The AI: does it ever stop?

[Yogiflight]

30 minutes ago, Mac_Messer said:

Could you point me where that option is available? Would help me deal with ace bomber gunners supposedly.

If this is, what you are looking for, you can go to 'Advanced Config', select 'MissionAI' and change 'Bomber AI Adjustment' from the default '0' to '-1' or '-2'.

[Gambit21]

On 4/30/2020 at 10:55 AM, ShamrockOneFive said:

 

Even in the older versions of IL-2 it was always a misnomer that the Russian planes automatically had the best turn capabilities.

 

Well...there were a few Russian aircraft that were utterly ridiculous compared to anything else in the sim.

The Yak-3 comes to mind. That thing was the quintessential UFO, or "noob clown car" as @II/JG17_HerrMurf would say.

 

You could be 1000 meters above one of those things, with a good energy state, heading 180-out and it would still inexplicably be on your tail in seconds.

Total and utter dweeb plane.

 

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Thumbs up for "Clown Car!"

[=RS=Stix_09]

On 4/18/2017 at 3:35 PM, PatrickAWlson said:

There is a RTB parameter for the AI that should make it go home when damaged.  I know that PWCG sets it.  Not sure if the AI ever thinks "I'm outnumbered, this is a bad idea".

 

First NOTE: As mission builders we can't fix AI logic problems built into the game.

 

1)To answer recent posts on AI flowing players home aggressively:

I go back to this comment above from 2017

Yes this option does make AI planes RTB after they take over 50% damage. You also need to have an airfield so they can RTB. AI is not smart enough to "think "I'm outnumbered" and run (that is not part of the AI default logic) and   There is no outnumberedAndRun trigger . ? 

Not sure with PWRC , but does that have a decent amount of AA over friendly bases?
 If so that's another option. Would seem realistic they might follow you home and attack you on landing otherwise. Airfield AA can pretty quickly down enemy AI if set up aggressively.
Or a checkzone trigger used to make them RTB once they approach friendly Base.

 

My opinion is having AirBase aggressive AA and use the "AI Return to Base Decision" option woulds be enough to deal with that problem of AI following player home, from my experience making missions, I do this.

 

2)Dealing with wingmen (you do not control) not engaging enemy AI is not so easy.

 

Pretty hard to program exceptions into default (at times stupid) logic of default AI behavior , with a campaign generator like PWRC.

But as advised best to let AI wingmen engage before you do, (especially if you can't issue them commands, not being squad leader)

 

Waypoint priority "low" might help to let wingmen fight off patrols following player , if player is not in command of wingmen(not tested this myself), but they are just as likely to leave on your RTB and attack random targets.

(AI will not defend the player or another plane , unless commanded to do so. Medium priority Waypoint, AI only defend themselves, if attacked I think).

 

NOTE for non mission builders reading this:

There is no conditional "IF then Else logic" available to mission builder, its all trigger based logic. We have to make the logic using triggers, events and counters. What doc's are avail , while good are largely community produced from experience, not from the developer.

As far as I know only rise of flight editor has developer docs, and this editor is only based on that editor, much has been added and changed since that was written. The best manual we have on the editor was written by @JimTM. While excellent is only part of the picture.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09
picture uploaded

[Avimimus]

Honestly though... if one reads real life accounts: Pilots often lost sight of other aircraft and had trouble re-acquiring them. They also sometimes decided to make only one pass, or decided that they were at a disadvantage. In other cases they attempted to regroup with allied aircraft instead of getting separated...

 

So receiving any damage, or even being shot at, shouldn't be a pre-requisite for retreating... let alone 50% damage...

 

It would be really great if AI aircraft sometimes disengaged at random for a bit before re-engaging (or deciding not to)... and I mean at random (similar to a player in MP who has lost track of an opponent)...

 

P.S.

I remember that Starshoy (developer of the original Il-2 dynamic campaign) believed that the ahistorically high attrition rates were due to aircraft being over-aggressive...

[ShamrockOneFive]

2 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

 

Well...there were a few Russian aircraft that were utterly ridiculous compared to anything else in the sim.

The Yak-3 comes to mind. That thing was the quintessential UFO, or "noob clown car" as @II/JG17_HerrMurf would say.

 

You could be 1000 meters above one of those things, with a good energy state, heading 180-out and it would still inexplicably be on your tail in seconds.

Total and utter dweeb plane.

 

 

I do remember those days. The La-5FN/7 was another notorious member of that club. The La-5FN in this series is a very different beast fortunately.

[JimTM]

2 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

...

There is no conditional "IF then Else logic" available to mission builder, its all trigger based logic. We have to make the logic using triggers, events and counters.

...

 

Maybe there is here (which links to here). I haven't tested these logic constructs to see if they work well with missions in general. 

Edited May 2, 2020 by JimTM

[=RS=Stix_09]

14 minutes ago, JimTM said:

 

Maybe there is here (which links to here). I haven't tested these logic constructs to see if they work well with missions in general. 

 

Yes thanks Jim,

I'll have a full read of those threads next. I have made some base logic myself, but it was a real mind bender doing it with current editor logic.

 

[SAS_Storebror]

3 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

Yes this option does make AI planes RTB after they take over 50% damage.

Problems start with how much damage is percieved by what kind of damage inflicted.

For instance, I have plenty of sorties on my back where I've made my AI enemy leak fuel, water and oil massively, yet when I look at the logfiles, these damages seem to only account for less than one percent each - and AI keeps fighting, endlessly, aggressively, even though they're virtually dead and any human player on earth would have attempted to RTB long time since, and would most probably even have failed to do so for critical cumulated damage along the way.

Another pass later, when I smashed my bullets through some apparently unimportant part of the fuselage with no visual effect, the log reports 60% damage suddenly.

 

3 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

having AirBase aggressive AA and use the "AI Return to Base Decision" option woulds be enough to deal with that problem of AI following player home, from my experience making missions, I do this.

That worked to some extent until the 4.x update (from my experience with our Multiplayer Server that is).

For whatever reason, in the latest version of the game AAA success rate depends on aircraft speed to such extent that as long as AI planes keep staying above 350kph, flak simply won't get them.

I have russian airfields covered with 8+ AAA batteries, all "high" level, 2 large, 2 medium, 4 small, with unlimited ammo, shooting like hell.

Yet there's 2 AI Fw 190 A-5 circling above that very airfield at 500m altitude, doing strafing passes at ground objects of choice, for about 15 minutes without ever getting hit.

Now try to attack this same airfield at the very same time with a Henschel and, regardless what you do, you will get blown out of the skies before you even get within MK101 shooting distance. AAA will hit you midships from whatever angle with first round.

 

4 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

There is no conditional "IF then Else logic" available to mission builder

...but lucky us, there's modders out there:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,58745.0.html

 

Mike

[=RS=Stix_09]

24 minutes ago, SAS_Storebror said:

Problems start with how much damage is percieved by what kind of damage inflicted.

For instance, I have plenty of sorties on my back where I've made my AI enemy leak fuel, water and oil massively, yet when I look at the logfiles, these damages seem to only account for less than one percent each - and AI keeps fighting, endlessly, aggressively, even though they're virtually dead and any human player on earth would have attempted to RTB long time since, and would most probably even have failed to do so for critical cumulated damage along the way.

Another pass later, when I smashed my bullets through some apparently unimportant part of the fuselage with no visual effect, the log reports 60% damage suddenly.

 

That worked to some extent until the 4.x update (from my experience with our Multiplayer Server that is).

For whatever reason, in the latest version of the game AAA success rate depends on aircraft speed to such extent that as long as AI planes keep staying above 350kph, flak simply won't get them.

I have russian airfields covered with 8+ AAA batteries, all "high" level, 2 large, 2 medium, 4 small, with unlimited ammo, shooting like hell.

Yet there's 2 AI Fw 190 A-5 circling above that very airfield at 500m altitude, doing strafing passes at ground objects of choice, for about 15 minutes without ever getting hit.

Now try to attack this same airfield at the very same time with a Henschel and, regardless what you do, you will get blown out of the skies before you even get within MK101 shooting distance. AAA will hit you midships from whatever angle with first round.

 

...but lucky us, there's modders out there:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,58745.0.html

 

Mike

I use mainly cannon AA, at airfields, flak AA is not effective (very) at killing planes (its more useful for locating planes. You need to also place them around the field , and set facing directions to give good crossfire.

I have 2 groups setup on airfields (this doesn't show how I do  placement, just the groups)

Lv2 (cannon AA) and lv 3 (flak AA).

This setup takes planes out in about 2-3 minutes of fire, even on current patch level (depending on AI plane numbers).

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09

[Yogiflight]

7 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

Not sure with PWRC , but does that have a decent amount of AA over friendly bases?

No, only a few AA machineguns.

 

7 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

Airfield AA can pretty quickly down enemy AI if set up aggressively.

In missions of the game's career mode, enemy fighters sometimes can follow you over your airfield for hours, without getting hit by AAA. (like Storebror mentioned above)

 

7 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

My opinion is having AirBase aggressive AA and use the "AI Return to Base Decision" option woulds be enough to deal with that problem of AI following player home, from my experience making missions, I do this.

In my experience, AI don't follow me to airbases further behind. For example in the game's career mode, on the Kuban map, flying 109s from Anapa will make russian fighters very often  follow me to my airbase, but if I fly from Taman, they never did this so far.

 

 

I noticed the behaviour, you describe for low priority quite often in ground attack missions with the Bf 110 in PWCG, where you have fighter escort. They jettison bombs, to attack fighters, that get attacked by the escort, before the enemy fighters are even near enough to attack them.

Another strange observation is, the friendly fighter escort attack enemy bombers, instead of the enemy escort fighters and the enemy escort fighters attack my flight of 110s. So the escort fighters don't do, what should be their absolutely highest priority, defending their attack aircrafts.

 

3 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

For whatever reason, in the latest version of the game AAA success rate depends on aircraft speed to such extent that as long as AI planes keep staying above 350kph, flak simply won't get them.

I have russian airfields covered with 8+ AAA batteries, all "high" level, 2 large, 2 medium, 4 small, with unlimited ammo, shooting like hell.

Yet there's 2 AI Fw 190 A-5 circling above that very airfield at 500m altitude, doing strafing passes at ground objects of choice, for about 15 minutes without ever getting hit.

Now try to attack this same airfield at the very same time with a Henschel and, regardless what you do, you will get blown out of the skies before you even get within MK101 shooting distance. AAA will hit you midships from whatever angle with first round.

 

As this might work usually, I often get killed by enemy AAA (usually the 72k 25mm guns) passing their positions in 1K distance at 1K altitude with 400+km/h, flying the 110 E2.

[=RS=Stix_09]

18 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

No, only a few AA machineguns.

 

In missions of the game's career mode, enemy fighters sometimes can follow you over your airfield for hours, without getting hit by AAA. (like Storebror mentioned above)

 

Doesn't surprise me  in career mod that the generated mission do not use enough AA to defend bases. That has also been my experience, which is why I tend not to do this mode of play , I get better results if I just make my own missions, or modify other peoples (but that does require knowing the mission full editor).

PWRC generated missions may be a different prospect (not tested recent versions, only the older versions in past , which was better then inbuilt career play at the time). I think the logic with these is better done than the default career mode missions (and has more custom setup options too). If you want better offline career play and don't want to learn full editor , that's your best option IMHO , over builtin career's.
 

18 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

In my experience, AI don't follow me to airbases further behind. For example in the game's career mode, on the Kuban map, flying 109s from Anapa will make russian fighters very often  follow me to my airbase, but if I fly from Taman, they never did this so far.

 

I noticed the behaviour, you describe for low priority quite often in ground attack missions with the Bf 110 in PWCG, where you have fighter escort. They jettison bombs, to attack fighters, that get attacked by the escort, before the enemy fighters are even near enough to attack them.

Another strange observation is, the friendly fighter escort attack enemy bombers, instead of the enemy escort fighters and the enemy escort fighters attack my flight of 110s. So the escort fighters don't do, what should be their absolutely highest priority, defending their attack aircrafts.

 

This may be related to how mission is built. Its possible to set up a zone of attack (area) for air (and ground also) targets and if you go outside that they no longer attack you.

In short if you do not tell AI exactly what to do (zones of attack on air our ground targets, escort orders on specific objects etc, then AI use default behaviors , and that can lead to very random results (default behaviors are , well ... very basic still in il-2?

 

Escort logic  required you to set very specific programed targets to escort, if not used then the waypoint priority logic (as above post) takes over with very unpredictable results.

 

If you really want to get the most out of offline play then you have to learn to use the full editor. I hope this improves with time, and/or  a more powerful QMB is made, and developers produce a dynamic campaign system. Many have been waiting for this... we are still waiting (and it's not as simple a task as some people on this forum seem to  think it is, based on some posts I've read...).

Edited May 3, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09

[SAS_Storebror]

2 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

Its possible to set up a zone of attack (area) for air (and ground also) targets and if you go outside that they no longer attack you.

Sorry to say but these zone's simply don't keep AI from leaving them and chasing enemy planes all across the map.

All our AI fighter waypoints end in a "combat zone" which is a pretty limited area on the map where AI fighters are supposed to have their clash with each other.

If there's nothing else drawing their attention (and only then...) they'll have their fights in that zone, but as soon as they decide that it's time to chase someone else to death, they'll simply do.

Essentially, any order issued to AI planes which does not have "high" priority is treated by them as a recommendation at best.

And orders with "high" priority are crap because they make your AI planes ignore anything else, for instance the enemy shooting at them from 50 meters behind.

 

Mike

[Gambit21]

Getting fighters to RTB is easy in the editor. It’s simply a mission design consideration - the end.

 

 

 

Simple for a “hand-crafted” mission, less simple to automate with a generator.

[coconut]

1 hour ago, SAS_Storebror said:

And orders with "high" priority are crap because they make your AI planes ignore anything else, for instance the enemy shooting at them from 50 meters behind.

That's true for waypoints, but last time I checked (which was I while ago, I only got back into mission editing recently), a high-prio attack area (air targets) would do the job.

The problem is that the plane flies a boring tight circle pattern.

 

I've started working on a group that combines a check zone (further) with a serpentine-patterned low-priority cycle of waypoints. The pattern covers 30x30 km, the check zone has a radius of 30 (so twice the size of the pattern). The check zone is triggered when the fighter enters the pattern (which is inside the zone), and when the fighter leaves the zone, the check zone triggers a medium prio way point (could be high if needed) that brings back the fighter inside the zone, and leads into the pattern again.

 

I haven't tested the thing yet, but I expect it should work. A possible downside is that players could abuse this by dragging the fighter to the edge of the zone, and attack the poor AI when it turns around. But who cares, AIs have no rights.

 

Alternatively, put a high-skilled airfield patrol over the home base to chase intruders away. I suppose that's the way it would normally be done IRL, and the reason why fighters didn't go chase enemies deep into enemy skies.

 

21 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

Getting fighters to RTB is easy in the editor. It’s simply a mission design consideration - the end.

 

 

But that only works if the AI is damaged, bingo fuel or ammo. It doesn't prevent terminator behaviour, at least not until the terminator gets a scratch.

EDIT: Already addressed in an earlier post:

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by coconut

[blitze]

Question for AI chasing down players in Career, do you guys fly with labels enabled?

[Yogiflight]

13 minutes ago, blitze said:

Question for AI chasing down players in Career, do you guys fly with labels enabled?

No, but the AI does

1 hour ago, coconut said:

That's true for waypoints, but last time I checked (which was I while ago, I only got back into mission editing recently), a high-prio attack area (air targets) would do the job.

The problem is that the plane flies a boring tight circle pattern.

Half of the fighter missions in the game's career mode.

[HBB*Hunger]

On 4/17/2017 at 4:48 PM, JG4_Sputnik said:

Had quite a few sorties now (in VR) and with the awesome PWCG (https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/19183-introducing-pat-wilson-campaign-generator-bos/) where I flew the Bf-F4.

However I've noticed that the AI NEVER want to stop fighting. Its so annoying. You can beat the hell out of it, different smoke trails and still they engage and engage.

 

Even worse, they do chase you across the whole map just to entangle you in a 10min circle fight above your base and all you want is to land due to low fuel but it don't let you. Doesn't care about the flak and the fact that it never will make it to home base. Just attacks and attacks stupidly.

 

It's pretty annoying since almost every sortie I've lost about 50-80% of my pilots and mostly in the last 10 mins when two heavily damaged LaGGs or whatever turn and turn and my stupid wingmen dont know how to fight like this and get caught eventually. And no, I can't order them to rtb because I'm not the leader in that scenario.

 

Also I've seen quite some strange behaviour, that there are 4 enemies chasing me (only me) and 100m beside, above and behind them my 5 wingmen fly along and don't even care about the enemy. Could be that they are newbies, but still?

 

Can you please do something against that?

Would be nice, since this pretty much breaks the SP.

 

I think this may is a mission design problem. 

 

"AI return to base" checkbox in ME as well as an active enemy fake field nearby sometimes is the correct way, at least in my experience. In our weekly coops, we rarely experience this behaviour.

 

[SAS_Storebror]

4 hours ago, coconut said:

put a high-skilled airfield patrol over the home base to chase intruders away

 

That's what we do for about a year.

Worked a treat for quite a while, but nowadays the occasionally straying base defense fighter regularly leaves station and follows a random bandit back to his base.

Would need another checkzone to get the base defense to stick to it's orders, which might or might not work, but honestly I'd rather want to see this being addressed by the devs as it's clearly a bug and any workaround implemented on top of it would sooner or later need to be rolled back when they decide to put hands on the issue anyway.

 

Mike

Edited May 3, 2020 by SAS_Storebror

[Gambit21]

10 hours ago, coconut said:

 

But that only works if the AI is damaged, bingo fuel or ammo. It doesn't prevent terminator behaviour, at least not until the terminator gets a scratch.

 

 

 

Negative Ghostrider, I’m not talking about the “return to base decision” in the aircraft settings. Rather you simply use “Force Complete” tied to whatever trigger event that you choose. Easy. 

 

 

 

For instance a check zone around the airbase itself of whatever diameter you choose. From there you pipe in a high priority egress waypoint.

 

You can then further modify the logic to get the enemy aircraft to re-engage if they’re not left alone to RTB after a time.

In my new campaign I have enemy fighter disengage/bug out and RTB after a certain number of them are killed. So far from following you home, they RTB before the players’ flight.

 

The editior will largely do whatever you ask of it - as you well know.

[Sandinourcoffee6]

do the AI always fly back to their nearest airfield when they run out of ammo?

is this implemented in career mode,surely they would not follow you back to your home base or keep fighting if they run out of ammo

[Yogiflight]

32 minutes ago, meplanes1969 said:

do the AI always fly back to their nearest airfield when they run out of ammo?

is this implemented in career mode,surely they would not follow you back to your home base or keep fighting if they run out of ammo

Yes they do. And unlike the player's aircraft, their aircrafts don't get counted as lost, when not returning to the home base.

[vonGraf]

I had an interesting AI behavior recently. The He-111 bomber squad I was escorting got attacked on the way to the target and their leader (and a second plane) were quite badly damaged. Two got shot down. The AI leader decided to return to the base together with the other plane but the rest of the flight did fly to the industrial area though and did a successful bombing.

I followed the procedere by using the external free camera. Saw something like that for the first time after playing the game for a about year now. Nice. (Even if it happened maybe by 'accident')

[RedeyeStorm]

@vonGraf, this behaviour I have seen it a lot. I am flying both a Ju88 and Pe2 campaign on Moskou and I prefer to fly as wingman.

[hebog5]

I only play single player and only PWCG, but even so, it is so tedious being chased by long lines of enemy AI [some smoking] all over the landscape and squad mates turning aimlessly [it seems] elsewhere. Such a pity with a game as good looking as this.

As a matter of interest, is there some way of calling for assistance from friendly flight?

By the way I play both sides and can see no difference in AI "behaviour".

[=EAustral=Topeka]

 

What a pity! two excellent simulators (RoF and BoX) ruined by a lobotomized AI ... I am surprised that the SP part is so neglected, evidently they think that we only fly dogfights and they do not take into account that there are squads that we are interested in flying historical single or cooperative campaigns against the AI

[Varibraun]

To be fair, this is a very old post and there has been massive improvement in the GB AI over the past 6 months.  I play almost exclusively SP, and mostly PWCG, and I haven't seen the OP Topic problem/issue in a long time.   

 

Personally, I do not feel at all neglected by the Devs as a SP in GB, and I have been happy seeing the recent strides forward on AI.  I also think these are continuing based on very recent Dev @-DED-Rapidus responses looking into AI behavior issues that have been raised.

[kendo]

Yeah, there has been progress on the issues described in the OP - I've read some posts in recent weeks specifically commenting on damaged enemy AI heading home, and the 'pursue back to your base issue" seems to have been either resolved or reduced to a more reasonable level.

 

And there has been a really big focus on improving the AI for the past year or more, so in that regard I don't feel single player has been short-changed. On the contrary the improvements are much appreciated by many of us. Not perfect yet (and probably never will be) but work is ongoing, and I look forward to seeing the tactical level AI improvements that they are currently working on.

 

 

[-DED-Rapidus]

Thank you for your kind words, the work is really underway, if there are tracks and videos with which we can reproduce the problem with AI, then consider half the work already done.

[danielprates]

Holy necro, corpseman!

 

This has indeed been vastly improved over the years. For example, I have never again seen an enemy fighter follow me all the way back to my home airbase and bother me while I am landing.

[twilson37]

Yes I too have found tremendous improvement in the AI when it comes to chasing another fighter. Twice now in a Hurricane I was pursued by 109s while damaged, they continued to press their attack until I crossed Allied lines or got a significant distance from the objective in which case they broke off and returned to their assigned patrol area.   I have also found the enemy AI to much better at teamwork. In my last two missions I was unable to press my attack because another enemy aircraft attempt to bounce me while I was on his wingman's six.

 

The hard work refining the AI has certainly not gone unnoticed.  

[Elem]

I watched a rather comical incident the other night on the Stalingrad map. The main event was over, and toward the end I damaged this 109 as he was on approach to land, taking off his LH main wheel. I let him be at that point, so as I could watch the inevitable prang and then get credited with his kill. However, he aborted the landing and proceeded to fly around with gear and flaps down until he came upon a fellow Hurricane who was himself in the landing circuit. The 109 was lazily taking pot shots at the Hurri, but doing little damage, so the Hurri was able to land without further incident. The 109 then set course for his own field, and as he entered the circuit, raised his flaps and landing gear, only to lower them again on finals. He made a decent landing considering the loss of his wheel but bent his prop in the process. All that and I still didn't get credit for him!

 

[dburne]

20 hours ago, danielprates said:

Holy necro, corpseman!

 

This has indeed been vastly improved over the years. For example, I have never again seen an enemy fighter follow me all the way back to my home airbase and bother me while I am landing.

 

I still see it occasionally, certainly better though than it used to be.

[Cpt_Siddy]

On 4/18/2017 at 5:10 AM, Gambit21 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bah, you made it before me!