problem AI planes in Career mode

[Razah]

Hi there, so far I've finished entire Battle for Moscow and I'm almost done with Battle for Stalingrad, and I've noticed some weird friendly AI behavior. I noticed that this affects only my own flight when I'm a flight leader. What I've noticed in over 100h of gameplay is that planes from my own flight will follow me to the mission objective and than act accordingly to the objective unless

A) they run out of ammo, and than rtb

B) (where the problem begins) we encounter some random enemy planes and they actively engage them, after which they usually no longer react to the events around them.

Let me make an example. I'm a flight leader, We're flying Fw 190 A3 in ground support mission south from Pitomniki airfield. After reaching our objective, my flight stops following me, and begins circling around our objective.  Due to no enemy planes i decided to do a fly by russian airfields in the vicinity in order to have some fun (circling around a spot for 30 minutes ain't that fun). I spotted 3 I 16 taking off and took them in a single go (that was extremely fun thing to do, neher have i shoot down 3 planes in a matter of seconds), after that i used my excess speed to climb. I noticed that my flight no longer circled around our objective. (they reported some enemy attack planes) Shortly after i got bounced by 3 i 16. I shot down one and started maneuvering with the other 2. This is when i noticed that all of the planes were just chilling above me about 2k higher and just chilled there. They would ignore commands to engage enemy planes. If i requested them to cover me they just lovered their alt to match mine and they just chilled. If i 16 got on their 6 they would do evasive manovers, never trying to shoot them down. 

something like this happens every game. After meeting some scripted objective, or other event, they no longer react to enemies. They will avoid fire, but they will not actively dogfight. If we are on attack ground target mission and we encounter enemy planes, after dealing with them, they will no longer attack ground targets, even if i ask them to do so. They will just chill and fly above me. This is a huge problem, that often leads to my flight taking atrocious casualties, because I'm the only one really trying to shoot down enemy planes. In battle for Moscow, it often happened, that 5 or 6 of my own F4 would be downed by i 16, because they just flew in circles not even firing back. 

Anyone else had similar problems? Is there anything i can do?

[453=SGII_Wotan]

AI planes responses have always been an issue, the team is trying to improve it. It must be a tough job

I have hard enough time to keep up with squad on take off. 

 

The best AI I have flown with and against is in Over Flanders Fields WW1 air sim, but this is  specifically a single player  simulation

[Feathered_IV]

I've wholly given up on that side of the sim.  

[KevPBur]

3 hours ago, IISG2_Wotan said:

AI planes responses have always been an issue, the team is trying to improve it. It must be a tough job

I have hard enough time to keep up with squad on take off. 

 

 

I usually that is too much fuel. Reduce that and I have no trouble. Also, build up some speed by flying below them and then climb once you have speed.

3 hours ago, Razah said:

Let me make an example. I'm a flight leader, We're flying Fw 190 A3 in ground support mission south from Pitomniki airfield. After reaching our objective, my flight stops following me, and begins circling around our objective.  Due to no enemy planes i decided to do a fly by russian airfields in the vicinity in order to have some fun (circling around a spot for 30 minutes ain't that fun).

 

 

Strictly speaking, you are the one not following the mission objective. If I stay on station I have much better results. When I'm not flight leader I notice the ai tend to flock around the leader and follow him. I think as flight leader they are waiting for you to return to lead them into the next challenge.

In particularly, I find Russian flights only respond if you are close with them when giving orders. In reality most Russian planes did not have radio so are only responding to hand gestures or following the leader.

 

I do however, have issues getting wingmen to come to my aid. Even if I lead an enemy on my tail right in front of a wingman he still leaves my to it. He is obviously supremely confident in my ability to evade even the most dogged of tails!

[oc2209]

6 hours ago, KevPBur said:

Strictly speaking, you are the one not following the mission objective. If I stay on station I have much better results. When I'm not flight leader I notice the ai tend to flock around the leader and follow him. I think as flight leader they are waiting for you to return to lead them into the next challenge.

 

I think this is true most of the time. It's exactly for this reason that, while I make myself commander so I have control over plane loadouts, I never fly as the flight leader anymore. I put myself in the tail-end Charlie position in every flight; my logic is that it won't disrupt the flight when I invariably leave to do my own thing.

 

I believe the AI acts a little less stupid this way.

[LukeFF]

7 hours ago, KevPBur said:

In particularly, I find Russian flights only respond if you are close with them when giving orders. In reality most Russian planes did not have radio so are only responding to hand gestures or following the leader.

 

No, sorry, that's not the case. All WWII planes in the game are considered to have radios.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

If memory serves, they hired a new AI programmer in 2020 or 2021. He has a lot of work to do. There's so much wrong with the AI.

[PaladinX]

at least the KI should always do what the flight leader orders them to do.

I am flying a PWCG campaign over stalingrad and they always suddenly leave my formation and fight (out of sight!) and never return to formation. I would like to tell them to ignore some enemy aicraft and stay with me on my mission...happens everytime.

[Ram399]

In the case of fighter careers I have found that a good determining factor for whether or not your AI wingmen will engage a target is whether or not you are in close proximity to the waypoints and indicated flight path for whatever mission it is that you are flying.

Obviously this is rather annoying as your wingmen become conscientious objectors as soon as you stray any meaningful distance from it, but for the best results if you stick to the plan your wingmen will at least make an attempt at backing you up- and, if you are the unit commander, you can adjust the waypoints for some missions on the map under the Headquarters tab at will, so with a bit of forethought you can work in frontline sweeps and the like by throwing the exit point way off any sort of logical path.

Also, as I've said many times before, keeping your AI squad mates alive long enough for them to gain experience will vastly improve the unit's effectiveness overall. 
It can be absolutely infuriating when they simply refuse to engage or just decide to dive straight into the ground but with more experience the odds of them actually succeeding in the rare event they do decide to engage become considerably better, and with a few pilots at the ace level they will become quite deadly if backed up right- as can be seen in the pic related.

Spoiler