Crazy A.I

[bumfire]

Ok, we have all seen threads about how bad the A.I wingman is, I thought I would add mine.

 

Last night I went on a pretty decent sized flight and had a few different target areas all with the correct parameters setup.

 

Anyway, me and my, I hesitate to call him my wingman but thats his official designation so thats the name that he will be called for the sake maturity on the forums, normally I call him other things, but only when I am shouting at him :)

 

We get to the target area, we pause and slide into a hover and then I start handing off datalink targets to him.

 

Their was 3 T55s, 1 bmp2, 1 igla manpad 1 igla comm dude and 1 decrepit truck, its the gaz66 if I recall ? anyway I gave the WM the sam dudes as datalink targets. I handed them off to him, it went perfect as all the lights went out, and before I sent it to him, both his icon and the target icon were flashing on the abris screen. So I then ask him to engage datalink target and then select Target, now he was setup to attack the sam manpad which was marked as a sam icon on the abris, maybe it should of be "other" but I marked the sam dude with a sam icon, the WM received my orders to attack him and just him yet he shoots a T55 instead ?

 

I cleared the datalink of all targets and then I killed the air threat myself so that I could play about with the wingman instead of him getting shot down.

 

I then made new targets, I select Vehicle and lased a T55 and I hand it off to my WM and he gets it no problem and then I ask him to attack, he says yes sir and then he goes off to attack, yet he attacks the Gaz66.

 

And this went on til none of the above targets were left, he went after them and killed them, but they were not the assigned datalink targets that he was ordered to attack.

 

So how come he does that ? I mean he received the DL targets ok, he gets my order to attack that specific target ok, he confirms, yet he goes and kills something else entirely, I do not understand, I dont fly online much now because normally the pub servers are full of idiots, thus flying with a wingman is the only way I get of flying within a team but its pointless having a wingman in the missions when he just wont follow orders.

 

I know ED have made a magic sim here, but the wingman A.I does need to be reigned in and tightened up a touch because atm he just doesnt follow orders correctly all the time.

[Acedy]

I guess the reason why he didn't attack the MANPADs is because AI aircraft can detect infantry only when they start firing.

[L4key]

Ahhh! I wondered why my wingie would never attack a manpad I had lased! I thought he was just being a pussy. (Well, more than I was being a wimp by asking him to do it - stripes and all that!) :thumbup:

[bumfire]

I guess the reason why he didn't attack the MANPADs is because AI aircraft can detect infantry only when they start firing.

 

Ok, that explains the manpads, and I did wonder if me having them set as a SAM target in the datalink instead of OTHER would have any effect, but now it seems that it wouldnt of mattered, as they need to fire before the wingaman will shoot at them.

 

But, what about the other VEHICLE targets that he got wrong ? I tasked him to go after a T55, he accepts and then attacks a Gaz66, I then task him to go attack the other T55, he accepts again and then attacks the single bmp2.

 

Not once did he attack the target that he should of targetted :(

 

This is the steps I took.

 

First I locked the T55, I got range info and everything, I then selected 2 on the datalink panel and then I selected the VEHICLE button and then I pushed send/memory.

 

All lights then went out, which means that the datalink process worked, before I pushed send, both my wingman and the T55 target were flashing on the abris, so it was a good send.

 

I then asked the wingman to engage/datalink target/target

 

which was the T55, he agreed but never took out the T55s, he took out everything but them.

 

I tried selecting Target type aswell, but it still had no bearing on what the Wingman would attack :(

[BlackFallout]

I have had this happen also, One time he just flew right into range of a manpad that I was lasing...:(

 

Poor guy never knew what hit him.:cry:

 

Also the other day the stupid expletive ran right into me and took off my rotors....:doh:

[slug88]

Ok, that explains the manpads, and I did wonder if me having them set as a SAM target in the datalink instead of OTHER would have any effect, but now it seems that it wouldnt of mattered, as they need to fire before the wingaman will shoot at them.

 

But, what about the other VEHICLE targets that he got wrong ? I tasked him to go after a T55, he accepts and then attacks a Gaz66, I then task him to go attack the other T55, he accepts again and then attacks the single bmp2.

 

Not once did he attack the target that he should of targetted :(

 

This is the steps I took.

 

First I locked the T55, I got range info and everything, I then selected 2 on the datalink panel and then I selected the VEHICLE button and then I pushed send/memory.

 

All lights then went out, which means that the datalink process worked, before I pushed send, both my wingman and the T55 target were flashing on the abris, so it was a good send.

 

I then asked the wingman to engage/datalink target/target

 

which was the T55, he agreed but never took out the T55s, he took out everything but them.

 

I tried selecting Target type aswell, but it still had no bearing on what the Wingman would attack :(

 

When you send a DL coordinate with an associated target type, all it does is tell the wingman to look for that type of target at or near the coordinate. The wingman has no idea that you were locked on to a T-55 when you transmitted. So when you locked the T-55 and sent those coordinates with a vehicle tag, it tells the wingy to engage any vehicles that he finds in that area. A T-55, in this case, isn't considered a vehicle, it's considered armor. If you want him to attack the T-55, use the armor tag. It works.

[slug88]

I know ED have made a magic sim here, but the wingman A.I does need to be reigned in and tightened up a touch because atm he just doesnt follow orders correctly all the time.

 

I know I said in an earlier thread that I'd post a track of how I control my wingmen, and I have not yet done so. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have some time to dive back into the sim and do this. But, in my experience, the wingman AI works quite well. I get through the majority of single player missions by letting my wingmen engage all the ground targets; I have them recon for enemy air defense, and then I send one or two to destroy the AD while the rest concentrate on the mission objectives. Most of the time I just hang back and play air guard, saving my Vikhr's for enemy helicopters. Occasionally I'll engage an enemy air defense unit that my wingmen missed. Most missions, my AI wingmen have 10-15 vehicle kills each, while I often land with less than 5, and I very rarely lose any members of my flight. This is in the Georgian Oil War campaign.

[bumfire]

When you send a DL coordinate with an associated target type, all it does is tell the wingman to look for that type of target at or near the coordinate. The wingman has no idea that you were locked on to a T-55 when you transmitted. So when you locked the T-55 and sent those coordinates with a vehicle tag, it tells the wingy to engage any vehicles that he finds in that area. A T-55, in this case, isn't considered a vehicle, it's considered armor. If you want him to attack the T-55, use the armor tag. It works.

 

 

If thats the case and I have to select armour, then what is the reason for engage/datalinked target/ target - targets/target type or target types ? because Armour isnt in any of the data link radio commands.

 

If I have to select armour, then it makes the "datalink target" radio message null invoid, because I am assuming this, but when I add a target to the abris map via the datalink, it must know my co-ordinates and also the coordinates of the laser target, when I send those to my wingman, it should then tell him precisely where that target is and either tell him its a vehicle or a sam/aaa or other, now as I said before I am assuming this.

 

So if I am correct in my assumptions, then why do I have to tell him its armour instead of asking him to go after the specified data link target, afterall, the way I am doing it is the way it says to in the manual and it wasnt like the targets were next to each other, their was about 1k distance between them.

 

If I send him a target to go after, then he has the co-ordinates to kill that target unless it moves, but these targets were all stationary, well thats the way I see it anyway.

 

Basically, if I send a target to my wingman and then ask him via the datalink commands to attack it, which is the correct procedure, then he should of attacked that target, but he didnt, not in that mission.

 

Dont get me wrong, the wingman does do it and does follow orders, but just in this particular flight he didnt.

 

I will put it down to a corrupt flight, but I will remake the mission from the ground up and try again with the same parameters and see if he targets them without turning a good 60 degrees to fire at another target thats atleast 1km away.

 

EDIT:

 

Now I come to think of it, when I selected Target type in the datalink commands, wasnt their supposed to be a list of target types that would popup for me to select ? I seem to recall that from before the patch ??? if thats the case, then I dont have it now, when selecting target type/types the radio message screen then dissappears.

 

Can some one tell me if when selecting the datalink radio messages, if they select TARGET TYPE or TARGET TYPES, is their a another menu that popups with the different types of targets ?

 

if their is, that would maybe explain why he wasnt attacking the proper targets ?

 

If its missing from my game then it means I will have to do a reinstall :( not looking forward to that.

Edited September 3, 2009 by bumfire

[slug88]

Dont get me wrong, the wingman does do it and does follow orders, but just in this particular flight he didnt.

 

Then, either there is a rare bug with wingmen that came up this one time, or the fault was yours. It's very easy to make a mistake with datalink transmission. Perhaps you transmitted to the wrong wingman, perhaps you didn't lase before transmission. It's even possible that your laser was damaged and got the range wrong, which would send the wrong coordinate to the wingman.

 

In my experience, every single time that a wingman has done something that I didn't want, it was due to my own error. The datalink system is very nuanced, and one has to be very familiar with all of its idiosyncrasies to operate it well.

[slug88]

EDIT:

 

Now I come to think of it, when I selected Target type in the datalink commands, wasnt their supposed to be a list of target types that would popup for me to select ? I seem to recall that from before the patch ??? if thats the case, then I dont have it now, when selecting target type/types the radio message screen then dissappears.

 

Can some one tell me if when selecting the datalink radio messages, if they select TARGET TYPE or TARGET TYPES, is their a another menu that popups with the different types of targets ?

 

if their is, that would maybe explain why he wasnt attacking the proper targets ?

 

If its missing from my game then it means I will have to do a reinstall :( not looking forward to that.

 

There was never a submenu that allowed you to select a target type over the radio. That's not what that command means.

 

When you transmit a datalink target, you transmit a location, as well as a tag (armor, air defense, vehicle, ingress point). So say you make an ARMOR point, and transmit it to a wingman. You can then tell the wingman to attack TARGET, and he will engage everything at that point, prioritizing higher threats. Or, you can tell him to attack TARGET TYPE, and he will only attack enemies at that location that correspond to your tag (in this example, he will only attack the armor at that point).

 

Also, there is a very large difference between telling him to attack TARGET/TARGET TYPE, and ordering him to attack TARGETS/TARGETS BY TYPE. A TARGET order means he will engage enemies very near to the datalink point only. A TARGETS order means he will engage enemies within a few kilometers of that point.

 

So, say you want Wing 1 to clear a valley of enemy air defenses, while Wing 2 concentrates on armor at a bridge crossing. You create an datalink point with the air defense tag at the center of the valley, transmit it to Wing 1, and tell him to ENGAGE TARGETS BY TYPE. He will then fly around and clear the valley of air defenses. In the meantime, create a datalink point with the armor tag at the bridge, and tell Wing 2 to ENGAGE TARGET BY TYPE. He will then engage the armor that is in the vicinity of the bridge, ignoring other enemies in the area.

[bumfire]

Cool, thanks for explaining it to me slug ;)

 

I shall go and try that same mission again and see if he does the same thing with this new info I have from yourself.

 

Maybe it was my mistake, maybe it wasnt, it was nearly 48 hours ago and I cant quite recall, all I can remember is having the target locked up us a DL target on my helo, then sent to my wingman but he never attacked the correct one, but that could be because I was expecting the wingman to attack that SPECIFIC target, but with what you are saying, that isnt what he is supposed to do anyway with regards to the radio commands.

 

So I shall go test and see what comes of it and report back, hopefully all goes well.

 

Cheers slug ;)

[slug88]

Good luck, and if things don't go as planned once again, save the track and post it here, I would love to analyze it :D

[bumfire]

if it doesnt goto plan then i will know something is up, but I am writing down all of what you said in your last post about what the datalink commands actually make the wingman do, so once i write them down I can then check them ingame to see if they are doing what they are sposed to do correctly.

 

If they dont, then I will comeback and tell you what went wrong and post the mission also for you to try, if it all goes the way it should, then you will get hugs and kisses instead, well, you will get the hugs part ;)