AI A2A skill worse than FC2?

[streakeagle]

Is it just me? While waiting for FC3 to be released I played the FC2 F-15 DACT missions over and over. My favorite is 1 F-15C vs 2 Su-27 guns only. Yesterday, I copied the FC2 F-15 DACT missions folder over to my DCS World Missions folder and to my surprise was able to play them. Everything seemed right except that the AI seemed to be less aggressive and/or effective than when I fought them in FC2. Despite facing two Flankers with superior maneuverability to the Eagle, I could casually engage them and easily recover from mistakes.

 

I play with no tags, so I can only see and engage what I can find visually, on radar, or by RWR. In FC2, I had to learn to anticipate what the AI was going to do and where they would end up to find, engage and kill one Flanker while evading the other. In FC3, as long as I don't give the AI a head-on shot at the merge, they seem to wander away rather than press their attack and give me the opportunity to easily engage them one at a time and survive major overshoots and stalls. Even when I completely lose situational awareness, I can go into a hard turn, reacquire one of the flankers and quickly saddle up.

 

I opened the mission in the editor and everything looked correct, including the Flanker pilots having the max "Excellent" pilot quality. One key difference is that in FC2, with tags off, it can be hard to spot aircraft. In FC3, the Flanker is showing up as a distinct black dot in the distance, so it is a little easier to visually acquire than in FC2. But that doesn't explain why they seem to lose track of me and wander around almost aimlessly while I line up another attack.

Edited December 1, 2012 by streakeagle

[streakeagle]

It seems that it depends on which Flanker I chase. At the merge, they split. One pulls hard and tries to corner with me, the other goes wide. If I chase the one pulling hard, the other one goes wide by 5 or 10 miles, allowing me to fight 1v1. If I chase the one going wide, the one pulling hard stays with me and will press a close in gun attack if I stay focused on the far one. It looks like they are flying to evade possible missile launches, supported by flares dispensing. I bet the existing logic works much better when they are armed with missiles. The one going wide hopes to sneek in a decent missile shot while the one in close distracts me and/or gets me with an IRM or guns. So it seems like they are flying good tactics for a normal missile loadout rather than recognizing that neither Flanker has missiles and pressing for gun attacks with co-ordination to use one guy as bait while the other tries to slide in behind... unless I chase the right one.

[aceflier]

Noticed this myself I have no problem taking on 4 flankers with gunz and beating them all. 2 or 3 was the most I could handle in FC2.

[Cali]

That's why I only play mp, human pilots are unpredictable and I have more fun fighting them then the computer.

[streakeagle]

But human players have to agree on a schedule, mission, and have compatible skill levels for everyone to have fun in an adversarial situation.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love multiplayer. But since I got married and had a kid, multiplayer has been impractical for a number of reasons leaving me to just tinker around with quick dogfight missions against AI in whatever sim I happen to be messing with.

 

I can live with the dogfight AI the Strike Fighters 2 series (especially since it has no multiplayer support). Despite its flaws, it produces fairly realistic/challenging furballs. While I still tend to consistently win, I do get killed if I make a major mistake. FC2 will punish you quickly if you lose sight of an opponent for too long. While less dynamic than SF2, I can live with FC2's AI. FC3 is no where near as fun/challenging. The P-51D AI is predictable, but still requires skill and patience since the AI manages energy very well. I have even enjoyed flyiing the Su-25T vs the A-10 dogfight. You would think a fight involving 2 Flankers would be the most difficult and fun. It is a shame that it ends up being the easiest.

[Cali]

But human players have to agree on a schedule, mission, and have compatible skill levels for everyone to have fun in an adversarial situation.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love multiplayer. But since I got married and had a kid, multiplayer has been impractical for a number of reasons leaving me to just tinker around with quick dogfight missions against AI in whatever sim I happen to be messing with.

 

I can live with the dogfight AI the Strike Fighters 2 series (especially since it has no multiplayer support). Despite its flaws, it produces fairly realistic/challenging furballs. While I still tend to consistently win, I do get killed if I make a major mistake. FC2 will punish you quickly if you lose sight of an opponent for too long. While less dynamic than SF2, I can live with FC2's AI. FC3 is no where near as fun/challenging. The P-51D AI is predictable, but still requires skill and patience since the AI manages energy very well. I have even enjoyed flyiing the Su-25T vs the A-10 dogfight. You would think a fight involving 2 Flankers would be the most difficult and fun. It is a shame that it ends up being the easiest.

 

I'm married and have 4 kids, I still only play mp. Most of the time I get on I see people, if not I go do something else. I fly late at night because of my work schedule. If I worked day shift this would be a little different I would guess, but I work from 11pm to 7am. Good thing for the auto updater, as little things are being worked and updated all the time.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Cali

[FLANKERATOR]

AI behavior in BVR should be updated as well. AI fires from way too far and only once, and goes defensive without counter-attacking. Even set at 40k feet and more than 1.2 Mach. It turns out to be very easy to shoot down an AI opponent, supposed to be "excellent". Will upload a track/acmi in the bug thread soon.

[159th_Viper]

Skill level in ME has nothing to do with skillset or talent. Just influences the distance where AI becomes aware of your presence.

[Weta43]

I thought it effected the range they launch at as well - ?

[streakeagle]

So all AI flies with equal skill other than awareness? Or is there another place to change AI behavior?

 

With the SF series, various attributes vary with skill level: a novice most likely maneuvers only in the horizontal, is less likely to be aware of what's going on, will waste ammo on less than ideal shots, etc., and fly the aircraft very conservatively. An Ace will fly to the limits of the aircraft, know exactly what's going on, use a variety of tactics including the vertical, and make good on what shot opportunities are presented. Of course there are in between levels like normal and veteran. All of the decision parameters are exposed in ini files that are easily edited to get the behavior you want for a given skill level.

 

I would be unpleasantly surprised if DCS is limited to one set of AI behavior for all aircraft/pilot skill levels. I rarely played LOMAC/FC/FC2 and found the AI adequately fun for my skill level, so I never even looked at it. But having played a lot of FC2 in recent months, I find FC3 obviously lacking. Should this (or has this) been reported as a bug? Or is it a "feature"?

[Druid_]

I have been working on a few AI FC3 issues and some of the comments above I have already observed & mentioned. Most of my tests however have been set ME pieces with AI on AI. I observe the results and report when the AI could be improved. With so many variables of course it's very difficult to program AI to react correctly every time or unpredictably even.

 

If you do encounter some dumb AI behaviour however, please post a trk file. I only have 1 request though... Please make it a short one & I will see what I can do.

 

P.s. BTW some AI will exhibit different behaviour depending on their role as set in the ME.

[FLANKERATOR]

Skill level in ME has nothing to do with skillset or talent. Just influences the distance where AI becomes aware of your presence.

 

I didn't know that. I mean it doesn't seem too tricky to make it fire at closer range and most importantly fire a second time before going defensive. As how things are now, it just fires beyond 30 miles once, the missile reaches you barely hitting the 0.5 mach mark, even grandma would dodge it :)

 

 

EDIT: Added a Tacview demo.

MiG29S_vs_AI_F15C_excellent.rar

Edited December 1, 2012 by FLANKERATOR

[streakeagle]

Okay, I have zipped up an FC2 track, an FC3 track, and the mission file that I am using in FC3 (which is the stock F-15 DACT vs 2 Su-27 guns only).

 

The FC2 track is typically what I see for this mission in FC2: the Flankers split horizontally and/or vertically depending on my path at the merge, and then they converge. While I am working one, the other is working me. If they fully utilized their maneuver advantage over me at low speeds and were better gunners, I would probably lose this mission every time. As it is, they sucker me into vertical loops which sometimes ends with me hitting the ground.

 

The FC3 track is also typical for what I see for this mission in FC3: the Flankers split. One goes into vertical loops and scissors with me, while the other just aimlessly wanders away. Though you can see that once I finish off the aggressive one, the other suddenly turns around and takes a strong interest in me. But for the most part, every time I play, he heads away and/or orbits while I fight the first one. If I target the lazy one from the start, I have to run him down while the other one lags behind me.

Test_AI_FC3vsFC2.zip

[ExGreyFox]

Noticed this myself. Used to get spalltered all over the sky in a 4v4 in a flight of 4 flankers versus 4x f-16 in BVR combat in FC2. Now i can take on the same scenario and be victorious in a few minutes without any losses on my side in FC3. Def takes away from the challenge.

[streakeagle]

The problem is with the "wingman" logic, i.e. specifying more than 1 aircraft per flight.

If I create 2 separate flights of 1 in close formation rather than 1 flight of 2, I get two very aggressive opponents.

However, they don't fight as a team.

Since they both start at relatively similar distances and angles from me, they both enter parallel maneuvers.

But it isn't too long before the butterfly effect catches up with them and the 600 foot offset eventually leads to different flight paths and tactics, despite using identical logic.

P-51D 1vs2 is very difficult as targeting one aircraft for any length of time drags the other aircraft on your tail.

It seems like the skill level does more than affect awareness.

"Excellent" seems to push their aircraft a little harder than lower skill levels.

It seems like AI isn't affected by using negative g's: i.e. if I follow him into a climb too long, my engine suffers damage from low oil pressure, whereas the AI seems to be free to fly at aerodynamic limits without regard for engine problems.

[Shein]

You're spot on with that, streakeagle.

The group logic is very different in FC3. I had and just had help figuring out this problem; check this thread (its very short!)

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1616239#post1616239

[streakeagle]

Thanks for the help. I will try it out.

But you would think the stock missions for FC3 would be programmed to account for the new group logic, and I find that the F-15C intercept quick mission is much easier than when I fly the DACT 1 vs 2 in FC2... so either the mission needs to be scripted better to account for the new group logic, or the group logic needs to be improved to work well with the missions that are provided.