Please improve AI Gunnery, and make them aware of you.

[x13aceofspades13]

EDITED, AND VIDEO ADDED.

I have only a few small complaints about this flight sim so far, but the single biggest complaint that I have as far as this flight simulator is concerned, is the AI's absolute garbage gunnery... either it's laser guided precision accurate, or it's just absolute trash... please understand I am not trying to be rude, but it's really frustrating to me when I can hardly play the game.

On single player missions I will even say the game has become almost unplayable, because I have literally had missions where AI have blown out my oil cooler, shot holes in my wings, and blown holes in my canopy, or get into mid air collisions with the AI because they pursue the target I am pursuing rather than the multiples of others that are now allowed to roam the skies uninterrupted, it is almost as if the AI don't even recognize that I am right there in front of them pursuing the target they are just dumping ammunition at.

I have tried a multitude of commands from telling them to hold position, or follow my lead but they seem to ignore every command given and blast away firing Volleys 5 seconds long, I once watched 3 P-51s chasing a ME-109 firing their guns all at once while almost hitting one another, all of them completely missing and I wish I had pressed record to show how asinine it looks but I didn't, and it's not uncommon to end up in a cone of fire from 3 AI planes all at once that are supposed to be working with me rather than shooting holes in me.

What I would like is for them to be programmed to notice I am there and hold their fire until they have a clear shot, or have a command that they respond to 100% of the time that lets them know the aircraft I am closest to I am in pursuit of and that they are to hold their fire!
 

 

Edited January 23, 2021 by x13aceofspades13

[Q_Walker]

I had a mission last night where I noticed three 109s following a single fighter and causing some friendly fire. I am going to get some tracks recorded of it and report it in the bugs section when I have some time available today.

[x13aceofspades13]

5 hours ago, Q_Walker said:

I had a mission last night where I noticed three 109s following a single fighter and causing some friendly fire. I am going to get some tracks recorded of it and report it in the bugs section when I have some time available today.

 

I have a video I will be posting later, I had my canopy blown out and my horizontal stabilizer damaged in a mission, ill try to post a youtube video when I have the time too. 

[[DBS]Browning]

Bomber gunners shooting friendly bombers is also part of this issue.

[Yogiflight]

58 minutes ago, [DBS]Browning said:

Bomber gunners shooting friendly bombers is also part of this issue.

Unfortunately all kinds of guns shoot at friendlies, if they are between them and the enemy. AA guns tend to destroy everything around them, when enemy aircrafts are around. And so do fighters and bomber gunners. AI simply doesn't care for 'obstacles', when shooting.

[x13aceofspades13]

2 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Unfortunately all kinds of guns shoot at friendlies, if they are between them and the enemy. AA guns tend to destroy everything around them, when enemy aircrafts are around. And so do fighters and bomber gunners. AI simply doesn't care for 'obstacles', when shooting.

 

And that's the issue, the AI does not care you are between you and the target they are shooting at.

 

Friendly fire happened for sure, let's not forget that, but what is happening with the AI right now is kinda just bad programming...

3 hours ago, [DBS]Browning said:

Bomber gunners shooting friendly bombers is also part of this issue.

 

Some less experienced bomber gunners would shoot at any fighter that got too close, fighter pilots had to be cautious when approaching bomber formations on escort, and had to deal with volleys of fire coming from bombers at fighters...

 

I accept accidentally getting hit by allied bomber tail gunners most of the time, because I am pretty sure that stuff happened... but when every single player mission I fly gets flushed down the toilet because the AI blast away through me to hit a target I am already taking care of, when I have instructed them as flight lead to go away, and there are other targets unoccupied, and their skill level is set to where they should know better... I won't accept friendly fire to the extent I am seeing it, way excessive...

Edited January 5, 2021 by x13aceofspades13

[unreasonable]

The work around if you are the flight commander is to order them to attack enemy air , then pick off enemies the AI is not attacking. If they are attacking an enemy, get out of the way. 

 

I do not think that it is "bad programming" exactly: solving moving 3D problems is hard to do even for firer and target, add in taking account of third bodies and it is going to get amazingly complex. The only simple way I can think of doing it would require the player to "lock on" to a target: once locked on, the AI would be prohibited from targeting the same plane. But I am not sure how that could be done in an immersive manner in a WW1-2 sim.

[[DBS]Browning]

17 minutes ago, x13aceofspades13 said:

 

ber gunners would shoot at any fighter that got too close, fighter pilots had to be cautious when approaching bomber formations on escort, and had to deal with volleys of fire coming from bombers at fighters...

 

I accept accidentally getting hit by allied bomber tail gunners most of the time, because I am pretty sure that stuff happened.

 

I'm more concerned about my bomber being sprayed by the lead bomber I'm in formation with Sometimes for seconds at a time. Just constantly trying to shoot through me.

That didn't happen.

Edited January 5, 2021 by [DBS]Browning

[x13aceofspades13]

2 hours ago, unreasonable said:

The work around if you are the flight commander is to order them to attack enemy air , then pick off enemies the AI is not attacking. If they are attacking an enemy, get out of the way. 

 

I do not think that it is "bad programming" exactly: solving moving 3D problems is hard to do even for firer and target, add in taking account of third bodies and it is going to get amazingly complex. The only simple way I can think of doing it would require the player to "lock on" to a target: once locked on, the AI would be prohibited from targeting the same plane. But I am not sure how that could be done in an immersive manner in a WW1-2 sim.

Trust me, I have tried that... I will attack a target none of them are attacking, and then they will either come attack the target that I am attacking anyway, or the target they are attacking will get away, and I will have to switch targets to defend myself because it comes after me... Because they are so bad at shooting they miss every shot dumping rounds into the air the planes they are chasing always get away.

 

that's what I want to do, assign them to targets and pick one myself, but it doesn't work like that, they seem to do what ever they please, and fail to shoot down the targets they are after.

Part of the other issue is the P-51s firepower is so weak you really need good shot placement, and even with good shot placement sometimes nothing will happen, if they can't hit anything to start, when they finally do quite often it does nothing!

2 hours ago, [DBS]Browning said:

 

I'm more concerned about my bomber being sprayed by the lead bomber I'm in formation with Sometimes for seconds at a time. Just constantly trying to shoot through me.

That didn't happen.

I didn't consider that, and honestly I can see that happening, because the gunners on the bombers are like that too, just shoot at what ever...

Edited January 5, 2021 by x13aceofspades13

[unreasonable]

Just now, x13aceofspades13 said:

Trust me, I have tried that... I will attack a target none of them are attacking, and then they will either come attack the target that I am attacking anyway, or the target they are attacking will get away, and I will have to switch targets to defend myself... Because they are so bad at shooting they miss every shot dumping rounds into the air the planes they are casing never get away, that's what I want to do, assign them to targets and pick one myself, but it doesn't work like that, they seem to do what ever they please, and fail to shoot down the targets they are after.

 

  Pretty much like the majority of WW2 fighter pilots after a fur-ball had developed then? I am fairly sure that real pilot kills followed a power law of some kind - e.g. 80% of victories were by 20% of the pilots, and even in that group, 80/20 applied.

 

The AI do score on occasion, but it is true that they cannot get 5-6 kills in a mission like an experienced human player. (I was always happy with a batting average of one). They would get more if the human players did not hog the action.

 

I am not saying the AI is perfect - obviously not - but for me what they do in action is the least of the problems. It is things like the sudden 90 degree direction changes in formation, becoming blind to imminent threats after being told to RTB and the endless circling for landing clearance that drive me up the wall. 

[x13aceofspades13]

10 minutes ago, unreasonable said:

 

  Pretty much like the majority of WW2 fighter pilots after a fur-ball had developed then? I am fairly sure that real pilot kills followed a power law of some kind - e.g. 80% of victories were by 20% of the pilots, and even in that group, 80/20 applied.

 

The AI do score on occasion, but it is true that they cannot get 5-6 kills in a mission like an experienced human player. (I was always happy with a batting average of one). They would get more if the human players did not hog the action.

 

I am not saying the AI is perfect - obviously not - but for me what they do in action is the least of the problems. It is things like the sudden 90 degree direction changes in formation, becoming blind to imminent threats after being told to RTB and the endless circling for landing clearance that drive me up the wall. 

Yep, and I understand that some pilots sucked in real life and that's why I would be more tolerant if some pilots lost track of a enemy plane, but it's not just once in a while, it's almost every single time, and then they just ignore my commands anyway and do what ever they want, and what is worse is like i said, every mission I have gotten shot by friendly fire so far.

I flew twice last night, got shot by friendly fire by a AI chasing the plane I was after both times.

I flew once this morning and got shot by friendly fire the same way, I was in pursuit of a airplane that no one else was, suddenly I see tracers going over my head from one of my wing man, and BANG!

I understand AI will never be perfect, and again I am hoping I am not sounding critical, the last issue I came forward with the team was more than happy to respond, and they did, and I am very happy with that, this is a great flight sim, I love playing it but I do get frustrated with things like this.

Oh yea, and endless circling for landing clearances... don't get me started, I usually just land out before they can even get there to kinda eliminate that issue.

Edited January 5, 2021 by x13aceofspades13

[Q_Walker]

Posted a bug report for multiple planes following the same target, so we will see if that can be placed on the devs task list as long as it is fixable without deeper tweaks to the AI.

[x13aceofspades13]

I have added a video to my original post, I know it sucks and I am open to any criticism I may receive as a result of doing so, I just want to bring forth some of the changes I would like to see.