What game are you playing? I have no problems knocking down Wellies with just the 110's MGs.

Which I for one found improved stock IL 1946 quite a bit, thank you. (I never knew that IL2 had a diffent DM according to difficulty...that explains a few things I had observed in my E.Front campaigns....what a silly thing to do!)

At least it seems as though the current version may have a few more variables that can be tweaked to give a reasonable SP game, but I suspect that we will have to wait for a modder to do it since Oleg's crew have always prioritised the demands of the MP crowd over the needs of the lowly SP user even though we all pay the same price for the game.

The other area of AI behaviour I hope will be better is what I call the Operational AI as opposed to the Combat AI - ie how AI a/c take off, form up, climb, cruise, reform after a fight, escort, descend and land. In IL2 this was extremely poor - climbing at 100% power without limit, a/c "warping" into formation, cruise speeds taking no account of a/c loadout, etc etc .....
nothing ever fixed despite repeated and constructive proposals from all sorts of people. Some of these issues could be fixed by judicious use of Lowengrin's DCG, but most, sadly, could not.

My heart tells me this time will be different, but my head says.....

I think the problem with the AI is they fly using a "keyboard". They don't fly with using an axis of any kind, they just press buttons. This explains why they turn so quickly and seem to ignore the laws of physics.

You can replicate this in your own plane by pressing the keyboard arrows and watching how you can get instant deflection on the ailerons and elevators. You would not be able to do this in real-life as you have to wait for the stick to travel to the extreme position as well as have to fight the forces of resistance.

I agree AI behaviour needs to be fixed. It is true that AI got "superpowers" in the actual version of the game. What I cannot understand yet is why the hell sometimes enemy AI pilots start flying a bit stupid way (straight, levelled and getting shot meanwhile) and the same pilot was doing unbelievable manouvers when you got his 6 three minutes before.

I do not understand it.

Maybe the developers should study the "BoB:WoV" product by Shockwave/A2A in this regard.

This is NO snotty smart remark or cheap shot at Ilya and crew.

The AI behavior of single aircraft and squadrons or groups is for me the best of all WW2 simulation AI. Of course this was not so on release by Rowan in late 2000. But the foundations were there and after much work by a talented AI coder now its very believeable and leads to a good single player experience.

+1

PS: I've never seen a barrel roll there :P

The lovely excuse of bad AI (in IL-2 series anyway) is: all people capable of writing a decent AI code are now working for the army :D

@rga: LOL

Currently offline it is definitely NO fun against AI fighters. The very instant that you get a shooting solution when tracking they start to swivel like mad. The very instant. Always.

Now I trie to work around this in doing a low yo yo in order to get at least a short burst at a higher aspect angle. Again the AI pilot knows exactly that I want to do just that and he turns around in no time just when I move my finger on the trigger.

The only possibility to get a bit of lead into them is to jump at them and make a snap shot at really high aspect angles.

To be clear: it is alright to encounter aces in the opposite plane that has so much experience that they can just turn round in time before one gets into shooting position. Alright also that even when they are shooting at a comrade that they see me coming from behind and break away.

What is insane that they can reverse their flight path quicker than a FW190 could ever and that they ALWAYS know when I want to shoot and that they ALWAYS see me, even when I come crom below or they are behind an enemy.

For me the AI issue is currenty on the top of things that I wish to be fixed. At least make it subject to the same plane and engine limitations as myself.

BTW: the AI had it been superman already before the last official patch? For me it doesn't seem so.

They are part of the program after all.

The AI know your convergance setting and know what you are aiming at and will break as soon as the computer sees a mathmatically correct firing solution.

Hence I don't fly offline except for testing.

Yep. Ace pilot tracks you in his six, ace pilot has good experience at what distance it gets dangerous for him. And ace pilot won't do you the favor of letting you pull off a non-deflection, nicely-lined-up kill shot. You get that straight out of your head right now, it won't do you any good.
If you want to get kill markings easily handed over to you, you might try going after bombers instead. Though I've heard that they are also, magically, un-downable, too :rolleyes:

P.S.: Rookie AIs still get it most of the time, judging from my 1946 experience. The *fail* percentage is just higher... well, contrary to our days, they didn't let *everyone* take off in a fighter plane back then ;)