Two seater aircraft in DCS

[baldeagle611]

This might sound like a daft question, but how does a 2 seat aircraft, such as the AH-64 or F-14 work in DCS, when there's only one player? You can't be in both seats at once!

[WinterH]

You command the other seat's actions through various simple "AI" interfaces. Look up George AI, Petrovich AI, and Jester AI to see how they are implemented on AH-64, Mi-24, and F-14 respectively.

[aaronwhite]

Yeah, definitely check out Wags' video on George for specifics on how the AI in the Apache/Hind works. 

Basically, you'll get a situational main mode that has options. So if you're in "flight" mode you might tap "up" on whatever key you've assigned (for me, it's one of the hats on my joystick) to tell George to go faster if you're in the front seat manning the weapons. You could hold that same direction to tell him to go to a new altitude. 

Then if you tell the pilot to slow to a hover, you can change to "Hover Mode" which gives you different commands. Now tapping up on that button tells the AI pilot to go up 10ft for each press. Holding it tells the AI pilot to move forward as long as you hold it, and similarly, right, left or back will move you in those directions as long as you hold it.

If you're the pilot, you can bring up the George menu and in my case, if I have the menu up and tap up on my joystick hat, it tells George to look in that direction for targets. If he finds some, I can use up/down to move through the list, and then right will select the target I want him to focus on. Hitting left cycles through the weapons, and if I hold up it will tell him he is free to engage the target.

All things considered, it works pretty well. It's much more hands on than if you were flying with a human, and it can be imperfect. One thing I've noticed is that the AI pilot won't dodge a missile fired at you...though that may be accurate with my flying and losing track of missiles coming my way. It's all still WIP, so changes are always coming. But it's improved a ton over the starting point, and I'm looking forward to see how much they improve it in the future. 

[placsea]

Like the others guys have said, you command the AI to execute tasks related to flying or operating the weapons. A big part of the learning experience is how to handle this workflow of what is meant to be done by two people and it can be challenging but after enough hours you get into a sort of rhythm and come to understand the quirks and idiosyncrasies to become effective in whatever task you're trying to accomplish.

There's no 'wrong or right' way to learn because everyone has different preferences, for example I hardly EVER hop into the front seat of the apache, some guys it's the complete inverse and everything in-between. Treat the AI bot like just another 'system' to learn, take it slow and in bite sized pieces and you'll be fine. 

[Mausar]

I prefer to fly it as I was in KA-50.

[Dragon1-1]

I don't have much experience with George/Petrovich, but Jester pretty much does what various computer features of the more modern jets do, plus he provides the peanut gallery whenever you're trying to fuel up or land on the boat.  I do like the way he helps with situational awareness during dogfights.

[baldeagle611]

Thanks guys. Got it now.

Seen George in action on Youtube too.

AH-64 will be next on my shopping list!