A.I bail out

[HagarTheHorrible]

Human players may not be aware of, or much care, about how damaged their aircraft is or how much smoke and fluids are belching into the environment. Human players, by and large, don't care if they die in an all out last desperate throw of the dice. It's behavior that for the majority probably won't change much.

 

The A.I however should really behave as if they care about the odds. In my experience they only ever seem to bail out as a last resort and I mean last resort. They might be trailing fluids and belching smoke from every orifice, they might have no chance of escape but continuing the fight seems to be their only concern until their aircraft is utterly incapable of further resistance. I would think that only the most die hard, committed, death or glory types would stay with an aircraft to the bitter end. Most would way up the odds, probably realize their aircraft is about to give up the ghost and that having the enemy bearing down on you to administer the coup de grace is not going to end well and it's time to part company.

 

Further to that, an aircraft might be trailing thick black smoke but it never seems to manifest itself into a fire, sure aircraft catch fire but that seems to be a direct effect not a related gradually happening effect. It would be nice to see smoke gradually developing into an increasingly intense fire, licking across the wing or fuselage.

Edited July 12, 2017 by HagarTheHorrible

[Voidhunger]

Human players may not be aware of, or much care, about how damaged their aircraft is or how much smoke and fluids are belching into the environment. Human players, by and large, don't care if they die in an all out last desperate throw of the dice. It's behavior that for the majority probably won't change much.

 

The A.I however should really behave as if they care about the odds. In my experience they only ever seem to bail out as a last resort and I mean last resort. They might be trailing fluids and belching smoke from every orifice, they might have no chance of escape but continuing the fight seems to be their only concern until their aircraft is utterly incapable of further resistance. I would think that only the most die hard, committed, death or glory types would stay with an aircraft to the bitter end. Most would way up the odds, probably realize their aircraft is about to give up the ghost and that having the enemy bearing down on you to administer the coup de grace is not going to end well and it's time to part company.

 

Further to that, an aircraft might be trailing thick black smoke but it never seems to manifest itself into a fire, sure aircraft catch fire but that seems to be a direct effect not a related gradually happening effect. It would be nice to see smoke gradually developing into an increasingly intense fire, licking across the wing or fuselage.

+1

 

Gradualy increased fire is what i would like to see too. That was modeled in clod to some degree

 

But I think, that in the career mode they will try to fly home. In quick missions sometimes too.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Voidhunger

[Blutaar]

This exactly is another thing i really dont like about the AI. They not only jump out from a seriously damaged plane, most often they try to fight till they stall out of the sky while being alive and still dont jump and explode on impact. lol 

Sometimes, in the campaign, they fly homewards but this is not the norm and happens only rarely to me even with black smoke and cooling leaks. If it happens it is really nice because most often i have all of them focusing on me. 

 

I hope at some point the devs will make better AIs with restircted views to better reflect aircombat where most kills was made without the enemy knowing that he will get shot at. I really want some of the easy kills i see in YT videos where people get jumped while target fixated or just not knowing that there is a bandit coming from above him. What i get in SP is the AI allways knowing that im coming, no matter from which angle even if im in the low six they see me on the radar screen or so. If they are behind a friendly AI they notice me at 500-400m range and then turn or whobble around like crazy. The focusing on player is the reason why i have to fly with icons on in campaign because the AI allways knows where i am and you cant be aware of 4+ enemys who trying to kill you all together while playing without icons. At least i cant and it just ends in frustration if i try. I play SP because i want to be the Hartmann and not the poor guy who gets killed on his first mission.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Ishtaru

[unreasonable]

I believe that the damaged AI will only attempt to head for home if the nearest enemy is further than X away, other wise it will continue to fight.  I agree with the OP that sometimes this leads to odd looking behaviour:  on the other hand you cannot expect a damaged plane to just turn towards home while you line it up for a killing blow.  Perhaps the desire to bail should be higher if enemy are within the X distance.  I do think that any plane on a ground attack mission that takes anything more than trivial damage should abort, at least after it's current attack run.

 

Most of the time I do not notice AI strangeness - too busy panicking!

[Wraithzlt]

I agree with OP.

My main complaint is the AI not bailing after you have set their fighter on fire. They continue engaging until their plane burns to pieces or the pilot burns to death...

This happens when I am fighting AI in the duel.

[JetlinerX]

+1 on OP.  It kinda sucks to have to Swiss cheese someone before they are willing to give up the ghost.

[hames123]

Well, on the Eastern Front there would be rather large incentives for pilots to escape and return to their lines instead of bailing out, since there was a chance that they would be executed on landing. However, a plane on fire should almost always have the crew bail out, since that is an almost assured death, with no chance of escape unless the crew manage to jump out.