Altering AI behaviour.

[UllyB 1,206]

On 3/22/2021 at 1:29 PM, alexis99 said:

Anyway back to the AI behaviour:

I had a flight of four F/A-18s loaded with Maverick Fs on a Close Air support Mission. As we’re heading to the first target, I tell both Wingman and Flight One to Rejoin. They are now in formation and the first target is counting down to AGM-65F range. As soon as the range is correct I order the Wingman to attack my target. I then snap to a second target and tell Flight One to attack my target. As I continue cruising in, I watch and see two missiles cream in and hit the assigned targets. Excellent. I turn away from the tanks and go for a second pass. I mark a target and ask my Wingman to attack it. I then tell Flight One to attack ground, which should get both pilots involved. Then I select my own target, fire the AGM-65F at the correct range and get a kill. I then check the exterior views of all aircraft. Wingman has only fired the first Maverick; Pilot 3 has only fired the first Maverick.; Pilot 4 hasn’t fired anything. So I redesignate for the Wingman and ask 3 and 4 to attack ground. I then watch their behaviour. They fly off, turn round, head for the target, swoop down, don’t fire, get real close and then swoop up and fly off to turn round and fail again. I left them there and flew back to the carrier. Hoped they’d run out of fuel and crash.
Am I lacking a patch or something?
Back in Nam, my A-7E Corsair II wingman is an enigma. He has no idea how to use Mavericks or Walleyes, but by golly he’s a whiz with Shrikes and Standard Arms. I’ve sometimes noticed him veering off on his own because he’s sniffed out some pesky radar, and it’s hell’s own job to get him to rejoin. That's the kind of Wingman I like - one with initiative.

In my experience, if you have in your flight more planes than you and your wingmen, No3 and No4 won't attack your (main) target (let's say you have in a CAS mision in front of you ten tanks), they will attack other targets in the vecinity if they exist, especially if there are AA guns or radars. You can only depend on your wingmen (No2) and ...yourself to bring down the main target(s). I think the only exception is , in antiship missions where, IF there are no other targets around you, they will engage the ships, too you are firing upon.

[alexis99 124]

19 hours ago, UllyB said:

In my experience, if you have in your flight more planes than you and your wingmen, No3 and No4 won't attack your (main) target (let's say you have in a CAS mision in front of you ten tanks), they will attack other targets in the vecinity if they exist, especially if there are AA guns or radars. You can only depend on your wingmen (No2) and ...yourself to bring down the main target(s). I think the only exception is , in antiship missions where, IF there are no other targets around you, they will engage the ships, too you are firing upon.

I tell you what, 2, 3 and 4 always go for the enemy aircraft though and are often successful. Especially the modern aircraft with missiles. Nam era, not so successful with only a bullet load, but the F-8E sidewinder load gets some good kills for them.

I've just done a runway strike in an A-7E Corsair in Nam. I gave my wingman two Shrikes and two Standard Arms. He fired all four and got four kills.

[UllyB 1,206]

Maybe we are playing different games friend :). There is no such thing. Maybe, in your case, just MAYBE, they attack because they already are on enemies' radar tracked or the enemy already fired missiles upon them. I could make a video to show you but it would be a waste of time, trust me. I wish I would be seeing the day when I will order them to engage and all wingmen would do exactly that. Fat chance.

Or are you talking about A-G engagements ?

Edited April 1, 2021 by UllyB

[alexis99 124]

The A-7E was AG.

Today I did an AA with the F-14 82 Tomcat downloaded from this site. I had a flight of four  in the Libya map. I had 6x Phoenix, 2 and 3 had 4x Phoenix; 4 just had Sparrows.

I was directed to the Tupolev flight of six, and picked them up in trail between 130 and 160 miles.

When I got them on the 100 range radar, I tagged the lead aircraft for number 3, and tagged the fourth aircraft for my wingman. That is I pressed the "Attack my Target" key for the flight and then the wingman.

I counted them calling Fox 3 five times, then I turned away to deal with four MiGs heading for the Hawkeye aircraft. I fired four Phoenix at them using the salvo method and downed them.

Then I turned back to the rest of the flight and saw one Tupolev still intact. So I downed him.

I play everything through North Atlantic.

Landed at 130 kts. AOA spot on.

[UllyB 1,206]

As I told you, only No 3 reacts. No 2 reacts ONLY if you direct him to attack, otherwise he is deaf and stupid staying into formation like nothing happened. The same No 4. But, I did some tests these days watching the wingmen A.I. behaviour. In one run , with F-15A Baz (there were 8 planes into formation) I noticed that if I order squadron to attack air targets, only No 3 , from each 4 plane of one flight, aknowledges, but when I ordered, entering in command menu in each formation of four, to attack, even the No 5 attacked, actually he shot down 6 planes in the end! But No 8 and No 6 had all their weapons on board when the session ended. No 4 attacked , too but I am not sure if he did it on its own initiative or he was attacked or was painted onan enemy radar. Who knows, maybe if you have in formation A.I. pilots with higher skill (No 5 was Lt col) , they will commence attack if you order the squadron to attack. I'll keep testing and if I will find anything to be worth talking about you will know it.

[alexis99 124]

I haven't been noting the rank. You might have something there.

I've never left it to my wingman to initiate an attack. I always lock up a target and tell him to "Attack my Target". Otherwise, as you say, totally oblivious. I then lock up another target and tell the Flight, i.e 3&4 to attack my target, which is a new command in SF2. They do attack, with varying degrees of success. If in doubt I tell the Flight to attack Air targets. Number 4 usually expends no ammunition, as you have noticed. I have never left them to their own devices, I always give them an attack instruction. Since 4 is under the command of 3, that may be why he does nothing, because I can't directly command him.

It might be the aircraft

I've just flown the F-14A native. Told my wingman to attack a specified target. He salvoed the flight of four Migs with a Phoenix each and downed the lot. I had to tote back four Phoenix for a heavy landing.

Then I took up an F-15A, downloaded from this site. Told my wingman to attack a target. He messed around until the MiGs were so close I had to use sidewinders.

So I took a look at the F-14A data. It has an entry for AIRocketAttack, but F-14s don't carry rockets. Maybe it works for AA missiles, thought I. So I stole that entry and put it in the F-15A data file. Suddenly my wingman is Rambo.

Coincidence? Don't know.

Needs more testing.

 

[UllyB 1,206]

What I lack and I would need in SF2 is , what I mentioned in one of my previous posts,  the break command from SF1. When I was with a single wingman in SF1 and ordered him to break, after the maneuver, he accelerated and attacked everything in his path without any other order. This only worked IF :

- enemy was in wingman missile's range (the beter the missiles the longer distance he attacked from)

- I had locked to an enemy

 

If I had 4 wingmen it was more fun, after break command all four would attack all the targets in their front. Go in SF1 if you still had it installed and check that and live the joy what brings it.

In SF2 series, TK changed that and eliminate the A.I. behaviour if one gives this command. Who knows maybe he thought of it as an exploit kindda thing and didn't liked it.In my opinion that was the best example of excellent and intelligent A.I. behaviour. It's a shame that he erased that in SF2.

In SF1 series this break command saved sometimes the day. I had wingmen which didn't fired any missiles and refused to fire or act when I commanded them to attack (generic flight command) even if the enemy was on my radar locked and they were in missiles range. But when I gave them the break command, they attacked as if they woke up from some spell.

However I did more tests with wingmen commands and I am almost certain that , the higher the rank/skill, the better all wingmen will behave. I had some sessions, not too many though, in which ALL the 7 wingmen attacked (fired at least a missile or used the cannon)

 

 

PS- about the rank/skill, look careful into roster page when you prepare for entering the generated single player mission. Choose the ones who have the higher skil or/and experience, versus low skill/ low experience and you will notice a huge difference in their behaviour.

When you play a campaign things get interesting, the skill and experience are not resetting and generated again randomly as in generated single player mission. The experience and skill achived in the battle is there and it will raise/add, separately for every A.I. pilot you brought into the missions (of course, if the wingmen score points shooting down enemy planes or ground targets or if they have precision using the ammo and payload, example he fires 4 missiles but only three hit the target etc). So the better they perform, the better they become during the campaign. Though you have to watch them into the fight, sometimes they make mistakes and end up shot down or killed. You have, like in reality, to take care of them and bring them home alive. It's a challenge and if you can pull it out , the more enjoyable the campaign would be.

Edited April 4, 2021 by UllyB

[alexis99 124]

I always thought the break command was to get your team-mate to make a sudden turn to avoid an enemy on his tail. I need to check that.

Normally I wouldn't expect any aircraft in my flight to start missiling enemy aircraft until I had commanded them to do so. If they just started firing sparrows will-nilly, we could all end up firing missiles at the same aircraft.

An AMRAAM attack is a useful illustration. I lock a target on the radar and fire a a missile. Since the AMRAAM is F&F, I can then lock another target and order my wingman to attack that target. Sometimes I have inadvertantly locked the same target a second time. At that point my wingman says "Unable" or "Unable to comply". Just like he does if you tell him to drop his tanks and he already has. The wingman is telling me that there's already a missile streaking towards that target and it would be wasteful of him to fire another missile at that target. So I lock a different target, tell him to "Attack my Target", and he does. Then I tell the flight (3&4) to "Attack Air Targets" or I lock another target and command "Attack my Target", which is a new command for the flight in SF2. After the first missiles have hit, they usually  go looking around for something else to shoot down.

Unfortunately, I can't check with SF1, because my Win XP  computer died, so I have had to migrate to Win 10 and SF2.

I agree that there is some improvement in AI behaviour in a campaign. I've done F-8E escort missions in a Nam campaign where I've been lucky to get one kill, because the rest of my flight and the other sections up there have annihilated the enemy aircraft whilst I've been trying to lock up a second target. When your radar screen is full of blips, it's impossible to tell friend from enemy without locking, and if you lock a friendly, you then have to unlock, wait for the radar to repaint and then take a guess at another blip.

So I'm going to take a flight of F-8Es up in Nam, carrying Radar-guided AIM-9Cs in a single mission and make a note of the rank of the pilots and their kill success.

On locking a target, I will hand it to the wingman with the "Attack My" Target command, lock a second target for myself and then order the rest of the flight to "Attack Air Targets". And we'll see what occurs.

And I'll see what the "Break" command does.

Lots of interesting information that you have come up with. Thank you

[alexis99 124]

This is what happened in the F-8E 66 mission. I had six aircraft for the first time ever! I have radio commands tied to single keys for wingman and flight, and had to go through the Tab menu for the 2nd flight. Nuisance factor when manouevring.

I used my normal command pattern, designating a target for my wingman, then Attack Air Targets for  flight 1 and flight 2. 4 out of 4 kills

Me 2x AIM-9C 2 kills

Ensign AIM-9C, AIM-9D 0 kills

LtJg 20 cannon 0 kill; AIM-9D 1 kill; AIM-9C 1 kill.

Ensign AIM-9C no kill

Lt Cannon 16 no kill; 2x AIM-9C no kill

Ensign AIM-9C, AIM-9D no kills.

NOTE THAT THEY ALL ENGAGED AND FIRED

 

I reflew the mission with the "Break" command only. 4 out of 4 kills

Me 3x AIM-9C, 2 hits 1 kill (Because I ended up firing at aircraft that had already been targeted); AIM-9D 1 kill

Ensign no weapon

Lt Jg Cannon 20 1 kill (outstanding)

Ensign no weapon

Lt AIM-9C 1 kill

Ensign no weapon.

So using "Break" as you say is useless in SF2. Three pilots didn't engage and all were Ensigns which supports your rank theory. I also ended up wasting two missiles on aircraft that were already targeted, because I wasn't in control of who engaged who.

Giving normal attack commands, all pilots engaged, but only myself and the LtJg got kills. There was no targeting of same aircraft by more than one pilot.

[UllyB 1,206]

2 hours ago, alexis99 said:

I. At that point my wingman says "Unable" or "Unable to comply".

 

Nope, you are mistaken here. He says that for unknown reasons (only TK knows why). He says that even when no one has any missiles at all , he says that even if it's just you and him and you don't have a lock on an enemy and have plenty of missiles.. A way around is to tell him to break and then give him again the command to attack.

He also says "I'm locked" when he has an enemy tail and is trying to get rid of it. In campaigns as I said, is an improvement ONLY if you take with you the SAME man who leveled up on skill and experience, otherwise you won't see any improvement at all.

If you wanna learn something , in the aftermath don't look to kills, instead look to who didn't fire any missile or bullet at all. That it would tell you about value/skills etc

yes, as I stated , break works great in SF1 only. In SF 2 the command is crippled, it's just for the show.

Edited April 5, 2021 by UllyB

[alexis99 124]

No, he says "Unable" if I ask him to attack a target that either I or another aircraft in the flight is already attacking. He says "Unable" if he is facing the wrong way, or too far away to sight the target I want him to attack. He says "Unable" if I ask him to drop tanks that he's already dropped. He says "Unable" if he has no missiles, because he is unable to attack. You just confirmed that.

I did learn something. I learnt that the "Break" command is not good to use. Because it results in low ranks doing nothing. However the targeting commands results in everyone firing something. Did you see that? I wrote NOTE THAT THEY ALL ENGAGED AND FIRED. That's because I told them to. No point in commanding a flight if you don't give them orders. That's something you "wanna learn".

And yes, lower ranks are not as good as higher ranks. Obviously.

And one other point, it depends on what aircraft you are flying.

Since I put the AIRocketAttack data in the F-15A, I am regularly getting full involvement of aircraft in attacks.

[UllyB 1,206]

Nope. I can make him attack my target even if I have a lock or I already fired at him. And, again NO, is not that. Even when he is beside me and the enemy is in front in missile's range he still sometimes, hell knows why, that he can't comply or unable or whatever.

It's not quite as you put it, let me clue you in, if the leader says BREAK and on his radar are enemy targets (which obvious the wingman sees them too) the wingman knows what it will happen when he hears the command (I'm talking about real situation here , alright?)  BREAK, he doesn't wait for ANOTHER command to attack as you imply, he just answers COPY, to acknowledge the leader that he is there aware of the situation and not thinking to his girlfriend or something, and then after the leader says COMPLETE (meaning he turned with his face to the enemy) he turns too and he already launched a missile. In real life BOTH leader and wingman make BREAK, one turn to right , the other to left and then , when he says "COMPLET"E boht turn forward, in this game just the wingmen breaks while you go forward.

There was a game, the best ever simulator, it's beter even today but its graphic is old F-22 ADF&TAW) made by Digital Image Design, where you could see what I am talking about. That sim had a complex communication and A.I. engagement routine. For instance, if you were with 3 wingmen , just making a routine CAP, if one of them spotted on its radar a plane , but couldn't indentify it yet , you could have heard him saying : BOGEYS , two o'clock. If he already indentified them he would say: BANDITS, two o'clock. And in that game the friendly wingman A.I. was tough, you could see him , there was an action camera, what he's doing. I remember I made a flight and there were tens of flights at one time  not just 8 to 10 like in SF2 and you could hear ALL the chatting all those hundreds of A.I. from diferent flights with the AWACS. yes there were there a real AWACS, you even could do missions from it and give orders to all of them from that theater of war! In that mission I noticed that an AWACS (sometimes there were even 2 AWACS in the sky at one time)  which had just 2 F-22 escort planes was attacked by 8 MIG-31. one wingman was shotdown after he fighted heroic killing two enemy planes , the AWACS was shot down in the end after it managed to dodge 10 missiles, but the second A.I. wingman shot down all the MIG-31 left, all of them! And I saw the battle on that camera , it looked fantastic and realistic, he was 4 to 1 at one time and he managed to shot them down and dodged all their missiles. Those were the time...

Edited April 7, 2021 by UllyB

[Stratos 3,191]

12 hours ago, UllyB said:

There was a game, the best ever simulator, it's beter even today but its graphic is old F-22 ADF&TAW) made by Digital Image Design, where you could see what I am talking about. That sim had a complex communication and A.I. engagement routine. For instance, if you were with 3 wingmen , just making a routine CAP, if one of them spotted on its radar a plane , but couldn't indentify it yet , you could have heard him saying : BOGEYS , two o'clock. If he already indentified them he would say: BANDITS, two o'clock. And in that game the friendly wingman A.I. was tough, you could see him , there was an action camera, what he's doing. I remember I made a flight and there were tens of flights at one time  not just 8 to 10 like in SF2 and you could hear ALL the chatting all those hundreds of A.I. from diferent flights with the AWACS. yes there were there a real AWACS, you even could do missions from it and give orders to all of them from that theater of war! In that mission I noticed that an AWACS (sometimes there were even 2 AWACS in the sky at one time)  which had just 2 F-22 escort planes was attacked by 8 MIG-31. one wingman was shotdown after he fighted heroic killing two enemy planes , the AWACS was shot down in the end after it managed to dodge 10 missiles, but the second A.I. wingman shot down all the MIG-31 left, all of them! And I saw the battle on that camera , it looked fantastic and realistic, he was 4 to 1 at one time and he managed to shot them down and dodged all their missiles. Those were the time...

IIRC there was a Win10 update for this game, that added things and fixed others,but cannot remember the name.

[+Menrva 4,200]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

IIRC there was a Win10 update for this game, that added things and fixed others,but cannot remember the name.

I had already mentioned it in a thread: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/93329-a-total-air-war-for-the-f-22/?tab=comments#comment-754835

It's a community patch which adds many mods and missions. You need to spend some time to find the right settings for your system, though. That game is a jewel, but it's far from being perfect.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Menrva

[UllyB 1,206]

I still have a 3Dfx Voodoo 4 original board and a powerful system from that era. I kept it for F-22ADF and Carnivores 1 and 2. The only update they made except missions etc is just a weak facelifting, but comparing with the original , it is a step forward. I encourage, who can of course, to play it. Its A.I. is far superior even today than many other flight sims with royal pedigree. The plane's dynamic is also superior, it moves realistic and it has vector controll of the afterburning ! The sound of the engine when an wingman come near you is realistic credible.

I remember a mission , in the debut of a campaign where you are scrambling from the runway and four flights come from all main directions trying to waste the president limo which is parked near the runway. It's a mission I manage just two times to make it from 100 tries I think. It's tough but challenging.

[alexis99 124]

Me and an Ensign were flying F-14s the other day. I locked a target and ordered him to fire. He launched 4 Phoenix, hit 3,  and killed 2. He then fired a Sparrow and missed. The enemy were getting close, so I Sparrowed one and got a kill and I told him to take the other MiG , which he Sidewindered twice to get the kill. So not all Ensigns are dumb.

But in another F-14 mission, I locked a target and told my wingman to attack it. And he said "No joy on your target. I ploughed on a little further to make sure his Phoenix was easily in range, and again ordered him to attack.

Again he said "No joy". So (you'll like this), I ordered him to "Break". Now, I've been watching an outside view of what the wingman does when you tell him to break, and what he does is peel off left and upwards, creating separation from you. As he drifted higher, I told him "Attack my Target" and got an immediate "Roger that. Got you target". And he fired. I think the wingmen are clever enough to know that if they're in close formation, they shouldn't be firing off missiles just behind your left ear.

I'm just offering this as more food for thought.

I fly quite a bit in the F-8 Crusader in Vietnam carrying AIM-9Cs. Normal practise is to lock a target for the wingman, tell him to attack; lock one for me and fire; and tell the flight to Attack Air. Usually gets good first pass kills.

On this particular mission everyone's missile went stupid. So I ordered break and tried to mop up.

What had happened was that we were too high above the MiGs, and the AIM-9C has no lookdown capability; the terrain just confuses it. Coincidence, or good game modelling?

 

PS: I got DID's TAW working on Win XP thanks to some fan mods. But the graphics were terribly prehistoric. Once you've done SF2 on 1920x1080 HD, it's hard to go back.

 

Edited April 11, 2021 by alexis99
Additional information

[UllyB 1,206]

Well, yes, even from your mission, one reaches the conclusion that , somewhere in SF2 A.I. game engine there is a broken cycle or an undefinite one at least, when it comes to commands for wingmen and dogfighting situation. Only TK knows what he has done there in those code lines. I really would like to have a chat with him on this theme.

[+Menrva 4,200]

1 hour ago, alexis99 said:

PS: I got DID's TAW working on Win XP thanks to some fan mods. But the graphics were terribly prehistoric. Once you've done SF2 on 1920x1080 HD, it's hard to go back.

Well, indeed they are, but there's nothing comparable to TAW still today. Both games have their pros and cons and bugs. In TAW, dealing with avionics and MFDs is the most important part, while SF2 emphasizes flying and combat maneuvers. In TAW you can even play as a AWACS controller both in scripted missions and in campaigns, and decide to take over control of whichever F-22 is airborne. If there's a flight game I'd really like to see it remade with modern technology, that is TAW. Innerloop's Joint Strike Fighter is another old jewel but with incredible graphics for the time, unfortunately it's unstable on modern systems no matter what.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Menrva

[Stratos 3,191]

On 8/4/2021 at 12:10 PM, Menrva said:

I had already mentioned it in a thread: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/93329-a-total-air-war-for-the-f-22/?tab=comments#comment-754835

It's a community patch which adds many mods and missions. You need to spend some time to find the right settings for your system, though. That game is a jewel, but it's far from being perfect.

Been flying this last days after downloading that patch and been enjoying it as a very nice flight sim. It has its flawsa yes, but in a lot of aspects it's more serious than Sf2, like wingmen use, the ATFLIR, etc. Loved the MECON management as well. Thanks for pointing me to it!

 

P.S. There's something similar for EF2000, unfortunately that requires a legit EXE that I don't own, tried GoG, but no luck there.

[alexis99 124]

The Wingman is very good with certain missiles and good with strafing, in Vietnam.

I present Ensign Brubaker (Toko-ri anyone), flying an A-7E.

2x AGM-45B Shrikes, 2 hits, 2 kills

2x Mk.23 Walleye II ERDL,  1 hit , 1 kill

2x AGM-78D Standard ARM, 2 hits, 2 kills

20mm M61A1 Vulcan 203 bullets, 3 hits, 2 kills. (SAM sites).

He did all that whilst I just took out a runway. I kept ordering him to rejoin, and when I was half-way home, I checked the map and realised he was still over the target area taking out targets.

So I had to give him an "RTB" and he eventually followed me home. What a legend. Ensign too.

[alexis99 124]

Well, everything has suddenly improved. I just bought the full SF2 package and made a fresh install after removing my previous installs of SF2 basic, Vietnam and North Atlantic.

Now I can cycle through targets in the area and hand them off to my wingman, which I previously couldn't do until the Primary was destroyed. And the wingmen are generally better at hitting targets.