AI gunnery mod

[KodiakJac]

1 hour ago, Stonehouse said:

 

Sorry crossed comms - I meant the comment about attacking from the blind spot for KodiakJac.

 

Hopefully there are people willing to test beta versions once I get to that point.

 

Hi @Stonehouse

 

In my MC.202 vs. Li-2 mission four of us engaged the I-16s while I saw two of my MC.202 wingmen going after the Li-2 formation.  I chased the I-16s around for a few minutes (I hate fighting those things...lol) and when I got the chance, I broke off and also headed for the Li-2 formation.  By the time I got there my 2 wingmen were gone.  So, I came in under one of the Li-2s and shot it down.  At that point I was almost out of ammo (wasted on the I-16s...lol), so I headed home.  So, I didn't see how my wingmen approached the Li-2s.

 

At mission end, the Events Log (map) showed my 2 downed wingmen as being shot down by the Li-2s.  Maybe they were also hit by AAA, but the log said Li-2.  I guess it gives the kill credit to the entity that caused the most damage?

 

I really appreciate the amount of thought and effort you are putting into this mod!  And I would be glad to beta test for you.

[Aapje]

3 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

I did understand what you were saying before. Essentially people can tweak the AI as they prefer if they are willing to find all the files and edit them. I agree and have no problem with them doing so. At least that is what I think your point was? Maybe I've misunderstood after all.

 

Unfortunately for this mod, it is intended as a 1 size fits all missions whereas I think you are talking about a tailored one-off version to suit a particular mission's needs.

 

Perhaps an option is to have a different version for single player that is less aggressive with the turrets? We've had discussions in the past that multiplayer is basically full of extreme aces, so if you have to tune for them, it is not historically accurate at all, and also probably way too aggressive for most single player players.

 

Or perhaps some included instructions on how to change the mod to have other decent behavior?

[Vamandrac]

14 hours ago, Aapje said:

 

Perhaps an option is to have a different version for single player that is less aggressive with the turrets? We've had discussions in the past that multiplayer is basically full of extreme aces, so if you have to tune for them, it is not historically accurate at all, and also probably way too aggressive for most single player players.

 

Or perhaps some included instructions on how to change the mod to have other decent behavior?

Yeah, overall I would say I just don't to be headshot by bomber gunners for simply trying to sit on their tail for a second to line up a shot.  I get that bombers need to be defended and the default gunner AI on them is garbage, but even on just vet level I just feel they are still too dangerous.

[kraut1]

4 hours ago, Vamandrac said:

Yeah, overall I would say I just don't to be headshot by bomber gunners for simply trying to sit on their tail for a second to line up a shot.  I get that bombers need to be defended and the default gunner AI on them is garbage, but even on just vet level I just feel they are still too dangerous.

Only for information:

As I have already mentioned, it is possible with a very small and easy to understand mod to change AI Turretgunner shooting abilities.

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/78388-ai-gunnery-mod/page/8/#findComment-1344211

 

It is only 1 small file to be adjusted as required.

If you think, that veteran (high) and ace are too dangerous, it is possible to use for these ailevels the values of "medium" (or normal) ailevel.

I am using since september such a mod for end war eastern front FW190-A8 missions and it works without issues.

[JG4_Moltke1871]

Once the AI Gunnery mod safed the game for Bomber pilots because the vanilla gunners where totally useless after an unholy patch.

Without this mod it was impossible to fly a bomber career because in any case the planes were defenceless by lobotomised rear gunners.

Meanwhile the developers bring back the rear gunners ability to defend the plane without a mod. 
That's why I've decided not to use the mod further, also because I'm not sure if the night fighters are too good with this mod, I suspect this because some instant kills while night sorties but in fact I simply don't know.

I also learned to switch the formation to column in case of an enemy attack what increases the effectiveness of defence.

I think we also have noticed that the effectiveness of the gunners varies between aircraft types, A20 very bad, Li2 very good for example.

 

I would caution against discouraging the gunners too much in this mod.
 

Maybe a solution would be to release this mod in two versions, a fighter and a bomber version adapted to the respective needs so that both fighter and bomber pilots can have fun 😉

Edited February 19 by JG4_Moltke1871

[Vamandrac]

11 hours ago, kraut1 said:

Only for information:

As I have already mentioned, it is possible with a very small and easy to understand mod to change AI Turretgunner shooting abilities.

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/78388-ai-gunnery-mod/page/8/#findComment-1344211

 

It is only 1 small file to be adjusted as required.

If you think, that veteran (high) and ace are too dangerous, it is possible to use for these ailevels the values of "medium" (or normal) ailevel.

I am using since september such a mod for end war eastern front FW190-A8 missions and it works without issues.

So are you just replacing the main AI mod with yours with the modifications?  It doesnt impact the despawn delay mod I assume.

[Stonehouse]

3 hours ago, Vamandrac said:

So are you just replacing the main AI mod with yours with the modifications?  It doesnt impact the despawn delay mod I assume.

Kraut1's suggestion simply alters the gunners so that they all become low or normal skill. It doesn't alter stock fighter behaviour. Gunner despawn delay is part of AI Gunnery (this was the simplest approach and cuts down on duplicating all the bot files again). Note that human crewed bombers are using ace gunners so you would not want to fly a bomber career or anything bomber or even something like a Bf110 or IL2 or anything else with fighter bomber/heavy fighter style with a rear gunner in mission with this active.

 

From what I have seen in career and campaign missions ace bombers are very rare. Most are low or normal with a few high skill crew.

 

From my side work is progressing with a review and update of gunners. No ETA as it's quite time consuming and it is something I do when I am free to work on it.

 

It is more difficult than you think to have 2 versions unless you are happy with one version being AI Gunnery and the other being stock fighters with altered (degraded) bombers. Originally AI Gunnery was fighters only. However, altering the fighters created an issue when they were attacking bombers and particularly higher skilled pilots were disadvantaged because they hold fire until closer in under the mod while stock gunners can engage out to about 2.5kms. It is just the way the game has implemented things. Fighter skills have a hardcoded max range to fire. They will always wait until this is reached. It was quickly pointed out to me that this was an issue. So you either made the bombers so bad they could barely hit anything (which upset people flying bombers and made it even more easy for humans to rack up huge amounts of bomber kills so every mission with bombers turned into a turkey shoot) or you try to balance things for both sides. I took the latter approach. Personally, I would not consider going back to stock fighters. They are often unresponsive when they should not be, and I hate getting 1 shotted by an ace from nearly a kilometer away when in reality only the greenest pilot fired at that range.

Edited February 19 by Stonehouse

[kraut1]

10 hours ago, Vamandrac said:

So are you just replacing the main AI mod with yours with the modifications?  It doesnt impact the despawn delay mod I assume.

Hi Vamandrac,

To avoid misunderstandings: the best solution is to use AI gunnery Mod by @Stonehouse, because he adjusted hundreds of individual fighter and gunner settings in a way that they fit together. That is great!

The intention of my suggestions was to find a quick makeshift solution for a an extraordinary situation related to special mission design of an individual campaign or pilot career to make the campaign at least playable for the player.

 

[Stonehouse]

22 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

think we also have noticed that the effectiveness of the gunners varies between aircraft types, A20 very bad, Li2 very good for example.

Perfect example of the complications I meet. Just think I have a reasonable candidate based on maybe 100 odd run throughs of the test case mission based on KodiakJac's example with unescorted Li2s v MC202 and another set of run throughs with Li2s and Bf109F4s and got things at the point where on average I think the losses of Li2s is about right v's the losses in fighters (the AI is dumb and often you get 1 ultra gung ho AI get in first and suffer all 6 Li2s firing at him at close range rather than co-ordinate attacks and then usually others are damaged to the point the pilot bails after successive attacks) so I try a sanity check where I swop out the Li2s to A20s and let the 109F4s at them. Results all 6 A20Bs down in about 2 mins with maybe 1 109F4 losing glycol/fuel but all still flying along happily.

 

It all comes down to the number of guns in the turrets and their caliber and how good their firing arcs are and how fast the gun can be brought to bear on an attacker. The Li2s ball turret with a 12.7mm is 10x better than the A20s pintle mounted top pop gun regardless of the skill of the AI firing the weapon. It rotates quickly and can cover the entire upper half of the defensive sphere with large caliber defensive fire while the A20s gun is quite limited in firing arc and rifle caliber. The A20 bottom gunner is better off left at home along with their gun and ammo because at least the aircraft would be lighter and faster if it was minus 200-300kg as the bottom gun has such a limited arc. The Li2 door gunner is much more effective. No wonder they switched out the top turret to a twin 50 cal powered turret and the ventral gun to a 50 cal too in the later A20 models and replaced the bomb aimer with a solid nose and guns and changed its role to a low-level ground attack aircraft.

 

So I'll have to go through the tweaks and tests again as realistically A20B v's 109F4s is a situation players will meet up with. The Havoc campaign comes immediately to mind.

 

As I have said before, all of this is a compromise and while I will do the best I can to provide something better than stock there may be specific instances where it's less balanced than I want. The MC202 is a fast agile fighter but doesn't have much punch compared to some other aircraft and the Li2 is pretty well defended for a transport so to avoid the A20 situation it may be that fighters like the MC202 have to work a bit harder to get their Li2 kills. The western front is a whole different ball game too and I must test that before the end. Fighters like the Tempest or the FW190 have much more firepower than an MC202. I won't know how much compromise there is though until I get a beta together that I am happy with and let people test it and give feedback.  

 

I'll keep on with it anyway.

[Aapje]

5 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

No wonder they switched out the top turret to a twin 50 cal powered turret and the ventral gun to a 50 cal too in the later A20 models and replaced the bomb aimer with a solid nose and guns and changed its role to a low-level ground attack aircraft.

 

If the plane was an easy target in real life, why would the mod need to compensate for that?

[KodiakJac]

Hi @Stonehouse

 

Does your AI Gunnery mod also apply to WW1 fighters?  I see where it does for WW1 AI gunners but couldn't find where you've got it running for WW1 fighters, too.

 

Thanks! 

[Stonehouse]

On 2/26/2025 at 10:13 AM, KodiakJac said:

Does your AI Gunnery mod also apply to WW1 fighters

Yes it does although the setup is different from WW2 for both fighters and bombers of that period.

[KodiakJac]

On 2/26/2025 at 6:48 PM, Stonehouse said:

Yes it does although the setup is different from WW2 for both fighters and bombers of that period.

 

"Setup" as in I should do something different when using it for WW1, or do you mean something different in behavior, etc. that is included in the mod?

 

Thanks! 👍

[Stonehouse]

1 hour ago, KodiakJac said:

 

"Setup" as in I should do something different when using it for WW1, or do you mean something different in behavior, etc. that is included in the mod?

 

Thanks! 👍

Sorry wasn't very clear. I meant the parameter values are very different in the files for WW1 compared to WW2. Fighters open fire at much closer ranges for instance in WW1 and bombers were adjusted to suit that.

[Stonehouse]

I think this is reasonable for a beta version for people to try out and provide feedback. It has been quite difficult trying to rebalance things across the different aircraft and time periods within WW2. Plus, my wife has had an accident and finished up with both wrists broken so real life has taken a priority over the last week. Fortunately, her left is able to be handled by a brace, but the right will have surgery this Friday. This does mean that I have very little time to spare for anything else at present. 

 

So some general points:

• Some aircraft are simply not that great so there are limits to what I can do without skewing everything else. EG the A20 is very bad at defense, the Li2 is surprisingly good due to its upper turret but it runs out of ammo quickly. The MC202 is very nimble but lacks punch, the lack of APIT still haunts M2 armed aircraft to a degree. The AI still does bizarre things at times.
• As a result of things like the above you will still meet situations where it is not ideal. I hope though that overall, you see an improvement over stock and the prior version of the mod.
• I've run literally hundreds of repetitions of test case missions matching different sets of 6 bombers v 6 fighters in a meeting engagement at around 2000-3000m altitude. In each case I took KodiakJac's example campaign mission as the basis for the test mission and created a simplified version with everything other than the aircraft removed plus 1 aircraft which I could occupy to watch the progress of the mission. The bombers were set at normal skill (skills possible are low, normal, high and ace) and the fighters were 1 ace, 2 high, 2 normal and 1 low as representative of an "average" campaign missions order of battle. I also ran variants where I fly one of the 6 fighters or bombers. In fighters I took the ace's slot with the assumption that human pilots are better or can become better than the AI. In bombers whatever aircraft I flew became an ace crew as per game implementation.
• Each run through was different, the fighters attacked slightly differently, the bombers didn't get back into formation quite as quickly after the merge etc and just the fact that there is a random factor in gunner accuracy means that defensive fire effectiveness is not 100% consistent. Therefore, when you look at this beta remember that what happens in a single mission or even 5 or 6 doesn't represent a statistical trend. There is no point trying it on one mission and saying it's garbage or even that it is great. 

Specifics:

• Increased the interception altitude offset that fighter AI takes by 100 to 200m. Low skill fighter pilots will now climb at least 100m before running in where previously they tended to attack co-altitude with their target. Higher skills take a bigger offset and therefore attack with more energy. Note this gets much less noticeable once you're past the initial fighter attack although you should notice higher skill pilots trying to dive down onto the bombers quite often.
• Slightly reduced the gunner's ability to judge deflection. This change unavoidably and unfortunately impacts all skill levels due to it being implemented as a global parameter rather than a skill level parameter.
• Slightly increased the skill-based error values (ie reducing accuracy) for low and medium skill gunners. These are the most commonly encountered bomber skill levels. You occasionally get high skill crews and very rarely ace crews in campaigns and careers. Things like EMG and PWCG or custom missions allow skill levels encountered to be managed to some degree by the user. As I don't want to more than minimally degrade the defenses of human flown bombers and the deflection judgement change already impacts all crews, I did not change high or ace level error values.
• Completely reviewed and updated the burst lengths and wait times for each use case. There are 8 use cases for WW2. Long, med and short and brief bursts and small calibre long, med, short and brief bursts. Burst lengths and wait times are now not just based on available ammo but rather I have calculated how many 1 sec bursts are required to exhaust the ammo and using the references I have which are detailed enough to give required pauses between bursts to avoid jamming or cook offs for a limited selection of weapons done a very rough approximation of wait times (very rough but better than before). Longer bursts obviously need longer wait times etc. For some turret locations there was no major change but probably about 50% have been tweaked.
• WW1 is completely unaltered
• Other than the interception altitude offset fighters were unchanged.

 

Some ideas for tactics that I've seen give reasonable results during the many test runs. No intention to tell people what to do or how to do it, these are just observations (some very obvious) from watching the AI at work and where they have had some success. For the two cents they're worth, take them or leave them as you wish.

 

• If you are the fighter pilot:
  • Gain height before you attack and accelerate down onto your target. Don't be afraid to use boost to increase the speed differential between you and the bomber and reduce throttle once you have broken off. The difference in vectors between you and your target is the biggest single factor in generating gunner error. I have also seen Aces dive slightly below and behind their target and then pull up to fire into their underside before breaking away to avoid defensive fire. Remember that a vector is both a speed and a direction in 3D space.
  • Know the blind spots on the bomber and where the weaker guns are.
  • Don't overfly the formation if possible. Instead break away to the outside of the formation vertically or horizontally.
  • If you are attacking from the rear, offset vertically as per point 1 but also offset left or right so you make a rear quarter attack as this creates a bigger vector difference and makes you a harder target.
  • Try not to attack by yourself. Doing so makes you the target of every gun on every bomber that can bear on you.
  • The AI has some bad habits such as trying to attack the lead bomber even if it means flying through the formation and taking fire from all bombers or attacking a side of the formation but then when taking fire and deciding to break off, they turn across the formation rather than away or vertically disengaging. Turning across the formation exposes them to a lot of defensive fire. However, they have some good ones such as diving fast into the attack, picking a bomber on the edge of the formation or one that is slightly apart.
  • It is possible to make feints on the bombers forcing them to waste ammo and leave them defenseless. It is worth knowing the ammo available in different turrets on each aircraft. For example, the top Li2 gunner has 230 rounds. The Russian 12.7mm has a ROF of 1000 rounds per min or 13-14 1 sec bursts to run out of ammo completely. Once that happens, they are largely helpless against an attack from the rear. I will try to find time to put up a chart of aircraft/turret/ammo/# of 1 sec bursts to deplete ammo for that turret.
• If you are the bomber, it's easier as there are less choices but it's harder to grin and bear it. Pretty much you need to remember that there is a 3G cutoff in that gunners cease to fire once they under more than 3G. Once back under 3G all good but you need to remember this. In line with this, you want to minimize the vector difference between you and the attacking fighters as this is the largest error generating factor - this tends to mean that you have the hold the aircraft steady although likely you want to accelerate prior to the initial attack. If your formation is largely intact this appears to give the best results (and is the opposite of what the AI bombers do most of the time) but obviously once the formation is broken then it's every bomber for itself and spiral dives or whatever you want to do to make life hard for the guy attacking is good but still remember that if an opportunity pops up that holding things steady for a sec might give your gunners a killing shot.

 

AI gunnerybeta03mar2025.zip

Edited March 3 by Stonehouse

[JG4_Moltke1871]

7 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

I think this is reasonable for a beta version for people to try out and provide feedback. It has been quite difficult trying to rebalance things across the different aircraft and time periods within WW2. Plus, my wife has had an accident and finished up with both wrists broken so real life has taken a priority over the last week. Fortunately, her left is able to be handled by a brace, but the right will have surgery this Friday. This does mean that I have very little time to spare for anything else at present. 

 

So some general points:

• Some aircraft are simply not that great so there are limits to what I can do without skewing everything else. EG the A20 is very bad at defense, the Li2 is surprisingly good due to its upper turret but it runs out of ammo quickly. The MC202 is very nimble but lacks punch, the lack of APIT still haunts M2 armed aircraft to a degree. The AI still does bizarre things at times.
• As a result of things like the above you will still meet situations where it is not ideal. I hope though that overall, you see an improvement over stock and the prior version of the mod.
• I've run literally hundreds of repetitions of test case missions matching different sets of 6 bombers v 6 fighters in a meeting engagement at around 2000-3000m altitude. In each case I took KodiakJac's example campaign mission as the basis for the test mission and created a simplified version with everything other than the aircraft removed plus 1 aircraft which I could occupy to watch the progress of the mission. The bombers were set at normal skill (skills possible are low, normal, high and ace) and the fighters were 1 ace, 2 high, 2 normal and 1 low as representative of an "average" campaign missions order of battle. I also ran variants where I fly one of the 6 fighters or bombers. In fighters I took the ace's slot with the assumption that human pilots are better or can become better than the AI. In bombers whatever aircraft I flew became an ace crew as per game implementation.
• Each run through was different, the fighters attacked slightly differently, the bombers didn't get back into formation quite as quickly after the merge etc and just the fact that there is a random factor in gunner accuracy means that defensive fire effectiveness is not 100% consistent. Therefore, when you look at this beta remember that what happens in a single mission or even 5 or 6 doesn't represent a statistical trend. There is no point trying it on one mission and saying it's garbage or even that it is great. 

Specifics:

• Increased the interception altitude offset that fighter AI takes by 100 to 200m. Low skill fighter pilots will now climb at least 100m before running in where previously they tended to attack co-altitude with their target. Higher skills take a bigger offset and therefore attack with more energy. Note this gets much less noticeable once you're past the initial fighter attack although you should notice higher skill pilots trying to dive down onto the bombers quite often.
• Slightly reduced the gunner's ability to judge deflection. This change unavoidably and unfortunately impacts all skill levels due to it being implemented as a global parameter rather than a skill level parameter.
• Slightly increased the skill-based error values (ie reducing accuracy) for low and medium skill gunners. These are the most commonly encountered bomber skill levels. You occasionally get high skill crews and very rarely ace crews in campaigns and careers. Things like EMG and PWCG or custom missions allow skill levels encountered to be managed to some degree by the user. As I don't want to more than minimally degrade the defenses of human flown bombers and the deflection judgement change already impacts all crews, I did not change high or ace level error values.
• Completely reviewed and updated the burst lengths and wait times for each use case. There are 8 use cases for WW2. Long, med and short and brief bursts and small calibre long, med, short and brief bursts. Burst lengths and wait times are now not just based on available ammo but rather I have calculated how many 1 sec bursts are required to exhaust the ammo and using the references I have which are detailed enough to give required pauses between bursts to avoid jamming or cook offs for a limited selection of weapons done a very rough approximation of wait times (very rough but better than before). Longer bursts obviously need longer wait times etc. For some turret locations there was no major change but probably about 50% have been tweaked.
• WW1 is completely unaltered
• Other than the interception altitude offset fighters were unchanged.

 

Some ideas for tactics that I've seen give reasonable results during the many test runs. No intention to tell people what to do or how to do it, these are just observations (some very obvious) from watching the AI at work and where they have had some success. For the two cents they're worth, take them or leave them as you wish.

 

• If you are the fighter pilot:
  • Gain height before you attack and accelerate down onto your target. Don't be afraid to use boost to increase the speed differential between you and the bomber and reduce throttle once you have broken off. The difference in vectors between you and your target is the biggest single factor in generating gunner error. I have also seen Aces dive slightly below and behind their target and then pull up to fire into their underside before breaking away to avoid defensive fire. Remember that a vector is both a speed and a direction in 3D space.
  • Know the blind spots on the bomber and where the weaker guns are.
  • Don't overfly the formation if possible. Instead break away to the outside of the formation vertically or horizontally.
  • If you are attacking from the rear, offset vertically as per point 1 but also offset left or right so you make a rear quarter attack as this creates a bigger vector difference and makes you a harder target.
  • Try not to attack by yourself. Doing so makes you the target of every gun on every bomber that can bear on you.
  • The AI has some bad habits such as trying to attack the lead bomber even if it means flying through the formation and taking fire from all bombers or attacking a side of the formation but then when taking fire and deciding to break off, they turn across the formation rather than away or vertically disengaging. Turning across the formation exposes them to a lot of defensive fire. However, they have some good ones such as diving fast into the attack, picking a bomber on the edge of the formation or one that is slightly apart.
  • It is possible to make feints on the bombers forcing them to waste ammo and leave them defenseless. It is worth knowing the ammo available in different turrets on each aircraft. For example, the top Li2 gunner has 230 rounds. The Russian 12.7mm has a ROF of 1000 rounds per min or 13-14 1 sec bursts to run out of ammo completely. Once that happens, they are largely helpless against an attack from the rear. I will try to find time to put up a chart of aircraft/turret/ammo/# of 1 sec bursts to deplete ammo for that turret.
• If you are the bomber, it's easier as there are less choices but it's harder to grin and bear it. Pretty much you need to remember that there is a 3G cutoff in that gunners cease to fire once they under more than 3G. Once back under 3G all good but you need to remember this. In line with this, you want to minimize the vector difference between you and the attacking fighters as this is the largest error generating factor - this tends to mean that you have the hold the aircraft steady although likely you want to accelerate prior to the initial attack. If your formation is largely intact this appears to give the best results (and is the opposite of what the AI bombers do most of the time) but obviously once the formation is broken then it's every bomber for itself and spiral dives or whatever you want to do to make life hard for the guy attacking is good but still remember that if an opportunity pops up that holding things steady for a sec might give your gunners a killing shot.

 

AI gunnerybeta03mar2025.zip 1.26 MB · 5 downloads

My best wishes for your wife's recovery.
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[RedeyeStorm]

Good luck with your family crisis. 

[kraut1]

My best wishes for your wife's recovery.

[cmbishop]

I wish the best for your wife's recovery too !

[KodiakJac]

Thanks for this, @Stonehouse

 

And best wishes for your wife.  It's hard on everyone when a loved one is ill or injured.  Take care!

[Dagwoodyt]

Best wishes for your wife's recovery!

[FilMit]

I wish you all good health !!!

[KodiakJac]

Hi @Stonehouse

 

I've got a question for you regarding the turret/tail gunner accuracy portion of this mod (the fighter portion is outstanding!)...

 

I'm also a bomber guy.  About half of my Pilot Careers are bombers or ground attack aircraft (He-111, Ju-88, Ju-87, etc).  So, I don't have a prejudice against either fighters or bombers/attack aircraft.  I'm no expert, but from what I've read over the years, even the B-17 and B-24 bristling with guns didn't do that well against fighter attacks without fighter escorts.  So, in IL-2 I've just sort of accepted the fact that I was going to get chewed up if my fighter escort got overwhelmed, or worse yet, I didn't have a fighter escort or didn't make the connection.

 

With this mod are you trying to make things a little more fun for bomber pilots and a little less historically accurate?  Or are you trying for historical accuracy as close as possible with bomber pilots taking their lumps when they get caught alone against fighters?

 

No right or wrong answer.  Just curious what I'm looking for.

 

Cheers!

 

P.S.  Hopefully, your wife's surgery went well on Friday! 👍  My nephew broke both wrists when he fell backwards slipping on ice a few years ago, and he found it incredibly disabling with both wrists in a cast! 

 

[Stonehouse]

10 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

With this mod are you trying to make things a little more fun for bomber pilots and a little less historically accurate?  Or are you trying for historical accuracy as close as possible with bomber pilots taking their lumps when they get caught alone against fighters?

Aiming for some sort of balance. The stock game lacks formation discipline, fire discipline (bursts too long and often in stock leading to guaranteed overheating and inaccuracy plus exhaustion of ammo very early in a bomber formation's defense) and proper formations and numbers of bombers.

So, hoping for it to be challenging but not to the point where it's too suicidal for fighters but also to give particularly human led/involved bomber formations some chance. Impossible to aim for historical accuracy due to the omissions in the stock game as mentioned above. 

Edited March 8 by Stonehouse

[KodiakJac]

Sounds good, @Stonehouse

 

Although 1C has adjusted turret/rear gunners over time, they have still remained pretty hapless.  So it is shocking to see them doing better, both from a bomber pilot and fighter pilot perspective!

[Stonehouse]

On 3/3/2025 at 7:39 PM, Stonehouse said:

I think this is reasonable for a beta version for people to try out and provide feedback. It has been quite difficult trying to rebalance things across the different aircraft and time periods within WW2. Plus, my wife has had an accident and finished up with both wrists broken so real life has taken a priority over the last week. Fortunately, her left is able to be handled by a brace, but the right will have surgery this Friday. This does mean that I have very little time to spare for anything else at present. 

 

So some general points:

• Some aircraft are simply not that great so there are limits to what I can do without skewing everything else. EG the A20 is very bad at defense, the Li2 is surprisingly good due to its upper turret but it runs out of ammo quickly. The MC202 is very nimble but lacks punch, the lack of APIT still haunts M2 armed aircraft to a degree. The AI still does bizarre things at times.
• As a result of things like the above you will still meet situations where it is not ideal. I hope though that overall, you see an improvement over stock and the prior version of the mod.
• I've run literally hundreds of repetitions of test case missions matching different sets of 6 bombers v 6 fighters in a meeting engagement at around 2000-3000m altitude. In each case I took KodiakJac's example campaign mission as the basis for the test mission and created a simplified version with everything other than the aircraft removed plus 1 aircraft which I could occupy to watch the progress of the mission. The bombers were set at normal skill (skills possible are low, normal, high and ace) and the fighters were 1 ace, 2 high, 2 normal and 1 low as representative of an "average" campaign missions order of battle. I also ran variants where I fly one of the 6 fighters or bombers. In fighters I took the ace's slot with the assumption that human pilots are better or can become better than the AI. In bombers whatever aircraft I flew became an ace crew as per game implementation.
• Each run through was different, the fighters attacked slightly differently, the bombers didn't get back into formation quite as quickly after the merge etc and just the fact that there is a random factor in gunner accuracy means that defensive fire effectiveness is not 100% consistent. Therefore, when you look at this beta remember that what happens in a single mission or even 5 or 6 doesn't represent a statistical trend. There is no point trying it on one mission and saying it's garbage or even that it is great. 

Specifics:

• Increased the interception altitude offset that fighter AI takes by 100 to 200m. Low skill fighter pilots will now climb at least 100m before running in where previously they tended to attack co-altitude with their target. Higher skills take a bigger offset and therefore attack with more energy. Note this gets much less noticeable once you're past the initial fighter attack although you should notice higher skill pilots trying to dive down onto the bombers quite often.
• Slightly reduced the gunner's ability to judge deflection. This change unavoidably and unfortunately impacts all skill levels due to it being implemented as a global parameter rather than a skill level parameter.
• Slightly increased the skill-based error values (ie reducing accuracy) for low and medium skill gunners. These are the most commonly encountered bomber skill levels. You occasionally get high skill crews and very rarely ace crews in campaigns and careers. Things like EMG and PWCG or custom missions allow skill levels encountered to be managed to some degree by the user. As I don't want to more than minimally degrade the defenses of human flown bombers and the deflection judgement change already impacts all crews, I did not change high or ace level error values.
• Completely reviewed and updated the burst lengths and wait times for each use case. There are 8 use cases for WW2. Long, med and short and brief bursts and small calibre long, med, short and brief bursts. Burst lengths and wait times are now not just based on available ammo but rather I have calculated how many 1 sec bursts are required to exhaust the ammo and using the references I have which are detailed enough to give required pauses between bursts to avoid jamming or cook offs for a limited selection of weapons done a very rough approximation of wait times (very rough but better than before). Longer bursts obviously need longer wait times etc. For some turret locations there was no major change but probably about 50% have been tweaked.
• WW1 is completely unaltered
• Other than the interception altitude offset fighters were unchanged.

 

Some ideas for tactics that I've seen give reasonable results during the many test runs. No intention to tell people what to do or how to do it, these are just observations (some very obvious) from watching the AI at work and where they have had some success. For the two cents they're worth, take them or leave them as you wish.

 

• If you are the fighter pilot:
  • Gain height before you attack and accelerate down onto your target. Don't be afraid to use boost to increase the speed differential between you and the bomber and reduce throttle once you have broken off. The difference in vectors between you and your target is the biggest single factor in generating gunner error. I have also seen Aces dive slightly below and behind their target and then pull up to fire into their underside before breaking away to avoid defensive fire. Remember that a vector is both a speed and a direction in 3D space.
  • Know the blind spots on the bomber and where the weaker guns are.
  • Don't overfly the formation if possible. Instead break away to the outside of the formation vertically or horizontally.
  • If you are attacking from the rear, offset vertically as per point 1 but also offset left or right so you make a rear quarter attack as this creates a bigger vector difference and makes you a harder target.
  • Try not to attack by yourself. Doing so makes you the target of every gun on every bomber that can bear on you.
  • The AI has some bad habits such as trying to attack the lead bomber even if it means flying through the formation and taking fire from all bombers or attacking a side of the formation but then when taking fire and deciding to break off, they turn across the formation rather than away or vertically disengaging. Turning across the formation exposes them to a lot of defensive fire. However, they have some good ones such as diving fast into the attack, picking a bomber on the edge of the formation or one that is slightly apart.
  • It is possible to make feints on the bombers forcing them to waste ammo and leave them defenseless. It is worth knowing the ammo available in different turrets on each aircraft. For example, the top Li2 gunner has 230 rounds. The Russian 12.7mm has a ROF of 1000 rounds per min or 13-14 1 sec bursts to run out of ammo completely. Once that happens, they are largely helpless against an attack from the rear. I will try to find time to put up a chart of aircraft/turret/ammo/# of 1 sec bursts to deplete ammo for that turret.
• If you are the bomber, it's easier as there are less choices but it's harder to grin and bear it. Pretty much you need to remember that there is a 3G cutoff in that gunners cease to fire once they under more than 3G. Once back under 3G all good but you need to remember this. In line with this, you want to minimize the vector difference between you and the attacking fighters as this is the largest error generating factor - this tends to mean that you have the hold the aircraft steady although likely you want to accelerate prior to the initial attack. If your formation is largely intact this appears to give the best results (and is the opposite of what the AI bombers do most of the time) but obviously once the formation is broken then it's every bomber for itself and spiral dives or whatever you want to do to make life hard for the guy attacking is good but still remember that if an opportunity pops up that holding things steady for a sec might give your gunners a killing shot.

 

AI gunnerybeta03mar2025.zip 1.26 MB · 21 downloads

 

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted the beta, I still don't have much spare time and probably won't for quite a long time as while my wife's wrists seem to be recovering according to the surgeon and physio's expectations it looks like it's going to be a long journey to get back to full recovery. I get a little time late evenings but the rest of the day I'm flat out trying to cover everything two of us used to.

 

Anyway, I really just stopped by to ask if there was any feedback yet? As I made the gunners less accurate was it enough? too much? Have I broken things for bomber players? 

Edited March 17 by Stonehouse

[KodiakJac]

I fly both directions almost equally (bombers and fighters).  So far, my perception is that the turret/rear gunners are still a little too deadly.  For instance, my flight of four La-5 Ser. 8 attacked a flight of three Ju-87 the other night.  We shot down 2 of the 3 Ju-87, but they got 2 of my La-5 wingmen.  And my flight of nine He-111s scorched all attackers on the Stalingrad map during a long mission (some Yaks and some LaGG, I believe it was).  I had two He-111 come home smoking, but didn't lose any.

 

And in Flying Circus, the 2-seaters are absolutely deadly, and I've pretty much given up attacking them for fear of engine damage.  Albert Ball said 2-seaters were so easy to shoot down he felt like he was murdering the poor souls.  But I guess part of this is because the field of fire for some (many?) of the FC 2-seaters rear gunners are unrealistically wide.  I don't know that for sure, but it sure seems hard to get underneath many of them like Ball talked about doing without getting hit.

 

But I still feel like my observations are limited and anecdotal, so I'll wait a while before posting any mission files for you to look at.

 

And I still love what you've done with the fighters 🙂

[kraut1]

On 3/17/2025 at 6:26 AM, Stonehouse said:

 

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted the beta, I still don't have much spare time and probably won't for quite a long time as while my wife's wrists seem to be recovering according to the surgeon and physio's expectations it looks like it's going to be a long journey to get back to full recovery. I get a little time late evenings but the rest of the day I'm flat out trying to cover everything two of us used to.

 

Anyway, I really just stopped by to ask if there was any feedback yet? As I made the gunners less accurate was it enough? too much? Have I broken things for bomber players? 

 

2 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

I fly both directions almost equally (bombers and fighters).  So far, my perception is that the turret/rear gunners are still a little too deadly.  For instance, my flight of four La-5 Ser. 8 attacked a flight of three Ju-87 the other night.  We shot down 2 of the 3 Ju-87, but they got 2 of my La-5 wingmen.  And my flight of nine He-111s scorched all attackers on the Stalingrad map during a long mission (some Yaks and some LaGG, I believe it was).  I had two He-111 come home smoking, but didn't lose any.

 

And in Flying Circus, the 2-seaters are absolutely deadly, and I've pretty much given up attacking them for fear of engine damage.  Albert Ball said 2-seaters were so easy to shoot down he felt like he was murdering the poor souls.  But I guess part of this is because the field of fire for some (many?) of the FC 2-seaters rear gunners are unrealistically wide.  I don't know that for sure, but it sure seems hard to get underneath many of them like Ball talked about doing without getting hit.

 

But I still feel like my observations are limited and anecdotal, so I'll wait a while before posting any mission files for you to look at.

 

And I still love what you've done with the fighters 🙂

I made a "Italy1943" test with the current beta gunnery mod:

Player in one BF109G6 with standard armament / equipment vs 11xB25 ACEs.

 

The defensive fire is very accurate and effective.

Because of this the fighter has to use advanced tactics.

Defensive fire ist very dangerous and deadly when attacking from ca. 4'clock...6'clock..8'clock.

Head on / frontal attacks are interesting: you have a good chance to attack successfull and to survive, but even when using these tactics the defensive fire has some effect and the engine / cooler is sometimes damaged.

Attacks from the side, but more from "forward" (from ca. 9'clock...11'clock and from 1'clock...2'clock) are possible too, but from my experience with IL-2 GB and 1946 there is always some potential danger when attacking from the side that the some bullets of bombers flying very left / right away from the target bomber are hitting your plane left or right of the bullet proof windscreen and killing you instantly.

 

I suppose:

-That in bomber pilot careers the fellow bombers are all set to ACE to avoid, that the whole bomber squadron is shot down in few minutes.

-Interceptor fighters without bullet proof windscreen are not a good choice (even the light MG81Z with the extreme high rate of fire will be deadly)

-Against well shooting bomber gunners the best tactic is a head on / frontal attack with a cone angle of ca.60degree is the best choice.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18 by kraut1

[Stonehouse]

7 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

And my flight of nine He-111

Not disagreeing with your feedback but pointing out that (a) I only altered low and normal skill bomber gunners specifically although some parameters like deflection are global and impact all skill levels (b) if you are flying a bomber your gunners are aces (c) as far as I have seen 90% plus of bombers encountered in stock fighter careers and campaigns are low or normal with a very few high skill crews thrown in. I could be wrong but don't recall any ace AI level bombers. So when flying bombers yourself, due to the fact that your own gunners are aces, then yes they are deadly. This is the case with stock ace crews and I haven't really done much tweaking at this level. The main difference is that they are a bit better at judging deflection than stock and don't suffer overheating and that I reduced the 5G limit on firing to 3G in the mod. I actually think this probably should be only 2G but the AI bombers insist on turning quite a bit so was being cautious. I have experienced 4-5G real life from the nav's seat in a BAC Strikemaster doing a low level simulated strike and even allowing for my lack of experience dealing with that level of G force and no G suit I really cannot see how WW2 gunners could aim and accurately fire in such conditions. Perhaps the ball gunner as they are pretty prone but anyone using a pintle mount or standing with a heavy gun would be badly handicapped. I think even powered turrets where the gunner was seated would have trouble just because it is quite difficult to focus mentally. 

 

Be good to get some examples from you when you can.

7 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

Flying Circus, the 2-seaters are absolutely deadl

I didn't touch WW1 so that's a different exercise. Release version and beta are identical from a WW1 perspective. I can revisit WW1 once WW2 is bedded down.

 

5 hours ago, kraut1 said:

Player in one BF109G6 with standard armament / equipment vs 11xB25 ACEs.

As mentioned above only low and normal were altered specifically, high and ace are slightly degraded from current release due to reduction in ability to judge deflection for all skills and the burst lengths and wait times changes would also impact all skills. Based on what I have seen so far in bomber careers your gunners are ace, you do get some high crews and one or two low but most are normal. I don't believe other crews are generally set to ace level and I don't think you encounter ace crews when flying a fighter career or campaign - generally you encounter low or normal crews with a sprinkling of high crews sometimes. IE testing all ace is essentially a moot point as even in the stock game, ace gunners are very deliberately deadly so human players can have some chance of surviving a bomber career/campaign. Best I can see ace level gunners are pretty much meant to be for human flown bombers. It would be best to test below that level of skill.

Edited March 18 by Stonehouse

[kraut1]

3 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

As mentioned above only low and normal were altered specifically, high and ace are slightly degraded from current release due to reduction in ability to judge deflection for all skills and the burst lengths and wait times changes would also impact all skills. Based on what I have seen so far in bomber careers your gunners are ace, you do get some high crews and one or two low but most are normal. I don't believe other crews are generally set to ace level. IE testing all ace is essentially a moot point as even in the stock game, ace gunners are very deliberately deadly so human players can have some chance of surviving a bomber career/campaign. It would be best to test below that level of skill.

Well, I was just curious to test ACE.

And I liked the moderate shooting abilities against head on attacks.

This seems to better as with the stock AI.

[Stonehouse]

15 hours ago, kraut1 said:

Well, I was just curious to test ACE.

Lol sorry I didn't mean to sound like I disapproved or something. It's ok to test ace level if you want and the feedback is as I expected in that they are still deadly even though I reduced their deflection judgement plus a few other things via global changes.

 

I really wish everything was at the skill level with no global values. It would make it easier to isolate changes across the skills. eg deflection - low skill should be poor, high skill should be good. But only 1 global parameter. Same for some of the responsiveness values like time to acquire a new target is a global value. Ditto with error coefficient for G loading where you might expect very experienced crews to deal with higher G loads better than rookies.

[RedeyeStorm]

Sorry @Stonehouse I have been unable to test. Not had much time to fly.

[Stonehouse]

On 3/18/2025 at 4:39 PM, KodiakJac said:

four La-5 Ser. 8 attacked a flight of three Ju-87 the other night

Any chance you know the skill level of each La5 and Ju87?

[Stonehouse]

As promised, please find turret info attached. Shows aircraft, position, weapon, number of guns in the position, total ammo per position, ROF, rounds fired in 1 sec, the number of 1 sec bursts to exhaust ammo at the position. Hopefully no typos but I put it together in bits and pieces when I had a spare moment or two, so it's not impossible I've goofed somewhere. You should be able to use this info tactically to give you an advantage (hopefully). Note that in respect of positions which show reserve magazines it seems to average about 8 secs to reload a gun possibly giving you a gap in which to attack. This is a global value and not affected by skill. 

 

Re Ju87/He111 feedback, looking at reducing effectiveness of the small calibre armed turrets a bit more after looking at some examples in quick missions. If you recall I made these slightly more accurate than larger calibre turrets to try to give things like ju87s and A20s at least some chance. I may well have overdone this balancing tweak so there is room to take a small bit of that away.

Due to time involved in retesting and real life demands it may be a little while before I publish the next beta.

 

 

turrets.zip

[KodiakJac]

On 3/20/2025 at 12:19 AM, Stonehouse said:

Any chance you know the skill level of each La5 and Ju87?

 

Hi Stonehouse,

 

No, I don't have the mission file anymore.  I'll start saving them again for missions you might want to take a look at 

[KodiakJac]

On 3/21/2025 at 2:28 AM, Stonehouse said:

As promised, please find turret info attached.

 

This is some very interesting and useful information, Stonehouse.  Thank you! 👍

 

[Stonehouse]

FYI created a reference info section in first post and moved the gunner error tables (was floating around at bottom of first post) and added turrets.zip to it. No new info, just reorganising things so new people get to see things without digging through the entire thread.

[Stonehouse]

OK new beta to test and give feedback on. Ideally, I would like to hear from both fighter and bomber people. Note that I just have not had the time to do the same level of testing I did for the last beta. However, it all works and seems to be easier for fighters without being too easy and I believe that was the main point of feedback on the Mar 3 beta. This beta was put together in spare moments between other real-life stuff needing my time over the last week so I may well have missed something. LOL I might get to bed earlier now it is uploaded.

 

Generally, the changes were to tweak the deflection judgment again for gunners using light calibre weapons (eg 7.62mm and thereabouts) as well as adjust the low and normal skill level error factors as low and normal skill gunners are the most likely encountered in career and campaign missions by fighter pilots.

 

While for the large part I did not change the set up for gunners using heavy calibre weapons (12.7mm and higher) I did globally increase the error due to G loading for all gunners. This possibly could be increased further yet depending on feedback. Basically, this is a multiplier that increases error as G load increases. I left the G cutoff point for gunners firing at 3G. Depending on what people think this could be lowered to perhaps 2 or 2.5G but recall that it would impact tail gunners as currently things are setup. eg Me110 gunner stops firing once the G limit is reached.

 

Note that heavy calibre gunners are still less accurate (as they always have been) than light calibre gunners after these adjustments. As stated previously, this is due to my intention to try to give aircraft armed with light calibre weapons a bit more of a chance of survival. Possibly something people haven't thought off but the majority of bombers/aircraft with tail gunners use light calibre weapons. Probably something like 70% or more of the turrets in game use this weapon class. So, handicapping this class of weapon too much will have a large impact. I definitely don't want to end up with a unique gunner bot file for each turret found in every aircraft. It is simply too much maintenance when things require updates. I might be convinced to split non bomber defensive gunners out to create new use cases. However, each use case must be maintained and retested when updated so I prefer not to go this route if it can be avoided.

 

Once again WW1 is unchanged at this time.

AI gunnerybeta26mar2025.zip

Edited March 26 by Stonehouse

[creamersdream]

The current AI Gunnery/despawn delay okay to use?

[Stonehouse]

2 hours ago, creamersdream said:

The current AI Gunnery/despawn delay okay to use?

Yes.

The beta attached a post or so higher up is a test version being worked on in response to user feedback that turret gunners were too dangerous. It may or may not get released eventually depending on how testing goes.