Career mode

[1111mark*norma*]

When will the DEVs really fix Career flying. Senior people are not computer savvy. It is boring. There are so many little things that needs to be corrected.  Thank You very much..........

[LukeFF]

Going to need to be more specific than that. ?

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Well I'm going to suggest some things on top of my head.

 

Ground attack missions are almost always identical. When you attack a vehicule or armor column, its always the same, same amount of vehicules etc etc. Also, an enemy airfield is well defended only if its your target. If you spot a random enemy airfield on your way to your main target, you can strafe grounded airplanes at will and you absolutely not going to be bothered by flak or fighters scramble.

 

Oh an another thing, in career, most of the time, if I ask my flight to engage interceptors, they wont jettison their bombs. Happened to me yesterday in my BF110. For years, the AI has struggled in the role of fighter bomber. 

 

Its true, careers still have a lot of space for improvement. 

[LukeFF]

14 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Oh an another thing, in career, most of the time, if I ask my flight to engage interceptors, they wont jettison their bombs. Happened to me yesterday in my BF110.

 

If you can give me a track and/or mission file showing that issue I can pass it along to the team.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

I know I know @LukeFF. The file I need to attach is created AFTER the mission is done but is replaced if I fly another career mission even though its a different career? 

 

You guys can open this file an actually watch the mission as it happened like if the mission was actually recorded?

 

 

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

I know I know @LukeFF. The file I need to attach is created AFTER the mission is done but is replaced if I fly another career mission even though its a different career? 

 

You guys can open this file an actually watch the mission as it happened like if the mission was actually recorded?

 

I don't know the whole magic behind the mission and track files, but from what I do know, yes, having the mission and/or track file allows them to reliably repeat the issue on their end and see what is going wrong.

[Yogiflight]

17 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Oh an another thing, in career, most of the time, if I ask my flight to engage interceptors, they wont jettison their bombs. Happened to me yesterday in my BF110.

This was changed by the developers a few updates ago. They only jettison their bombs, when they get attacked by an enemy fighter, not when they engage enemy aircrafts. The reason for the change was, that before, they jettisoned their bombs each time enemy fighters were somewhere around them, no matter if they were engaged by the enemy fighters or not (because the fighter escort did its job). The thing is, the Bf 110 E2 has a weaker engine, than it was planned with. There are two standpoints on that. The one is, this was only at the beginning of the production, because there were not yet enough engines of the planned version available.The developers argumentation is, the E2 was a pure ground attack version of the Bf 110 'E' model and therefore didn't get the more powerful engines. With that argumentation, it shouldn't fly like a fighter anyway, but like a two seater IL-2

@LukeFF one thing I wanted to suggest anyway, as I am currently flying a fighter career, is a change of the altitude in intercept missions. Currently you intercept bombers in the altitude the bombers are flying and ground attack aircrafts even lower than they are flying. This is of course completely wrong. Bomber interceptors should be flying at least at the altitude of the fighter escort, if not higher. It doesn't make sense to fly to the intercept point and when seeing the bombers, start climbing, just to get attacked by the escort fighters from above.

This especially counts for intercept missions with the Bf 109s at Stalingrad and in the Kuban area, where you are flying with the wing gunpods.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

@Yogiflight

 

Last BF110 mission, we got jumped by Lagg3s with a 37mm cannon. Our 109 escort took care of them but they fell behind. Before they could rejoin, Yak 1s intercepted us too. They took down one 110 of my flight so I ordered my flight to engage fighters. They started to climb and break formation but...they didnt jettison their bombs. They got wrecked big time. I would not say that they fought either. They just, I dont know wtf they were doing. But they died left and right with bombs. 

 

 

[Yogiflight]

19 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

They took down one 110 of my flight so I ordered my flight to engage fighters.

Interesting. What I experienced lately was, my flight engaging every enemy, which came along. Maybe the difference is, that you were the flightleader, while I was one of the wingmen.

 

19 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

They started to climb and break formation but...they didnt jettison their bombs.

Yes, that is what I see, too. They usually engage enemy aircrafts with their bombs on board. The AI obviously can't differentiate between 'I attack' and 'I am being attacked'. When you fly to the target and enemy fighters appear, your flight shouldn't jettison their bombs without being directly attacked, as they have a job to do. Of course, once they get attacked, they should do, what is neccessary to survive. But when the situation makes it neccessary to attack the enemy yourself, it doesn't make sense to not jettison the bombs before they have a fighter on their six.

[LukeFF]

19 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

@LukeFF one thing I wanted to suggest anyway, as I am currently flying a fighter career, is a change of the altitude in intercept missions. Currently you intercept bombers in the altitude the bombers are flying and ground attack aircrafts even lower than they are flying. This is of course completely wrong. Bomber interceptors should be flying at least at the altitude of the fighter escort, if not higher. It doesn't make sense to fly to the intercept point and when seeing the bombers, start climbing, just to get attacked by the escort fighters from above.

This especially counts for intercept missions with the Bf 109s at Stalingrad and in the Kuban area, where you are flying with the wing gunpods.

 

Thanks, I'll pass this along to the team.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

4 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Interesting. What I experienced lately was, my flight engaging every enemy, which came along. Maybe the difference is, that you were the flightleader, while I was one of the wingmen.

 

Yes, that is what I see, too. They usually engage enemy aircrafts with their bombs on board. The AI obviously can't differentiate between 'I attack' and 'I am being attacked'. When you fly to the target and enemy fighters appear, your flight shouldn't jettison their bombs without being directly attacked, as they have a job to do. Of course, once they get attacked, they should do, what is neccessary to survive. But when the situation makes it neccessary to attack the enemy yourself, it doesn't make sense to not jettison the bombs before they have a fighter on their six.

 

Yes, the player being the flight leader clearly has a negative effect over the rest of the flight especially in the fighter bomber role. I noticed it too in my 262 career several years ago.

 

And yes, I confirm that my 110s never jettisoned their bombs, not even while eating 20mm shells. But I said said earlier, despite my order to engage enemy fighters, they never directly ENGAGED the Yaks. They just broke formation and started to climb randomly. One started a climb so steep that he stalled big time while being shot at. So I will assume that they dont jettison bombs because they dont REALLY engage the enemy even if ordered to.

[Charon]

On 11/7/2023 at 7:18 PM, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

For years, the AI has struggled in the role of fighter bomber. 

Very much this. Fighter AI is okay, with a few issues. Fighter Bombers are very lacking.

 

To be more precise:

 

* It doesn't approach the target fast enough. This is especially jarring with fast fighter-bombers like the Fw 190.

* It's usually too slow to defend itself or evade when attacked.

* It never punishes overshoots, even in the most flagrant cases.

 

The following clip is a modified AQMB: AI is upped to 'Ace' and other enemy flights have been deleted, to ensure a reproducible test environment. It shows all three aspects.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

https://user.fm/files/v2-38b2933a2509a257cacc5bf9cd845807/ground-attack-ai.zip

 

 

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

@LukeFF

 

If devs want to have a good idea about AI troubles related to fighter bomber role, a track here and there is not gonna do it, but one of you devs should start a Me262 career in Bobp as the flight leader. By January 1945 the Me262 should only fly ground attack missions and you'll see mission after mission the catastrophe that it is. 

 

This career is the only one I have never finished, I deleted it because the AI was disgustingly bad in all aspects. Just fly 6 or 7 ground attack missions in this career, look at your 262 teamates. They simply do everything wrong and its even worse in the 262 because the AI aint really good with aircrafts that need good energy management, the P-47 and the 262 for instance.

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

@LukeFF

 

If devs want to have a good idea about AI troubles related to fighter bomber role, a track here and there is not gonna do it, but one of you devs should start a Me262 career in Bobp as the flight leader. By January 1945 the Me262 should only fly ground attack missions and you'll see mission after mission the catastrophe that it is. 

 

This career is the only one I have never finished, I deleted it because the AI was disgustingly bad in all aspects. Just fly 6 or 7 ground attack missions in this career, look at your 262 teamates. They simply do everything wrong and its even worse in the 262 because the AI aint really good with aircrafts that need good energy management, the P-47 and the 262 for instance.

 

Well, the thing is, they need to know what to look for, in the fast and most repeatable way possible. If I go and tell them "They simply do everything wrong", they will come back and ask "What exactly are they doing wrong? Show us video footage of what isn't right." That's always how AI and mission design issues have been fixed.