Significant AI problems in 1.0.0.8 ME: Artillery and a/c RTB

[Bahger]

Artillery:

 

i. LOS: It appears to need LOS to the target or it won't engage. This is obviously inappropriate. Is anyone aware of a spotter unit that is supposed to be deployed tio overcome an apparent requirement for LOS between artillery batteries and their targets?

 

ii. Uncommanded targeting AI: I have often used artillery in missions. Before the recent update, I have always been able to get it to target any area of the map regardless of the deployment of opposing forces within its range. In my current .miz, I set the arty to target a town but the presence of opposing tanks between the arty units and the briefed target causes to arty to target those units, every time, ignoring the correctly set player-inputed "Fire at Point" targeting instructions via the WP/Advanced targeting options.

 

These are both distressing developments as they obviously go against the inherent purpose of artillery as an asset in the ME and seem to preclude its use, at least by me.

 

Uncommanded RTB:

 

In the same .miz I have two AI SEAD flights tasked with acquiring specific SAM units, killing them and then returning to altitude to orbit over the battlefield, spotting and/or prosecuting other SAM targets as part of their pre-set SEAD instructions. In each case, the flights behave in the following anomalous ways:

 

i. They RTB after the initial attack run and before orbiting. They retain their drop-tanks so I cannot imagine they are out of fuel.

 

ii. They fly very low after the initial attack run, in full a/b (they are Tornadoes) which obviously does consume fuel. They never attempt to regain their briefed altitude.

 

I am becoming a little weary of the ME and the sim's AI eccentricities. If I cannot overcome these issues in my currrent .miz, I might stop making missions as it's time consuming enough without the "issues". I am happy to accept responsibility for user/ME input error (perhaps expecting the Tornadoes to regain Angels 30 is ambitious but they do have two big engines...) but I am confident you'll find all the reported glitches present and correct.

 

If anyone wants to look at the attached .miz and comment I'd be grateful.

Battle of Khashuri Pass 10_SP Test.miz

[Druid_]

Only took a very quick look at your mission but quite possibly this is the problem.

 

I see you have 1. SEAD -a -x but disabled

a. Either delete this option completely or see further

 

At WP 3 you have orbit but its set to RACE-TRACK which means they will orbit from WP3 to WP4. WP4 is the landing WP over the airfield. Either put another WP in between WP3 & 4 with the length of your RACE-TRACK or change it to CIRCLE at WP3.

 

Also at WP3 you have a SEAD task. You could could just place a start condition on the original SEAD -a -x using flag 1. Delete the other SEAD task.

 

If one of the Tornadoes expends it armament (all ALARMS) then both aircraft will RTB. IF its a fuel problems (burners in will certainly do that) then place a tanker somewhere down there. They should go to it automatically without any coding from you.

 

By the way the orbit speed is groundspeed, so 270 kts at 20,000 ft is about 170 kts indicated, bit slow for a laden Tornado, make it 340 kts.

 

EDIT: The above stands but after a closer look (run through at 14x speed) the main problem is that the Tornadoes can only use the ALARM on the radar, you have flag 1 set on the launcher unit as well. The other unit is the launcher which they engage with guns (and not very well unfortunately) all the time they are doing gun runs in burner. They eventually drop their tanks & RTB as out of fuel. You only need to set the flag based on the radar unit, the launcher is useless without the radar. By the way once they are inbound to target the AI takes over & they fly whatever speed they want, they were def supersonic after the IP with burners in. Maybe have them take-off with 20% (or less, play with it) fuel and have a tanker at 20,000ft on the same route to fill em to full before they reach the IP (realistic too).

 

EDIT: The arty worked fine for me. They took a while before they started firing (8 mins+ I think) but they did fire on the targets on the hill.

 

I was in a bit of a rush so I will take a closer look in a few days as AFK til then.

D_

 

p.s. don't give up just yet, but I agree it can be pretty frustrating at times. Its taken me over 6 weeks to put a miz together & I'm still at it, I think its the learning experience as much as the end result that keeps me going sometimes.

Edited June 4, 2011 by Druid_

[Bahger]

Druid, I appreciate your response, as always.

 

Re. Arty:

 

That's the point, I don't want them to attack the tanks on the hill. I want them to shell the town. Indirect fire should be commanded, and not a function of finding the nearest target in range/LOS, right?

 

Re Tornadoes:

 

I will implement the changes you suggest, thank you, but the big caveat is this: If I rely on the initial SEAD tasking, the Tornadoes will not threat-prioritise. They will go after the SA-9s on the map instead of targeting the much more mission-critical SA-11s. That is why I had to use a Waypoint/Advanced targeting command to force them to go for the SA-11s first. I then want them to loiter, picking off the remaining SEAD targets. Your suggestions may well implement this...

[WildFire]

I dont know if this is correct, but heres what I would try for the SEAD flight-

 

Set your first target waypoint near the SA-11. Make sure your SEAD flight has no SEAD task in the advanced box. have them perform enroute task, or perform task and attack the specific radar. Create a SEAD task in the advanced waypoint tasks with a start condition of "is user" and put 1.

 

Create a trigger that when tageted radar unit is dead, flag 1 "on". The unit dies, flag 1 switches, DEAD aircraft flip on SEAD mode. Theres other ways including setting priorities on the waypoint actions, I believe its in the GUI manual. Good luck.

 

Edit* begins in GUI pg. 91.

 

Edit** if you want multiple units dead then just put those in the trigger to flip flag 1.

Edited June 4, 2011 by WildFire

[Druid_]

Yep, ok get rid of the first SEAD -a -x and on the second one have it start on condition of flag 1. OR have it start after reaching orbit waypoint, up to you. Beware though, he will not go to orbit if there is other SEAD targets out there.

 

ARTY. I see, I increased your radius on the target & it had no effect. Looks like they nerfed Arty I'm afraid, post it up as a bug as they are definately NOT doing what you are asking them to do in this mission. I even added a few more arty units to check and they all did the same thing. This is going to mean an ammendment to my latest miz too. Arrrggghhh.

 

Possible solution, place a bunch of units in town and set them as invincible, maybe that will get them to start firing at town instead?

[Bahger]

Thanks again, guys.

 

So I kept the original SEAD order but set it to activate only after the SA-11s are destroyed. The Tornadoes do this affectively, going for the radar only (Druid, where did you see that I had targeted the launchers? I did this once but am sure I corrected it before posting the file here). I then eliminated the SEAD En Route command. I gave the SEAD flight an extra WP for the racetrack orbit. Now the Tornadoes still burn like crazy, do not appear to orbit and RTB long before it seems to me they should. I don't think they are going after the AAA or SA-9s although I've seen them do it before and would love to figure out how to replicate. I'm going to add a tanker and then re-post the .miz.

[WildFire]

Well maybe a few reasons why they might not continue on SEAD, if they run out of ammo, or if they run out of gas and RTB, or depending on the priorities of the advanced waypoint menu. I think if orbit is first they will not leave it to do SEAD, or the other way around, I forget. The priorities are important when it comes to orbiting orders. I still have to check and see if aircraft are holding their prescribed speed in orbit.

[Bahger]

The problem here, Wildfire -- and thanks for your interest and helpful suggestions, BTW -- is that if you use the initial SEAD command (triggered in this case to fire only when the SA-11s are down), you cannot move it down the list of priorities. I may have to revert to an en route SEAD command, but that didn't work last time. Sigh.

 

I'm not sure how to make the tanker work but I put it in the amended .miz, supplied here. With all arty and associated functionality removed.

 

Sigh.

Battle of Khashuri Pass 11_SP Test.miz

[WildFire]

Ok I just did some testing on this. First the initial SEAD command is useless, far as I know. I created a waypoint near SAM1, had tornado engage it, have a trigger that sees SAM1 dead and flips flag 1. Ok. This is where it gets tricky...

 

I set waypoint 2 to be further than when SAM1 gets killed, in case SAM1 isnt a direct hit, it needs time to burn and die, and I dont want my tornado to pass the waypoints before that flag is tripped. So I put it a little far away. Once im sure SAM1 is dead tornado passes wp2.

 

WP0 options included evade fire, because vertical evasive lets the tornado go crazy, fly NOE and use up all of his gas as soon as possible. So I turned it off. I also turned on continuous search radar.

 

Once tornado passes SAM1 dead waypoint, I set my advanced list as:

1>option, weapons free

2>option, evasive(this setting needs extensive testing, figure out what works best for your mission..)

3>Enroute task>SEAD>is user 1

4>Task>orbit>340knots, circle.....

 

Ok so what happened is tornado passed wp SAM1 dead, and continued to the waypoint after, after reaching that waypoint it began orbit, reported on station, and began engaging sams.

 

Edit** Keep in mind the tornado actually passed the waypoint I intended the orbit. It works but wtf?.... Im sure theres a solution and I hope this helps. Its like arma, if all else fails, it can be scripted.

Maybe i'll take a look at your mission later and check that out.

Edited June 4, 2011 by WildFire

[Bahger]

Thank you so much for going to the trouble, WildFire.

 

I'm eager to test your ingenious solution. I assume I mirror your commands structure for the other Tornado group.

 

It will be interesting -- if tedious -- to determine whether toggling that avasion order makes the Tornadoes go stupid and get hit by SA-9s that would otherwise never catch them...

 

PS: Could you attach the mission, as amended, or your test mission, to your post?

Edited June 5, 2011 by Bahger

[WildFire]

Yeah, I took another look at it, I dont know how well they evade as I didnt put any launchers in, youll have to figure that out.

AItest.miz

[Druid_]

On lappy, so cant test. One thing that I just thought of, you have search & engage in zone for the tornadoes. Make sure the only unit in the zone is the SAM radar. All other units outside else he will try and engage any other units in the zone with guns. Burning fuel the whole time.

 

To check Badger, run miz at 14x speed, follow TOrnadoes and see what they do. If they keep burning at low-level then maybe you have other threats they are picking up or they are trying to finish off the other SAM units. Once he drops his external tanks he RTBs.

[Bahger]

Well, switching the Tornadoes from "Use Vertical Evasive Maneuvers" to "Evasion" after they waste the SA-11s prevents them from endless turning and burning, enabling them to orbit without RTB-ing. They still don't attack the SA-9s and AAA per their SEAD orders, so your idea had occurred to me, too, i.e. I will assign each of them a Search and Engage Zone with the north and south air defense target groups. At that point I don't mind if they go for the non-radar targets with guns.

 

I tell you, Druid, there is not one, single mission I've made that has not involved the discovery of a big, ugly bug in the sim which then involves removing a key non-functioning element, like AI aircraft that wouldn't taxi pre-1.0.0.8 when there was more than one player in the server, or, in this .miz, the artillery, which I have now confirmed, and reported, with your help, to be brain-dead post-1.0.0.8. Why is it that every time they fix something, they break something else?

[Druid_]

yep I'm with you 100%. Since BlackShark the ME has always appeared to be a low priority. Flight Model, bombs not impacting correctly, visuals all get a lot of attention. After everyone has a certain grip on the aircraft etc they'll look towards some realistic missions to fly & they won't be able to because all of the communities missions have been nerfed by patches.

 

Its a good job I'm not a tester. Come on guys, someone must be testing the damn ME surely? If so maybe he/they need a little help because there is still some pretty basic stuff that needs fixing or has been broken in this patch. I'd have a mission with not 1 single player aircraft in it that would test as many of the ME functions and units as possible.

 

Us mission builders don't ask for much, just a fully functional ME where units do what they're told. That's not much to ask for surely. Oh I promise not to mention satellite view ...ooops, too late.

[Druid_]

Just a small piece of ME advise though Badger whilst I think of it. Although its nice from a MizBuilders point of view to have AI units doing a whole bunch of realistic activity, you have to ask yourself is it worth the effort?

 

For instance you could launch the tornadoes, have them enter a trigger then just blow up the unit. You as a player will be none the wiser as to whether an Alarm missile took out the SAM unit or not. I'm sure your scenario was a little more complicated but you get my point?

 

I have a mission where I started to put in a Bomber launching a cruise missile at an ammo dump you are approaching & I was having to change the bombers position as the timing wasn't quite right etc. In the end I deleted the bomber, added a radio message from the bomber e.g. "Uzi 11 missile away, 2 mins to target" & then 2 mins later used explode unit. Just as effective without the frustrating hassle.

 

I am now tending towards building miz's in a bubble around the player. The player wont care that 4 f15s took out an attacking Mig29 60 nm from your position so why bother going to all the effort? If however there is a random outcome to engagements that will affect the whole outcome then sure go ahead. I think its called balancing.

 

Sure would be nice to have a fully functional ME though, ... please.

[WildFire]

lol workarounds. This is how most missions actually come to be.

[Bahger]

It's tempting to do exactly what you say, Druid but I'm a bit of an idealist and want my missions to be organic, i.e. I'd rather have a convoy travel from its starting point to its destination than spawn it where the player can find it and using scripted explosions to destroy stuff rather than AI units doing what they are supposed to be coded to do seems to be an admission of defeat. It's tempting though, especially as the ME just won't "play fair" with mission designers; so much of what it is supposed to do it doesn't and every time they dix something, something else breaks. And yet...the potential is alluring.