Quip

Excellent idea, but there are one or two problems. One I have been able to fix, the other I'm still looking for a resolution, so if you have any ideas that would be great. 1. My tripple screen setup uses bezels (150 per intersecting screens), so I've added a bezel to your mod. Simple fix really: Line 58 added: TDbezel = 150 --TD add bezel width Line 60 modified: window:setBounds(2*(main_w+TDbezel),0, main_w, main_h) -- SNACKO CHANGED: GAME MESSAGE DRAW 'AREA' STARTS ON 3RD MONITOR. 2. There are 2 types of radio messages in the game. Those that stem from the trigger "RADIO MESSAGE" and those that stem from the trigger "AI PUSH TASK" + selected message. The problem is that these types of messages get superimposed with your fix. This I have not been able to fix... See image There is a thrid issue too, also related to the "AI PUSH TASK" messages: they get too wide. When they are displayed on the 3rd monitor, the fact that the text spans almost all of the screen width (0.8* the width in fact, line 82 in the original file) makes them hard to read. It would be great to keep also these to 600 pixels. But the fix for the problems 2 and 3 are really to push down the Radio Message window calles "pLentaTrigger" as long as a message windows called pLentaRadio is open. And to make pLentaRadio 600 pixels wide too. I just don't have the skills necessary for this.

I have just watched the film (blaming xmas). I have a couple of questions regarding the HUD symbology. 0:53, the fpm is tucked top left of the HUD, while the AC is clearly not headed that way (in a right turn). Why is this? 1:06, the fpm disappears from the HUD. I know that Viggen lacks a pitch ladder, but it's odd that the fpm should disappear from the HUD; i would expect it to get tucked in the to nearest neighbouring position. Is it supposed to disappear like that?

That (Speed trap) has been done... I doubt this is true though

What was the Viggen Selfie-pod called?

So, several years later and nothing new under the sun. In the attached mission the following is set up (see image) BLUE F/A-18's: Have had CAP removed Are asked to Search and Engage Are restricted to attack bombers There are 2 tests. One vs AI, south group, and one vs human (client), north group Both have the same conditions where applicable. In essence: All AC fly a race track All have no mission other than flying All are set to "Passive defense" reaction to threat only Four AC in each test group One Helicopter (KA50) One Fighter (MiG21) One Attack AC (A-10C) One Bomber (Tu95) Of these, only the Bomber is AI in both tests since there is no client bomber. And as you will see later, replacing this with a client would defeat the purpose of the test. This tests proves two separate and serious bugs, that have been untouched for years. EXPECTED BEHAVIOR The FA-18 ignores the Helo and progresses towards the group of airplanes Once within range, the FA-18 attacks the Bomber. Following his orders, the FA-18 ignores the Fighter and the Attack aircraft. Following their orders, all RED AC ignore the FA-18, since they are not under threat and are asked to only react passively Bugs vs AI: CURRENT BEHAVIOR SOUTH GROUP FA-18 ignores the Helo and progresses towards the group of airplanes. SUCCESS Once within range, the FA-18 attacks the Bomber. Following his orders, the FA-18 ignores the Fighter and the Attack aircraft. FAIL The FA-18 randomly attacks any aircraft in the Search Zone, not even giving priority to the Bomber Following their orders, all RED AC ignore the FA-18, since they are not under threat and are asked to only react passively. UNCLEAR The RED AC mostly defend passively, but sometimes the Tu95 fires back using the tail gunner. This is not a serious error. Bugs vs Client: CURRENT BEHAVIOR NORTH GROUP FA-18 ignores the Helo and progresses towards the group of airplanes. SUCCESS Once within range, the FA-18 attacks the Bomber. Following his orders, the FA-18 ignores the Fighter and the Attack aircraft. FAIL The FA-18 randomly attacks any aircraft in the Search Zone, not even giving priority to the Bomber Following their orders, all RED AC ignore the FA-18, since they are not under threat and are asked to only react passively. UNCLEAR The RED AC mostly defend passively, but sometimes the Tu95 fires back using the tail gunner. This is not a serious error. NOTES: Unless you actively remove the automated Advanced Waypoint Action "CAP" from the FA-18 flight, it will attack all AC, including Helos. So it is currently impossible to generate a CAP sortie that ignores/focuses on certain types of AC. In my opinion, it's about time for the bugs above to get fixed, as they have been present, and reported, for several years. AI behavior demo.miz

So if the bug is "age old", it proves it's known. So: Fix it. ;) (Hadn't noted the video was 360 only)

[i had typed a long answer that the forum lost by logging me out as I was typing!! This is an abbreviated version.] Grimes, let's say the behavior is correct: to RTB when you're damaged (I argue it's not unless you use an escape window, which the AI knows nothing about, but I digress) Note: I'm addressing you Grimes, but of course you're not responsible for the situation nor for fixing it. So the AI has put the MiG is "I'm damaged/RTB mode", ie bugging out, ie I'm dead. So why isn't the AI applying the same rules to the F5? Why doesn't the F5 get the same signal and stops the attack? Further... the MiG RTB's, bringing him into red territory. It's not in that video, but I know I've seen the following: the chasing AC (the F5) will chase the fleeing AC (the MiG) even if it brings the chasing AC into defended territory (either surface to air- or air to air-defenses). There seems to be no understanding of "this is a bad tactical situation for me" in the AI. So the fact that the AI can't dog-fight worth a hot potato (to use your expression), isn't a problem: it goes both ways and most of the time it'll sort itself out. But what is a problem is the fact that the AI isn't anywhere near being predictable or trustworthy. And that (as proven above) it plays by different rules in the same setting.

Agreed. I've been flying DCS in Multiplayer mode exclusively for the last 3 years, and I'd go as far as saying that AI is even more important in MP than Offline missions, simply for the complexities you run into with several humans misbehaving at once in the same world. But even further: with a good AI it would be simple® to create interesting MP missions (see BMS). Today, with DCS, creating vast, complex missions with varying types of targets and a dynamic FLOT is impossible.

As I said, I didn't create that. But why not ask the poster on YT? Edit: But it's not the looping behavior which is the most important lesson from that video, IMHO. Rather: Why is the MiG23 RTB-ing while under attack? Shouldn't it defend itself? On the same note: If I tell a pilot (IRL) to "attack only using AA missiles", would he not use the guns to defend himself? Given the restrictions "attack using", the AI in DCS will not use the Guns even for defense. As such, the AI is unaware of whether it's in an attack or defense mode.

The editor lets you control many parameters which in fact act as limiters; they're there to bypass the AI's natural behavior. It could be argued most of these are there simply because the game's AI isn't predictable or trustworthy. The problem is that the results of using these limiters (Advanced actions) itself is unpredictable and untrustworthy. It's more likely than not that what the game ends up doing is rather not what you wanted. And any one outcome can only be predictable in an isolated situation. Something that works in a test may or may not end up working in a mission once you add more units and dependencies.

Not my video, but IMO the Skill setting only affects the AI's overall aggressiveness, not its "intelligence", i.e: it'll behave in the same way, but more or less aggressively. Besides, you really don't want to have AI above "High" in multiplayer missions; the AI gets too aggressive and behaves very irrationally.

I found this clip on YouTube, the title says it all. [ame] [/ame]

Thanks PMan!

Guys, in an attempt to bring the thread back on track: The bug is still present, and I have yet to see anything pointing to the devs acknowledging that the bug is present. Feels sad to try helping the devs in making a better piece of software by posting a proper bug report, and not getting so much as a "yup, thanks" or "yup, we know" back.

@Chromium and others... There is no need to remove CAP task etc. The AI does as it should in my tests. Except it won't do so towards HUMAN aircraft. The AI's behavior in Off Line mode is as it should be. It's when a HUMAN Player is added that the bug occurs. Sorry for being blunt, but how hard can this be to understand?

The AI won't respect the "Engage only" rules, and will go after players regardless. If I set a flight to disregard Helicopters, I expect it to do so. In the game, it does in fact disregard AI helicopters. And it does this to the end of the mission. But not for human piloted helicopters. In that case the AI will overlook the "Enroute task" and attack the human player regardless. The same is true for any combination I set up. The AI just doesn't respect players as a recognized type. The problem I think lies in a very simple but serious bug. I think the player's units are not of the "known" types, such as "Helicopter", "Fighter", "Bomber" etc, but rather has its own type: "Player". So when you ask the game to attack only "Fighters", it creates a list of the types _not_ to attack, which includes the other types. Then it attacks the remaining types... Which always includes "Player"

Excellent Using this in place of MANPADs in missions where I want to have some sort of danger without having to resort to SAMs all the time. For this purpose I use 3 kg shells, to strike a balance between lethality and playbility. A tip is to set a "if unit dead" condition for the FLAK-zone, so that the FLAK dies when you kill a certain structure. I use deployed ZSU23 for that purpose. Thanks!!

Well, this was something a lot of players have seen. Not. :/ Is this really not a problem for anybody else. Can't anyone else confirm it?

SNAFU, I have a new "request" and I hope you see it and chose to add it, even though you said you wouldn't :) One issue we keep running into is that the CAPs the scripts generates hinders us while using the script in our Very Complete Training Mission. This wouldn't have been a problem if the (dagn) game would in fact do as it's supposed to and have the "Search Then Engage" function work against human players too (it doesn't) *) So the question is there's any way you could add a Flag Switch? The way I see this working is that you define a Flag in the Script, example userGCICAPFlag = 666 Then whenever the flag is "true" the script would start generating CAPs, but as soon as it's Off, the script would stop creating new flights. I can see this being done by letting the flag changing the script's taskingintervall to something ridiculous, like 100000 :) *) This is a broken function, but I have already added it in the script myself by changing all occurances of "TargetTypes" to "Fighters". It doesn't work on human players, but it stops the CAPs from chasing helos and the AWACS and tankers. Please? /Quip

I'm testing this in a small simple mission... Currently in 1.2.7, but I believe it's always been there. The Blue flight on CAP (F15E) is not supposed to attack any of the Red aircraft of the Map, since its "Search then engage" is set to "Fighters" only. This works as expected against the Red AI aircraft (one A10C and one Ka50) This does not wok against a player/Client Regardless of what I try *) the AI will attack the player. I would expect this to work the same way for AI "non fighters" as it does for Client/player "non fighters". The bug is reproducible and the mission is attached. Questions: 1. Is this a confirmed bug? 2. Is there any known work-around? *) I have tried different sorties, such as CAP and Fighter Sweep, different aircrafts such as F16 etc, and also "Search then engage in zone" a2a.miz

Ok - i understand. What baffles me is that ED have no system in place to handle this out of the box automatically. The whole AI / ATC is beyond stupid. I feel like we're running in circles trying to solve problems that should be managed by the game. Even Falcon 4 did this better in its v1.0.

Please??

Isn't anyone capable of programming interested in having a look at this?...

What I think is needed is the following: As soon as a mist-type script detects a destroyed object of any/specific (?) type inside the zone(s), these are removed. The reason I say "as soon as" and "any", is because any debris will upset the AI trying to taxi. Regardless of whether it's an aircraft or any other object type. And then there's still the problem with the AI running into ground units that may be on the taxiways. I would wish for a script that moved any ground units inside a zone to a perimeter outside that zone. I would do this myself, but I'm already struggling to use mist etc properly: i'm no programmer. :/ What I really wish for is for ED to finally fix this. It's been a problem since Flanker 2. But so far we've been able to live with it. But as I said: as the missions get ever more scripted...

ABSOLUTELY! One of the most needed functions now that missions are getting more and more scripted. The wrecks are doing the AI No Good At All! Any way to remove the wrecks and debris in zones (the airports mainly) would serve us hugely!