Fixing the AI

[Axa]

Are the devs ever actually planning on fixing the AI. I have seen suggestion posts from literal years ago where the devs say "We aren't dealing with X suggestion or Y fix because we are focusing on fixing the AI" and IDK what the AI was like back then but it is for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sure not in a good state right now when every dogfight just turns into a turn fight that you cannot win because you will lose control and G-out long before the AI. Even if I pull out of the turn and don't put myself in G lock half of the time the AI will G themselves out in the middle of a fight and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crash into the earth anyway. Dogfights aren't fun if you aren't actually ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dogfighting.

[Waiting to Visit Japan (^.-)]

Offer to help them. Their contact page works.

Posting that you think they are failures isn't very productive.

[LeapingRodent]

The enemy ai is still a lot better than it was... Friendly ai not so much though. Ai passing out due to g's is dependent on their skill level, I think...? Development of the ai is ongoing, anyway afaik. I'd still take the enemy ai in IL-2 over the ai in DCS any day.

If you can't keep up in a turn fight, then don't turn with them? What are you flying? If you're in a 109 or a 190 trying to out rate a Yak or a Spitfire, then you're wasting your time.

[Moccasin Bill]

The AI has definitely improved over the past several months. I remember career squadron mates turning upon takeoff and crashing - the enemey AI doesn't turn fight AS much unless they're a proven turn fighter they definitely do play vertical and do some boom zooms

[Airborne Trooper]

The AI is terrible. On Ace setting they make about 4 maneuvers over and over. Whether in a DR1 or a ME110. I found that random is best. At least the rook pilots make other maneuvers.

[Axa]

Originally posted by LeapingRodent:

The enemy ai is still a lot better than it was... Friendly ai not so much though. Ai passing out due to g's is dependent on their skill level, I think...? Development of the ai is ongoing, anyway afaik. I'd still take the enemy ai in IL-2 over the ai in DCS any day.

If you can't keep up in a turn fight, then don't turn with them? What are you flying? If you're in a 109 or a 190 trying to out rate a Yak or a Spitfire, then you're wasting your time.

I avoid getting into turns with enemy aircraft regardless of who's the better turn fighter because even if I have the better turn rate it still seems like the enemy will keep turning as much as possible until one of us G's out. Speaking on friendly AI I gave up playing career mode because my friendlies kept just running at WEP from the second they took off until their engines died and they bailed out.

[Moccasin Bill]

Originally posted by Axa:

Originally posted by LeapingRodent:

The enemy ai is still a lot better than it was... Friendly ai not so much though. Ai passing out due to g's is dependent on their skill level, I think...? Development of the ai is ongoing, anyway afaik. I'd still take the enemy ai in IL-2 over the ai in DCS any day.

If you can't keep up in a turn fight, then don't turn with them? What are you flying? If you're in a 109 or a 190 trying to out rate a Yak or a Spitfire, then you're wasting your time.

I avoid getting into turns with enemy aircraft regardless of who's the better turn fighter because even if I have the better turn rate it still seems like the enemy will keep turning as much as possible until one of us G's out. Speaking on friendly AI I gave up playing career mode because my friendlies kept just running at WEP from the second they took off until their engines died and they bailed out.

WHAT? I have never experienced this that's hilarious.

I'm still running my daily P-47 career, and squadron mates take off on WEP and definitely slow down following mission route speed (240 mph in my case)

Esp in the jug I don't ever turn fight against BF109's, the FW's you can get away with but not for long, at least on moderate difficulty - but I always counter turn against BF109's and catch them on an overpass. Most the career missions set an altitude (unless its bomber escort) under 5k ft elevation.

I'm honestly wondering if you've left you're install and are playing a career thats over a year old and perhaps its bugged from over a year worth of updates, etc.

[Viceroy Günther von Lichler]

Had a really annoying bug today in a Free Hunt mission, flight lead just flew circles around a waypoint until he ran out of fuel. Really takes you out of it, hehe.

[LeapingRodent]

Originally posted by Boob Goblin:

Had a really annoying bug today in a Free Hunt mission, flight lead just flew circles around a waypoint until he ran out of fuel. Really takes you out of it, hehe.

I have seen this happen, too. Friendly Ai is a real bummer. You'd think it would be better if you were the flight leader yourself since you then have some basic control over them... Except none of the radio commands work, or don't work as expected. You can merge into a full flight of enemy fighters and spam the "Engage air targets" command as much as you like and they behave as though there is nothing there, they don't even acknowledge the command. It's extremely frustrating and they absolutely ruin the single player experience. There really needs to be an overhaul of the radio/command system and the way friendly ai react to them and react to threats to themselves and their flight...

[Pumpkin]

They should have a mode where you can jump in and play the AI on someone's single player game :D

[unknown]

The AI 100% has a way to go, but it is a massive improvement over the old AI. I mean the old ai literally ONLY turned regardless of what plane they were in. They also could not turn as tight as you and even on the highest difficulty were basicly cannon fodder.
Now there are more movement patters and AI can now actually energy fight. obviously the russian aircraft are going to turn fight you as that is their advantage and if you are fighting a german plane as a turn fighting aircraft they usually will opperate more vertical.

The move sets do differ from skill level. The veterins are good, but a little bit reckless, ace tend to use very smooth and skilled moves without much risk to themselves unless of course you out manuver them. and the other difficulties also have their own move sets.

As someone else mentioned random generally gets you the best results as you get a variety of different aircraft that will utilize different move sets and this is also something taken advantage of in campaign missions and in career which is why the difficulties are easy medium and hard as opposed to the qmb difficulty system.

Essentially the compalints about the Ai hasn't gone away because the AI is perfect or amaizing right now. Its because we are seeing consistant improvements I mean this forum used to be filled with several threads saying "AI is terrible" at that point nothing was being done with the AI and we were not seeing improvement. Now that we are seeing improvements every patch we for the moment are satisfied and do not see a reason to complain considering they are doing exactly what we asked. Obviously these things take time and so long as I keep seeing improvements I will continue to understand. Obviously if they stop work on it I will pull out my pitchfork and torch and show up in these forums with the rest of the angry mob, but they are working on it so I'm happy.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Axa:

when every dogfight just turns into a turn fight that you cannot win because you will lose control and G-out long before the AI.

You don't. Even me flying with mouse can avoid that.
If you are on higher ground, retain energy advantage and let them climb slowly, effectively becoming sitting ducks.
If you are lower, evade them until they eventually go down to your altitude and then fight them. Or just split-S and disengage.

I'm actually able to fight pretty well with anything not too much worse than the enemy's plane. If you are more turny, manage your G endurance and out-turn the enemy. If you are faster, use altitude/speed advantage to close up in one good tight turn and fire away. Usually just a few hits would visibly reduce enemy's performance and you can tailgate them comfortably.

[Axa]

Originally posted by RiSE:

I'm honestly wondering if you've left you're install and are playing a career thats over a year old and perhaps its bugged from over a year worth of updates, etc.

This is a good idea but we arrive at the fact that I bought the game 6 months ago and only tried campaigns recently.

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

Originally posted by Axa:

when every dogfight just turns into a turn fight that you cannot win because you will lose control and G-out long before the AI.

You don't. Even me flying with mouse can avoid that.
If you are on higher ground, retain energy advantage and let them climb slowly, effectively becoming sitting ducks.
If you are lower, evade them until they eventually go down to your altitude and then fight them. Or just split-S and disengage.

I'm actually able to fight pretty well with anything not too much worse than the enemy's plane. If you are more turny, manage your G endurance and out-turn the enemy. If you are faster, use altitude/speed advantage to close up in one good tight turn and fire away. Usually just a few hits would visibly reduce enemy's performance and you can tailgate them comfortably.

I was more so implying with what I said there that you can't turn fight the ai, I try to avoid getting into rate fights because as my post stated it feels like even when you are in a turn fighter and the enemy isn't it seems like the just pull until either one of you blacks out and that's that. It's why I'm so frustrated with it because the AI always tries to get into a turn fight and I end up always having to back out and come at it again. It really takes away from the """immersion""" when I'm tailing a 109 and instead of diving or using his acceleration, he just... starts going in circles. The same is true for nearly every combo of planes. The only time a 109 has ever actually used his speed advantage to get away was when I was in an i16 barely dragging along above stall speed.

The main reason I started this whinging thread is mainly because I have seen a couple of actual discussion posts where the devs have shrugged off good suggestions (namely clickable cockpits and better input-map save/loading) and fixes because "We are busy working on the AI" and it really irked me at the time. I feel like this game has so many small things that could really bring it to the forefront of warbird-simming but it seems like the devs aren't concerned. Maybe that's just me though.

[Viceroy Günther von Lichler]

One thing i find myself missing a lot now when im starting to be given flight lead is the ability ask for status updates like in Arma.
I notice that my plane buddies tend to forget the order i gave, or more likely fall back on the "follow leader" order after a while of fighting and if i could ask for status updates and they would say like "following leader", "attacking ground" it would be very helpful.
Shouldn't be spammy either since just number 2 or whomever is second alive needs to say it since it seems like the entire wing always does the same order.

[unknown]

Originally posted by Boob Goblin:

One thing i find myself missing a lot now when im starting to be given flight lead is the ability ask for status updates like in Arma.
I notice that my plane buddies tend to forget the order i gave, or more likely fall back on the "follow leader" order after a while of fighting and if i could ask for status updates and they would say like "following leader", "attacking ground" it would be very helpful.
Shouldn't be spammy either since just number 2 or whomever is second alive needs to say it since it seems like the entire wing always does the same order.

Those commands used to work, but they were broke by one of the updates and have not been worked on yet. Likely because of the improvements being made to the AI would potentially cause wierd behavior when combined so things like flight group AI (the ai working together) and wingman AI (the commands issued) are going to have to be the last things to be developed. Since adjustments to dogfighting behavior would essentially break the any wingman behavior put in place.

[Viceroy Günther von Lichler]

So what am i supposed to do when im lead to get my flight to complete the mission? I notice the game sometimes gives auto orders, should i just give no orders?