Have we figured this out?

[Macklroy 2]

First of all ~Salute~ to everyone. I've been away (from these boards) for some time. Nice to see so many familiar 'offers' as well as new faces.

 

Back on task. Has it been discovered what exactly makes the player craft so much slower than the ai? (yes i have wind turned off). Just had to test the extremes finally and found that a spadXIII will barely (if even) outrun a Dr1. If the spad is flown by the player and the ai is piloting the Dr1. If reveresed the spad flys laps around you. I wanted to try out the spad since my campaign pilot is approaching the end of his nieuport 24 days, and will be flying the spad shortly. But if I cant even outrun the slowest aircraft that the luftwaffe has I may just retire him early. I thought I saw it posted somewhere that the 'weight' of the aircraft is not counted for the ai. Is that true?

 

Hope everyone is well.

S~

[Winston DoRight 3]

The weight of the fuel and pilot are not modeled for the A.I. It's a CFS3 thing. You'll have to make up for it with cunning and resourcefulness.

[Bletchley 8]

Reducing your own fuel and ammunition load can also help you to keep up with them :)

 

Bletchley

[Olham 164]

Didn't know this at all! As an Albatros man, I thought that everybody was faster than me anyway?

No, seriously now - it annoyed me to see, that a Nieuport 11 seems to catch up on my Albatros D.II,

when I'm out of ammo and run.

That's why I prefer to shoot everybody down - which isn't realistic, is it?

 

If you'd fly German side, I would say, reduce your petrol / weight - if I have a path of 40 miles to fly

over German terrain, I fill in petrol for 60 miles; if it goes over enemy terrain, I fill in for the double distance.

But I think, you Entente pilots can't do that? Not sure.

I never reduce ammo - it is a wonderful feeling, when you still have the chance to defend yourself even

on your way back to base. One never knows!

[Hasse Wind 46]

The devs already have fixed many of these CFS issues, so maybe this one can be squashed too in P4?

[GHunter 0]

I've had a hard time catching or escaping too. I take enough fuel to go twice as far as the mission spec. It seems the wind makes a huge difference. I tried to get into a low level fight in a Halb DII and was flying sideways and backwards into the wind. The planes in the furball didn't blow my wat and had no trouble moving any which way. I managed to turn away, find an airbase and land.

[Olham 164]

uncleal: Double-check if WIND is selected or not in Workshop. As it's presence can make landing . . exciting

 

"Tch!!! Butterflies!!!! Try der Albatros - ze wind vill not ssrow zatt arround! Crumpetz!"

[MajorMagee 0]

Over on the CFS3 side we saw a number of AI releases this past summer that went a long way toward fixing the discrepancy. It carries added weight to compensate for the fact that AIs in CFS3 are not "calculated" as having either a fuel load or pilot. This goes some way to addressing that by adding extra weight using a custom made dummy pylon. I'm sure the same could be done in OFF.

[Winston DoRight 3]

Over on the CFS3 side we saw a number of AI releases this past summer that went a long way toward fixing the discrepancy. It carries added weight to compensate for the fact that AIs in CFS3 are not "calculated" as having either a fuel load or pilot. This goes some way to addressing that by adding extra weight using a custom made dummy pylon. I'm sure the same could be done in OFF.

Back when we first realized this in CFS3, we started adding invisible non-jettisonable weight and pylons to A.I. only standalone planes to fight against. It works perfectly. This should be easy in OFF because there's already so many A.I. only aircraft that we don't fly anyway. The devs just need to add some extra weight to these to equal a fuel and pilot load. Should be rather easy. Then you'll have realistic flying A.I. planes instead of the super performers that are now present in the game.

[Bletchley 8]

"Back when we first realized this in CFS3, we started adding invisible non-jettisonable weight and pylons to A.I. only standalone planes to fight against"

 

This could perhaps be less than the total weight that is 'missing' (maybe only 50% of missing weight), otherwise the human pilots would then have another advantage over the AI, by reducing their own fuel/ammo load to less than that of the AI aircraft.

 

Bletchley

[Macklroy 2]

The devs already have fixed many of these CFS issues, so maybe this one can be squashed too in P4?

 

 

That would be fantastic! I also understand that giving the "AI" aircraft advantages over the player helps make the computer a little bit tougher to shoot down. Thus increasing the dificulty for all those Aces out there. But at some point it really is just sacrificing gameplay.

 

If it was possible I wonder if the Devs would even want to implement the 'fix'. As it may cripple the AI a bit too much. I dunno, but I guess we all will never know unless we try.

 

 

PS - good idea of limiting the fuel load to help compinsate. I usually take 100% as I seem to have a giant flashing target on my fuel tank as it is invariably the first thing to get shot.

[Hasse Wind 46]

For most missions, you really don't need all that fuel in your tank. I fly two-seaters a lot, and they usually have more than enough range even with greatly reduced fuel load. But even among fighters there are only a few planes with an extremely limited range, which forces you to fly with full tanks almost all the time. The Dr.1 is probably the worst, as it has a really limited range. But it's so agile that it doesn't really matter.

 

The devs have done marvels with the AI already, so I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see some significant improvements also in the future. It shouldn't be impossible to make the AI pilots behave reasonably well even with some extra weight on their planes.

[77Scout 3]

Back when we first realized this in CFS3, we started adding invisible non-jettisonable weight and pylons to A.I.

 

Hmmm...if the weight was jettisonable, then maybe fuel could be 'dumped' incrementally somehow as the AI fly along, simulating the burning of fuel. I doubt this would be practical...just thinking out load.

 

The wind not affecting the AI is a real bummer. I wonder what are the odds are of that getting fixed? Seems like a tough nut to crack, particularly if it is hard-coded into CSF3.

[gaw 5]

as for escape when everybody else is speedier......I find that if I can make it to the deck and fly low enough the AI seem to bob about rather than fly straight. Their apparent disinclination to lose undercarriages on inconvenient shrubs usually lets me edge away gradually. For all the reasons listed above climbing out of a mess almost invariably leads to condition colander....but that's just me channeling Von Richthofen again

[Olham 164]

Daisy-level flying is the safest way to escape, when having a gun jam or being out of ammo.

But don't look behind too much - you might ram into a molehill !

(AI seems to need to sort out, where the ground actually is - like a bat with it's sonar - as they are blind.

That's why they can't fly low and straight.)

[Fortiesboy 3]

This "faster" AI has been something that has been there since P1. I used to amend the Uisel file to factor in fuel loads into the AI but I'm not sure that did the trick.

 

As I fly mainly QC I have managed to relieve the problem by tweaking the FM of some of the planes. I.E the Dr1; pfalz and Alb 200a.

I noticed in these that the max RPM was below that of the specs for that plane in RL.

E.g In the vanilla OFF you will see that the max RPM of the Dr1 is around 1000, whereas in RL the engine would be 1200.

Now I have my plane at 1200 and I keep up with the AI etc.

 

And before anyone says it makes fighting the AI too easy, may I reiterate that I fly "full real" , no labels etc etc - and when there are 3 of those AI in the sky ( somewhere ) invariably one of 'em will get you! -lol

 

cheers

 

FB

[dihedral 0]

This "faster" AI has been something that has been there since P1. I used to amend the Uisel file to factor in fuel loads into the AI but I'm not sure that did the trick.

 

As I fly mainly QC I have managed to relieve the problem by tweaking the FM of some of the planes. I.E the Dr1; pfalz and Alb 200a.

I noticed in these that the max RPM was below that of the specs for that plane in RL.

E.g In the vanilla OFF you will see that the max RPM of the Dr1 is around 1000, whereas in RL the engine would be 1200.

Now I have my plane at 1200 and I keep up with the AI etc.

 

And before anyone says it makes fighting the AI too easy, may I reiterate that I fly "full real" , no labels etc etc - and when there are 3 of those AI in the sky ( somewhere ) invariably one of 'em will get you! -lol

 

cheers

 

FB

 

Hi, I'm a newbie here! Where do I go to tweak the engine rpm?

 

Salut!

 

Dihedral

[Mr. Lucky 0]

The problem I have with the AI this way, is you can't develop techniques using the strength, or staying away from, the weaknesses of your aircraft. All you have is cunning and skill. That would be enough, all factors being equal but when all your wingmen are shot down and there are still 7 enemy out there....you may need to run and there's no way a DR1 should be able to close the range on me in a spadXIII in a full throttle screaming dive. Yet, it happens. As mentioned above, you're only hope for escape is to get low before they destroy you and hedgehop all the way home. And, of course, those dead eye ground gunners only work for the enemy; drag an enemy fighter over a friendly airbase and you'll grow old watching them try (or not) to shoot him down while he provides a superb aerial exhibition for all the airbase personnel.

[Stratos 3,192]

Maybe is possible to tweak the AI for the next phase? Another option "afecting" the realism is reducing the fuel ammount for the player to reduce the weight and give it unlimited fuel, but that will be cheating. I'm also a bit annoyed by really fast AI, so maybe Fortiesboy can share his tweak of the RPM so all can fly a bit faster planes giving us more realism.

Please!

[Olham 164]

Welcome to OFF, dihedral!

I cannot answer that - I never tweaked anything yet.

I would like to add your name to our OFF Forum Pilots maps above;

would you send me a PM with your town and country/state, please?

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Without sounding too harsh, the parasitic drag settings in the .air files for most of the aircraft in OFF are, well, "off." For example, the drag for the DrI is set lower than the drag for the Spad XIII. Unfortunately, you can't edit the .air file and still be able to use the plane in the campaign (it still works in QC, however).

 

There is an indirect way to alter the parasitic drag in the .cfg file, but it is relatively crude compared to changing the .air file setting.

 

I sincerely hope the devs will take a look at revising the .air file drag settings for P4 or in a "realistic FM pack" addition sometime in the future. I would also like the recovery from most spins to be a little more difficult than it is now currently. Those are my only real 'complaints" about the FM. Considering all the real life factors that go into a flight model and the inherent limitations of the CFS3 engine, the OFF devs have done an outstanding job overall, IMO.

[Stratos 3,192]

Any idea to reduce the speed difference with AIs then?

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

The "dummy" pylons sounds like the best idea for reducing the speed difference between human and AI flown aircraft. Winston, could you give a brief tutorial on adding such pylons or send me a PM regarding same?

 

There are several .cfg edits that can alter the speed, climb, and turn of various aircraft, but there are too many to list and they all tend to interact with one another, so tweaking the FM can take quite a while. I've done some of this in the past, but because of the problem getting .air file changes to work in the campaign I would basically have to start over again working only with the .cfg files.

 

Following are just some settings in the .cfg file that can effect speed, climb, etc:

Estimated RPM's

Propellor Gear Ratio

Climb Weight

Turn Weight

Parasitic drag

Engine thrust ratio

Propellor thrust ratio

etc.

 

Then you have to play around with these and other settings and test them in QC battles.

[77Scout 3]

Unfortunately, you can't edit the .air file and still be able to use the plane in the campaign (it still works in QC, however).

 

Polovski has done a great job with the FM's, but it is a tricky business so no doubt there is always room for fine tuning and improvements. Given that FM work it is such a slow and laborious process, and given the developers are few in number and have many other tasks on their plates, I hope they will perhaps assist you with info on how to edit .air files and have them remain useable in the campaign. Any efforts to improve the game are commendable.

 

Would it ever happen that quality work by outsiders (Herr Prop-wash's DM, Creaghorns effects and sound tweaks, etc) might eventually be 'donated' where deemed appropriate and incorporated directly into Phase 4 should all parties agree to do so? I'd like to see that, but then I am fond of things being all in one neat package...getting too old to manage too many add-ons and tweaks, hah hah.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Some effects (tracer effects) have had their mod incorporated directly into the game, while other effects (different colored flak for Allied and German guns) that were originally in a 3rd party mod have seen the devs adopt the effect without directly using the 3d party mod.

 

If the devs would like to consider using either my damage mod or some of the FM ideas and tweaks I have come up with to this point, they certainly have my permission to do so.