In flight no one hears you scream

[Roshko]

Is there a way to get your squaddies to acknowledge that you are being hunted right before their very eyes?

I just ran 50 kilometers in a shot-up Tempest with a FW-190 hot on my tail.

Finally I caught up with my flight. I was at 50-100 meters, they were at approx. 1000 meters altitude (I think). My engine was busted, so it was a great relief to see them. I started to climb up to them, and calling them (left-alt + 1 - although I am not a flight-leader), but no radio message was tranceived and I never got up there - I had to dive again. All the time this Focke(r)-Wulff was chasing me. I am quite sure human pilots would've seen us, we ended up in front and below my squaddies and the FW was shooting tracers.

It ended sort of ok, I was able to drag my executioner to blue forces. They didn't shoot at him at all, maybe the logic is that they feared hitting me, but I could bail out without being captured.

In another but very similar situation (same campaign - I am not flightleader), I was hunted all the way to homebase, where my buddies where on landing-circuit. At that occasion I pressed left-alt + 1, and that actually worked. A radiomessage "attack nearest air" from me was sent , and they did it. The feeling of that moment. It had been a great mission on my account, 3 airkills, a locomotive and some more groundtargets, and making it home all busted up with a FW on my tail, seeing my buddies clean him up, just felt so great!

I do think that we need the ability (as non-flight leaders) to call for help - but most often no broadcast is made when I press left-alt + 1.

Is there something I am missing?

Edited December 19, 2021 by acebone

[Yogiflight]

7 minutes ago, acebone said:

Is there something I am missing?

Nope, IL-2 was developed with the old campaign system, in which the player was always the flightleader. The career system was introduced with BOK, so now you can start a real career as beginner. Unfortunately the communication system was never adapted to the new situation, which means you can not communicate with anyone, if you are not the leader of your flight. This includes, that, when you are flying as no.2 and the flightleader gets out of action, you will be the new leader, so your buddies will now follow you and you can call them through your radio.

I really hope this will be changed at some point, but I have been hoping for this for some years now.

[Roshko]

Ah, that explains why I was able to do it at homebase. I've been no. 2 in that flight, and our flightleader must've been killed.

Man it sure breaks immersion to be killed right before your non-caring squaddies eyes while not being able to use your otherwise fully functional radio to call for help.

I had another bad experience: We were flying - I think we were en route to target, but perhaps we were on our way home. I see a large swath of red planes behind us on the map, but I know that I'll have to fight them all on my own if I go at it. Then all of a sudden two of my squaddies announces "attacking enemy fighter at ..." and starts turning. Great! let's kill those b*strds. So I turn too and pretty quickly get a lock on a bogey. After killing him, I discover that my two mates has broken off and I am alone with five FWs. I felt like I'd been set up by the AI there. That was a strange behaviour.

I think I'll have to fly as flight-leader next time.

Edited December 19, 2021 by acebone

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, acebone said:

After killing him, I discover that my two mates has broken off and I am alone with five FWs. I felt like I'd been set up by the AI there. That was a strange behaviour.

This is unfortunately very common behaviour of AI squadmates. They do one fast attack and turn back to the mission plan. BTW getting attacked and the squadmates don't help is no player only issue. I often experience enemy fighters attacking the last aircraft in our line and the remainig flight stays on its flight route.

[Roshko]

Yeah, I don't think that changes to AI-behaviour is that easy to implement for the devs, but the radio-thing should be a walk in the park. As I understand it, they're currently so understaffed that even a walk in the park is not that easy to do.

[FuriousMeow]

The AI and radio commands are very intertwined, so still isn't a walk in the park because its more AI than "radio commands." It would require revisiting a lot of things, but there's AI development going on now so hopefully this could be part of it.

[RyanR]

I miss the old IL2:1946 radio command that would bring other planes into your area when you were overwhelmed.

 

At least friendly AI isn't actively shooting us down anymore.

 

-Ryan

[Zeev]

This IL2 1946 VS current IL2 game reminds me of Far Cry 2 being the superior version than the future Far Cry games (except graphics)

[Roshko]

9 hours ago, FuriousMeow said:

The AI and radio commands are very intertwined, so still isn't a walk in the park because its more AI than "radio commands." It would require revisiting a lot of things, but there's AI development going on now so hopefully this could be part of it.

Unless you have certain knowledge, I think you might be wrong on this. The whole mechanism is already in place, it just needs to allow for both flightleader AND player to access the radiocommands. The player-plane can already issue commands if it becomes leader, so remove that requirement and instead insert a filter that filters out all commands that a wingman shouldn't be able to issue. But except for removing the restriction and adding the filter, everything should be just the same. "Filter" sounds a bit fancy, but it is a simple check: "if PLAYER not FLIGHTLEAD and COMMAND not equal to THEN cancelorder "

So everything is already working, just remove the requirement that the player HAS to be lead.

Of course this is speculation on my part. But as a former dev, that's what it looks like from the outside.


 

Edited December 20, 2021 by acebone

[Ace_Pilto]

Old Il-2 had some great radio commands, you could waste your time and task saturate yourself issuing them and watching the AI not obey them. In old and new Il-2, one you make contact, it's every man for himself, what matters is leading the flight into an advantageous situation before combat begins.

[FuriousMeow]

13 hours ago, acebone said:

Of course this is speculation on my part.

 

Obviously.

 

13 hours ago, acebone said:

But as a former dev

 

[PB0_Roll]

15 hours ago, Ace_Pilto said:

Old Il-2 had some great radio commands, you could waste your time and task saturate yourself issuing them and watching the AI not obey them. In old and new Il-2, one you make contact, it's every man for himself, what matters is leading the flight into an advantageous situation before combat begins.

 I don't know when you stopped playing 46, but I still play it sometimes, and AI do respond to request. Sometimes they can't, but that's not the main behavior. In great battles there is just no way to interact when flying as a wingman, that's a big limitation.

[IckyATLAS]

In the editor we can implement in a scenario an automatic call for planes in the sector to come and help.

You cannot call them really because there is no such possibility in the editor, but we could use the damage level of your plane as a way to make an automatic call to other planes to come and help. And this would work whatever your position in the flight and even for AI planes. And you could use a probability check so that all your calls are not always answered as there are not always planes ready to come and help around and also their number would be random too.

This gives me new ideas for my campaigns upcoming missions.

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by IckyATLAS

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

I would love friendly/bogey/bandit call outs from ai wingmen… without peeling off to attack on their own..

 

Form should be the priority until given the order..

 

I always feel like the lead flying with the polish squadron in Battle of Britain…. They just don’t say “repeat please” while they ignore my orders to….

what command is rejoin anyway?  
 

Is it rejoin and continue with mission?

 

is it cover me?

 

is it do follow and what I do?

 

commands just need to be made simple

 

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

 

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, [APAF]VR_Spartan85 said:

I would love friendly/bogey/bandit call outs from ai wingmen… without peeling off to attack on their own..

This, when you are the flight leader and if you are not the leader additionally to a help callout, tha ability to tell your flight, hey guys, there are enemy aircrafts, and by looking to the direction, pointing them where to look.

 

But your point is something, which is wrong in the career mode overall. Whenever the action starts, no matter if it is a dogfight or a ground attack, the flight immediately starts attacking on its own, leaving the flightleader alone. So the flightleader is more the scout than the leader. He leads them to the combat area and back, but is not commanding them.

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

Advanced commands to split a four ship into elements.    Uuuhhhhhhgggg… that would be the day… telling one element to attack while yours takes top cover or flanks…

 

 

[Roshko]

On 12/20/2021 at 1:39 AM, RyanR said:

I miss the old IL2:1946 radio command that would bring other planes into your area when you were overwhelmed.

 

At least friendly AI isn't actively shooting us down anymore.

 

-Ryan

Well, some of them (the rookies perhaps?) have this idea that their guns are chainsaws that can be turned on but not off.

 

I was hunting some AI-foe, when one of my 'mates' decided it was chainsaw-time. He slid in behind me and started plastering both bandit and me. I would've shot him down, but my wings were too perforated LOL

[ShamrockOneFive]

On 12/19/2021 at 4:33 AM, acebone said:

I am quite sure human pilots would've seen us, we ended up in front and below my squaddies and the FW was shooting tracers.

 

Never underestimate the blindness of your fellow human pilots

[Roshko]

Ah - this one had no excuse. I was directly on bandit-six, 20-100 meters ?

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

“In flight no one can hear you scream…”

 

In VR, when my pilot gets knocked unconscious then wakes up in a negative four inverted dive at 600mph and one hundred feet from impact…

 

everyone in my house hears me scream… ?

[Finkeren]

I honestly love, that the AI often doesn't want to stick around for the fight. Very realistic behavior. 

 

Most air combats were over quite quickly with both sides breaking off once unit cohesion was lost. 

 

What needs to change, however, are two things: 

 

1: The AI needs to acknowledge over eadio, that they are breaking off and returning to the mission. 

 

2: AI in intercept missions need to stop pursuing a target, at the very least once it leaves friendly air space. 

 

 

[Guster]

Slightly OT, but I'd love to have radios as optional in the plane setup menu for early Soviet planes, and a mute feature in the mission editor for each plane. I like creating scenarios with multiple flights for each side with different tasks, and it would be nice if chatter was reduced to just my own group.