AI Plane disappearing in career mode

[Mainstay]

So yesterday i engaged a group of IL2's in my 190. Downed 3 of them but the 4th limped in the direction of home when i had to break off because i had three little annoying I-16 bees on my ass.

 

After getting rid of the bees i was looking in the enemy camera mode to observe the IL2 cause i knew he wouldnt make it home.

All of a sudden he just disappeared! Why? Another immersion killer like the disappearing pilot in the cockpit after death.

 

Its not even like there are that many planes spawned during career missions....  Why are these design choices like they are? If the excuse is that the game becomes to heavy for some peoples computers then at least give the people with capable hardware the choice to let the whole show go on.

 

I really don't get these choices..pretty disappointed.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Mainstay

[Ghost666]

You are trying to put the cat in a clear box, Of course you can see if the cat is alive or dead.  

 

To use a camera view that is unrealistic and see something that is unrealistic and say it is immersion killing. Well do I have to say more?

 

By the way I to like to use ctrl+F2 to see if that one that got away did in fact got away.

 

Just MHO

[Mainstay]

The point is that he wasent even that far away. So I could still have changed my mind after breaking contact and went after him. 
 

Without the camera tool I would have hunted a ghost... 

 

Like I said before just make these sort of optimization choices optional. Plenty of machines that could handle that extra load. 

[anwhitmore]

I have seen this happen so many times now it just isn't funny anymore

It has nothing to do with camera views , as suggested above, as I have had numerous enemy AI disappear while I was on their tail, shooting at them.

(They literally just disappear right in front of your eyes)

 

This would not be so bad except

1) you have wasted a load of ammunition on them and there are other enemy still to fight off.

2) your pilot is worn out by now so cant really engage anyone else.

3) while you have been wasting your time on this enemy. Others are harassing your bombers... which means you have just wasted precious time on an enemy that was never going back to attack your bombers.

 

The career mode still has numerous logic issues (cant really call them bugs) that make it less of a simulation. here is just a few

 

4) Enemy AI always intercept you , higher , closer and faster than you. I have tried numerous times go "Get above them" and in almost all cases it never seems to work. This puts you at a severe disadvantage , particularly when playing the Russians as their aircraft are usually inferior.

5) inconsistent squad sizes between friendly and enemy AI. As the Germans I found the general squad fighter size is 4. If you are commander you can up this but you quickly run out of men. Enemy AI are generally 6 which makes for a good tussle and suggests the Russians used numbers and skill to compensate for poorer equipment. I have no idea if this was true but it seems logical to me and it also seems true as their number of aircraft reinforcements are always higher than what I experienced as the Germans. However, when you change sides and play as the Russians, more often than not you don't get your superior numbers advantage as the Germans arrive in squads of 6 and when you add the facts from point 4, you end up starting the engagement fighting for your life. I am sure this probably happened in real life but it seems to be far too common and is starting to feel scripted.

 

So the career is starting to be a bit to "Same old, Same old". I believe that , in the war, the missions were rather repetitive, often non eventful and boring.

 

So , to get back on topic, I do believe Mainstay has a point when he(?) says the disappearing aircraft is a problem. The SA of the career planning logic seems to be  a bit limited. It seems to "Spawn" enemies at close range rather than fly them up. It seems to de-spawn them without checking if they are in view. Some aircraft seem to fly back to a base and others just disappear. Bombers and ground attack aircraft all fly at a very low speed (Approx 260km) regardless of what they are. Pe-2 and Ju-88 were well known for their speed but this is lost in career mode. (PE-2 were alleged to have outrun German interceptors at over 400mph) and the JU-88 was a  Schnellbomber that was used as a heavy fighter so it certainly wasn't slow...but not in career mode. I suspect that the reason for this is because the programmers make all the bombers fly at the slowest bombers speed (probably the HE-111) then no need for extra logic per aircraft type and plenty of chance for you to either catch friendlies or intercept enemies. ( I love supporting the ground attack Fw190s in Kuban ... bastards are so fast its almost impossible to catch them before they reach their target...and of course when they turn for home, forget about them, they are gone and nothings going to catch them.. love it!)

 

So, I sure I will remember other career quirks that could do with investigating but I have said enough for now.

Don't get me wrong, the career mode is well done in general. Its nice to see enemy aircraft scramble to intercept you rather than just appear. but it would be nice to have a similar friendly behaviour, like decent protection over your own airfield as I have often been shot down by obsessive Enemy AI following me home and then pestering me until I crash. Wouldn't it be great if your own airfield scrambled interceptors and other landing friendlies tried to protect themselves rather than get shot down trying to land. It would also be nice to see friendly AAA be more effective on low flying Enemies, who always seem to be able to flow around at 100m above the AAA and manage to get away with it.

 

Anyway, just some of my observations from countless hours of career playing.

 

 

 

 

 

    

[ELECT0RC0UNT]

A little late to the party, but I I hope this helps. If you unpack the GTP files, you can modify the spawn and despawn distances.

 

Each campaign will have an actions.cfg file.

Example:

This is the file for Battle of Moscow.

C:\Program Files (x86)\1C Game Studios\IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles\data\scg\13\actions.cfg

 

In that file, search for $career_capacity == x where x represents your campaign difficulty, 0 - easy, 1 = moderate, and 2 = hard.

All of the activation and deactivation values for the different objects can be found using this method.

 

Examples:

 

Default setting

 

Action
{
    Name = "ENEMY-Bombers Deactivation Distance-V1";
    Comment = "Set waypoint altitude for normal and overcast weather";
    NoHelper = 0;
    NeedCondition = 0;
    Complex = 1;
    Format = "no params and conditions;";
    Import = 1;
    
    Add
    {
        Action = "set(Zone,15500);";
        Condition = "if($career_capacity == 0);";
    }
    Add
    {
        Action = "set(Zone,25500);";
        Condition = "if($career_capacity == 1);";
    }
    Add
    {
        Action = "set(Zone,30500);";
        Condition = "if($career_capacity == 2);";
    }
}

 

 

My Modified Setting

 

Action
{
    Name = "ENEMY-Bombers Deactivation Distance-V1";
    Comment = "Set waypoint altitude for normal and overcast weather";
    NoHelper = 0;
    NeedCondition = 0;
    Complex = 1;
    Format = "no params and conditions;";
    Import = 1;
    
    Add
    {
        Action = "set(Zone,15500);";
        Condition = "if($career_capacity == 0);";
    }
    Add
    {
        Action = "set(Zone,25500);";
        Condition = "if($career_capacity == 1);";
    }
    Add
    {
        Action = "set(Zone,200000);";
        Condition = "if($career_capacity == 2);";
    }
}

 

I'm assuming the deactivation/despawn distances were configured to improve performance on lower end computers.

Edited June 1, 2021 by ELECT0RC0UNT