AI vs AI Kill ratio

[Storebror]

Right dimlee.
We've lately adopted the 4.13 AI into the good old Ultrapack 3 which we run on our SAS Gameserver (where we're sporting COOP missions mostly, with lots of AI) and it turned the game into something completely new, where we yet have to figure out all the new moves AI has learned.

majorfailure has a lot of good points there.
What I'm trying to say is that regardless of it's superduper abilities in terms of situational awareness, AI already now sucks bad in many other elements of the fight.
Let me give you a few examples:

• When AI is outnumbering human players and can keep the fight going, they do a really great job (with 4.13 AI code) to help each other, distribute their planes across human opponents etc., all fine, but...
• When AI is outnumbering human players but a single human player has the fastest plane in the set and can run away from the fight, if he's managing the distance to AI planes (keep it at slightly above 1km, never separate further than 1.5km from the closest opponent), he can group up all AI planes behind him in a big swarm and drag them away to a point of choice on the map, then run away and leave them there, completely confused.
• When human players are outnumbering AI and AI planes have no option to climb and run away, AI sucks big times in defending their lifes. They will do a couple of weird maneouvres but this will stop quite soon, so all a human player has to do is stay on an AI's six for half a minute and wait for it to go straight - it will keep going straight, even if you start shooting parts off the plane, until you finally kill it.
• Outnumbered AI will immediately stop helping each other, instead they'll all fight a fight on their own.
• AI bombers don't try to stay in formation when being attacked - when you hit one, he will bounce out, even if he could stay in as well.

This is why I'd suggest not only to think about how and where AI uses superior powers at the moment and how to tone them down, but also how and where AI currently lacks desireable abilities and how to improve them.
Because if we'd just tone down AI's situational awareness, this would have to be compensated elsewhere, and with AI's current abilities the only compensation available would be to give the superpowered AI flightmodel even more super powers of to make the snipers even more sniper like.

I don't think anyone would want AI to become more stupid and more deadly by surprise.

Best regards - Mike

[sniperton]

@Storebror
What your examples describe can be summarized as 'bad leadership', and an inexperienced or inept human squadron leader would make the same wrong decisions (allowing to be lured away instead of disengaging and regrouping, or issuing 'each on his own' instead of 'together to the Walhalla').

[dimlee]

Regarding AI bombers.

Some observations - since I resumed my online adventures couple of years ago.
- B-17, B-25, He 111, SB hold formations quite well. Slightly damaged bomber still stays in. Quite a task to break a formation without large calibre cannons.
- Blenheims and Beauforts keep well in pairs, but not in a group of 3 or 4.
- B-25 formation of 4 can be broken (occasionally) by flying through it without firing a single shot. Leader turns left, wingmen turns right, etc. Yet to see the same with other types.
- I have not seen AI bomber aerobatics for long time.
(But I see it offline, B-29 and TB-3 are most notorious).

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Storebror

I don't think anyone would want AI to become more stupid and more deadly by surprise.

Best regards - Mike

That's exactly what I would like to see, for rookies(maybe average too). Better shooting -especially against targets that do little to no evading -including ground targets. Less SA, target fixation is a typical rookie move IMHO - at least I did that a lot. Veteran and above to me are more convincing, superb SA, mean shooting, but not entirely invincible, and now they sometimes miss the "ridiculous" 90 degree shots, maybe as much as I do.

But still - I don't see why giving the AI an ability to disengage would weaken them and then they need strengthening in another department?

And to add to your stupid AI collection - try attacking a flight as lone wolf, do it as flight leader, they are all over you in seconds. Do it as second in a flight and you can usually pick off one or two planes before reaction is initiated.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

But still - I don't see why giving the AI an ability to disengage would weaken them and then they need strengthening in another department?

I’m with you, but there’s a dilemma. Aerial battles are now more decisive (and more arcade-like) than in RL were, there are more kills for the winner and higher losses for the underdog. This is fine for dogfights and coops, as we all want immediate action, and since we don’t risk our lives, we prefer a bloody massacre to an enemy who ‘cowardly’ disengages as soon as the odds are against him.

Teaching the AI to disengage and to evade combat would involve longer sessions with less action and more advantage-seeking intermissions. I’m personally for it, but it’s a matter of gaming preferences. Perhaps better shooting at non-evading targets would compensate for the more evasive AI and re-establish the sort of balance as we have now.

On the other hand, it’s unpredictable how all this would affect single-player campaigns where mostly the AI is fighting the AI. My point is that what might be desirable against human opponents could easily lead to stalemates in AI-AI encounters and would possibly break many single-player missions and campaigns designed and playtested with the non-evasive AI we have at present.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by sniperton

I’m with you, but there’s a dilemma. Aerial battles are now more decisive (and more arcade-like) than in RL were, there are more kills for the winner and higher losses for the underdog. This is fine for dogfights and coops, as we all want immediate action, and since we don’t risk our lives, we prefer a bloody massacre to an enemy who ‘cowardly’ disengages as soon as the odds are against him.

Teaching the AI to disengage and to evade combat would involve longer sessions with less action and more advantage-seeking intermissions. I’m personally for it, but it’s a matter of gaming preferences. Perhaps better shooting at non-evading targets would compensate for the more evasive AI and re-establish the sort of balance as we have now.

On the other hand, it’s unpredictable how all this would affect single-player campaigns where mostly the AI is fighting the AI. My point is that what might be desirable against human opponents could easily lead to stalemates in AI-AI encounters and would possibly break many single-player missions and campaigns designed and playtested with the non-evasive AI we have at present.

Solution: Make it a difficulty switch to have evasive AI. And no I wouldn't mind if battles would not end in slaughter on a regular basis. Getting home with only a few kills then would be more rewarding. And imagine what a feat it would be to get home with 10+ kills in one sortie, which now in certain planes is rather the usual case.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Solution: Make it a difficulty switch to have evasive AI.

Good idea, if it can be done that way. Seems there's an agreement in

1. a skill-based delay in the re-acquisitioning of targets (which weakens the AI);
2. better AI shooting at non-evading targets (which strengthens the AI);
3. an evasive AI which makes it more difficult to overrun AI squads (optional).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Solution: Make it a difficulty switch to have evasive AI.

I've been asking for something like this for years. Mission/Campaign builders should be able to set the level of AI aggressiveness in both FMB and QMB, for both offline online missions.

There are times when you want the AI to be insanely aggressive - like in a QMB fighter sweep mission or online dogfight server. But, there are also times when you want the AI to be cautious, such as during many historical campaigns.

[Marabekm]

It seems the AI perform a little more realistic if you don't set a target.
Example: I want a group of zeroes to intercept a flight of SBDs. If I set the zeroes waypoint to the sbds, and set the SBDs as the target, the zeroes will stop at nothing, and follow the SBDs to the end of the world, unroll they are all shot down or the zeroes are all shot down.

Now if I just set the waypoints close together, but do not assign the SBDs as the target, the zeroes will still attack the SBDs while close, but will not follow and hunt the remainder down once the SBDs are away from that particular waypoint.

[sniperton]

Interesting observations. Could you perhaps figure out how close the Zeros have to be to the SBDs to attack them without any scripted order to do so? Probably this is the range where combat AI is activated in any case, irrespective of the mission script. Learning this threshold would open up new perspectives for mission and campaign design.