P4 - most desirable improvements

[Hasse Wind 46]

Not quite way off topic, and linking back to my post about observers - has any two seater flyer here even returned to base with a dead/dying observer in the back seat? Does it ever happen in player campaigns?

 

I fly two-seaters a lot (most of my flying time actually), and I don't think this has ever happened to me. If my crate gets hit very badly, my pilot usually dies with the observer.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Hasse Wind

[Hellshade 110]

Don't shoot outside 200 feet - it's a waste of ammunition.

 

 

A man after my own heart. If you can't spit on him with a good wind on your back, then he better be hanging there motionless in front of your guns for a good few seconds in order for you to have time to line up a shot that's going to matter. Preferrably both! Within 200 feet and motionless relative to the guns on your plane. If you're patient enough to wait for those events to occur before you open fire, you'll have a good score to take home with you.

 

Hellshade

[Flyby PC 23]

I do take on board what you fellas are saying, but at the risk of labouring the point, I cannot imagine pilots going to the front without some rudimentary training, even classroom training about rudimentary tactics. It may have been hopelessly inadequate training, but I cannot imagine a pilot going into battle with a complete vacuum inside his head. There is too much he would have to know, just so he wasn't a complete liability. How to hold formation, how to break formation, how to signal he had a problem, how to say his guns were jammed, how to communicate if he'd spotted an enemy, and how to understand someone elses communication that they'd spotted the enemy. I cannot believe he wouldn't know this, even as a novice.

 

The army, any army and every army, has had drills for everything for centuries. It's not a 20th Century phenomenon. Sometimes the drill is outdated and dangerously ineffective, like the RAF rigidly flying vics at the start of the Battle of Britain, but thats a good example, because the tactic drilled into pilots was made obsolete by the experienced pilots realising it just didn't work, and telling less experienced pilots to abandon the accepted practice in spite of their training. I think if I remember correctly, when 12 group pilots came into the Battle of Britain, some were still flying in vics just as the manual said. Pilots talk to each other and try to keep each other alive and win the fight, and that would have happened in WW1 too. The whole point of debriefing a pilot after a mission is learning.

 

The military loves drills because they make important actions become automatic reflex, and even when your mind is in crisis, your subconcious takes over and keeps you in the fight. I don't doubt for a minute that Arthur Gould Lee felt his training was inadequate, but Arthur Gould Lee stayed alive long enough to write a book, and just perhaps there more to that than luck. (I take it he did survive, but forgive my ignorance, I am sadly not familiar with Arthur Gould Lee).

 

Just to confuse things even more, I recently started to read the US combat survival manual. (Don't worry I'm not one one of them extreme survivalists, I was hunting Lee Enfield details after a forum discussion and the link popped up. I thought that sort of stuff would be restricted so went in for a nosey). There's a whole section on stress. Some pilots who go down behind enemy lines can survive and evade successfully for weeks with no prior training, while others properly trained just don't hack it. They do know what to do, but stress causes them to shut down and not do the things they know they should be doing. The best training in the world can be completely ineffective if your head's not in the right place.

 

But we're kind of getting off the point. In CFS3, it's not just that flights of AI aircraft could but don't co-odinate themselves to act tactically, my point is that they can't. It is wholly beyond them. 1 on 1, the simulation of combat is very plausible, even good, perhaps very good, but I've never seen AI pilots team up and work together. The AI stands for artificial intelligence, and while I hate to let the cat out of the bag, there is absolutely no artificial intelligence telling those aircraft what to do next. THAT leap in technology is the most desireable improvement I would like to see, but it is a pipedream fantasy way beyond existing hardware, and it is definitely not an expectation for P4. P5 ... maybe, but not P4.

 

 

 

Edit. Tee Hee, reading back what I said, reading combat survival manuals is a warning sign of possible mental instability, but scanning the internet for gun details is absolutely fine. I really hope the Echelon computer isn't listening in..... I'm sane mother, really, I'm sane!

Edited July 18, 2011 by Flyby PC

[Hellshade 110]

But we're kind of getting off the point. In CFS3, it's not just that flights of AI aircraft could but don't co-odinate themselves to act tactically, my point is that they can't. It is wholly beyond them. 1 on 1, the simulation of combat is very plausible, even good, perhaps very good, but I've never seen AI pilots team up and work together.

 

I don't know about them never teaming up to work together. I've learned from experience that if you follow someone too far down into a dive, it's not unlikely that he's pulling you on a wild goose chase just to give his wingman time to sneak onto your six and do some serious damage. It's happened more than enough times that now I usually like to check my six even in the middle of a dive now and then. Of course none of it's real AI. It's programmed and it has it's limitations in CFS3 just like in any flight simulator. But with no ding to any sim out there, I find myself needing to check my six more in OFF than any other flight sim I play.

 

Making them co-ordinate as a team regularly probably is beyond any flight sims ability to do at the moment, but without trying to raise expectations too high, who the hell knows that the wizards at OBD are cooking up for us in P4. I'm guessing an even more like-like AI is on their list.

 

Hellshade

Edited July 18, 2011 by Hellshade

[Olham 164]

Sorry, Flyby, but I HAVE seen AI aircraft working together, at least in a most simple way.

 

Firstly, they do work together, when they are wingmen of yours, and you order them to attack a specific target.

Also, when you call for "Help!" repeatedly - they will come and attack each enemy craft near you.

 

But I don't think that is what you meant.

Then, I recently had a fight versus No. 56 Squadron, RFC.

Those pilots worked together at least in that way, that whenever I stuck with one for longer than just a few shots,

and even chased the S.E.5a, a wingman would appear and attack me fiercely.

[Flyby PC 23]

You're absolutely right again Hellshade.

 

It's all very well me talking about about artifical intelligence in a perfect world, but the combat in OFF is so immersive that I regularly go screaming off after any bandit who is after one of our guys, and even if I can't possibly interevene and save him, I'll still squirt some tracer in front of him in the forlorn hope it might just give him a fright and break off or at the very least put his aim off. 200ft? I need to factor in the curvature of the earth for some of my shots when trying to save my buddies.

[Flyby PC 23]

Then, I recently had a fight versus No. 56 Squadron, RFC.

Those pilots worked together at least in that way, that whenever I stuck with one for longer than just a few shots,

and even chased the S.E.5a, a wingman would appear and attack me fiercely.

 

Yes but that's No. 56 Squadron, and nobody messes with them.

[Olham 164]

Ah, I see - and I could have sworn they were AI flown planes...

[Dej 17]

I think the truth of the matter is that, early on, in the RFC at least, it very much varied according to the particular commander and the morale of the squadron. As hard as it may be for the modern mind to credit, the life of a pilot was considered cheap:

 

Arthur Gould Lee joined No. 54 at a low ebb and the 'advice' he received was of like kind;

 

Lanoe Hawker blew away the myth of the DH2 as the 'spinning incinerator' by detailing to his pilots how to get the machine out of a spin. But whilst he had a great record of improving flying ability and comfort, his view of tactics was the aerial equivalent of the Nelsonian 'never mind the manoeuvers, just go striaght at 'em';

 

Duncan Grinnell-Milne's experience in Dowding's squadron was miserable, almost to the point, I feel, of his fellow pilots seeing him as someone who might be killed instead of them;

 

One also has to bear in mind that RFC pilot training was killing cadets at the rate of up to 7 a day... not a situation from which one would infer that lessons learnt were being properly communicated.

 

After Smith-Barry's revolution of pilot training things improved across the board and if you were lucky enough to end up with a McCudden or a Mannock you would have received great advice.

 

If the AI were to start with little in the way of mutual support and then adopt progressivly more co-operative tactics as the war progressed one might improve the immersion and the contrast, should one survive long enough, cause you to forgive them not being human.

 

The Germans of course did things much better from the get go.

[Flyby PC 23]

OK, to look at this a different way, suppose every combat was indeed chaos, and that after the break command you knew you were on your own and fate was out of your hands, just imagine how devastated you'd feel to be one of the first to witness one of your comrades being clinically destroyed by a co-ordinated and structured attack. I don't mean being unlucky, or out numbered, but unequivocally and clinically shot down because he was in the killing zone of a cold blooded pre-planned attack pattern set up by enemy planes working together. Imagine the chill that would send down your spine.

 

What would you do when you go back to base? Curl up in your tent and try to get some sleep, or tell your squadron what you'd seen and try to make some sense of it. At the very least you would warn them, and try to work out a possible defence. Children playing football develop tactics to win, its instinctive, and pilots in the RFC would do it too.

 

That's what I often find myself asking myself when I'm in a dog fight. Like Olham, I try to look around and I do see very occassional instances which resemble tactical awareness in the forces I'm fighing, but I know it isn't tactical awareness, because the AI has extremely limited awareness and it isn't intelligent thought which controls their actions. If there is no structure guiding an attack, you cannot structure your defence.

 

It's the difference between finding yourself in a pack of 10 wolves who will attack you with 10 separate but broadly similar attack plans, and having those same 10 wolves attack you with one plan. It makes the difference between having ten one-on-one fights, and having one fight versus ten opponents. It's that pack instinct to co-ordinate which isn't there in the ai formations, neither in attack nor defence. It's not a criticism, just an observation. AI in a combat sim, any combat sim, still has a long way to go.

[33LIMA 972]

I think the truth of the matter is that, early on, in the RFC at least, it very much varied according to the particular commander and the morale of the squadron. As hard as it may be for the modern mind to credit, the life of a pilot was considered cheap:

 

Arthur Gould Lee joined No. 54 at a low ebb and the 'advice' he received was of like kind;

 

Lanoe Hawker blew away the myth of the DH2 as the 'spinning incinerator' by detailing to his pilots how to get the machine out of a spin. But whilst he had a great record of improving flying ability and comfort, his view of tactics was the aerial equivalent of the Nelsonian 'never mind the manoeuvers, just go striaght at 'em';

 

Duncan Grinnell-Milne's experience in Dowding's squadron was miserable, almost to the point, I feel, of his fellow pilots seeing him as someone who might be killed instead of them;

 

One also has to bear in mind that RFC pilot training was killing cadets at the rate of up to 7 a day... not a situation from which one would infer that lessons learnt were being properly communicated.

 

After Smith-Barry's revolution of pilot training things improved across the board and if you were lucky enough to end up with a McCudden or a Mannock you would have received great advice.

 

If the AI were to start with little in the way of mutual support and then adopt progressivly more co-operative tactics as the war progressed one might improve the immersion and the contrast, should one survive long enough, cause you to forgive them not being human.

 

The Germans of course did things much better from the get go.

 

Spot on, Dej. It's not that there were no tactics, only thing i would add is '..if you were lucky enough to end up with a McCudden or a Mannock OR A BIGGLES'.

 

Personally I believe OFF's current AI is on balance a reasonable approximation of WW1 air combat tactics. Especially for the 1915-17 period, but at a push even for the somewhat better organised last year or so of the war.

 

The things that would make the most difference - and this is just a comparative observation, NOT another 'please fix this/is this being done?' point - are:

 

- remove 'FM gap' between player and AI planes due to weight issue [already coming in P4]

 

- better formation-keeping;

 

- somewhat more varied 2-seater defensive tactics, formation and individual, eg sometimes forming a 'Lufberry' [defensive circle'] or some RB3d-style weaving;

 

- ability of AI to signal to player flight leader their having seen the enemy (IRL one drill was move down level with the leader, waggle wings, and point). At the moment, I simulate this by setting the TAC/radar to 1-mile range, only, for aircraft targets, as part of my pre-flight drill, the equivalent of a final reminder to my chaps to 'keep your eyes peeled!'. Then I turn it on at intervals during the flight, tho I could just as easily leave it on. And possibly also, tho this is based on limited observation:

 

- some way of issuing a general command to attack nearest aerial target(s), without having to 'turn on the radar/TAC and/or hit tab first. From what I can see, while they react to a threat without instructions, your AI flight mates ('wingmen' is established simmer shorthand but is not really appropriate for WW1, I hope P4 will banish this modernism, like 'Intel') are liable to ignore enemy planes you are attacking and even fly right up to or past them with you. Re-interpretation of the CFS 'Attack mission target' command (in CFS2 it was 2 presses of the 'A' key no more than 3 seconds apart, think CFS3 is the same) to 'attack nearest air target'. If anyone has found a way of achieving the effect of a 'Get at them!' command, or noticed that it can actually happen this way, or has noticed if 'AA' does the trick with the nearest air targets, I would be glad to hear of it.

 

I think you CAN already get a co-ordinated/successive attack by a flight you're leading, on one or more targets, by targeting the desired victim(s) with the TAC/radar on, then issuing an 'attack [my selected target]' command. fiddly but not too bad and it works I think. If anyone has found a way of doing the last point above, would be glad to hear of it.

[Olham 164]

- some way of issuing a general command to attack nearest aerial target(s), without having to 'turn on the radar/TAC

I don't use the TAC at all anymore, and so I had to concentrate more on my wingman orders.

From what I saw in those sorties, the wingmen react differently, when an order is getting repeated.

 

If I fly high above an enemy flight and press "Attack" twice, only two wingmen dive to attack.

If I repeat pressing it twice, the next two follow.

So, this gives me a control about how many wingmen I send to attack, and how many stay with me.

 

If I'm in a furball and want them to attack the nearest targets around me, I do the same with the "Help" command.

If I press help only once, it will just be my direct wingman, who will come to help me out.

If I press it repeatedly, all flyers who are near enough to "see" my order, would come and attack the nearest EA.

 

Works fine to me - try it out. The TAC is not necessary for a scout pilot.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

I use about the same system as you do Olham to signal the other flyers in my flight, with the exception of the 'help' command. I don't recall ever reading about a WWI pilot having a way to signal for help to his companions, so I only use the 'attack' and 'regroup' commands. And like you Olham, I don't use TAC, or indeed any of the in-sim aids including the map, (as mentioned before, I use my own 'cockpit' maps).

 

.

[Olham 164]

The "Help" command to me is like the replacement for the AI to notice, that they should help you.

In RL for example, Viktor Schobinger once dived on a Sopwith Triplane, which was chasing his

CO, Lt. Tutschek. He shot the Tripe off of Tutschek's tail.

A real life flyer would notice if someone was in trouble, and help (if he was free himself, of course).

The "Help" command can replace that. I would just not regard is as a command signal given, but

as an assistance for the AI to behave "intelligent".

[Hasse Wind 46]

Flying two-seaters for the most part, I use the rejoin command a lot. It helps in keeping the formation together and allows my flight to direct as much firepower as possible against attackers.

 

Using Bletchley's mods, I've become quite used to flying many two-seater missions alone. It's wonderful when the doctrines change and I'm allowed to fly with several other aircraft. The difference in firepower is quite remarkable, and the feeling of safety that provides can't be overstated.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Hasse Wind

[33LIMA 972]

Good advice there chaps.

 

Re whether the 'Help' command cannot be regarded as a signal, in 'First of the Many' on the Independent Force, Alan Morris lists the following Very light signals in use, which would have represented early 1918 practice if not earlier, and at least for 2-seaters if not also scouts:

 

Above the aerodrome after takeoff and assembly - colour unspecified - 'Leave rendezvous' (begin mission)

White (Leader) - 'washout' (mission abandoned; fired East of lines, also indicated 'hold formation'

Red (leader) - 'Rally on me'

Red (any other plane) - 'Attacked, need assistance'

Green (any plane_ 'Forced to return' (if fired by Leader, is also signal for deputy to take over)

 

I like Olham's idea of treating the H key as a trigger for your flight, as well as a valid signal under the above circumstances; also confirmation that the A key without use of the TAC/radar can still get them stuck in, in stages/pairs. Confirms my belief that the CFS3/OFF AI and command system is at least adequate for WW1.

[Flyby PC 23]

My last comment on this fellas.

 

Common to all your advice, you all describe you at the centre of the mission issuing commands to your flight. I know how to do all of that, but I also know that's all you can do. No AI aircraft can give you a command back. Nor will you see one AI aircraft give any command to another AI aircraft. I don't know of any sim where you can elect to fly as a No 2 in order to watch and learn how an experienced pilot goes about doing things. All I'm saying is that if you could do that, it would be pretty cool and a major step forward in combat flight simming. Why do I have a bee in my bonnet about this? Well, it started when I used to make videos, and it was acutely frustrating that I couldn't make anybody else do anything I wanted them to do. I had to do it myself.

 

Have you ever seen any AI do an Immelman? A barrel roll? In CFS3, the fighters built for boom and zoom combat do not actually adopt boom and zoom tactics in a dogfight. Don't you think an air combat simulator which hasn't the capacity to address actual air combat is missing a trick? I repeat guys, I'm not having a dig at OFF, I'm talking in general. OFF is proof you can make a silk purse from a sow's ear, but there are still some CFS3 issues which cannot be improved. Here's a test for you to show you what I mean, - write a mission and have bandits attack you from the sun.

 

I know you can build missions so you're not flight leader, but nobody else take any more intitative than they do as normal wingmen, all that happens is that AI aircraft higher up the chain of command than you ignore you.

 

Last line in my last comment? OK, new direction, how cool would it be to get the built in video utilities which are in CFS3 somewhere up and working again? Is that do-able? Not for P4, but cracking that code would make a nice addition to P5....... (The cracking isn't literal, I mean figuring it out, cough, cough).

Edited July 19, 2011 by Flyby PC

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

I have seen the AI engage in barrel rolls, although I can't be 100% positive it was voluntary! I was so surprised, I temporarily lost contact with the bugger!

Edited July 19, 2011 by Herr Prop-Wasche

[Olham 164]

Thank you very much for the explanation of the flare signals, LIMA!

I asked and searched for that long ago, but never found it.

 

I don't know of any sim where you can elect to fly as a No 2 in order to watch and learn how an experienced pilot goes about doing things.

Fly with Manfred von Richthofen, and just follow him.

Once we sighted several Triplanes 9 o'clock high - and he led us into a fast dive to starboard.

Most people might not have run away - MvR did. Just more smart.

 

Have you ever seen any AI do an Immelman? A barrel roll?

Yes; especially the barrel roll is getting performed often, when a chasing craft tries to eliminate speed

to be able to stay behind the prey.

 

In CFS3, the fighters built for boom and zoom combat do not actually adopt boom and zoom tactics in a dogfight.

Boom and zoom was/is partially used by the AI which got later stamped "less aggressive".

The SPADs used it - but unfortunately, they were over-careful with attacking at all.

I hope that the devs took up that line and improve it.

 

I know you can build missions so you're not flight leader, but nobody else take any more intitative than they do as normal wingmen,

all that happens is that AI aircraft higher up the chain of command than you ignore you.

What OFF are you flying, Flyby??? If you select "by rank" in OFF "Workshops", then you can fly as Sergeant or Flieger - lowest rank.

And when you follow the A-flight / ace flight, then you can also use their guidance, cause they definitely have their own mind.

I do that all the time.

 

... how cool would it be to get the built in video utilities which are in CFS3 somewhere up and working again?

Very cool. If we could have a mission replay... ...maybe that would eat too many ressources?

Edited July 19, 2011 by Olham

[Hellshade 110]

I've seen a number of Albs do barrel rolls. Might have even caught a few of them in some of my videos. Immelman? Nope, I can't say that I have. But I haven't seen any other WWI sim doing them either, nor have I seen an AI so advanced that it could literally "train" a player on how to be a flight leader or fight in combat by example. That'll be great when it happens, but I suspect it'll be a very long ways off in the future.

 

Also, WWI sims have a unique challenge in that the planes simply don't have the horsepower to recover large amounts of altitude in short order. I can be on the deck in a Spitfire and zoom damn near straight up into the clouds just by sheer horsepower in Wings of Prey. So can most WWII sim AI pilots. That gives the AI programmers a lot more flexibility in how to program what their AI pilots will do and that inherently adds to the difficulty of the fight. In WWI, the fights tend to stay at current level at best and generally work their way lower as planes burn off energy and lose the ability to recover lost altitude. Long before we ever get to see flight AI leaders excercising true leadership abilities, I think we'll see code that helps keep the fights at higher altitude for much longer because the programers will get better at energy management of the AI planes, making them less likely to feel the need to dive towards the deck as soon as a few rounds hit home. I'd love to see a lot more barrel rolls, sharp evasive and unpredictable turns to shake players off the AIs tail and even attempts to loop over and get on the six of the player. That will add a whole new dimension to the combat. The day will come and I wouldn't at all be suprised to see OBD leading the way.

 

All that said, we're farther ahead in flight sims than I ever imagined we'd be 10 years ago. So who knows what another 10 years will bring.

 

Hellshade

[Hasse Wind 46]

 

Boom and zoom was/is partially used by the AI which got later stamped "less aggressive".

The SPADs used it - but unfortunately, they were over-careful with attacking at all.

I hope that the devs took up that line and improve it.

 

 

That AI setting is an interesting one for experimenting. I noticed that the SPAD XIIIs were very difficult to shoot down, because they stayed so high all the time. Now if they had dived down and attacked and then used that extra energy to climb back up, it would have been a great example of energy tactics in action, and they would have been really challenging opponents for a less powerful fighter. But unfortunately they really were "less aggressive", and didn't attack much at all.

 

The less aggressive AI is perfect for the early war, but doesn't produce satisfactory results in later periods.

 

We already know that the AI will be improved in P4. I'd love to see it using at least some of the proper tactics of WW1 air combat.

[Olham 164]

That AI setting is an interesting one for experimenting. I noticed that the SPAD XIIIs were very difficult to shoot down, because they stayed so high all the time.

Now if they had dived down and attacked and then used that extra energy to climb back up, it would have been a great example of energy tactics in action...

They did exactly that. I flew the Fokker E.V to try it out, and the SPADs circled high.

I got attacked two or three times by one of them, and after the attack, they went back up to his previous height.

[Hasse Wind 46]

Interesting. Maybe you encountered a more aggressive Escadrille/Squadron? Hopefully we'll see more of that in P4.

[Flyby PC 23]

Ok this really IS my last comment.

 

Olham if you flew as wingman to MVR and watched actively adopt evasion tactics having judged the odds were stacked against him then I admit defeat and recognise there are levels to OFF that I haven't experienced. In my experience, following an AI flight leader as No 2, all he did was fly the scripted mission. They react when attacked, but have no initiative outside the script of the mission. They won't for example deviate 1 degree off course specifically to identify whether nearby white contacts are friend or foe. (Actually, the AI already knows. Tell them to attack a white target. If it's enemy, they will, if it's friendly, they wont. You can thus identify a white target miles before it's critical). Nor will the flight leader dispatch 2 scouts to check it out and come back with the appropriate intelligence. You'd do that all the time flying escort in multiplayer.

 

But look what your saying. The Spad XIII's stayed high. You are both making the same logical connection between the same two things you see in off, but your conception is a feature of the Sim, not reality. There is no evidence that SPAD XIIIs were recognised by reputation to adopt high altitude. Please don't paint me as the bad guy criticising OFF for a weakness, it's not an OFF weakness but a combat sim weakness. I agree the OFF battles are excellent and the best experience you can get currently, but can't you see what I do?

 

I haven't seen an immelman manouver performed by an AI - never. Barrel rolls yes, but they were passive and sloppy, more like general flight than a specific crisp manourve. If AI bandits attack from the sun, it's pure chance which caused it to happen.

 

I agree that OFF is getting there. I even believe you possibly could program an AI pilot to execute an Immelman manouvre to escape a pursuing fighter, but the CFS3 limitations would see that aircraft then adopt the Immelman manouvre by random selection from a very short list of possible manoures. What you'd very quickly see is that particular aircraft doing immelman manouvres at the drop of a hat, and with such regularity that you'd begin to identify that type of aircraft as an 'Immelman turner' when in actual fact it is no more like to perform an Immelman than any other aircraft. Just as you are identifying altitide as a characteristic of the Spad.

 

The one exception to this is the DR1. I reckon, now don't call my bluff, but I reckon, if you flew a quick combat fighting a smiley, that is a blind trial fighting an unknown aircraft, I reckon the only aircraft you could identify simply by the way it flew would perhaps be the DR1 or Triplehound. That works because the identifying characteristics are flight model based, as in it turns and climbs better, just like the real thing.

 

I'm not harping on about this any more. I genuinely don't want to burst anybody's immersion bubble. And I do look forward to P4 immensly. For the record, I think the OFF crew have an excellent grasp of the limitations I'm describing, and have done a trully marvelous and spectacular job to achieve what they already have.