correct as is Enemy AI Won't Engage!

[Shahriar0]

Hi,

Has anyone noticed a change in the behavior of AI in terms of engaging in air combat in the recent releases?

I have these saved SP missions that I use to practice BVR from time to time, and for the past several years they have been working as expected; AI planes launch their missiles as they get in range. Now, I have noticed that, the RED side, has signed a non-aggression pact and they do not launch at all! In fact, if I don't launch myself, they simply merge.

The missions are super simple. There is a Blue and a Red side, with the task set to CAP (I have tried others such as Intercept with the same result) and the skill set is Ace. Most of the planes I practice against carry AIM-120C - if that makes a difference (for F-14 AI, it actually does. I have noticed that lately when they carry AIM-54A-Mark47, they do not launch at all. When I change the missile type to Mark 60, they do.)

Beside ED tweaking the behavior to correct this, how can I make the Red side engage in BVR for now?

Thanks.

[captain_dalan]

How do you make the AI F-14's engage at all with a Phoenix? For as long as i can remember in all my missions, they would wait till at least 30 miles away before they even consider launching and more often they get into Sparrow range before they do? 

[Shahriar0]

That's about right. For me, they engage around 25+ miles, but at least they do. When it comes to other AI planes, there is no engagement and no missile launches whatsoever!

My plan is to go back a few releases and compare behavior (while keeping my test missions exactly the same.) I am fairly certain I will find a release in which the AI would engage, so I can report back with concrete evidence.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Shahriar0

[Shahriar0]

Attached is my simple test mission. The mission starts with a Blue F/A-18 AI with Fox1/2/3 at 50NM. Initially the RWR in MiG-29 shows the AI radar on, but after a little while the radar turns off, and hence it never launches any of the Fox1/3. When it reaches about 3NM, AI fires its Fox 2.

I went back to the 2.7.6.13436 release (29.09.2021) but it behaved the same! Now I am trying an earlier image, but the download speed is very slow. It might take some time to reach a conclusion. Meanwhile, I am hoping someone could explain this behavior if indeed is the correct implementation.

Thanks.

AI Won't Engage.miz

[Shahriar0]

Tried 2.7.3.8494  (30.06.2021) with the same result - with a minor difference that AI launched its Fox2 at 1.5NM.

This beats me. I'm sure I have done BVR with AI launching AIM-120s at me in the past. I just don't know the details to nail it down. Still, my question stands; why doesn't AI launch AIM-120/7s??

[Shahriar0]

ED, could you please make a comment on this?

[Flappie]

Edit your mission, change the Hornet "AA missile attack ranges" from 'Random...' to 'Max range launch'. It will engage from a distance of 40 km in in current open beta.

Hornet engages from 40 km.trk

[b0bl00i]

Why do we still in 2022 have to specify each individual behavior of the "AI" for each mission we create? It's just tedious and really easy to forget something. It feels like the opposite of an AI. It's more like manually having to force feed it a decision for each and every event it might run in to. It's so far away from my expectation of a game AI.

Can we just have an AI that behaves as an AI: accepting orders, using sound tactics, flying and fighting as expected, going defensive and offensive when expected and following the flight lead (or performing flight lead), all of this without having to detail what it should do and when...

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by b0bl00i

[Nealius]

On 2/8/2022 at 11:23 PM, b0bl00i said:

Why do we still in 2022 have to specify each individual behavior of the "AI" for each mission we create?

This. Older sims handled all of this automatically. The functionality for mission building is great, but it should be an enhancement to get the AI to do complex tasks, not a requirement for AI to do the one singular job they should be doing by default.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Nealius

[Flappie]

On 2/8/2022 at 3:23 PM, b0bl00i said:

Why do we still in 2022 have to specify each individual behavior of the "AI" for each mission we create? It's just tedious and really easy to forget something. It feels like the opposite of an AI. It's more like manually having to force feed it a decision for each and every event it might run in to. It's so far away from my expectation of a game AI.

Well, you don't have to specify it. Settings such as Launch Range ARE assigned automatically so you don't have to bother.

It's only tedious when you want the AI to do exactly what you have planned, which feels like the opposite of an AI, like you said yourself.

[Exorcet]

8 hours ago, Flappie said:

Well, you don't have to specify it. Settings such as Launch Range ARE assigned automatically so you don't have to bother.

It's only tedious when you want the AI to do exactly what you have planned, which feels like the opposite of an AI, like you said yourself.

Well one problem here is the default missile range setting is nonsenical. Why would a pilot choose to randomly vary the range of their missile launches? Especially between 100% and 0% of max range. It's too wide to be useful. Maybe if we could set limits on the max and min %, then it would be useful.

The default used to be "by threat estimate". I don't know why this was changed, but it almost feels like a bug. Whether it's a bug or not, the default setting should go back to by threat estimate. Or we need to be able to choose the min and max % for random (and probably have reasonable default min/max values like 70%-85%).

[Joey_Destroyah]

for me they won't fire BVR missiles until 50nm range despite AIM-260 being 190nm range

[Nealius]

Since when did we have AIM-260s in DCS?