AIRCRAFTOBJECT.ini changes - a warning

[+peter01 2]

Look, I wouldn't do this normally, gonna sound like a real jerk, but feel i just have to...

 

The discussion on the ai paramaters in another thread made it obvious that many are tweaking the skill levels and ai data section in the AIRCRAFTOBJECT.ini.

 

Everyone is after a better, more aggressive ai. Fair enough.

 

But please don't mod anything here - unless you know exactly what you are doing. It will cause absolutely HUGE issues - the game will be worse. If anybody experiences weird AI behavior its probably made worse by changes that have been made here. If someone points out looping stalling crazy maneouvers etc ask them to post their AIRCRAFTOBJECT.ini - its more than likely contributing to the cause. The AI is extremely sensitive to any parameters that govern what it does. And the AI are extremely sensitive full stop anyways. And the obvious conclusion...its the game's or the FM's problem. Well, that might not be the case.

 

And if its been modded for any reason or in any way, my advice is to delete it and use the standard. Then ask questions. A generic tougher one can be developed, that is safe...but I haven't seen one yet tho, to be honest. All the parameters work with one another in a sometimes complicated way, and changing a number say from 1.0 to 2.0 say, is also sometimes a lot different than some think.

 

I'm happy to go thru the skill level stuff line by line so people understand it better. But generally, without understanding it completely, the ONLY thing you can do is change cannon fire ranges, cannon burst lengths, cannon angles, and even then you have to careful. Of course you can copy the standard skill level of say ace to veteran, regular to novice - thats okay, but less variety of course.

 

Tweaking the AI in the [AIData] section of the AIRCRAFTOBJECT.ini is plane specific too ONLY - you cannot improve the ai planes generally to what TK has done already albeit generically - with only a couple of exceptions, but even then risky. You can definitely improve each plane by modding the ai data in the FM for that plane, but again, you need to know that plane and how a change effects it. Sorry, it is complex. On the bright side, its likey that mods to the ai parameters section of the plane specific FMs will become available over time....not a new FM, just how the ai handles a plane better, more aggressively and not have as many issues. I have started doing this for TKs planes for my own game for example.

 

But when you make changes in the AIRCRAFTOBJECT.ini it effects everything and it may not be obvious at first - so its hard to relate a problem to the cause. Example, and I'm just using this an example, and its a trivial example I don't want to step on toes, but if you change the safe altitude (300 meters or something as default) of novices and nothing else to that of ace (50 meters), sure as night follows day, in a dogfight close to the ground, the novice AI will crash into the ground - the reason: they can't pull up as quiclky as an ace. The values used in this case are not just to make the ace tougher - they can handle the low altitude, the novice cannot. But you may not see this for weeks....

Edited July 12, 2007 by peter01

[+Tailspin 3]

I'll echo what peter01 is saying. This sim is FAR more complex than a lot of people think. I forsee a lot of great things happening for FE. Patience is the key.

[Firecage 1]

Great advice Peter, I have a storage folder inside every folder in FE for this kinda thing. I always take a copy of the one im about to mod and throw it in storage folders. In some of the sotrage areas there may be 2-6 versions in there so I can go back to many different points in a set of mod's to an INI file.

 

I would suggest a good backout plan to anyone doing this stuff.

 

BTW: some great info here and at TKs site I see you have been gathering. Keep up the good work

Edited July 12, 2007 by Firecage

[Bandy 3]

Peter,

 

I don't think your comments are "jerkish" in any sense of the word. They are sobering comments as to the complexity of the game. That said, not sure why you felt the need to start a new thread rather than append to the "other" thread.

 

I also maintain multiple copies of past files to return to if something doesn't work. I also read the threads over at 3rd Wire, and have in my own personal game, tried to make some experimental changes. Not trying to sound defensive, well not too much anyways...

 

Bottom line it is a game; a game that people are free to make changes to because that is the way it is designed. Some know more than others through more experience, and I hope they'll share rather form a "clique club". Others know just enough to be dangerous (perhaps me) but how else do you learn? I didn't get a PhD by being afraid to try something...

[+Tailspin 3]

I think I know where peter is coming from. The "Stupid AI" is a favorite complaint about the sim. There are already a lot of "AI mods" floating around and there are a lot of people experimenting with parameters. The thing is you can change something and not find any readily apparent result, yet you could be making a significant but unintended change in another area of AI performance. IMHO peter is just trying to let folks know that you can screw it up worse by feeding the game "bad" information and there are signs that some of this "bad" information is getting into other people's files resulting in misplaced assumptions about the capabilities of the sim itself. I don't think his post is anything but a fair warning. Lets face it. Some people are careful about keeping backups and careful about what they do and how they do it when modding files...and some people aren't. If you're in the former group then the message is just a reaffirmation of what you already know. If you're in the latter, then you have been forewarned.

[+peter01 2]

Bandy, the AI are very sensitive...and its also as Tailspin pointed out.

 

Perhaps an example

 

When i test a new FM as Ai, I set all the Aircraftobject.ini skill levels to "Regular" - this is sotra what you would normally encounter in missions - by copying the default regular stuff to all skill levels. I have an "Ace" Aircraftobject.ini as well - and swap them in and out for testing.

 

I test first using the "regular" ai on the default ai data settings that TK uses. Just to make sure the AI is good - fundamentally its the FM that needs to be good, otherwise lost cause.

 

I then tweak the ai settings - nearly always slightly different for all planes. Not its capability (turn, roll etc) so much, not its aggressiveness, not so much to fix stall issues but partly (tho try to fix this in the FM always anyway)....but you can indeed do all this..... but for the ai to fly the plane smoothly!!! If it flies smoothly, it has less issues, and indirectly becomes far more competent. I then tweak AI paramaters so AI flies the plane like I would like, eg, uses climb, zooms up and down, is cunning (you can do this!), better shot - all different for different planes.

 

Test a few times, if okay, set skill level to "Ace" to test that. Now in the greater scheme of things the difference between "Ace" and "Regular" isn't much....but you know a lot of the time, the"Ace" has problems - more is often not better, its worse.

 

My point is: the ai parameters are quite powerful, complex, need to tailored to each plane,yet are dangerous in that by trying to improve aspects can actually end up with a far worse plane.

 

But, I'm very thankful that the Ateam and others lobbied TK to allow the ai data to be included in the FM in one of the patches. It is actually one of the big improvements to the game, you can tweak and even fix problems here (conversely you can easily cause problems). But people really haven't started using this yet - its early days, and there is stuff all documentation. I hope he includes some of the skill level stuff in the FMs as well - for example some planes that turn well like Camel Dr1 can handle very low altitudes (20 metres for maybe even Regular), be great to allow this and experience tree top dogfighting at times.

 

I've spent 6 months doing FMs. I never asked anyone about anything - I learnt it on my own thru trial and error. But i did recently ask TK about some AI parameters - the reason, they are very important, and yet some of them were still all pretty obscure to me, even after all this time. And my impression from TKs answers is that they are obscure for a reason.

 

A funny thing too - if people change the ai data in the aircraftobject.ini they only affect the planes that do not have it included in the FMs themselves. Many do, mine do, it overrides the ones set in the Aircraftobject.ini. So what happens is they are basically changing TKs planes which do not have this included - and yet the default ones are actually designed by the expert himself TK to work well with his!!! Reminds me of some posts about issues with TKs planes...well I generally don't have issues, they are good FMs and quite well behaved (aggressiveness is another thing)....its a reason I started this thread.

 

BTW, final note. I am going into great detail about a lot of things here and elsewhere. Reason is mainly to pass on what I have learnt. Its early days for this game, others will spend time to improve things.......but not me, not to this extent. Promised the wife, you know....dabbling okay, full-time maybe not.....and she knows me well...its often all or nothing, so who knows.

 

 

 

 

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Edited July 13, 2007 by peter01