Realistic reaction when you see bandits and AI leader doesn't react

[bongotastic]

In a case where a flight leader does not react to bandits but you spot them, do you break formation and go in? I guess that in RL, you'd report the sighting and wait for the flight leader to make the decision, but the game doesn't let you do that. 

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Hard to say how I'd realistically react in a situation that is totally unrealistic; you should absolutely be able to report what you spot to your flight. 

 

We have said it countless times but we'll say it again, inflight communications in this game are simply dismal. Its not even close to being the bare minimum acceptable and besides, the very few commands you can issue as the flight leader are most of the time ignored by the AI. Cover me DOESNT mean gank on the flying wreckage I'm pursuing to steal my kill and damage me in the process ffs.

 

Seriously, this is one of the aspect of the game that really gets me angry sometimes. 

 

 

[JG27_Steini]

6 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Hard to say how I'd realistically react in a situation that is totally unrealistic; you should absolutely be able to report what you spot to your flight. 

 

We have said it countless times but we'll say it again, inflight communications in this game are simply dismal. Its not even close to being the bare minimum acceptable and besides, the very few commands you can issue as the flight leader are most of the time ignored by the AI. Cover me DOESNT mean gank on the flying wreckage I'm pursuing to steal my kill and damage me in the process ffs.

 

Seriously, this is one of the aspect of the game that really gets me angry sometimes. 

 

 

 

After having several visuell, FM, DM etc. upgrades it is time for a radio revision. I dont understand why this important part of this sim is just not functional and taken over to each new product. I would be even better to cancel some radio commands, only to have the basic ones working. Radio commands and radio messages are the least working part of IL2 BoX. It is part of many immersion breaking bugs untouched over years.

Edited June 22, 2022 by JG27_Steini

[KevPBur]

I have noticed that if you keep looking at the bandits you do sometimes get a radio message sent from your pilot.

 

It doesn't of course mean that turning and diving into them is the mission objective. I have noticed in both current Spit MkIX and 190 A5 careers in the inevitable ground strike missions the flight leaders response is to speed up and try to out run them.

 

Also if outnumbered in a free flight for instance is engaging the correct response?

[bongotastic]

This is why I asked the question. In one case, my sighting would have thrown the flight off mission so I ignored. The second time, we were in a PWCG "strategic" CAP, or a very high combat air patrol over Stalingrad. Mid-altitude Ju-87 were questionable valid targets so I wasn't sure whether the AI leader decided not to go after them or simply didn't seen them.

 

I appreciate that sometimes our pilot fires a message when engaging a plane, it would be an awkward UI to build a message in single-player missions but it feel to be a gameplay feature that's missing. In X-plane, there is a 3rd party application that does voice recognition for Air Traffic, having wing members being able to communicate simple things over voice would be really cool. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by bongotastic

[Guster]

12 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Hard to say how I'd realistically react in a situation that is totally unrealistic; you should absolutely be able to report what you spot to your flight. 

 

We have said it countless times but we'll say it again, inflight communications in this game are simply dismal. Its not even close to being the bare minimum acceptable and besides, the very few commands you can issue as the flight leader are most of the time ignored by the AI. Cover me DOESNT mean gank on the flying wreckage I'm pursuing to steal my kill and damage me in the process ffs.

 

Seriously, this is one of the aspect of the game that really gets me angry sometimes. 

 

 

 

This. I'm having more interesting conversations with my car than with the AI.

 

I do find the commands somewhat useful on many occasions though, but odd things happen just as often. For starters it would be nice with just a revision of the scripted messages, like your wingies constantly requesting landing clearance 100 miles away from home each time they take a hit.

 

Edit: Those of you into racing sims are probably familiar with CrewChief, and maybe the devs could find some inspiration there.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Guster

[Knarley-Bob]

If I spot "bandits", and the rest of the flight ignores them, I have learned stay with the flight. If you go after the "Bandits" you are usually on your own.

If the flight reacts, "Tally Ho!" It's a survival thing..........

 

KB

 

[Trooper117]

It's something that's been asked for over and over for a long time... it has been acknowledged by the head shed that it needs to be looked at, but it seems that there is always more important things that they are working on.

Yes, I know Jason has a small team etc, always other priorities etc, budgets, timescales, and all that, but as a single player this is one thing that is up there for the SP community that needs attention, but yet again nothing get's done on this aspect.

We can only hope eventually it get's a complete makeover... I live in hope.

[Dragon1-1]

It'd be great to have voice recognition inside the sim, though if that's not an option, VoiceAttack provides ample tools. It only needs every command to be accessible via a key shortcut, or a repeatable (no DCS-style dynamic menu crap, please) keystroke combination.

[Knarley-Bob]

I have noticed at times my plane calls out it is engaging fighters, whether I plan on it or not. But if nobody else goes for them, I don't either.

[Guster]

On 6/22/2022 at 5:00 PM, Guster said:

 

This. I'm having more interesting conversations with my car than with the AI.

 

I do find the commands somewhat useful on many occasions though, but odd things happen just as often. For starters it would be nice with just a revision of the scripted messages, like your wingies constantly requesting landing clearance 100 miles away from home each time they take a hit.

 

Edit: Those of you into racing sims are probably familiar with CrewChief, and maybe the devs could find some inspiration there.

 

I take that back - they actually don't do that. They do, however, often request landing clearance several times once they're within a certain distance of the airfield, and when they take hits close to their home base.

 

You notice this when playing quick missions that essentially take place just over your own airfield. Opening such a mission in the editor, you can see the AI planes have the AI Return To Base Decision ticked, which triggers a landing request rather than an RTB message when they're close to home. It makes sense, but it still sounds odd.

[bongotastic]

In the interest of survival, I decided to follow the leader in most situations. 

[IckyATLAS]

It all depends how it has been programmed for a flight were the leader is AI. The leader flies to a waypoint. There is a Prority parameter. for the MCU_Command waypoint.

If it is set to LOW, then what you would like to happen will happen. As soon as an enemy plane or flight has been spotted (inside a 10 km radius) the leader and his whole flight will attack. And they will continue attacking as long as there are enemy planes around. Once the planes are eliminated then they will regroup and those who are left will resume flying to the initial waypoint.

The problem here is that the planes might get locked in very long turn combats managed by AI and this can last very long until they do not have ammo anymore and the enemy planes may still be alive and so it goes nowhere. It is all related to the skill of the mission programmer to foresee limits either in time or in case of no more ammo available, or  a return to base plane parameter set  when the plane has been damaged at a certain percentage level, etc. and change course of action. 

As an example a damaged plane above a given threshold will leave the scene and fly back to their base. 

[Guster]

17 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

It all depends how it has been programmed for a flight were the leader is AI. The leader flies to a waypoint. There is a Prority parameter. for the MCU_Command waypoint.

If it is set to LOW, then what you would like to happen will happen. As soon as an enemy plane or flight has been spotted (inside a 10 km radius) the leader and his whole flight will attack. And they will continue attacking as long as there are enemy planes around. Once the planes are eliminated then they will regroup and those who are left will resume flying to the initial waypoint.

The problem here is that the planes might get locked in very long turn combats managed by AI and this can last very long until they do not have ammo anymore and the enemy planes may still be alive and so it goes nowhere. It is all related to the skill of the mission programmer to foresee limits either in time or in case of no more ammo available, or  a return to base plane parameter set  when the plane has been damaged at a certain percentage level, etc. and change course of action. 

As an example a damaged plane above a given threshold will leave the scene and fly back to their base. 

 

I haven't actually tried this, but in theory you should be able to make it work better by setting up an attack area command that lasts for a very short while. That way the flight will arrive at the combat zone (preferably from altitude), engage the targets, and then bug out (using a waypoint with medium, or even high priority). This would be more in line with how I believe air combat patrol encounters took place on the Eastern Front, or the WWI Western Front for that matter.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Guster

[Riderocket]

Give it time. The Devs will fix it I'm sure. They seem to always deliver

 

They just busy 

[Trooper117]

1 hour ago, Riderocket said:

Give it time. The Devs will fix it I'm sure. They seem to always deliver

 

They just busy 

 

Give it time?... I've been giving it time for nine years!

Yes, it has been greatly improved by Jason there is no doubt, but SP people like me have been waiting a long, long time...

[Vamandrac]

Yeah, the radio commands/calls in this game are very lacking.  Even though it wasn't perfect, I would take what was in IL2 1946 over what we have now.

[RyanR]

Read "Thunderbolt!" by Robert Johnson. His radio was out, and having been scolded for breaking formation in a prior mission, he had no choice but to hold formation when he saw a group of 190's was diving on them from behind. What followed was probably one of the most famous stories of the P-47, if not air combat in general.

 

I agree with others, I miss the old IL2 1946 commands. It wasn't any more complicated, but allowed a lot more flexibility.

 

-Ryan

[IckyATLAS]

12 hours ago, Guster said:

 

I haven't actually tried this, but in theory you should be able to make it work better by setting up an attack area command that lasts for a very short while. That way the flight will arrive at the combat zone (preferably from altitude), engage the targets, and then bug out (using a waypoint with medium, or even high priority). This would be more in line with how I believe air combat patrol encounters took place on the Eastern Front, or the WWI Western Front for that matter.

You are right there are various ways to manage this kind of behavior, there are also others with a combination of Attack command if many enemy flights can be encountered and all can be combined in a way or another. In fact the editor allows pretty complex behaviors. It is an excellent tool even if it has unfortunately many limitations that have never been adressed, and probably will never be.

[JonRedcorn]

Controlling flights and your wingmen are the biggest bummer in this game and have been since it came out. If you go back and play IL2 1946 its like playing an rts game compared to this with the AI in that game. You can literally select targets for you guys to attack in that one. You can do so much cool shit and the AI actually listens for the most part. I've put hundreds of hours into a 20 year old game simply due to the singleplayer AI being 100x better.

 

This game could be a masterpiece in the flight sim genre if the wingman controls and AI were revamped. According to this thread though it seems like changing a bunch of the way waypoints and paremeters like that work would just end up breaking 90% of the single player stuff we have right now. Which is probably why it's never been fixed. People saying to just wait like one dude said its been 9 years and we've been waiting an eternity for a overhaul of this. They always say 90% of the playerbase plays offline so then why is the wingman AI just completely ignored. It's such a bummer how awful it is. Hell even DCS does it 10x better. At least they kinda listen in DCS. I would never touch MP again if we had proper working wingmen. Please for the love of everything holy take a look at it and try and do something about it. There was a point where people were willing to buy an AI upgrade DLC!! ?

[JG27_Steini]

On 6/28/2022 at 2:17 PM, Riderocket said:

Give it time. The Devs will fix it I'm sure. They seem to always deliver

 

They just busy 

 

8 Years should be enough time. You might wonder that in most simulation i have played the last 30 years it was function right from the start.