Jester feedback

[Ramstein]

Sorry, but Jester is dumber and slower than a bag of rocks. He can't see his hand in front of his face and when he does he is so slow by the time he fires it's too late. Try and try, but he is just taking up space...

[Q3ark]

Jester can’t fire any weapons, what’re you having trouble with? 

[Zabuzard]

If you don't like him, note that you can disable him completely.
You can then operate both pits yourself if you want. Some users prefer doing that.

The Phantom, and especially Jester will continue to be improved significantly throughout the Early Access period :)

[Ramstein]

4 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

If you don't like him, note that you can disable him completely.
You can then operate both pits yourself if you want. Some users prefer doing that.

The Phantom, and especially Jester will continue to be improved significantly throughout the Early Access period

yes, sorry, was a bit harsh,,, hope whomever codes it can speed him up and make him wear glasses or corrective eye surgery.

[=475FG= Dawger]

48 minutes ago, Ramstein said:

yes, sorry, was a bit harsh,,, hope whomever codes it can speed him up and make him wear glasses or corrective eye surgery.

No need to apologize. While the Phantom is an exceptional module overall, HB seriously lost the plot when creating “Jester”.
 

Instead of focusing on creating a competent simulation of the second crewmember, they chose to focus on creating a personality with predictable results.

Of course, those who participated in the creation feel slighted when his obvious flaws are exposed. 
 

That doesn’t mean those flaws are not real and pressing and it is a bit ridiculous for Zabuzard to suggest disabling such an important feature because you don’t “like” it. 
 

Jester isn’t a real person. He is a set of instructions meant to perform required tasks. 
 

Ascribing human emotions to a player’s relationship to a bit of code is part of the problem. 
 

Either the code is fit to purpose or it isn’t and, quite clearly, Jester falls short when the purpose is “simulated competent WSO”.

 

[RedeyeStorm]

I disagree. Never before has there been such an effort. Before Jester dual seat aircraft used ‘cheats’ by giving the pilot controls he never had. Can he be improved sure but I think him quit capable and enjoyable. DCS has bigger AI problems then Jester.

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, RedeyeStorm said:

I disagree. Never before has there been such an effort. Before Jester dual seat aircraft used ‘cheats’ by giving the pilot controls he never had. Can he be improved sure but I think him quit capable and enjoyable. DCS has bigger AI problems then Jester.

The issue is he is terrible at some very basic stuff and the effort to give him “personality” seriously detracts from his performance. We would have been better served if HB had concentrated on making him competent before making him annoying. 
 

His tendency towards verbosity plus inherent lag makes everything he says ancient history. 
 

If his communications were precise and concise, all HB would have to work on is speeding up the delivery. Instead, they have figure out how to speed him up enough to make up for his loquaciousness. 

[Zabuzard]

Unlike in the Tomcat, where click-tasks will delay voice-tasks since he only has a single action queue and hence the issue is more severe, Jesters voice phrases in the Phantom are delivered within milliseconds, as he now has multiple independent action lanes and a better task scheduling system that also includes priorities.

The reason you might still get "outdated information" is due to the length of the voice phrase itself. For example, if he sees a target at 1 o clock, he will decide within milliseconds and start talking for example "enemy fishbed at one oclock". At the time of him arriving at the "one oclock" in his sentence, the target might already be elsewhere. But it was there the moment he started talking that sentence.
In the Tomcat this can be much severe, as click tasks and other things can block him from starting to talk, after already deciding on the sentence.

We are of course planning to further improve this throughout the early access period to get rid of the issue entirely by splitting up sentences into the words and enabling him to dynamically choose some words, such as the exact target direction, at the moment this specific word will be spoken in the sentence.

[Hikaruncat]

がんばれ　ジェスター君！　

[Grundar]

It will be good to see some of those improvements for Jester, especially being able to dynamically chose some words instead of having to produce a whole sentence.  I do enjoy the attempt at the humanization of the AI Jester, though like most others I can also be very frustrated with it, especially when I can clearly see something on the radar or out of the cockpit that I think Jester should be able to as well. 

The F-4's systems are old technology though and I think perhaps there are some who think it should be as responsive and as equivalent as modern day systems.  Clearly WSO's were incredible at deciphering the radar return and the systems, but the limitation was the technology at the time and not the brain deciphering and processing it all. From a programming and gameplay perspective it must be quite the task to keep Jester separate from being just some omniscient presence that sees everything and is 100% right all the time.  I'm glad that it is not, I'm enjoying learning the aircraft and it's representation of the time period it reigned in.

[Zabuzard]

Regarding target spotting, it might be worth mentioning that Jester is now, with the Phantom, following an algorithm dictacting his actual vision cone. If he is operating the radar, he is looking at the radar and not outside for example. Same when he needs to read his instruments and gauges to update his knowledge of the aircraft state, such as reading current airspeed. He will of course interrupt that every now and then to also look outside, but if you ask him for example to lock someone, he cannot at the same time spot someone outside the cockpit...

You can also easily G-lock him when you pull hard turns and then he cant do much at all momentarily while his head is being pressed into for example the radar boot.

Like with real Phantom WSOs, his general preference where to look when looking outside is your six. So him not spotting a target in front of you can sometimes also simply be because he is currently looking behind, while it is your job to check the front aspect. In a similar way, you cant expect him to operate the radar and do a "regular search", moving the antenna around etc, while you are in a heated dogfight. His eyes will be outside the cockpit, watching your six instead.

There are a lot of factors to consider and we certainly will improve him further.

If you encounter any specific odd situation, please just hand in a working track. That allows us to spot whats going on, tell you what happened and use that to possibly improve Jester or even fix bugs

Edited July 29, 2024 by Zabuzard

[=DROOPY=]

15 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

Unlike in the Tomcat, where click-tasks will delay voice-tasks since he only has a single action queue and hence the issue is more severe, Jesters voice phrases in the Phantom are delivered within milliseconds, as he now has multiple independent action lanes and a better task scheduling system that also includes priorities.

The reason you might still get "outdated information" is due to the length of the voice phrase itself. For example, if he sees a target at 1 o clock, he will decide within milliseconds and start talking for example "enemy fishbed at one oclock". At the time of him arriving at the "one oclock" in his sentence, the target might already be elsewhere. But it was there the moment he started talking that sentence.
In the Tomcat this can be much severe, as click tasks and other things can block him from starting to talk, after already deciding on the sentence.

We are of course planning to further improve this throughout the early access period to get rid of the issue entirely by splitting up sentences into the words and enabling him to dynamically choose some words, such as the exact target direction, at the moment this specific word will be spoken in the sentence.

That's good to know.

I downloaded a user file F-14 training sortie, mimicking Maverick/Goose first Topgun hop against Viper/Jester (complete with soundtrack!)

I enjoy flying it, but man I really struggle trying to spot the Desert camo A-4E above the NTTR, and I often wondered if I was that blind, or Jester was calling visual on something that happened seconds ago.

[=475FG= Dawger]

17 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

We are of course planning to further improve this throughout the early access period to get rid of the issue entirely by splitting up sentences into the words and enabling him to dynamically choose some words, such as the exact target direction, at the moment this specific word will be spoken in the sentence.

Change the word order. Don’t think in sentences. Stop trying to make Jester sound like a B movie character  

“Left, Seven, Fishbed”

Instead of “Uh, we got a Fishbed at our seven o clock”

Yes it sounds more modern but I guarantee the WSO would be providing a constant stream of Sevens until the pilot called Tally no matter if it is 1969 or 2019

Word order makes a world of difference  

Left gets the head moving in the right direction, Seven narrows it down and Fishbed gives the what, all in three words

Trivia Note: Jester has over 80 ways to say “Uh”

Holy pointless development, Batman. 

 

 

 

[Hammer1-1]

On 7/28/2024 at 6:26 AM, =475FG= Dawger said:

 

Jester isn’t a real person. He is a set of instructions meant to perform required tasks. 
 

 

 

greyw0lf would like to have words with you....

[Q3ark]

On 7/28/2024 at 12:26 PM, =475FG= Dawger said:

Jester isn’t a real person. He is a set of instructions meant to perform required tasks. 

The DCS F4 isn’t a real aircraft it’s a collection of pixels on your screen, you’re really just sat in your pants doing make believe flying on your PC and taking it incredibly seriously too. 

[XpRiV]

4 hours ago, Q3ark said:

"you’re really just sat in your pants"

You Guy's are wearing Pants!?!

null

[Omega417]

On 7/29/2024 at 10:10 AM, =475FG= Dawger said:

Left gets the head moving in the right direction, Seven narrows it down and Fishbed gives the what, all in three words

But then it will sound like Microsoft Sam all choppy and robotic. Very boring. I havent had too many complaints since the first week for J-man. I wouldn't mind it if he could target my -65s for me in future.

 

The differences in returns off Fighter sized targets, and Bomber sized targets made me realize I need to get a lot better about spatial awareness off BRA calls from AWACs, and stop looking up if he calls 35k and Im also at 35k.

[DD_Fenrir]

On 7/28/2024 at 12:26 PM, =475FG= Dawger said:

No need to apologize. While the Phantom is an exceptional module overall, HB seriously lost the plot when creating “Jester”.
 

Instead of focusing on creating a competent simulation of the second crewmember, they chose to focus on creating a personality with predictable results.

Of course, those who participated in the creation feel slighted when his obvious flaws are exposed. 
 

That doesn’t mean those flaws are not real and pressing and it is a bit ridiculous for Zabuzard to suggest disabling such an important feature because you don’t “like” it. 
 

Jester isn’t a real person. He is a set of instructions meant to perform required tasks. 
 

Ascribing human emotions to a player’s relationship to a bit of code is part of the problem. 
 

Either the code is fit to purpose or it isn’t and, quite clearly, Jester falls short when the purpose is “simulated competent WSO”.

 

Christ.

It's ironic, don't you think?

All these emotional over-exagerrated expressions, insults and superlatives to criticize Jester being too cartoonish, emotional or incompetant. 

Amazing how many of the rest of us get on with using him - quite succesfully by the way - whilst being cogent of his limitations. And I'm talking Jester 1.0; we're doing ok whilst not even benefitting from the improved coding of J2.0.

Of course it's SOOOO easy to program an AI that's integrated into a virtual avionic system and aircraft; surprised you haven't done it better yourself yet.

And to attempt make him a vaguely human character rather than a DCS equivalent of a talking teasmaid... simplicity itself. But of course, I'm sure you could do that on that on back of a knapkin in your lunchbreak...

Suggestion - take your own advice and dial back the emotion; try to show some respect to some of the hardest working devs in DCS and learn the difference between feedback and criticism.

Right now, you're being a douche.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2024 by DD_Fenrir

[Q3ark]

1 hour ago, DD_Fenrir said:

 

Amazing how many of the rest of us get on with using him - quite succesfully by the way - whilst being cogent of his limitations. And I'm talking Jester 1.0; we're doing ok whilst not even benefitting from the improved coding of J2.0.

I’ve had very few problems with jester. In fact I’m enjoying using him and find him very useful. Seeing so many people complain about him I genuinely thought I was missing or not understanding something fundamental. I wonder how many of the people complaining are simply expecting too much or blaming him (the AI) for their own faults or lack of ability? 

[=475FG= Dawger]

Seems I hit a tender spot. 

[Hikaruncat]

がんばれジェスター君　 (ΦωΦ)

[Iron Sights]

It’s hit and miss with Jester, but somehow it might be that way in real life. Can’t spot everything for you. While I do think he will be improved, it’s enough to work with. A second real crewman would be better, but that’s hard to get. I think we need to give it a bit more time. I would like to see more training missions and maybe something around how to on crew coordination may help as well. Keep up the good work guys, still the best plane out there!

[primus_TR]

He sure has some areas of improvement but overall Jester is fine in my opinion. 

[SgtPappy]

On 7/31/2024 at 9:21 PM, Iron Sights said:

It’s hit and miss with Jester, but somehow it might be that way in real life. Can’t spot everything for you. While I do think he will be improved, it’s enough to work with. A second real crewman would be better, but that’s hard to get. I think we need to give it a bit more time. I would like to see more training missions and maybe something around how to on crew coordination may help as well. Keep up the good work guys, still the best plane out there!

He's saved my butt 3 times in the last couple days. He's been calling one bandit followd by "and another at..." whatever position. I'm thankful for what he can do.

But I still have issues when locking things. By the time he locks the target, it's too late so I've been locking manually then turning him off for the time being.

He also seems to get the TD cursor stuck if he finds a bandit in boresight. The cursor remains where he last saw something then it never moves until you go out and then back into boresight.

Edited August 3, 2024 by SgtPappy

[Zabuzard]

He's saved my butt 3 times in the last couple days. He's been calling one bandit followd by "and another at..." whatever position. I'm thankful for what he can do.
But I still have issues when locking things. By the time he locks the target, it's too late so I've been locking manually then turning him off for the time being.
He also seems to get the TD cursor stuck if he finds a bandit in boresight. The cursor remains where he last saw something then it never moves until you go out and then back into boresight.

Are you talking about boresight locks or in normal scan? For latter, its almost instant after you command lock (provided he sees the return), you do not have to wait for him to finish his talking.

For boresight, he waits until the target is within the 5° cone, else the chances of a bad lock are far too high. This is a frequent mistake I see on human WSOs.

Not sure what you mean with the cursor being stuck. As soon as the target is within range, it should start moving on its own. No need to exit/reenter.

Otherwise, a working track would be very much appreciated :)