Guns, more like firecrackers.

[nullsys]

After an excellent dogfight with a MiG-15 and both coming away unharmed, I am a little disappointed.

 

Despite using all 6 cannons, and hitting multiple times at close range, I found that absolutely nothing happened to the AI plane.

No smoke, no loss of control, nothing. It just kept coming at me.

 

I expended all my ammo in the end, and was left having to extend and leave him be.

 

Is this typical for the Sabre, as far as air-to-air guns?

[kontiuka]

No. You should definitely have seen some damage to the Mig. Did you look at the flight log to see how many times you hit him?

[Exorcet]

It's the damage model, the AI planes are overly tough since they lack some of the vulnerabilities of human controlled planes. For AI the damage is very on/off, they either fly at 100% or are crippled with not much inbetween.

 

There is a bit of a workaround with triggers. You can force a plane to explode after taking a certain amount of damage.

 

EDIT: I don't mean to make it sound like the MiG is impossible to shoot down, it certainly is not. However if you're unlucky it's possible to get a lot of hits in spots that won't really damage the AI. I find the wing/wingroot to be the weakest area of the MiG. Shooting the tail is like shooting a lead brick.

Edited February 14, 2015 by Exorcet

[nullsys]

It's the damage model, the AI planes are overly tough since they lack some of the vulnerabilities of human controlled planes. For AI the damage is very on/off, they either fly at 100% or are crippled with not much inbetween.

 

There is a bit of a workaround with triggers. You can force a plane to explode after taking a certain amount of damage.

 

EDIT: I don't mean to make it sound like the MiG is impossible to shoot down, it certainly is not. However if you're unlucky it's possible to get a lot of hits in spots that won't really damage the AI. I find the wing/wingroot to be the weakest area of the MiG. Shooting the tail is like shooting a lead brick.

 

Thanks Exorcet. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one.

It was mostly tail fire, so that explains a lot. Especially with the damage model.

Time to test against humans :D

[Invisibull]

Hi Null. The ai MiG15 is notorious for taking far too much damage. This is why the 39th is starting to get into PvP, Sabre v Sabre fights. Hopefully the quality of the MiG15 ai will improve once Belsimtek releases their MiG15 module.

 

If you're interested in some PvP, feel free to come by our site and see what we're about. Our use of solid red/blue colored skins as well as a flak script is helping a great deal in spotting enemy aircraft.

[Zeke]

Nullsys,

 

Also Bull should mention about his mod for making the sabre gun rate more lethal and historical. And, I find it better to shoot their wings off, you can shoot them forever in the fuselage and get no kills.

[shagrat]

I resorted to the "trigger" solution for AI P-51D or Mig-15... lots of triggers (one for each AI plane).

If unit damage exceeds 80-70% someone throws a handgrenade in his cockpit.

Not veeery realistic, but better than emptying all ammo into all areas of the plane, seeing tremendous damage to control surfaces, engine and fuselage, yet the AI still flies like on rails with virtually no effect!

 

They really need to do something about the damage modeling!

[Fri13]

I resorted to the "trigger" solution for AI P-51D or Mig-15... lots of triggers (one for each AI plane).

If unit damage exceeds 80-70% someone throws a handgrenade in his cockpit.

Not veeery realistic, but better than emptying all ammo into all areas of the plane, seeing tremendous damage to control surfaces, engine and fuselage, yet the AI still flies like on rails with virtually no effect!

 

They really need to do something about the damage modeling!

Doesn't AI get affected by triggered damages? Meaning, create trigger to randomly be enabled once enough damage is caused, resulting loss of controls, engine etc. This way plane doesn't need to explode but can actually get out of control with even just 10-20% damages.

[CoBlue]

Rate of fire is wrong http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=131612&highlight=rate+fire&page=2 it was reported 4,5 months ago...

[shagrat]

Doesn't AI get affected by triggered damages? Meaning, create trigger to randomly be enabled once enough damage is caused, resulting loss of controls, engine etc. This way plane doesn't need to explode but can actually get out of control with even just 10-20% damages.

AI isn't affected by hits until you get to 100% of an area.

So when you just pump a few hundred bullets into an AI plane's tail or engine block it usually still flys like fresh from the factory...

[Zilch]

For more on this, I posted couple of tracks illustrating problems with the damage system. I got a Hind with my P-51 for over 800 rounds of 50 call before it died.

 

It's worse if they're already on the ground. Today I posted a track of me strafing some Su-25's with my Hog. One of them absorbed over 200 rounds from my cannon. Another was hit by a few dozen 30mm rounds, a Sidewinder, *six* Mk-82's and a Maverick before it died.

 

I think a damage model overhaul is in the works at some point after EDGE 2 comes out.

[msalama]

I think a damage model overhaul is in the works at some point after EDGE 2 comes out.

 

Hopefully yes, but what's funny is how haphazard / random the DM seems to be (or maybe sophisticated but buggy, dunno). I've seen stuff like you mentioned many times myself, but _also_ shot down a distracted AI Hind with just a couple of lucky rounds from the Huey minigun the other day. Too weird :huh:

 

PS. Or maybe not, since I've no idea how much damage had the bugger taken already. So there's that obviously.

[shagrat]

I think the root cause is that we have hit zones with different hit points. If you hit a part like a rotor with (just guessing) 15 points it crashes, if you hit with 15 points. If you hit with 14 points it flys unaffected. Now if you have multiple zones say 5 with 100 or more hit points, and you hit all of them with about 80-90 damage points you may "see" lots of damage, but neither flight model nor maneuverability seems to be affected... yet, you could have riddled the AI plane with about 400+ bullets.

On the opposite AI dogfighting scores some 30-40 hits on you, or 1-2 if it's a Mig-15, you are definitely in trouble or dead. :(

Edited February 21, 2015 by shagrat

[Fri13]

AI isn't affected by hits until you get to 100% of an area.

So when you just pump a few hundred bullets into an AI plane's tail or engine block it usually still flys like fresh from the factory...

That would mean you cant apply any damages via trigger to AI, as you would need to apply the damage to plane to trigger damage to be added to plane.

 

What I mean is that add triggers to mission where each hit, those are counted and checked, has a possibility via trigger cause a malfunction/damage to AI plane functions.

 

Like example, a trigger that checks if you hit the plane then there is 15% change it triggers damage added by 20% to the plane.

 

So every time you hit a registered hit, there is 15% change it will cause 20% health drop from 100%.

 

Add there a damage models where some parts gets malfunctions like a engine shutdowns or such from the hit.

 

It all depends just what kind damages we can trigger to AI planes, as after all there is a need to have a way to do movies/trailers/missions where we make sure units does get damaged.

Edited February 21, 2015 by Fri13

[shagrat]

Forget about that. AI uses no complex systems modelling like in your plane.

That's part of the original problem. I had a P-51D, with damage model visually showing bullet holes all over the plane, the engine cover blown away and motorblock on fire, a head sized hole in the right wing, streaming gas from the wing for about 15 min and it still climbed like on my first attack run. Obviously no hydraulic modelling, no fuel consumption modelling other than a timer, engine modelling? With an engine on fire you should lose power?

Only thing you may trigger is an equivalent to a handgrenade in the cockpit... It blasts the machine apart... If they could just model at least basic system damage, for gods sake even random system damage on a basic level, it would be a big improvement. At least the visual damage model reacts to different hits. Why can't we have "engine fire" equals 40 seconds until engine shutdown. Control surface gone equals no more "perfect" evasive flying, nor attacks? Or at least change the maneuvers from attack to evasive to basic extend from a fight when 80%, 70%, and 60% damage is reached. No pilot would aggressively fight on with a heavily damaged plane, right?

 

Unfortunately malfunction triggers in ME only affect player planes.

[msalama]

but neither flight model nor maneuverability seems to be affected

 

Which is kind of borked, because the visual and actual damage should both be in sync and gradual IMO. But these problems are known and acknowledged, right? Meaning an overhaul is in the pipeline somewhere :thumbup:

[shagrat]

I sincerely hope they have something in the works for DCS 2.0 or at least shortly after...

 

With more and more dogfighting Jets and Prop planes coming up, it gets more significant a problem.

As I am a big fan of Co-op gameplay and lively mission design, this ruins mostly everything apart from simple PvP MultiPlayer missions.

 

Nobody expects a full blown internal damage model like with player planes, but at least a gradual loss of power and maneuverabilty shouldn't be too difficult.

Add some changes in tactical maneuvering, like going fropm offensive to defensive or disengage and RTB, when damage exceeds say 20-30% and we have a reasonable behaviour. :smartass:

[NakedSquirrel]

I wasn't sure if it was just the fact the Mig15 DM wasn't finished. Currently, you can put all of your ammo into the fuselage and the Mig will happily fly along. The only way I can bring down the AI Mig is to aim for the wing root.

 

It could be possible to reduce the AI skill level to rookie after taking a certain level of damage, and/or give them brief bouts of no ROE.

 

Does anyone have a link to the script that destroys AI at 80% damage?

 

It sounds like a good idea, but I wonder if it might help to change the script to make it probability based instead of a max percentage of damage. It might be enough to suspend reality and make it seem more random.

 

It also might be possible to use the script to change the AI skill level. (though I've never tried that before). Rookie AI tends to climb worse and turn worse than say expert AI, so it might seem a little more authentic if the AI received a slightly worse skill level after being shot.

 

Is it possible to remove the fuel from an AI aircraft mid flight? This might look slightly better than spontaneous combustion. Also, AI tend to RTB immediately if they are low on fuel, so that is also an option for affecting AI behavior.

[shagrat]

It is not just the Mig-15... Try any WWII fighter. I tested on lowest AI skill level. Doesn't help. Skill level only changes spotting chance and missile evasion from what I got in the lua. All skill levels maneuver like a pro.

No way I know of, to set fuel mid flight.

What I do, set a trigger for each unit, checking if damage is below a certain level (and vary that by plane) to trigger explosion on unit... Tedious work.

If someone could make a script that checks plane type, coalition and then randomly "kills" it between 90% and 70% remaining health that would be great.

It should be possible to set ROE also with the trigger system though or use a continuous check with random.

Edited February 22, 2015 by shagrat

[NakedSquirrel]

It is not just the Mig-15... Try any WWII fighter. I tested on lowest AI skill level. Doesn't help. Skill level only changes spotting chance and missile evasion from what I got in the lua. All skill levels maneuver like a pro.

No way I know of, to set fuel mid flight.

What I do, set a trigger for each unit, checking if damage is below a certain level (and vary that by plane) to trigger explosion on unit... Tedious work.

If someone could make a script that checks plane type, coalition and then randomly "kills" it between 90% and 70% remaining health that would be great.

It should be possible to set ROE also with the trigger system though or use a continuous check with random.

 

Skill level affect's the climb and turn rate for sure. Try dogfighting a rookie Mig15 or prop plane then try a expert, there's a significant difference.

 

I think it would best be done with a script rather than multiple triggers, but I'm fairly new to scripting. I was wondering if someone had made a 80% damage = dead AI script so I would have a foundation to start with.

 

My biggest hang-up in scripting right now is trying to figure out how to reference/call units I want. Right now I am doing scripts and triggers for each individually named aircraft group. It's bulky and time consuming. When I make missions with 20-30 triggers for very simple tasks, I know I'm doing things wrong. Still learning lua, but it's slow going :cry:

[shagrat]

Same here... Using triggers only.

[SgtPappy]

If anyone is interested, you can easily get Notepad++ for free and edit the F-86.lua lines 239-245 to have 1200 rounds per minute. This is the actual fire rate of the Sabre's guns, but the default lua uses something like 639-840 rpm.

 

It will greatly help with downing MiGs. As others have said before, aiming for the wings of the MiG will kill it but fuselage hits do nothing.

 

Using this mod and aiming for the wings pretty much has guaranteed me an excellent-AI MiG kill in one or two passes every time.

[shagrat]

Unfortunately, manipulating weapons tends to interfere with Multiplayer integrity checks... If anybody connecting to the server has the same modification, it usually works, if not: connection interrupted...

 

BTW it makes sense, imagine a guy dogfighting you "ups" the firing rate to 5000 rpm and adds some ammo?

 

Hope Belsimtek fixes that soon.

[SgtPappy]

This is very true, but while you're fighting AI MiGs, it's a nice way to beat the frustration.

[shagrat]

Yeah! Guess that is a strong pro argument! :megalol: