Is AI cheating, or am I just bad at dogfighting? (Or both)

[Hiob]

This is not a 100% serious question (hence placed in chit-chat, so don't grill me, ok!).

I know that the AI is "cheating" in regards to 20/20 eyesight, energy conservation etc....

I think the question is - how bad is it. And which Aircraft are the worst offenders?

Is there a way to remedy the issue somewhat?

 

Reason for asking, I'm lately trying to learn dogfighting in the Phantom with somewhat appropriate opponents. Mainly MiG-19 and MiG-21. The former is somewhat manageable, unless I make a really big mistake. The latter is either an endless draw (until I run out of gas or slam into the ground out of frustration), or, if I make the slightest mistake, it'll kick my ass reliable.

So, I'm definitely not the most competent dogfighter. And I seem to remember that the MiG-21 is one of the biggest offenders in regards to AI super powers. But still, is there a winning strategy? If not, what would be reasonable AI-opponents to train with?

 

Your thoughts? 

[Scotch75]

I have often wondered why the FM of the full fidelity modules can't be used by the AI modules. At least the aircraft would perform as they should, but you would still not have the human factors component. Something would be better than the current UFO behaviour, though.

Cheers!


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk

[Hiob]

1 minute ago, Scotch75 said:

I have often wondered why the FM of the full fidelity modules can't be used by the AI modules. At least the aircraft would perform as they should, but you would still not have the human factors component. Something would be better than the current UFO behaviour, though.

Cheers!


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk
 

I guess it's a matter of performance. Doing all the necessary calculations for FF fligh model on a bunch of AI-Aircraft would probably melt your CPU.

Nevertheless, my question is less about complaining about it and more about how to deal with it / make the best out of it........

Or to get an idea, if there are better or worse specimen.....

[Scotch75]

I guess it's a matter of performance. Doing all the necessary calculations for FF fligh model on a bunch of AI-Aircraft would probably melt your CPU.
Nevertheless, my question is less about complaining about it and more about how to deal with it / make the best out of it........
Or to get an idea, if there are better or worse specimen.....

Yea, I agree. Maybe the AI can draw from a respective FM repository when they are within X nm of the client, rather than each of them having the FM individually all of the time.

Cheers!


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk

[BIGNEWY]

Make sure you have the AI skill level set appropriately, start with lower skill levels and work up to the ACE level, you should notice a difference in the challenge. 

 

[Hiob]

9 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Make sure you have the AI skill level set appropriately, start with lower skill levels and work up to the ACE level, you should notice a difference in the challenge. 

 

Yes, there is definitely a gradient noticable. And dumbing down the AI skill level does help. However, from my observation there is a pretty sharp jump from "I drive it into the ground without even being pushed that hard" to "I can regain my energy instantly after pulling lead".....  
The AI doesn't even have to be Ace (in the MiG-21) to defeat me..... 

Also there is a little voice in me that can't count defeating a "Rookie" AI as win. 

But I guess, adjusting the skill level relative to the kind of aircraft I'm fighting would be suitable way to cope with the current limitations. (And of course fighting human players is much more fun - if you can find equally skilled/unskilled ones)

[BIGNEWY]

We are still waiting for the GFM for AI, its taking time unfortunately. Hopefully when it arrives we will see improvements. 

thanks 

[Hiob]

Looking 

14 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

We are still waiting for the GFM for AI, its taking time unfortunately. Hopefully when it arrives we will see improvements. 

thanks 

Looking forward to it!

As mentioned though, this thread is not about criticising the current state, but more about how to make the best of it. 
Being more flexible with AI-Skill levels is certainly a good start. (thinking about it, maybe I should try to use the random option, which I never did so far. Maybe that'll make AI-fights more varied )

But I am also interested in experience reports on which aircraft are less "offensive" than others and maybe strategies to exploit AI-specific weaknesses.

If that makes sense.... 

Edited Thursday at 11:39 AM by Hiob

[BIGNEWY]

I suck at dogfighting so don't worry to much, i'm only happy ground pounding  

[Katmandu]

2 hours ago, Hiob said:

I know that the AI is "cheating" ...And which Aircraft are the worst offenders?

MiG-15 and MiG-21 AI have much better climb rate at high AoA. Feel free to test them (and other AI) yourself, see these threads for an easy test that you could conduct yourself and also for some ways to mod the AI FM for closer match to human controlled planes. I'd be curious myself on what you find, I've only dug into the MiG-15 AI that does outlcimb human controlled MiG-15 in the controlled test below.

 

 

[Hiob]

20 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

I suck at dogfighting so don't worry to much, i'm only happy ground pounding  

You're certainly not alone with that. Ground pounding is a satisfying and sufficiant challlenging gameplay. (And evading EAD is certainly thrilling), and we do that most if the time as well.
However, every now and then I like the quick and dirty thrill of dogfighting. 

When I heard "Dangerzone", I need to channel my inner Maverick..... 

 

[Katmandu]

I am not even sure GFM is needed to address these issues. If ED QA testers try the simple climb and turn tests above, current SFM tables can be easily changed to address the major differences between human and AI flight envelopes. SFM tables control things like power and roll rate for different speeds.

At the moment SFM table seem to have been generated from real data (which is great!), but are left at that. I am proposing to add a second stage, where SFMs are compared to human controlled PFMs (in controlled setting) for ADDITIONAL tuning.

[Hiob]

I wonder if adding weight would help to tame the MiG-21 a bit.....

[Katmandu]

20 minutes ago, Hiob said:

I wonder if adding weight would help to tame the MiG-21 a bit.....

Experiment and post your result here  You can get MiG-21 on 2 week trial if you don't have it already, and then just run the climb test, tweak the SFM, run it again etc. Just make sure to put it into 2nd stage afterburner when testing - if you're not familiar with the 21.

Edited Thursday at 12:56 PM by Katmandu

[BIGNEWY]

MiG-21 AI FM has been reported for a while now. 

I don't see current AI being tweaked, we are already working on GFM, and teams are very busy. 

[Hiob]

Yeah, doesn't make much sense to waste capacity on something that is going to be replaced anyway!

6 minutes ago, Katmandu said:

Experiment and post your result here  You can get MiG-21 on 2 week trial if you don't have it already, and then just run the climb test, tweak the SFM, run it again etc. Just make sure to put it into 2nd stage afterburner when testing - if you're not familiar with the 21.

Actually, I wasn't aiming to do extensive research on the matter. It isn't THAT important to me, and proving something to ED seems a waste of time also as they seem aware of the issue.
I was more interested in casual ideas and reports how to do it best in the current envirionment. Or which AI-Aircraft to choose for a good experience.
Maybe a "hyper-realisticly" simulated module like the Phantom is just a really bad pairing with a MiG-21, even if it was period appropriate. 

Nevertheless, experimenting with some weights and climb performance may be worthwhile.

[Katmandu]

1 minute ago, Hiob said:

proving something to ED seems a waste of time also as they seem aware of the issue.

Yeah, the aim is to convince ED -yes, but also to change stuff ourselves. ED have been working on GFM for many years, and who knows how many more years it will take. MiG-15 is over 10 years old, and its AI SFM still has all these issues. Same with MiG-21. So my point is not to wait for ED, but to take this into our own hands.

The easiest way out is just to set the AI to easy. But if you want a better simulation of Phantom vs MiG-21 duel, then editing the lua table is your best bet. And, once done, the fun may last a good while -see the above

[Hiob]

5 minutes ago, Katmandu said:

Yeah, the aim is to convince ED -yes, but also to change stuff ourselves. ED have been working on GFM for many years, and who knows how many more years it will take. MiG-15 is over 10 years old, and its AI SFM still has all these issues. Same with MiG-21. So my point is not to wait for ED, but to take this into our own hands.

The easiest way out is just to set the AI to easy. But if you want a better simulation of Phantom vs MiG-21 duel, then editing the lua table is your best bet. And, once done, the fun may last a good while -see the above

I appreciate the suggestions and heads-up. Honestly I wasn't aware, that we can modify the FM on our own.
I'm not sure I have the time and motivation to go down that particular rabbithole, but I will certainly look into what is available on the matter!

TY!

@Katmandu are there ready .luas to modifiy AI-FM for single player. (I haven't looked into the linked threads yet. Need to do that when I'm home)

I assume if that is possible, somebody already did it, no?

[Katmandu]

5 minutes ago, Hiob said:

are there ready .luas to modifiy AI-FM for single player. (I haven't looked into the linked threads yet. Need to do that when I'm home)

I assume if that is possible, somebody already did it, no?

Yes, the luas are open to us and directly control single player AI FMs! I've modified the MiG-15 AI SFM recently, same method of testing and tuning may be applied to other aircraft (see this post, use google translate): 

 

[SharpeXB]

It won’t prevent the AI from “cheating” but this is a great series

 

[Aquorys]

7 hours ago, Hiob said:

Your thoughts? 

Never flown the F-4, I can normally take out any AI aircraft with the F-16, some are easier, some are harder. AI works best on the Veteran level, I have seen Ace AI fly maneuvers that do not make any sense, and correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know, Ace AI has full knowledge of the player's aircraft and weapons' state, so yes, it is "cheating".

Apart from that, I am quite sure that the AI MiG-15 is overperforming significantly, the MiG-21 might in a clean configuration.

The way my dogfight test scenario is set up, I have the player and opponent configured with 80% fuel, opponent with 2 short range missiles (e.g., R-60/R-73, AIM-9M/X, Python, ...), player aircraft with 2 AIM-9X and 4 AMRAAMs.

Non-cheating rather difficult opponents in my opinion are the F-18, JF-17, MiG-29 in a light configuration, and Mirage 2000-5.

 

[Katmandu]

14 minutes ago, Aquorys said:

Never flown the F-4, I can normally take out any AI aircraft with the F-16,

I can take out any AI aircraft in any Gen4 jet (guns only), most of the time it is trivially easy. Switch away from 4th generation fighters to earlier jets and the task becomes much harder in some cases. Like try fighting contemporary adversaries of F-86, Mig-21, F-4 etc in matching period aircraft.

But the point is not the difficulty, it's the unrealistic flight performance of early jets vs each other (not vs Gen4 fighters)

Edited Thursday at 05:09 PM by Katmandu

[Hiob]

Yeah, I’m less interested in plinking AI opponents in the Viper (even though that its own merits).

For this discussion I was indeed aiming more for “old fashioned” early fox-2/gun brawls. And I think the limited realism of the AI performance is more obvious in the likes of the Phantom and its contemporaries.

Also, in those Iron Jets, you fight your own aircraft as much as the enemy. Slow throttle reaction, Compressor stalls, etc……

It’s a different kind of gameplay (well it feels different to me). Though I like dogfights in the Viper just as much.

[Katmandu]

2 hours ago, Hiob said:

And I think the limited realism of the AI performance is more obvious in the likes of the Phantom and its contemporaries.

Yup. Just to make it more concrete, here is a video from my AI Mig-15 thread above. In this controlled test, my Mig-15 has the same amount of fuel and the same speed. But i just cannot keep up with AI's climb.

Luckily, AI FM lua files are open for editing and even a simple nerf to the power-speed table is enough to make AI's climb more like the player's PFMed plane. Better and more in-depth edits of AI's SFM are also open to possibilities.

Edited Thursday at 09:12 PM by Katmandu

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

The one thing that makes the most difference, in my experience, is having sufficient either horizontal or vertical (but preferably both) separation at the merge. The problem is that the AI is very capable at denying you any separation by constantly turning into you - if you let it, the AI will merge so close to your canopy that you can count the number of hairs of their moustache