Bionic AI
 

Is the behaviour of the AI being looked at since release of the last patch (v4.12)?

It's really quite ridiculous these days.

Is it now... :confused:

In these cases its best to both describe the issue and record track files to illustrate in ways that words cannot what the issues you're seeing are. Personally I think the AI is such a huge advancement over what it was doing before. There may be more that can be done but there are of course limits.

It'll take a breakthrough in AI programming to really be able to do some of the things that people ask for. Research is ongoing but I don't think we're any closer to a "thinking AI" utilizing neural networks or the like than we were 10 years ago.

Sorry IceFire.. I was looking for an answer from a member of the team. Not an opinion, thanks.

I'm not the only one that has noticed them change for the worse. I would just like to know if they are looking at the behaviour changes they made with the v4.12 patch and wondering whether they are planning to make any adjustements or not.

EZ,

My guess is that the team would probably be interested in specific examples of AI 'behaviour changes' in 4.12. Preferably, specific behavior that could be consistently reproduced in 4.12 and then compared to the exact situation in 4.11.

Aviar

What exactly has changed for the worse, in your eyes? Simply saying "it's worse now pls fix" isn't particularly helpful for TD.

AI has definitely come a long way from the original. I think the Rookies and Averages are still maybe a bit too good on the gunnery side, and the AI being able to instantly snap out of a flat spin (even in the P-39 :-|) may still need some work if possible. It's still a far cry from them accelerating away and spiral climbing to space, however.

Aviar wrote it very well.

Posting that something is "broken" without anything else is pretty much useless to the team. That's not an opinion...

Concur.

DT - in fact anyone in the community - would be happy to answer a valid question, but simply saying in effect "The AI is bad, are they gonna fix it?" in such a vague manner without pointing out any specifics isn't going to get any real answers for you.

But in his opinion it needs fixing!

He is right that the AI needs a fix. There have been more people that have noticed this.

for example

The AI keeps flying burning aircraft.

The AI can make maneuvers at 20G's without blacking out.

The AI wingman breaks formation with leader when he sees enemies, doesnt stay near the leader during dogfights and provides poor cover.

I used to think that this was unrealistic, but I've sort of changed my mind. While a huge fuel fire in a wing tank can quickly melt a wing spar to the point where it collapses, smaller fires, such as engine fires, shouldn't "kill" a plane that quickly.

Two extreme examples:

1) A British bomber crewman won the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of a burning bomber with a fire extinguisher in an attempt to put out an engine fire. While he failed in his attempt, the fact that the plane held together long enough for him to put on his parachute, lash up a safety rope, grab a fire extinguisher and crawl out a hatch and along the wing is testament to just how tough the plane was!

2) A B-17 crewman won the Medal of Honor for alternately putting out fires in the fuselage of his aircraft and shooting at attacking German planes. Again, this shows that fires in a large plane take a while to reach the point where the plane fails structurally.

So, while crew should bail out in a hurry if the fire has the potential to burn them or make the plane blow up or fall apart, they should try to stick with the plane if the fire is in the engine or fuselage and is relatively small, especially if by doing so they can get to safety (i.e., friendly territory/dry land).

Unproven. I think that TD has done a pretty good job of making AI pilots more vulnerable to G forces. Where they might have work to do is making rookie AI pilots vulnerable to pulling too many Gs and blacking out, and making pilots who pull high-G maneuvers more vulnerable to losing Situational Awareness due to Gray-out/Blackout.

Agreed. Better quality AI pilots are better at obeying orders and providing cover, but they're still not as good as a human wingman.

A simple change that would be very welcome would be for Veteran or better wingmen to tell you to break right or left (like tailgunners currently do) when an enemy is on your tail, to set up a "drag and bag" when the enemy follows you.

Another way in which AI could be improved is to give the player the ability to alert the formation to the presence of bandits and have the formation react appropriately. Often times I'll detect enemies before the other planes in my formation do. Unless I'm formation leader, I get chewed out for breaking formation!

I'm not looking for discussion with you IceFire, sorry but I just wanted a simple answer from someone on the team.

Yes.. Sorry for not being more detailed earlier.. but it's just that it's so obvious how "bionic" the AI are now, that I didn't think I needed to go into detail. I quite simply asked "the team" if they plan on adjusting the behaviour of the AI in the next patch.

I expected one of two kinds of answers (from someone that actually knows).

"No, we're happy with the behaviour of the AI".
-or-
"Yes, we're still looking into making the AI behave better".

If it's the first answer, then I'll start to elaborate and maybe moan a little. If it's the second answer, I'll patiently wait for the next patch.

''I used to think that this was unrealistic, but I've sort of changed my mind. While a huge fuel fire in a wing tank can quickly melt a wing spar to the point where it collapses, smaller fires, such as engine fires, shouldn't "kill" a plane that quickly.''

A bomber has some time to manage the flames by cutting off fuel flow to one fuel tank for example.

But i mean a fighter sized aircraft.
When a fighter aircraft is on fire any sane pilot would bail.

Ive seen AI zeros and ki61s that had the cockpit covered in flames and didnt bail but kept making defensive maneuvers.

Why not mail them directly then? It's a public forum... thus discussions can and do happen.

If you're willing to entertain at least one more opinion.. the "Yes, we're still looking into making the AI behave better" is far and away the likely answer. I'm a third party contributor to TD... and I know from experience that they are always looking for help, for comments, and for feedback. But I stress that "obvious" problems are not obvious to all and it's far better to document exactly what the issue is in explicit detail.

That way... things get done and we all benefit.

All AI have super high tolerance to G-forces and they can roll like a 190 at all speeds.

You can't really trust the AI to follow any kind of orders, not even "loosen formation". This pretty much killed the Karelian Hawks - campaign for me, not because you can't get your wingmen to do anything, but because they won't even attack on their own! On the other hand, when you set up a QMB mission with ace wingmen, they pretty much kill all enemies dead.

Of course, following orders is so last season. Imagine! If people hadn't blindly followed orders, we wouldn't have had so many wars.

I should have known better than to post here in the "Daidalos Team Discussions" section about something that is handled by the Daidalos Team.

-face-palm-

"Daidalos Team Discussions" is a public forum, as such if you post in it, it's visible to everyone and all forum members can reply to it. You can complain all you want but that will not change this fact.
As mentioned earlier, if you want a direct response by Daidalos Team, you should email the team directly, or send a Private Message to one of its members.

I did have some trouble with the Hawk AI not playing it as smart as they should in some situations but I never had trouble getting them to actually engage. Wasn't working out very well for you? I made that campaign so I'd like to know what the issue was...

My two issues that came out of producing that campaign was the way that the AI handles attacking in a fast plane versus a slow plane. They often make a weird rolling behaviour that eliminates their opportunity for a firing solution. This dates back to early IL-2 days but its still there even with the updated firing routines.

And yes the rolling at high speed is very annoying. Its much better than it used to be (MUCH better) but its still not there yet. I have no idea why sometimes its worse on some aircraft while others roll at reasonable speeds. Example Ki-61 AI can roll around like nuts while the Bf109 AI will not.


Discussions is in that title. It's a public forum so you should expect a public response. If you don't like that then maybe e-mail them directly.

Quite right.

Yup

Please use the stickies to report any bugs and problems.

If you just want to come here and aimlessly complain expect the responses you received.

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