Bodenplatte defense of the reich and bombers

[MasserME262]

You must be very careful when talking about FM or code of the game. This applies for EVERY forum of EVERY game, actually.

 

While I know devs are working hard to give us the best product they can, trying to make everyone happy while trying to pay themselves their own food (I wouldn't spend any amount of money if It wasn't the case), I do have to sincerely admit that I think AI gunners consuming considerable amounts of CPU is something that need to be fixed, and any excuse like "but its difficult" or "make your own company" is not acceptable.

 

The salty or even dumb questions some people give are just beyond me.

 

Yes, they have their priorities and they are not the biggest team in the world, that's totally OK, and I will keep supporting them every time I can. But people getting salty... makes me want to comment salty things against them, sorry.

[Gambit21]

1 hour ago, VO101Kurfurst said:

 

Yet I wonder how Aces over Europe managed to present a belieable model a dozen or so B-17s with gunners, escorts and an attacking Schwarm plus Leuna oil works itself on my 66 MHz CPU without any dedicated graphics card.

 

I do not buy the CPU load for gunners.

 

 

 

What you "buy" is neither here nor there however, nor is "10 years ago"

[Sunde]

Whilst it might be a dead horse, it definitly is something that is holding back the game, i was pretty happy with how 1946 handled larger formations of bombers. And that was back when intel was on its first generation of "core" processors if i am not mistaken... With how much "praise" the AI is given in this thread, i have to say personally dont think the AI is doing very well... Given how immensly complicated it is? 
  In before comments saying - go play 1946 then, or program your own AI. 
This place is slowly turning into the ED forums, just less active...  

[ShamrockOneFive]

31 minutes ago, EAF_Sunde said:

Whilst it might be a dead horse, it definitly is something that is holding back the game, i was pretty happy with how 1946 handled larger formations of bombers. And that was back when intel was on its first generation of "core" processors if i am not mistaken... With how much "praise" the AI is given in this thread, i have to say personally dont think the AI is doing very well... Given how immensly complicated it is? 
  In before comments saying - go play 1946 then, or program your own AI. 
This place is slowly turning into the ED forums, just less active...  

 

I don't think people give enough credit to the AI that we have. The AI is not perfect but it does do a pretty good job and quite unlike DCS World, the AI here fly the same flight models that we do so there's far less weird stuff happening with them then I've seen in the original IL-2 and in DCS World (I've seen some positively weird AI aircraft behavior there). So that part is good and actually fairly impressive.

 

I think the problem is that the AI haven't really improved that much from a tactical standpoint. Their routines got a lot more efficient for about the same result and the most recent patch has given them the odd new trick but mostly its what we launched with.

 

My understanding for the reason for that is because they don't have an AI programmer dedicated to the job. They may have early on but not since then. So that does make it hard for the team to really push forward on this without a dedicated programmer who deals with something complex like AI. That's a specialists job.

 

My hope continues to be that the series does well and they have more opportunities to expand the team. It seems that developing three titles including a Tank Sim is a net benefit because it means they appear to have a soldier/pilot creator and animator on staff again and that appears to be benefiting all three projects.

Edited January 30, 2019 by ShamrockOneFive

[Sunde]

12 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

 

I don't think people give enough credit to the AI that we have. The AI is not perfect but it does do a pretty good job and quite unlike DCS World, the AI here fly the same flight models that we do so there's far less weird stuff happening with them then I've seen in the original IL-2 and in DCS World (I've seen some positively weird AI aircraft behavior there). So that part is good and actually fairly impressive.

 

I think the problem is that the AI haven't really improved that much from a tactical standpoint. Their routines got a lot more efficient for about the same result and the most recent patch has given them the odd new trick but mostly its what we launched with.

 

My understanding for the reason for that is because they don't have an AI programmer dedicated to the job. They may have early on but not since then. So that does make it hard for the team to really push forward on this without a dedicated programmer who deals with something complex like AI. That's a specialists job.

 

My hope continues to be that the series does well and they have more opportunities to expand the team. It seems that developing three titles including a Tank Sim is a net benefit because it means they appear to have a soldier/pilot creator and animator on staff again and that appears to be benefiting all three projects.

I agree that the AI we have is MUUUCH better than the old Il-2, i just like how the larger formations were handled, that worked pretty well i think.

   I am sure there is no easy fix, otherwise they would surely do it. However i see no issue with people voicing their concern, i think its fine to ask for better/faster/smarter/more efficient AI, or simple AI to allow larger formations. We might never get it, or who knows, we just might? This game has come a long way. 

[ShamrockOneFive]

23 minutes ago, EAF_Sunde said:

I agree that the AI we have is MUUUCH better than the old Il-2, i just like how the larger formations were handled, that worked pretty well i think.

   I am sure there is no easy fix, otherwise they would surely do it. However i see no issue with people voicing their concern, i think its fine to ask for better/faster/smarter/more efficient AI, or simple AI to allow larger formations. We might never get it, or who knows, we just might? This game has come a long way. 

 

Completely agree. I think reasonable requests, suggestions, etc are a great way for the developers to get a sense of what the community is focused on. IMHO, I think there's a pretty good feedback loop between what we say here and our interactions with the devs and what ultimately shows up in the product.

 

We wanted things like improved draw distances and they have tried to execute on that as best as they could removing the haze effect at 30km and pushing it to 160km. We wanted rain drops. They gave us raindrops. We wanted more AI being able to operate on the ground and to be able to taxi from parking to runway, they gave us that. There's definitely a sense that I have at least that our communications with them are helping drive things forward when they can.

 

It's just that what we want right now and what the developers can deliver 6-months or 12-months or 24-months later isn't... right now

[Gambit21]

42 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

 

Completely agree. I think reasonable requests, suggestions, etc are a great way for the developers to get a sense of what the community is focused on. IMHO, I think there's a pretty good feedback loop between what we say here and our interactions with the devs and what ultimately shows up in the product.

 

We wanted things like improved draw distances and they have tried to execute on that as best as they could removing the haze effect at 30km and pushing it to 160km. We wanted rain drops. They gave us raindrops. We wanted more AI being able to operate on the ground and to be able to taxi from parking to runway, they gave us that. There's definitely a sense that I have at least that our communications with them are helping drive things forward when they can.

 

It's just that what we want right now and what the developers can deliver 6-months or 12-months or 24-months later isn't... right now

 

Sensible as ever.

On another note, AI is of couse changing/improving. Sure sometimes it takes a step back, but that is generally short lived,  then it takes two steps forwards.

Case in point...it wasn't so long ago that we wouldn't have seen an AI 190, use it's energy in such an appropriate fashion and going vertical like this.

It's trying to attack a much slower U2, and after each pass it uses the vertical nicely. This was nice to see.

 

 

[Solmyr]

3 hours ago, Uffz-Prien said:

I recall putting over 100 He111s into the air in CloD and it ran pretty good. Lots of fighters in the mix too. It did turn into a bit of a stutter-fest down on the ground in London when all the bombs came down but the mission ran and all the planes were shooting at each other. This was like ten years ago?

 

Wait.. Wh... What ?!

I remember having wasted 80 euros buying the gold edition of CloD 10 years ago, spending hours to try get 40 fps @ low settings while flying over the cliffs (not London) with only 2, 3 or 4 fighters in all. Was really a pain. Then I have to admit that I left the boat before TF got their hands on it.

I tried it again when they "gifted" me Blitz and didn't get convinced, yet I prolly didn't give it its chance. That's the story of this miscarriage : The mood was too bad when it got released and it just was a very bad joke at the time... ?

[Feathered_IV]

I think that making any really significant changes to the AI now will mean pulling on too many threads and a full rewrite would probably be the only answer, but one that the team could not realistically contemplate.  

 

It only gets harder as the game progresses.   Consider the AI chatter for example.  Changes to the repetition and scripting could not be done - according to Han in 2017, because it would mean re-recording the two voices.  In future any changes will mean revising four sets of voices.   Making the likelihood much less, er... likely

 

I reckon just ride it out and maybe one day there will be a Digital Nature II engine, where AI limitations are taken into account  early on in the design, and steps made to reduce the load and increase numbers.  

 

[Field-Ops]

11 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

It only gets harder as the game progresses.   Consider the AI chatter for example.  Changes to the repetition and scripting could not be done - according to Han in 2017, because it would mean re-recording the two voices.  In future any changes will mean revising four sets of voices.   Making the likelihood much less, er... likely

Jason's recent request of the community for voice lines hints at great things to come for radio chatter. Some of the lines I havent seen examples of such as giving distances and directions to targets being engaged. It may not be an overhaul but it indicates some changes will be made. 

 

I also think most of the current radio chatter's problems come from its repetition and monotony. It doesn't help that I cant understand the native languages being spoken but it all sounds the same and terribly washed out. I wonder if Jason could even go as far as to record German and Russian accents in English to see of someone wants to override the current radio calls.

[Feathered_IV]

2 hours ago, Field-Ops said:

Jason's recent request of the community for voice lines hints at great things to come for radio chatter. 

 

I haven’t followed it beyond the first call out, where Jason said don’t ask for changes, because there is no time or resources to deviate from the current setup.  If you've heard of any great things that are to come I’d be interested to know.  

[Panzerlang]

I've learned this much from FPS coding, that the difference between having 40 v 40 and 50 v 50 humans in MP means only the single-shot rifles and MGs can have full ballistics models due to the load on the CPU and netcode having to calculate every single bullet. The SMGs and pistols have to use hitscan. I suspect the solutions for bomber AI gunners involved using that and would account for the old complaints of "sniper gunners". The gunners we have now in IL2 are way better than those of the past. In the original IL2 it *was* fun as heck to wade into massive B17 formations over the Reich but not so much to know one pass was your lot (most of the time). Having read a lot of memoirs since then it turns out it was actually quite realistic.

So, would it be much more fun now? Take off, climb to 30k feet, one pass and bye bye plane? Maybe for a week or so, then the servers offering those missions would likely end up flying tumbleweed.

So I reckon the twin-engine tactical strikes in smaller formations is most likely going to be the bigger crowd-pleaser. Mud-movers like flying planes they can chuck around anyway, not bus-driving viermots.

[EAF19_Marsh]

11 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

All AI aircraft use the same sophisticated flight model as the player aircraft, with every one of them using a very tight decision loop.

You can see this by watching the controls move when using autopilot.

 

Sure, my point was more that a bomber formation does not require this degree of sophistication. Indeed (see the DF'ing A-20s) you do not want them to maneuver to any great extent. Thus if 1 bomber has full AI and the remainder have very limited sophistication, is that not one way of overcoming the load issue? Obviously this takes time and energy, but a 'drone' bomber devoid of anything but a 'follow-the-leader' programme (gunner AI also simplified to very basic arcs / shots) is a possible route to accomplish larger formations.

 

Not saying it is perfect or easy, but it is an option.

[Voidhunger]

I would like to have at least 20 B25/26 bombers with 8 mustangs vs 4-8 axis planes. Together with flak, ground units and long lasting smoke and fire. Fast and smooth gameplay and i will be happy.

[Feathered_IV]

18 minutes ago, Voidhunger said:

I would like to have at least 20 B25/26 bombers with 8 mustangs vs 4-8 axis planes. Together with flak, ground units and long lasting smoke and fire. Fast and smooth gameplay and i will be happy.

 

Me too.  It used to be possible many years ago, but somehow we have taken a massive step backwards.

 

I fear that flight sims will eventually die of sophistication.

[Voidhunger]

I dont want to upset Jason and the team, but i would really like to know, if its possible to drastically reduce cpu load and add more planes and units in the near future and if not - is it possible to simplified fm for AI. What i mean is, if the team ever considered switch to simplified AI fm.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Voidhunger

[Brano]

I'd rather have properly fleshed out Pacific Theatre of Operations then suicidal (+repetitive,boring and frustrating) attacks against flying fortress boxes. Facing dozens of Ma Deuces, collecting the lead and consequently processing ones plane into heat and light....sounds like good receipt for rage-quit for many jagdwaffe enthusiasts used to easy victories over technologicly sub-par east front enemy.

[Voidhunger]

17 minutes ago, Brano said:

I'd rather have properly fleshed out Pacific Theatre of Operations then suicidal (+repetitive,boring and frustrating) attacks against flying fortress boxes. Facing dozens of Ma Deuces, collecting the lead and consequently processing ones plane into heat and light....sounds like good receipt for rage-quit for many jagdwaffe enthusiasts used to easy victories over technologicly sub-par east front enemy.

Boring for you, not for me.

[CanadaOne]

9 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

 

Sensible as ever.

On another note, AI is of couse changing/improving. Sure sometimes it takes a step back, but that is generally short lived,  then it takes two steps forwards.

 

 

I was going to say exactly that.

 

If the game was as-is, there might be some legitimate gripes - I would have one in particular - but given the WIP reality of it, and the constant improvements, I think a little patience is in order.

 

In some ways the game has already exceeded expectations. I'm sure that will continue.

 

[Voidhunger]

Yep, game is constantly improved which is great . Im curious about new things and improvements which will come this year. I hope that the new update is close i like updates:)

[danielprates]

Come to think of it... the upcoming B25 has no less than 5 firing positions: nose, rear, dorsal and 2 ventral. So aren't we already in the dreaded "too much info for CPU to handle" area?

[RedKestrel]

3 minutes ago, danielprates said:

Come to think of it... the upcoming B25 has no less than 5 firing positions: nose, rear, dorsal and 2 ventral. So aren't we already in the dreaded "too much info for CPU to handle" area?

They have made some small improvements in the AI in terms of reducing the amount of resources they use. Its likely just enough to support small numbers of bombers with 5 positions.  A B-17 or B-24 is still nearly an order of magnitude more complicated. 

As an aside, its really funny to me to see people asking for simplified flight models for the AI. I got into Il-2 1946 pretty late when the AI had been hugely improved, and the constant gripe about it was that the AI 'cheated' with a simplified FM. It was considered by quite a few people that it was the biggest problem in the game, and that old Il-2 should have had AI using the same FM as the player from the very beginning. 

 

[Voidhunger]

Thats the problem. Simplified fm or not.

For me i would like to have simplified fm and ai for the 4engined heavies or even B25(in formation), and normal fm/ai for fighters. Or an option in the dificulty settings to turn on simplified fm/ai which is probably not possible to have. But more and more im thinking about it i would rather have simplified fm and have living world on the ground and sky full of planes.

Ai is already cheating. See you all the time, sometimes see you through the clouds, sniping etc

[RedKestrel]

8 minutes ago, Voidhunger said:

Thats the problem. Simplified fm or not.

For me i would like to have simplified fm and ai for the 4engined heavies or even B25(in formation), and normal fm/ai for fighters. Or an option in the dificulty settings to turn on simplified fm/ai which is probably not possible to have. But more and more im thinking about it i would rather have simplified fm and have living world on the ground and sky full of planes.

Ai is already cheating. See you all the time, sometimes see you through the clouds, sniping etc

With the more sophisticated flight modeling done here, I think it would be very difficult to simplify the FM for AI without a ton of work, and then maintain the two parallel FMs with the amount of tweaking and updates that happens to the modeling in game. Time better spent on optimization of what we have (e.g. the number of control corrections the AI does in flight).

In my experience the AI cant' see me through dense cloud. I think the issue is the graphical representation of cloud. Sometimes you are in the cloud and can't see anything, while you are perfectly visible outside. Its  not a perfect implementation. However, I evade the AI regularly by diving or climbing through clouds, and I've definitely managed to come in undetected, though its very difficult. Basically it seems they don't have a field of view for detection, but if you come in from a direction where its literally impossible to be seen they won't see you. They're simultaneously looking in all directions that they can physically see through.

[danielprates]

2 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

As an aside, its really funny to me to see people asking for simplified flight models for the AI. I got into Il-2 1946 pretty late when the AI had been hugely improved, and the constant gripe about it was that the AI 'cheated' with a simplified FM. It was considered by quite a few people that it was the biggest problem in the game, and that old Il-2 should have had AI using the same FM as the player from the very beginning. 

 

I remember discussions like that too. I guess people are never happy!

2 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

They have made some small improvements in the AI in terms of reducing the amount of resources they use. Its likely just enough to support small numbers of bombers with 5 positions.  A B-17 or B-24 is still nearly an order of magnitude more complicated

 

I am not one of those advocating large daylight bomber formations, just to be clear. I would be in favor, though, of a night bombing campaign with halifaxes and lancasters. The turret limit, at least, seems to be surpassed! But I admit I am probably alone in wanting such a sim, its probably not everyone's cup of tea. Besides it would require all sorts of new radio and radar navigation gizmos.

Edited January 30, 2019 by danielprates

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, Voidhunger said:

See you all the time, sometimes see you through the clouds, sniping etc

 

Except they don't see you through clouds and in the dark. 

[gad11]

AI takes a ton of power. I play a lot of Xplane and there is a huge difference in performance for me when I disable AI aircraft. And those AI planes aren't doing much.

 

The key would be some sort of mod or addon. Like with Xplane or P3D, a good air traffic addon will add the AI externally so it won't effect processing power of the actual sim. So while 3 AI aircraft would have a serious effect on my sim when turned on within the sim, when I used an external addon, I would have hundreds of aircraft in the sim with little hit to my performance. 

[danielprates]

With the advent of 3rd party developers, anything can happen.

[Voidhunger]

40 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Except they don't see you through clouds and in the dark. 

 

they see you period. Maybe in the middle of the clouds they dont see you, but at the edges (when I dont see enemy plane because is hidden by the clouds) they see you.

If you want to hide you have to flight through certain part of the cloud which is probably in the middle.

 

Edit: or maybe you have be at certain distance from the enemy

Edited January 30, 2019 by Voidhunger

[Gambit21]

15 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Except they don't see you through clouds and in the dark. 

 

Yep - in fact I’m working on a mission and trying to find the optimum time of morning or evening when it’s somewhat dark’ish but where the AI will still attack (190 attacking U2)

 

I could use a wee bit more dawn/dusk vision on the part of the AI.

[354thFG_Leifr]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

Except they don't see you through clouds and in the dark. 

 

Yes they bloody do, they have quicker vision than any human pilot ever could!

Edited January 30, 2019 by Leifr

[Gambit21]

36 minutes ago, Leifr said:

 

Yes they bloody do, they have quicker vision than any human pilot ever could!

 

Please send me a mission file where you’re getting attacked in the dark.

[Royal_Flight]

What would people think about dedicated AI-only aircraft?

Simplified FM that basically just goes level in a straight line, simplified AI that just needs to fly in formation with others, full-fidelity damage model but no systems modelling.

Basically a 3D template that moves, with no aspiration to ever become flyable in future - just a target to escort or intercept. 

 

Could be a way to include bombers, recon, transport and maritime patrol aircraft that might otherwise a) impact performance, and b) may not sell as well as frontline combat aircraft as their roles are less popular, but still add enough depth and ambience that they should be included. 

[Elem]

1 minute ago, Royal_Flight said:

What would people think about dedicated AI-only aircraft?

Simplified FM that basically just goes level in a straight line, simplified AI that just needs to fly in formation with others, full-fidelity damage model but no systems modelling.

Basically a 3D template that moves, with no aspiration to ever become flyable in future - just a target to escort or intercept. 

 

Could be a way to include bombers, recon, transport and maritime patrol aircraft that might otherwise a) impact performance, and b) may not sell as well as frontline combat aircraft as their roles are less popular, but still add enough depth and ambience that they should be included. 

Well the B-25 will be the first and I don't expect the last. I think we'll see more, just so long as their development doesn't hold up that of the fully modelled stuff.

[Cpt_Cool]

AI bombers will always have to do a bit more than just fly in formation. For instance, a damaged/crippled plane will have to make believable decisions. I am fine with the FM and especially AI logic to be simplified, but I would be much less enthusiastic about a simplified DM on the AI planes. However, in order to keep the DM relatively sophisticated would likely require more than bare bones pilot AI.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Cpt_Cool

[BraveSirRobin]

Changing the AI to use a simplified FM would probably be just as big a project as changing the current AI to use less processing resources, so that probably isn’t going to happen.

[RedKestrel]

16 minutes ago, BraveSirRobin said:

Changing the AI to use a simplified FM would probably be just as big a project as changing the current AI to use less processing resources, so that probably isn’t going to happen.

I would say probably bigger. There's probably some low-hanging fruit left for optimization that doesn't require getting too deep into the guts of the AI. And then whenever you make a new plane, you have to make two FMs...one for the player, and one simplified one for the AI. Not so much a problem in Il2-1946 when things were simpler in terms of flight and physics modeling, but a big headache in a more sophisticated sim. 
 

 

[sevenless]

12 hours ago, Royal_Flight said:

What would people think about dedicated AI-only aircraft? 

 

I have Zero problem with that. Everything which adds variety in the machine park of the present theatres is welcome. What I can think of is SB-2s, Il-4s, Il-6s, Tu-2 and Tu-3s, B-26 Marauders, Blenheims, Beaufighters, A-26 Invaders. etc. Everything which would spice up the target drone environment.

Edited January 31, 2019 by sevenless

[Voidhunger]

I have zero problem to BUY AI aircraft only, because I dont think the team will release AI planes without the whole BOX pack for free.

Its too much work with FM and 3d model to do it for free.

[Gambit21]

13 hours ago, Royal_Flight said:

What would people think about dedicated AI-only aircraft?

 

All over it.

In the old IL2 we had a lot of those and they came in handy for scenery when building missions.