I must give credit where credit is due...

[+streakeagle 864]

If you can overlook the "easy" FMs and AI cheats, SF2 single player dogfight AI is almost the best there is. In my opinion, only Battle of Britain 2 Wings of Victory has more challenging/realistic dogfight AI.

 

I have been playing tons of DCS, and now that the F-15C has a very detailed flight model, I have been spending most of my time flying the Eagle in DACT with guns only. It doesn't matter whether I fly 1 vs 1, 1 vs 2, or 1 vs 4 against the MiG-23, MiG-29, or Su-27. The MiG-29s are by far the most aggressive of the three, but I can still smoke all 4 with relative ease. I can flip it the other way and fly a MiG-29 or Su-27 vs 4 x F-4E, F-15, or F-16 and still end up with the same results. If I don't go for a head on shot at the merge, I can easily avoid taking any fire at all, pick a target, focus exclusively on my target, then look for another target until all four are dead.

 

But in SF2, things are quite a bit different. Using 4 x F-16A Netz to represent the MiG-29, I am in danger of taking fire at the merge whether I take a headon shot or not. In fact, there is a fair chance of being shot down altogether. The AI is aggressive and accurate. Combine that with the much higher lethality of gunfire in SF2, and you have a real challenge. Unlike DCS, the other AI pilots in the same flight will aggressively pursue and shoot even without regard for what the leader is doing. If I focus on one target and ignore the others, one or more of the other will rapidly position themselves for a good shot and possibly kill me. My target may try to evade, extend, force an overshoot, and/or drag me past his friends. In DCS, I can casually and carefully line up the gunsight with the target, then fire to hit specific parts: engine, wing, cockpit, etc. Not so in SF2, that baby jinks and jinks well, frequently spoiling my aim and certainly preventing shots aimed at anything more specific than center of mass. In SF2, it is rare for me to kill more than one target before getting sliced and diced from the rear or side.

 

Of course, the AI in SF2 specifically focus on the player and know where you are at all times regardless of whether you get below and behind them. Perfect situational awareness or not, SF2 pilots with max skill level are most certainly capable of killing me especially with a 4 to 1 numerical advantage. DCS AI pilots only kill me under very specific circumstances and only rarely when in those circumstances. I doubt DCS is going to improve their AI anytime soon. At least the AI in DCS don't form a "conga line" like they do in Falcon 4 where I can catch up to the tail and munch on some aircraft that were all trying to follow me in one big circle.

[Shaka 0]

I agree, I have DCS and Falcon4 and find them a little too easy in the fights and cumbersome to use in that you have to go through all the steps to get to these scenarios and then become underwhelmed when you get into the air to air engagements. In all SF2 there are always surprises like your first mission in a campaign where the enemy uses tactics that surprise you think you have done the mission only to be hosed down by a Mig climbing from the weeds so to speak, result a very quick campaign ending in failure.

[macelena 1,070]

SF2 has many shortcomings, but i value it most for the way it recreates scenarios. More often than graphics, what lowers the FPS the most or at least many times is the amount of AIs the PC has to handle. Compare a single mission with a couple of flights per side with a campaign mission with around ten flights. It keeps being a challenge even if you know how to defeat any enemy and have done so a thousand of times. A MiG-17 will always be that sneaky mofo ready to ruin your day if you make a mistake, even if sometimes the AI goes dumb. 

[+daddyairplanes 8,662]

IMHO, DCS and Falcon simulate how the wars against the export versions of WarPac equipment have gone. SF2 simulates how it was expected to go, how NATO trained for about 40 years

[jeanba 1,915]

SF2 has many shortcomings, but i value it most for the way it recreates scenarios. More often than graphics, what lowers the FPS the most or at least many times is the amount of AIs the PC has to handle. Compare a single mission with a couple of flights per side with a campaign mission with around ten flights. It keeps being a challenge even if you know how to defeat any enemy and have done so a thousand of times. A MiG-17 will always be that sneaky mofo ready to ruin your day if you make a mistake, even if sometimes the AI goes dumb.

Yes, that's why SF2 campaigns are interesting.

For instance, I love flying a VN Mig-21 in a sky full of yankee air pirate and plan carefully my "ambush".

In SF2E also, you have to plan carefully your egress to avoid being ambushed by an ennemy.

 

I had a lot of funny missions in all sorts of campaigns because the hunter can always become the "hunted"

[Do335 382]

indeed compared to other games, the AI here is deadly and relatively smart (or not that dumb)... when the AI has numerical advantage i find myself constantly on my toes. guns only dogfights are the most fun part for me.

if only it models aircraft systems a bit more in-depth. well one can't have it all.

[MigBuster 2,861]

Despite the light models the way you have to fight MiG-17s is still pretty much dead on.

 

Its good to have deadly AI - makes you realise how much you have been getting away with in other games.

[+streakeagle 864]

Keep in mind, SFP1/WoX series had absolutely horrible AI for dogfighting from the release of WoV to the release of WoI, that's quite a few years! They barely engaged in useful maneuvers, and when they did they almost never fired, and if they fired at all, they only hit anything on accident. For the duration of those years I had only two options: fly online (which I did as much as possible given the small online crowd and my own schedule) or use an old SFP1 SP2a install for single player, especially for the Korea mod. WoI brought back good AI, but they crashed into the ground quite a bit. The latest version of the AI is by far the best implementation, especially considering weapons employment from missiles to rockets to guns, but they still like to hit the ground a bit more often than I would prefer.

 

The only glaring limitation I see in the present AI besides ground collision risk is a general preference to fly the 2-d turn fight. Fortunately, my enemies are usually angles fighters anyway, so it doesn't hurt them. But watching heavy energy fighters try to turn fight with agile fighters is quite painful.

 

The flight modeling seems too generous in available lift, stability, and usable angles of attack, as it seems like a can turn fight against MiG-17s with heavy fighters like F-100s, F-104s, F-105s, and F-4s when I shouldn't have too much of a prayer without using vertical tactics or lucky "Maverick" style overshoot snapshots. But overall, the balance and net results appear to be far more realistic than competing sims. Before missile accuracy/reliability was souped up to make the game "more fun" during SF2NA patching, the results were exceptionally close to reality in AI vs AI missile fights.

 

Gun lethality has always been substantially higher than other games, both in % of rounds hitting and the damage caused by a single hit. I am ok with 20mm/23mm doing this to fighters, especially the very vulnerable MiG-21 where a single hit could result in a catastrophic loss. But 0.50 cal/12.7 mm and 0.30 cal/7.62 mm are typically way too effective as well. DCS swings in the other direction with multiple 20 mm hits on a MiG-29 doing little more than causing fuel leaks and possibly an engine fire. Against a MiG-29 flying straight and level, I can empty quite a few rounds into it until I light both engines on fire. With the wing planform exposed by a hard turn, I can easily saw a wing off for a very quick kill with minimum rounds. A stern approach requires me to do one of two things: multiple bursts until I light both engines on fire or a single burst with some rudder kicked in to saw across both engines.

 

The nice part about air combat in DCS is that I can get into steady state gunsight tracking to verify the accuracy of the gunsight and observe the strike pattern. Unless a target is focused on going home, SF2 targets always know you are there and jink like mad if they have the energy to do it. So SF2 is more realistic, but not as good for practice and learning the physics of the bullet stream. Back in the day when I played SFP1/WoX online almost every night, I got extremely proficient at hitting with US 20mm whether it was a 6-barrel or four separate guns in the belly or nose like the F-100 and F-8. But I don't play enough to have that instinctive judgement and have to rely on the LCOSS too much, not effective against SF2 flip-flopping fish AI. To be fair to DCS, real pilots don't magically maintain situational awareness and flop all over continuously in a pattern that is perfect for breaking a gunsight track. Top Gun and Red Flag gun camera footage from the 70s and 80s clearly show opponents caught in steady state turns/loops allowing the attacker to momentarily sustain classic steady gunsight tracking.

 

What I would prefer is to fight AI that flies historically correct with the tactics and skill levels appropriate for the nation and time frame. SF2 is the only sim that I know of that permits modding the AI (per aircraft type!) to get the desired results. Playing online isn't really good for historical fights: guys who fly online all the time typically become above average honchos and the talented ones are almost unbeatable no matter what aircraft they fly against any reasonable numerical odds, which is not very realistic and certainly not fun for pilots who can't fly enough to be above average.