Daidalos Team's Room -QUESTIONS AND REQUESTS ONLY on IL2 Authorized Addons

[nearmiss]

This is not new! Offline players have known for years the AI stinks.

If you want the best offline AI performance there is one air combat sim that will do the job. The BOB II WOV with latest updates. You will experience the most comprehensive AI package you've ever encountered OFFLINE.

Gripes about IL2 Offline AI performance are very old news.

Offline players have expectations of a much improved AI for the BOB SOW.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

This is not new! Offline players have known for years the AI stinks.

If you want the best offline AI performance there is one air combat sim that will do the job. The BOB II WOV with latest updates. You will experience the most comprehensive AI package you've ever encountered OFFLINE.

Gripes about IL2 Offline AI performance are very old news.

Offline players have expectations of a much improved AI for the BOB SOW.

Given that vast majority of IL2 players are entirely or mostly off-liners, and that solving problems with AI helps on-liners as well, what's to lose by upgrading AI behavior? Why should we just accept that it's "very old news" that "AI behavior stinks" in IL2, and a go play another game if we want a decent off-line fight?

Fixes for many AI behavior problems in IL2 already exist, either as current or upcoming patches from DT, or as widely-used mods. That makes me think that it can't be that hard to implement fixes for the rest of the AI behavior problems, should the wonderful people at Daidalos Team choose to spend their time doing so.

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

This is not new! Offline players have known for years the AI stinks.

If you want the best offline AI performance there is one air combat sim that will do the job. The BOB II WOV with latest updates. You will experience the most comprehensive AI package you've ever encountered OFFLINE.

Gripes about IL2 Offline AI performance are very old news.

Offline players have expectations of a much improved AI for the BOB SOW.

Don't forget AI are used online in CooP missions, I don't fly dogfight servers at all due to the pointless nature of them.
But
Online AI is very important and undergoing some changes IIRC for v4.10

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Given that vast majority of IL2 players are entirely or mostly off-liners, and that solving problems with AI helps on-liners as well, what's to lose by upgrading AI behavior? Why should we just accept that it's "very old news" that "AI behavior stinks" in IL2, and a go play another game if we want a decent off-line fight?

Fixes for many AI behavior problems in IL2 already exist, either as current or upcoming patches from DT, or as widely-used mods. That makes me think that it can't be that hard to implement fixes for the rest of the AI behavior problems, should the wonderful people at Daidalos Team choose to spend their time doing so.

You need to go to Hyperlobby and check out the number of people using Forgotten Battles.

The Offline player has NEVER been the priority user with IL2.

I do agree, AI performance upgrades would be great. It's just that rants aren't going to get it done, because we all know about the problems with the AI. Maybe, I was a bit short with you. It's just not a new problem.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

The Offline player has NEVER been the priority user with IL2.

That's kind of strange...i seem to recall mr Maddox himself stating that the amount of online players are nowhere near the amount of copies sold, which points to the fact that the vast majority of players are mostly offline pilots.

I think it's just a case of one group receiving a much higher visibility. I mean, if a million people are onliners but they have forums, tournaments, mission and skin packs and so on, they are well-known and exposed. There could be 5 million people who fly mostly offline and nobody would know about them because, well, they just don't spend enough time online to have this kind of exposure. Heck, some may live in remote parts of the world where even a dial-up connection is a luxury. That is, nobody outside the Maddox team would know about them...because if one had inside info, like an accurate number of sold copies to compare to the amount of average hypperlobby IL2 users over a period of 10 years, the comparison is pretty easy to make.

I think we'll be pleasantly surprised, i mean TD is already looking into visibility/clouds issues for the AI. With the addition of improved engine management and G-load stress limits, i doubt they would work so hard to release such highly anticipated features if they weren't sure they could ensure a level playing field to make it fun and rewarding to use.

I don't know how much work it would be to rework the AI routines, but what i do know is that forcing some limits on the way the AI work their engines could be done in an easier way that would still work...just edit the upper limit of throttle values for AI pilots and they'd fly normally. I wouldn't care about their lack of overheat and nobody would need to script complex routines to make the AI judge when to throttle down, if they flew by default in a regime where no overheat occurs to begin with. This could suddenly make the AI massively less challenging, as they would never push their aircraft beyond the safe limits, but then again there are shortcuts. Instead of coding an AI that constantly monitors their temperature gauge, we could just have a trigger that said "when attacked, go to 110%+wep for a specified time, then go back to the restricted/normal settings". For example,

Take off: Full power (110%) for 30 secs-1 minute, or until a certain combination of altitude and speed is reached.
Continuous Climb Power: What the operational manual states as max continuous power, which conveniently enough is the 100% setting in many planes in the simulator.
Cruise: The same as climb (ie, max continuous power), or slower depending on the speed values set by the mission.
Dive: Let them manage it themselves like they do now.
When attacked: Full power for up to 1-2 minutes, then back to max continuous power (ie, 100% without WEP).

This is just a quick and dirty "algorithm" that doesn't take into account things like the loss of manifold pressure with altitude or vice versa, the fact that boosted engines made for high altitudes can be damaged if the throttle is moved all the way forward when on the ground or flying in lower altitudes.

For example, some P47s could make 52" of manifold pressure at almost 25000 feet (or was it 27k? don't exactly remember) and this was the "never exceed" WEP limit, to be used sparingly in emergencies. That was with full throttle and full turborcharger at high altitudes. If one was to shove the throttle forward when parked on the taxiway it would probably reach and exceed the 52" limit before the throttle lever reached its full travel distance, maybe even before the turbocharger kicked in, since the outside air pressure (which is what is inducted into the engine, ie its "starting" pressure before turbochargers boost it even higher) on the ground is so much higher than that on 25000 ft. In fact, it was forbidden to engage the turbocharger below 8000ft for fear of over-boosting the engine.

As you can see, it's quite complicated and i certainly wouldn't expect TD to spend enormous amounts of time on getting it right for a 10 year old game engine. We know that certain things are iffy in the way that IL2 models the piston engines, we have accepted this drawback and we are very glad to see TD working on it for free.
What most people are interested to see is not a sudden appearance of a new, extreme realism combustion engine model when the base engine models this area a bit sparingly to begin with (in SoW on the other hand i would welcome it, it's a new product after all), but to see the new improvements and features apply equally to player and AI. To that effect, having some "quick and dirty" methods like the one i described above would be enough to satisfy the players (well, most of them at least )without TD having to over-work themselves by writing completely new AI modules for engine management.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

That's kind of strange...i seem to recall mr Maddox himself stating that the amount of online players are nowhere near the amount of copies sold, which points to the fact that the vast majority of players are mostly offline pilots.

Yep, out of the half dozen or so people I know personally that play or have played IL2 I am the only one to ever venture online.

I have no idea what the actual priority for online versus offline play is in IL2 however they do seem to keep it surprising balanced overall.

However their is a general trend for the game industry as a whole. A priority is often given to keeping online gamers happy. I think the reasons for this are:

- Firstly because, as you say, the most vocal people online in forums are online types. Typical offline players will only login once every few months to download a new campaign.

- Secondly because the majority of game REVIEWERS are young male online players as well. (This also explains the tendency for gungho FPS games on consoles like XBox ... whereas in reality the worlds most successful game is the Sims and the biggest selling game system is the Nintendo DS).

- Thirdly because even if the online players are a minority a few vocal individuals complaining that the "fireball spell is nerfed" or "0.50 cal is pathetic" can undermine game sales.

I suppose what I am saying is that whilst in reality offline players are still the core market the online players are so loud and obnoxious you have to cater to them


EDIT:

oh and back on topic. The advantages of the AI are just there to give them some hope of surviving. If its ever changed PLEASE leave the Ace settings alone.

On a side note I am forever amused by complaints about the Ace AI shooting. Whats with that ? Is it an ego thing where you want the game nobbled so you can claim you kill everything on Ace ? Just set the AI to veteran instead and stop complaining.

[bf-110]

Asking again,but...

I´m not sure if some might dislike this one,but,for 1946 there should be a US based map.
New York would be more than awesome,but it would have a lot buildings (general and specific ones).
Maybe Los Angeles?Or Washington.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by bf-110

I´m not sure if some might dislike this one,but,for 1946 there should be a US based map.
New York would be more than awesome,but it would have a lot buildings (general and specific ones).
Maybe Los Angeles?Or Washington.

Let's stick to reality and not fantasy.

[Tempest123]

I think a good (and simple) addition would be some new background artwork and loading screens, kind of a refresh for 4.10. Cant wait for 4.10 now, esp. the g-limits and AI changes.

[nearmiss]

blackdog_kt

Not quite, regardless of what may have been said. We got all kinds of graphic improvements, aircraft, objects,etc. The FMB was never improved since IL2 1.0 by Oleg.

Year after year no improvements. There were miniscule improvements in the AI, but nothing that made that much difference.

Offline players thrive from missions and campaigns, since they aren't playing online. I can name many issues with the Offline game, but they've been discussed so many times it's really not worth taking it there.

Oleg has indicated a very much improved BOB SOW, along with a very competent mission builder programming, etc. I do think the Offline game will take a nice leap forward.

The TD does indicate some exciting improvements in areas that will be a huge improvement for offline players, including FMB and AI improvements.