AI Gunnery Improved?

[TFR_Geronimo]

Hello all,

 

I have been away from IL-2 for about a year and recently got back on and I have noticed the overall skill of the AI is greatly improved especially in terms of gunnery, is this accurate? When playing before I would notice them shooting around me more frequently but now I am getting killed in one short burst even in high angle high aspect passing. Is this a thing that happened in the last year or am I just bad after being gone for so long? Thanks!

[TFR_Geronimo]

Update:

  Attempted both an in-game and PWCG career, died on my first flight in both. Tried quick missions to see if I am just Rusty but the high skill shots continue so it's no one-off. In my PW career I had a 190 on my 6 who shredded me, which fair, he was on my six. The unbelievable part is that the damage caused my P38 to buck up, then roll over into a steep dive and the 190 kept hammering me all the way into the dive, never missing a shot. Seems a little unreasonable that a pilot could keep his guns on a plane doing un-natural maneuvers like that.

[IckyATLAS]

3 hours ago, ACG_Geronimo said:

Update:

  Attempted both an in-game and PWCG career, died on my first flight in both. Tried quick missions to see if I am just Rusty but the high skill shots continue so it's no one-off. In my PW career I had a 190 on my 6 who shredded me, which fair, he was on my six. The unbelievable part is that the damage caused my P38 to buck up, then roll over into a steep dive and the 190 kept hammering me all the way into the dive, never missing a shot. Seems a little unreasonable that a pilot could keep his guns on a plane doing un-natural maneuvers like that.

Have you checked which AI pilot model was flying the 190. Most probably Otto Kittle, or maybe Walter Nowotny or maybe even Erich Rudorffer. In short you indeed stand no chance against them ? 

Edited June 19, 2022 by IckyATLAS

[BlitzPig_EL]

This is a conundrum I face when building multiplayer missions.  I like to set the AI on "Ace", because it makes for better adversarial play, but the "Ace" gunnery is just over the top.

 

I have tested missions with icons on and was repeatedly blown out of the sky at .75km by G6 Lates armed with the MK 108 with high deflection shots at extreme speeds and angles.  It's to the point where I no longer arm the AI with the 30mm cannon.  Not that it helps much.

 

What is needed are separate settings for flying and gunnery.

Flying set to "Ace" and shooting set to "High" or "Normal" would yield far more realistic outcomes.

Edited June 20, 2022 by BlitzPig_EL

[AEthelraedUnraed]

9 hours ago, ACG_Geronimo said:

Hello all,

 

I have been away from IL-2 for about a year and recently got back on and I have noticed the overall skill of the AI is greatly improved especially in terms of gunnery, is this accurate? When playing before I would notice them shooting around me more frequently but now I am getting killed in one short burst even in high angle high aspect passing. Is this a thing that happened in the last year or am I just bad after being gone for so long? Thanks!

What is the AI skill you use?

[CountZero]

11 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

This is a conundrum I face when building multiplayer missions.  I like to set the AI on "Ace", because it makes for better adversarial play, but the "Ace" gunnery is just over the top.

 

I have tested missions with icons on and was repeatedly blown out of the sky at .75km by G6 Latest armed with the MK 108 with high deflection shots at extreme speeds and angles.  It's to the point where I no longer arm the AI with the 30mm cannon.  Not that it helps much.

 

What is needed are separate settings for flying and gunnery.

Flying set to "Ace" and shooting set to "High" or "Normal" would yield far more realistic outcomes.

Thats why i liked AI skill settings in ClOD, they were mutch better, you can edit in detail all aspects of AI skillset, if you wont you can have him flying on level of ace but just edit to have medium gunnery and so on...

[Lusekofte]

This is same crap like ai gunners. Either supersnipers or nothing at all

[oc2209]

8 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

This is a conundrum I face when building multiplayer missions.  I like to set the AI on "Ace", because it makes for better adversarial play, but the "Ace" gunnery is just over the top.

 

I have tested missions with icons on and was repeatedly blown out of the sky at .75km by G6 Latest armed with the MK 108 with high deflection shots at extreme speeds and angles.  It's to the point where I no longer arm the AI with the 30mm cannon.  Not that it helps much.

 

What is needed are separate settings for flying and gunnery.

Flying set to "Ace" and shooting set to "High" or "Normal" would yield far more realistic outcomes.

 

To answer the OP's question: yes, AI gunnery has been improved substantially.

 

Flying low and slow in circles used to be proof against it, even on ace. No longer the case at all (I'm in the Yak-9 near the ground):

 

Spoiler

 

 

It can hit me when I'm flying at lower-than-treetop height.

 

As for what I quoted, yeah, I'm seeing a lot of half-kilometer+ 30mm shots landing in my testing today. Here's an example where I'm broadsided in a Spit IX:

 

Spoiler

 

 

The longest I can survive against 8x109s with 30mm, is about 3 minutes, in a Yak-9 or a Spit IX.

 

In a Spit XIV vs 109Ks, I evaded them by entering the climbing turn. Maintained speed at about 155-165 MPH in the climb/turn. AI was unable to fire on me, much less hit me. I got bored at 10,000 feet and stopped. How I would escape completely, I'm not sure. Emergency power wouldn't last long enough to get me to 20,000+ feet.

 

Here's some of the climbing turn recording:

 

Spoiler

 

 

It might look boring to climb away, but it's pretty scary knowing how close they are. At any given time I could've used my height advantage to dive on one of them for probably an easy kill, but like I said, with emergency power not likely to last much longer, I'm not sure what my endgame would be.

 

Against only 4x109 G-6s in a Spitfire IX, I could shoot them all down in almost exactly 8 minutes without being hit once. But being able to do that reliably is another matter entirely.

 

It all boils down to careers being more difficult in the long run. Your luck is just about 10x more likely to run out than it used to be.

 

I feel like Ace-level AI is pretty reasonable. I don't really feel it's too accurate. The problem is having entire flights of enemy AI that are all equally ace-y. What we need now is a mixture of AI skill, with the overall career difficulty settings being used to control the number of enemies we face, and the proportion of aces to rookies. Even at the highest career difficulties, we still shouldn't face 100% ace enemies all the time.

 

In other words, we need the base game to do what PWCG does, now that ace lethality is so high. This wasn't an issue when ace AI was less accurate. Rather than dumb down the accuracy again, I think it's time to change the frequency with which we encounter ace AI.

[TFR_Geronimo]

10 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

What is the AI skill you use?

 

I used to always fly expert settings against ace pilots but in my quick mission testing I even had a rookie pull off a really good shot. PW career mode should be varied correct?

 

53 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

 In other words, we need the base game to do what PWCG does, now that ace lethality is so high. This wasn't an issue when ace AI was less accurate. Rather than dumb down the accuracy again, I think it's time to change the frequency with which we encounter ace AI.

 

Even in my PWCG career I was killed on my first flight by a side shot while attempting to get on the tail of another 109 on my AI wingman's tail. I'm wondering if there is a way to reduce AI gunnery a bit maybe through mods? Or can I alter the skill level in a setting somewhere in PWCG?

Edited June 19, 2022 by ACG_Geronimo

[oc2209]

3 hours ago, ACG_Geronimo said:

Even in my PWCG career I was killed on my first flight by a side shot while attempting to get on the tail of another 109 on my AI wingman's tail. I'm wondering if there is a way to reduce AI gunnery a bit maybe through mods? Or can I alter the skill level in a setting somewhere in PWCG?

 

Not sure about how to reduce accuracy, sorry.

 

One thing I will say in defense of the current AI accuracy: if it's lowered by the devs, then planes with weak armament become next to useless. Since you're mostly, I assume, fighting 109s, you're facing a plane that the AI happens to excel with; which then makes the AI seem a lot more capable than it really is.

 

Give the AI wing-mounted .50s or .30s to work with, and things like this can happen:

 

Spoiler

 

1 vs 8. I'm in a 109F-4, the AI is all set to Ace, split in two flights of 4 I-16 (no cannon) and 4 P-40s (with extra ammo).

 

I shoot down 5, 3 crash on their own during low level maneuvering. I'm only hit for the first time after 10+ minutes of combat because I'm flying perfectly straight while pursuing an I-16, and I didn't see the I-16 behind me that was still alive (I erroneously thought the one I was chasing was the last). I had an oil leak but a very slow one. I was able to shoot down both remaining I-16s.

 

Examples like this prove the AI is nowhere near superhuman. In a Fw-190, a 109, or a Tempest/Typhoon, yeah, it will frequently ruin your day. But in planes with lesser armament or performance, it's still pretty easy to dominate.

 

My advice to you would be to learn to fly purely defensively for a while. Just do nothing but evade 2-4 109s or Fw-190s and don't even try to shoot them down. See how long you can do this without getting hit. Observing the AI's behavior in these instances will give you a greater understanding of what you can and can't get away with.

 

Eventually you'll learn to instinctively break a second after hitting an enemy (never watch your kills); always glance around while you're turning to see if someone's setting up on you; you're vulnerable in slow turns; never fly straight for more than a few seconds without being absolutely sure you're safe. Etc.

 

These are generally good habits to form regardless of the difficulty of your competition, be it human or AI.

[TFR_Geronimo]

8 hours ago, oc2209 said:

One thing I will say in defense of the current AI accuracy: if it's lowered by the devs, then planes with weak armament become next to useless. Since you're mostly, I assume, fighting 109s, you're facing a plane that the AI happens to excel with; which then makes the AI seem a lot more capable than it really is.

 

In a Fw-190, a 109, or a Tempest/Typhoon, yeah, it will frequently ruin your day. But in planes with lesser armament or performance, it's still pretty easy to dominate.

 

Yea I'm doing a P-38 career so almost exclusively fighting 109s and 190s. I went back and refreshed my memory by watching Reqiuem's videos on BFM and it reminded me of how effective some of those maneuvers are. I re-tried my PWCG career and shot down one of each before mistakenly flying into a pack of six 190s believing my squad mates were mixed among them (one was damaged on the deck running for an emergency field while they circled above) and was shot down by one getting on my 6 while I forced another to overshoot and got on his 6. 

 

Part of my error was also mistakenly believing the P-38 was a B&Z rather than a turn fighter, I always thought they were extremely fast after reading about their early war performance in the Pacific, without taking account of engine improvements since '42. The gunnery has definitely improved however I think the majority of my troubles were just being rusty after being gone so long. Had to relearn both BFM and how to maintain SA. It's all starting to come back though! I almost think I enjoy it more now as it makes missions exciting again.

Edited June 20, 2022 by ACG_Geronimo

[Stonehouse]

Passing comment on the PWCG skill settings as sometimes it's misunderstood. As I understand them they are a modifier to the skills in the mission not a skill level setting in themselves. Pilots in PWCG campaigns gain skill over time and can progress from novice to ace but the PWCG skill settings are meant to skew the average to higher or lower skilled pilots. So as I understand it with a +1 you will see no novice pilots as novice becomes normal and normal becomes high, high becomes ace and aces obviously stay ace. +2 gives you high or better. Negative values do the same but the opposite way. So I've been leaving it as zero so I get a wider distribution in the pilot skill base and experience means something. If you set it at +4 you will only meet ace pilots.

 

For whatever it's worth, in case it assists anyone also wanted to mention this mod AI gunnery mod - Mods - IL-2 Sturmovik Forum (il2sturmovik.com) as it was created to try to address some of the issues mentioned. Generally so far it has received favorable feedback so perhaps it may help improve someone's experience. If not then it's only a small download and easily disabled/removed if using JSGME or similar.

 

[Ram399]

Sorry if this is an unpopular opinion, but after years of flying fighters in career mode against enemies who I knew couldn't hit me if I took only the slightest evasive action, I seem to have developed some sort of aerial masochism. 

Now when I check my six and see a fighter diving on me from altitude its an oh shit moment in a real good way, and then when they follow me into a defensive corkscrew which would have thrown off any AI pilot in years past it gets better.

There are real stakes to any dogfight now, and to be honest I wouldn't complain if the AI were even better.
A human pilot can still push the envelope better than any AI level, I'm just waiting for the day when I can no longer out maneuver an enemy and have to cut and run instead.

[TFR_Geronimo]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:03 AM, ACG_Geronimo said:

The gunnery has definitely improved however I think the majority of my troubles were just being rusty after being gone so long. Had to relearn both BFM and how to maintain SA. It's all starting to come back though! I almost think I enjoy it more now as it makes missions exciting again.

 

Not unpopular, you will see that I already agreed with you. Once I shook off some of the rust, the elevated stakes are more enjoyable.