missing info New advanced BVR AI? Still bizarre basic behaviour though

[Kang]

Okay, this is a bit of a rant and I apologise in advance. Feel free to lock this thread soon enough.

What is it with 'new BVR AI' I keep reading? Yes, it can do a few different maneuvers now, but frankly, I don't care much about those, because I am much too infuriated with some of the general and actually basic problems with it. The way I experience DCS the fighter AI has literally two modes in which it operates:

• 'Led by Gandalf' The mode they get into after having engaged the player once. Or having seen the player for several seconds, as a fleeting contact at 30 miles range and a bizarre angle. Sometimes gets triggered by locking on to them, of course, but sometimes it happens at random. It's the bloodhound mode in which they decided they hate you. Fair enough, but even after definitely having no valid contact information anymore they'll still keep on following on that perfect intercept, sometimes for half an hour until they strafe your plane after you landed, parked and shut down. Bonus points if it's an AI fighter that never even had contact but is a script respawn of a previously killed enemy.
• 'I know nothing... nothing!' The other grand mode in which they gladly ignore their surroundings entirely. Especially often encountered if they are tracking something, as there seems to be no way in hell that they even consider that any other contact, including ones that are actively engaging them, could perhaps be of any higher priority.

I know this is not something that happens in 100% of the cases. Sometimes things kinda just happen to work. But no matter if it's pre-made or multiplayer missions or missions I make for myself, there seems to be no way of ensuring this doesn't pop up.

Sitting back at my base and re-doing the 10 minute INS alignment for various fighters I can't quite stop from thinking how some flight sims I had in the mid-90s had better AI in such regards, and that thought is what led me to this rant. Thanks for listening.

[XCNuse]

Redoing INS? why so?

 

As for the AI; you have to tell the AI what you want them to do.

You can't expect them to do whatever you mentally think you want them to do.

 

If an AI is set to say a general SEAD role, and they fly within the range of a radar, they will generally bee-line it to that radar and attempt to attack it unless something else proceeds to threaten it (say, an enemy aircraft locking on or shooting a missile at it).

 

Say for example you want to make a mission where SEAD aircraft attack an SA10, but you have the surrounding areas with AAA systems with radars or other SAM system types, and opposing red air.

By default; your SEAD aircraft, no matter how you set up your waypoints etc. might generally fly the route, but might not at all attack the SA10. Why? Because you have the general SEAD role set in their tasking, and it's probably right at the top of the list.... which is why I say might generally fly the route; if that primary SEAD task is at the top of the list for whatever waypoint on, they'll stop following your routing completely, and begin attacking ANY and ALL radar systems they are spotted by. And god forbid that SA10 launches on them, and a defaulting task of RTB if threatened takes priority.

 

As a mission editor, it is your duty to define EXACTLY what you want the AI to do, they don't have a mind of their own, they have tasks on a list, and it's your job to set that list up.

 

So for that exact mission; WP0, remove that SEAD task completely, and set it so they will defend against attacks [evade] (and not RTB when threatened). You will then have to set up the flight path you want them to take, and within some range, set a task of "attack group" say, the SA10 you want them to attack.

By removing the SEAD role, you prevent them from attacking any and all radar threats.

By altering the evasion rule, they can continue on their attack whether they are threatened or not.

Lastly, your attack point, tells them SPECIFICALLY what you want them to do.

 

 

That's where majority of people getting into the mission maker get things wrong. They  assume the AI will do what they want them to do, but general tasking alters all of this.

 

You want BVR fighting AI?

Ensure they can see their targets either by giving them a radar system ground or AWAC, ensuring EPLRS (if available), and set them to "launch at max range" for example.

 

To me it sounds more like you don't have a complete understanding of the mission editor logic system, and are expecting AI to think for themselves in a greater manner; which is absolutely not the case.

[Exorcet]

On 6/24/2022 at 3:04 PM, Kang said:

still keep on following on that perfect intercept, sometimes for half an hour until they strafe your plane after you landed, parked and shut down.

Where are your based air defenses? Also this shouldn't really happen if you using the advanced waypoint options like Search then engage. If you use the range setting included in those tasks the AI should stop chasing targets at 150% of the range set.

On 6/24/2022 at 3:04 PM, Kang said:

• 'I know nothing... nothing!' The other grand mode in which they gladly ignore their surroundings entirely. Especially often encountered if they are tracking something, as there seems to be no way in hell that they even consider that any other contact, including ones that are actively engaging them, could perhaps be of any higher priority.

 

I'm not sure what this, though the AI will usually stop what it's doing if it's being shot at by a missile.

[ruxtmp]

Unless you know how to script, I think the AI will always disappoint. I found hours of work in the mission editor can be wasted for the AI to do some basic things and even then, they tend to do it only randomly or not at all. Best thing is find a server and play multiplayer its really the best way to use the sim.

[Ironhand]

Unfortunately, as long as you have to spoon feed the AI, you’ll always have frustrated mission designers…and no possibility is a dynamic campaign.

[Kang]

On 6/24/2022 at 9:48 PM, XCNuse said:

As a mission editor, it is your duty to define EXACTLY what you want the AI to do, they don't have a mind of their own, they have tasks on a list, and it's your job to set that list up

That was kind of precisely my point. If I have to set up script to tell them exactly what to do during each phase of their mission, then there is frankly no AI at work, all there is happens to be an actor of my script.

On the slight tangent of SEAD flights: either the missions you create are significantly simpler than the ones I do (and frankly I find that unlikely), or you are just very very lucky. Setting up SEAD as task, giving a flight a suitable loadout and then sending them to attack air defence positions, without any further scripts or trigger tricking for me leads in 90% of the cases to a flight of F-16s ditching HARMs into the ocean and high-tailing out of there.

 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. As I said, this was mostly a bit of a rant. I am aware of some of the tricks you can do, but when flying somebody else's mission that doesn't help either.

[NineLine]

On 6/24/2022 at 12:04 PM, Kang said:

Okay, this is a bit of a rant and I apologise in advance. Feel free to lock this thread soon enough.

What is it with 'new BVR AI' I keep reading? Yes, it can do a few different maneuvers now, but frankly, I don't care much about those, because I am much too infuriated with some of the general and actually basic problems with it. The way I experience DCS the fighter AI has literally two modes in which it operates:

• 'Led by Gandalf' The mode they get into after having engaged the player once. Or having seen the player for several seconds, as a fleeting contact at 30 miles range and a bizarre angle. Sometimes gets triggered by locking on to them, of course, but sometimes it happens at random. It's the bloodhound mode in which they decided they hate you. Fair enough, but even after definitely having no valid contact information anymore they'll still keep on following on that perfect intercept, sometimes for half an hour until they strafe your plane after you landed, parked and shut down. Bonus points if it's an AI fighter that never even had contact but is a script respawn of a previously killed enemy.
• 'I know nothing... nothing!' The other grand mode in which they gladly ignore their surroundings entirely. Especially often encountered if they are tracking something, as there seems to be no way in hell that they even consider that any other contact, including ones that are actively engaging them, could perhaps be of any higher priority.

I know this is not something that happens in 100% of the cases. Sometimes things kinda just happen to work. But no matter if it's pre-made or multiplayer missions or missions I make for myself, there seems to be no way of ensuring this doesn't pop up.

Sitting back at my base and re-doing the 10 minute INS alignment for various fighters I can't quite stop from thinking how some flight sims I had in the mid-90s had better AI in such regards, and that thought is what led me to this rant. Thanks for listening.

If you have valid issues and/or bugs, please include tracks showing the issue and how you feel it should work.

Thanks.

[XCNuse]

16 hours ago, Kang said:

That was kind of precisely my point. If I have to set up script to tell them exactly what to do during each phase of their mission, then there is frankly no AI at work, all there is happens to be an actor of my script.

On the slight tangent of SEAD flights: either the missions you create are significantly simpler than the ones I do (and frankly I find that unlikely), or you are just very very lucky. Setting up SEAD as task, giving a flight a suitable loadout and then sending them to attack air defence positions, without any further scripts or trigger tricking for me leads in 90% of the cases to a flight of F-16s ditching HARMs into the ocean and high-tailing out of there.

 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. As I said, this was mostly a bit of a rant. I am aware of some of the tricks you can do, but when flying somebody else's mission that doesn't help either.

Well of course; again, that's how this all works.

There's no software background mind going on that knows what you want them to do and decidedly making them do what you're thinking in your head.

 

You have to tell them exactly what you want them to do; which seems reasonable.... you just have to know the ME and all the weird settings for waypoints to make it so.

 

Also no that SEAD mission was probably the most complex mission I made with about 8 other AI flight groups, neutral traffic, jamming aircraft, voice overs, and many other things I hadn't done before lol, far from simple!

 

Again, if you leave the SEAD waypoint role, the AI will attack any and all EWRs, SAMs, and ground radios they find. That's what that does; that's precisely what that does.

If your AI are dumping weapons and running tail, it's because you aren't setting them to evade, but "threat allows mission cancel" (or something along those lines).

 

You HAVE to set your AI to evade, otherwise they do indeed default to flying away under any threat. THIS IS BY DESIGN.