AI is on top of my list

[Bakelit]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

WOW the prospects of a great AI are just exciting to think about.

Agreed wholeheartedly.


And yet I wonder what exactly happened in the AI development division of Maddox games between say 2006 and 2011 on a typical work day ...


I mean, they had an extremely rich resource of what sim players want and what they like/ don't like about all aspects of the product. More feedback and community interaction than most other flightsims. Themselves worked on AI for IL2 1.0 and later refined it so the development team had long time experience. It was not their first flight sim.

And then look at what we got in the spring of 2011!?

[buddye]

Has anyone created one-0n-one dog fight Missions, so that the enemy AI can be tested at different skill levels and the AI at the different skill levels can be compared in a simple example?

Sorry , I do not use the FMB, I can not change the skill level in the quick missions, and I do not even know the AI's coded skill levels.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by buddye

Has anyone created one-0n-one dog fight Missions, so that the enemy AI can be tested at different skill levels and the AI at the different skill levels can be compared in a simple example?

Sorry , I do not use the FMB, I can not change the skill level in the quick missions, and I do not even know the AI's coded skill levels.

What did you have in mind? I could fix those up pretty quick...

AI if I remember is same as old IL2, Rookie, Average, Veteran and Ace...

PM if you want them making up and tell me your email address. Let me know which aircraft you want to fly and which enemy AI aircraft you want to fly against. Merge or dead 6? Altitude etc...

[Les]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

What did you have in mind? I could fix those up pretty quick...

AI if I remember is same as old IL2, Rookie, Average, Veteran and Ace...

PM if you want them making up and tell me your email address. Let me know which aircraft you want to fly and which enemy AI aircraft you want to fly against. Merge or dead 6? Altitude etc...

Farber, if you do make some test missions up, you could put them in a zip file and attach them to a post on the forums here, in case others want to use them as well. Zip files can be as big as 14MB per post.

[buddye]

Yes, I am sure that the more testers the better. I just want to look at the different AI performance per skill level.

I like the SpitII VS the 109 (E , I think).

Head-on would do but most any one-on-one mission would do. I guess we would need one mission per AI skill level to try and keep the testing simple.

Thanks for your very kind offer.

[IvanK]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

What did you have in mind? I could fix those up pretty quick...

AI if I remember is same as old IL2, Rookie, Average, Veteran and Ace...

PM if you want them making up and tell me your email address. Let me know which aircraft you want to fly and which enemy AI aircraft you want to fly against. Merge or dead 6? Altitude etc...

Farber since you seem to be able to make these things how do you actually get the AI to engage offensively say on a head on merge ? Every time I make a simple setup the ACE AI just flies right on bye. He will only start some defensive stuff if you wizz a few rounds past him. Even flying directly in front of him has no affect.

[adonys]

you can safely bet that the people who worked on IL2 AI's went away, and were not in there anymore to work on IL2CoD's AI.

you can also bet that the new people haven't worked on IL2 CoD more than half-a-year - a year (and most probably there was only one assigned to this).

that's what my almost 10 years game-developing experience tells me when I am looking at the launch/current state of IL2 CoD's AI.

[buddye]

Originally Posted by adonys

you can safely bet that the people who worked on IL2 AI's went away, and were not in there anymore to work on IL2CoD's AI.

you can also bet that the new people haven't worked on IL2 CoD more than half-a-year - a year (and most probably there was only one assigned to this).

that's what my almost 10 years game-developing experience tells me when I am looking at the launch/current state of IL2 CoD's AI.

Yes, I agree with your opinion based on my experience. The manpower, skill, and focus were not spent on the AI.

[smink1701]

Love the new patch and really appreciate the effort but the AI is still porked.

[Fall_Pink?]

Originally Posted by adonys

you can safely bet that the people who worked on IL2 AI's went away, and were not in there anymore to work on IL2CoD's AI.

you can also bet that the new people haven't worked on IL2 CoD more than half-a-year - a year (and most probably there was only one assigned to this).

that's what my almost 10 years game-developing experience tells me when I am looking at the launch/current state of IL2 CoD's AI.

I'm not so sure about that. To me it seems more likely they focused on certain area's (ground details, FM, DM, cockpits, AI and so on), but when they all tried to glue it together in their game engine they hit a wall. It stopped any further progress and they were pressed to release it anyway (lack of money, whatever).

Today, even after many patches, even with just 1 plane in the air and a few ground objects, the terrain still does not load smoothly on a very high end system. Adding more ram and more cpu power hardly makes a difference because the game is unable to use it.

To me it seems the real root cause is the game engine itself. Only when they've managed to fix this they will have time to look into the AI.

We can only hope - and Luthier mentioned a ~ 50% improvement - they'll find what the real trouble with the current CoD game engine is. Right now, it's still not running smoothly, especially when compared to IL2 10 years ago.

Rgs,
FP