AI Pilots are All or Nothing in BON Career

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

Among the P-47 squadrons on BON, they are extremely susceptible to colliding with each other on climb out. It is common enough that I don't remember the last time I flew a mission where at least 2 didn't collide.

Also, the German AI pilots are incredible against bomber formations. The last several bomber escort missions I flew were failures in less than a minute. The last one saw more than half of the formation destroyed in less than 40 seconds. Just one or two fighters on a single pass lasting a few moments will send at least 3 planes down every time. It doesn't help that half the escort crashed into each other enroute, but the bomber's defensive fire is absolutely useless, and it's Erich Hartmann and Adolf Galland tearing through the formation literally every time! It gets old... Lol

 

[LukeFF]

Need track and mission files for the developers to take a look at. ?

[Yogiflight]

6 hours ago, WarSlothdavidbeckett said:

Also, the German AI pilots are incredible against bomber formations. The last several bomber escort missions I flew were failures in less than a minute. The last one saw more than half of the formation destroyed in less than 40 seconds. Just one or two fighters on a single pass lasting a few moments will send at least 3 planes down every time.

This is interesting, because when I fly bomber intercept missions for the German side in BON or BOBP (hard difficulty), my squadmates rarely attack the bombers. They usually are busy with the escort fighters.

But I also observe the AI being very bad in flying the P-47. They always get slaughtered by my squadmates, flying the FW 190 A6/A8. The same for the P-38, they perform slightly better in the P-51, and are absolute asses in the Spitfire.

[Flying_Anchor]

1 час назад, Yogiflight сказал:

asses

Asses or aces?..

[Yogiflight]

23 hours ago, Flying_Anchor said:

Asses or aces?..

Oops

for me they are asses, but they fly and fight as aces.

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

Battle of Normandy Career Mode...

 

 - Aircraft get lost half way across the channel and fly off on their own never to be seen again.

 - Escorts weave over the bombers at the same altitude, with predictable results. I've had missions where 6 of 8 aircraft collide before even getting across the channel.

 - If engaged in combat, performance is awful. Typically losing to Fw-190's at a rate of 3 or 4:1. Bombers get slaughtered every time, even if there's only 2 or 3 enemy aircraft.

 - Escorts continue to "escort" the bombers long after the bombers are back at their home airfield.

 - Once returning to base the aircraft fly around in every direction on the compass waiting for their turn to land. Many crash or collide.

 - Aircraft landing approaches are too shallow and they often crash into obstacles on short final.

 - On Ground Attack missions, at least one or two aircraft fail to release their bombs over the target and carry them home, where they promptly drop them on the friendly airfield.

 

At least one of these events occurs literally every time. This applies to all P-47 squadrons on BON career mode missions... believe me, I've tried.

[LukeFF]

I'll pass along the message. Thank you!

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

Similar problems with P-51 squadrons.

 

- Same altitude issues with Escort missions as seen in the screen shot

- Aircraft crashing while circling to land

- Aircraft that do land do not shut down but just continue to taxi randomly in any direction.

- And the error message in the screen shot has only showed up for me while flying P-51's. I either get this message or the sim just shuts down completely. It's happened three times in P-51's, but never in 47's. And I've spent much more time flying the 47's, so I feel like I would've gotten it at least once??

 

Thanks for passing on the information. Would love to see this all fixed and working like the other volumes of the simulator!

[LukeFF]

Okay, I'll let them know about this last one as well. Do you happen to have the mission file? It will be _gen.mission in the /data/missions folder.

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

Unfortunately no I don't think I have the file. Nothing comes up in the /data/missions folder that is relevant to the bugs I described earlier.

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

After the previous updates I was hoping to see some improvement on the BON career experience, but it is still the same story especially on bomber escort missions. Most recent mission saw 4 bombers and 6 of 8 P-47's shot down for one FW-190... half the bombers and 3/4 of the fighters shot down by 4 190's! And this is not a one time thing but still the norm for P-47 squadrons in BON, it's an absolute laugher every time. 

On the bright side P-47's are less frequently bombing their own airfields... but it's not unheard of. Collisions of escorts are still a thing though. While being escorted by Spitfires a few missions ago only one made it back. The other 5 all crashed into each other while weaving above the 47's.

Would love to see BON functioning as well as BOM which is what I typically go to, as it's been almost flawless in my experience.

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

Still experiencing the same issues with P-47 and P-51 aircraft with AI excessively bad during escort missions, both for bombers, but especially the escorts.

> Bombers scatter all over the place with any turns, with some coming down from their cruising altitude to just above the ground... or lower.

> Escorts typically do ok enroute to the target, but on the way back all try to fly at the same altitude. With the last mission I flew with 47's, 6 of 8 aircraft collided.

> Traffic patterns are always hazardous. I always try to land immediately before planes start crashing. This applies to both bombers and their escorts.

Tried the RAF side to experience different mission sets to see if there was any improvement. 

> First mission was an intercept mission. As seen in the screenshot, the flight takes off, and then flies circles just east of the field at a level altitude. 2 of the 4 of these aircraft also collided.

 

[falle96]

I don't have a track for this or anything, but I am two-for-two on missions in the Spit IXc where EVERYONE but me has died to midair collisions(?).

 

It's rather mysterious, they just explode and I see raining parts. I'm partially worried that the new plane has a tendency to uh... ronson.

[WarSlothdsbeckett]

One more thing to mention is not so much a bug with collisions etc... but a recommended improvement for the fighter bomber squadrons. Currently, the fighter bombers will drop their bombs and return directly to base with complete disregard for what is going on around them. For example, escorts flying just above them will be engaged in a dogfight and the squadron will just fly away like nothing is goin on. To more closely adhere to historical reality the squadron should immediately engage the enemy fighters upon completion of the ground attack. Also, I've never seen an American or British fighter do a strafing run at any point on any target in BON.

 

Thank you, and sorry to complain so much! Lol Just hoping to help make it better...

[BB-Madman]

On 3/10/2024 at 6:50 AM, WarSlothdavidbeckett said:

> Escorts typically do ok enroute to the target, but on the way back all try to fly at the same altitude. With the last mission I flew with 47's, 6 of 8 aircraft collided.

 

I call it "The Dance of Death" in my posts in the Autopilot and AI thread. I've posted a few mission files there as well and hope they can get this fixed.

 

On 3/13/2024 at 7:37 AM, WarSlothdavidbeckett said:

Currently, the fighter bombers will drop their bombs and return directly to base with complete disregard for what is going on around them. For example, escorts flying just above them will be engaged in a dogfight and the squadron will just fly away like nothing is goin on. 

 

Yeah, this! I've seen half a squadron shot down multiple times when 1 or 2 fighters drop down from the dogfight onto their tails and blow them out of the sky. 

[LukeFF]

On 3/13/2024 at 7:37 AM, WarSlothdavidbeckett said:

One more thing to mention is not so much a bug with collisions etc... but a recommended improvement for the fighter bomber squadrons. Currently, the fighter bombers will drop their bombs and return directly to base with complete disregard for what is going on around them. For example, escorts flying just above them will be engaged in a dogfight and the squadron will just fly away like nothing is goin on. To more closely adhere to historical reality the squadron should immediately engage the enemy fighters upon completion of the ground attack. Also, I've never seen an American or British fighter do a strafing run at any point on any target in BON.

 

Thank you, and sorry to complain so much! Lol Just hoping to help make it better...

 

Yes, there is a bug here, per one of our mission designers. Thank you for the report!