Four questions about flight lead AI behaviour in career mode

[rogueblade]

Got no responses on the tutorial/guides/tips sub so trying here:

 

I've started a Russian career mode flying the Yak7b over Kuban. On the first few missions I am the wingman to a high ranking flight lead and there's some challenges I've run into:

1. How do you find and form up on your flight lead after combat? I follow him closely in formation to our combat waypoints but once air combat starts, there's 8+ friendly and enemy aircraft jumbled together fighting and I have no idea where he is, unless I make a specific effort to glue to his six the entire time and ignore the fight. Once the fight is over, and we survive, how do I locate him to continue the rest of our mission together? When there's multiple Yak1s and Yak7s, he's impossible to find.
2. Why does the flight lead ignore a fight and stick to flying a straight line between waypoints? As a pair we had a combat air patrol with about a 60km straight line divided into to two target area waypoints. Before we reached the first point, I noticed a 4ship furball about a 1000m meters above us a few kilometres away to our 2o'clock. My lead didn't budge but made a radio call to engage (I think). I fly into the fight and my lead stuck on his straight line course and did nothing....why?
3. Why does the flight lead die when there's no combat? My third mission had us in a 4ship flight circling some ground units, not even 5km away from our take-off airfield, everything was within visual range of each other. We circled for about 15 minutes round and round waiting for bombers to show, which never showed. I got bored and ventured way off and managed to get 3 109's chase me all the way back to base, during which my lead and 2 other wingmen were on landing approach. Two 109's bailed, the 3rd got peppered with flak and I killed him. I was happy that the boring mission turned into something, but got to the debrief screen to find my flight lead - the highest ranking active pilot in our unit, was KIA. The game UI doesn't tell you how they died. So how did he die? I saw no accident and no enemies ever got near him. It seems like a waste but I'm just going to move on, RIP Captain. 
4. Can you communicate with your flight/lead when you're not the leader? I press the tilde key ~ and there's no options say anything aside from give useless hand gestures. How do I request back-up, RTB, or things along those lines?

[Sybreed]

1. If you have the map, just follow the waypoints once you get the "return to base" message. Usually, your teammates return to base as soon as that message pops-up (not always, in some "intercept ground attackers" missions, they'll stick around a bit before leaving). If you follow the waypoints, you will usually stumble upon your flight by pure chance... there isn't really any other way.

 

2. That's how AI is programmed with waypoints. Waypoints can have a low-medium or a high priority ( @patrickwilson can correct me here). If waypoints have a high priority, your flight will ignore other distractions. For example, waypoints that lead you to the "scenario" waypoint will have a high priority, so you will keep flying even if you encounter other planes, but the "scenario" waypoint (usually waypoint 3) will be low priority and you will engage targets there.

Bombers and fighters can also have different priorities set on waypoints. So, bombers may always get high priority waypoints so they don't try to dogfight fighters.

 

3. After each mission, you can click on "Logs" to see what happened. There, you could have seen if your flight lead got shot down by another plane or just crashed. I know that happens a lot in my careers as well. The flight lead often dies and is often the only one to die. But sometimes, my entire flight dies except for me. Friendly AI is just kind of bad? Or, difficulty setting is what dooms your flight.

 

4. You communicate with your flight if you're the flight leader. That's it.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Sybreed

[Oyster_KAI]

The communication conmmands in the Sim need to be redesigned. Let us ask the position of the team leader after dogfight, just like the human talk in MP.

 

These are the SP details that are missing in IL-2 GB, and I hope something will be closer to the 1946 version.

The career mode has a complete interface and great art. I love it, but it's a pity...
The simulated data is very different from the reality. Your wingman's ability to kill enemies when flying with you is almost zero. Even if the veteran in the squadron who has 200+ hours of flying experience, he might be easily killed in action.

We know PWCG is committed to making the simulated data realistic and sharing the codes, so I hope that in addition to AI, career mode can also be treated with high priority by devs.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Oyster_KAI

[Tyberan]

Coms commands have been neglected for other priorities.id like to see the same format as 1946 same as you.

 

I'd also like the simple option of request permission to land, currently you just have to jump que to land which breaks immersion. 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Tyberan

[Yogiflight]

5 hours ago, Sybreed said:

For example, waypoints that lead you to the "scenario" waypoint will have a high priority, so you will keep flying even if you encounter other planes,

More likely medium priority, which means they stay on their route until they get attacked. With high priority they would stay on their route, no matter what happens. So even when they get attacked, they won't defend themselves.

 

9 hours ago, rogueblade said:

3. Why does the flight lead die when there's no combat? 

AI quite often do very stupid things. With them circling over an area, you have to protect, my guess is, one of the other squadmates touched your flightleader and he lost control over his aircraft.

 

Unfortunately no communication possible, if you are not the flightleader. You can't even call for help, when you are under attack of the complete enemy flight. However, when this happened in my missions, my flight was usually non existend anymore, anyway.

[Eisenfaustus]

4 hours ago, Oyster_KAI said:

The communication conmmands in the Sim need to be redesigned.

Agreed. Unfortunately Jason wrote somewhere that a redesign is not going to happen as there is no one in the team who could do that. He had to live with this inadequate communication since he took over and change is not in sight. 
 

a pity I think - if it was possible to implement the il2 46 comms even with those old soundfiles (which still belong 1C) it still would be great. But seems to be no realistic option. 

[PatrickAWlson]

2 hours ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Agreed. Unfortunately Jason wrote somewhere that a redesign is not going to happen as there is no one in the team who could do that. He had to live with this inadequate communication since he took over and change is not in sight. 
 

a pity I think - if it was possible to implement the il2 46 comms even with those old soundfiles (which still belong 1C) it still would be great. But seems to be no realistic option. 

 

Never say never, just not tomorrow.  There is a long list of desired AI behavior changes.  The team has made great progress but it's a long walk to get to the end.

[grcurmudgeon]

7 hours ago, Oyster_KAI said:

The simulated data is very different from the reality. Your wingman's ability to kill enemies when flying with you is almost zero. Even if the veteran in the squadron who has 200+ hours of flying experience, he might be easily killed in action.

We know PWCG is committed to making the simulated data realistic and sharing the codes, so I hope that in addition to AI, career mode can also be treated with high priority by devs.

 

 Really if we got AI skill levels set in career the way they are in PWCG it would be a huge boost to career mode, in addition to reducing confusion over what the difficulty setting does.

[PatrickAWlson]

8 hours ago, Oyster_KAI said:

The simulated data is very different from the reality. Your wingman's ability to kill enemies when flying with you is almost zero. Even if the veteran in the squadron who has 200+ hours of flying experience, he might be easily killed in action.

 

My wingmen get kills no problem.  My issue is how frequently they get killed.  With very limited self preservation, near zero teamwork, and over reliance on turning still they die like flies when asked to fly anything but a turn fighter.  I went from the Me109 with pretty good results to the FW190 where they are just dropping like flies.

 

I do not expect my AI wingmen to be 100 victory experten, but surviving every once in awhile would be nice  

[Eisenfaustus]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

Never say never, just not tomorrow.  There is a long list of desired AI behavior changes.  The team has made great progress but it's a long walk to get to the end.

Hope dies last - and I absolutely agree: AI has come a long way since I started playing in '17. Maybe some great day they'll redo the comms

[UFA_Bagel]

Just can repeat again. Flight unit structure and communication in this COMBAT FLIGHT SIMULATOR is a nonsense. Period. Devs, please, please, get rid of it. How can you stand it? Aren’t you simers yourself? ?

[Guest deleted@210880]

What makes hope wither is there has not been any action on the commands as far as I know/recall since the first release of BoS

 

Opening up the 'help me' one to be available when you are not the leader woudl be a great start in addressing them and show some intention.

 

Maybe it isn't as simple as just enabling the button for use (and to trigger a response from the wingmen), perhaps the leader influence* needs over-riding somehow, but if the developers can't or won't do this then the future of the commands does seem bleak to me.

 

But I figure this will fall under the 'buy stuff or there's no chance of it ever happening' line that comes out over these sort of things.

 

 

 

*I don't think I've ever heard the leader use it.

 

 

Edit: Thinking back I don't think you could originally fly as anything other than the leader, but it was so long ago the brain is foggy; so in fairness commands for the wingman role probably only 'arrived' when the campaign did.

Edited July 14, 2020 by deleted@210880

[Yogiflight]

21 minutes ago, John_Yossarian said:

Thinking back I don't think you could originally fly as anything other than the leader,

Yep, you're right, in the old campaign system with weapon unlocking, you always were the flightleader.

 

2 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

My issue is how frequently they get killed. 

Especially the flightleader. He usually goes headon and then gets chased by the complete enemy flight, except the one enemy, that gets chased by your squadmates. After a few missions I usually have one or two out of seven or so with a higher rank than Leutnant.

[kendo]

9 hours ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Agreed. Unfortunately Jason wrote somewhere that a redesign is not going to happen as there is no one in the team who could do that. He had to live with this inadequate communication since he took over and change is not in sight. 
 

a pity I think - if it was possible to implement the il2 46 comms even with those old soundfiles (which still belong 1C) it still would be great. But seems to be no realistic option. 

 

Actually, afaik, the AI programmer is working on this aspect right now - ie tactical level AI including comms.

 

They stated that after the recent improvements to the individual pilot AI, the flight tactics level would be next, which I assume means looking at the orders/comms too.

[rogueblade]

Interesting feedback and discussion thanks.

 

8 hours ago, grcurmudgeon said:

 

 Really if we got AI skill levels set in career the way they are in PWCG it would be a huge boost to career mode, in addition to reducing confusion over what the difficulty setting does.

 

? I just briefly google PWCG - is this a fan made campaign mode that has "better AI"? Is this the de facto single player experience new players should go to?

[Gambit21]

19 minutes ago, rogueblade said:

Interesting feedback and discussion thanks.

 

 

? I just briefly google PWCG - is this a fan made campaign mode that has "better AI"? Is this the de facto single player experience new players should go to?

 

The base/hard-coded AI is the same.

 

[Jaegermeister]

57 minutes ago, rogueblade said:

Is this the de facto single player experience new players should go to?

 

Patrick and a lot of others would say so. I prefer scripted campaigns for the scenery and historical significance. You should try them all and make up your own mind after you get the full experience.

[grcurmudgeon]

16 hours ago, rogueblade said:

Interesting feedback and discussion thanks.

 

? I just briefly google PWCG - is this a fan made campaign mode that has "better AI"? Is this the de facto single player experience new players should go to?

 

It is the same AI, but the skill level of the AI pilots (friendly and enemy) is based on their career - beginning pilots are novice, and really experienced pilots with lots of kills are aces. It's the same AI you'd get in a QMB, but the individual pilots have their skill level set based on their experience, not what you choose in a drop-down. This makes for a more varied experience. Plus there is an added incentive for keeping your squad mates alive.

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/99-pat-wilson-campaign-generator/

[UFA_Bagel]

16 minutes ago, grcurmudgeon said:

 

It is the same AI, but the skill level of the AI pilots (friendly and enemy) is based on their career - beginning pilots are novice, and really experienced pilots with lots of kills are aces. It's the same AI you'd get in a QMB, but the individual pilots have their skill level set based on their experience, not what you choose in a drop-down. This makes for a more varied experience. Plus there is an added incentive for keeping your squad mates alive.

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/99-pat-wilson-campaign-generator/

As I know that setting defines AI outside your squad. AI level in your squad varies and seems a realistic distribution based on flight hours and some initial random level set to give higher AI level to a few pilots. You can check it with sql editor and career database .cp file.