Quick mission P vs AI plane kills comparation

[vangel]

I'm playing a lot quick missions with 4 (don't want to be the only target for 8 enemy AIs) against 8 (2x4) AI enemies, all on Ace. It's like a quick carnage, testing-bed for planes and warm up before going into multiplayer. Even on Ace the AI is quite dumb, not using the planes to their full potential, only their aim is quite good.

Starting on equal height side to side 2000m apart I started counting sort of kills and after many matches (100+) getting this ratios going against following FC planes:

 

Camels:

5 by wing breakage

2 by engine fire

1 by pilot kill

surprisingly unsteady DM one only needs 2 sec burst to lose it's wings the next take a lot of damage for the same, pilot seams well protected

 

Dolphins:

7 by wing breakage on maneuver after pumping an surprising amount of ammunition into them, almost never on direct fire

1 by pilot kill

you need to keep pumping bullets into them, pilot is almost completely protected, they will fall apart by themselves on the following maneuvers

 

Dr.I:

7 pilot kill

1 wing breakage

quite sturdy

 

Albatros D.5a

4 wing breakage

3 pilot kill

1 engine fire

 

Fokker D.VIII

7 pilot kill

1 something else

a darn sturdy plane hard to shot down

 

Pfalz D.III

7 pilot kill

1 engine fire

sturdy, luckily the pilot is normally vulnerable not in a titanium cocoon (I'm looking at you Dolphin)

 

I have tested more combinations but these are the planes relevant for multiplayer, besides of the 2 seater which are cancer.

What are your ratios?

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

http://stats.jasta5.org:8000/en

 

You might find this site above of interest.  The server is due for an update at the start of the year that will, among other things, provide the ability to view stats by plane and not just pilot., Unfortunately our parsers do not track type of shoot down (on fire, wings, pilot).

 

Some live player pilots have most of their "scores" by pilot kill. It depends largely on the gunnery skill of each pilot.  One thing that sticks out as a contrast to your data, is that against the dolphin, many pilots remark (including me) about how exposed the pilot is resulting in a not surprising high number of dolphin pilot kills relative to other modes of shoot down.

 

There is some anecdotal historical research by community members consolidated into a great post on this forum by @JG1_Hotlead_J10 regarding actual combat flight reports about plane loss mode.  

 

The above notwithstanding, it would be interesting but not likely scientifically valid research to compare that real anecdotal evidence with crowd sourced plane loss data collected in a virtual environment within a game flown by pilots not infrequently possessing hundreds of times more flight and combat hours than the pilots who actually flew a hundred years ago and lived to file a rreport

PS and many if not most of whom are in direct communication with each other while in combat.

Edited December 5, 2021 by J5_Baeumer
spelling and note regarding comms

[Dusty926]

It kills me that the AI doesn't utilize their plane's maneuverability as much as they could. Amusingly, they seem better at energy fighting now than they do at turn fighting. It just feels weird to me to be able to outturn a Sopwith Camel in something like a Pflaz D.IIIa. Especially more irritating for me is the inefficiency of the AI against itself; It really doesn't fire on eachother very much. They're super conservative with ammo, which is good to an extent, but they don't take the opportunities to lead and put lead down where they very obviously and easily could. In my PWCG campaign I've gotten upwards of 60+ kills with an average of 3 to 4 per mission. Seeing an entire enemy squadron on the approach doesn't mean combat with my squadron, it's basically combat with me. My AI buddies have barely gotten singular kills despite all the planes we've encountered.

Between those two issues, I'd rather the latter get focused on if possible; I want the AI to actually put some effort into shooting down and evading eachother, even if that still means I can outturn more planes than I should be able to.

[vangel]

10 hours ago, J5_Baeumer said:

http://stats.jasta5.org:8000/en

 

You might find this site above of interest.  The server is due for an update at the start of the year that will, among other things, provide the ability to view stats by plane and not just pilot., Unfortunately our parsers do not track type of shoot down (on fire, wings, pilot).

 

Some live player pilots have most of their "scores" by pilot kill. It depends largely on the gunnery skill of each pilot.  One thing that sticks out as a contrast to your data, is that against the dolphin, many pilots remark (including me) about how exposed the pilot is resulting in a not surprising high number of dolphin pilot kills relative to other modes of shoot down.

If you look into the server stats you will find me at actually 5th place by air kills or 14th by points. Yes, I account most of my PvP kills by pilot kills too. Followed by engine fires and wing breakage/ maneuver kills. Quick missions provides a more objective comparison in plane endurance and vital damage tactics taking target pilot skill out of the equation. But the AI is of cause flying very predictable with stupid tactics like trying to run away in S.E.r and Dolphins while still in gun range, so you have to pump bullets from behind into those two planes, skewing the statistics a little.

I'm looking forward to the by plane stats, I suspect the Camel, the D.VIII, the Albatros, the Dr.I and the Pfalz D.III to be the top planes. Anything else on Entente side is rubbish in PvP in my opinion. S.E.5 or Dolphin may be good against AI but any German planes of the above are chewing through them on PvP. Basically if the Entente side lost all their Camels they are done for.

Edited December 5, 2021 by vangel

[No.23_Starling]

45 minutes ago, vangel said:

If you look into the server stats you will find me at actually 5th place by air kills or 14th by points. Yes, I account most of my PvP kills by pilot kills too. Followed by engine fires and wing breakage/ maneuver kills. Quick missions provides a more objective comparison in plane endurance and vital damage tactics taking target pilot skill out of the equation. But the AI is of cause flying very predictable with stupid tactics like trying to run away in S.E.r and Dolphins while still in gun range, so you have to pump bullets from behind into those two planes, skewing the statistics a little.

I'm looking forward to the by plane stats, I suspect the Camel, the D.VIII, the Albatros, the Dr.I and the Pfalz D.III to be the top planes. Anything else on Entente side is rubbish in PvP in my opinion. S.E.5 or Dolphin may be good against AI but any German planes of the above are chewing through them on PvP. Basically if the Entente side lost all their Camels they are done for.

The two highest ever FC PvP streaks were attained in SPADs.

[vangel]

4 hours ago, US93_Rummell said:

The two highest ever FC PvP streaks were attained in SPADs.

The best streaks are from GusGT, he mostly flies Camels and Manfreddy who almost exclusively flies D.VIII. Of the 10 best streaks there are 7 central powers and 3 Entente. Only one VoodooGT is mainly flying SPAD XIII the other 2 Camels. Please where can we see the PvP streaks by plane? Right now you only can see the players favorite plane.

[No.23_Starling]

20 minutes ago, vangel said:

The best streaks are from GusGT, he mostly flies Camels and Manfreddy who almost exclusively flies D.VIII. Of the 10 best streaks there are 7 central powers and 3 Entente. Only one VoodooGT is mainly flying SPAD XIII the other 2 Camels. Please where can we see the PvP streaks by plane? Right now you only can see the players favorite plane.

I think Gus had the best AI streak. You can look on the parser for the Vlife to see how many are human vs AI. Larner and Baer both scored 100+ PvP kills both in SPADs

[JGr2/J5_Hotlead]

Thanks for the shout-out, @J5_Baeumer! For those who are interested, you can find the report here:

 

It's not perfect and admittedly anecdotal. And I think Baumer makes a great point that comparing those historical results to results from pilots on the servers here in FC would not be a 1:1 comparison. I'd be willing to wager most of us have 10x the accumulated "flight time" and combat instinct that most WW1 pilots had — chiefly because our mistakes don't actually kill us. That all being said, I think the accumulated data does reasonably infer that the wings should be falling off less by and large.

 

Regarding the Dolphin, I usually get them to go down via wing-offs too. The pilot is located a lot higher than most are and is protected by a solid fuselage from behind. However, since the pilot sits higher, if one intentionally aims higher than one typically would for a pilot kill, I'd say it would be relatively easy to headshot the poor sod. ?

 

[=RS=Stix_09]

On 12/5/2021 at 4:51 AM, Dusty926 said:

It kills me that the AI doesn't utilize their plane's maneuverability as much as they could.

 

 

In my experience against AI , they fly every plane the same way, only limited by FM physics of each plane. The AI is not tuned on a per plane basis as far as I can tell. Not many sims make AI fly the same flight model (and physiology model too) as human pilots , and I belive this adds considerable  complexity to how AI pilots behave compared to some older sims that do not do this. ALso the more complex the physics in "A" sim the more difficult it would be too.

 

I have seen a noticeable improvment in AI combat in the sim over the years I've owned IL-2GB, but sill nothing close to real human players and prob never will be.(only the developers can answer that)
 

On 12/5/2021 at 4:51 AM, Dusty926 said:

. Seeing an entire enemy squadron on the approach doesn't mean combat with my squadron, it's basically combat with me. My AI buddies have barely gotten singular kills despite all the planes we've encountered.

This would depend on how the mission script is written ie who is the target. It can be changed (if you know the mission editor), group target , specific unit or based on a zone. AI buddies are basically a distraction for you, none of the AI is that good.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by =RS=Stix_09

[vangel]

Jasta 5 Flugpark planestats:

Plane Stats

 

For what was obvious (germans have the better scouts, only Camel holds the Entente crown), here is further proof. By any sorting it's pretty clear what the good planes are. Unrealistically biased or not.

 

[=IRFC=Jorri]

10 hours ago, vangel said:

Jasta 5 Flugpark planestats:

Plane Stats

 

For what was obvious (germans have the better scouts, only Camel holds the Entente crown), here is further proof. By any sorting it's pretty clear what the good planes are. Unrealistically biased or not.

 

 

It does seem to me like the Central Powers see a lot more organised squadron flying, that could skew the results.

[Dornil]

On 12/5/2021 at 7:51 AM, Dusty926 said:

I want the AI to actually put some effort into shooting down

Oh, yeah! Flew one first mission in the new Albatros campaign - six German scouts, lead by Lothar himself, meet a flight of six Brisfits. I effortlessly shoot down five, while the other "aces" eventually managed to bring down the last one - by ramming it! AI is still as bad as it was back in 2013, and I very much doubt that this will change anytime soon:(

[BlitzPig_EL]

I find the AI's capabilities to be very situational, and aircraft type dependant, either in WW2 or WW1 scenarios, but in general the WW1 AI don't offer as much of a challenge as the WW2 AI do.  The AI Bf 109 G2 in particular can give a very sporty performance, but I find the Central Powers AI to be less challenging.  Camels can be sporty as well, until their wings fall off...

[Dornil]

Well, Camels at least try turning (although they are not even close to outturning a player-controlled Albatros or Pfalz). But S.E.5s are just cannon fodder - they do not turn, they do not climb, and they do not even run - just slowly "walking away", so Alb has no trouble catching them up. That is the reason I'm not buying FC2 - they promise a career mode, but what good will it make, if the fighter AI is so poor, and all the great two-seated functions from RoF (recon, spotting) were left back in RoF..?