Update 5.108

[Trooper117]

1 minute ago, jollyjack said:

 

Did you find this also in Rise of Flight?

 

They weren't perfect, but I can't remember anything as useless as that...

[kraut1]

I just flew some QMB test missions: 1FW190-A3(player) vs 4xB25+4xB26 or 1FW190-A3(player) vs 8xA20

up to ai level veteran: gunners extremely unefficient, inaccurate., B25 B26 upper turret is not able to hit me even if I overtake with medium speed in ca. 100m range.

ai level ace: better, when attacking from astern more effective defensive fire, same for attacks from the side: a bit better ability for deflection shooting.

I will create my Easy Mission Generator missions from now with allied lead flight (bomber / attacker) with ace level

[Jaegermeister]

1 hour ago, 367th_Leifr said:

Well, we keep being told that the next best thing is just around the corner... eh. ?
Gambit made a comment earlier saying that the AI-developer left the team quite some time ago, shame really because for a period we were receiving regular updates to the AI component.

 

And yet there is no AI programmer listed on the staff either as a current employee or a previous one. We do not know who is assigned that responsibility. That would be an internal thing for 1C/777 to sort out and they probably won't tell us who is taking care of it. Jason made some comments about it a couple of years ago that good AI programmers were very difficult to find, that's about all the information we have.

 

You might want to keep in mind that the AI gunners work by being programmed to miss most of the time. The lower level AI misses almost all the time, just look at how you can use low level AI AA guns to fill the air with explosions and not shoot down the whole flight. It used to be that Ace AI would hit you after a few shots or on the first shot with tanks. It is a balance of percentages and the wild swings of AI bomber gunners shooting off into the void is what they are assigned to do. Miss.

 

How often do you really want them to hit their target? It works the same for friendly and enemy gunners. 

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Jaegermeister

[Trooper117]

27 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

How often do you really want them to hit their target?

 

If it's 'my' AI gunner and an enemy is cruising about almost next to me I wouldn't expect him to bloody miss!... 

[IckyATLAS]

There is no need for an AI dev. We have a bunch of AI software on the market. Just teach them to fly by using all the pilot flying tutorials on the internet including all the flying tutorials for IL2 planes and there you will have excellent AI pilots.

 

Now I  push this a little but just a little too far. But in a couple of years this will be probably reality. 

[Lusekofte]

When we had a ubergunner in PE 2 it was bad. Yet he 111 gunners was not good. 
Now we get a ubergunner in ME 410 and the rest does everything they can to miss. 
I mean what is it? How does ai gunners work?

I had a very low expectation on the fee because of rubbish gunners. I have not bought fc3 as my first dlc not pre bought because of the gunners. 
AI is of great importance same with communication and I hope this is the reason they go for new

[RNAS10_Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

And yet there is no AI programmer listed on the staff either as a current employee or a previous one. We do not know who is assigned that responsibility. That would be an internal thing for 1C/777 to sort out and they probably won't tell us who is taking care of it. Jason made some comments about it a couple of years ago that good AI programmers were very difficult to find, that's about all the information we have.

 

You might want to keep in mind that the AI gunners work by being programmed to miss most of the time. The lower level AI misses almost all the time, just look at how you can use low level AI AA guns to fill the air with explosions and not shoot down the whole flight. It used to be that Ace AI would hit you after a few shots or on the first shot with tanks. It is a balance of percentages and the wild swings of AI bomber gunners shooting off into the void is what they are assigned to do. Miss.

 

How often do you really want them to hit their target? It works the same for friendly and enemy gunners. 

 

Imo, it's not the AI gunnery ability that is the real issue.  It's thier dogfighting ability,  thier situational awareness,  etc that is the problem. 

[kraut1]

3 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

 It used to be that Ace AI would hit you after a few shots

 

The good thing: ACE AI seems to be currently not a sniper, I attacked today 8x A20, B25, B26 bombers with a single FW190-A3:

up to AI Level Veteran bomber gunners incompetent

Ace Ai Level: comparable balanced, in ca. 10 to 20 attacks pilot 1x killed by direct gun hit. Attacks from astern to very close distance: gunners fired hundrets of rounds, plane will be hit always, but mostly moderate damage, attacks from the side: in contrast to lower AI levels the turret gunners had some abillity in deflection shooting. Many rounds fired by them and as mentioned 1 times FW pilot killed. I will test from now Ace bombers in EMG.

 

added later:

43-07-21a-Nederland-intercept-mission-vs-B26.zip

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by kraut1

[LukeFF]

20 hours ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

Is the pitch trim reversed in the FE2? Seems that way to me. Also, no pitch profile adjustment available? The available pitch trim is insufficient to achieve level flight (yes, that's at full throttle and I understand that reduced throttle to cruise might allow trimming to level flight... I'd still like the option to trim to level at full since it's a slow / underpowered crate already).

 

The Fee has no pitch trim.

[plepew]

On 11/22/2023 at 7:18 AM, BlitzPig_EL said:

The best I was able to get was 50mph IAS between. 1000 and 2000 feet, after dropping my 4 20lb.bombs.  This was over Verdun.  With the bombs the best I could do was 47mph, regardless of altitude.

 

I did exceed 100 in a dive, without breaking up.

 

These speeds are on par with the Curtiss "June Bug".  It cannot be correct.

Try to keep a little forward pressure on the joystick while taking off and flying.  Like a lot of the WW1 planes, the Fee wants to pitch up.  With no pressure it'll maintain altitude but won't accelerate much above 50mph.    On the takeoff roll, add enough forward pressure to get the tail in the air.  Once you hit about 58mph it should be ready to fly with full bombs and fuel. It seems counterintuitive, but don't pull back on the stick, just ease off on the forward pressure until you start to climb.  Keep enough forward pressure to keep the airspeed at or above 60-70 mph and she'll continue to climb.   It might help to use auto-mixture till you get the knack of how much to lean it.  

[BlitzPig_EL]

Just been flying it some more.  I can get speed up now, even with bombs.  Still, what moron crew chief rigged this aeroplane so far out of trim?

 

Anyway, thanks for the info.  As to flying it in combat, well, I just flew it on my Verdun mission, trying to bomb a Hun field.  The dirty Fokkers that fly cap shredded me on the  bomb run.  I could hear my gunner firing while I was in the bomb sight.  Worthless drunk that he is, even set on ACE it offered no protection what so ever.

 

Moral of story...  Leave the Fee, take the Bristol.

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by BlitzPig_EL

[LukeFF]

The QA guys are going to look into why the FE2b gunner behaves the way it does. It likely has something to do with the numerous firing positions it has. 

[JG1_Vonrd]

2 hours ago, LukeFF said:

The Fee has no pitch trim.

Thanks for the info. So, will there be a profile to adjust the pitch neutral position? I didn't see it as being available... am I missing something?

[Yogiflight]

5 hours ago, kraut1 said:

gunners fired hundrets of rounds, plane will be hit always, but mostly moderate damage,

This is my experience with career missions as well. Before the gunner AI changes, it looked like they hit your aircraft with every round they fired, so its always looked like swiss cheese and your engine or pilot was hit regularely. Now they hit your aircraft, too, just with much fewer rounds and therefore the chance they hit vital parts is lower, too.

The way it is now, it is definitely closer to RL, when speaking about indiviual gunners. What I am missing is that all gunners, who can shoot at an attacking aircraft, do it. Usually it is only one or two gunners shooting while all the others do whatever. Like with AAA, which often follow evading attackers with their fire instead of shooting at the next attackers.

[kraut1]

9 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

 What I am missing is that all gunners, who can shoot at an attacking aircraft, do it. Usually it is only one or two gunners shooting while all the others do whatever. Like with AAA, which often follow evading attackers with their fire instead of shooting at the next attackers.

I have this observed too, but as far as I can remember this was the same in IL2 1946 too. When I attacked a big B17 formation only some gunners shot at me. Maybe 20 simultaniously shooting gunners with tracer ammo have a too negative impact on fps?

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

20 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

Just find this video…

the AI gunnery should really addressed!

Is it possible there are different abilities to hit with AI gunners on different planes? Good like Pe2 or Me410 and bad like He111, Ju88 and Ww1 planes? ?

 

 

 

Oof

[LukeFF]

5 hours ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

Thanks for the info. So, will there be a profile to adjust the pitch neutral position? I didn't see it as being available... am I missing something?

 

You should be able to create a custom pitch response like any other plane. I just checked the list of aircraft, and the Fee is there.

[RNAS10_Mitchell]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

You should be able to create a custom pitch response like any other plane. I just checked the list of aircraft, and the Fee is there.

Hey Luke,  any response from the devs on the custom yaw and roll profiles to match the custom pitch response we discussed the other day?  Would be really helpful and appreciated.   

Edited November 24, 2023 by RNAS10_Mitchell

[Jaegermeister]

12 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

If it's 'my' AI gunner and an enemy is cruising about almost next to me I wouldn't expect him to bloody miss!... 

 

11 hours ago, kraut1 said:

The good thing: ACE AI seems to be currently not a sniper...

 

Ok, so here exactly is the issue. It's the same AI. If it's the accuracy of friendly AI, it's bad. If it's enemy AI, it's good.

What's the happy medium? Probably about where we are right now judging from those 2 comments 1 hour apart.

 

I'm not saying there is nothing wrong with it, but how can we have it both ways? An enemy fighter cruising along right in front of a machine gunner deserves to be turned into swiss cheese, so maybe there should be some sort of compensation for range and speed variation vs accuracy. It doesn't appear to be calculated that carefully right now.

 

 

 
 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Jaegermeister

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, RNAS10_Mitchell said:

Hey Luke,  any response from the devs on the custom yaw and roll profiles to match the custom pitch response we discussed the other day?  Would be really helpful and appreciated.   

 

No, nothing at this point, sorry.

[kraut1]

3 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

 

Ok, so here exactly is the issue. It's the same AI. If it's the accuracy of friendly AI, it's bad. If it's enemy AI, it's good.

What's the happy medium? Probably about where we are right now judging from those 2 comments 1 hour apart.

 

I'm not saying there is nothing wrong with it, but how can we have it both ways? An enemy fighter cruising along right in front of a machine gunner deserves to be turned into swiss cheese, so maybe there should be some sort of compensation for range and speed variation vs accuracy. It doesn't appear to be calculated that carefully right now.

 

 

 
 

Yes, sometimes we maybe tend to judge frindly and enemy AI in a different subjective way.

But I suppose most of us would like have an adjustable AI for the individual requirements.

E.g.: the US bombers tested by me yesterday:

I fly my german missions always with realistic settings, no helpers like hud, icons with target informations, no padlock,...

And I fly always "Pilot careers", that end when the pilot is killed.

So for my requirements for A20, B26, B26 the ACE AI level is okay:

Because the gunners are at ACE level moderate competent I have to choose more or less realistic attack tactics like Attack from the side or head on attacks to avoid being hit to often.

But other gamers may prefer to fly extremely difficult missions and to repeat as often until the mission objectives tasks are completed (or they are simple better pilots as I am).

And they have currently no chance to raise the AI level.

So from my point of view the current AI Level ACE (A20, B25, B26) is in reality:

NOVICE =?

AVERAGE  = current ACE

VETERAN =?

ACE       =?

 

 

 

[Charon]

I think the problem with a lot of the talk of gunners is that it's white-room discussion of what the AI should do, without comparison to what a human would do.

 

So I took a turn in the gunner's seat myself. Me in the Halberstadt CL.II, against "Ace" AI in the F.E.2b. I put it on low power, in auto level, and simply manned the gunner station. Gunner v. Gunner. Stock armament in both cases.

 

I went 5-1 this way despite not being an especially experienced gunner, the sole loss coming when the F.E.2b sniped my pilot during the head-on.

 

Overall, fire from the F.E.2b was erratic. It sometimes opened fire at 800m; at this range the AI is probably more accurate than me, but nevertheless this fire was completely ineffective, with the vast majority of it missing my plane completely (and again, I'm in auto-level at low power being just as easy a target as I can be). Even at 200m it missed my plane completely more often than not. Sometimes it poked a few holes, but it rarely hit anything vital.

 

I typically opened fire at about 200m, at this range my fire was accurate, and conspicuously more accurate than the F.E.2b. Almost all of my shots either hit it, or passed through the wing-box.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Q: Is the front of the nacelle armored against 7.92? I saw hits appear on it but those didn't seem to bother the gunner.

 

It appears that in quick missions the AI doesn't know how to cope with the loss of the gunner. He would simply continue to approach and be shot at, despite no longer having any armament.

 

Q: Does death of the gunner trigger "Bingo guns" or other similar messages?

 

Tracks: https://user.fm/files/v2-e62bd35ebd5f701fecf20207d731e65c/fe2bduels.zip

 

In general, it feels to me like range doesn't factor into gunnery heavily enough. Gunners will fire at ranges I consider lunacy, and their first bursts are usually *way* off, but eventually they can walk their shots on and be still inaccurate but at least be in the right ballpark. But as the range closes they continue to be inaccurate, until at short range it becomes goofy with them failing to hit even easy targets.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Charon

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

All the devs need to do is use Stonehouse's AI/AAA mod...

 

 

[JG1_Vonrd]

18 hours ago, LukeFF said:

I just checked the list of aircraft, and the Fee is there.

It wasn't there for me... see screenshot (and I did scroll through the full list). I was able to solve it by creating a new response profile named Fe2b.

Edited November 24, 2023 by JG1_Vonrd

[LukeFF]

7 minutes ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

It wasn't there for me... see screenshot (and I did scroll through the full list). I was able to solve it by creating a new response profile named Fe2b.

 

You have to create the profile first and then assign it to the plane.

[JG1_Vonrd]

1 minute ago, LukeFF said:

 

You have to create the profile first and then assign it to the plane.

It's been a while since I used the feature. Guess I was a bit confused...happens at my age ?‍?

[LukeFF]

It looks like one issue with the FE2b gunner is it's not set to Ace for the player, so that's a likely fix. 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

2 hours ago, LukeFF said:

It looks like one issue with the FE2b gunner is it's not set to Ace for the player, so that's a likely fix. 

How about using the values in Stonehouse's AAA/AI gunnery mods vs. the default ones? Can you ask? They are generally much, much better. For example, they reverse the distance at which different levels open fire from the default setting: aces, hold fire until close, while rookies spray and pray from long range and generally hit nothing (as it should be). The reason we need these values in-game is for online play.

Edited November 24, 2023 by drewm3i-VR

[BlitzPig_EL]

When adding a plane as flyable on the list for an airfield, does the AI level selection have no effect?

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

When adding a plane as flyable on the list for an airfield, does the AI level selection have no effect?

 

Correct, the idea is that the gunner for any player-flyable plane has ace-level gunner skills. For all other planes, the AI level selected matters.

[Charon]

With the FE2b making the gunner experience more prominent, would it be possible to revisit some of the shared gunner mechanics?

 

The white circles for instance... I was flying gunner in the Halberstadt CL.II tonight and found this distracting, and in fact actively detrimental. These gunner "assists" are some of the only UI elements that can't be disabled with the H or I keys. Often I found myself shooting, only to realize that I couldn't possibly hit because I'd reached the maximum elevation of the gun. The white circle had tricked me into thinking it was the aiming point, when really my sight was far lower.

 

 

[MajorMagee]

The brute force way to disable the aiming circle is to edit the alpha layer of helpers.dds file in Data\graphics\icons\. (Black Conceals, White Reveals)

 

If you use JSGME it's easy to turn this on and off for each session, but you cannot make the change while in the game.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by MajorMagee

[Charon]

Interesting, thanks @MajorMagee. But it looks like that counts as a mod and so wouldn't be feasible for multiplayer.

[MAJ_stug41]

It's too bad the gun mounts (like scarff rings) dont work correctly, allowing a full range of motion. Should be able to swivel the ring with keys or something and move the gun about the hinge with the mouse.

 

The rotating mounts in the ju88 upper guns and nose of the 111 do not rotate in game either.

[migmadmarine]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:30 AM, MAJ_stug41 said:

It's too bad the gun mounts (like scarff rings) dont work correctly, allowing a full range of motion. Should be able to swivel the ring with keys or something and move the gun about the hinge with the mouse.

 

The rotating mounts in the ju88 upper guns and nose of the 111 do not rotate in game either.

Yea, seei g proper gun mounts on Arma Reforger made me want it all the more. 

[MAJ_Raptor]

On 11/22/2023 at 12:13 PM, Blitzen said:

I had the chance to actually fly as a passenger in one of these a few years ago . It was part of Sir Peter Jacksons Vintage collection in New Zealand..It was remarkably docile- like a giant powered kite with all that wing area lifting it quickly from the ground and keeping it plodding along while airborne. ...steady , with no apparent vices. As it had  no propeller wash ,, so  being a gunner would not be as tough a task as one would think, rather like being in a moderate wind in a open sports car ( may I add I didn't try actually standing up...) but the plane was in no way as maneuverable as this plane is in gameplay. Yesterday I tried a QM intercepting several of them- the way they fitted around the sky was either a testament to their AI pilots or just an impossible joke.

( I might add the the most difficult task was actually climbing up into the cockpit through all the bracing wires in all the flying gear ,without a ladder!)

Blitzen,  you are beyond brave to get in that.    I do not think I would have the courage 

[Blitzen]

37 minutes ago, MAJ_Raptor said:

Blitzen,  you are beyond brave to get in that.    I do not think I would have the courage 

Actually , it was a hoot!

[blitze]

Just started the Achtung Spitfire campaign - nice to get back in the Spit V saddle.

 

La-5 - VR shadows of the wing rib structure showing on the outer wing skin when the wing is aligned a little below the sun on the horizon.  Not seeing it in   the Spit or the MC202 careers I am flying.

 

Another thing with the La-5 in  Pilot Career, the flight on short flights tend to  take time to form up and then it is a last minute dash to gain alt to 2k meters.  Before that the flight is low and slow.  Puts them in a bad energy situation if engagement it quick and engines are hot.  Maybe it is a historical thing but if so, can comprehend how easy it was for the German fighters were able to engage the VVS.  Nice to see Heinkel 111s flying Stalingrad.  Hoping to catch Ju52 transport corridors in the career too.

 

Overall, optimization in VR is great and looks it too.  Having a hoot flying the MC's over Moscow and the twin MG's are effective unlike when the earlier days.  Would love Italian radio comms but know limitations of resources.

[blitze]

Rib shadows, tested on Med, High and Ultra with La5 and Yak 1 s69 showing shadowing of the Wing Ribs on the Wing Surface when aligned to the sun at low angles of the sun relative to the wings surface.  This quite noticeable in VR on the 8K-X.  Wondering if it was a materials thing, the I-16, and other fighters tested were fine as was the Late Yaks.

 

Would love Achtung Spitfire Missions to have a turn off the music with each missions start screen.  It's quite loud but it is what it is, the missions are fun.