AI Wrangling Guide: Ground Attacks with Multiple Passes

Possibly the first guide in a series where I explain how to use the editor to wrangle the AI into doing what you want them to do. In this guide, I'll explain how to get a flight of AI to conduct repeated bomb and guns passes on ground targets. This works with both the Hurricane C bomber and Hurricane D tank buster with S-Guns; though, In theory this guide should work for any aircraft with weapons suitable for several-pass attacks - eg, not level, torpedo or dive bombers.

The Wrong Way

So, you might think:
"Hey, what' the deal with this guide? Setting up at attacks is just placing one waypoint and specifying some stuff?"
And you'd be sadly, painfully, frustratingly wrong.

So let's say you're me, and you want to get some AI in hurricane Ds to attack some kraut tanks. You place some tanks, a flight of hurricane Ds and give them a ground attack waypoint over the tanks. You know how the editor works, so you specify four passes and keep the mode on auto.

You then watch, with horror, as the hurricanes do...
... well, I can't actually tell you what they'd do. The AI is quite picky, but I'd say that they probably flew in on one target, possibly destroyed it with the first plane in the flight then instantly climbed and left. With plenty of ammunition in their guns and only one target actually hit.

This is, in my opinion, likely not how S-gun attacks were conducted.

So, how do you get the AI to do several passes. Not just with S-guns, but with any combination of weapon sets?

The Right Way

Well, firstly, you can import the Mutli -> Co-Op mission "030 - Mission.mis". This is a coop mission where a group of Hurricane Cs attack a german tank column. You will note, with multiple passes.

You can immidately see some things that have been done to make this possible, but I'm going to show my own, slightly simplified demo version for you.
(If you want to play this mission, or ask questions, message me or leave a comment! I love this game and I'm happy to help anybody who's having problems getting the AI elements of this game to behave themselves!)


Bam! Great. Not massively helpful without context, so here we go.

The mission involves two flights. Hurricane Cs with 250lb bombs and cannons, and Hurricane Ds with S guns. They both conduct eight passes approximately, then leave for base.

The first waypoint (0) is the start. This can be anywhere, or any number of other waypoints leading in. They start at 1500m with 400kmh of airspeed.

The second waypoint (1) is the IP. It's at this point the planes will turn in on the target and begin their approach. The placement of this waypoint seems to be quite important, as the planes need to be able to turn and dive onto the target in order to conduct repeated approaches. This waypoint is at 1000m and has an airspeed of 300kmh.

Then waypoint (2) the attack waypoint. Where the magic happens. This is what that waypoint looks like.


As far as I'm aware, target selection is irrelevant as of CLOD. The ai picks a target near the waypoint at random for each pass.

Now, from there, The AI should conduct four passes. The C hurricanes will drop their bombs in a shallow dive in the first pass, and likely not hit anything. Sadly, there's not a whole lot I can do to help you with AI accuracy, bombs are just very hard to aim. You could play around with the waypoint setting but doing so may prevent them from conducting multiple passes. There's a lot of trial and error here, and sometimes getting the AI do something is more art than science.

The AI drops bombs in a shallow dive...


And gives Jerry a good scare, but nothing else.


Watch in amazement as the AI turns back in after a bomb run!


And starts hitting tanks with their guns!
(The S-Gun Hurricanes do the same thing, but go right into the guns pass without the bombs, obviously.)

The next waypoint, (3) is the "regroup". It's a waypoint to reset the AI's brain and allow them to conduct more passes. In this demo it's close enough that it activates pretty much immidately and launches them into the second 4 attacks.

Then they turn, head for (4) and conduct another four passes with exactly the same waypoint format as last time.

Once those attacks are complete, they turn and go back to base. Though, they could do anything else you wanted them to do, including placing another regroup waypoint and making another set of passes.

So. That's how you do it. Do follow my example exactly and I can be almost 100% sure the attacks will be conducted; but do feel free to play around a bit, do more or less passes, four or three or one.
"All out" means they'll conduct passes until they're out of ammuntion entirely. You can tell when they're out of suitable ammo because the you'll get the "RTB" message. Which leads me to...

Speaking Robot

To say the AI doesn't know what it's saying would be a bit incorrect. The AI has set phrases that it will say as part of events going on with that squadron.

Unlike in older Il-2 games, the only AI chatter you'll hear is your squadron. So everything you hear the AI saying will always, in some way relate to you. Even if it's just "Keep up with me" or "Sorbo Four just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ went nose first into the channel, commander."

I could translate everything for you, but I only intend to translate things relevant to this guide. So, behold! The dialogue box during the second wave for eight passes made by the hurribombers in this example.


Of course, this is my best guess; I haven't decomplied the game or anything, I just play pretend plane battles with the AI a lot.

I show you this because of how exceptionally useful knowing the exact meanings of these things can be for debugging your AI behaviour.

Anyway, I hope this guide was at least moderately helpful in informing you how to get the AI to run ground attacks more reliably. Now you can enter the fray yourself, throw some cover for them in a spitfire, or jump into a BF109 and try to stop them, knowing now that you'll actually have to do work to protect your little tank friends.

As I said before, do feel free to message me or leave questions as comments and I'll do my best to answer them. Tobruk as bought a lot of AI features with it, but getting them to work as intended can be challenging if you don't do hours of testing. I've done the testing so you don't have to, and now I want to share the knowledge!

Next up: Take off with following AI wingmen!

Future plans: Wellington torpedo attacks. Mast-height anti-ship blenheim attacks. Ju-87 and 88 dive bombing, level bombing with player as squadron leader.

TL;DR

This is a mission made on a small map from scratch.

My observations: Altitude and speed don't seem to matter for this. As long as the attack could reasonably be conducted at that altitude and height, they'll go for it. Recommend between 1000 and 300 m. The lower the altitude the more accurate the bomb delivery, although also the more vulnerable to fire or collision with ground.

The "IP" point is important. Keep attack mode on auto, attacks won't be conducted with wrong approach types.

That is all.