AI gunnery mod

[Stonehouse]

Redid the same situation with stock AI gunnery. As expected, I got a different result. Burst lengths on bomber guns were different and all the same for each gun regardless, they weren't quite as quick to respond, the AI fighter pilot open fired from further out and ignored hits on their aircraft for longer. Plus, simply as there is that random value in the aim error calc for each shot by a gunner you can run the same exact mission repeatedly and get differences.

 

Beyond that the AI gunners definitely land solid hits on the Hurricane and even though the Hurri shot down the HE111 it was a pyrrhic victory as it was losing fuel and coolant and it would have very likely had to ditch. 

 

I don't believe there would be any significant and relevant difference if this was repeated online. If I get time I will try to edit this exact mission and fly it online.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Stonehouse

[Stonehouse]

Apologies in that it took longer than I thought. I'm not on good terms with the mission editor and couldn't get a quick mission converted to online for some reason. I ended up using EMG and then made sure the Hurricane was correctly set to High skill as previous tests plus deleted a lot of stuff like AAA from the mission to avoid complications.  Anyway, finally got a test mission working. As last time AI Gunnery is not running.

 

In first attempt I thought that my gunners actually did not fire at all. On second attempt I made sure to give them a fire at will command. This time things went quite well for the bomber as it got some fuel leaks but no bad damage or severely wounded so probably could have carried out its mission. The Hurricane got quite shot up and eventually broke off and headed for the nearest airfield.

 

So, it seems to me like the gunners are working and are set to Ace on human aircraft but perhaps you do need to specifically command them to engage. 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Stonehouse
spelling

[JG4_Moltke1871]

Finally installed it, it seems now can survive a bomber mission without climb to 8000 ?

Thanks a lot for this mod ?

[JG4_Moltke1871]

Is there a problem with JGSME known?

Yesterday everything works fine, Mods enabled and chosed mods moved to the right side of the window but the pilot despawn delay not works anymore ?

[Stonehouse]

No if the mod is enabled then it should work. If it worked yesterday it should keep on working. 

 

Mods still enabled in the game settings? For instance you didn't turn off mods all together to join a MP server and forget to turn them back on?

[JG4_Moltke1871]

26 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

No if the mod is enabled then it should work. If it worked yesterday it should keep on working. 

 

Mods still enabled in the game settings? For instance you didn't turn off mods all together to join a MP server and forget to turn them back on?

No, since last night fly with mods on only in game settings to try out everything, anytime I restart the game it shows me „mods on“. All I do was today delete a mod after not satisfied with it. But after that the warning message not come anymore (this mods may can make a conflict bla bla…) After enable/disable mods in JGSME…

So far I am not sure what’s wrong, it should work because mods in game settings enabled and both mods in JGSME enabled. But the killed pilots despawn after 15 second and I survive situations in QMB that yesterday kills me ( fly without worry between some HE111H16‘s?).

Maybe I do the mother of all solutions and restart my computer ?

 

[Stonehouse]

14 minutes ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

All I do was today delete a mod

 

Ok so you got a warning about a conflict - did you disable both conflicting mods in jsgme before deleting files? 

 

Perhaps try disabling AI gunnery and pilot despawn delay and re-enable them.

 

The conflict warning was telling you there was common folders and/or files. So, if you deleted files from your IL2 folders before you disabled mods you might have lost some parts of the pilot despawn delay mod. If you disable mods you should only have to delete the mod from your JSGME mod folder but if you had conflict warnings then you should disable all mods involved in the conflict warning before deleting anything.

 

If that doesn't work I would disable mods. Re download AI gunnery and and pilot despawn and put a fresh copy of each mod into your JSGME mods folder and then re-enable and see if that works. The issue will have been caused somehow by the way you deleted the mod you didn't like. 

[Stonehouse]

FYI this will need to be updated post today's patch. Wouldn't advise using old version at present as they changed some of the min calibrated airspeeds for the AI - guessing for the flap use bug - so using the old one may mean you suffer from bugs that got fixed.

[Stonehouse]

First post updated with new version. See changelog for details. I've only had very limited testing time as real life is kind of busy at the moment so hopefully I've not missed anything.

[Stonehouse]

Sorry all, the hotfix 5.101b had some small updates/fixes and so I've had to update both mods again. See first post.

[Stonehouse]

Just a note on the new version - some WW1 aircraft like the DH4, DFW and Halberstadt's are now set to priority type 3 by 5.101b. ie light bombers. I think therefore in the longer term I will remove them from the fighter pilot side of AI Gunnery and let them return to stock. Their turrets will still be covered by the mod however.

 

EG, I don't have A20s in the WW2 fighter pilot side of AI Gunnery because it is a light/medium bomber and so doesn't (shouldn't) dogfight. The turrets however are included.

[Stonehouse]

This one will need an update post 5.102 to account for the new aircraft even if nothing else has changed. WIP

[Stonehouse]

See 1st post for update. No changes to AI Gunnery despawn delay mod, only changes to the main AI Gunnery mod to add the new aircraft. I accidentally removed AI Info.zip and had to reattach it - so no changes to it and you don't need to get it again if you have it. Too tired sorry and I thought it was the AI Gunnery mod zip file by mistake.

[PatrickAWlson]

@Stonehouse I confess that I am too lazy to read all four pages: does this mod affect fighter accuracy?  Playing FC I basically get head shot every time.  Pop, dead, even from ranges that no good WWI pilot would even consider firing from.  Since I play career, well, it makes for a very short one.

 

Thanks

[Stonehouse]

2 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

@Stonehouse I confess that I am too lazy to read all four pages: does this mod affect fighter accuracy?  Playing FC I basically get head shot every time.  Pop, dead, even from ranges that no good WWI pilot would even consider firing from.  Since I play career, well, it makes for a very short one.

 

Thanks

 

It changes behaviour quite a bit across the board, not actual accuracy for fighters per se. Unlike air gunners and flak the calc for fighter pilot accuracy is not visible - at least I haven't found it so far. So, what this mod does is change when pilots open fire and how they react to hits to their own aircraft and also adjust the behaviour and accuracy for air gunners. Gunners fire different length bursts based on ammo supply for the gun position and so on. They feel much less AI and more organic and bombers tend to stay in the fight longer. Dogfights tend to be more about maneuvering than sitting behind planes and hosing them down.

 

From a fighter point of view, aces are defined as snipers in the stock game and open fire at long range with great accuracy. Low skill pilots fire only when close but not with great accuracy. So from a stock game viewpoint it is generally a lose lose situation. You either get one shotted at huge range or sprayed to death at close range by novices. The mod flips this around and forces aces to act as they did in real life - they wait until they are in close and then fire with great effect - and novices as they did in real life, misjudge the distance and open fire too far away with not much effect. So, generally while you will still die you have a better chance. Forewarning though - if you let an ace bounce you or get in very close and fire you are likely to buy the farm.... but that's how it should be really. Normal and High skill pilots are also adjusted although the differences there are less dramatic. 

 

An example of WW2 ace pilot - stock they fire at 800m. Mod they wait until 400m. Novices in stock wait until 400m. Mod they fire at 800m

WW1 is similar but adjusted to suit WW1. Stock an ace fires at 400m and a novice at 200m. Mod ace fires at 200m and novices at 400m. 

 

All pilots in the modded world react immediately to getting any hits on their aircraft. Stock aces are grim stoics who will continue to attack until they have been hit 5 times while novices will dodge after 2. This makes quite a difference and to my opinion is more likely the real human response to hearing or feeling hits on your plane. 

 

It has been received very favourably by a lot of people so all I can suggest is give it a go.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Stonehouse

[JG4_Moltke1871]

I can confirm the instant sniping Deaths in WW1. But so far I am ok with that because the AI skill in FC is unfortunately pathetic low… Last time I died in a two seater I ignored my gunners fire and I didn't dodge. My own foult… 

[PatrickAWlson]

6 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

I can confirm the instant sniping Deaths in WW1. But so far I am ok with that because the AI skill in FC is unfortunately pathetic low… Last time I died in a two seater I ignored my gunners fire and I didn't dodge. My own foult… 

 

For me, I find that I can dodge and weave effectively, but at some point a bullet finds my head.  Not every fight, but pretty often.  If I am playing a career then I am dying at least once a month.  

 

@Stonehouse Your mod sounds perfect.  If an AI ace gets me in his sights at close range then I get what I get.  Looking forward to using it.

[Stonehouse]

12 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

For me, I find that I can dodge and weave effectively, but at some point a bullet finds my head.  Not every fight, but pretty often.  If I am playing a career then I am dying at least once a month.  

 

@Stonehouse Your mod sounds perfect.  If an AI ace gets me in his sights at close range then I get what I get.  Looking forward to using it.

Freely admit that I spend most of my time in WW2 so if the WW1 side of the mod needs tweaking please let me know. So far no one has mentioned any issues with it.

[Stonehouse]

No changes post 5.103

[JG4_Moltke1871]

On 5/9/2023 at 2:39 PM, PatrickAWlson said:

 

For me, I find that I can dodge and weave effectively, but at some point a bullet finds my head.  Not every fight, but pretty often.  If I am playing a career then I am dying at least once a month.  

 

@Stonehouse Your mod sounds perfect.  If an AI ace gets me in his sights at close range then I get what I get.  Looking forward to using it.

Meanwhile I can understand you better....I fly C47 careers in vanilla Il2 mode... manwhile I got shot out of my cockpit twice without any warning..... plopp,dead ? no warning from the fighter escord hand have no gunner give warning evil is comming. Dead by first shot, no chance to crash or bailout. I think best is turn off this Mod when play C47 Career ?

[Stonehouse]

3 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

I think best is turn off this Mod when play C47 Career ?

Hmmm you must be unlucky enough to encounter ace or high skill enemies. They don't fire until close and are accurate. All I can suggest is doing S turns around your base course often to clear your six. I think you may find it worse playing on stock as the aces will engage you at 800m accurately.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Stonehouse

[PatrickAWlson]

5 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

Hmmm you must be unlucky enough to encounter ace or high skill enemies. They don't fire until close and are accurate. All I can suggest is doing S turns around your base course often to clear your six. I think you may find it worse playing on stock as the aces will engage you at 800m accurately.

 

So far your mod has been a gift from heaven.  Head shots are way down but enemy planes still hit me, especially when I'm stupid.  Excellent change.

[Stonehouse]

AI gunnery will require updates post 5.104 as the base game files have changed. Realistically it is going to take me a few days to sort it out, will try to do the required changes as soon as I can as I know this impacts a lot of people. 

[Stonehouse]

Updated AI Gunnery on first page. Just a resync to game files but to mention that two new parameters were introduced that I've no idea about their function at this time. These being AirTargetToLeaderCriticalDistance and GroundTargetToLeaderCriticalDistance. Each have what appears to be a range pair which I assume are a min and max. EG for WW2 the first is 10000,15000. Presumably meters.

 

No changes to AI gunnery pilot despawn delay. 

 

Other mods will get checked/updated as time permits and hopefully all before July 7. Otherwise, they will have to wait until I get back from a 15-day trip to try to look at real estate for a possible new home in a different part of the country.

[Dauntless]

AI gunnery mod causes game to crash, since the new update. 

 

Sorry, it appears I hadn't updated the mod to the June version. 

 

Good luck finding a new home!

Edited July 27, 2023 by Dauntless

[Stonehouse]

4 hours ago, Dauntless said:

AI gunnery mod causes game to crash, since the new update. 

 

Sorry, it appears I hadn't updated the mod to the June version. 

 

Good luck finding a new home!

All good and thanks!

 

It will likely need an update now since there were some new aircraft. It should probably work fine except for the new planes though. I'll have to find some free time to go through all the mods I've authored again and check if any need updates.

[Stonehouse]

Easy update so got it out of the way. Added the 2 new aircraft and a pilot bot.

[vonGraf]

Ahh, thank you. I was just about to find the reason for the crashes within my heap of mods.

Your new version fixed it. ?

 

[Skycat1969]

Which "AI Gunnery" zip in the main post should I download? Or are they the same? (The download count is different on each.)

[Stonehouse]

4 hours ago, Skycat1969 said:

Which "AI Gunnery" zip in the main post should I download? Or are they the same? (The download count is different on each.)

 

Apologies, it was late again from my viewpoint and tired eyes have led me to delete one of the gunner error zips rather than the old AI gunnery.zip file.

 

I've now removed the old version.

 

To answer your question, it was the 1.01 mb one higher up in the post.

[Hook_Echo]

@Stonehouse can you make a version of this where they are all stone cold killers? Max accuracy and range?

 

Edit: I did some digging in the files. Can you recommend what lines I should change to make the most difficult enemies? Making them as aggressive as possible is what I'm looking for.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Hook_Echo

[Stonehouse]

Pretty much you are talking about aces but allowing them to engage at longer ranges ??? 

[Hook_Echo]

Yeah at the basic level making aces shoot at longer ranges would make it more hardcore mode, and I can do that after looking at the mod files. It seems more tedious than anything adjusting all the planes. I didn't realize before that these are on a per plane basis, not just overall AI. Have you experimented with the angle values in there, or any of the other values? Can you give me the gist of what these values do as far as you understand?

 

[dogfight]
    [novice]
        RefNoseAngle      = 30.0
        MinCAS1           = 200.0
        MaxCAS2           = 650.0
        MaxPitchRate      = 180.0
        AttackDistance    = 500.0
        EngageDistance    = 1500.0
        MinFireDistance   = 100.0
        MaxFireDistance   = 800.0
        MinOpenFireAngle  = 13.0
        MaxOpenFireAngle  = 1.0
        MinStopFireAngle  = 26.0
        MaxStopFireAngle  = 2.0
        CollisionTimeTreshold  = 3.0
        HBTNegativeRoll        = -60.0
        HBTPositiveBTRoll      = 60.0
        InterceptAltitudeAdvance = 0.0

[Stonehouse]

On 8/13/2023 at 2:02 AM, Hook_Echo said:

Yeah at the basic level making aces shoot at longer ranges would make it more hardcore mode, and I can do that after looking at the mod files. It seems more tedious than anything adjusting all the planes. I didn't realize before that these are on a per plane basis, not just overall AI. Have you experimented with the angle values in there, or any of the other values? Can you give me the gist of what these values do as far as you understand?

 

[dogfight]
    [novice]
        RefNoseAngle      = 30.0
        MinCAS1           = 200.0
        MaxCAS2           = 650.0
        MaxPitchRate      = 180.0
        AttackDistance    = 500.0
        EngageDistance    = 1500.0
        MinFireDistance   = 100.0
        MaxFireDistance   = 800.0
        MinOpenFireAngle  = 13.0
        MaxOpenFireAngle  = 1.0
        MinStopFireAngle  = 26.0
        MaxStopFireAngle  = 2.0
        CollisionTimeTreshold  = 3.0
        HBTNegativeRoll        = -60.0
        HBTPositiveBTRoll      = 60.0
        InterceptAltitudeAdvance = 0.0

I think from what you are saying you would just get the stock values for ace and use them on all skill levels. ie all pilots are stock aces regardless of skill set in the mission. Note however that you will end up with pilots that can 1 shot you (or each other) from nearly a kilometer out - which is not realistic. Certainly, it may make your game experience more difficult however if that is what you want. I was never able to find anything that controlled the accuracy of single seat fighters per skill level. Only the distances and how much angle off.

[creamersdream]

Hi,

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question to ask. So I downloaded the AI gunnery mod file. What are the other two AI gunnery pilot despawn delay and IL2 gunner error files for? Do I need them for the AI gunnery mod to work?

Edited August 14, 2023 by creamersdream

[Stonehouse]

20 hours ago, creamersdream said:

Hi,

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question to ask. So I downloaded the AI gunnery mod file. What are the other two AI gunnery pilot despawn delay and IL2 gunner error files for? Do I need them for the AI gunnery mod to work?

 

Not dumb. If you don't ask, then you won't know.

 

The pilot despawn delay mod is an optional mod that changes the time delay to despawn a dead pilot. Default is like 15 secs mod changes it to 120secs. It's meant to increase immersion as you won't see pilots disappear 15 secs after they die. Particular good for those who like taking screen shots or creating movies. I've built a similar change into the AI gunnery mod for gunners in turrets so if you kill a gunner, you will see the body in the turret for 120 secs instead of 15. It was just weird to have them disappear - odd you may think but a lot of people get much closer than you'd expect when they fire so you can see them quite plainly at times. However, pilots are done separately as I was concerned it might impact performance, so I left it optional.

 

The gunner error file is a spreadsheet or pdf (sorry don't remember off the top of my head what I uploaded in the zip) providing the data I used to work out the error in different situations (eg gunner under 2Gs, closure rate between target and gunner 20 m/s type thing). It's meant as a reference for those curious about how gunner error works. Note it is only for one dimension (ie bomber and target aircraft level co-altitude and not maneuvering) I believe the error is worked out for each x, y, z dimension to give an error in 3D space.

 

No, you don't need them to make the AI Gunnery mod work.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Stonehouse

[Charon]

Is it possible to make this work with dserver?

 

I've found this works fine in singleplayer, and if create a coop server with the in-game 'Create Server' button it works fine.

 

When I join a coop hosted using Dserver, however, the server shows up as having mods enabled, but the mod doesn't seem to have any effect (ace AI still opens fire at 800m).

[Stonehouse]

8 hours ago, I./JG3_Charon said:

Is it possible to make this work with dserver?

If the server is using the mod as well as the clients, it should work. I've run a dedicated server for friends using this mod and if host (ie the dserver instance) and all clients have it loaded then in my experience it works fine.

 

Clarification: I believe the host (single player, local host or dserver) runs the AI and so you only see the effect of the mod if the host runs it. However, I believe that clients must run the mod as well to remain in alignment to the host. Not all mods are like this but anything that has the potential to impact all connected clients requires alignment across the host and all clients. The only exception I've seen to this is my Dynamic effects mod which spawns the effects on the host and passes network traffic to clients so everyone sees the same thing. In this case it is needful that only the host runs the mod.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Stonehouse

[Charon]

Hm, very strange. I'm consistently seeing Ace AI fire at 800m (dserver) and 400m (in-game hosting), with the same test mission, both with the Mig-3 and the La-5.

 

The client and server are both part of the same install. The mod is enabled, and I know this because it takes effect when I use the in-game hosting. If it's installed for the game binary, I'd expect it to also be installed for dserver, so I'm not sure what's going on.

[Stonehouse]

18 hours ago, I./JG3_Charon said:

Hm, very strange. I'm consistently seeing Ace AI fire at 800m (dserver) and 400m (in-game hosting), with the same test mission, both with the Mig-3 and the La-5.

 

The client and server are both part of the same install. The mod is enabled, and I know this because it takes effect when I use the in-game hosting. If it's installed for the game binary, I'd expect it to also be installed for dserver, so I'm not sure what's going on.

 

Not sure if there is some misunderstanding on my part so apologies if I'm telling you something you are already aware of. You need to enable the mod for the dserver install as well as the clients. I wasn't aware that you could run a client session from a dserver installation. My understanding was that it requires separate copies of IL2 - the dserver one and then one for each client. Local hosting is different as that piggybacks off your client installation - ie one client acts as a host. But local hosting is totally different to dedicated server. My experience of running a dedicated IL2 GB server is that I have two PCs on my home network, one runs the dserver install (and is much lower spec as it doesn't need to display anything) and the other is my main gaming machine running my normal IL2 install with my licensed campaigns and aircraft and expansions. Both share the local network and single internet connection but have seperate IP addresses. My friends and I connect to the dserver install to fly the mission. The dserver install needs to have all the mods like AAA gunnery and AI gunnery etc enabled. The dserver install doesn't need mods like effects or terrain enabled. e.g., Clear canopy glass mods or gunsight reticle mods or terrain mods like Rowdybot's Bodenplatte retexture.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Stonehouse