AI experience/proficiency settings

[DocDocbruno]

Several of you have commented about setting enemy experience at "Ace" or other levels of proficiency.  How or where does one do that in a single player campaign?  I only see "Options" which include things such as 1) starting missions in the air or on the ground, 2) difficulty of Easy, Moderate or Hard, and 3) Density of front line activity.  I start in the air to save time, and "fly" at the hard level with the maximum density of opponents.  Some of those guys go after me as though they are aces with a personal score to settle but I'd like to know if I'm missing something in settings.  Just curious and thanks, B

[Gambit21]

These settings are in the aircraft attributes dialogue in the editor, you have no way to change them in the career.

You can open a career mission afterwords the editor and see what the AI is set at however, in case you're curious.

 

[unreasonable]

@LukeFF posted a while ago:

 

"I did some more testing this weekend and figured out the AI skill levels at each difficulty level. Note: these skill levels apply only to planes outside your squadron. Your squadron's pilots can be any skill level:

 

Easy: friendly pilots Expert, enemy pilots Novice

Moderate: friendly pilots Veteran, enemy pilots Regular

Hard: friendly pilots Regular, enemy pilots Veteran"

 

I have not checked these myself, but @LukeFF knows what he is talking about. Usually.   

[Ribbon]

4 hours ago, unreasonable said:

@LukeFF posted a while ago:

 

"I did some more testing this weekend and figured out the AI skill levels at each difficulty level. Note: these skill levels apply only to planes outside your squadron. Your squadron's pilots can be any skill level:

 

Easy: friendly pilots Expert, enemy pilots Novice

Moderate: friendly pilots Veteran, enemy pilots Regular

Hard: friendly pilots Regular, enemy pilots Veteran"

 

I have not checked these myself, but @LukeFF knows what he is talking about. Usually.   

So there is no Ace lvl in career?

[unreasonable]

In the ME the AI levels for planes are given as "Ace-High-Normal-Low"  

 

So I assume in @LukeFF's post he means Ace = Expert, High = Veteran, Normal = Regular, Low = Novice". 

 

So if the career settings are as he said, then you will find Ace settings only in your own side in Easy, or on other settings for your squadron wingmen if they if they get enough experience, but not in enemy aircraft. 

 

As Gambit said, you can check by loading the last career  mission in the ME. 

[Feathered_IV]

Hmm.  I wonder if there is some way to mod the career so every aircraft is set to Ace?

[Yogiflight]

26 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

Hmm.  I wonder if there is some way to mod the career so every aircraft is set to Ace?

TBH I am more for the model Patrick did in his Campaign Generator, to bind the pilot's skills to the rank of the pilots, and I think experience points, for kills and so on.

[Gretsch_Man]

To have all the AI pilots set to the same proficiency level no matter which level you choose isn't very realistic anyway. It would be much better to have various types of pilots (ace, veteran etc.) showing up during campaign missions. But I don't know whether that's possible technically.

[Gambit21]

15 hours ago, Feathered_IV said:

Hmm.  I wonder if there is some way to mod the career so every aircraft is set to Ace?

 

No, and not desirable anyway really.

[unreasonable]

2 hours ago, Gretsch_Man said:

To have all the AI pilots set to the same proficiency level no matter which level you choose isn't very realistic anyway. It would be much better to have various types of pilots (ace, veteran etc.) showing up during campaign missions. But I don't know whether that's possible technically.

 

Of course it is possible. It is just one setting per plane object, each of which already has many settings. So it would take a bit more work.  QMB already does this to a degree if you set the AI to "random" with multiple flights in the mission: different flights have different AI settings, although it assigns the same setting to each plane in a flight.  

 

I vaguely remember RoF career having mixed AI flights, but it could just be nostalgia.  

[Godspeed]

On 12/28/2019 at 4:28 AM, unreasonable said:

 

Easy: friendly pilots Expert, enemy pilots Novice

Moderate: friendly pilots Veteran, enemy pilots Regular

Hard: friendly pilots Regular, enemy pilots Veteran"

 

 

This is one of the reasons why i dont play Career.

There should be option for all random or all Ace too.

 

Its too easy like 7 kills in one mission.

Or you vs all enemies ( Friendly pilots all dead | Useless )

 

There is no escort planes in Bf 110 bombing missions and many other issues.

 

 

This is why i only use PWCG.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Godspeed

[zdog0331]

Honestly I notice that the squad leader planes are a bit better and some planes are just brain dead.  I think they just have a mixture of varying AI difficulty levels and the hard medium and easy categories determines how those ranks are broken up.  I think the squad leaders may be aces while their wing men are veteran AI.  You notice how the veteran AI tend to be the last to go down in career during a big battle and they seem to shoot down more planes.  Though this has been my experience and I could be wrong.

 

They have done a pretty good job with the career mode and honestly it isn't very realistic for all of the AI to be aces as there were new men coming to the front lines and most were people who had a few missions under their belt, and only a few flew a ton of missions and those who did were much more skilled than a pilots first mission.  Especially towards the end of the war where some people were ending up on the front lines with less than a month of training. 

 

As far as the WWII pilots I have talked to who have been in combat more or less described it like it appears in il2 (maneuver wise.  Engagements were usually at high altitude)  Though I have not had any in person chats with people who flew on the eastern front since the people I have talked to were Tuskegee airmen and a one of the blue nosed b@$#&rds. 

Edited December 30, 2019 by zdog0331

[PatrickAWlson]

On 12/28/2019 at 7:19 AM, Yogiflight said:

TBH I am more for the model Patrick did in his Campaign Generator, to bind the pilot's skills to the rank of the pilots, and I think experience points, for kills and so on.

 

Initial setting is based on a number of factors.  A new replacement  AI pilot will generally be of lower rank.  When careers are created pilots of all ranks are created.  The pilots are distributed to squadrons by rank in a reasonable fashion.   Victories and missions flown are awarded to newly create pilots based on rank, the service they are flying for, the role they are flying in, and the date of the campaign.  From that an initial value of novice to ace is provided, which is reflected in the game.

 

Once the AI pilot is created they advance based on occurrences in the campaign.  Missions flown will get a pilot from Novice to Average.  To get to Veteran and Ace victories are needed.  Again, advancement is reflected in the game, which is a good reason to take care of your AI squadron mates.  They get better.  If they die you will be flying with a bunch of novices.

 

New German pilots are very good in the beginning of the war but get worse as the war goes on.  I need to code something to account for the dichotomy in skill later in the war, with many novices and some veterans/aces and not much in between. 

New Russian pilots are novices in the beginning but can become competent later in the war.  Better pilots may be veteran and rarely ace.

New American and British pilots are generally competent with better pilots being veteran and occasionally ace.