missing info Warbird AI damage modeling….still

[Mike_CK]

sorry for the novel but I play single player a lot and am frustrated. I HOPE I’ve got something wrong here.

I get that the AI warbirds have a simplified flight model; BUT, from what I understand, the AI aircraft systems DO take damage. For example, you can take our the engine. I’m GUESSING that the systems are modeled to enough detail that I can put rounds through the radiator and the coolant will leak out.

My problem is that the AI aircraft don’t seem to NEED any systems - such as an engine or coolant- to continue flying. I can’t count the number of times I have unloaded half a belt of 20mm into a BF-109 until it’s trailing black and white smoke, only to later observe it still flying around. Or watch a AI plane with a non-spinning propeller continue to fly around for 20 more minutes.

flew a liberation mission today. Hit an JU-88 with my .50s (P-47) until both engines were smoking. I continued on (thinking it’s dead) and emptied the rest of .50 cal  into a BF-109 while watching pieces fly off until black and white smoke poured out. The BF-109 dove for the deck and I thought it was crashing. Nope. Pulled out  and continued to fly around when, after about 15 seconds, the smoke stopped. His wings were Swiss cheese yet he continued on. I left. Ten minutes later,  I observed he was still alive on F10. F2…and there he is, little buddy just cruising around.

So,  I flew back to base (passing the SAME JU-88 gliding around with props not moving) and ended the mission 20 minutes later. Got no credit for a kill. Checked the track and both the damn things were STILL FLYING!!! (20-30 minutes with no prop and about 50% wing)

Just seems like the engine doesn’t care it doesn’t have coolant for a loooong time (if it ever cares), the plane doesn’t care it doesn’t have an engine and the wings don’t care more wing is missing than remaining.  

Is there not a way to make the RESULT of damage taken more realistic. or am I missing something?

[ruxtmp]

I wouldnt bother with AI and single player the game is best experienced in multiplayer. The AI in both the jets and warbirds are less than impressive and single missions require so much scripting its not worth the effort. If you are going to stick with AI you will have to wait for ED to update the AI for the results you want.

[Mike_CK]

Ok…but the game isn’t best experienced in multiplayer for ME b/c I’m not playing to blow stuff up; I play to experience the aircraft and their systems (and blow stuff up.)  I DO play MP sometimes but often MP feels like a group of people all playing SP on the same map. I prefer the realisM of campaigns; specifically the professional/commercial ones.

Frankly, I think most of us who play SP are happy with the damage modeling of modern aircraft and the AI behavior of all the aircraft; both BVR and ACM; it’s not up to a human behavior but it’s good enough to create the realism and immersion I want.

So, since the vast majority of DCS players play SP only, I think it’s an issue worth addressing if possible. Hell, for all I know I’m the only one who sees an issue at all; that’s why I’m asking 

[RedeyeStorm]

I am growing tired of people who give the answer ‘ fly MP and your problem is over’. NO fix the damm AI. MP is boring as hell and I DO NOT WANT TO FLY MP!

Apology for rant.

[Bloyamind]

@Mike, I fly single player warbird stuff mostly and haven't encountered the same. I mean, yeah, they fly around with smoke, but eventually they crash, like they should. It might take quite some time, depending on the situation, but it seems to work fine on my end. No props? They glide until they glide no more. Isn't to say there's no AI issues i'm having, but more on the friendly side with the age old problem of aircraft going full berserk because of a simple turn. You're probably familiar with it. I can work around it by now when flying formation, but it's hella immersion breaking to have to go full brakes on your buddies and then have to take ten minutes to catch back up only to repeat, because of simple turns.

[Kadin]

Mike_CK, I noticed similar behavior in WWII aircrafts flown by AI in multiplayer.  I am guessing and hoping though that it is work in progress.

[sthompson]

On 12/10/2023 at 5:15 AM, Bloyamind said:

@Mike, I fly single player warbird stuff mostly and haven't encountered the same. I mean, yeah, they fly around with smoke, but eventually they crash, like they should. It might take quite some time, depending on the situation, but it seems to work fine on my end. No props? They glide until they glide no more. Isn't to say there's no AI issues i'm having, but more on the friendly side with the age old problem of aircraft going full berserk because of a simple turn. You're probably familiar with it. I can work around it by now when flying formation, but it's hella immersion breaking to have to go full brakes on your buddies and then have to take ten minutes to catch back up only to repeat, because of simple turns.

I can't recall where exactly I reported it, but was on one of Reflected's BNBB missions over Normandy. I watched a dead AI Mustang with no operating engine (propeller stopped) and a dead pilot (based on bullet holes through the canopy) fly slowly INVERTED in very large circles (radius of 10 miles or so) without losing altitude and occasionally gaining some before returning to the original altitude. Curious about how long that could last I accelerated time and found he was still going 24 hours later of simulated time. This was admittedly a long time ago, and I don't know if it ever got fixed after I submitted the bug report.

[jethead]

On 12/9/2023 at 3:46 PM, Mike_CK said:

I play to experience the aircraft and their systems (and blow stuff up.)

On 12/9/2023 at 3:46 PM, Mike_CK said:

I prefer the realisM of campaigns

Totally agree, although I can't see how this would play out with ED's retarded AI. I put the retarded AI down as the single most disappointing factor of this game.

Edited December 12, 2023 by jethead

[Nealius]

On 12/9/2023 at 5:55 PM, RedeyeStorm said:

I am growing tired of people who give the answer ‘ fly MP and your problem is over’.

+1. I'm UTC+9 and can't fly with anyone except the Japanese community, and the Japanese community is a) tiny due to lack of localization, and b) they only play at 2~3am when I need to sleep.

[jethead]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:55 PM, RedeyeStorm said:

I am growing tired of people who give the answer ‘ fly MP and your problem is over’. NO fix the damm AI.

+1. UTC+10 and I only work late evenings when most people are home.

Edited December 12, 2023 by jethead

[percivaldanvers]

At least you're flying the spitfire, which is viable in sp. As a Fw-190 fan I can pretty much write off my wingmen the moment the fight begins

[Nealius]

39 minutes ago, percivaldanvers said:

As a Fw-190 fan I can pretty much write off my wingmen the moment the fight begins

This is why I gave up on the Horrido campaign. I understand it's supposed to be accurate to late-war air dominance but the moment I hear "achtung spitfire!" on the radio I might as well log off and skip to the next mission.

[percivaldanvers]

28 minutes ago, Nealius said:

This is why I gave up on the Horrido campaign. I understand it's supposed to be accurate to late-war air dominance but the moment I hear "achtung spitfire!" on the radio I might as well log off and skip to the next mission.

Glad it's not just me. And I'm not sure how much of a narrative thing it is either. In Jagdflieger Mission 4 you go up against spitfires and pretty typically your squadron of 109s absolutely wrecks them.

[Barthek]

DCS damage model at its best.

[Mike_CK]

Saw in the fox today that AI aircraft will no longer fly around with severe damage so looks like it got a fix!

[Mike_CK]

On 12/18/2023 at 3:32 AM, Barthek said:

DCS damage model at its best.

Lol…yea. This

let’s hope that after the fix at least I won’t see planes circling without moving props or living pilots. I’m fine lighting him up and letting him crash a few minutes later. I do also understand that difficulties with the Simple flight model and damage so I appreciate ED addressing it 

[Komet_82]

wired, I was totally not aware of this. Just finished all 3 Spitfire Campaigns and they worked almost flawless. Is this just somtehing from the Mission Editor? 

I fly 99% singleplayer ideally historical missions. And one day I wanna create my own missions, hope this will get fixed soon

[NineLine]

On 12/8/2023 at 4:43 PM, Mike_CK said:

sorry for the novel but I play single player a lot and am frustrated. I HOPE I’ve got something wrong here.

I get that the AI warbirds have a simplified flight model; BUT, from what I understand, the AI aircraft systems DO take damage. For example, you can take our the engine. I’m GUESSING that the systems are modeled to enough detail that I can put rounds through the radiator and the coolant will leak out.

My problem is that the AI aircraft don’t seem to NEED any systems - such as an engine or coolant- to continue flying. I can’t count the number of times I have unloaded half a belt of 20mm into a BF-109 until it’s trailing black and white smoke, only to later observe it still flying around. Or watch a AI plane with a non-spinning propeller continue to fly around for 20 more minutes.

flew a liberation mission today. Hit an JU-88 with my .50s (P-47) until both engines were smoking. I continued on (thinking it’s dead) and emptied the rest of .50 cal  into a BF-109 while watching pieces fly off until black and white smoke poured out. The BF-109 dove for the deck and I thought it was crashing. Nope. Pulled out  and continued to fly around when, after about 15 seconds, the smoke stopped. His wings were Swiss cheese yet he continued on. I left. Ten minutes later,  I observed he was still alive on F10. F2…and there he is, little buddy just cruising around.

So,  I flew back to base (passing the SAME JU-88 gliding around with props not moving) and ended the mission 20 minutes later. Got no credit for a kill. Checked the track and both the damn things were STILL FLYING!!! (20-30 minutes with no prop and about 50% wing)

Just seems like the engine doesn’t care it doesn’t have coolant for a loooong time (if it ever cares), the plane doesn’t care it doesn’t have an engine and the wings don’t care more wing is missing than remaining.  

Is there not a way to make the RESULT of damage taken more realistic. or am I missing something?

It's hard to say what happened here without a track. Even the size of the smoke matters, smaller trails are smaller leaks, and larger ones are larger. The AI will always do their best to make it back to base. The case of the Ju-88 sounds like an issue but I cannot reproduce this. 

That said, you may think you hit an aircraft the same way each time, but because of the details in the DM you may not always hit that aircraft the same even if from a ways back it looked like it. 

But right now I am guessing, I jumped into a P-47 and did a few tests on both the Ju-88 and 109 and the results were what I expected, so without a track I cant say for sure what you experienced, it could even be MP desync if this was on a server.

On 12/18/2023 at 12:32 AM, Barthek said:

DCS damage model at its best.

Without a track its impossible to say what happened.

On 12/11/2023 at 1:39 PM, sthompson said:

I can't recall where exactly I reported it, but was on one of Reflected's BNBB missions over Normandy. I watched a dead AI Mustang with no operating engine (propeller stopped) and a dead pilot (based on bullet holes through the canopy) fly slowly INVERTED in very large circles (radius of 10 miles or so) without losing altitude and occasionally gaining some before returning to the original altitude. Curious about how long that could last I accelerated time and found he was still going 24 hours later of simulated time. This was admittedly a long time ago, and I don't know if it ever got fixed after I submitted the bug report.

That sounds like a bug for sure, but without a track I cannot report, I have not been able to reproduce something like this. 

[Mike_CK]

I get it. I will say that after the December patch (I believe that is the one where the issue of AI aircraft dying when heavily damaged), the issue hasn’t come up again for me. I’ve seen several aircraft cruising with the prop not moving…but they don’t last long at all.

[NineLine]

On 2/27/2024 at 12:30 PM, Mike_CK said:

I get it. I will say that after the December patch (I believe that is the one where the issue of AI aircraft dying when heavily damaged), the issue hasn’t come up again for me. I’ve seen several aircraft cruising with the prop not moving…but they don’t last long at all.

AI will try to RTB even with a dead engine, so they will try and glide as far as they can, its more based on airfield location rather than any sort of front lines or enemy territory. Would be nice one day to have more factors here but for now there will be times that the AI will try and get as far as they can gliding. 

[Jetliner]

On 2/26/2024 at 3:48 PM, NineLine said:

Without a track its impossible to say what happened.

Surely even without a track we can agree that there is something wrong here, though?  I mean what realistic scenario can you imagine an aircraft being smacked around that hard and flying on, even to the point of taking evasive maneuvers still.  I know there are famous stories of ragged aircraft making it back to base but not only were those not as common as we see in this game, its so unlikely that it was a case like this where a small fighter took 20mm cannon rounds to this degree and flew on.  Control surface damage, mechanical damage, structural integrity, pilot morale all of these things would surely have guaranteed this aircraft was a kill much sooner.  I don't know that we need a track file to acknowledge this as an issue.

You guys have creators making amazing (paid) content for the single player crowd - lets help that community have fun too.

Edited March 8, 2024 by Jetliner

[NineLine]

2 hours ago, Jetliner said:

Surely even without a track we can agree that there is something wrong here, though?  I mean what realistic scenario can you imagine an aircraft being smacked around that hard and flying on, even to the point of taking evasive maneuvers still.  I know there are famous stories of ragged aircraft making it back to base but not only were those not as common as we see in this game, its so unlikely that it was a case like this where a small fighter took 20mm cannon rounds to this degree and flew on.  Control surface damage, mechanical damage, structural integrity, pilot morale all of these things would surely have guaranteed this aircraft was a kill much sooner.  I don't know that we need a track file to acknowledge this as an issue.

You guys have creators making amazing (paid) content for the single player crowd - lets help that community have fun too.

 

No, because I can jump in DCS right now and easily shoot down another aircraft and everything appears fine. Let me do that now...

 

 

Look, all this "Control surface damage, mechanical damage, structural integrity" is modelled. 

In this short burst of 20mm from a Spitfire I severed the ammo belt in one of the guns, burst the water jacket, burst the main water hose, and caused major control rod damage for the rudder (not to mention shot off an elevator), damaged a cylinder in the engine, perforated the oxygen system, caused a major leak in the MW50 tank, cause a fuel tank leak, and damaged the strut/shock on the tail wheel. That is just the system damage, obviously, the aircraft is shot up looking as well. 

If that wasn't enough, the pilot was killed. 

All that said, could there be an issue you encountered and are unlucky enough to encounter over and over? Sure. But I would require a track to see what happened. 

Quote

You guys have creators making amazing (paid) content for the single player crowd - lets help that community have fun too.

We appreciate anyone who spends any amount of their hard-earned money on DCS whether it's one module or all of them. Whether you fly single-player or multiplayer. We want everyone to have fun and enjoy DCS and tell everyone you know. We would not do anything to ignore or go out of our way to try and ruin the experience for anyone. The truth is that even with our large QA and testing team we may not catch everything and if you are seeing an issue or something that doesn't make sense, bring it all here, tracks, info and experience and we will try and solve it. 

Check this out, its a bit of an older video, but I would even be happy to do something like this again as well.

Thanks!

[ddc196]

I've only been flying in DCS for about 3 years now so I'm pretty much a newbie. I used to think it was incredibly hard to cause enough damage to take down an AI aircraft. The better I get at flying, the better I have get at killing. Another big help for me was learning to set up and use the K-14 gun sight, I mostly fly the P-51. Setting the wingspan and distance and then bracketing the bad guy properly will cause massive damage in a short period of time. Generally, for me, between 35 and 40 on the wingspan and 1000 for the distance does the trick. The guns are set to cross at around 300 meters which is about 1000 feet. Hope this helps.

Edited March 9, 2024 by ddc196

[Jetliner]

20 hours ago, NineLine said:

No, because I can jump in DCS right now and easily shoot down another aircraft and everything appears fine. Let me do that now...

Of course I would never say there is no damage model but surely based on the video he posted and my own experience there has to be times where its a little much.  No pilot would ever continue flying after what the 109 did in Barthek's video.  Maybe this is a situation where a "pilot morale" or something needs to be implemented?

Your first video is unfortunately not working for me, but 

20 hours ago, NineLine said:

Check this out, its a bit of an older video, but I would even be happy to do something like this again as well.

I really would love to see more of this, I think this along with looking into stuff that makes fights a bit more understandable would be good. 

What I personally notice is a plane will take many shots that appear to be crippling - sometimes dive away only to reappear later back in the fight.  The only reason I bother to waste so much ammo on an AI plane, shooting until its flaming or I see a bail out, is because I cant tell when the AI are every truly out of the fight.  They never seem to struggle for control, they don't seem to have much engine trouble, and they don't seem to care too much about the structural integrity of staying in the fight with 20mm sized holes in their wings. 

Its possible this is due to them being "perfect" so they are always adapting to their damage.  Engine damaged?  AI instantly sets a setting that will keep it running the longest.  Wing damage?  They will automatically know at what G the new limit is and fly below it etc.  I dont know - this is more your department but if that is the case I think some wiggle room to simulate a human would be warranted let alone a human under immense stress.

Edited March 9, 2024 by Jetliner

[Bowie]

On 12/8/2023 at 4:43 PM, Mike_CK said:

sorry for the novel but I play single player a lot and am frustrated. I HOPE I’ve got something wrong here.

I get that the AI warbirds have a simplified flight model; BUT, from what I understand, the AI aircraft systems DO take damage. For example, you can take our the engine. I’m GUESSING that the systems are modeled to enough detail that I can put rounds through the radiator and the coolant will leak out.

My problem is that the AI aircraft don’t seem to NEED any systems - such as an engine or coolant- to continue flying. I can’t count the number of times I have unloaded half a belt of 20mm into a BF-109 until it’s trailing black and white smoke, only to later observe it still flying around. Or watch a AI plane with a non-spinning propeller continue to fly around for 20 more minutes.

flew a liberation mission today. Hit an JU-88 with my .50s (P-47) until both engines were smoking. I continued on (thinking it’s dead) and emptied the rest of .50 cal  into a BF-109 while watching pieces fly off until black and white smoke poured out. The BF-109 dove for the deck and I thought it was crashing. Nope. Pulled out  and continued to fly around when, after about 15 seconds, the smoke stopped. His wings were Swiss cheese yet he continued on. I left. Ten minutes later,  I observed he was still alive on F10. F2…and there he is, little buddy just cruising around.

So,  I flew back to base (passing the SAME JU-88 gliding around with props not moving) and ended the mission 20 minutes later. Got no credit for a kill. Checked the track and both the damn things were STILL FLYING!!! (20-30 minutes with no prop and about 50% wing)

Just seems like the engine doesn’t care it doesn’t have coolant for a loooong time (if it ever cares), the plane doesn’t care it doesn’t have an engine and the wings don’t care more wing is missing than remaining.  

Is there not a way to make the RESULT of damage taken more realistic. or am I missing something?

 

This has not been my experience since the damage model updates.

 

Fly a lot of single player in the P-51D-25, 16 v. 16 against a combination of Bf-109's and FW-190's.

And while the damage is .50 M2, and though a little on the ineffective side, it does do the job if put in the right place, and predictable results are observed.

 

Hits that produce oil/water/fuel vapor trails, will result in the eventual cessation of those trails, quickly followed by a seized engine.

A water jacket steam cloud hit produces the same result much quicker.

 

Have doggedly followed these A/C and have observed increased hits produce increased damage effects resulting in loss of flight control, fire, or engine failure.

 

It is easy to forget that WWII A/C, in the main, are hollow shells, with a few small but key components that may also be armored.

So, especially for wing mounted weapons, range (conversion) and marksmanship, including a centered ball, are extremely important.

 

Have observed on many occasions that a 1/2 second burst into a German fighter, when the span/length is 1/2 the 70 Mil gunsight ring and the ball is centered, put directly into the cockpit to spinner area?

Results in catastrophic damage and systems failure.

 

Have also tail-chased them at half that range in a scissors fight, emptied the magazines, perforated the A/C, and they fly away, hollow and armored.

 

 

Bowie

Edited July 18, 2024 by Bowie