Mission author Help needed, AI getting smarter?

[AvgWhiteGuy]

Could any of you folks building missions enlighten me on how/where/why there seems to be a degraded effectiveness of the AI flights in prosecuting their assigned mission targets?

 

The example of this is "Arty Hunt - Tigerrrr - 16-08-2011" which I have written about before.

 

Six months ago I took the liberty of reassigning my flight (only) from Tbilisi-Lochini to Kobuleti to reduce the initial flight time. The F/A-18 SEAD flight out of Tbilisi arrived first and did its thing; killing off the serious Radar SAM threats 90%+ of the time (there are 4 of them), leaving me to deal with the IR Sams and other air defense.

 

Since this year (2017) it seems as the SEAD ain't quite as effective and rarely complete their mission; they might hit 1 of the 4 targets and more than 50% of the time they get hit and don't successfully kill any of their assigned targets.

 

I'm also perplexed on how a Tor SA-15 is suddenly reaching me from 9 miles out at a altitude of 23,000ft!!:helpsmilie:

 

Is there something in the mission setup that can cause this sudden change of effectiveness in the AI flights?

Edited January 29, 2017 by AvgWhiteGuy
clarity

[kylekatarn720]

ah im not sure if its cos of the skill level but you should check that out. just select the ai flight inside mission editor. there is a section called something like "skill" or "skill level" above the waypoint and payload tabs.

[MadDog-IC]

Could any of you folks building missions enlighten me on how/where/why there seems to be a degraded effectiveness of the AI flights in prosecuting their assigned mission targets?

 

Since this year (2017) it seems as the SEAD ain't quite as effective and rarely complete their mission; they might hit 1 of the 4 targets and more than 50% of the time they get hit and don't successfully kill any of their assigned targets.

 

I'm also perplexed on how a Tor SA-15 is suddenly reaching me from 9 miles out at a altitude of 23,000ft!!:helpsmilie:

 

Is there something in the mission setup that can cause this sudden change of effectiveness in the AI flights?

 

Bugs do pop up in the game engine itself which make things change drastically, SEAD weapons are a repeat offenders (50% hit rate with missiles not locking on properly or losing signal and missile drops short or goes to long doing no damage. It is happening at the very moment in DCSW v1.55x Stable, v1.56 Openbeta is addressing these I believe.

 

SAMS get upgraded some times (Might have had incorrect electronic and missile data before and now have more real life simulation), The tunguska never use to shoot down missiles, but does now, etc.

 

Overall the AI seems to me to be getting worse in general, but sometimes it is just many variables of game and real flight dynamics that cause an issue in missions.

 

Fixing quite a few missions over the years, my observations are:

 

• I see that a lot of missions with AI planes waypoints speed set to low, so that the plane is near stalling all the time (With DCSW v1.2.16 it didn't seem to be a problem, but when same mission are run on DCSW 1.5x, AI flying low or NOE in valleys would crash into mountains all the time.
  
• AI Sead flights are usually setup with waypoints that has the plane fly directly on top of their target before firing, or so close then can't lock and fire and have to go around before getting their first shot off (No need for that when the missiles have a 25km, 50km or even 100km range, stay at range of your missiles and hopefully our of the enemies.
  
• All AI flights, need about a minimum range of 15km run in from Ingress Point to spot target, lock and fire.
  
• Default programming in mission editor for aircraft roles, is to just seek out enemy no matter how far away it is, ignoring all waypoints when it detects that enemy. (CAS -a, SEAD -a, etc) and once all detect enemy are destroyed, fly back to its very first waypoint and then proceeds to follow them in order.
  
• Bomb ballistics and hardened Bunkers, etc are another issue that comes around quite often, Bunkers that become impossible to destroy with bombs that are quite capable of doing so. (Cause could be the damage amount of bomb is modeled incorrectly, the Bunkers armor might be modeled stronger that it should be or it could be just that the bombs aren't flying properly and not hitting the target. (Having this issue right now in A-10c single mission (Serpents Head, 4 x GBU-10 bunker busting bombs were more than capable of destroying it before, but not even 10 will, the accuracy seems to be off as bombs keep hitting beside the bunker instead of directly on top of it).
  
• Plenty of others I just can't think of now.
  

Regards, Ian.

[AvgWhiteGuy]

@MadDog-IC, thanks for the info, definitely seems like the recent upgrade change things. Can you direct me to the best way to roll back to previous version? I'm currently on 1.5.5

[MadDog-IC]

@MadDog-IC, Can you direct me to the best way to roll back to previous version? I'm currently on 1.5.5

 

I wouldn't recommend a roll back myself:

 

• For the most part newer versions offer much more positives in general than the draw backs.
  
• There is also the possibility of other issues with config files if there was a major change in the format between the different versions when you go backwards.
  

 

Couple of ways of changing versions:

 

• Use the autoupdater with command line instructions to load a certain version: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=114030http://
  
• Probably easier to use this program: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=160053&highlight=rolling+back+dcs
  

Regards, Ian.

[David OC]

AvgWhiteGuy,

 

Here a few idea's and workarounds for missions in general, I like to always have backup Redundancy in place if you need something to happen in the mission every time.

 

Have you tried to set the SEAD flight a target? (Search Then Engage Group or unit)

Also do you have CA installed? Perhaps add some backup SEAD flight and control them using the F10 Map while enroute to the AO.

 

Last resort mission Redundancy is to just place a trigger zone along your flight path near the target area.

Triggers

1 Once (Sam Trigger / zone name)

Part of group in zone (a-10 )

Explode Unit (Add how ever many units you want here to Explode)

 

Explode Unit example Pic