Mi-24 Ai Petrovich - partially damaged targets

[Robo76]

1. Ai Petrovitch ignores the partially damaged targets, but they are still firing. A damaged target does not appear in the target menu and therefore cannot be selected and destroyed. But a damaged target will destroy you.
(2). Ai also has poorly set priors - it can see and indentify trucks from a distance, and often doesn't register AAA Bofors that are nearby, even when AAA is firing at your Mi-24.
(3). The colored smoke that JTAC uses to mark the target is also ignored by Ai, who rather takes it as smoke to mask the target. Ai should be the first to find units that are marked with colored smoke, and instead it searches all other objects in view - trees, bushes, buildings, thus stalling as if there were no colored smoke on the map.

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[Raffi75]

I agree with points 1 and 2. I haven't checked point 3 recently, so I won't comment.

[zerO_crash]

The AI, just as the whole module, is still being worked on. It will take time to have all the novelties and mechanics implemented. That's the price of wanting to fly modules earlier.

 

I'm sure ED knows about those deficiencies, as they seem pretty basic.

[Robo76]

I'm of the opinion that ED could work on Ai in peace, and deploy it when it is functional and usable enough. In the meantime, the original working Petrovitch could have remained in service. ED always half-builds something and then runs away from it for 1-2 years and half-busts x other things. Buyer, you're out of luck, it's a preliminary approach and maybe someday we'll get it done, when that will be, no one knows. Over the years I see more multiplayer players quitting DCS than starting DCS. They'd rather go play something else that works and doesn't annoy them while playing.

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[Ramius007]

On 4/16/2025 at 10:07 PM, Robo76 said:

1. Ai Petrovitch ignores the partially damaged targets, but they are still firing. A damaged target does not appear in the target menu and therefore cannot be selected and destroyed. But a damaged target will destroy you.
(2). Ai also has poorly set priors - it can see and indentify trucks from a distance, and often doesn't register AAA Bofors that are nearby, even when AAA is firing at your Mi-24.
(3). The colored smoke that JTAC uses to mark the target is also ignored by Ai, who rather takes it as smoke to mask the target. Ai should be the first to find units that are marked with colored smoke, and instead it searches all other objects in view - trees, bushes, buildings, thus stalling as if there were no colored smoke on the map.

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1. Never happened to me, but damaged targets for me were always practically destroyed ones, like critically damaged tanks, that are going to explode, so mentioned behavior is DCS bug, rather than Hind bug

2. While Petro have God like vision in night, that is bugged and need A LOT of work from ED, when it comes to spotting targets during day, it's quite realistic, emplacments and infantry will be detected from smaller ranges than moving vehicles, and stationary vehicles will be detected from smaller range than moving ones (Well done ED!)

3. Entire smoke thing is pure DCSism IMO, smoke deployment ignores delivery methods, who is moking targets? what is used to smoke it, how can we find it? When you realize that smoke marking in DCS is as realistic as lebels and moving units position on map, you forget about another shortcut to make game easier (for no real reason)

Edited May 10 by Ramius007

[Robo76]

2 hours ago, Ramius007 said:

1. Never happened to me, but damaged targets for me were always practically destroyed ones, like critically damaged tanks, that are going to explode, so mentioned behavior is DCS bug, rather than Hind bug

2. While Petro have God like vision in night, that is bugged and need A LOT of work from ED, when it comes to spotting targets during day, it's quite realistic, emplacments and infantry will be detected from smaller ranges than moving vehicles, and stationary vehicles will be detected from smaller range than moving ones (Well done ED!)

3. Entire smoke thing is pure DCSism IMO, smoke deployment ignores delivery methods, who is moking targets? what is used to smoke it, how can we find it? When you realize that smoke marking in DCS is as realistic as lebels and moving units position on map, you forget about another shortcut to make game easier (for no real reason)

In some multiplayer missions it is necessary to destroy ground units in order to capture a base. Which you can't do well enough if Ai refuses to target a damaged Abrams, which has a bit of life in red but still fires a 0.5 machine gun at you. You can try to destroy him manually with the cannon, but he'll probably destroy you first. I've had this happen 3 times recently with Abrams, once with a Gepard. And yes, units with life in red shouldn't shoot anymore, but they usually do, which is also DCS's fault.

When Ai sees logistics trucks from 10km and a Gepard standing next to them from 5km, it's not even remotely realistic. Ai will absolutely unerringly primarily list targets that can't hurt you and only then track down the dangerous ones standing nearby. And it doesn't matter that those targets are already shooting at you, Ai pretends not to see them and keeps long-as-searching for them. That has absolutely nothing to do with the realism of the search!

As for the Ai night vision, I take it that the Mi-24 has an optical sighting scope and an operator with the night vision on would hopefully be able to see as well, though probably not as well as he does now. The Ka-50 transmits the image to the Shkval screen via cables, so the pilot's night vision won't help there. Plus, even the hardcore multiplayer servers don't play at night because no Russian machine in DCS has night vision or TGP, and most people on the red team can disconnect if they don't have a JF-17 or AJS-37.

When a target is marked by smoke, Ai should first look to see what unit is at that smoke, register it, and then look for the others. Now it's just the opposite, like JTAC can't see the smoke. Ideally, he should also be able to scan the area for a particular color of smoke if there are multiple units in the target area. I think the smoke is used to make it easier to find the target. The Air Force has used target designation by colored smoke or flare since it's inception, it's not a DCS "cheat" contraption.

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Edited May 10 by Robo76

[Dragon1-1]

4 hours ago, Ramius007 said:

2. While Petro have God like vision in night, that is bugged and need A LOT of work from ED, when it comes to spotting targets during day, it's quite realistic, emplacments and infantry will be detected from smaller ranges than moving vehicles, and stationary vehicles will be detected from smaller range than moving ones (Well done ED!)

That's nice and all, except when said emplacement or infantry position has a great big string of tracers coming out of it towards your helo. Weapon fire should immediately reveal a unity.

[Robo76]

with the Ai Petrovitch, I am convinced that whoever programmed it did not test it in combat with multiple combat and non-combat units at the same time

 

[Ramius007]

Hind is a great module, but both Petro and damage model (too tanky) need work

[Ornithopter]

In addition to how Petrovich already works, why not allow a mode in which the pilot dictate the priorities with direct commands, such as "Attack AAA", or "Attack Armor", etc (similar to how we command AI wingmen) and then Petro will automatically select a "default" target based on that.  That way you don't have to be scrolling down the list of targets to find the most threatening target while it is already chewing you up with incoming fire.  Wouldn't that be what the Copilot/Gunner would be doing in real life?