missing info AI and wingmen target coordination

[84-Simba]

Hi

It would be great to have the AI assets (wingmen and other flights) to have some target distribution and coordination IN THE SAME FLIGHT when running in.

If you send them attacking a zone with multiple designated groups, they'll often lose some missiles (Mavs and HARMs) because while one plane has launched on something and the missile is travelling, another plane detects the target (with any sensor) and engage.

You'll see quite a lot of HARMs passing over their intented target or Mavs impacting 2 or 3 times on the same spot.

It's not a saturation thing because if for some reason you get the timing right using the radio menu (play with ''engage primary'', ''rejoin'' and using the F-10 view) you can get them to attack the targets more or less correctly.

But if for any reason some planes of the same flight are running in at the same moment, some targets will get engaged multiple times by different units.

Note that what I expect is coordination of assets in the same flight.

Of course coordination between different flights is a matter or triggers and that is not the problem.

The big problem is coordination between wingmen inside a particular flight.

Thanks.

[NineLine]

Do you mean an AI only flight or AI wingmen with a player?

Do you have a track or mission as an example?

Thanks.

Edit: I just tried 3 A-10Cs vs about 8 BMP-1s, and all BMPs were killed, and no doubled up shots. I used search and engage in zone.

[84-Simba]

Nope, sorry .. The .miz is superor than 5MB so I cannot post it here.

[84-Simba]

Both.

They do not coordinate when using stand-off weapons, resulting in HARMs being lost of Mavs hitting the same spot multiple times.

[84-Simba]

Still present.

[NineLine]

Please share the track and/or mission elsewhere and I can take a look. Much of the coordination is required to be set up by the mission creator. 

[84-Simba]

Tbh honest I just gave up and set up automatic destruction sequence.

I'm tired of spending most of my time figuring workarounds than building up missions.

Just try it yourself.

Put a SA-11, SA-6 and OSA-8 and make a flight of 4 Hornets to engage the SAMs with HARMs.

[NineLine]

I am not sure what you mean by automatic destruction sequences, but here is a pretty successful SEAD. If this isnt what you are looking for, let me know and I will try and help further.

I did see 1 HARM wasted, but I did prioritize search radars then launchers after.

The missions are quick and dirty, nothing fancy, so let me know if or where I missed the mark.

HornetSEAD.trk SEAD - Hornets.miz

[84-Simba]

What I did is when one unit is shacked, the others will automatically be destroyed in a timed sequence, so wether the AI does its job or not is not a problem anymore.

Plus I can add radio callouts and it is a very well working failsafe to not hang the entire mission.

 

The problem I was having was that since the Hornets were engaging "on route" at max range, they were closing on the SAMs and were launching HARMs to targets that were already launched at.
By the time the first missile reaches its target, generally 2 more were on their way and then be wasted, like if the different elements of one flight weren't coordinating.

I observed the very same behaviour with the Mavericks on Harriers attacking ZSU-23 fixed positions.

Note that the mission is set at night but every aircrafts had targetting pods.

 

Anyway I found my way around but i will be looking at what you did since you put time to set it up

Thank you.

[NineLine]

Yeah the more direction you can give your AI, the better, it might even be better to make two groups of two and assign them targets, that is if your goal is to be more specific and expected. Our AI guys don't want to make the AI so good that they never fail, then everyone will complain that they are too good, or vise versa. So the ME is your friend, and really powerful if you want to make more expected results and less randomness of the combat zone.

[84-Simba]

I get that.

But from a player standpoint you just can't fail the mission if the AI misses the point.

I mean, if I call a SEAD flight that's because I need it ; I just can't bring everything.

As I build a mission I think of what I want the player to enjoy or work on ; in this case it is coordination of assets, CAS and enjoy some carpet bombing

Especially if there is a whole operation starting from cold and a good nav before approaching the AO.

I definitely can't think of any player who'd enjoy to fly 1h just to turn back because 4 Hornets with 4 HARMs each could not coordinate their attack properly.

But I definitely read you on the imprevisible nature of the AI and the possibility of failure.

It's just that it tends to happen kind of weirdly so it is very difficult to incorporate into a scenario that is still enjoyable for a virtual pilot.

Right now it is more a game of locking every doors the AI must not be using rather than telling it which one it should pick.

[NineLine]

Well, I dont know. You can make the AI more perfect with proper mission creation, or you can make them have a greater chance of failure. Failure is part of a simulation, so on one had we have someone that says the AI should never fail, but what if the AI is attacking your stuff, and the AI never fails, then you will get mad that they are too OP

It puts us in a lose/lose situation. So we make a powerful ME to give you more choice.

And look, I bet a lot of people would be interested to try and figure out what they should do if their SEAD flight failed or under performed, then they had to change their tactics.

[84-Simba]

Weird, sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes not so great but I can't figure what is making the difference.

I just make sure one flight has one task and give it way more ammo than it needs, plus a destruction sequence as a failsafe.

As for now the AI has not enough tactics to be really useful with SEAD/DEAD without a deep intervention of the mission builder.

Thanks anyway

Thank you for your time.

[84-Simba]

Just to let you know that after a Liberation campaign the problem is definitely there.

I have to ensure that AI flights have at least twice as more ordinance than targets if I want an objective to be destroyed.

In general, the ingress is ok.

But as soon as they are above the target, they attack from every direction with no coordination whatsoever.

So most of the time you'll se one plane destroy a target and right after other mavericks or gbus coming for nothing.

There is definitely no coordination between flights members.