in development George freely search for targets?

[98abaile]

4 hours ago, Digitalvole said:

If you let George fire at will get ready for some blue on blue, happened to me today.

I’ve sent George to bed early, without any dinner!

Yep, same here.

[Frag]

On 4/4/2022 at 11:10 AM, frostycab said:

From the IRL cockpit videos I've seen neither crew member seems to shoot any weapons on their own. It always appear to be a coordinated attack, where one will prepare the attack, but the other must consent to firing. Imagine flying along and suddenly a missile flies off your aircraft when you weren't expecting it, or George fires just as you decide to make a turn that would mask the laser.

I'd like to see George searching for targets autonomously, but only if he reports them back to you as the pilot, so that you can check his LOS and the TADS video to confirm that it's something you want to attack. For example, let's say you discover a SAM site. Without a degree of crew coordination George might spot the site and start lofting Hellfires at the launchers one after another while ignoring the radars.

It's not as simple as saying "Look around and if you see something shoot at it."

Yeah I do agree with you. This is why we should have an order "Shoot at will, open target". So George would never do that by himself unless told otherwise. I fell in few situation where I was having dozens of militant firing at us. I think George should be smart enough to start opening fire on targets of opportunity during intense situation if the pilot is super busy trying to get them out of hairy situations with AA guns, machine gunners and missiles flying around.

Both case (controlled by the pilot) and free fire (let George choose target) should be available in the late release of the AI.

On 4/4/2022 at 12:44 PM, Digitalvole said:

If you let George fire at will get ready for some blue on blue, happened to me today.

I’ve sent George to bed early, without any dinner!

??? How can this happen since you are the one assigning target? Collateral damage from close enemy being too close?

Edited April 5, 2022 by Frag

[frostycab]

13 minutes ago, Frag said:

??? How can this happen since you are the one assigning target? Collateral damage from close enemy being too close?

It's very easy. When you select a traget from George's list you have no idea what is blue and what is red, and you only get the cued line of sight marker in your IHADSS or the target shown on the video display once you've selected it. If George is in free fire mode then you don't have time to get him to abort.

[Frag]

5 hours ago, frostycab said:

It's very easy. When you select a traget from George's list you have no idea what is blue and what is red, and you only get the cued line of sight marker in your IHADSS or the target shown on the video display once you've selected it. If George is in free fire mode then you don't have time to get him to abort.

Holy hell I did not know this! I guess I was lucky enough only to have adversaries in my areas of attack! Thanks for the heads up! It could have turned pretty bad!

[dawgie79]

On 3/22/2022 at 10:24 PM, A Hamburgler said:

I would also like to see a option where you can select multiple targets from the list at once so after he is done with one target he will go to the next. It could be as easy as doing a right long press on the target list instead of a right sort. If you do the right long the list will stay up so you can select other targets.

 

But yes I do agree there should be an option to engage all ground targets, air defenses, and so on. Just like in the communication menu for your wingman. 

 

I know I’m late to the party but YES, more independence. Both for the AI pilot (hover here, fly to waypoint, and so on), and the gunner.

[dawgie79]

Also would like George to callout targets as he finds them. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by dawgie79

[Hekktor]

Imho this is the one most important thing for that bird to be of any use. At current state with him not even return fire on targets direct in front it is a horrible experience for me...

Do we have any timeframe of when this feature is planned for?

[BIGNEWY]

On 9/26/2022 at 11:51 AM, Hekktor said:

Imho this is the one most important thing for that bird to be of any use. At current state with him not even return fire on targets direct in front it is a horrible experience for me...

Do we have any timeframe of when this feature is planned for?

It is way more complex than you may think, but calling out targets is planned for later. 
Engaging targets is a different issue and has already been tweaked, with more tweaks to come during early access. 

In its current state I am not having any issue engaging with George, it is important not to rush him however, dont authorise the engagement straight away, let him settle on the target first you should have better results. 

[jabbabzh]

Please add George possibility to:

- Lock closest or most dangerous target (as SAM before truck etc)

- Auto search target (with marking on map)

[Dagobert666]

On 9/26/2022 at 12:55 PM, BIGNEWY said:

It is way more complex than you may think, put calling out targets is planned for later. 
Engaging targets is a different issue and has already been tweaked, with more tweaks to come during early access. 

In its current state I am not having any issue engaging with George, it is important not to rush him however, dont authorise the engagement straight away, let him settle on the target first you should have better results. 

For me, George is currently still having huge problems with the 30mm GUN. Especially when both the Apache and the target are moving. Most of the time, Gerorg doesn't even fire.

 

and

 

The CPG is the one best at looking for enemies that aren't already known at the start of the mission.
Currently you have to spam the SLAVE command every 3-5 seconds when flying over unfamiliar territory, hoping not to miss a AAA lurking somewhere.
This is annoying and is an additional burden when flying.

I hope George can do this on his own soon.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Dagobert666

[jabbabzh]

Hi, 

I hope that :

- George may have an option like "stay in alert" to report me all target automatically and engage it if i want or if i put him in full auto

- George may have an option that i can choose him which target aim first (armored / men / SA launcher etc)

- George may be able to spot incoming missile or bullets 

- George may speak more as jester when i make sh... or good piloting

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by jabbabzh

[bloodangel]

A halfway point could be that after you slave and the list pops up and stays up until all the targets are destroyed. Or george continues to engage until all the targets in the list are destroyed from the top down. You can direct fire by left selecting. Then when the list is destroyed or you lose contact you re slave to another point for another list. Maybe this is easy to achieve until they have time to deploy a full search mode?

[Guest]

On 9/26/2022 at 11:55 AM, BIGNEWY said:

It is way more complex than you may think, but calling out targets is planned for later. 
Engaging targets is a different issue and has already been tweaked, with more tweaks to come during early access. 

In its current state I am not having any issue engaging with George, it is important not to rush him however, dont authorise the engagement straight away, let him settle on the target first you should have better results. 

Hi @BIGNEWY,

would you mind asking Wags to put 'George Freely Looking for/Calling out targets' in his next Road-Map update please?  (Wherever it may fall on your 'planned for later' timeline)

If that list was expanded to everything you had planned, hopefully it would reduce the number of times you are asked about the same things.

Thanks again.

'52

[BIGNEWY]

12 hours ago, Gunslinger52 said:

Hi @BIGNEWY,

would you mind asking Wags to put 'George Freely Looking for/Calling out targets' in his next Road-Map update please?  (Wherever it may fall on your 'planned for later' timeline)

If that list was expanded to everything you had planned, hopefully it would reduce the number of times you are asked about the same things.

Thanks again.

'52

 

Hi, 

the main planned features are on the roadmap, basically the main goals of the project, tweaks and improvement for George will come over time, some of the work on the AI is linked to the Mi-24p and Petrovitch, when we have news to share we will share it. 

thank you 

[336_TheAngryGamer]

I dislike AI so much I have offered to buy the game for a couple friends just to have a gunner. Unfortunately, they were not interested. Something has to happen because at the moment I find George so frustrating, I find it extremely unenjoyable to play. Don't get me wrong, I love the Apache. I just am really tired of George.

[Heliflyr]

It's been 2 years now and still waiting for George to have the ability to call out targets or to be given a ROE free to fire command. There is a Wingman/Flight menu where I can give an order to attack armor or air defences and more with all the jets in the game. For now, Al George is sitting in the front reading magazines and eating potato chips waiting for me to put spot targets for him. I'm sure I'll make another post like this again in 1 years time.

[Dagobert666]

at least the thread here is labeled as "later in early access".

 

So it is planned before the Apache is finished. My guys are all pilots, nobody wants to be gunners. At the same time, babysitting George is very exhausting, especially in combat situations. Also, it is extremely immersion-destroying when you have to slave George every 5 seconds in transit flight so that you don't get destroyed by a surprise Shilka or Manpad.

[Tom P]

Scan & search(S&S) would be really nice. Let you focus on flying while he's scanning and searching a designated area. It would let you focus on flying instead of constantly looking and pointing in different areas for him to search. And priority list would be nice as well. ADU, tanks etc.

With a S&S If he sees possible targets on the battlefield he verbally says he has something while saving the targets. That way it populates on the TSD and you can go through the coord page to positive identification(PID), and determine target priority.

Could be implemented in a few ways.

1) Direct S&S: command him to scan from the 11-2 in front of you.

2) left/right S&S: From the 9-12 / 3-12; command him to scan left/right which is also helpful in an orbit, or in multi ship flight. Flight 1 scans left flight 2 scans right. 

3) Route S&S: command him to search along the tsd route.

4) Free search: command that gives George freedom to search

5) waypoint search: command to scan the general area of a given waypoint or designated area. Ex: search WP1

 

Or even a way to have him set you as a ACQ source and deslaving ONLY when he sees something as you scan the area. That way you don't have to continuously go around telling him to search 32 different times.

Remember the 64 has another role which is recon so make George use those super sweet sensors. Like jester using the tomcats radar and giving you SA updates on his own

[petsild]

I can quite imagine how it will work in the future according to your proposal.

[Guest]

I understand that it must be an extremely difficult thing to code, to make it 'realistic'.  

DCS is however, merely a simulator.  We only need to have George appear to be scanning for, and reporting targets.  Obviously the game engine knows where all the OPFOR are, relative to George's Line of Site (LoS).  He already knows not to report things when they are not in his LoS, (after you manually direct him to look in that direction).  After you initiate this manual search, he already does his own search pattern 'looking for targets'.  

I very much appreciate all the effort ED are putting into the advanced features they release for the Apache.  But the overall positive effect on realism, of these additions is somewhat lost IMO, due to me having to tell the guy up front, to report the ZSU-23 he could clearly see in front of him.

I hope ED will bring this in soon.  It will then give them all the time in the world to develop the 'realistic' way for George to freely search for, and call out targets. 

Have a good one.

'52

[MagicSlave]

Seeing what Heatblur managed to do with Jester V2 AI in the F-4E shows that amazing things are possible in DCS in regard of AI crewmember. Just seeing Jester move his head around, alternating scanning outside vs looking at the radar scope, RWR, instruments etc adds so much to the immersion. They even modelled how Jester prioritizes different tasks in different contexts, if he's scanning outside he's not looking at the radar scope at the same time etc. George AI doing this in Apache would be amazing.

Sent from my FP4 using Tapatalk

[jeventy26]

2 hours ago, MagicSlave said:

Seeing what Heatblur managed to do with Jester V2 AI in the F-4E shows that amazing things are possible in DCS in regard of AI crewmember. Just seeing Jester move his head around, alternating scanning outside vs looking at the radar scope, RWR, instruments etc adds so much to the immersion. They even modelled how Jester prioritizes different tasks in different contexts, if he's scanning outside he's not looking at the radar scope at the same time etc. George AI doing this in Apache would be amazing.

Sent from my FP4 using Tapatalk
 

Right!  I love seeing people say it can't be done... then heatblur comes and implements it on day 1.  This is absolutely possible.  I am sure Heatblur would love to share this tech as they already said hey would share things to improve DCS as a whole (which is why they are the best)

[BIGNEWY]

This is early access and we have been clear about it being work in progress. Please dont compare to other dev teams who have been working very hard for years before a release of a product. Early access is the only way we can bring these modules to you all, and that does take time. 

thank you 

[Guest]

March 2021 till now = approx. 2.75 years.

If one of the most consistently asked for, (and earliest requests made) was the Air-to-Air radar mode, I could understand why this is still being discussed.  But it was not.  

Some other frequently asked for things were George's ability to hover, and improving the Hold modes.  You have made fairly consistent improvements on those, thank you.

Is there any way at all, you could at least give us an update?  With no news, it seems like that one of the biggest killers of immersion in the Apache isn't being worked on at all.

If you guys have run out of time to start on this, just say so.  To keep throwing 'Early Access' at us consistently, wears thin after a few years of having paid full price for a product.  

 

[Tom P]

They just need to give us a solid roadmap for all their projects. It's that simple.