Degradation of the game due to lack of AI skills

[JG4_Moltke1871]

Hi there,

I've been watching for a while ( and not me only ) that the game has lost some of its excitement and fun.

This affects both the single player mode and the online mode.

Maybe @Wardog5711can help to focus a bit this problem because there was some discussion already and the impact on the gameplay is great.

A large part of this is due to the deterioration of the AI's rear gunner ability to defend the aircraft at all.

-when I play in Single play mode as a fighter play Bomber intercept missions are boring because I don’t need any skill, just parking my plane on the bombers 6 and shoot. I can comfortable fly around in the enemy‘s combat box and farm my AI victims.

-in opposite when I fly Bomber missions the AI fly in slomo on my 6 and rape the formation.

-I notice in World War 1 two-seaters that the Ai rear gunner has inhibitions about reloading the gun (Becker gun) I am forced to jump on the gunner seat because he stops firing, the gun is often empty even though there is still ammunition.

And by the way the chance the AI hit anything as long bullets are in the magazine counts to zero.

- of course all these affects also the online gameplay where fighter planes can shoot down bombers/attackers with minimum risk.

 

In the past it was necessary fly risky Maneuvers to catch bombers from dead angles, all these is flying away with the gunners nerf.

 

I hope the devs can have an eye again on this problem. Otherwise a full aspect of air warfare will stay at a nonsense level.

 

 

 

 

[JG27_Steini]

2 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

Hi there,

I've been watching for a while ( and not me only ) that the game has lost some of its excitement and fun.

This affects both the single player mode and the online mode.

Maybe @Wardog5711can help to focus a bit this problem because there was some discussion already and the impact on the gameplay is great.

A large part of this is due to the deterioration of the AI's rear gunner ability to defend the aircraft at all.

-when I play in Single play mode as a fighter play Bomber intercept missions are boring because I don’t need any skill, just parking my plane on the bombers 6 and shoot. I can comfortable fly around in the enemy‘s combat box and farm my AI victims.

-in opposite when I fly Bomber missions the AI fly in slomo on my 6 and rape the formation.

-I notice in World War 1 two-seaters that the Ai rear gunner has inhibitions about reloading the gun (Becker gun) I am forced to jump on the gunner seat because he stops firing, the gun is often empty even though there is still ammunition.

And by the way the chance the AI hit anything as long bullets are in the magazine counts to zero.

- of course all these affects also the online gameplay where fighter planes can shoot down bombers/attackers with minimum risk.

 

In the past it was necessary fly risky Maneuvers to catch bombers from dead angles, all these is flying away with the gunners nerf.

 

I hope the devs can have an eye again on this problem. Otherwise a full aspect of air warfare will stay at a nonsense level.

 

 

 

 

 

Best way would be to write a bug report. Often it is not a bug, but a mission setting. 

 

Test with special mission settings and AI levels. Problem is that the campaign/ mission generators have not changed enough to compensate the AI gunnery settings. 

 

At the end it will happen that gunnery is again too good. Doest matter how, somebody will be angry. In my mind the problem is that AI does not behave like humans enough, it will always be a "too good" and "too bad" with the current engine. There seems not to be a variant between those levels. Until the AI does not know how to attack bombers correctly the current setting is probably more realistic then all fighter will be killed by sniper gunnery, killing following fighter from each and every angle.

 

AI gunnery is not the only the problem, but maneuvering, situation awareness and live instinct. Planes dont have private AI logical, but only follow simple mission rules. This results in huge losses each mission on every side.

Edited December 20, 2022 by JG27_Steini

[Wardog5711]

AI performance issues have been passed onto the QA team.

And that included maneuvering, SA, coms.  It's on the list of things to be looked at.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

50 minutes ago, Wardog5711 said:

AI performance issues have been passed onto the QA team.

And that included maneuvering, SA, coms.  It's on the list of things to be looked at.

 

Good stuff. Its a lot of work because if we are going to be honest, the AI is bad very often in dynamic campaigns. Ground attack, escort, the AI finds so many ways to look bad and look like a bunch of tourists. 

 

Major improvements in AI awareness in campaigns would be more than welcome. Best of luck to the devs.

 

 

[Carl_infar]

Sigh. You want to make devs run in circles.

I remember that months upon months of constant "luftwhining" caused the changes of gunner ai behaviour... 

Now it seems You want to restart the process...

[JG4_Moltke1871]

38 minutes ago, Carl_infar said:

Sigh. You want to make devs run in circles.

I remember that months upon months of constant "luftwhining" caused the changes of gunner ai behaviour... 

Now it seems You want to restart the process...

This is about the impact of lobotomized gunners in all aspects of the game. I want a challenge when I set the AI on ace in my Bomber intercept missions. Why I can have a holiday walkover in a enemy combat box.??

For catch advantage by typing please stay in the multiplayer section of the forum.

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by JG4_Moltke1871

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Attacking strike aircrafts and bombers is a joke now. Nothing to fear from schizoid blind gunners and now the escort aircrafts are busy making loopings and vertical maneuvers 4 km's behind while the interceptors decimate the strike group.

 

Oh God I wish I still had that track from my previous IL2 1942 mission.....you guys should have seen that Yak 'escort'. Marvelous.

[6./ZG26_Custard]

I will be the first to admit that gunner AI skill was way over the top and needed looking at but the Ai for bomber gunners now is appalling bad to the point that they are effectively dead weight and useless.

 

Example 1:- 

 

Example 2 :-

 

 

Example 3:-

 

Many people are reporting instant pilot kills that seem to be happening with such regularity that it's boarding on farce at this point. I am happy to admit that I have effectively quit flying now after over 8 years online in the current iteration of the game. It's also concerning that bomber aircraft still seem to be somewhat fragile or ballistics are not taken into account so that rounds seem to take a laser beam trajectory and just pass through air frame, spars, bodies, armour, more armour without what appears to be any deviation causing the instat-kill that peole are reporting. All of this combined is effectively making flying bombers a pointless exercise.    

[76SQN-Minimayhemtemp]

Funny that I raised a thread on this topic a couple of days ago and it got locked after a couple of people stated the AI were good.

[BlitzPig_EL]

I will patiently await the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the 109 drivers begin complaining anew that the (Insert Allied bomber here) gunners are snipers and it's impossible to survive an attack on them.  Or have you all forgotten that?

 

 

And to those that fly bombers, if you go out alone or in pairs or very small numbers, unescorted, what in God's name do you expect to happen?  That the fighters are going to give you safe passage to bomb their assets? 

 

The pre war mantra that "The bombers will always get through" was proven wrong over and over again early on.

 

Some people need to put their big boy pants on and get on with it.

[mazex]

I recently took FC for a spin in VR and had a blast. All puns intended. It was a long time since I gave FC a chance so I guess that a lot of work has been gradual. One of the things I noticed was that the rear gunners in the two seaters where deadly compared to the last time - and felt about right to me shooting too badly with my DVII. I quickly realized that I really had to aim along one of the MGs as I did not have a sight mouted - and aim for the gunners first as the AC are more sturdy now. And that feels appropriate now - spraying rifle rounds at what is mainly canvas...

 

To be honest I almost felt bad aiming for the person in the rear seat after watching "All quiet on the western front" recently. It really feels like you are there for real in VR now...

[oc2209]

7 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

-when I play in Single play mode as a fighter play Bomber intercept missions are boring because I don’t need any skill, just parking my plane on the bombers 6 and shoot. I can comfortable fly around in the enemy‘s combat box and farm my AI victims.

 

It depends on how accurate you think Ace gunner AI should be. Here's a quick test:

 

Spoiler

 

 

The 190 has the extra cockpit armor here.

 

The first turn into the enemy formation, my engine gets damaged. It dies almost exactly at the 2 minute mark. At least one bullet hits the armored windscreen from the front. That last burst of fire I take after I've landed--it shatters the canopy glass. So, just a fluke the pilot didn't get hit.

 

Going by the old standard of AI gunnery, yeah, I would've been annihilated if I moved this lazily behind any type of bombers. But this result, nevertheless, isn't quite the same as leaving me entirely unscathed.

 

I did another test in a 410 and took engine damage in a single pass, as well. If I attacked with a greater speed differential, I probably could avoid getting hit much at all.

 

Ace level gunner AI could use a small accuracy boost. But I want to emphasize the small part. I don't really want to go back to the days when a spinning, burning bomber's gunners still hit you as you fly over them.

[Wardog5711]

Quote

Funny that I raised a thread on this topic a couple of days ago and it got locked after a couple of people stated the AI were good.

 

And I should probably should have locked and delete this one as well. 

The issues that keep popping up in multiple new threads have already been reported.  Multiple times. 

And the response was that it would be looked into. I have already acknowledged that 8 posts up.

The known issues with the AI are NOT going to be fixed simply or quickly and continually bringing it up with new threads doesn't make it go any faster.

 

 

[6./ZG26_Custard]

1 hour ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Some people need to put their big boy pants on and get on with it.

I've been wearing my big boy pants for the last 8 years online, in great battles but finally got fed up of it all and took them off. I don't think any bomber pilot expects an easy ride but when a fighter can just park on your six without any worries whatsoever, something has to give and my something was to quit flying. Hopefully "eventually" they will take a second look at gunner AI. I'm sure anyone in their right mind does not want terminator gunners but on the other hand I'm sure they don't want gunners that will just sit there and do next to  nothing or just fire wildly in all directions except towards the fighter who is laughing whilst sitting on your six. 

[Ram399]

2 hours ago, oc2209 said:

I don't really want to go back to the days when a spinning, burning bomber's gunners still hit you as you fly over them.

Ah yes, the dark times.

 

3 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I will patiently await the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the 109 drivers begin complaining anew that the (Insert Allied bomber here) gunners are snipers and it's impossible to survive an attack on them.

You know this community, including me, entirely too well.  Though I will say that I only ever took particular issue with the Pe-2, most other gunners were avoidable using high angle attacks in the 109.  But I do agree that the current setup has them entirely lobotomized, and I often feel foolish following my practically instinctual attack pattern nowadays when going for the straight six is a far more effective option.

Though as Wardog said: all AI change is gradual and our constant squabbles in general will do nothing to influence that.
 

[BBAS_Tiki_Joe]

3 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I will patiently await the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the 109 drivers begin complaining anew that the (Insert Allied bomber here) gunners are snipers and it's impossible to survive an attack on them.  Or have you all forgotten that?

 

 

And to those that fly bombers, if you go out alone or in pairs or very small numbers, unescorted, what in God's name do you expect to happen?  That the fighters are going to give you safe passage to bomb their assets? 

 

The pre war mantra that "The bombers will always get through" was proven wrong over and over again early on.

 

Some people need to put their big boy pants on and get on with it.

 

In the nicest way possible, I fly Fighters almost 100% of the time and the only tail gunner I fear is the 410's all the others are laughable and I just sit dead six and fire away without fear. The AI tail gunners in MP are pretty terrible shots, you can hang out for as long as you want on their six. Don't know about SP though.

Edited December 20, 2022 by BBAS_Tiki_Joe

[Aleksander55]

I started playing this about 2 years ago and I think it was just before this nerfing of the bomber gunners. I remember that I started doing frontal passes on He-111s with the 20mm defensive gun mod to try to avoid them, and the micro-second I crossed into their rear the rear gunner would already be hitting me. Pretty much bot-level aquisition, aiming and firing.

 

However I agree that right now they are very weak. Even on a plane as slow as an I-16 I can weave around their formation with little risk of being hit some 90% of the time. The only planes that give me trouble are the Me410 and Ju87s. A fine tunning of gunner skill is needed.

 

Unfortunately this is not the only trouble with single player, especially pilot career.

 

Friendly AI is ridiculously flawed in their reaction to enemy aircraft. If the player is in command his wingmen will fail to react to enemy fighter presence 90% of the time in my experience, if I deviate slightly from set waypoints. That is, I need to let autopilot fly the plane for my AI wingmen to react. This means that trying to give any tactical advantadge to my squad in a mission like intercept bombers is useless, something as simple as giving them more altitude over escorts doesn't work as they'll do nothing when we cross the enemy, just float around at a ridiculous low speed doing nothing but being picked off one by one with no reaction.

 

If I let an AI take command to avoid this, their tactics are horrible. While I can see bomber formations some 20kms away and prepare acordingly, they only seem to be able to see them at about 5kms, then they fly at the same altitude as the bombers, build very little speed, do a first pass, then get massacred by the fighter escort. Every single time.

 

When in ground attack missions, if I'm in command they also fail to see targets many times, and take forever to drop their bombs. So I have to let the auto pilot fly for me to avoid this again. Even then, sometimes a few of them don't drop their bombs, and even if I circle around the target area for 5+ minutes, those who didn't drop their bombs on the 1st pass will not do it, ever. Many times on missions where enemy fighters didn't appear, I circled the target area until they started to report bingo fuel. I have to go back to base with these guys dragging their bombs back.

 

Limited radio commands means I can't order my wingmen to attack the fighter escort or force the guys who didn't drop their bombs to ditch them.

 

There are other problems that I reported in the appropriate forum. Unfortunately SP is very flawed right now.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Aleksander55

[JG4_Moltke1871]

13 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

And to those that fly bombers, if you go out alone or in pairs or very small numbers, unescorted, what in God's name do you expect to happen?  That the fighters are going to give you safe passage to bomb their assets? 

 

To have an eye on the online aspect:

No, of course I not expect save conduct. But I expect to have any chance. In time a fighter comes on bombers six and shoot. That’s all.

I remember exciting duels on high altitude when the fighter do all to prevent my six, curving around, sometimes I loose and sometimes I win that. It needs a lot of effort to catch a bomber. In single AND multiplayer mode. But now…. Fly on the six, shoot finish.

What I don't understand is how anyone can be satisfied with something so simple boring.

The gunners was successfully destroyed by typing in the forum to have an effect on multiplayer mode. But the result is a boring unsatisfying game in singleplayer.

 

 

 

[FeuerFliegen]

14 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I will patiently await the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the 109 drivers begin complaining anew that the (Insert Allied bomber here) gunners are snipers and it's impossible to survive an attack on them.  Or have you all forgotten that?

 

 

And to those that fly bombers, if you go out alone or in pairs or very small numbers, unescorted, what in God's name do you expect to happen?  That the fighters are going to give you safe passage to bomb their assets? 

 

The pre war mantra that "The bombers will always get through" was proven wrong over and over again early on.

 

Some people need to put their big boy pants on and get on with it.

 

I'll never forget the time several years ago in MP that I dove in a 109 doing over 800kph onto a Pe-2 from their high 4:30 o'clock and he got an instant pilot kill on me.   Figured it was luck, went back out and ran into another Pe-2, dove on him from his 8-9 o'clock,  started to roll left to fire on him as I leveled out doing over 700kph, and he instantly set my engine on fire. 

 

Then they completely went way too far in the opposite direction, and rear gunners will either sit there with their turret gun aimed directly at the plane at 100m away and not fire, or aim so far off in the opposite direction that it doesn't make ant sense.  I actually wish I could have the option to save weight by removing the guns/ammo/crew members from certain planes, such as the A-20.

 

WW1 doesn't seem to be nearly as bad but could use tweaking for sure.   Especially the fact that they often won't reload on their own.  I definitely feel the need to avoid WW1 rear gunners though.   Maybe it's because everything is happening so mitch slower and closer?

[Trooper117]

I have the realistic expectation that they will never fix the the AI in this rendition of the GB series... I am expecting them to correct from the ground up though, the AI and GUI and all the other niggles that we consistently bring up when they work on the new project... as the man says in the stream a few weeks ago.

I think that the AI problems are that deeply entrenched within the system they just can't fix them, or the comms etc but will start afresh with the new project.

I and several others here in my age group will probably be using a different set of wings by then I suspect... ?

[JG27_Steini]

10 hours ago, Aleksander55 said:

I started playing this about 2 years ago and I think it was just before this nerfing of the bomber gunners. I remember that I started doing frontal passes on He-111s with the 20mm defensive gun mod to try to avoid them, and the micro-second I crossed into their rear the rear gunner would already be hitting me. Pretty much bot-level aquisition, aiming and firing.

 

However I agree that right now they are very weak. Even on a plane as slow as an I-16 I can weave around their formation with little risk of being hit some 90% of the time. The only planes that give me trouble are the Me410 and Ju87s. A fine tunning of gunner skill is needed.

 

Unfortunately this is not the only trouble with single player, especially pilot career.

 

Friendly AI is ridiculously flawed in their reaction to enemy aircraft. If the player is in command his wingmen will fail to react to enemy fighter presence 90% of the time in my experience, if I deviate slightly from set waypoints. That is, I need to let autopilot fly the plane for my AI wingmen to react. This means that trying to give any tactical advantadge to my squad in a mission like intercept bombers is useless, something as simple as giving them more altitude over escorts doesn't work as they'll do nothing when we cross the enemy, just float around at a ridiculous low speed doing nothing but being picked off one by one with no reaction.

 

If I let an AI take command to avoid this, their tactics are horrible. While I can see bomber formations some 20kms away and prepare acordingly, they only seem to be able to see them at about 5kms, then they fly at the same altitude as the bombers, build very little speed, do a first pass, then get massacred by the fighter escort. Every single time.

 

When in ground attack missions, if I'm in command they also fail to see targets many times, and take forever to drop their bombs. So I have to let the auto pilot fly for me to avoid this again. Even then, sometimes a few of them don't drop their bombs, and even if I circle around the target area for 5+ minutes, those who didn't drop their bombs on the 1st pass with not do it, ever. Many times on missions where enemy fighters didn't appear, I circled the target area until they started to report bingo fuel. I have to go back to base with these guys dragging their bombs back.

 

Limited radio commands means I can't order my wingmen to attack the fighter escort or force the guys who didn't drop their bombs to ditch them.

 

There are other problems that I reported in the appropriate forum. Unfortunately SP is very flawed right now.

 

This is the biggest issue for me as well. We got fancy new  models and updates, and content but the SP issues keep getting untouched since the beginning. It keeps many player away from IL2 i think. Starting new career seeing all those problems again and again wont make me buy another module. 

[JG27_Steini]

52 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

I have the realistic expectation that they will never fix the the AI in this rendition of the GB series... I am expecting them to correct from the ground up though, the AI and GUI and all the other niggles that we consistently bring up when they work on the new project... as the man says in the stream a few weeks ago.

I think that the AI problems are that deeply entrenched within the system they just can't fix them, or the comms etc but will start afresh with the new project.

I and several others here in my age group will probably be using a different set of wings by then I suspect... ?

 

Sad but true

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

About AI issues, devs keep saying that a lot of the crap behaviors are due not to the AI itself but to the mission design of the dynamic campaigns that actually bamboozles the AI. That can be tweaked.

 

Ok, then I expect much of it to be actually fixed in GB instead of the new installment.

[Koziolek]

1 hour ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

About AI issues, devs keep saying that a lot of the crap behaviors are due not to the AI itself but to the mission design of the dynamic campaigns that actually bamboozles the AI.

And what is the difference? Isn't the dynamic campaign made by them too? Sorry but no matter how they call it it still doesn't work

Edited December 21, 2022 by Koziolek

[Hook_Echo]

AI gunnery mod, by Stonehouse, who is my hero. 50% of my posts are just links to Stonehouse mods.

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/78388-ai-gunnery-mod/

[kendo]

6 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

I have the realistic expectation that they will never fix the the AI in this rendition of the GB series... I am expecting them to correct from the ground up though, the AI and GUI and all the other niggles that we consistently bring up when they work on the new project... as the man says in the stream a few weeks ago.

I think that the AI problems are that deeply entrenched within the system they just can't fix them, or the comms etc but will start afresh with the new project.

I and several others here in my age group will probably be using a different set of wings by then I suspect... ?

 

What do you mean - they're constantly 'fixing' it. Several fixes in today in the latest update.

 

The problem is it is complex to programme and get right, and so this week's fixes aften break something else. That, after all, was what caused the gunners to go from supermen to clowns overnight.

 

But If by 'fix' the AI you actually mean 'perfect' the AI then I don't necessarily disagree, but that's a whole other thing. 

 

 

[Trooper117]

 OFGS Kendo...They are going to town on all of this stuff when they 'scientifically' (Lofts words) work on the new project... which to me means they are going to make this correct from scratch, instead of making corrections to things within the existing game which messes other things up.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

3 hours ago, Koziolek said:

And what is the difference? Isn't the dynamic campaign made by them too? Sorry but no matter how they call it it still doesn't work

 

The point is, its probably more realistic to think they will invest time and ressources in improving the missions in campaigns if it also helps the AI do its job properly than redo the AI code itself, which is a colossal job.

 

But I agree with you that no matter whats the root of the problem, the result is there : the way the AI behaves is a huge problem and its not really improving overall because when they fix one AI related issue it seems that two new issues appear...

[=Karaya69=VikingSail]

admittedly the AI behaviors is one of the weak spots of IL-2 BoX. Many even argue it is worse than the original IL-2 series 20 years ago. If this gets some major improvements, it would definitely make the game a lot, A LOT better for many who don't play multiplayer. 

In the long run, it would also make the game more approachable to new players - as many of us started the game with doing single player quick missions to test out our setup and to familiarize ourselves with the game. So if that gives new players a good experience, it'll be more likely they'll continue trying and eventually move to multiplayer.

[JG27_Steini]

15 hours ago, [4H]VikingSail said:

admittedly the AI behaviors is one of the weak spots of IL-2 BoX. Many even argue it is worse than the original IL-2 series 20 years ago. If this gets some major improvements, it would definitely make the game a lot, A LOT better for many who don't play multiplayer. 

In the long run, it would also make the game more approachable to new players - as many of us started the game with doing single player quick missions to test out our setup and to familiarize ourselves with the game. So if that gives new players a good experience, it'll be more likely they'll continue trying and eventually move to multiplayer.

 

It comes to my mind that devs made a initial mistake by building the AI and mission logic. They developed many components upon this and later it was not possible to change everything. It dont have any other clue why they dont change many things that dont work. As a developer myself i would never be happy seeing that my product falls behind standards.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

19 hours ago, Koziolek said:

And what is the difference? Isn't the dynamic campaign made by them too? Sorry but no matter how they call it it still doesn't work

The difference is that people are complaining about the wrong thing, which muddies the water. I agree it should be fixed, but it's a separate issue so it belongs in a separate thread. That said, general AI issues are a completely separate issue from gunnery AI as well, so likewise belong somewhere else.

 

15 hours ago, kendo said:

The problem is it is complex to programme and get right, and so this week's fixes aften break something else. That, after all, was what caused the gunners to go from supermen to clowns overnight.

As one of the Devs once said, the problem regarding AI gunners isn't hitting the enemy. The problem is making them miss realistically. The game has movement vectors for both aircraft, and ballistics details of the guns. The direction the gunner needs to shoot to hit the enemy is then just a mathematical problem that can be solved within microseconds. To prevent gunners from having a near-100% hit ratio regardless of the situation, deliberate inaccuracies are then introduced that make the gunners shoot in a slightly different direction.

 

These inaccuracies used to be a bit too small, resulting in too accurate gunners. Now, they are perhaps a bit too large. The proper values for the inaccuracies are somewhere in the middle and will take a lot of tweaking and testing to figure out.

 

15 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

 OFGS Kendo...They are going to town on all of this stuff when they 'scientifically' (Lofts words) work on the new project... which to me means they are going to make this correct from scratch, instead of making corrections to things within the existing game which messes other things up.

Even besides the issue of whether the "new product" will be a separate series or simply another DLC, it isn't quite clear to me how a different engine would solve this issue. It remains the same after all; how to make gunners miss realistically as said above, and they're already able to tweak that. If the current engine is capable of unrealistically accurate AI (as it used to be), and is also capable of unrealistically inaccurate AI, as it is now, it logically follows that the current engine is also capable of shooting "just about right".

 

1 minute ago, JG27_Steini said:

It comes to my mind that devs made a initial mistake by building the AI and mission logic. They developed many components upon this and later it was not possible to change everything. It dont have any other clue why they dont change many things that dont work. As a developer myself i would never be happy seeing that my product falls behind standards.

As a mission writer, I think the mission logic works pretty well. The major issue is that the AI as well as the auto-generated missions are mainly written for a non-human flight leader. It's relatively easy to "program" an AI flight leader to engage any nearby enemies, or to drop bombs and RTB if the enemy gets too close, or to fly on no matter what, etc. The AI will give the proper commands whenever it's supposed to, per the mission logic. The problem however is that a human flight leader doesn't have enough control over his flight. Even with a human flight leader, all commands are still given by the mission logic, and the player has too little radio commands at his disposal to control what's happening himself. Ideally, the player character wouldn't auto-issue commands as is the case now, but need to give them manually via a much expanded and improved communications menu.

 

But we're digressing; as said this topic has little to do with gunnery AI

Edited December 22, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Chris65]

WOW! Do I ever have crappy luck then; yesterday I got behind a Ju87 in my I-16 and as soon as I got within gunner range I heard THACK! and then "engine damaged" and my speed dropped by about 100kph.  I am not trying to be a weenie or anything but I find the AI gunners hard, but I also use the AI gunner mod too and I also suck as a pilot.

[Aleksander55]

1 hour ago, Chris65 said:

WOW! Do I ever have crappy luck then; yesterday I got behind a Ju87 in my I-16 and as soon as I got within gunner range I heard THACK! and then "engine damaged" and my speed dropped by about 100kph.  I am not trying to be a weenie or anything but I find the AI gunners hard, but I also use the AI gunner mod too and I also suck as a pilot.

In my experience the Me410 and Ju87 are more troublesome than the bombers and Me110s. My aim is horrible, I can't do deflection and/or long range worth a half penny, so I have to get very close especially for fighter sized aircraft. 400~300 meters and less for bombers is enough, but 200 meters and less is typical against fighters. At this distance it seems the AI gunners will be more effective. The 410's 13mm is deadly and even a single hit will ruin your day, the Ju87's mg are less powerful but they are resistant bugs and I need more time on target to down them. It's probably like this for any of the smaller aircraft with defensive armament (Me410s, Ju87s, IL-2s).

 

The only curious outsider is the Me110. But I think I know what happens. The Ju87 is almost always flying in a straight line and in compact formations, a more stable gun platform for the gunner and good precise volume of fire from it's nearby wingmen. The Me410 is usually maneuvering hard, but the gunner only needs a single hit to ruin your engine. The Me110 is a bad combination of both: usually maneuvering hard and the defensive MGs are usually not enough to heavily damage an attacker with few hits.

[Chris65]

45 minutes ago, Aleksander55 said:

 My aim is horrible, I can't do deflection and/or long range worth a half penny, so I have to get very close especially for fighter sized aircraft. 400~300 meters and less for bombers is enough, but 200 meters and less is typical against fighters.

 

Deflection is my one strong suit, I seem to have a knack for it but when it comes to bombers I have the bad habit of sliding up behind them at speed wasting rounds, which is probably why so many here find the AI gunner useless but I find him deadly, they sit outside the gunner range while I climb into the back seat with them.

[RedeyeStorm]

Well jump in the gunner of a 110 and you will find it has a terrible field of fire. Only a few degrees left and right. It does have good upward field of fire but you will find that in a turn fight the enemy is outside of your field of fire. Avoid a direct six position and you are basicly save from the gunner. This is in the E version. Not so sure about the G2 as I have not flown it much.

Edited December 25, 2022 by RedeyeStorm
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[JG4_Moltke1871]

Not only view on the gunners…:

The last day’s I created a lot of missions in PMDG and Vanders EMG.

There are so many strange behaviours of AI, it’s difficult to report all…

-Attackers not able hold formation and crash. 

-Attackers flight lead starts a slow flight/stall contest.

-Gotha’s crash altogether same on the airfield after got RTB order.

-Attackers not calm after defend against enemy fighters. Enemy down, escort already calm, no further threat but the attacks continue to fly in evasive maneuvers until they crash.

At all it seems a lot of work make the WW1 AI able to make a successful trip including survive the order RTB/landing successfully.

I think I have to be patient and wait how it works in the upcoming Career mode. ??‍♂️