Hope AI limitations are being looked into.

[Mr. Lucky 0]

Now that the AI behavior has been straightened out, I sincerely hope something can be done about their aircraft.

With them being so determined and deadly, there is sometimes no means of escape but to fight it out. I was flying the SPAD in 1918 and was fighting two DR1's. Many people advise to use boom and zoom tactics in the SPAD, but you can't boom and zoom an opponent that can outclimb and outdive you. There's no way, a DR1 should be able to stick to my tail in a dive. I don't mean staying in the six o'clock position, but actually drawing closer. If it's possible, I hope the wizards at OBD can do something about the lack of aircraft limitations for the AI pilots.

 

Thanks.....back to the ALB DII again.

[Olham 164]

Mr.Lucky - try Jasta 9, Vauxcerre, July 1918!

You'll fly the Albatros DVa with 1.100 rounds; mostly against SPAD XIII.

They can't turn with you, but they try. You should do fine!

(But don't dive steep with them - they'll come back up some time).

[Mr. Lucky 0]

Don't worry, every time I try to fly for the Entente, I'm always drawn back to flying for the Fatherland. I can't wait until we get some more early planes so I can experience the Fokker scourge.

[OvS 8]

Don't worry, every time I try to fly for the Entente, I'm always drawn back to flying for the Fatherland. I can't wait until we get some more early planes so I can experience the Fokker scourge.

 

Fly Entente?!?!? NEVER!! Poo-poo colored planes... yucky square boxes with engines... bleech!!!

 

[shredward 12]

Easy there Poncie-boy, or I'll be forced to ventilate your fucsia leather bun cushion.

 

the shredder

[Dej 17]

Fly Entente?!?!? NEVER!! Poo-poo colored planes... yucky square boxes with engines... bleech!!!

 

 

Je crois que Navarre aurait quelque chose à dire à ce sujet ...

[Olham 164]

Vell, ze Nieuport maybe an eksseptshon - from ze looks (not ze firepower)!

Butt iff you look for der creators of real dashink sleek designs, you vill end vizz names

like Roland, Albatros, Siemens-Schuckert or Pfalz.

Zee crumpetz are flyink crumpet-shaped boxes viss wings on, painted camels**t green.

A good reeson to shoot zem down - Mmuahahahahahaaaa!!!!

[Hauksbee 103]

Easy there Poncie-boy, or I'll be forced to ventilate your fucsia leather bun cushion.

Here's where we need a multi-player forum: questions of this sort could be settled at 15,000 ft. Only problem would be where to put the bleachers so we all can watch.

[BigJim 0]

Vell, ze Nieuport maybe an eksseptshon - from ze looks (not ze firepower)!

Butt iff you look for der creators of real dashink sleek designs, you vill end vizz names

like Roland, Albatros, Siemens-Schuckert or Pfalz.

Zee crumpetz are flyink crumpet-shaped boxes viss wings on, painted camels**t green.

A good reeson to shoot zem down - Mmuahahahahahaaaa!!!!

 

Unfortunately the AI is the same kind of AI I have always found in OFFLine games, they can make their planes do amazing climbs and turns with no regard for actual physics.

 

OFF is rapidly sinking in my view, the multiplayer is a horror show, the offline is a pretty boring joke.

 

It's nice for awhile to get the feeling of the hours of bordom followed by 10 minutes of sheer horror, but in the end the game has started to bore me with it's constant "sameness". I make a bomber pilot and he gets a bomb run once in every 25 missions and if he hits the target with his bombs he gets no credit for it, only enemy aircraft seem to count unless he is specifically sent on a ground target mission. The biggest turn off for me is the stupid AI and what it can do, NO amount of denying it will change my mind, when I am in gun range all of sudden his EIII can climb like a jet and go vertical (but when I have the same aircraft I can't make it do that) and then hang in midair while I cannot avoid in my plane and crash into his STOPPED plane in the air, in the words of the famous tuna fish ad "Sorry Charlie".

 

I know all of this stuff can be "dumbed down" but that doesn't interest me, then I found out yesterday that the game will not play MP on win7 (which I have ordered) so all in all it is a nice coaster for my coffee

[Olham 164]

BigJim, did you have a bad day? There is truth in some of your criticism, but, good grief, this was pretty heavy.

Did you ever try flying your sorties without any aids like labels, TAC or Targeting cone and Brackets?

I had a flight that style yesterday, and I even saw the Flak puffs, and I knew the sun was in the west. I mean,

I was prepared, some fighters would appear soon. Still they came so fast down on us (S.E.5a), that I didn't manage

to handle that.

I have no experience with bombers yet, but from what you sound like, you are anyway more the fighter type, I think.

What you expect, would seem to be an AI, that fights you like a human opponent on the other rig. But this development

is not THERE yet - no sim could provide you with exactly THAT. OFF has made a giant step in that direction from Phase 2.

 

Maybe, if you fly as I described above, and it bores you - you are simply TOO good? Perhaps Oleg's Battle of Britain will

get closer for you? Not sure. But I'm sure, the devs will work on into such direction with AI behaviour.

So far, I don't know anyone here, who has survived 2 war years already.

I haven't been bored with this yet, and I don't think I will.

[buddye 1]

Hi BigJim, you sound a bit frustrated with the OFF3 AI.

 

AI development is a large tradeoff. I have been working on BOBII AI since 2003 and I am no way near finished and I will never get finished.

 

In BOBII we have an objective to: (1) have the AI and player A/C subject to the "exact same" laws of physics and data and use the exact same code.

 

In BOBII the players A/C and the AI A/C go through "different" code paths by design which I bet most fight sims do the same (sorry I do not know about OFF3).

 

I now have BOBII using the exact same code and data with respect to physics, FM, and data except for player blackout which is an option (you can turn on or off). The AI still fly better than the player as the software makes small changes every 40 MS and it is a bit more efficient. I have decided not to try and simulate the slowness/jerkness of the player (at least compared to the PC) or the AI black out with g-forces as I have not been able to think of a good solution (except an user option (user control) ).

 

Without the source code (which to me is a big issue for the OFF3 developer), the OFF developers have developed realistic AI, IMHO, although I have not compared to the spec's. Yes, the AI are a challenge and problems (inconsistencies) do happen between specific A/C. I have worked on these kind of problems for years one at a time. Here again we have super spec's, flight data, and pilot reports to use that the OFF3 guys may not have (not sure about WWI data). Our strategy is to always simulate using the specific A/C spec's, flight data, and pilot reports for each A/C. We do not let player A/C comparisons influence us unless the player provides referrences to the spec's, flight data, or pilot reports. The key is we simulate against a A/C spec.

 

I think the good OFF3 players (which are really testers, IMHO) should just report the AI problems one at a time with as much supporting information as possible and maybe a good test case and permit the OFF3 developers a chance to look into the reported problem. This approach will get both debate and results, I bet.

Edited July 27, 2009 by buddye

[Creaghorn 10]

WW1 doesn't suit everybody. historical accuracy doesn't suit everybody either. it's accurate to have a lot of hours without too much enemy activity. depends on frontarea and time. especially early in the war, where you obviously are. it's no arcadeshooter. if you want to have more action, Quickflight should suit you best. this sim is good for everybodies taste.

the sameness and boredom you might have is with all aids on and carelessnes about your pilot. why not. you can make a new one anytime you want if the current one dies.

without aids and a real care for your pilot the boredom will quickly turn into a constant tense and concentration because you want to survive and you don't want to get jumped at. all just a matter of attitude. not sameness at all.

 

in some points you are right. some assigned mission just don't make sense, but nobody said it's perfect. it'll improve with any patch and any release wich is going to be released. the devs are working constantly for any improvement.

 

for the AI. that's the best AI you'll find. AI is no human. but this AI is the closest in emulating human behaviour i've seen so far. you have seen only very early birds. it's harder having good AI's with slow and sluggish aircraft, then with later ones. but as long as i have found out, there is nothing the AI can do, wich you don't. you can also hang in the air for a while and turn around as they do. only thing is maybe the rollrate when diving, but i'm fine with that. otherwise the AI doesn't throw his craft more around than you could do.

sometimes it's easy to blame AI doing things i can't do, because he outturned me and shot me down. because how can it happen a stupid AI is better than me? but in this sim? yes, AI is often better than me, with the same tools and (almost) same physical rules. for me your statement about the AI is rather a compliment how good he is. probably only a thing of practice. dunno. try to fight against some later aircraft.

 

whatever is best for you. if you don't like it, use it as coaster for your coffee. at least you tried it

[Hellshade 110]

Unfortunately the AI is the same kind of AI I have always found in OFFLine games, they can make their planes do amazing climbs and turns with no regard for actual physics.

 

OFF is rapidly sinking in my view, the multiplayer is a horror show, the offline is a pretty boring joke.

 

It's nice for awhile to get the feeling of the hours of bordom followed by 10 minutes of sheer horror, but in the end the game has started to bore me with it's constant "sameness". I make a bomber pilot and he gets a bomb run once in every 25 missions and if he hits the target with his bombs he gets no credit for it, only enemy aircraft seem to count unless he is specifically sent on a ground target mission. The biggest turn off for me is the stupid AI and what it can do, NO amount of denying it will change my mind, when I am in gun range all of sudden his EIII can climb like a jet and go vertical (but when I have the same aircraft I can't make it do that) and then hang in midair while I cannot avoid in my plane and crash into his STOPPED plane in the air, in the words of the famous tuna fish ad "Sorry Charlie".

 

I know all of this stuff can be "dumbed down" but that doesn't interest me, then I found out yesterday that the game will not play MP on win7 (which I have ordered) so all in all it is a nice coaster for my coffee

 

BigJim - Sorry to hear you aren't enjoying it as much anymore. As far as the off-line AI is concerned, nobody yet has a product that includes an "AI learning curve" to adjust it's tactics reactively in order to adapt to new situations like a real human pilot would and it will probably be awhile before anyone does. In this case OFF is no worse off than anyone else and from the reviews of most other players, it's in better shape than a lot of the alternatives. But since you're the one who's flying, its your opinion that matters.

 

As for multiplayer, since the Devs fixed the CFS3 hardcoded "cloud turbulance" issue, I have a lot of faith that they will find a way to make MP work with Windows 7. They really are some pretty clever fellows. Until you actually have "7" on your machine, you should be able to continue with OFF MP just fine.

 

As for enemy AI hanging in the air at the top of a steep climb stalled out, that's what they do. There's a point between where forward/upward inertia leaves off and before gravity can actually pull the plane back down where it will hang for a moment, stalled out. Real pilots have had to contend with this too and ramming into them is a result of "target fixation". You want the kill so bad that you don't pull away when you should because you want to make sure that you get enough rounds into the guy that he'll go down. Instead you end up ramming him. May I suggest pumping a few rounds into him while you can and then peeling off to the left or right (depending on how he is going to come down) and then circling around to plug him full of some more holes before he drops far enough to get enough fast air over his wings to regain manuverability. He's basically a sitting duck until he regains enough airspeed to engage in defensive manuevers.

 

Hope you have a better day,

Hellshade

[sitting_duck 3]

Boring???

 

going to repost some links to videos that rabu started...(and btw,,thanks rabu for bringing that video to our attention)

 

 

 

Cant for the life of me understand how someone can watch these,,,and then make the comment this game is boring...

 

Jim, you spent ONE day in multiplayer, (and admittedly we had some problems getting up and running)...but don't think its fair that from that one session you can bash mulitplayer in the manner like you did.

 

I could go on,,,(after all,,im dying to see what color those "warning" boxes are when they get lit up....),,,but ill leave it at that..

[Siggi 10]

Those parts of the AI (and their planes) that are uber are offset by those parts that are dumber. The uberness makes proper aces of the AI aces, even if only by 'cheating'. The cheating overcomes the otherwise dumb behaviour they exhibit when one is on their tail.

 

Taken in the round everything becomes largely smoothed out into a believable experience. Add six of uber, minus half a dozen of dumb = zero in the case of regular AI pilots. With ace AI you get the zero plus a couple of points for their aceness. Works for most of us.

[Fliegenhund 0]

I find the claim of the EIII's climbing like rockets to be hard to believe. All campaigns I have flown since I bought the game have been Allied during the time period that most adversaries are EIII's. They do seem to fight me alot in the vertical, they kind of BnZ, diving for speed and climbing until they lose alot and then winging over. I have never seen them rocket up, and alot of my kills on them have been catching them at the apex of their climb where many even appear to stall and I can dump lead into the cockpit with ease.

 

Maybe you difficulty settings are low? Try some instant missions against the different types of aircraft and watch the tactics the AI use closely, you might be surprised. Hopefully you can find the pleasure most get out of this game, if not there are plenty of others out there. (good luck with that).

[BigJim 0]

I find the claim of the EIII's climbing like rockets to be hard to believe. All campaigns I have flown since I bought the game have been Allied during the time period that most adversaries are EIII's. They do seem to fight me alot in the vertical, they kind of BnZ, diving for speed and climbing until they lose alot and then winging over. I have never seen them rocket up, and alot of my kills on them have been catching them at the apex of their climb where many even appear to stall and I can dump lead into the cockpit with ease.

 

Maybe you difficulty settings are low? Try some instant missions against the different types of aircraft and watch the tactics the AI use closely, you might be surprised. Hopefully you can find the pleasure most get out of this game, if not there are plenty of others out there. (good luck with that).

 

Heheheh here comes the Cavelry to rescue, "he must want arcade game", "the real war was boring most of the time", and Sitting Duck your right it was my first on-line try with OFF and I appreciate your and others help trying it out, but you have to admit 2 sorties that worked over a 4-5 hour time period is pretty ugly.

 

The AI does VERY silly things, I defy any of you to fly an EIII vs me in a Strutter on-line and get the performance that the AI does. In the hands of the AI the aeroplane retains its' energy at a constant level regardless of the manuvers it makes, they never attack 1 v 1 always at least 2 v 1 and more often 4 or 5 v 1 and 90% if the time the AI arrives with Altitude advantage. The odds and alt advantage do not bother me but never losing energy while dog fiting does bother me that along with the wind not effecting them (which is why I turn my wind off). If you close with him he will try and ram you (in my case I have lose serveral pilots to Kamakasi attacks). The ability of the AI to seemingly "hang on his prop".

 

What I am searching for and not finding is a Dawn if Aces type game (with a much better flight model of course) where all the players are on-line all the time and fly against one another, that way there is NO silly things going on unless the other human has hacked the game to cheat, it happens but not very often in flight sims,

 

The guy that is working on BoBII said it quite right the computer can make minute adjustments every 47 milliseconds (we know from RL that computers fly planes better than humans the F-117 comes to mind). Was I pissed this morning, why yes I was after the third sortie of the EIII's arriving on the scene 5 to 6 K above me, then cavorting thru the sky as if the dive energy never dissapates, being rammed twice by AI pilots, etc etc.... This type of activity is NOT new to AI flight games I have played, but actually I bought OFF thinking it had a good multiplayer component which I would enjoy then I find out the mutiplayer is mostly coop not human vs human and I realized very fast that I was in the wrong place for what I enjoy. I will go back to AH and play on-line there with WWII planes vs human competitors, and hope that an OFF flight model or RoF flight model come packaged as a true AH style on-line game

 

Sorry I stompted on some toes this morning sometimes I do that

[Olham 164]

That's okay, everyone has a bad day. I have had phases of mid air collisions with enemy AI, which made me

think, they do that on purpose, as a last desperate measure. That is not so. I'm flying this sim since February now,

and it only happened now and then. Sometimes, when nothing works right, I tend to blame everything that FEELS

wrong - often unfair.

Reading your last post, it seems to me, that what you need to find would be good online human vs human combat

flight sims. I can't say, how far OFF can give you that, as I haven't tried it yet.

But what I was looking for since the nineties was a sim, which I could enter like through a time tunnel, to be THERE

for the time flying. OFF gave me that in an amount, I never had expected to ever find.

One last thing you should try: enter another time; start a campaign in summer 1917, or spring/summer 1918. It will

be very different - and tough.

[Axgrinder 0]

Unfortunately the AI is the same kind of AI I have always found in OFFLine games, they can make their planes do amazing climbs and turns with no regard for actual physics.

 

OFF is rapidly sinking in my view, the multiplayer is a horror show, the offline is a pretty boring joke.

 

It's nice for awhile to get the feeling of the hours of bordom followed by 10 minutes of sheer horror, but in the end the game has started to bore me with it's constant "sameness". I make a bomber pilot and he gets a bomb run once in every 25 missions and if he hits the target with his bombs he gets no credit for it, only enemy aircraft seem to count unless he is specifically sent on a ground target mission. The biggest turn off for me is the stupid AI and what it can do, NO amount of denying it will change my mind, when I am in gun range all of sudden his EIII can climb like a jet and go vertical (but when I have the same aircraft I can't make it do that) and then hang in midair while I cannot avoid in my plane and crash into his STOPPED plane in the air, in the words of the famous tuna fish ad "Sorry Charlie".

 

I know all of this stuff can be "dumbed down" but that doesn't interest me, then I found out yesterday that the game will not play MP on win7 (which I have ordered) so all in all it is a nice coaster for my coffee

 

You know what they say! You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all of the time!

[Hansa 12]

Unfortunately the AI is the same kind of AI I have always found in OFFLine games, they can make their planes do amazing climbs and turns with no regard for actual physics.

 

OFF is rapidly sinking in my view, the multiplayer is a horror show, the offline is a pretty boring joke.

 

It's nice for awhile to get the feeling of the hours of bordom followed by 10 minutes of sheer horror, but in the end the game has started to bore me with it's constant "sameness". I make a bomber pilot and he gets a bomb run once in every 25 missions and if he hits the target with his bombs he gets no credit for it, only enemy aircraft seem to count unless he is specifically sent on a ground target mission. The biggest turn off for me is the stupid AI and what it can do, NO amount of denying it will change my mind, when I am in gun range all of sudden his EIII can climb like a jet and go vertical (but when I have the same aircraft I can't make it do that) and then hang in midair while I cannot avoid in my plane and crash into his STOPPED plane in the air, in the words of the famous tuna fish ad "Sorry Charlie".

 

NICE REVIEW!!!

 

I know all of this stuff can be "dumbed down" but that doesn't interest me, then I found out yesterday that the game will not play MP on win7 (which I have ordered) so all in all it is a nice coaster for my coffee

 

A GOOD CHOICE!!!

[+Polovski 415]

Try some different aircraft, EIII is probably one of the worse for the AI to handle, try some DVII v Se5 or something if you want more fun better AI etc.

 

Yes we are always looking to improve, nothing is perfect, no AI in any sim ever is perfect, but ours is good (and better than most) in many places. Move around a bit try something other than EIIIs?

 

I'll just add the AI copes with 39 quite radically different WW1 craft quite well I think, some spectacularly well. But yep it's easy to find bits here and there that bug you - try some other settings, other squads, dates, craft there's a lot to choose from. Later craft will perform better generally speaking.

[Dej 17]

Try some different aircraft, EIII is probably one of the worse for the AI to handle, try some DVII v Se5 or something if you want more fun better AI etc.

 

Yes we are always looking to improve, nothing is perfect, no AI in any sim ever is perfect, but ours is good (and better than most) in many places. Move around a bit try something other than EIIIs?

 

I've never tried a scout prior to 1917 so I cannot speak about the behaviour of EIIIs. However, I 've also never experienced the 'hanging on the prop' effect with any machine post 1916. I'm allowing for seeing it in the DVII, as it was reported to be able to do so. Yes the AI behaviour is a little predictable, but not so much that I can avoid having my arse kicked on a regular basis.

 

As Pol and Olham say, try later in the War.

Edited July 27, 2009 by Dej

[Hellshade 110]

Heheheh here comes the Cavelry to rescue, "he must want arcade game", "the real war was boring most of the time", and Sitting Duck your right it was my first on-line try with OFF and I appreciate your and others help trying it out, but you have to admit 2 sorties that worked over a 4-5 hour time period is pretty ugly.

 

The AI does VERY silly things, I defy any of you to fly an EIII vs me in a Strutter on-line and get the performance that the AI does. In the hands of the AI the aeroplane retains its' energy at a constant level regardless of the manuvers it makes, they never attack 1 v 1 always at least 2 v 1 and more often 4 or 5 v 1 and 90% if the time the AI arrives with Altitude advantage. The odds and alt advantage do not bother me but never losing energy while dog fiting does bother me that along with the wind not effecting them (which is why I turn my wind off). If you close with him he will try and ram you (in my case I have lose serveral pilots to Kamakasi attacks). The ability of the AI to seemingly "hang on his prop".

 

What I am searching for and not finding is a Dawn if Aces type game (with a much better flight model of course) where all the players are on-line all the time and fly against one another, that way there is NO silly things going on unless the other human has hacked the game to cheat, it happens but not very often in flight sims,

 

The guy that is working on BoBII said it quite right the computer can make minute adjustments every 47 milliseconds (we know from RL that computers fly planes better than humans the F-117 comes to mind). Was I pissed this morning, why yes I was after the third sortie of the EIII's arriving on the scene 5 to 6 K above me, then cavorting thru the sky as if the dive energy never dissapates, being rammed twice by AI pilots, etc etc.... This type of activity is NOT new to AI flight games I have played, but actually I bought OFF thinking it had a good multiplayer component which I would enjoy then I find out the mutiplayer is mostly coop not human vs human and I realized very fast that I was in the wrong place for what I enjoy. I will go back to AH and play on-line there with WWII planes vs human competitors, and hope that an OFF flight model or RoF flight model come packaged as a true AH style on-line game

 

Sorry I stompted on some toes this morning sometimes I do that

 

 

Not sure why you bought OFF specifically for the multiplayer component. I don't think it even MENTIONS multiplayer on the features list. Maybe it does, but OFF BHaH is really focused on the campaign experience. There are some guys workinghard at making MP OFF as easy as possible but it's a work in progress, though from all the other posts I've read besides yours, it seems to be a fun experience. Anyways, no AI is going to make you happy bud. There's another sim that just came out dedicated to on-line MP. I'm sure it'll be exactly what you are looking for. I hear they launched without a hitch...enjoy.

 

Hellshade

[Mr. Lucky 0]

NICE REVIEW!!!

 

 

 

A GOOD CHOICE!!!

 

 

I disagree....I think FE functions much better in the coaster department. (not really, I just wanted to try and be as inane).

Anyway, Big Jim has a valid point in that most flight simulators try to even the playing field for the AI by exempting them from their aircraft limitations. I saw this in my beloved IL2..i.e. the A6M5 Zero out diving a Wildcat. So, this is not exclusive to OFF riding on CFS3. IMO it's not a good simulation choice for helping the AI. If we want to experience the situations as close as they were, we are unable to manage our aircraft's strengths and weaknesses, which for me is a big part of WWI air combat. Now, there's no bigger fan of OFF than me, but I can still honestly point out what I find to be short-comings. Since the OBD team had done so well with the changes to the CFS3 code I would like to know if they can do something about this issue. Siggi also makes a valid point about the leavening affect of aces versus dumb AI pilots but what tactics do you use? You've got the tightest turning plane, but all of theirs out turn you, you've got the fastes plane in a dive, but all of theirs out dive you, etc, etc, I exaggerate of course, as this does NOT reflect OFF AI behaviour, but the OBD team fell into the usual trap. They've done so well with this that we now expect them to be able to do anything to make it perfect. I would like to see that.

[Fortiesboy 3]

I've never tried a scout prior to 1917 so I cannot speak about the behaviour of EIIIs. However, I 've also never experienced the 'hanging on the prop' effect with any machine post 1916. I'm allowing for seeing it in the DVII, as it was reported to be able to do so. Yes the AI behaviour is a little predictable, but not so much that I can avoid having my arse kicked on a regular basis.

 

As Pol and Olham say, try later in the War.

 

I second that. Re the hanging on props, avoid the Nieuports, and pretty much anything 1917 onwards is OK.

If you still think it's too easy, try you versus two Ace AI, using no aids at all- Just you and trackir.

 

Survive regularly, and you're good!