Improved Infantry / Ground Asset AI

[Jazz]

With the addition of the new Mi-24P coming soon along with the AH-64D and OH-58 Kiowa, I was thinking about the current state of the ground based AI in DCS at the moment. Currently the majority of targets that you engage are static and are placed in a manner that looks very "staged" for lack of a better word. This for me personally feels very unsatisfying and can get old quite quickly. I would like to be targeting enemies that have some form of Intelligence and realism factor, comparable to ones you may engage whilst in real life operations. 

 

An example of this could be Infantry AI perceiving an airborne threat and reacting appropriately by moving to cover or into nearby vehicles etc. 

 

I hope there will be some form of improvements in this regard as I do believe the current asset behaviour is ancient and needs desperate rework. It doesn't have to be something crazy but enough to make the players feel challenged and have a close to true experience of what it may be like in ground attack operations. @BIGNEWY @Wags @PilotMi8 I welcome your thoughts on this topic as well

Edited April 27, 2021 by Jazz

[TacticalError]

I would absolutely love some infantry improvement. 

Here is a list of things I would like to see.

-Better infantry models (I hope the backseat gunners on the hind will look like actual russian soldiers and not whatever the mi-8 ones are)

-Better animations.

-Duck for cover under fire.

-Make them less accurate.

-Give them actual small arms rounds, not 20mm HE shells.

-Take more splash damage from HE cannon shells. Maybe if explosions are going off near them their aim would be way off or they would fall over and stand up.

Also why are there so many tracers?

[OttoPus]

Improvements in this area would make all CAS missions more alive and realistic (I'm thinking about my A-10C)

[rossmum]

Hugely important for all the helicopters, as well as making Combined Arms feel more complete - CA in general needs work, but this would go a huge way towards making it actually worthwhile in its own right, rather than just "something you need to GCI for people". The Huey in particular really needs this to feel at home, as it lacks the heavier weaponry of the other helicopters and so really can only transport or fight infantry, and in both cases the flaws with the current infantry are unavoidable.

[Avimimus]

The very simple thing that I miss most from Gunship! was the aggressiveness of ground vehicles... if one hovered long enough they'd close 500 metres or a kilometre towards you to get into weapons range  It made being in forested country really intense - because you never knew if the trees might be hiding an APC flanking your helicopter!

[Chapelmaggot]

I totally agree! In a thread discussing the Hind's role and potential in DCS ( https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/272632-hind-tempting-obviously-but-what-exactly-are-we-going-to-do-with-it/?tab=comments#comment-4676092 ), I have posted the following 2 comments. These fit in here perfectly so I'll just repost them.

 

"Maybe I'm not educated enough to add to this thread so please excuse my somewhat uneducated opinion, but I feel like improvement to ground troops is necessary for the Hind to reach its full potential. We need more infantry, we need terrorists, we need small militia groups and insurgents (I'm talking about the 3d models here) but mainly, we need better AI. AI that's scared, intimidated, AI that will retreat, maybe even surrender. We need AI that "thinks" (or at least feels like it thinks) and acts depending on their chances of victory. Ground unit behavior and ground combat needs to be improved upon greatly to get the most out of the Hind. Don't get me wrong, I'm still excited as ever to get to fly the damn thing but I feel like these are some features that need to be worked on. I've always felt this way, even a few years back. One day it'll all come true, I'm sure. I just felt the need to say this cause it's SUCH a necessity for even more immersive combat, especially for a multirole(-ish) chopper like the Hind. That would be the next step towards an all-round amazing battlefield simulation and it would greatly improve the Hind's versatility in combat."

 

"Exactly. While writing my post, all I could think of was buzzing around the Syria Map with my Hind, scouting around the place and engaging where it is necessary. Right now, air-to-ground can be pretty damn frustrating. Even in the Hornet I sometimes feel frustrated because the ground units just don't... Well... Do anything dynamic. They sit there and shoot. You hit them with a GBU. So they scatter. Now they sit there and shoot. You hit them with 2 Mavericks. They scatter. They sit there and shoot. I don't know... It just doesn't feel... Well... Human (I'm not sure if this is the right word but you know what I mean). And well... That's just the perspective from a Hornet. Now imagine being much closer to the action in the Hind and seeing the same damn behavior from ground units and even infantry. Sitting, shooting, dying, scattering, sitting, shooting, dying, scattering. It just keeps repeating. I don't know... It feels like a massive missed opportunity. Especially with infantry and close-quarter combat this kind of behavior ruins the authenticity of the experience and makes CAS, the Hind's primary role, a little stale."

[S.E.Bulba]

Sorry, but it seems to me that these wishes are not entirely appropriate in this section. The development of AI ground units, including infantry, is being done by a completely different ED development team. IMHO, this request should be placed in the DCS: Combined Arms section and addressed to @Dr.lex.
 

Скрытый текст

Original in Russian

 

Извините, но мне кажется, что эти пожелания не совсем уместны в данном разделе. Разработкой ИИ наземных юнитов, в том числе пехоты, занимается совсем другая команда разработчиков ED. ИМХО, следовало бы разместить это пожелание в разделе DCS: Огневой Рубеж и адресовать его @Dr.lex.

 

[Chapelmaggot]

10 minutes ago, S.E.Bulba said:

Sorry, but it seems to me that these wishes are not entirely appropriate in this section. The development of AI ground units, including infantry, is being done by a completely different ED development team. IMHO, this request should be placed in the DCS: Combined Arms section and addressed to @Dr.lex.
 

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Original in Russian

 

Извините, но мне кажется, что эти пожелания не совсем уместны в данном разделе. Разработкой ИИ наземных юнитов, в том числе пехоты, занимается совсем другая команда разработчиков ED. ИМХО, следовало бы разместить это пожелание в разделе DCS: Огневой Рубеж и адресовать его @Dr.lex.

 

Fair enough, you're probably right. It's just that, with the Hind and other CAS helicopters coming to DCS, people are really hoping for such changes because they seem like the next step for Close Air Support missions. That's probably why there's a lot of discussion about these topics in the helicopter forums. Thanks for your help!