Kuban - very high losses

[=RS=rulezcz]

I have recently switched to Kuban and Spitfires. I am very happy with the plane, it' s beautiful but I have a problem that every single mission is a terrible carnage (on medium difficulty).

Routinely 7 of my squadmates gets killed and 1 is injured. I sometimes survive some 5 missions.

 

I think it' s not the flying AI that' s to blame, it's the strategic AI that runs into brutal unwinnable battles when 9 Spitfires attack at low level 9 109s and 9 FW-190s. How could this end well ?

 

When I read about Russian aces, their stats are like ... 600 flights, 150 fights, 50 victories (in 3 years)

 

So I think what could help a lot to increase the realism of the career mode, would be to

 

1. simulate the non-action missions by simply creating a non-flyable mission and add it to all the pilot's stats (to increase AI pilot' s experience without risk and also to make the stats of everyone look more realistic) - in a similar way how the game at the moment creates the all-AI missions - they never lead to death of everyone participating

 

2. Let the mission generator to create some advantageous missions time to time  - like let the  attackers be in greater numbers and so on.

 

3. I could even live with some AI cheating to let the high ranking pilots survive, so the commander doesn' t get killed in every mission (this could also be very helpful in Flying Circus Vol 2, because if there are going to be Aces , it wouldn' t be good to let them be killed in the second misson all the time).

 

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by =RS=rulezcz

[[CPT]Crunch]

How about AI that makes a decision once in a while to cut and run when the odds are highly unfavorable.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

I think this should probably belong in the Suggestions forum.

 

But yeah, I kinda agree, especially with 1. I think this could even be extended to player flights; right now you can rack up kills unrealistically fast. Especially when flying Allied, you can be the top scoring ace in just a few weeks. Furthermore it severely skews the awarded medals in favour of those that are awarded for kills rather than long service; by the time you've got the required 300 hours of flight time for the Legion of Merit, you'll have singlehandedly reduced the Luftwaffe to ashes. Simulating a certain amount of actionless flights would mitigate those problems (together with let's say a "super-fast" career mode that lets you fly even less than the 1 flying day per 3 days of the current fast career mode).

 

For 2. I'd like it if the game would generate some actionless flights every once in a while as well. Especially when flying bombers/attackers; it gets kinda unrealistic if you're attacked every single mission.

[Gambit21]

4 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

How about AI that makes a decision once in a while to cut and run when the odds are highly unfavorable.

 

Just keep in mind that this is a mission design thing, not an AI thing and I know that they've begun to address it.

 

[migmadmarine]

I would like to see a "historical" difficulty setting, to have more realistic rates of contact etc than the current settings, even if that means rare air to air fights as allied or being in constant danger as late war axis. 

[Majpalmer]

I'm new and I suck, but....

 

I did begin a campaign, German, 109 F2/4, Moscow. I had the settings on Easy and whatever is after "sporadic." 

 

Even when I managed to survive, losses in my unit were terrible. At one point we were down to seven pilots, and three of them were rookies. We were always outnumbered, usually about 5/6 to 3/4. On one sortie we were sent on a two-craft Free Hunt and circled a spot for about 20 minutes! The AI had plenty of time to react and we were beset by swarms of Russians. I'm sorry to say that I fled south and survived. My idiot element leader did not. 

 

I set it back to "sporadic" and since then things have been much better. I've seen a few 5v4s (plus bombers), but that's not so bad. 

 

Since I suck and often Restart the sorties, I've noticed that they always do not unfold the same way. I just finished one where a MiG rammed me in a fight about halfway to our target. During the Restarted same sortie, the Russians never showed up! 

 

I actually have seen the AI run away. We had a flight of four 109s escorting six E-7s that had already dropped their bombs. Two Ils came at us to engage. When we turned to meet them, they reversed and headed north. 

 

As for engagements, I've flown 70 sorties so far and managed 14 kills (loads of restarts). Of the 70, on sporadic, I'd guess about 3 or 4 out of every 5 sees an actual engagement. I had one day when I flew twice and saw nothing either time. 

 

If my memory is accurate, Hartmann flew about 1400 sorties (352 kills), but engaged under 60% of the time. That's less than what I'm seeing on Sporadic. At the next level up, we were engaging at least 80-90% of the time. 

 

Since some of these sorties take a long time, even with time compression, I can understand why the designers would not want you to be flying non-engagement missions 40-45% of the time, which would probably be realistic, given Hartmann's numbers. 

[Avimimus]

7 hours ago, =RS=rulezcz said:

I think it' s not the flying AI that' s to blame, it's the strategic AI that runs into brutal unwinnable battles when 9 Spitfires attack at low level 9 109s and 9 FW-190s. How could this end well ?

 

That was what Starshoy said (back when DGen was first developed)!

 

IMHO: The AI is far too aggressive. After making a pass it should often disengage. It should flee sometimes (but not always) when outnumbered. If it gets separated or loses situational awareness it should retreat...

 

It'd be really nice to have a 'realistic aggressiveness' option for the AI... and also more realistic lack of situational awareness for the AI (sometimes they should temporarily lose their target for a few seconds at the very least, especially around clouds).

[Ram399]

11 hours ago, =RS=rulezcz said:

Kuban and Spitfires

While the Spitfire Mk.Vb is undoubtedly both a beautiful and highly effective plane in the hands of the players, in the current build of the game I have noticed that it does seem to consistently come off on the losing side of AI vs AI engagements when put up against the usual contenders in the form of the Bf-109 G2 and G4.

The reasoning behind this as near as I can tell is that, while the AI does make aggressive maneuvers in both offense and defense, they lack the ability to aim as effectively with the wing-mounted Hispanos in order to follow through on their kills- and in the swirling furballs common in the Kuban they almost always eventually fall prey to an opportunistic deflection shot taken by a diving 109 who manages to put a couple 20mm rounds on target.

In most cases a Soviet fighter, especially one like the LaGG, could shrug off such a glancing blow- but the Spitfire is something of a glass cannon, and any meaningful damage to the tailplane will send the AI into a spin which they can't recover from- though they will try to do so, thereby meaning they won't bail out and instead will ride the spiral all the way to their death.

So, in short, the Spit AI needs to know when to get out, and also practice with their wing guns and BnZ tactics.
In the meantime maybe try flying with a Yak unit and seeing if that makes any difference?

Pic Related: This Spit had one of my fresh AI wingmen dead to rights on his first sortie, but burnt through all his Hispano rounds straight on without scoring a hit.
He later suffered dire consequences when one of my more experienced pilots caught up.

Spoiler

 

[=RS=rulezcz]

29 minutes ago, Ram399 said:

So, in short, the Spit AI needs to know when to get out

 

This would definitely help a lot and can' t be that hard to implement. It' s a game, there are no real losses of material, so why not to let everyone jump and save themselves. It would be still more realistic that everyone dying every day. (Perhaps there should also be a chance not to get captured automaticaly when 2 km behind  enemy lines).

 

Btw the wing mounted guns are really different.  It took me some time to learn to to get a hit with Spitfire.  And the .303 machineguns - well  - I am not sure they have any use at all, but perhaps it' s just my poor technique.

 

29 minutes ago, Ram399 said:

and any meaningful damage to the tailplane will send the AI into a spin which they can't recover from

 

Exactly what I saw. Everyone spinning to the ground after 5 minutes of fighting.  The last one spinning is me after 7 minutes :-), but I sometiomes get out.

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by =RS=rulezcz

[BBAS_Tiki_Joe]

Flown a lot of careers and see the high casualty rate. Like some others have said, It is the AI's inability to disengage in unwinnable fights. Which I get, that has to be extremely hard to program correctly. The thing I wish is when you are actually leading a squadron, the lack of control we have over our AI wing mates has been on my wish list for improvements. When engaged, most of the time the AI just completely ignores your orders. We have the "Return to base order" as the only way to say disengage and get out of the situation. But I've never seen my AI wingmates follow that order when Engaged and try to escape. Instead they will stay in the area fighting 10 - 4 Odds while I'm already half way home. It's either I stay and get myself killed to try and save them or just head on home and let them get slaughtered. My second biggest wish is to be able to give orders to individual planes in the flight. Would be awesome to have inexperienced pilots stick to being a wingman and covering me close instead of becoming Rambo. Instead of orders for WINGMAN 1, WINGMAN 2. Etc. for individual orders, they need to be tied to their actual names in game so we know who's who. Would add a lot of immersion in the game for those of us that like SP.

Edited February 11, 2022 by BBAS_Tiki_Joe

[Majpalmer]

14 minutes ago, BBAS_Tiki_Joe said:

Flown a lot of careers and see the high casualty rate. Like some others have said, It is the AI's inability to disengage in unwinnable fights. Which I get, that has to be extremely hard to program correctly. The thing I wish is when you are actually leading a squadron, the lack of control we have over our AI wing mates has been on my wish list for improvements. When engaged, most of the time the AI just completely ignores your orders. We have the "Return to base order" as the only way to say disengage and get out of the situation. But I've never seen my AI wingmates follow that order when Engaged and try to escape. Instead they will stay in the area fighting 10 - 4 Odds while I'm already half way home. It's either I stay and get myself killed to try and save them or just head on home and let them get slaughtered. My second biggest wish is to be able to give orders to individual planes in the flight. Would be awesome to have inexperienced pilots stick to being a wingman and covering me close instead of becoming Rambo. Instead of orders for WINGMAN 1, WINGMAN 2. Etc. for individual orders, they need to be tied to their actual names in game so we know who's who. Would add a lot of immersion in the game for those of us that like SP.

As I said, I'm new to the game. I've only led two flights so far. But on one we were overwhelmed, and I ordered early on an RTB. I also ordered the follow me, or mimic me, or whatever it says. Yea, they all died. 

[percydanvers]

18 hours ago, =RS=rulezcz said:

I have recently switched to Kuban and Spitfires. I am very happy with the plane, it' s beautiful but I have a problem that every single mission is a terrible carnage (on medium difficulty).

Routinely 7 of my squadmates gets killed and 1 is injured. I sometimes survive some 5 missions.

 

I think it' s not the flying AI that' s to blame, it's the strategic AI that runs into brutal unwinnable battles when 9 Spitfires attack at low level 9 109s and 9 FW-190s. How could this end well ?

 

When I read about Russian aces, their stats are like ... 600 flights, 150 fights, 50 victories (in 3 years)

 

So I think what could help a lot to increase the realism of the career mode, would be to

 

1. simulate the non-action missions by simply creating a non-flyable mission and add it to all the pilot's stats (to increase AI pilot' s experience without risk and also to make the stats of everyone look more realistic) - in a similar way how the game at the moment creates the all-AI missions - they never lead to death of everyone participating

 

2. Let the mission generator to create some advantageous missions time to time  - like let the  attackers be in greater numbers and so on.

 

3. I could even live with some AI cheating to let the high ranking pilots survive, so the commander doesn' t get killed in every mission (this could also be very helpful in Flying Circus Vol 2, because if there are going to be Aces , it wouldn' t be good to let them be killed in the second misson all the time).

 

 

 

I hate to say it but I think the problem is running the campaign on medium difficulty. As far as I've been able to work out, this difficulty adjusts the balance of friendly/enemy aircraft in the air and not necessarily the skill of the pilots (though it might do that as well). I always keep my campaigns on easy and scattered front density, just because I want to see my squadron mates live longer than two missions.

 

I'll say it would be kind of cool if we had a few non combat missions every now and again that could pad experience. Things like a ferry flight from a nearby airfield to retrieve a repaired aircraft, or an escort of a transport plane bringing in supplies idk. 

[Yogiflight]

30 minutes ago, percydanvers said:

Things like a ferry flight from a nearby airfield to retrieve a repaired aircraft,

One thing I find it would fit is, transfering new aircrafts to fill up the number of aircrafts after losses have appeared, from an airfield further behind to your base.

 

33 minutes ago, percydanvers said:

Things like a ferry flight from a nearby airfield to retrieve a repaired aircraft, or an escort of a transport plane bringing in supplies idk. 

Yep, supplies or new pilots.

[messsucher]

35 minutes ago, percydanvers said:

 

I hate to say it but I think the problem is running the campaign on medium difficulty. As far as I've been able to work out, this difficulty adjusts the balance of friendly/enemy aircraft in the air and not necessarily the skill of the pilots (though it might do that as well). I always keep my campaigns on easy and scattered front density, just because I want to see my squadron mates live longer than two missions.

 

I'll say it would be kind of cool if we had a few non combat missions every now and again that could pad experience. Things like a ferry flight from a nearby airfield to retrieve a repaired aircraft, or an escort of a transport plane bringing in supplies idk. 

 

Are you sure of that? What I have tested and read it seems the "difficulty" affects how good or bad enemy pilots are and "frontal density" affects how many flights and AA there are around.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, percydanvers said:

I hate to say it but I think the problem is running the campaign on medium difficulty. As far as I've been able to work out, this difficulty adjusts the balance of friendly/enemy aircraft in the air and not necessarily the skill of the pilots (though it might do that as well). I always keep my campaigns on easy and scattered front density, just because I want to see my squadron mates live longer than two missions.

 

The difficulty level affects both the number of enemy aircraft you will encounter and the relative skill level of both friendly and enemy flights you encounter (excluding your own squadron). It also affects the density of AAA coverage.

 

(It's also covered in the shiny new manual ).

Edited February 11, 2022 by LukeFF

[Alexmarine]

25 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

The difficulty level affects both the number of enemy aircraft you will encounter and the relative skill level of both friendly and enemy flights you encounter (excluding your own squadron). It also affects the density of AAA coverage.

 

(It's also covered in the shiny new manual ).

 

In this case I hope the way it works gets redone completely: 

 

Have numbers and skills of other flights related to the career/timeframe;

 

Have AAA coverage  related to timeframe/type of target

[LukeFF]

54 minutes ago, Alexmarine said:

In this case I hope the way it works gets redone completely: 

 

Have numbers and skills of other flights related to the career/timeframe;

 

Have AAA coverage  related to timeframe/type of target

 

Fully agree. ?

[Ram399]

2 hours ago, percydanvers said:

adjusts the balance of friendly/enemy aircraft in the air and not necessarily the skill of the pilots

Difficulty does affect the skill level and amount of friendly and enemy aircraft encountered around the map.

A major exception to this however are the planes in your own flight who all have a skill level set off of that individual pilot's experience, to this end it is very much worth your time to at least attempt to cultivate more experienced pilots as they will perform dramatically better than the Rookie level AIs who can't tell their ass from their elbows. 

Given the casualty rate I know this seems nearly impossible, and when you aren't the unit commander its doubly hard, but it is doable.
In my JG 52 career I have a core group of 11 pilots that I consider "reliable" (I've modified the unit size to have 28 pilots flying 4 times a day) and in any given flight I take at minimum two or three of them with me while the rest of the formation is filled out by the cannon fod- I mean Feldwebels.

This won't solve everything by any means however, and as a protective measure I currently fly every flight as the leader and go to extreme lengths to prevent situations where we might be overwhelmed.

As a bit of record keeping I keep track of casualties and the unit has just recently lost it's 50th pilot over the entire career, which seems like a lot, but the unit is in Kuban currently and started in Moscow so those have been spread out over quite a while- and if I flew like I normally would the figure would probably be at least 120 if not more.
Its not easy but its definitely the most fun (and arguably effective) way I've found to play career mode.

[grcurmudgeon]

3 hours ago, percydanvers said:

I'll say it would be kind of cool if we had a few non combat missions every now and again that could pad experience. Things like a ferry flight from a nearby airfield to retrieve a repaired aircraft, or an escort of a transport plane bringing in supplies idk. 

I don't have time in my life for non-combat missions, when we get a base relocation mission I fly the whole thing on 8x until I get the mission complete, then end it. Better as was mentioned was to have simulated non-contact flights. Instead of a flight per day, have a flight every 3 days, but count 3 missions.

[Crocogator]

I think that in the old game, 1946, there were a fair few missions without contact. Especially in Pacific Fighters, I recall P400 sorties going for hours, culminating in a quiet plop on a cargo ship. I didn't appreciate them at the time, but maybe with some scenery I might now.

[Chris65]

I am currently reading RED STAR AIRACOBRA and the author speaks of his squadron (actually four planes) being responsible for covering the entire Ukrainian Front as they were the only ones with a concrete runway and also how they kept running into 80 Ju87s with escort; now with that said one has to take it with a grain of salt, according to him his regiment shot down 70+ aircraft in a month for a loss of 6 but even in his book he talks about his wing commander asking him if he claimed the 109 and he said no because he only saw the bullets hit but it not go down, "doesn't matter, you hit it, claim it".

 

Anyway, he claims in his book that they were always greatly outnumbered by 109/190s during their flights (but just the site of a P39 made the Germans run).  I just finished where they ran into 30xJu87 and 4x109 and shot down 13xJu87 and 2x109 for no loss (2xP39)...cough cough.

 

If you read RED ARMY TANK COMMANDER it is the same thing, his tank battalion defeated the entire German army for a loss of two......?

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Chris65 said:

I am currently reading RED STAR AIRACOBRA and the author speaks of his squadron (actually four planes) being responsible for covering the entire Ukrainian Front as they were the only ones with a concrete runway and also how they kept running into 80 Ju87s with escort; now with that said one has to take it with a grain of salt, according to him his regiment shot down 70+ aircraft in a month for a loss of 6 but even in his book he talks about his wing commander asking him if he claimed the 109 and he said no because he only saw the bullets hit but it not go down, "doesn't matter, you hit it, claim it".

 

Anyway, he claims in his book that they were always greatly outnumbered by 109/190s during their flights (but just the site of a P39 made the Germans run).  I just finished where they ran into 30xJu87 and 4x109 and shot down 13xJu87 and 2x109 for no loss (2xP39)...cough cough.

 

If you read RED ARMY TANK COMMANDER it is the same thing, his tank battalion defeated the entire German army for a loss of two......?

 

Yes, overclaiming was a fact of life in all theaters of the war, including the East. I just read of a highly fascinating read in Black Cross / Red Star about an air combat that took place in January 1943 between Soviet planes and JG 54 in the Leningrad sector. Anyways, this one Soviet La-5 pilot was claimed shot down twice in the same engagement by two different pilots, several minutes apart, even though he later landed safely with minimal / no battle damage ? 

[Majpalmer]

The difference is that in Il-2, when I think that I shot down an EA bv myself, the program knows that he was also hit by one of my wingmates and that the cripple made it back to his base. 

[Pikestance]

LOL,

 

I skimmed through the comments. I have had similar experiences. I can recall one time we (just an element) were on the last leg heading back to base on a patrol. I noticed in a distance at out 9 o'clock 8 bandits heading back towards their own lines. My wingman, just turned and charged in. LOL. You go cowboy! I went back to the airbase and had a cold one in the officer's club. 

[Yogiflight]

6 hours ago, Majpalmer said:

The difference is that in Il-2, when I think that I shot down an EA bv myself, the program knows that he was also hit by one of my wingmates and that the cripple made it back to his base. 

The opposite is happening much more often to me. I hit an aircraft but don't follow it as it is seriously damaged and there are others around. So I can't know if it makes it back to its base. I would never claim it, but the game gives it to me, anyway. Or I hit an aircraft, but one of my squadmates shoots at it after me and the enemy goes down. My guess is, my squadmate killed it, but I get the credit for it. IRL it would be clear to me, it was my squadmate's kill and I would not claim it.

 

10 minutes ago, PikeStance said:

I have had similar experiences. I can recall one time we (just an element) were on the last leg heading back to base on a patrol. I noticed in a distance at out 9 o'clock 8 bandits heading back towards their own lines. My wingman, just turned and charged in.

The typical Eastern Front Free Hunt mission behaviour of AI. Hopefully they will at some point be programmed to recognize, when it is better to run.

Interestingly, it seems to work in QMB. I tried several times to duell with a P-38 in a FW 190 A8, always with the same result, the P-38 simply ran away. As I had to turn, while my oponent stayed more or less straight, I had no chance to get him.

[VA_Kamicosmos]

Timely topic for me, I just started a ME110 career in Kuban earlier this week!

I did lose two wingmen on the first mission, and yes I observed, even after telling them to RTB, that they stayed out there, deep behind the lines, fighting against bad odds. 

I just kind of smirked about it.  It was kind of funny, especially combined with the current super ineffective rear gunners we have...

 

[Chris65]

Well last night I was the stupid wingman.  My flight of eight relocated to a new base, as we were in circuit I noticed about ten Germans over Stalingrad so off I went all by my lonesome, and I died all by my lonesome.