Squadmates AI in career mode

[Sybreed]

For some reason, squadmates in career mode seem to be less proficient at their job than the other AIs. Even other friendly squads seem to have better performances at shooting down other planes.

 

I just did 2 BF-109s missions in BoBP. One was a bomber intercept, the other one a ground attacker intercept. In the first mission, I shot down 5 bombers, my 7 squadmates shot down zero. Out of 8 planes, only I got kills.

 

In the other mission, I shot down 4 aircrafts, and out 7 other AI squaddies, only 1 got a single kill.

 

What causes this? Enemy AI and other squadrons AI seem to be pretty good. Why are my own squadmates so bad at their job compared to everyone else?

[Gambit21]

I’ve reported similar behavior.

I imagine it will get sorted in time as work on the AI continues.

[slawson612]

Yep same experience - my guys also bug out without warning. Something like: "Squadern break contact. Form up and head for base." would be greatly appreciated. I have been knee deep in it only to find my squad headed away and leaving me with a sky full of enemy planes. It does not end well for me.

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by slawson612

[Sybreed]

41 minutes ago, slawson612 said:

Yep same experience - my guys also bug out without warning. Something like: "Squadern break contact. Form up and head for base." would be greatly appreciated. I have been knee deep in it only to find my squad headed away and leaving me with a sky full of enemy planes. It does not end well for me.

 

 

the problem is the "return to base" prompt, which happens too soon.

 

I didn't want to combine 2 different problems into a single thread, but in my 2nd mission, when we were near the waypoint, an enemy plane was shot down by another squad which gave us the "return to base" prompt. We were still flying to the waypoint in formation, so having that made no sense at all, considering we haven't shot a single round. I believe there should perhaps be a revision of what constitutes a "mission accomplished" prompt that makes the squad go back to base?

Edited January 28, 2020 by Sybreed

[Gambit21]

@slawson612 you are conflating two different things.

One is an under the hood issue, the other is a mission logic issue.

 

The second issue is solvable with modified mission logic, which is easy say for a builder to do "by hand" in a custom mission.

However from everything that I've gathered, changing the way the code automates the mission logic is not an easy/quick task.

I'm sure it will change at some point.

 

[Lusekofte]

Shooting down seven bombers in one mission is one of the reasons I get put off single player. It should not be possible. 

[LukeFF]

27 minutes ago, No.322_LuseKofte said:

Shooting down seven bombers in one mission is one of the reasons I get put off single player. It should not be possible. 

 

Why not? That sort of thing happened in reality. Butch O'Hare shot down 5 and damaged a sixth on his Medal of Honor mission.

[BB5000]

Jorma Sarvanto got 6 DB-3 on Jan 6, 1940. But still, the AI squad mates are very nonproductive unless I send them on a mission without participating myself.

Edited January 28, 2020 by BB5000

[[DBS]Browning]

Shooting down seven bombers in an act so rare and requiring so much skill that a MoH is in order is one thing.

Shooting down seven bombers every time there are at least seven bombers to shoot down points more towards an inaccuracy of some kind.

 

Not that I think it should be changed. If people can't shoot down all seven, the calls for less accurate gunners will only grow louder.

[Lusekofte]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

Why not? That sort of thing happened in reality. Butch O'Hare shot down 5 and damaged a sixth on his Medal of Honor mission.

Well looking at hitlers ambitions of one fighter take off means one bomber shot down. It is quite ambitious. 

[Goffik]

So is the poor AI teammates thing a bug, or is it a deliberate effort to make sure the player has plenty to do during missions which has gone a bit too far?

[Gretsch_Man]

One thing that I noticed is that if the flight is lead by an AI bloke, the whole flight appears to be getting more aggressive and often get some kills also. I've just recently flown a career mission (was flying wing, not lead) on the BoBP map where my flight encountered a flight of 3 P-47 (don't remember how many planes my flight was, but we had the numerical superiority). My AI buddies just nailed them in no time. I couldn't get even a single kill.

 

Seems like it's only when the human player acts as the flight leader that the AI pilots loose their aggressiveness. 

3 minutes ago, Gretsch_Man said:

 

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Gretsch_Man

[=621=Samikatz]

2 hours ago, [DBS]Browning said:

Shooting down seven bombers in an act so rare and requiring so much skill that a MoH is in order is one thing.

Shooting down seven bombers every time there are at least seven bombers to shoot down points more towards an inaccuracy of some kind.

 

Not that I think it should be changed. If people can't shoot down all seven, the calls for less accurate gunners will only grow louder.

 

Most virtual pilots have several dozen if not hundreds of deaths to learn from, seventy-odd years of air combat knowledge to draw from, and safety in the knowledge that they aren't actually in any danger. It's not unreasonable that we outperform history's aces in terms of shooting at least

[kendo]

2 hours ago, Gretsch_Man said:

One thing that I noticed is that if the flight is lead by an AI bloke, the whole flight appears to be getting more aggressive and often get some kills also. I've just recently flown a career mission (was flying wing, not lead) on the BoBP map where my flight encountered a flight of 3 P-47 (don't remember how many planes my flight was, but we had the numerical superiority). My AI buddies just nailed them in no time. I couldn't get even a single kill.

 

Seems like it's only when the human player acts as the flight leader that the AI pilots loose their aggressiveness. 

 

 

Do you perhaps need to issue the order 'Attack nearest air target' or 'Do what i do' when you are flight leader to get them to attack properly? 

[Yogiflight]

3 hours ago, Gretsch_Man said:

Seems like it's only when the human player acts as the flight leader that the AI pilots loose their aggressiveness. 

No, it is the same with AI leader. Sometimes it looks to me, my squadmates are looking for the next enemy fighter to position themselves right in front of it.

[Ram399]

On 1/27/2020 at 4:56 PM, Sybreed said:

For some reason, squadmates in career mode seem to be less proficient at their job than the other AIs. Even other friendly squads seem to have better performances at shooting down other planes.

The AI skill of your squadronmates corresponds directly to the rank and experience of each individual pilot as seen under the unit HQ screen.
The AI skill of the random friendly squads encountered around the map on the other hand have a set level based off of the selected career difficulty (as do enemy squads).

The AI tends to be more aggressive when under the command of an AI leader for whatever reason, I have had some marginal success with abusing the "Patrol this area for air enemies" command in order to force an engagement however.

If you have the patience for it you can cultivate better pilots by keeping your wingmen alive and helping them gain experience.
It's incredibly tedious and honestly feels like herding cats at times- especially when the AI Bf-109s waste all of their ammo firing at nothing, and then black-out before diving into the ground.
It does pay off eventually however.
For reference in pic related: my better pilots regularly score 1-2 kills per flight as they've reached what I believe to be the ace level AI, while the lower level Feldwebels are equally as likely to fly into the ground as they are to actually engage anything.

[easterling77]

On 1/29/2020 at 9:34 AM, Ram399 said:

The AI skill of your squadronmates corresponds directly to the rank and experience of each individual pilot as seen under the unit HQ screen.
The AI skill of the random friendly squads encountered around the map on the other hand have a set level based off of the selected career difficulty (as do enemy squads).

The AI tends to be more aggressive when under the command of an AI leader for whatever reason, I have had some marginal success with abusing the "Patrol this area for air enemies" command in order to force an engagement however.

If you have the patience for it you can cultivate better pilots by keeping your wingmen alive and helping them gain experience.
It's incredibly tedious and honestly feels like herding cats at times- especially when the AI Bf-109s waste all of their ammo firing at nothing, and then black-out before diving into the ground.
It does pay off eventually however.
For reference in pic related: my better pilots regularly score 1-2 kills per flight as they've reached what I believe to be the ace level AI, while the lower level Feldwebels are equally as likely to fly into the ground as they are to actually engage anything.

what a unit^^ gratulatuions to your score. I don't know why but the average Killcount of my mates lies by 5 kills in 70-80 missions?. I hope they'll get better some time because it's frustrating feeling you have to do all alone

[PatrickAWlson]

On 1/28/2020 at 6:36 AM, Goffik said:

So is the poor AI teammates thing a bug, or is it a deliberate effort to make sure the player has plenty to do during missions which has gone a bit too far?

 

The AI is based on the AI skill level setting.  I'm 99% sure that there is nothing in the game other than AI settings that says "Oh, you're flying with the player so now you stink".  That would be a lot of effort to mess up your own product.

 

Now the likeliest two possibilities:

1. This is just perception.

2. It really is a bug and your flight mates are always novice.  Are in game campaign missions viewable?  Do they generate bin or txt files?  if you want to find out just open the mission file and check the AI setting of you squadron mates in the mission.

[Ram399]

5 hours ago, easterling77 said:

I hope they'll get better some time because it's frustrating feeling you have to do all alone

The AI has always been a work in progress, but in my experience they're always taking small steps forward a bit at a time.
The past six months or so in particular have seen drastic improvements to their tactics and maneuvering overall- though this has had a bit of a downside in making their accuracy rather poor against anything other than a bomber flying straight and level.  Regardless, I am optimistic that they will continue to be improved.

Also thank you for the recognition lol, I am far more proud of my AI wingmen than I should be.

I started this career run at Moscow nearly two years ago with the explicit intention of trying to protect and preserve my unit at all costs, and my two most successful pilots Weizsacker and Berger were part of the starting cohort of 12 pilots in the October of 1941.  I'm now about a third of the way through Kuban and both are far past the 100 kill mark, having long ago reached the ace AI level- and in a number of cases they've reversed my original role and actually been the ones protecting me.  I've found that having pilots like that really just improves the experience of the career overall- and as strange as it is, I'm rather attached to my pair of autogenerated AI pilots after flying with them for nearly 200 hours.

Here's a shot of my 4 remaining 1941 pilots in June of 1943 with myself at the front (Weizsacker is the number 1 and Berger is the <o):

Spoiler

 

[easterling77]

3 hours ago, Ram399 said:

The AI has always been a work in progress, but in my experience they're always taking small steps forward a bit at a time.
The past six months or so in particular have seen drastic improvements to their tactics and maneuvering overall- though this has had a bit of a downside in making their accuracy rather poor against anything other than a bomber flying straight and level.  Regardless, I am optimistic that they will continue to be improved.

Also thank you for the recognition lol, I am far more proud of my AI wingmen than I should be.

I started this career run at Moscow nearly two years ago with the explicit intention of trying to protect and preserve my unit at all costs, and my two most successful pilots Weizsacker and Berger were part of the starting cohort of 12 pilots in the October of 1941.  I'm now about a third of the way through Kuban and both are far past the 100 kill mark, having long ago reached the ace AI level- and in a number of cases they've reversed my original role and actually been the ones protecting me.  I've found that having pilots like that really just improves the experience of the career overall- and as strange as it is, I'm rather attached to my pair of autogenerated AI pilots after flying with them for nearly 200 hours.

Here's a shot of my 4 remaining 1941 pilots in June of 1943 with myself at the front (Weizsacker is the number 1 and Berger is the <o):

  Hide contents

 

awsome...thats exacly what I'm hoping for. My primary target is to keep them alive, above getting kills for my own. Thx for your input (an yeah the aming is sometimes sooo close but not close enough?) and if i got one day some reliable mates, this game will give me even more reasons to love it 

[Blutaar]

On 1/29/2020 at 9:34 AM, Ram399 said:

The AI skill of your squadronmates corresponds directly to the rank and experience of each individual pilot as seen under the unit HQ screen.

 

If you want to check the Skill of your squadmates, you can open your last mission in the editor and see the level of your squadmates. On fresh pilots as if you start a new carrer, only the highest rank is Ace but you can have aces blow that rank when you manage to babysit them long enough to get some kills and missions under their belt. But that is an frustrating endavour, especially on the german side.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Blutaar

[easterling77]

On 5/8/2020 at 1:01 PM, Blutaar said:

 

If you want to check the Skill of your squadmates, you can open your last mission in the editor and see the level of your squadmates. On fresh pilots as if you start a new carrer, only the highest rank is Ace but you can have aces blow that rank when you manage to babysit them long enough to get some kills and missions under their belt. But that is an frustrating endavour, especially on the german side.

thats way above my knowledge of the editor but very interesting . Can you explain it to me? thx a lot

[Vortice]

My strategy for dealing with the AI is:

 

1) Don't trust AI squadmates to be of any help at all, or to do anything useful at any time.

 

2) Always carry plenty of ammunition

 

3) Steer well clear of ground targets that might have anti-aircraft weapons

 

4) Never engage bombers from the six o'clock position

 

If you follow these principles you will live long and prosper. If you don't then you won't.

[easterling77]

It is simply frustrating to see your AI mates almost never get a hit on enemys or most often in case of the FW 190 - they simply smashing in the deck cause of over Gs with no enemie responsible to it. THAT SUCKS SOOOO MUCH (only a couple of minutes ago i stoped at the third try of a mission because im sick of loosing sqaud mates for idiotic behavior)

I hope so much that the developers will constantliy improve the AI because this destroys the joy of this sim to me

I realy love this game but i hate this AI so much

Edited May 25, 2020 by easterling77

[oc2209]

I've been in a flight of 8 and lost 6 dead, one wounded. It didn't even strike me as a difficult battle until I realized my flight no longer existed.

 

Another sortie, my flight started trying to land at our field, even while enemy planes were in the area. Lost 2 pilots needlessly.

 

I used to think putting my flight under the command of an AI officer helped to reduce losses, but I don't believe that now. I've watched replays of my wingmen being slaughtered, and they don't break while being fired upon. I know that happened in reality, but it seems like the enemy can empty their entire ammo reserves--firing for 5-10 seconds at a time--without eliciting even a weak evasive maneuver. A novice might act that way, but no average or regular-skill pilot should be that bad.

 

In my experience against bombers in career mode, the gunners of A-20s and B-25s are utterly useless or inactive; the few times they shoot, they're nowhere close to hitting me. And I approach from dead astern. However, in quick battles against He-111s or Ju-88s, they do have very effective and accurate fire (too much so, from extreme ranges).

 

The majority of deaths I had in IL-2 1946 were from enemy planes approaching me from an angle where I didn't spot them quickly enough to evade. That is to say, from any direction other than behind me (which I'm pretty good at checking regularly). That AI was very good at high-deflection shots; and honestly, it didn't feel unfair, based on what I've read of air combat. American pilots were especially well trained in gunnery. 

 

The current AI, in my experience, will only fire from directly ahead of you, or directly behind you. Which makes it extremely easy to avoid being shot; and the 1% of the time I am hit, it's rarely fatal.

 

[JG52*ErmarShell]

On 1/28/2020 at 1:13 PM, =621=Samikatz said:

 

Most virtual pilots have several dozen if not hundreds of deaths to learn from, seventy-odd years of air combat knowledge to draw from, and safety in the knowledge that they aren't actually in any danger. It's not unreasonable that we outperform history's aces in terms of shooting at least

Plus, most importantly, you don't even fly a plane.

 

So we don't have to deal with all the problems that come with chasing fighter aircraft around at high speed for two hours in all sorts of physical conditions, be it (too) hot or (too) cold, poor visibility, high G-forces, low G-forces in rapid succession, blood in your legs, back in your head, etc. Normal people would either constantly pass out and crash all the time or throw up and had no eye for nothing else but themselves. All this is physically and mentally exhausting, not so with us, we don't even get tired playing the same game for 6 hours straight as well as not gettin' tired comparing a game with real life pilots and events in a real war. Ugh.

[PaladinX]

On 5/26/2020 at 4:52 AM, oc2209 said:

The majority of deaths I had in IL-2 1946 were from enemy planes approaching me from an angle where I didn't spot them quickly enough to evade. That is to say, from any direction other than behind me (which I'm pretty good at checking regularly). That AI was very good at high-deflection shots; and honestly, it didn't feel unfair, based on what I've read of air combat. American pilots were especially well trained in gunnery. 

 

The current AI, in my experience, will only fire from directly ahead of you, or directly behind you. Which makes it extremely easy to avoid being shot; and the 1% of the time I am hit, it's rarely fatal.

 

Thats the reason why IL2 1946 (with BAT) is still the better single player experience in so many situations. The AI is much more capable, and i can control my wingmen much better.

[Feathered_IV]

On 1/28/2020 at 8:15 PM, LukeFF said:

 

Why not? That sort of thing happened in reality. Butch O'Hare shot down 5 and damaged a sixth on his Medal of Honor mission.

That was in the Pacific, against Japanese bombers who were holding formation with barely a condom between them for protection. 

Edited February 17, 2022 by Feathered_IV

[MikhaVT]

i've noticed in some missions the AI are as dumb as a sack of hammers (and indeed, less useful). just yesterday i was tangling with 4 MC202s with my 3 wingmen and despite trying "engage nearest air target" or "cover me" orders, they just sat circling above as i got torn to shreds. One of the MC 202s even flew up and shot one of them down with no reaction from the pilots! 

 

Naturally i died during that mission and on a restart my AI wingmen were suddenly able to point their aircraft in the direction of the enemy. So i suspect this might be a bug, or an ID10T error on my part since i dont know what the commands specifically do to the pilots in various conditions. 

[Ram399]

14 hours ago, MikhaVT said:

So i suspect this might be a bug, or an ID10T error on my part since i dont know what the commands specifically do to the pilots in various conditions.

Perhaps not exactly a bug but maybe more of an accidental effect of keeping the AI more mission oriented.
While I don't know the exact situation, from my own experience I'm going to assume this engagement occurred a ways away from whatever your mission objective was.

Quite a few updates ago the Career mode AI's were changed so that they wouldn't abandon the player in pursuing single aircraft and would instead focus on being more mission oriented- as such they can become very annoyingly pacifistic when hostile aircraft attack them away from their objective or mission route.

The best way I have found to circumvent this as a flight leader is, to quite simply, focus on the mission at hand and only that- and if you do wind up in such a situation I have had the most success with the "Patrol this area for Air Enemies" command as opposed to the "Engage Nearest Air Target" command, since that one seems to only result in them breaking formation for about 10 seconds before trying to rejoin with you.

Alternatively, you can immediately order RTB and then hope you're faster.
But overall I do agree that we desperately need a "Scrub the damned FUBAR mission, that bastard is trying to kill me and I need you to engage with extreme prejudice" command.

[Wien1938]

As a slight variation on this complaint, I've just started a new career in BoS flying Bf-109 G2s. I've noticed that twice now on Intercept Attackers missions that the 109Gs go in armed with gun-pods, flying low and slow and get bounced and shot down in 1-2 mins by the fighter escort. Not good for the health of the Gruppe when losing 75% of the planes and 50-75% of the pilots each mission because the pilots are obsessed with attacking the Il-2s.