Deactivate Iceman AI

[CYPHER11]

Hey Guys,

 

First of all i really want to say thank you for the oppurtunity to jump in the Backseat in Multiplayer - that is absolutly amazing. 

What i want to ask is if you could maybe give us an option to disable iceman. For example, i do a climb with AP on, jump into the backseat and Iceman makes a level off. It would be so great if i could disable him so that he just continuous to fly what i set up earlier. That would give me the time and space to set up everything in the rear without telling him to do a climb or turn everytime i jump into the back seat.

 

Please let me know if i can expect that kind of feature in the near future


Thanks in advance and please - keep up the very good and amazing job you do!

 

Cypher  

[IronMike]

Hi Cypher, unfortunately this is currently not possible - but maybe in the future it will. The reason is mainly that Iceman is not an AI by any means, and even simple things like taking over your flight envelope turn it into a massive headache to model him, while he was not even an intended feature in the first place. The same goes for Iceman taking off/ landing, etc... It is simply out of the scope for what we had and have allotted to him currently. Sorry to disappoint here. 

[CYPHER11]

1 hour ago, IronMike said:

Hi Cypher, unfortunately this is currently not possible - but maybe in the future it will. The reason is mainly that Iceman is not an AI by any means, and even simple things like taking over your flight envelope turn it into a massive headache to model him, while he was not even an intended feature in the first place. The same goes for Iceman taking off/ landing, etc... It is simply out of the scope for what we had and have allotted to him currently. Sorry to disappoint here. 

Thank you for the quick reply and the honest answer  i can totally arrange myself with that fact - but maybe you could put it on the end of your list for the far future

 

 

thank you

 

[IronMike]

4 hours ago, CYPHER11 said:

Thank you for the quick reply and the honest answer  i can totally arrange myself with that fact - but maybe you could put it on the end of your list for the far future

 

 

thank you

 

There is a bunch of stuff I would like to see with Iceman as well, but it is really rather distant future. Defensive maneuvers, recommits, basic take off and landing - that is all dreams for now though of something we currently have no time and ressources for, so please do not take it as a promise, but we ofc have such things in the back of our minds.

[Dragon1-1]

Well, some form of aircraft handling ability will be required for USAF Jester, once the F-4E shapes up. He should be able to land the ship at some point, at least. He doesn't have to be a great at it, but a straight-in instrument approach is pretty much a canned maneuver. 

[Whistler_RIO]

There is though a new bug created with the recent Iceman features.  

1) jump in backseat and tell Iceman to fly to destination.
2) jump in frontseat and turn to a new heading.
3) jump backinto backseat and you will see Iceman still trying to take you to destination.  

The fix would be that when we take over front seat that iceman command queue is cleared.  Thanks 

On 7/12/2022 at 10:45 AM, IronMike said:

There is a bunch of stuff I would like to see with Iceman as well, but it is really rather distant future. Defensive maneuvers, recommits, basic take off and landing - that is all dreams for now though of something we currently have no time and ressources for, so please do not take it as a promise, but we ofc have such things in the back of our minds.

 

[draconus]

On 7/12/2022 at 1:27 PM, IronMike said:

unfortunately this is currently not possible

So disabling Iceman (as an option) to do nothing when changing seats is impossible to program?

[CYPHER11]

5 hours ago, draconus said:

So disabling Iceman (as an option) to do nothing when changing seats is impossible to program?

That’s how I understand it. I also thought this could be easy by adding a new point to the crew menu wheel like in the front seat to deactivate him just like you can do it with jester  

 

but obviously - I was wrong

[IronMike]

And who will then fly your aircraft, say if you have no AP on? Who takes over, if we just disable him? So, disabling Iceman means you still need something in place. If you have your AP on, fine, not such a problem. But if not, it is a big problem and you already have to code an AI to take over from the other AI that you just disabled, and that is currently not possible, because it is way too much work, for a very marginal issue/ cause. Even just "locking your last flight envelope" equals coding a system to do that for you, which again, is a massive pita for very little return. You literally have already Iceman for that. Sorry to disappoint, that is just not going to happen. We'd much rather expand on Iceman instead, which btw we consider 100% feature complete as is.

[WarthogOsl]

Would it be possible for Iceman to defer to the autopilot when it's turned on (at least not touch the stick or throttle)?

[Callsign JoNay]

3 hours ago, IronMike said:

And who will then fly your aircraft, say if you have no AP on? Who takes over, if we just disable him?

Literally no one. I think people are trying to tell you to let them worry about that. I don't see anyone requesting another AI to take over for the AI they just disabled. 

For the record, I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm fine with managing Iceman through the wheel. I think people are just confused why it's possible to implement an on/off switch for Jester but not one for Iceman. Is it impossible to just allow the jet to nose dive into the ground with all the switches staying in the last place they were switched to?

[WarthogOsl]

36 minutes ago, Callsign JoNay said:

Literally no one. I think people are trying to tell you to let them worry about that. I don't see anyone requesting another AI to take over for the AI they just disabled. 

Yeah, this was what I was wondering.  Like, if I trim the airplane pretty well and then just eject, it typically continues to fly along pretty nicely, at least for a while.  I assume there's no AI behind that?  There are times when I want to jump into the back seat just briefly (maybe to mark a target as do-not-attack or something), and I'd rather just leave the airplane without any pilot at the controls for a few moments than have Iceman take over.

[CYPHER11]

6 hours ago, IronMike said:

And who will then fly your aircraft, say if you have no AP on? Who takes over, if we just disable him? So, disabling Iceman means you still need something in place. If you have your AP on, fine, not such a problem. But if not, it is a big problem and you already have to code an AI to take over from the other AI that you just disabled, and that is currently not possible, because it is way too much work, for a very marginal issue/ cause. Even just "locking your last flight envelope" equals coding a system to do that for you, which again, is a massive pita for very little return. You literally have already Iceman for that. Sorry to disappoint, that is just not going to happen. We'd much rather expand on Iceman instead, which btw we consider 100% feature complete as is.

Woooo, don‘t get me wrong mate don‘t want to offense you  I have totally no idea how complex it is to change something like that - I just thought it ==> could be easy <== maybe there is a solution in the future - or it isn‘t  doesn‘t change a thing to me. But I also guess that this section of the forum is the place to ask something like this

 

all the best  

[IronMike]

4 hours ago, WarthogOsl said:

Would it be possible for Iceman to defer to the autopilot when it's turned on (at least not touch the stick or throttle)?

He already does precisely that (with alt and hdg hold), if you do not give him any other orders. Only that he will try to maintain speed, not throttle position, which makes more sense ofc.

I get what you guys are trying to tell me, I just tried to give you some reasons why we're not doing it. And trying to explain to you, why it is more problematic or complicated than you may think.

Not offended at all @CYPHER11 - I hope I didnt come across like that, if I did my apologies (and my previous reply was throwing in some general thoughts, not a response to anyone specific, or you).

Just as I said, it's not something we plan to do, for above mentioned reasons. It is too much effort for an edge case and little benefit or outcome, even if some would like to have that. Maybe at some point we can add that Iceman maintains ATT hold and speed, which would help for say not interrupting a climb, etc. But no promise for now. These things are anything but easy to do. Please understand, Iceman never was an intended feature, yet we put him in for obvious reasons and already spent way more time on him than we initially wanted. We consider him at this point 100% feature complete. That said, we may want to expand on his features in the future possibly, but rather making him more clever, than disabling him, or replacing him, or any of that sorts. Thank you for your kind understanding.

Edited July 15, 2022 by IronMike

[draconus]

13 hours ago, IronMike said:

And who will then fly your aircraft, say if you have no AP on? Who takes over, if we just disable him?

No one. There are just no pilot inputs. It's like going F2 and watching what the aircraft is doing. Or like in multicrew when your pilot left the PC. So why this needs any coding beside changing some values to 0?

[IronMike]

3 hours ago, draconus said:

No one. There are just no pilot inputs. It's like going F2 and watching what the aircraft is doing. Or like in multicrew when your pilot left the PC. So why this needs any coding beside changing some values to 0?

It is not like that, it is far from just changing "some values to 0", it needs a menu item addition (lots of coding, way more than you can possibly imagine), in F2 you can control your plane, like this you couldn't, if we offered it as a special option, then you would have no Iceman at all, unless you exited the mission, changed the special option selection and restarted the mission, and even then it is not just changing around some values and requires both a lot of time to code and to test, more than we are willing to spend on Iceman at this point.

Please be so kind and accept it, when I say we are not doing it. There is a ton of other stuff where our time is invested much better.

I will say this though: whenever you guys want something real bad, even if it is only a few of you, it gets registered in the back of our minds. And when time comes, when we do have time, nothing else/better to do, we do remember these things. That said, no promise at all, and please do not get your hopes high. Just know that your wish has been acknowledged and maybe at some point it fits to accommodate it.

Edited July 15, 2022 by IronMike

[RustBelt]

What about being able to preset Iceman before going in the back seat? Alt, speed, and heading hold are great and all, but really both AI crew members are acting solely reactionaraily. They need to know before you leave the seat what you want them to do. 

[IronMike]

2 hours ago, RustBelt said:

What about being able to preset Iceman before going in the back seat? Alt, speed, and heading hold are great and all, but really both AI crew members are acting solely reactionaraily. They need to know before you leave the seat what you want them to do. 

That is like quadruple or even more times the work described above. Adding a single item to the menu can be days upon days of work, depending on the item.

Again, Iceman is 100% complete. Let us move on please.

Edited July 16, 2022 by IronMike

[CYPHER11]

22 hours ago, IronMike said:

It is not like that, it is far from just changing "some values to 0", it needs a menu item addition (lots of coding, way more than you can possibly imagine), in F2 you can control your plane, like this you couldn't, if we offered it as a special option, then you would have no Iceman at all, unless you exited the mission, changed the special option selection and restarted the mission, and even then it is not just changing around some values and requires both a lot of time to code and to test, more than we are willing to spend on Iceman at this point.

Please be so kind and accept it, when I say we are not doing it. There is a ton of other stuff where our time is invested much better.

I will say this though: whenever you guys want something real bad, even if it is only a few of you, it gets registered in the back of our minds. And when time comes, when we do have time, nothing else/better to do, we do remember these things. That said, no promise at all, and please do not get your hopes high. Just know that your wish has been acknowledged and maybe at some point it fits to accommodate it.

 

The last part is exactly what I was trying to achieve  that’s fine for me - write it on the side list and work it out if time and resources permits - and if not, also fine   I am always happy to see little changes in the F14 changelog  it’s registered and not necessary  

[RustBelt]

On 7/15/2022 at 8:15 PM, IronMike said:

That is like quadruple or even more times the work described above. Adding a single item to the menu can be days upon days of work, depending on the item.

Again, Iceman is 100% complete. Let us move on please.

 

Well….next time ask me before you make stuff.

[IronMike]

3 hours ago, RustBelt said:

Well….next time ask me before you make stuff.

I have an even better idea: i'll late you make it, and then nag you to change it again.

[RustBelt]

5 hours ago, IronMike said:

I have an even better idea: i'll late you make it, and then nag you to change it again.

Yea I don't think Iceman is going to run so well in Arduino faux C and some hate python.

[IronMike]

6 hours ago, RustBelt said:

Yea I don't think Iceman is going to run so well in Arduino faux C and some hate python.