How to get an AI SEAD Flight to Act Realistically & Attack SAMs without Acting Like Headless Chickens?

[CommandT]

Hi folks, could someone recommend, what is the best way to get an AI SEAD flight to just do their mission without acting dumb? 

I have a number of AI F-4E SEAD flights, armed with Shrikes and EW pods, set to perform SEAD with waypoints set directly or in the vicinity of a number of SA-3 and SA-6 SAM sites but most of the time they end up flying erratically, often making figure 8s over the top of the SAM sites they are supposed to attack. Once in a blue moon one of the F-4’s will get a Shrike shot off but most of the time it’s just like watching a bunch of headless chickens running around. I’ve tried different things like cancelling the SEAD task and setting “attack group” or “search then destroy in zone” but those yield no better results. 

 

Any advice appreciated! 

Thanks!! 

[ruxtmp]

AI is generally pretty poor at acting realistically. Search then destroy in zone I think only works if the AI pilot can visually see the target in daylight. Instead of Attack Group use Attack Unit and pick the specific radar or SAM to shoot at that generally works about 50% of the time versus 0-10% of the time.

[CommandT]

23 hours ago, ruxtmp said:

AI is generally pretty poor at acting realistically. Search then destroy in zone I think only works if the AI pilot can visually see the target in daylight. Instead of Attack Group use Attack Unit and pick the specific radar or SAM to shoot at that generally works about 50% of the time versus 0-10% of the time.

Thanks, I'll do a bit of experimenting with that. 

[Exorcet]

On 5/16/2025 at 6:54 PM, CommandT said:

I’ve tried different things like cancelling the SEAD task and setting “attack group” or “search then destroy in zone” but those yield no better results.

Always delete the default task for any kind of complexity. For SEAD I'd use Search Then Engage in Zone and couple it with an orbit so the AI flies over the area instead of just moving on if they don't see anything. As stated above the "Search" tasks require the AI to find a target. This depends on their sensors, the enemy, and the size of the zone to search.

You also want to make sure that the AI has jettison weapons disabled and has the reaction to threat set to Evade Fire. This means that they will only react to being fired on and won't drop weapons (including ARM) when fired on.

Jettison and Evade Fire are option that can be set at the takeoff/starting waypoint. Search then Engage should be set as en enroute task somewhere near the target and Orbit should be set as a task under Search Then Engage so that the search takes priority over the orbit.

[CommandT]

On 5/18/2025 at 12:20 AM, Exorcet said:

Always delete the default task for any kind of complexity. For SEAD I'd use Search Then Engage in Zone and couple it with an orbit so the AI flies over the area instead of just moving on if they don't see anything. As stated above the "Search" tasks require the AI to find a target. This depends on their sensors, the enemy, and the size of the zone to search.

You also want to make sure that the AI has jettison weapons disabled and has the reaction to threat set to Evade Fire. This means that they will only react to being fired on and won't drop weapons (including ARM) when fired on.

Jettison and Evade Fire are option that can be set at the takeoff/starting waypoint. Search then Engage should be set as en enroute task somewhere near the target and Orbit should be set as a task under Search Then Engage so that the search takes priority over the orbit.

Understood, thank you for the tips!

[NeedzWD40]

AI SEAD tasking can also be weird if they're not getting any active radars when they expect them to. They won't shoot weapons like Shrike or HARM unless they have the narrow parameters they expect (ie being tracked by the radar) when ready to go. To get around this, I like to equip them with a non-ARM type weapon like Maverick, which they'll use regardless of SAM emissions.