How to get AI to Act Human?

[Feldgrun]

How can I get AI in quick missions to act like a human player in the servers? AI always knows where I’m at. It knows when I’m sneaking up on them. Unless they “check six” often, human players often don’t know anyone’s coming up behind them until the tracers start zipping by. I’d like to practice with AI as if I’m playing on the servers. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Feldgrun

[Denum]

Not really a way to do it. Could put them on a lower difficulty setting I suppose but they'll always know where you are. 

[=Karaya69=VikingSail]

by "acting human" i thought you mean to make them fight better. ?

right now IL-2 BoX has really easy, smooth braun ai behavior. i wish it could use some more tactics other than banking and burning.

[firdimigdi]

In quick missions it's impossible. With the mission editor though you can fudge it a bit to force certain waypoints of a patrol route to be of high priority so they don't react to your presense if you want to practice bnz on "unsuspecting" targets.

[IckyATLAS]

Using the AI level is something, but do not forget that you can also use the waypoints to have an impact on AI.

When you set the priority parameter of a waypoint to Low the AI plane as it flies to that waypoint may decide to do anything else if there is an opportunity around. But if you put it to High then he will do nothing except flying straight to the waypoint completely impervious to what's happening around. This means you can go behind and shoot him down, he will not move an inch. 

Now if you use the FMB you can make pretty complex stuff like having him stay put on his flight trajectory, and when hit even slightly you can change his behavior and have him become aggressive. This means some level of coding but it works well and you can create pretty complex stuff. You have 12 AI variants you can use between AI level and Waypoint MCU priority levels that is 4x3, and 12 variants between AI level and Attack Area MCU priority levels, again 4X3, and 12 variants between AI level and Attack MCU priority levels again 4x3. That gives you for a fighter 36 states to choose from. Not bad really. For bombers with gunners there is an issue however and it does not translate the same way. When you set the Waypoint priority to High the gunners become completely silent. This is a design error here.

Now this said the maximum agressivity and flight quality is AI level to ACE with Attack MCU Target Linked to your plane and Priority set to high. This means the attacking fighter will never stop attacking until he runs out of ammo or you or he is shot down. Now his flight capacity is what it is and you cannot improve on that if it is not good enough for you.

Edited March 13, 2022 by IckyATLAS

[ShamrockOneFive]

6 hours ago, Feldgrun said:

AI always knows where I’m at. It knows when I’m sneaking up on them.

Although the AI check six more frequently than human pilots do, you can sneak up on them and surprise them. It's a rarity because most of the time you are visible and they have no trouble picking you out the way a human might but it is possible to surprise them. Just less frequent.

 

As for ways to change that... I think it's possible. They may already do this but adding more chances for the AI to miss a contact especially if their level is set lower would be a good thing to have. You'd need to add some layers on top of the AI and then try and not cause unintended consequences where the target is very obviously right there but mathematically they missed it this time. Getting that kind of nuance is tricky.

[Props]

5 hours ago, [4H]VikingSail said:

by "acting human" i thought you mean to make them fight better. ?

right now IL-2 BoX has really easy, smooth braun ai behavior. i wish it could use some more tactics other than banking and burning.

Yeah, I spent the last year working up, learning the different aircraft and fighting AIs to prepare for going back online after my long absence since IL2 '46. Now I die online at a disconcerting rate because I am hardwired to fight AI and need to relearn how to fight "real Humans"! A little frustrating but in the back of my mind I knew the predictable AI behavior was not going to properly prepare me for humans no matter how many AI enemy aircraft were involved, so I would agree that a more aggressive, and unpredictable AI behavior would be a nice change for the series. 

[[CPT]Crunch]

In old IL-2 we used to set the AI training fight flights like this, always a four ship but built from two separate flights, flight leader would be rookie, his wingman Ace, separate second element would be set as escort with a Vet lead and an Ace wingman.  The guys would be fooled into thinking these were humans they were up against at times, behaved remarkably similar. 

 

Don't know if you can still assign and pin a flight as escort in this sim though.  Doing it like that, the second element would split off immediately to engage, and if you ever tried to gun an Aces flight lead, he's coming after you.  Also there was never any of that shooting into the face garbage from a rookie led fight, he would always start the fight with maneuver for advantage.  Was much more fun and realistic training facing a pincer of pairs flying with able wingmen who would engage and could shoot to kill if you started gaining an advantage. 

 

Usually the AI was set as four with the best being the lead all in a single element in descending order of skill and completely brain dead. 

[Avimimus]

Well, it would be good to add in more limits to perception for the AI I think (especially noticeable in Tank Crew). They are often too good at searching.

When they pass a target and lose sight of it - they are too fast at requiring it.

 

I know Eagle Dynamics published some design documents about how they tackle this.

 

The other thing that comes to mind is having a more modular, object oriented structure for AI responses - that would allow adding AI behaviours for specific contexts (e.g. the enemy can out-turn me, but I'm faster ...therefore) - and it would allow creating AI sub-modules tied to specific aircraft - which could simplify QA/testing.

 

P.S. The AI should, of course, make mistakes. I think the big difference between rookie and ace AI isn't so much how good they are at flying (marksmanship, sustaining an optimal turn-rate), but rather how good they are at not choosing an inappropriate manoeuvre. If one reads the accounts of aces, the impression I've gotten is that they were good at choosing when to run away. Whereas a rookie might try to out-turn an I-16 in a Bf-110... if that makes sense?

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

Well, it would be good to add in more limits to perception for the AI I think (especially noticeable in Tank Crew). They are often too good at searching.

In TC it goes so far that your gunner engages a target he could never see with his limited FOV through the gunsight.

[Avimimus]

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

In TC it goes so far that your gunner engages a target he could never see with his limited FOV through the gunsight.

 

Yup. If the tank crews were unbuttoned - I could see that. But as soon as machinegun fire (or threat of machine gun fire) causes them to button up - a lot of that situational awareness should disappear. They could still spot you (especially the commander) but it should take longer.

 

That said - I've sometimes seen the ISUs drive right-past me... so it may be the case that this ability to miss a target is somewhat simulated - just very unevenly.

[CountZero]

On 3/13/2022 at 6:15 AM, Feldgrun said:

How can I get AI in quick missions to act like a human player in the servers? AI always knows where I’m at. It knows when I’m sneaking up on them. Unless they “check six” often, human players often don’t know anyone’s coming up behind them until the tracers start zipping by. I’d like to practice with AI as if I’m playing on the servers. 

In any QM scenario AI knows where you are from start of DF, no mather it skill, its the way missions are build. Only way to practice "jumping" someone is if you make simple mission and run it from missions insted QM, it would be great if we got "jump" option in QM, but i doubt it. 

[Willy__]

On 3/13/2022 at 2:15 AM, Feldgrun said:

How can I get AI in quick missions to act like a human player in the servers? AI always knows where I’m at. It knows when I’m sneaking up on them. Unless they “check six” often, human players often don’t know anyone’s coming up behind them until the tracers start zipping by. I’d like to practice with AI as if I’m playing on the servers. 

 

Your best bet is go back to the old IL-2 1946...

IL-2 Great Battles AI is miles behind the old 1946 AI...