Quote:
Originally Posted by Continu0
If Plane X is firing at plane Y and plane X does not score any hits within 2 seconds, Plane X should stop firing for a certain time (may be at least 1 second).
As far as I can imagine, in the programming language:
After Plane X has stopped firing (because of no hits), the programm should go back to decide again (may be after 1 second) if Plane X should fire.
Right at the moment, Hurricanes are wasting their whole ammo whithout scoring any hit...
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The AI running out of ammo should be very rare, IMHO. For anyone that is interested in how the AI shoot and kill, I will offer a short discription of how BOBII implements the AI shooting.
If you do not care how the AI targets and shoots bullets, then just skip this the data below..
I think the shooting/targeting attention to detail must be very high priority with respect to how the AI achieves a bullet hit.
A player can shoot any time he wants. He can be very accurate or he can just shoot, spray, and pray. The player either hits or misses his target. What does the AI do to hit a target?
To hit something in BOBII the AI A/C must fly and maneuver until its pitch and roll are within a box that can be placed around the target. This means that the AI must fly and maneuver until the target (enemy A/C) meets the error box criteria before a single AI bullet is ever fired. To calculate where to place the error box the software must determine the “lead” (not the A/C “current position” but where the A/C “future position” will be when the bullets arrive). The lead calculation is rather complex and difficult in a real time fight simulation game and sometimes BOBII does a poor job. The player will usually say, “wow, he is right there why doesn’t the AI just shoot”. Actually, it is very human for the AI pilot to have a difficult time with the “lead” calculation (deflection shooting).
The AI skill level controls the "size" of the error box (biger for Novice and smaller for Hero) and the range (Novice shoot too fast too early but Heros shoot upclose and on target). This design results in the Novice using more ammo than the higher skilled Hero.
Even a human WWII pilot had a hard time calculating lead in his head (deflection shooting). In his book “The Most Dangerous Enemy” by Stephen Bungay (one of my favorite BOB history books), Mr Bungay is talking about deflection shooting and states, “It will come as no surprise to learn that not many pilots ever mastered this, and that the vast majority of kills were made from within 15 degrees of dead astern.”