The superhuman AI and warbirds

[PinkCube]

The super human AI in warbirds

Today I would like to talk about the AI, particularly in the spitfire. Those who've play in the war-birds will have at some point decided to fly against one of these monsters and most likely lost a lot of times against them.

Now, what is apparent in DCS is that the AI makes shots based on computer calculations (obviously) which makes them extremely accurate. Put this in the spitfire and you've created something obscene. I'm pretty sure all DCS planes in WW2 work like this but combined with the turn rate of the spitfire you created something simply built different. 

There's no margin of error in accuracy or burst length limitations built into the AI so often you get sniped out of the skies by an AI using single shot mode without the sight of any tracers whizzing past your cockpit. Two factors that can save your life. The AI can use single shot mode by only firing when it believes it has a 100% accurate gun solution.

But there's more...

The AI pilot can see through the cockpit which means his vision isn't obscured when pulling high deflection shots. See the image below... 

Now you might say you can do this as a human... But a human will use GUESSWORK to make the shots and not a ballistic computer. A human will lose sight... And a human will spend ammunition and release a stream of tracers which you can "react" to.

So, why isn't any of this incorporated into the way the AI behaves? Why can't the AI release a burst rather than a single shot? Why doesn't the AI fire inaccurate shots that will miss (dependent on set difficulty)? Why can the AI accurately shoot while not having visual of what it is shooting at? It either feels like you're fighting a toaster or the terminator and there seems to be nothing in between.

Edited January 23 by PinkCube

[Magic Zach]

New AI is under development still but cockpit LOS blocking is a bit too advanced to be worrying about atm

[Gunfreak]

In this mission I fly with 35 other. Spitfires(veteran AI) we meet 36 fw190A8 and 109s also on veteran.

I kill 4. We loose 3 Spitfires. Germans lost 27! That's a score of 3 to 27. The most lopsided score I've ever seen in ww2 dcs.

Not only are the Spitfires super deadly accurate. But they can fly on WEP all the time, they can't break the engine by flying straight up for 10 seconds like the player. So except for the top speed the DCS Spitfire Mk IX is closer to Mk XIV in performance ( on top of that they don't get problems with Gs) 

So you have created a super plane.

Also AI can't cope with other planes flying tighter than them.

If you fly a p47 or p51. The German AI can put up a fight. But if you fly a Spitfire (or even the I-16) once you've beaten their turn rate. And gone inside their turn. The AI just turns of and continues to do a turn. Until you've caught up and blast them.

 

If you fly a P51 or P47 you'll notice the AI will use more vertical. But in the Spitfire. You'll beat their turn in the first merge and the AI goes lazy and just contine to turn. They don't try and to up or down. Just a lazy turn waiting for death. Basically a turn fighter will break the ww2 AI. 

In the P47, the German AI will put up a much harder fight. Even if you stay fast and high.  They'll be able to do a 180 turn, and catch you even if you are several thousand feet above them.

 

[Ghost79]

I can testify to all of the above.  It seems the AI isnt worried about engine management and as stated above, always seems to be at full power.  As an allied pilot i find the 109 (with or without MW50) to be a big culprit for this.  It seems to be able to perform a lazy turning climb which is almost impossible to keep up with (see also mig15 for a jet example of this).  I can take out the 109 on ace skill level, but only with the spitfire in the same inevitable turn fight as described above.

 

here's hoping the new AI flight model makes it into the game soon.

[PinkCube]

On 1/23/2024 at 8:52 PM, Magic Zach said:

New AI is under development still but cockpit LOS blocking is a bit too advanced to be worrying about atm

Cockpit LOS can be emulated by telling the AI to not fire when deflection angles below the nose are over a certain limit. In theory this is not an advanced concept. If there is new AI in development then this should be taken into consideration while the development is taking place and not after.

[Nealius]

IIRC cockpit LOS blocking has already partially been implemented from the rear, allowing you to sneak up behind AI in certain situations. 

[SPR51]

Playing for a month now and can beat the A1 190’s a bunch….but the BF 109 kicks my butt.

What is the best tactic for fighting these aliens in the P51?

Thanks,

Edited February 18 by SPR51

[Doc3908]

My biggest problem is the AI warbird invulnerability. I hadn't flown warbirds in a while, so I'd forgotten what it's like to try to shoot down an FW or a 109. Yesterday, I literally emptied all my Spit ammo from a point-blank range into an A-8 - huge holes all over it, missing the left aileron and half the horizontal stab and it kept on flying on its merry way...

[SPR51]

After playing more I am convinced the 109 k needs to be updated to a realistic plane. Seen too many high g maneuvers I don’t believe possible in the plane if modeled correctly. The Ai version is almost jet like. 
 

One other question, does the Mustang include the g suit that came in later in the war or is DCS ignoring this important advantage some Mustang pilots had wearing a g suit. I am playing in the channel map now. Normandy next. 
 

Overall loving the DCS experience just very frustrated flying against the Ai 109 k. Have 90 hours of flight time, all in single player mode. Will keep training and learning. As stated before I am doing well against all the FW 190 versions. 

[Gunfreak]

3 minutes ago, SPR51 said:

After playing more I am convinced the 109 k needs to be updated to a realistic plane. Seen too many high g maneuvers I don’t believe possible in the plane if modeled correctly. The Ai version is almost jet like. 
 

One other question, does the Mustang include the g suit that came in later in the war or is DCS ignoring this important advantage some Mustang pilots had wearing a g suit. I am playing in the channel map now. Normandy next. 
 

Overall loving the DCS experience just very frustrated flying against the Ai 109 k. Have 90 hours of flight time, all in single player mode. Will keep training and learning. As stated before I am doing well against all the FW 190 versions. 

Don't think G suit is modeled. Really for 1945(which both P47 and P51 are) they should have 150 octane too) 

[SPR51]

True on the fuel as well. Any chance we can get any of the DCS developers to comment or are the warbirds not popular enough anymore to warrant the updates/ and modeled accuracy?

New here so apologies if posted in wrong spot. 

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

10 hours ago, SPR51 said:

After playing more I am convinced the 109 k needs to be updated to a realistic plane. Seen too many high g maneuvers I don’t believe possible in the plane if modeled correctly. The Ai version is almost jet like. 

 

Do you mean the 109k is uber when the AI flies it?

Or are you saying you bought or have trialed and you flying it seem UFO?

AI cheats.  Any weirdness there is just cheating AI physics which are only vaguely related to our universe.

If you have specific doubts about the human player FM, narrowing that down to a big item or two might help someone evaluate that.

BTW, if you are basing that just on the AI,  you can 1 week trial the 109 and try it hands on to see if it seems legit.

 

$0.02

 

 

 

[SPR51]

2 minutes ago, [HOUNDS] CptTrips said:

 

Do you mean the 109k is uber when the AI flies it?

Or are you saying you bought or have trialed and you flying it seem UFO?

AI cheats.  Any weirdness there is just cheating AI physics which are only vaguely related to our universe.

If you have specific doubts about the human player FM, narrowing that down to a big item or two might help someone evaluate that.

BTW, if you are basing that just on the AI,  you can 1 week trial the 109 and try it hands on to see if it seems legit.

 

$0.02

 

 

 

Agree with your thinking. Only flown against it with Ai flying. 
Already thought the best way to beat it would be to fly it and see what it does in a humans hands. Will eventually get out on multi player so guess I’ll see there. 
 

Still learning the P51 and DCS in general. 

 

[Grundar]

The AI is rather terrible in DCS, it is improved over what it used to be ( I started playing in 2013 or so with the A-10), but it is still quite lacking.  The Kurfurst is a UFO in the hands of the AI, seemingly non-stop MW-50 use and climbing for eternity.  The Anton seems to be less affected and the Dora sits in between in terms of AI use.  All the AI seems to be defeated by sustained turn fights, in the Spitfire if I just sit behind them and turn and turn, eventually they just level and fly straight - though this doesn't always occur.  In the after action information you often see it as AI Abort and if you follow that entity's actions you see it has no hits/damage..

To fly these things, the Kurfurst isn't particular UFO like, neither is the Dora.  I don't have the Anton so cannot comment on that.  The Spit and the Stang also seem pretty good and don't offer the player the UFO experience. The Mosquito though has some issues it seems, some inconsistency in it's low speed flight parameters maybe - I find I can turn it very quickly, at very low speed, without being overly concerned about altitude.  Of all the modules I fly, that seems the most UFO like.  Perhaps it is similar to it's real life function, but I'm not convinced.

 

ED don't seem to be particularly focused on WW2 stuff for quite a while now, but I think an AI fix in general assists all the modules.  There are some amazing campaigns out there, ones like Reflected's are fantastic, but they are still at the mercy of DCS AI at times.

Edited February 29 by Grundar
typo correction

[Animl]

On 2/27/2024 at 5:36 PM, [HOUNDS] CptTrips said:

 

Do you mean the 109k is uber when the AI flies it?

Or are you saying you bought or have trialed and you flying it seem UFO?

AI cheats.  Any weirdness there is just cheating AI physics which are only vaguely related to our universe.

If you have specific doubts about the human player FM, narrowing that down to a big item or two might help someone evaluate that.

BTW, if you are basing that just on the AI,  you can 1 week trial the 109 and try it hands on to see if it seems legit.

 

$0.02

 

 

 

LOL

[bephanten]

an ai spitfire with attached bombs in belly and wing hardpoints also fly and dogfight like the sleek one. it can climb and turn with the german birds.

i set up a mission where i have a clear altitude and weight advantage against a jettison restricted bomb loaded spitfire. it can defend my bnz with pulling endless verticals.  in same scenario, a p47 cannot pull same verticals. 

 

[MickV]

Been playing more Warbirds lately and the Spitfire AI is hilariously ridiculous. Turns on a dime, climbs like it has an F-16 engine in it, makes 1000m shots with single-taps of the 20mm, never stalls, and can go from ripping around at 20deg a second to a dive so slow I have to cut engine not to overshoot, whereupon it somehow can still climb several thousand meters instantly.

The other Allied Warbirds seem fine - its just the Spitfire that is straight UFO to the point of absurdity. 

[Gunfreak]

5 hours ago, MickV said:

Been playing more Warbirds lately and the Spitfire AI is hilariously ridiculous. Turns on a dime, climbs like it has an F-16 engine in it, makes 1000m shots with single-taps of the 20mm, never stalls, and can go from ripping around at 20deg a second to a dive so slow I have to cut engine not to overshoot, whereupon it somehow can still climb several thousand meters instantly.

The other Allied Warbirds seem fine - its just the Spitfire that is straight UFO to the point of absurdity. 

Spitfire and 109 seems to have very similar AI, not only do they have infinite power and super accurate shooting. But the AI seems more agressive, while the two 190s and P47 seems to have very avoiding AI. all those 3 AI seems to dive for the deck at first sight of enemies. If I fly a P47 against a single 190(either of them) they will dive down, and you simply follow them, and then  it's just a matter of reeling them inn and shooting them. The Spitfire and 109 AI seems perfectly comfortable to fly at 20-30k feet, while the P47 and the two 190s don't like to stay up high.

[SPR51]

I have commented before that the 109 is ridiculous in the hands of AI. I have about 150 flight hours in the P51 now and rarely lose a dogfight to any AI plane except the 109. I have shot a few down in the Normandy 2 map but they are still UFO like most of the time. 
 

They seem to pull endless g and climb forever without losing speed. The marksmanship of the AI pilots is also ridiculous in my humble opinion. 

Also think DCS should model the P51 at its best like 150 octane and include g suit factoring as they have included the very best model of the 109…just some thoughts, still loving this whole sim experience and  I will keep practicing until  I’m flying my very best P51.

 

[Lixma 06]

The AI K-4 isn't a UFO. This can be proven by flying a 1v1 K-4 vs K-4. 

It's true that the AI is using a simplified flight model and may not have the same operational restrictions a human needs to monitor. Also true is that the AI can pull off the most ludicrous, beneath the nose deflection shots - as if they were flying an invisible plane.

However, in a straight human K-4 vs AI K-4 duel there's nothing UFO'ey about it. It's a very close match.

If you want to see a true UFO in action then try a Mig-15 vs Mig-15 duel.

 

[Ghost79]

The Mig15 is by far the worst culprit for unrealistic AI behaviour.  Ive mentioned many times before that AI (ground AAA too) needs to be a priority improvement for ED as in my opinion its killing the single player game.

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

I've found if I want to tune in the AI to a level I feel is reasonable I use a combination of skill level combine with full fuel load compared to my 1/2 load.

If necessary, I will weight them down with drop tanks and bombs and set jettison restriction so they have to fight with that extra weight.

I can then slowly peel off stuff when ever I want to increase the difficulty. 

Silly I have to do that, but it does work well in my spit against an AI spit.

 

 

[Gunfreak]

2 hours ago, Ghost79 said:

The Mig15 is by far the worst culprit for unrealistic AI behaviour.  Ive mentioned many times before that AI (ground AAA too) needs to be a priority improvement for ED as in my opinion its killing the single player game.

Flew a night mission in the Gazelle.

Technical opened up in me from over a mile with pinpoint accuracy in the dark.

Even more impressive that a group of guys with AK and turbans managed to him my helicopter in the dark with super accuracy  in the pitch black.

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

56 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

Flew a night mission in the Gazelle.

Technical opened up in me from over a mile with pinpoint accuracy in the dark.

Even more impressive that a group of guys with AK and turbans managed to him my helicopter in the dark with super accuracy  in the pitch black.

I was doing some tests the other day with a ZSU emplacement.

I can't say it effected accuracy, but night did did reduce the engagement range by almost half.  

So maybe engagement range is effected, but not accuracy when it does fire.

Of course this only effects optical \ iron sites weapons.  I am assuming we aren't expecting any differences in something radar or thermal directed.

Edited March 20 by [HOUNDS] CptTrips

[Exorcet]

Aiming and SA is a massive AI issue. Their awareness of things around is seemingly tied directly to object position. If they want to focus or attack something, they know exactly where to look. I would like to see some uncertainty added to this. For example if you fly into an enemy's blind spot the enemy should stop tracking your true position and instead track your last know position + velocity, but there should be random error added on that that increases with time, for example.

The AI also needs to have react time. If you shoot a missile at it, flares shouldn't be deployed immediately. There should be a fixed human reaction speed delay (sub 1 second) and then an additional delay based on awareness or having to search the sky visually for a missile.

This can get complicated very fast. For example when it comes to reactions, real pilots don't always wait for something to happen. They may try to anticipate an event, which could allow them to react to something much faster than they should. A universal AI delay might actually make them too sluggish in some situations because of this. Still, I think such a system can be setup in a reasonable way, but it might take a couple of iterations.