DCS AI a weak point for single player and co-op

[+streakeagle 871]

In my never-ending quest to find the perfect combat flight sim (or at least the one that best suits my needs), I have had little choice but to put all my eggs in the DCS basket. But with the release of the FC3 beta, I see a pretty big hole in DCS. The air-to-air combat AI in DCS World is inferior to FC2 to a degree that it is very difficult for me to lose even when outnumbered 2 to 1 by superior aircraft. This obviously isn't a problem in online multiplayer if all the aircraft are flown by players, but makes both the single player and co-op games far less interesting/challenging. Even if the AI flew like an ace, I would still be unhappy since it also appears that the AI is not scalable. For the most part, no matter what skill level is specified in a mission, the AI still uses the same tactics and flies with the same skill. Apparently, skill level only affects the AI's awareness of the enemy. An important part of creating a historically accurate mission is being able to give all the AI pilots the appropriate skill level and tactics. i.e. novice pilots should mostly stay well within performance limits and/or be more likely to depart controlled flight when pushing the limits and fly simple horizontal turns. SF2 appears to have much better AI for the purposes of dogfighting and skill levels.

 

It will be interesting to if DCS AI improves by the time FC3 comes out of beta status.

[JediMaster 451]

So you notice a definite difference from FC2 to FC3 beta?

[+Dave 2,322]

I don't agree, the AI from FC2 to FC3 has not changed at all. In fact I believe it was a direct port over.They are both difficult as hell. I think SE you might just be good at flying against the AI. I am good at winning against ACE SF AI. There comes a time after flying sims for years and years and years, you can predict the AI's moves. I wouldn't worry about it.

[+streakeagle 871]

I have been flying FC2 F-15 DACT missions against MiG-23, MiG-29, and Su-27 for months now.

I copied those same missions over to FC3 Beta.

When I fly against 2 Su-27s with guns only, one Su-27 leaves the fight while the other falls prey to my guns.

Only if I chase the fleeing Su-27 do I get attacked by the other Su-27.

In FC2, I had to learn to beat the AI (since I don't use labels and have to try to find them using TrackIR after the merge).

In FC3, I can smoke them almost effortlessly... though if you give them a shot, they have laser accurate aim, so all I have to do to beat them is get past the merge then reverse and kill the nearest Flanker, then use radar to find the other one, then close him.

When I kill the aggressive one first, it reminds me of SF once a bandit goes home and flies ignorant of what you are doing.

I still have FC2 installed and can blatantly see the difference.

It looks like maybe they are reacting to me as if we both had missiles... one trying to push me around while the other one opens the range for a missile shot?

They certainly are popping flares the whole time when I am chasing them.

[+streakeagle 871]

Now forget the guns-only DACT.

When I play FC2 F-15 DACT with IRMs vs 2 MiG-23/29/Su-27, I have to evade and flare to survive the merge, then struggle to kill one without letting the other get within missile parameters and/or throttle back/flare.

When I play the FC3 F-15 Intercept quick mission, the Su-27s are slow to engage me and rarely fire even with a full loadout of SARH and IRH missiles.

In the less maneuverable F-15, I can at my leisure convert to a stern chase or use AIM-120/AIM-9s as necessary from frontal arcs.

It is like playing two completely different games.

The differences are on the order of SFP1 Sp2a vs WoV/WoE when the AI lost the ability to dogfight, which was recovered with WoI and SF2.

I could produce tracks showing specific behavior differences, but why waste the time?

It is boring to win every time with little effort.

If the DCS AI fails to improve, I will have to return to the online only gameplay that I practiced for WoV/WoE back in the day.

As the only time I can play multiplayer is after my wife and kid go to bed AND my wife stopped my multiplayer activity ages ago because I wake her up when I voice programs, that isn't a good option for me right now either.

I find SF2NA air combat too easy as well with the stock missile set up... so it seems if I want decent single player dogfighting, I will be forced to mod the current revision of SF2 or revert to whatever pre SF2NA version gives me the results I prefer.

Hopefully, DCS improves so I can have the best of both single player and multiplayer worlds in one sim without using any mods.

I have long been at the point where I only want games that work they way I like out of the box,

I want to spend my time flying, not tweaking/testing/downloading.

I have zero use for sims downgraded to Free2Play mobile apps.

Edited December 3, 2012 by streakeagle

[+Dave 2,322]

I don't what to say SE, as long as I have known you, you are NEVER happy with anything. If this works you find something else to complain about. If that works, you have something to complain about.

[+streakeagle 871]

I was pretty happy with SF2 up until the visual spotting range got chopped when TK started messing with terrain/ground object rendering distances.

That pretty clearly marks the version I would need to be with air-to-air, but at the loss of everything added since.

I didn't buy EXP2, SF2NA, and a bunch of DLC to shelf them, but nor did I buy them just for nice screenshots.

 

SF2 has already changed to the point that I get frustrated after only one or two fights.

Consistently getting 75%-100% missile PK in the Vietnam era isn't fun/immersive for me at all, even real life test range shots didn't score better than 50%.

 

DCS isn't quite where I want it yet, but is very promising.

The flight modeling of the A-10C, Ka-50, and P-51D is exceptional if not perfect.

I expected FC3 to be the same as FC2 with better graphics and better missile FM.

I didn't expect the AI to lose any effectiveness.

The tester's response on their forums indicate that ED is aware, just a matter of when and what they will do about it.

Edited December 3, 2012 by streakeagle

[+streakeagle 871]

As the ED tester requested tracks, I have provided them.

I provided an FC2 track showing how the two Flankers split and one aggressively engages me while I pursue the other.

I provided an FC3 track showing how one wanders off aimlessly while i kill the aggressive one.

I get results very similar to these every time I play this mission.

Give the FC3 Flankers the FC2 aggressiveness while keeping the FC3 gunnery skill, and this could be a much more difficult fight.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1620681#post1620681

[JediMaster 451]

You wake her up doing comms? Your PC is in your bedroom? There's nowhere else you could put it?

[+streakeagle 871]

She wakes up if I even move around in my chair too much and she goes to bed early, circa 9 PM.

If she doesn't get 9+ hours sleep, I pay for it.

The last time I played multiplayer with any regularity was when I was still in my last job and traveling.

She didn't wake up when I was playing in a hotel in Atlanta or Miami.

On weekends, she gets up even earlier to train for running marathons, so I don't normally have an option to play then.

I played Aces High for a bit without using a mic... no fun for me or my team, cancelled my account.

So, for the foreseeable future, I "quietly" play games uninterrupted from about 9:30 PM to about 11:30 PM depending on how much time I waste doing bills, checking email, and browsing.

When I feel well rested or am having a really good time, I stay up as late as 3 AM, then pay for it in the morning when I go to work (where I troubleshoot and program water and waste water plant control systems).

 

Back to the topic:

I have concurrence from others on the ED forums that they see the air-to-air AI having gone dumb with the FC3 beta.

It would be nice to have scalable AI, as this "dumb" AI is good for learning how to use weapons, sensors, and maneuvering.

The FC2 AI is fairly challenging, especially when armed with missiles, which doesn't give you much time to learn the ropes if you don't already know exactly what buttons you need to push and when to push them.

 

On a tangent:

My solution to the button complexity is to try as much as possible to make the same buttons do more or less the same function no matter what aircraft I am flying, using the A-10C as the base template since my stick is a Warthog.

I had an existing FC2 F-15 profile that I abandoned in favor of not using target at all since DCS:World inherently supports different profiles for different aircraft.

All of the modern aircraft fit the A-10C template fairly well.

The P-51D is in class by itself not really needing a whole lot of stick buttons.

 

I wonder if the dogfight AI problems are unique to the FC3 fast jets?

I need to set up a 1 vs. 2 fight with the P-51D vs P-51D dogfight and maybe the same with the Su-25T vs A-10A dogfight.

[JediMaster 451]

What about the non-flyables? Does the Hornet, or Tomcat, or Foxhound put up a similar fight?

 

As for the A-10 as "base", the problem there is it doesn't have a radar. If we had a true multirole plane like the F-15E in there, I'd say that would be the ideal template. Every other plane can do some or all of what it can do. It has AA and AG radar, a TGP, AMRAAMs and JDAMs...

[MigBuster 2,884]

 

On a tangent:

My solution to the button complexity is to try as much as possible to make the same buttons do more or less the same function no matter what aircraft I am flying,

 

Why not - I do this across SF, DCS and Falcon

[Ruggbutt 45]

The AI has always been not so good in LOMAC/FC/DCS. Multiplayer is where it's at.

[+streakeagle 871]

The FC2 AI has been adequate for my casual dogfighting.

If it gets too easy... just add another aircraft.

From what I can see, FC3 is mostly a direct port of FC2's AI, but it somehow developed a bug in the wingman logic.

It is the 2nd aircraft in the same flight that behaves erratically.

I changed the stock P-51D dogfight mission to have a flight of 2 and saw exactly the same type of behavior.

Another test would be to provide two separate flights of 1 and see how they behave.

 

In the SF series, I modeled Fluid 4 tactics by creating a lead flight of 1 with the mission of CAP, SWEEP, or INTERCEPT, then creating second and third flights of 1 to ESCORT the lead, and finally a fourth flight of 1 to ESCORT the third flight.

This was my way of getting around some of the limitations caused by creating a single flight of 4, particularly for historical missions where the player might not be the flight leader.

So breaking up a single flight into singles might provide a useful workaround.

[+streakeagle 871]

2 separate P-51Ds starting in a "formation" (spaced 600 feet apart) does the trick.

I get two aggressive opponents.

But, they don't fight as a coordinated pair.

They don't do tactical splits.

Initially, they follow parallel attack approaches, but over time, their slight offset leads to different responses to my actions.

So they inadvertently split up over time.

I end up getting shot down if I try to focus on shooting either one of them... as it should be.