Better AI

[stormrider]

I wish for better AI in DCS, which is more effective and less resource intensive. It is possible, just look at Steel Beasts for example. You can get a regiment of AI ground forces to fight against a battalion of human players located each somewhere around the globe. And it just works.

[Northstar98]

4 hours ago, stormridersp said:

I wish for better AI in DCS, which is more effective and less resource intensive. It is possible, just look at Steel Beasts for example. You can get a regiment of AI ground forces to fight against a battalion of human players located each somewhere around the globe. And it just works.

 

Not familiar with Steel Beasts, but the other combat flight simulator focusing on the F-16 is the gold standard for me, and this is really a must have.

[FlankerKiller]

Can't agree more. The Ai is probably the most limiting factor to single player enjoyment. 

[El Chapo]

On the other hand, AI has virtually unlimited SA, while player is limited. 

E.g. AI never looses "tally" in dog fight, and that's a big difference. 

Therefore SA of the AI must be taken into account to avoid creating an unbeatable beast.

[rayrayblues]

On 1/20/2021 at 6:53 PM, FlankerKiller said:

Can't agree more. The Ai is probably the most limiting factor to single player enjoyment. 

 

This is so true.

 

On 1/20/2021 at 11:20 PM, Габихан said:

On the other hand, AI has virtually unlimited SA, while player is limited. 

E.g. AI never looses "tally" in dog fight, and that's a big difference. 

Therefore SA of the AI must be taken into account to avoid creating an unbeatable beast.

 

They are almost unbeatable now.

[fudabidu]

Tried out the F-14 during the recent free modules period. After a few hours of practice I jumped into the campaign and the AI ruined it for me (just like it ruins almost every other mission where you have to rely on AI)

- Bandits hot, already spiked, well within Phx range ... but Jester needed instructions on how to use the radar.

- AI wingman missed most of his shots and went suicidal with AIM-7s and -9s.

- Other supporting flights joined the fight and it all became a massive "Charly Foxtrot" like this is Ace Combat.

And this goes back all the way to LOMAC. Over a decade later and almost no improvements.

If I wanted that kind of experience, I could jump onto any of the mediocre "PvE servers". There are dozens of those, so I'm starting to wonder if that's the direction DCS is headed in.

[Dragon1-1]

Well, ED is working on AI, so maybe we'll eventually see them become somewhat smarter. Right now it's not unbeatable, just dumb and in some cases cheating egregiously. Most notably, they have a strange thing for fighting in vertical, even in airframes utterly unsuited for this. 

 

Jester is another matter, unfortunately that one's for Heatblur to fix. He's not a very good RIO, even with magic AI vision.

[FlankerKiller]

On 1/24/2021 at 4:23 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

Well, ED is working on AI, so maybe we'll eventually see them become somewhat smarter. Right now it's not unbeatable, just dumb and in some cases cheating egregiously. Most notably, they have a strange thing for fighting in vertical, even in airframes utterly unsuited for this. 

 

Jester is another matter, unfortunately that one's for Heatblur to fix. He's not a very good RIO, even with magic AI vision.

Let us hope. The issue is the AI has no BFM defensive behaviors at all. They don't jink, they don't really know how to reverse they dont really do anything. As soon as they go defensive, they just go into the stupid ass vertical loops shit. Heatblur's modules are a little better with there AI, but not by much. They also are stupid in there BVR defenses. They do try to offset, notch, and go cold. But they burn way to much energy with wasted maneuvers when notching. 

[pimp]

Knowing that ED has limited resources, I still wish they take a break from modules and spend at least 6 months on AI improvements. ED makes improvements here & there, but it really needs a compete overhaul. This sim would be 90% better all around. Unfortunately, I believe there's only one engineer that works on the AI and it's the same engineer working on the Hornet systems and later the ATC comms. So I don't think the AI is that high of a priority for ED, IMHO.

[Exorcet]

As far as resources and timing go, perhaps ED could do what they did with missiles. The R-27/R-77 CFD rework isn't done yet, but they adjusted values based on the AIM-120 analysis. Maybe they could touch up the worst aspects of AI.

 

Recently I've been dealing with the AI's fuel consumption. Wingment have zero fuel management unless you manage it for them, and 75% of the time when I RTB half of my flight declares bingo fuel and then ejects a minute or so later (why are they calling bingo fuel so late? and why are they using so much fuel when they're flying the same plane I am on the same mission?). I'd suggest giving wingmen reduced fuel usage to offset their inability to manage it until the AI is improved.

 

It would also be nice if the hold position command forced the AI wingmen to remain at their current altitude. It's horrendous for CAP to see them dive down to low altitude for no reason and then climb at full burner when you call them to rejoin.

 

As far as tactics go, I guess a quick fix might be to add minimum speeds that the AI will try to avoid going under (to prevent their endless looping and supermaneuverability) and also increasing their induced drag during maneuvers. This may also require coding some behavior to regain energy, because that's also something the AI doesn't really do, and doesn't have to with the way their flight models work.

[jaguara5]

Herons Systems, who developed the famous AI model that fought against   USAF pilots and against a top notch dcs dogfighter (Ace)  said in the comments of the later video that 

'' Short answer is it depends. Ideally we'd get Falco into DCS to meet the community where it is. We're still trying to figure out if that is possible and what the training requirement would be. If we can't, X-plane is where our in-house VR environment lives so we're stuck with that. Do we want the challenge from the community? Yes

 

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by jaguara5