing my pilots LinkTrId from the enemies MCU_CMD_AttackTarget Targets.

(This does not mean that they ignore me but it seems to me that not all of them are attacking me simultaneously)

-I am changing all AIlevels  = 3 or 4 to 2 because from my point of view the AI shooting abilities (especially in deflection shooting) are unrealistic high.

Best regards

Edited December 26, 2016 by kraut1

[kraut1]

Hi All,

I did some tests concerning AI skills (Quick missions with dogfights 8 vs 8 planes / I only watched the fights).

All skills Average / AIlevel = 2: Even average pilots have good deflection Shooting skills!

All skills Novice / AIlevel = 1: Even Novice pilots have average Shooting skills.

 

For me the conclusion is that you have to select the AIlevels depending in which way you want to play the campaign:

 

From my point of view I want to fly campaigns with realistic Settings (no head up Display symbols, no moving plane symbols on the map).

I never refly a Mission and if I die the campaign is over.

So for me AIlevels 2 for leaders and 1 for the rest of the planes is sufficient and there is still always a risk to be hit by the enemies.

 

If you like to fly the missions in a more Action style with reflying missions and using some aids you should use higher AIlevels.

 

PWCG: At the Moment I have to adjust the AIlevels manually with text Editor, the PWCG advanced configuration categories:/Mission AI will always create pilots with higher AIlevel. Is it possible to update this function that (if defined by user) flights with only AIlevel 1 and 2 are created?

 

Best regards

[BraveSirRobin]

As I understood Han, he did not only say, that AI is not chasing player, but, AI does not even know, which aircraft is the player aircraft. And this definitely is not correct. You can easily see, that enemy aircrafts act completely different, when they are in contact with the player or with an AI aircraft.

I've flown a lot of SP missions and I definitely did not see what you're seeing. In fact, I often saw the AI ignore me when I thought it should have been ignoring my wingmen. The AI attacks what it thinks is the greatest threat. If you fly aggressively and try to win the mission on your own, then the AI is going to see you as a threat. If you fly strategically and try to use the friendly AI as bait, then the enemy AI tend to ignore you.

 

Also, I suspect the developer isn't lying to you.

[216th_Jordan]

As I understood Han, he did not only say, that AI is not chasing player, but, AI does not even know, which aircraft is the player aircraft. And this definitely is not correct. You can easily see, that enemy aircrafts act completely different, when they are in contact with the player or with an AI aircraft.

 

What was said during the TS event was that the AI will attack the leader of a flight with priority. So it does not choose player or AI but it chooses depending on if you are flight leader or not.

[Yogiflight]

I did not talk about this. This is a point, i clearly understand. But Han's point on Bando's question in the teamspeak event went completely into the emptiness of space, as Bando didn't talk of the BOS campaign missions, but of PWCG missions, where he did not fly as leader.

What I was talking about, is the default behaviour of AI during dogfights. For example, when i get attacked by an enemy aircraft and a friendly AI is behind him and shooting at him, he will not care about my AI comrade, who is attacking him, but stay behind me, no matter how often he gets hit by my comrade.

If an enemy is behind an AI comrade of mine and I engage him, he will turn away, to fight me, as soon, as I reach shooting distance.

And this is only one example, of AI actions, I, and as far as I read, not only I, notice again and again.

BTW, I did not want to say, that Han is lying, about the programing of AI, but somehow, AI must know, which aircraft is the player aircraft.

[BraveSirRobin]

BTW, I did not want to say, that Han is lying, about the programing of AI, but somehow, AI must know, which aircraft is the player aircraft.

You may not want to call Han a liar, but that's what you're doing. But if he says the AI doesn't know which aircraft are controlled by humans, then you can be pretty sure that it's true. You can be 100% sure that they're not going to change functionality that doesn't actually exist.

[coconut]

I using some makeshift procedures to reduce these AI issues (by editing mission files with text Editor): -I am removing my pilots LinkTrId from the enemies MCU_CMD_AttackTarget Targets. (This does not mean that they ignore me but it seems to me that not all of them are attacking me simultaneously)

 

I think the problem might be in the way missions are generated. I downloaded Pat's generator and took a quick look at a generated scramble mission. It uses the attack command a lot, as opposed to using attack area, cover and low-priority waypoints. Another potential problem is that these attack nodes are linked to multiple entities. I did not know that worked, I normally only use one target at a time. I'm not saying it should not work, but it's just something I have never done. What I'm afraid it might do is simply pick the first target only, in which case it might cause the player to be ganged on whenever the player id happens to be the smallest one.

 

By the way, as the attack commands are set up to attack the entire flight, it's unnecessary to include all the members of a target flight as targets. Moreover, a command given to the leader of a flight affects all members of the flight, and it is therefore also unnecessary to give that order to each member of the attacking flight.

Edited December 27, 2016 by coconut

[Yogiflight]

Pinko, I absolutely agree on your point about enemies attacking bombers. In this situation they are an easy target. You only have to be aware, not to get hit by the bomber's defense.

Clarification: A liar is someone, who tells the untruth by purpose. I do not suspect Han to do this. But the past showed, there are connections in the programming of this game, the devs do not really understand, as Han has stated already. They sometimes do not know why something is working this way, but as long as it works the way they want it to do, they are fine with it. I don't suspect, the devs to program AI in the way 'this is the player aircraft'. But somehow the AI clearly must know it.

[Picchio]

I think the problem might be in the way missions are generated. I downloaded Pat's generator and took a quick look at a generated scramble mission. It uses the attack command a lot, as opposed to using attack area, cover and low-priority waypoints. Another potential problem is that these attack nodes are linked to multiple entities. I did not know that worked, I normally only use one target at a time. I'm not saying it should not work, but it's just something I have never done. What I'm afraid it might do is simply pick the first target only, in which case it might cause the player to be ganged on whenever the player id happens to be the smallest one.

 

By the way, as the attack commands are set up to attack the entire flight, it's unnecessary to include all the members of a target flight as targets. Moreover, a command given to the leader of a flight affects all members of the flight, and it is therefore also unnecessary to give that order to each member of the attacking flight.

 

Hi Coconut and thanks for your input. Please do inform Pat about this, if you haven't already.

[BraveSirRobin]

I don't suspect, the devs to program AI in the way 'this is the player aircraft'. But somehow the AI clearly must know it.

It's not possible for the AI to determine the human players unless it's programmed that way, and Han says it's not programmed.

[SCG_motoadve]

I think Han needs to try PWCG, and see it there for himself.

Its the most agressive AI.

 

Regular campaigns or missions are not as bad.

[Picchio]

I think Han needs to try PWCG, and see it there for himself.

Its the most agressive AI.

 

Regular campaigns or missions are not as bad.

 

Which can mean that the issue might be with PWCG's missions, as Coconut suggested... we'd better wait for Pat's input, before adding more speculation.

[kraut1]

I think the problem might be in the way missions are generated. I downloaded Pat's generator and took a quick look at a generated scramble mission. It uses the attack command a lot, as opposed to using attack area, cover and low-priority waypoints. Another potential problem is that these attack nodes are linked to multiple entities. I did not know that worked, I normally only use one target at a time. I'm not saying it should not work, but it's just something I have never done. What I'm afraid it might do is simply pick the first target only, in which case it might cause the player to be ganged on whenever the player id happens to be the smallest one.

 

By the way, as the attack commands are set up to attack the entire flight, it's unnecessary to include all the members of a target flight as targets. Moreover, a command given to the leader of a flight affects all members of the flight, and it is therefore also unnecessary to give that order to each member of the attacking flight.

I noticed another thing: the attack command in PWCG missions is always set to highest priority (2).

I tested a modified PWCG Mission:

-all attack commands changed to low priority (0)

-all AIlevel = 2 reduced to 1

-all AIlevel = 3,4 reduced to 2

-some warnings by ground control (Freya) by proximity Triggers / subtitles at ranges of 30km, 16km,9km,6km,3km and by flight leader at 1.5km

-NO use of head up display symbols and plane Icons on map.

The resulting combat was exciting in spite of the reduced AIlevel. AI planes were still able to hit other planes.

Best regards

[Scojo]

It's not possible for the AI to determine the human players unless it's programmed that way, and Han says it's not programmed.

It could be programmed so that the AI to favor attacking enemies who exhibit certain behaviors over other enemies, and those might just so happen to single out a human player... let me explain.

 

3 AI and one player are in a flight together. The 3 AI will be flying "near perfect" in formation with each other due to the simple fact that the AI is flying them. However, the human isn't being flown by the AI, so he isn't sticking to formation "perfectly".

 

Then the enemies spot the flight. They want to attack either the weakest target, or the target who is at a worse disadvantage. One disadvantage that would single out a target would be "separating" from the flight. Since the human player cannot perfectly stay in formation or fly the way the AI would normally do, the computer singles out the human as the "easiest" target. The key here is that the human isn't flying the way the AI would and so the AI perceives them as inferior to the other targets.

 

Also since the human is flying unpredictably, relative to the other AI, that could also mark him as a higher threat to the AI.

 

Therefore, the programming isn't explicitly targeting a human, but explicitly targeting an enemy pilot who exhibits certain traits that would mark him as a higher priority kill..... which just so happens to usually be a player instead of an AI

 

This would be a scenario in which the devs aren't lying (I don't think they're lying either), but it's just a flaw that needs to be worked out

 

TLDR: AI doesn't target players, just targets planes that exhibit behaviors that happen to always be exhibited by a human instead of a fellow AI

 

Also, I think the best thing to trouble shoot this would just be recordings of actually engagements. I'll start recording my sorties on PWCG now

Edited December 28, 2016 by Scojo