Following the flight

C

Ccrashh

Guest
Got all the hardware issues sorted out. Thanks to the other thread. The question here is about the AI wingman, who I'm happy to say fly in formation and are much better after the patch.

I had started a campaign when OFF first came out , but decided to hold off flying until the patch came out. Glad I did.

It is my intention to start the war as a Corpral flying for the Laffayette Escadrille. First mission was to hit a rail yard.

I was flying as Number 4 in the 5 plane formation. Flight took off and went perfectly. We got to the target and the lead never attacked the target, nor did anyone else. They circled between a nearby enemy airfield and the target but never did anything. I went down and hit the target alone. Climbed back to the flight and we circled the area for another 20 minutes doing nothing. They never did attack, the Warp function wouldn't work and I really didn't want to fly the 125 miles back home in real time so I was forced to end the mission. Result was me being captured.

Why didn't the AI attack the target? Or at least move on to the next waypoints so I could get home?
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I've had weirdness like this happen. When I give up, I gain as much altitude as is prudent, head my plane in the right direction, hit the autopilot (Ctrl+Shift+A). Once the plane levels out, I use time compression (Ctrl+Shift+E) to zip home, then shut off time compression (Ctrl+Shift+R). Hit the time compression a few times for different rates.
 
There's an autopilot? There's a time compression function?

I didn't know that! Thanks, I'll try them out...
 
Well Autopilot is a touchy situation. OFF being a Patch of CFS3 = WWII where Autopilot did exist. While an early form of autopilot existed in 1917, it was deemed much too expensive, to bring to War. So none of the aircraft have autopilot, sooo the control is not listed

Basically the same story, behind Time Compression
It was used in Phase 1 & 2 with Success
It's not approved for Phase 3, or it would listed :kilroy:
 
Restarted another campaign. Different squad but still the junior pilot. The second mission was to attack an enemy airfield. It happened again. The rest of the flight did not attack the target.

Is this something that is just me? or does anyone else have this issue?

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I trust you are on 1.2 as AI targeting was improved in 1.2?

There are still times when they will:

1) Attack the wrong target - happened in real life too

2) If they are rookies, morale may be such that they are too scared to attack and will fly around...even vets sometimes will stand off.. yes this is factored in the AI code.

3) 2) is affected by local conditions if Flak and enemy MG crews are firing then they will not find an opportunity such that they have enough confidence to attack but they will fly around trying/waiting to do this.

4) Finally if you are of sufficient Rank and you are leading then of course you can command them to attack and they will try their damndest and probably die doing it...

2) and 3) we are looking at to see if we can get them to give up after a time and fly away - but we are interested in hearing what others have seen so far.

HTH

WM
 
Wow, thats pretty cool. Never knew the AI had moral and fear built in. Impressive.

Enabling a 'give up and fly away' scenario would be great!
 
Thanks Winder,

Is there any other work around, I can fly away out of range, try to warp to the enxt waypoint but get sent back to the flight again approaching the target, only to have them circle again.

I'll try the Autopilot function, if that is my only option.
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Having flown 30 miles through enemy territory on my own, I'd also like to see a give up and go away option. (Especially since this would probably involve some sort of timer and allow longer patrols as a result).

As for attacking the correct target, perhaps using the CFS3 mission marker (by which I mean the purple one in vanilla) might help. However, I suspect this might have been left out in order to make the AI attack other targets.

BTW, I've been away for all of 3 days and come back to a new patch with noticeably better graphics, FPS and AI. It's a nice surprise to come home to. Thanks.
 
I've been testing all morning, A few things I think I've found out.

After having flown 4 missions in a new RAF campaign (1915 No.1 Squadron flying Bristol Scouts) not once during the missions has the AI lead or the rest of the flight engaged the enemy. Ground or otherwise.

We'd be flying along over the front and I'd see formations of enemy planes cruising by at moderate distances. On mission 5 I said the heck with it and dove in on a formation of 7 Eindekkers.

After the furball started two friendly AI finally joined the fight. We shot down 2 (I got one) lost one of our boys and ended up running for home, out of ammo, out of gas, and out of ideas. I crash landed just to the west of the trenchlines and walked home.

My crew chief was not happy.

I don't know if it is something that needs to be worked out in the next patch, but I highly recommend players still take flight leader positions. You will get into more action and have help when you get into trouble.

I was hoping to be able to start at the bottom of the totem pole and see how long I could survive and advance in rank. I tend to start all campaigns at the bottom.

In my previous campaign I was playing as a new member (Corporal) of the Laffayette Escadrille in 1916. Unless the enemy was passing very close by, the AI did not attack them either.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game. I'm going to keep at it. Thank you to the developers for staying on top of their product. You don't see that alot nowadays.

On the plus side, when the fights start they are intense and I love the flight model. I'm also getting fantastic framerates now and the graphics are amazing. I watched an artillery barrage on the allied trenches, smoke, dust and flashes from rounds impacting. VERY NICE.

(I'm a retired US Marine Artillery man (0811-0812)

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CCrashh,

I love the game, too :amen:.

I've also noticed some of the "AI colleagues" behavior you mention when flying as a junior flight member. Like you, I like to enlist at low rank & work my way up (assuming I live long enough).

I've noticed that AI flight leaders will engage passing enemy aircraft only when the enemy get within "target cone red" distance. When the TAC display shows an enemy formation, I've been able to get my flight leader to turn toward the enemy by flying my own aircraft into "target cone red" distance, then tapping the "H" key to call for help from wingmen.
 
Time compression works in Phase 3 or at least it did the last time I tried it, you get 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x.

Ctrl+Shift+e for excel
Ctrl+Shift+r for retard
Or Ctrl+x (it think) for stop

I find it is handy if you are on auto pilot and want to watch the scenery. If you are off auto, 4x in manageable, but 8x is pretty tough.

Beard
 
Winder said:
2) and 3) we are looking at to see if we can get them to give up after a time and fly away - but we are interested in hearing what others have seen so far.
Click to expand...

Well, here's what I've seen.....

At no time have I ever seen an AI plane, friendly or enemy, actually attack a ground target on its own. From what I can tell, they will only do so if the player is the leader and orders them to make the attack. In the absence of such an order, most of the time the AI planes will turn around and go home a couple miles short of the target. That's assuming they get that far. Quite often, AI bombers run away at the 1st hint of enemy aircraft, even if bombers + escors > enemy. In the rare cases where neither of these outcomes happen, the AI planes fly over the target but drop no bombs, perform no strafing, or whatever it was they were were supposed to do there.

I have also never seen friendly AI planes carry out a patrol for its full duration. They just fly to all the waypoints in succession and go straight home, without circling anywhere. I don't mind this at all, because usually the patrol is nowhere I want to be (I by preferrence fly out-classed planes in historically challenging times). I'm just mentioning it because it doesn't seem to be doing what you all intended. Of course, usually there's enemy in the offing and any fight would have my side on a decided disadvantage, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I always fly with the lowest possible rank, letting the AI leader drive the bus.
 
At no time have I ever seen an AI plane, friendly or enemy, actually attack a ground target on its own.
Click to expand...

Bullet,

I have actually seen this once. I was flying along and I see a contact on the TAC I head over to check it out and using the player target view I see the contact is well below me. Well I figure I've got the advantage I get right on top of em and come diving in. When I get close I see they are 2 spads and they are actually attacking the airfield. Both of them were diving on the field and shooting at the machine gun enplacements. I got such a good look at them because they were so much faster then I was and I wound up chasing them through a couple of their firing passes before I could close the distance by cutting the corner when they'd turn around for another pass. On another occasion I drew a scramble mission and when I took off the airfield was being attacked by Camels and they were actually carrying bombs and they made a mess of the place really plastered it. Now that I think of it I wanna say both of these were pre 1.2

Scott
 
Bullethead said:
Well, here's what I've seen.....

At no time have I ever seen an AI plane, friendly or enemy, actually attack a ground target on its own. From what I can tell, they will only do so if the player is the leader and orders them to make the attack. In the absence of such an order, most of the time the AI planes will turn around and go home a couple miles short of the target. That's assuming they get that far. Quite often, AI bombers run away at the 1st hint of enemy aircraft, even if bombers + escors > enemy. In the rare cases where neither of these outcomes happen, the AI planes fly over the target but drop no bombs, perform no strafing, or whatever it was they were were supposed to do there.

I have also never seen friendly AI planes carry out a patrol for its full duration. They just fly to all the waypoints in succession and go straight home, without circling anywhere. I don't mind this at all, because usually the patrol is nowhere I want to be (I by preferrence fly out-classed planes in historically challenging times). I'm just mentioning it because it doesn't seem to be doing what you all intended. Of course, usually there's enemy in the offing and any fight would have my side on a decided disadvantage, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I always fly with the lowest possible rank, letting the AI leader drive the bus.
Click to expand...

I cannot agree with this as we have, as a dev team, seen them attack, not attack (fly around due to morale), and attack a wrong target.
Attacking a wrong target happens when they are wary of the designated target and they attack an easier target that is nearby or when going for the designated target the path flies very near another target - they switch to the easier target - but we did test A LOT.

I guess by now you all realise that to have AI that think and act in a human way is not easy esp when there are finite CPU time slices to play with (FPS) - sure we can turn them into automatons and they will attack the target every time irrespective of odds - but we will avoid that as far as possible its just too predictable.

Lets see how the consensus goes...need more feedback here - and over time...you CANNOT judge AI by one or two flights alas.

WM
 
My observations so far...need to fly a LOT more...One mission, I was lagging behind formation and saw a flight of ALB's pass overhead when one broke away appearantly to go after me, so I engaged him, but I never saw the rest of the flight deviate from their course. Another mission, we were assigned to attack a railyard, but I lost the leader over the front and when I saw him again, they were strafing the trenches instead. I carried on to the railyard and got swiss cheesed. Another flight, I didn't see any enemy, but the leader did, and the flight dove down to attack a flight of N11's. I followed and entered the furball. These seem to support what WM said about the AI being more human and what POL said about squadron status affecting AI performance. This is good to know so we don't instantly blame a mistake in the AI when we expect computer/automaton reactions. But, knowing, they should act more 'human' takes that away as well as predictability. Good job team, and this feature should be noted in any reviews /PR information that's put out.
 
I had a ground attack mission a couple ago (at work so can't check precisely) and what I saw I think backs up what Winder is saying.

The lead dutifully took us through all the waypoints on the way to the target. At the last waypoint before the actual target some EAs approached from ahead left, getting quite close but we'd already started to descend so the lead ignored them. It was quite 'busy' at ground level so the lead gave a trench a quick squirt and then legged it, as did the rest of us. On the way home I didn't follow the lead back to height but stayed lower and consequently spotted some EA below about half way back to our airfield. I went down to engage but neither my lead nor my wingmen followed. I figure they were too high. On the other hand, just as I was finding myself outnumbered, 'A' flight bumbled along led by an historical ace and they DID engage. We shot the lot down, I got two, which showed up on the replay but I wasn't invited to claim, I guess due to my wingmen and lead being out of range by then.
 
Dej said:
I had a ground attack mission a couple ago (at work so can't check precisely) and what I saw I think backs up what Winder is saying.

The lead dutifully took us through all the waypoints on the way to the target. At the last waypoint before the actual target some EAs approached from ahead left, getting quite close but we'd already started to descend so the lead ignored them. It was quite 'busy' at ground level so the lead gave a trench a quick squirt and then legged it, as did the rest of us. On the way home I didn't follow the lead back to height but stayed lower and consequently spotted some EA below about half way back to our airfield. I went down to engage but neither my lead nor my wingmen followed. I figure they were too high. On the other hand, just as I was finding myself outnumbered, 'A' flight bumbled along led by an historical ace and they DID engage. We shot the lot down, I got two, which showed up on the replay but I wasn't invited to claim, I guess due to my wingmen and lead being out of range by then.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys I'll keep an eye on this thread - post your findings here and I can correlate.

Ta

WM
 
Bullethead said:
At no time have I ever seen an AI plane, friendly or enemy, actually attack a ground target on its own.
Click to expand...

BH, I've seen my AI wingmates attack ground targets. Like you, since 1.2 came out I've always flown with the lowest rank possible.

I've been flying the Tripe in RNAS 8, an elite squadron. I've been lowest rank in two ground attack missions over the last fews days in which the my AI flight members all attacked the ground target, once a railyard, once an airfield. In fact, in both missions they just kept on making strafing runs. They would strafe, then proceed on for a mile or so, then turn around & strafe again. On both missions I kept this up with them for 20 minutes or so, then flew on home by myself. We never saw an enemy aircraft on either mission.

On other missions with RNAS 8 I've seen my flight leader turn to engage enemy aircraft when they got within "red blip" distance on the TAC, but not before.
 
I'm sure the AI does different things at different times. I've seen that much in furballs. However, I never fly with "elite" squadrons, just "good" or worse. That no doubt has something to do with my experiences, along with always flying crappy planes.

In my experience so far, "good" and lower squadrons in crappy planes are decidedly lacking in the "press on regardless" spirit. As mentioned, I have never seen them make ground attacks or carry out patrols for the assigned duration. In air-to-air work, the majority of the time they attempt to avoid action even with the advantages of altitude and numbers, usually running away at the 1st sight of unidentified dots on TAC. In fact, the only fights I've been in with such units were ones that were unavoidable.

So, perhaps the AI "fight or flight" decision-making process is skewed towards "flight" when the AI isn't elite and has inferior planes, regardless of altitude and numbers. I suppose I'll have break my usual habits and do some ops with decent planes but still non-elite squadrons, to see if that makes a difference. I expect it will, given what everybody else is saying about the AI being more aggressive at times.
 
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