Invisible Planes Bug

[Hellequin13]

@Oliver88 Go ahead and post the second video. I keep my gunner positions locked to prevent random people from jumping in, so that was AI doing the firing.

 

The AI gunner was definitely tracking/firing at something.  The invisible "contact" was on my high 9, moving astern, at a height that I had to roll slightly right to allow my gunner to continue firing (too high of an angle for the AI). The way the contact was moving into position, I fully expected to see an F pop into view, guns blazing, but whatever the AI had locked on to moved off without out further incident. Very strange.

[J5_Adam]

53 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Stationery mg fire from empty place but more at ground level was observed during FIF and yesterday at Flugpark. 

 

I've seen exactly both of those in RoF multiplayer

[RNAS10_Oliver]

8 hours ago, Hellequin13 said:

@Oliver88 Go ahead and post the second video. I keep my gunner positions locked to prevent random people from jumping in, so that was AI doing the firing.

 

The AI gunner was definitely tracking/firing at something.  The invisible "contact" was on my high 9, moving astern, at a height that I had to roll slightly right to allow my gunner to continue firing (too high of an angle for the AI). The way the contact was moving into position, I fully expected to see an F pop into view, guns blazing, but whatever the AI had locked on to moved off without out further incident. Very strange.

 

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NtKszG_DN0YdzDnApLf72v_t6kiN4SJU

 

Believe that this was sometime between 21:08:36 GMT and 21:21:51 GMT because after this the track shows us (the two SE5a) going and shooting up a balloon. http://stats.jasta5.org:8000/en/sortie/log/31185/?tour=10 Also looking at your stats for that period @Hellequin13 does not seem as though your gunner hit whatever he thought he was shooting at, shame as that might have been added confirmation that there was a invisible player there.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Oliver88

[No.23_Gaylion]

Zoom out above the "fight" and move away slowly and if there is an invisible plane you will see it come in and out at the 10km bubble. 

[No.23_Triggers]

Noticed while looking through older examples that several have default or 'official' IL2 skins. Perhaps skins are not the issue. 

[J2_Trupobaw]

My money is still on connection (possibly connection between clients), firewall settings, opening high ports etc. Perhaps we should take the wireshark to the FC traffic (the only person I know who succesfully did it in RoF was Plank ).

But I am willing to use the skin panic to promote move from J2 RoF skins to 4k ? .

Edited March 2, 2020 by J2_Trupobaw

[No.23_Gaylion]

It's not skin related. Reading over this thread @us93_furlow stated it happens in WWII on locked skin servers.

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

6 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

My money is still on connection (possibly connection between clients), firewall settings, opening high ports etc. Perhaps we should take the wireshark to the FC traffic (the only person I know who succesfully did it in RoF was Plank ).

But I am willing to use the skin panic to promote move from J2 RoF skins to 4k ? .

Why only the D7? Should happen to any plane. 

I personally think its Wonder woman. 

[No.23_Gaylion]

It's not. I got a cl2 on film.

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

56 minutes ago, US213_Talbot said:

It's not. I got a cl2 on film.

Oh no ?, getting better every day isn't it. 

[WWBiker_]

1 hour ago, US213_Talbot said:

It's not. I got a cl2 on film.

 

41 minutes ago, NO.20_W_M_Thomson said:

Oh no ?, getting better every day isn't it. 

Geeez Whiz Chutes and cloaking ……..we got the wrong end of the stick 

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

1 hour ago, NO.20_D_McGoun said:

 

Geeez Whiz Chutes and cloaking ……..we got the wrong end of the stick 

Don't forget those f'ing cannons. 

[No.23_Gaylion]

 

[RNAS10_Oliver]

On 3/2/2020 at 4:11 PM, US213_Talbot said:

Zoom out above the "fight" and move away slowly and if there is an invisible plane you will see it come in and out at the 10km bubble. 

 

Nah at least on the second video no other aircraft pop into view when the camera is moved beyond that distance. The two aircraft shown at the end of the first video do exhibit that though.

[BMA_Hellbender]

On 3/2/2020 at 4:09 PM, Oliver88 said:

 

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NtKszG_DN0YdzDnApLf72v_t6kiN4SJU

 

Believe that this was sometime between 21:08:36 GMT and 21:21:51 GMT because after this the track shows us (the two SE5a) going and shooting up a balloon. http://stats.jasta5.org:8000/en/sortie/log/31185/?tour=10 Also looking at your stats for that period @Hellequin13 does not seem as though your gunner hit whatever he thought he was shooting at, shame as that might have been added confirmation that there was a invisible player there.

 

Before we start some kind of with hunt (excuse the attention grabbing text):

 

 

I am sorry to say this, but your gunner is likely human, not an AI.

 

 

Notice at around 1:04 in the video how he moves in stutters? That's the human gunner animation bug. Likely your gunner position was not unlocked and someone just joined and started firing randomly. I'm also pretty sure he left your gunner seat at around 1:44.

 

I need to verify if the human gunner animation bug somehow carries over to AI gunners in recorded tracks, but I'm 90% sure this is not the case. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by J5_Hellbender

[RNAS10_Oliver]

Not my gunner. I had considered this.

Quote

There was a second incident involving our "teammates" gunner firing at nothing. However not posting that one as yet as on reflection that could have just been some player jumping in the seat and being dumb. Wait to see what the "teammate" said.

 

On 3/2/2020 at 6:51 AM, Hellequin13 said:

@Oliver88 Go ahead and post the second video. I keep my gunner positions locked to prevent random people from jumping in, so that was AI doing the firing.

 

The AI gunner was definitely tracking/firing at something.  The invisible "contact" was on my high 9, moving astern, at a height that I had to roll slightly right to allow my gunner to continue firing (too high of an angle for the AI). The way the contact was moving into position, I fully expected to see an F pop into view, guns blazing, but whatever the AI had locked on to moved off without out further incident. Very strange.

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Oliver88

[HagarTheHorrible]

10 minutes ago, Oliver88 said:

Not my gunner. I had considered this.

 

 

 

Hi Oliver, You asked me, on Discord chat about my gunner, sorry hadn't got back to you, but tbh, I don't know.  I suspected it might have been a human gunner, jumping in briefly, but I'm not at all certain.

[RNAS10_Oliver]

3 minutes ago, HagarTheHorrible said:

 

Hi Oliver, You asked me, on Discord chat about my gunner, sorry hadn't got back to you, but tbh, I don't know.  I suspected it might have been a human gunner, jumping in briefly, but I'm not at all certain.

 

See post above.

 

You were not with the group at that point. Hellquin was the one using the Bristol. And was him that I was asking on Discord. But got the answer here instead.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Oliver88

[Hellequin13]

@J5_Hellbender

 

I just double checked and confirmed that my gunner positions are indeed locked and unavailable, as they have been for quite some time (a couple of ruined low level runs in a 110 prompted this decision). So if the occupant of my observer's seat was a human there is a new bug to report, however, I do not feel this was the case. Animation issues aside (which were not present from my perspective), the behavior of the gunner (ceasing fire when the "target" was at too high of an angle, but continuing to track it) is indicative of an AI, whereas some fool pulling pot shots would likely have continued to fire regardless of the angle of the gun.

I would love to have a live gunner, as the AI accuracy is quite atrocious, shooting so wide of the mark I often have to send a cease fire command when my wing mates get any where near our target, for fear of hitting them instead. But it is my understanding that you and Capt. Darling (or Helmutt, as he prefers) are not pleased with the implementation in Flying Circus, and find that it would be better to utilize the player as an additional two-seater pilot. (Does this mean we may see Helmutt in the pilot seat again? He was quite deadly back in the day.) Hopefully those issues get addressed at some point, but until then my gunner positions will be manned by AI only.

 

Besides, the AI is a good guard against the invisible plane bug, or so it would seem, though this incident does call that claim into question.

[BMA_Hellbender]

12 hours ago, Hellequin13 said:

@J5_Hellbender

I just double checked and confirmed that my gunner positions are indeed locked and unavailable, as they have been for quite some time (a couple of ruined low level runs in a 110 prompted this decision). So if the occupant of my observer's seat was a human there is a new bug to report, however, I do not feel this was the case. Animation issues aside (which were not present from my perspective), the behavior of the gunner (ceasing fire when the "target" was at too high of an angle, but continuing to track it) is indicative of an AI, whereas some fool pulling pot shots would likely have continued to fire regardless of the angle of the gun.

 

I'm sorry, I'm still very sceptical. This is not how AI gunners move and shoots, which tends to happen in bursts.

Below is a video of how an AI gunner tracks and moves. Notice that while his tracking goes from point to point, his movement animation between those points is smooth.

 

It's especially noticeable when sitting up and back down again.

 

 

 

 

 This is what's currently (still) broken with human gunners in multiplayer, and which you can clearly see in the other video.

 

Just to be sure, did your gunner call out "1st, he's out of range" or "1st, he's destroyed" when he stopped shooting?

 

Also: you need to uncheck rather than check the "unlock" box in order to stop human gunners from joining. This is a rather confusing design decision. A "lock" box would have made more sense.

 

 

 

 

Quote

I would love to have a live gunner, as the AI accuracy is quite atrocious, shooting so wide of the mark I often have to send a cease fire command when my wing mates get any where near our target, for fear of hitting them instead. But it is my understanding that you and Capt. Darling (or Helmutt, as he prefers) are not pleased with the implementation in Flying Circus, and find that it would be better to utilize the player as an additional two-seater pilot. (Does this mean we may see Helmutt in the pilot seat again? He was quite deadly back in the day.) Hopefully those issues get addressed at some point, but until then my gunner positions will be manned by AI only.

 

Besides, the AI is a good guard against the invisible plane bug, or so it would seem, though this incident does call that claim into question.

 

The Halberstadt AI gunner is very good "out of the box" because his vertical angle is limited. The Bristol AI gunner appears worse at first, simply because he can take shots at much higher angles, for which the AI is programmed to be a poor shot at, especially at long range. The trick is to set your gunner to engage at close range only.

 

tilde (command menu) > F3 > F1 > F1

 

 

 

 

We've asked the devs several times to fix human gunners, and they appear to have done some improvements in single player. For multiplayer I think it's better to bury the concept altogether. It takes up a pilot slot and we've basically gone from them being overpowered and counting double kills in RoF, to almost useless and ignored by the parser in FC. Both Darling/Helmutt and I think that FC is the most realistic option of the two — but obviously we're biased, having quite thoroughly "gamed the game" in RoF, and not wanting to repeat this in the more realistic FC setting.

 

As for Helmutt, his conversion to ground attacker is complete. ??

 

http://stats.jasta5.org:8000/en/pilot/108/J5_Helmutt-Sch27b/?tour=10

Edited March 5, 2020 by J5_Hellbender

[No.23_Gaylion]

Actually dude, autolock is something we wanted back in RoF just to keep folks from jumping in without asking and shooting your wings off. 

 

I'd prefer it the way we have it  now.

[BMA_Hellbender]

16 minutes ago, US213_Talbot said:

Actually dude, autolock is something we wanted back in RoF just to keep folks from jumping in without asking and shooting your wings off. 

 

I'd prefer it the way we have it  now.

 

Me too, though I do think it's confusing compared to RoF. It's also very telling that gunners are even more of an afterthought now.

 

Which begs the question: what were they trying to achieve with Tank Crew? The concept is really fun, but the implementation of crew is just as buggy.

 

Anyway, gunners are dead. Long live gunners!

[Hellequin13]

@J5_Hellbender

 

I am absolutely certain that my gunner positions are locked from other players access, and that that was an AI shooting.

Here is what I think you are seeing as the animation "bug". When you record a track with AI as your observer, the positional data is local, and as such, smooth. If Helmutt is riding shotgun, you are receiving positional data across the net code, and sampling rates are affecting the animation, resulting in the stutter. Likewise, in the above track recorded, by Oliver of, my AI gunner, the positional data is being sent over the interwebs and the sampling rate applies, affecting the animation.

 

As stated above, my view of the AI gunner did not exhibit stuttering. Does Helmutt's avatar stutter when you fly together? Just wondering if the issue is reserved to recorded tracks or if it is present when live.

 

If my assumptions are correct, a possible solution to the animation bug might be using the sampled position as a key frame, rather than a hard data point, and apply acceleration/deceleration curves to smooth the altitude and azimuth transitions. The result would be that the bullet trajectory might not align precisely with the muzzle angle during rotations, but that would be less jarring than the janky stuttering animation you are experiencing now.

[BMA_Hellbender]

25 minutes ago, Hellequin13 said:

Here is what I think you are seeing as the animation "bug". When you record a track with AI as your observer, the positional data is local, and as such, smooth. If Helmutt is riding shotgun, you are receiving positional data across the net code, and sampling rates are affecting the animation, resulting in the stutter. Likewise, in the above track recorded, by Oliver of, my AI gunner, the positional data is being sent over the interwebs and the sampling rate applies, affecting the animation.

 

As stated above, my view of the AI gunner did not exhibit stuttering. Does Helmutt's avatar stutter when you fly together? Just wondering if the issue is reserved to recorded tracks or if it is present when live.

 

You're absolutely right and I was wrong!

 

I reviewed the same track but switched to Helmutt's ship, and his AI gunner indeed stutters.

 

I'm almost positive that this is (or at least wasn't) the case in the actual game, and that was a way to distinguish AI gunners from human gunners, but it's clearly not the case in recorded tracks.

 

That said: I don't often look at another ship's AI gunner when it's active, so I may be wrong about that as well. I will check it next time that we perform a ground attack and ask Helmutt to set his to attack ground.

 

 

28 minutes ago, Hellequin13 said:

If my assumptions are correct, a possible solution to the animation bug might be using the sampled position as a key frame, rather than a hard data point, and apply acceleration/deceleration curves to smooth the altitude and azimuth transitions. The result would be that the bullet trajectory might not align precisely with the muzzle angle during rotations, but that would be less jarring than the janky stuttering animation you are experiencing now.

 

It's definitely not a problem with AI gunners in your own ship and it's also not present when you man the gun on your own ship, make a large angle change and then switch to outside views. Difficult to check this in multiplayer as outside views are usually disabled. You can of course record a track and check it in outside views later.

 

Come to think of it, this makes more sense than AI gunners always being smooth and human gunners always stuttering. ?

 

 

Great. Now not only do we have broken animations on all gunners, but you've pretty much confirmed that we have invisible planes which only AI gunners can see. ?‍♂️

 

Who's going to be the one to tell Jason this time?

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

You?

[J2_Trupobaw]

Ok, so today Jakob was flying a  skin that rest of us did not have (so we saw him as wearing default skin). He was still invisible ot all three of us until he fired his guns. I think we can rule out the skinning theory and concentrate on 10km bubble.

Edited March 9, 2020 by J2_Trupobaw

[No.23_Gaylion]

Did you record the track file? And if so, send it to that dude in the thread I created in tech-bugs

[BMA_Hellbender]

I'm getting more convinced that there's tons of invisible planes.

 

Honestly I see a flak firing at "nothing" more often than not, and Helmut and I do seem to get jumped "from out of nowhere" all the time, in spite of having two pairs of eyes scanning around. Even if spotting planes is slightly harder against the ground than it was in RoF, it's not like we're often getting attacked from below considering our altitude, or that this was ever a problem in RoF. If it wasn't for the AI gunners we'd probably just be dead without ever noticing a thing, much like when we started flying FC and were still flying pilot/gunner in the Bristol.

[HagarTheHorrible]

I got the impression that there was a lot more “ambient” flak firing at no obvious targets tonight.  In the past, I often missed seeing targets, because of VR, but using Migoto’s MOD I’m much better at spotting when things are, or aren’t there.

[Cynic_Al]

On 3/5/2020 at 9:51 PM, J5_Hellbender said:

Who's going to be the one to tell Jason this time?

 

I'm not sure I follow;  why would anyone do that?

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

I think you guys are seeing things that aren't there.

[jollyjack]

Our normally quiet dog always barks at cats, also the invisible

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

This is the real problem with this invisible plane issue.  It's bad that a game where spotting is so important doesn't always show you what is there. 

 

What is far worse is that once this is known, the player can never trust what the game is or isn't showing him.

[No.23_Gaylion]

I think this is happening a lot more than we/they realize.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by US213_Talbot

[Cynic_Al]

6 hours ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

This is the real problem with this invisible plane issue.  It's bad that a game where spotting is so important doesn't always show you what is there. 

 

What is far worse is that once this is known, the player can never trust what the game is or isn't showing him.

 

After almost four months of intense debate about a game-breaking bug, someone finally has managed to sum-up the situation quite concisely.  I think the time has come to discuss this situation in another place, otherwise the community is no better than this lot.

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

On 1/27/2020 at 1:09 AM, J5_Baeumer said:

  There is a thread elsewhere on the 1C forum that has been linked in previous posts and where people are asking us to start posting instead of here.....post where the tracks should be posted.  Anyone with useful information can post the tracks on the other thread and/or notify IC privately when they uncover the cause of this bug.  This approach, made by others previously, certainly could go a long way to help this community avoid the unintended consequences of talking a great deal about this known bug, and speculating on it with potentially unintended negative consequences. 

 

[Cynic_Al]

29 minutes ago, J5_Baeumer said:

  There is a thread elsewhere on the 1C forum that has been linked in previous posts and where people are asking us to start posting instead of here

 

When I said 'another place', that's not what I had in mind.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Good news is that firing the pistol breaks the invisibility. If 1C made a feature that "fires" a pistol on each clients side, once per minute (even if pilot has no pistol equipped and is inside closed cockpit; just make 0 damage blank pistol and send the network traffic corresponding to firing it into the air), the invisibility would be broken. It's an ugly workaround that does not touch the root cause, but if it's stupid and it works...

Mission makers could also add a visual / sound signal to remind pilots do decloak. My proposal of signal to be played  .
 

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by J2_Trupobaw

[SeaW0lf]

6 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Mission makers could also add a visual / sound signal to remind pilots do decloak. My proposal of signal to be played

 

That would be stressful / plus an atmosphere breaker ?

[HagarTheHorrible]

All the game developers need to do, is add an “event” non observable by players, that performs the same function as firing the guns.  It really can’t be that hard ?