How's it going with 1.2.2 AI dogfighting?

[VIMANAMAN]

I've been doing a bit of dogfighting in between stuff since 1.2.2 and I've had a couple of good sessions, but am a bit rusty.

 

I'm liking the seemingly more varied AI reactions (don't tell me you haven't changed a thing!?!:))

 

I've made a couple of kills, both have been a new 'category' of kill (for me), which you might call a 'Pilot Killed', where the AI go vertical into the ground shortly after a burst. (but in the replay don't actually seem to be dead?)

 

Hows you guys finding the AI in 1.2.2

[FZG_Immel]

I think the AI plays a lot with the E... But I had no problem shooting it down each time I tried a 1vs1 against a mustang.

 

Each time I broke wing or fuselage. I've been a very persistent il2 online player though... And no AI scares me anymore ;)

[SimFreak]

AI still have godlike snap shot ability. It will expend 2 bullets and both of them will hit you during headon pass.

[Darkwolf]

A lot of people will laugh at me.... but ...I've been shot down by AI P51...... in a Mig29 :p that AI is awesome compared to IL2.

[VIMANAMAN]

I think the AI plays a lot with the E... But I had no problem shooting it down each time I tried a 1vs1 against a mustang.

 

Each time I broke wing or fuselage. I've been a very persistent il2 online player though... And no AI scares me anymore

 

Hi FZG_Immel, Yeah the AI sure does hold it's E - I'm not quite on top of my dogfighting game again yet, but hoping to stay with him / it (whatever) more once I get back up to speed. At the moment I'm usually ending up looping slower & inside his loop and having to go below his lowest point to get my shooting opportunities - not very sustainable!

 

AI still have godlike snap shot ability. It will expend 2 bullets and both of them will hit you during headon pass.

 

Hi SimFreak - Mmmm, radar guided guns do you think :) It'd be good if some greater error factor could be built in! But that's easy for me to say:D

 

A lot of people will laugh at me.... but ...I've been shot down by AI P51...... in a Mig29 :p that AI is awesome compared to IL2.

 

Hi Darkwolf, I hear those new jet planes with their fancy new powerplants that suck the aircraft forward are tremendously fast, (but I knew they would never work in combat :D)

 

Bad luck mate:) Yeah the AI 51 is a bit feisty isn't it:thumbup:

 

Regarding this 'new kill category' that I've never noticed before - i.e. where the AI goes terminally vertical after a quick burst, which if I'm honest I'd call a lucky shot from distance (in my limited experience of 1.2.2) - where I have just a brief period of tracking, or it's a 'longish snap shot' - I like it alot: it's realistic seemingly! but wondered if anyone thinks it is new?

 

There's a 'good' (from a realism point of view), and yet 'slightly scary' animation the AI pilot does as well in this circumstance, as he goes in.

Edited November 20, 2012 by VIMANAMAN

[nuNce]

AI still have godlike snap shot ability. It will expend 2 bullets and both of them will hit you during headon pass.

 

Also it has perfect engine management, no overheating, no lose of sight, no stalling and no spinning and apparently has as much energy as it needs to get onto the moon. As boring and frustrating as it can be.

Edited November 20, 2012 by nuNce

[VIMANAMAN]

Also it has perfect engine management, no overheating, no lose of sight, no stalling and no spinning and apparently has as much energy as it needs to get onto the moon. As boring and frustrating as it can be.

 

Stick at it nuNce!

 

Yes the AI carries too much E in my estimation, and shoots like a radar guided gun battery, but... As you've probably experienced it can be done, but it isn't at all easy!

 

When this first came out I spent a week of spare time trying to defeat the AI, at times wanting to throw my stick through my screen, convinced it wasn't possible!

 

Then it was all about E - now it's the same, only complex engine management comes into it!

 

But... There is a AI 'loss of is sight zone', where you'd expect it to be, I've witnessed this I believe.

 

But... yes the AI doesn't lose control very often and when it does it's very quick to recover! In previous versions you needed to be fairly hard up behind him for him / it (whatever), to stall out, but it does stall! - not easy!

 

I understand from Viper (several versions back at least) that the skill level only denotes the range the AI will 'see' you from, but doesn't change it's 'motivation level' to see you dead.

 

BUT... It can be done!

 

That's a lot of 'buts'.

 

BUT it's all the more rewarding when you do get the Bustard!

[nuNce]

Same need to throw things here Viamanaman. Although I've noticed that the best way to fight him is like fighting a Bf-109 with a Hurricane in Il-2. You just let him build his energy advantage, then as he dives into you you slowly build angles on him. Then, at last you pull into him as he comes into firing range. The next step is to drop down two notches of flaps and start rolling scissors. You have to be really good then at snapshots, to land some hits on him whenever he crosses your sights. That's the only way I can manage to actually do some harm to the AI plane.

[Yo-Yo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2eeGXQ5IKSE

It's not my record but one can see that there is no energy advantage for AI.

And it is an early attempt to kill AI.

AI does have skill to gain E and not to spill it. When you tries to build an angle or to have AI always within your sight reflector you bleed the energy making one big mistake. And this is the magic.

[Echo38]

The A.I. does cheat a little--namely, he doesn't spin from torque while stalling--but Yo-Yo isn't exaggerating about the E-management. The A.I. does not cheat with its energy management. The fact is simple: nearly all virtual pilots (myself included) have less than ideal E-management.

[nuNce]

The A.I. does cheat a little--namely, he doesn't spin from torque while stalling--but Yo-Yo isn't exaggerating about the E-management. The A.I. does not cheat with its energy management. The fact is simple: nearly all virtual pilots (myself included) have less than ideal E-management.

 

Do you have any material regarding E management in a WW2 plane, or even better, in the P-51? I would be especially interested in cornering speeds and such.

[NineLine]

The A.I. does cheat a little--namely, he doesn't spin from torque while stalling--but Yo-Yo isn't exaggerating about the E-management. The A.I. does not cheat with its energy management. The fact is simple: nearly all virtual pilots (myself included) have less than ideal E-management.

 

 

Its hard to make AI make mistakes, us? Not so hard, why do you think Skynet was so eager to get rid of us :)

[NineLine]

Do you have any material regarding E management in a WW2 plane, or even better, in the P-51? I would be especially interested in cornering speeds and such.

 

There are some very basic points here that might help:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_fighter_maneuvers

[Echo38]

By the way, when I mentioned that the A.I. doesn't spin from torque while stalling, what I meant is that the torque effects do not apply to the A.I. when it stalls. This is why I said that it cheats. It isn't that the A.I. is perfect in its ability to deal with the torque, but rather that it doesn't deal with it.

[nuNce]

It might not be cheating, but it has abilities which probabily 1% of the pilots in ww2 might have had.

[Echo38]

It's the most convincing A.I. I've ever seen in a flight sim. It took me many days to figure out that it even used the torque-roll cheat, and aside from that, it pretty much flies like a really deadly human. Other flight sim A.I.s I've seen are either ridiculously dumb, cheat like hell, or both. That doesn't make for a good fight. DCS A.I. generally provides a good challenge, but is beatable. That's how an A.I. should be. Sure, it'd be nice if it didn't cheat at all, but A.I. in general is very difficult (or impossible) to make as intelligent as a human, so some cheating is going to be required to make it a challenge.

[nuNce]

It's the most convincing A.I. I've ever seen in a flight sim. It took me many days to figure out that it even used the torque-roll cheat, and aside from that, it pretty much flies like a really deadly human. Other flight sim A.I.s I've seen are either ridiculously dumb, cheat like hell, or both. That doesn't make for a good fight. DCS A.I. generally provides a good challenge, but is beatable. That's how an A.I. should be. Sure, it'd be nice if it didn't cheat at all, but A.I. in general is very difficult (or impossible) to make as intelligent as a human, so some cheating is going to be required to make it a challenge.

 

Seriously? A human making full 90°angled shots at 500m? Find me one.

 

Honestly is one of the LEAST convincing to me. Just for the fact that it goes godlike with snapshots in a hard turn, its plane never feels on the edge, its engine never needs to slow down and it flies silk smooth during a dogfight it make me feel like I'm fighting a robot, not a human. Just check any gun camera of WW2 and tell me how many deflection shots at those angles you see. The greatest part of kills were made at a short distance, from behind, in a turn. I much prefer Il-2 sturmovik's AI with its endless barrel rolls, because at least, i makes mistakes, it crashes sometimes if put under pressure, it stalls its planes and it doesn't seem to have an unfair advantage the whole freaking time. On top of that, each time I get hit, apparently the gunsight is dead without any logical reason.

 

Here you can't even try to escape to gain some distance, because its sniper abilities will get you killed at an unbielevable distance if you fly straight. I'm sorry, but I think ED should really work harder on the AI part, and I'm not just talking about enemy planes, but especially about wingmen in any of their products.

Edited November 22, 2012 by nuNce

[VIMANAMAN]

...the LEAST convincing ??

 

I think it fights like it wants to win! Like I'd fight if it really was a fight to the death, almost certainly.

 

I've not met as challenging an AI opponent before but if you are practised, patient and efficient then you can put yourself in a dominating position - so long as there are no significant mistakes - if there are then the tables turn - but they can be turned again, but this is very hard.

 

I only get the feeling it's like a robot after about 15-20 mins of mixing it - when I'm out of ideas and knackered and we're both dodging the ground - but there are limits to what's pos I guess.

 

I've managed to get some separation but this must be done when the situation allows and is suicide if it's not the right time. Even then the max separation you can get is no greater than about double fighting separation. But yes full disengagement is normally impossible.

 

I flew IL2 1946 loads but a long time ago - it was great! (i haven't played the later evolutions, unless you count COD which didn't do it for me).

 

The AI is hard, but rewards you with lessons on managing E and the importance of lots practise.

[Echo38]

Seriously? A human making full 90°angled shots at 500m? Find me one.

I was something of a terror in the virtual skies, back in the day. (These days, I can barely keep my ship from spinning, because I'm horribly out of practice.) I used to make some crazy shots, and hit them, too. What's more is, I've known a number of virtual pilots who were considerably better marksmen than I was. Some of the A.I.'s shots are, perhaps, slightly better than I've seen from high-level human v-pilots, but not by much. (Also, your figure is rather exaggerated, I think.)

[nuNce]

(Also, your figure is rather exaggerated, I think.)

 

It's not, I checked with TacView. The AI starts shooting at you at 500m, no matter what angle you are crossing its gunsight.

[ARM505]

Flying against the AI is the least convincing dogfight ever. All my years of playing IL2 etc online, I've NEVER seen a human play anywhere near as consistently brilliantly as the AI in terms of deflection shooting, engine and energy management. Sure, humans have their moments - some guys can pull off awesome stuff, but not 100% of the time, and nobody I've ever encountered online is ever as consistently smooth with the aircraft for so long. So - for killing you/putting up an awesome fight, the AI is great. For realism? Not a chance, IMHO.

[wolle]

What skill setting do you use for the AI, average, good, ...? I always set them to average (the lowest setting), and still can't shoot them down. I think ED should make the lowest skill setting very easy to beat, and for those who want a challenge, they can make the excellent AI perfect...

[Mojeaux]

+5

[Echo38]

It's not, I checked with TacView. The AI starts shooting at you at 500m, no matter what angle you are crossing its gunsight.

 

Perhaps if you fly straight and level, it does, but I maneuver a bit to minimize my chances of being hit, and I've never had the A.I. open fire at a noticeably farther distance than my usual human opponents start shooting.

 

Look, I'm not going to try to pretend that the A.I. is a believably human-like opponent, or that it doesn't cheat at all, but I ask you: can you list a flight sim A.I. which is human-like? Can you list any other flight sim A.I. which presents any challenge at all to a highly-skilled human? I can't think of any. IL-2, Aces High II, Rise of Flight, their A.I.s are all laughably easy to defeat. (And the latter two still have unhumanly good gunnery, just like DCS.)

[nuNce]

Perhaps if you fly straight and level, it does, but I maneuver a bit to minimize my chances of being hit, and I've never had the A.I. open fire at a noticeably farther distance than my usual human opponents start shooting.

 

Right....are you sure we are playing the same game?