AI Wingmen

[+peter01 2]

AHHHHH, the AI, my favourite topic.

 

I think Tailspin and ShrikeHawk are right Baron, you have to command the wingmen to engage. Otherwise they are useless.

 

Its a very good thing too, though you have to remember to give the command, otherwise they will wander off, attacking on their own - a problem to me in IL2 for example, where they tend not to listen to your commands all the time.

 

IMO AI versus AI is effective - if you let them go 15-30 mins or more one side or the other or both are going to lose a lot of planes. How many depends on the time and skill level. So, I think this is pretty well done.

 

The AI versus player is a completely different story... I won't digress, but I think I have worked some things out. More on that some other time.

 

Back to wingmen, I have witnessed some interesting things lately. As I set the GunnerFireTime in my FMs to 7.0 or 8.0 generally now - it was always 2.5 before, whatever that means, but the change has resulted in the AI firing more.

 

AND, in a furball what I commonly find is the following:

 

Some AI fire 200-250 rounds (great!!!), but generally get 0% hits.

Some AI fire 5-20 rounds and often get hit rates up to 10 - 20 %, usually getting one or two bogies.

 

My conclusion is that the AIrcraftobject.ini file modifies this behavior with more skilled pilots shooting less and getting more hits - the less skilled the converse. The following parameters that are different for different skill levels...

 

eg for "Green" skill level

 

CannonFireAngle=12.0

MaxCannonRange=1500

OptimalCannonRange=70

MinCannonRange=20

CannonBurstLengthShort=0.75

CannonBurstLengthLong=1.0

 

 

and "Veteran"

 

CannonFireAngle=5.0

MaxCannonRange=600

OptimalCannonRange=50

MinCannonRange=15

CannonBurstLengthShort=0.25

CannonBurstLengthLong=0.5

 

Its seems that a veteran will fire at less distance and for shorter lengths, hence I assume the Veterans (or better pilots) will fire less - an assumption based on the percentage hits for rounds fired, ie, I'm assuming that the better pilots are better shots.....a reasonable idea as its very consistent - higher number of rounds less kills, I see it all the time now some fire 200-250 bullets (from recent changes in FM, I didn't see this as clearly before when the range of bullets fired was a lot less).

 

So, the number of shots fired depends both on the FM as well as the AircraftObect.ini file where its varied according to skill level. And you can change this to suit for you own game, eg, all shoot at less distance (Green at 1500 metres!!!!!, and the more skilled shoot for longer times)

 

Most intriguing is that those firing less ammo are more accurate, tho the GunboresightAngle in the FM is the same -its likely that the CannonFireAngle modifies this value????

 

This makes sense to me, but what is really interesting is if you set the CannonFireAngle=5.0 to say 0.0 the more skilled pilots could be better yet! I wouldn't be surprised - the more I explore this game, the more I realise TK goes out of his way to make it unlikely the player will find the game too hard, so it could well be reducing all the angles will in fact make the AI a far better shot.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited June 30, 2007 by peter01

[Baron von Legs 0]

Thanks for the info, it should be useful.

 

I dont know why i have this problem, im patched up to the teeth. ordering my wingmen to attack doesnt seem to do alot, i have tried. I watched 5 of them follow a nieuport for about ten minutes, but they seemed to be trying to get a better look at the pilot than shoot the bugger down!

 

I think that the issue here was range. If i altered the maxcannon range in the aircraftobject ini. it might solve that. I havent tried messing around with that file yet, but i'll give it a go and post back on this thread. Cheers Peter01

[+Tailspin 3]

Results can vary widely from mission to mission. If one side is flying a superior aircraft the AI will get more kills. You can tell the attack order works. Often when you order your wingmen to attack some will open fire immediately after the order. Peter is right. If you let them fight on their own, they will continue to fight until there are only a couple left flying. I've even seen them firing at the "soft" landed planes on the ground. I guess its all about expectations. The thing I don't get is why such high expectations. I've had several flightsims on my HDD over the past several years and I don't see where the AI in First Eagles so bad. Certainly no worse than many "classics" IMHO.

[26728 0]

The thing with my wingmen is that they will rarely if ever fire a shot. Hell, I've seen the rest of my formation sail complacently over my head in a dogfight. Oftentimes all the squadron's kills for a day were scored by me. But this should help.

Edited June 30, 2007 by 26728

[+peter01 2]

they seemed to be trying to get a better look at the pilot than shoot the bugger down!

 

 

I agree Baron. Though IMO the AI is effective in terms of outcomes (with some time), its very frustrating watching them going about it!!!

 

I'm convinced an important reason is the CannonFireAngle parameter, eg for Green, it equals 12. But there are definitely different parameters and reasons that effect this as well.

 

The way I'm guessing the CannonFireAngle works, is like this: the AI knows it should be trying to shoot down an EA....so it lines up a shot at say 12 degrees, and as far as its concerned its scored a bullseye!!! But, lo and behold,the EA is still there...so it lines up another shot anywhere between 0-12 angles etc etc and so it goes on and on. The result is the AI is flying all over the place lining up shots (probably becomes very frustrated as well!).

 

The higher skilled pilots are better shots BECAUSE they line up the EA better, they do a pass that brings them into a 5 degree angle (after that its just luck I guess), and do not fly all over the place as the angle is less, ie, swinging from go from 0 to 5 degrees rather than say 0 to 12 degrees - a big difference to me!

 

I'd suggest a "improvement" to the AI wandering all over the place shooting in furballs is to reduce the angles - tho they will shoot less...but this can be modified to your hearts content, and if you increase the time for more skilled pilots, you will get quicker outcomes in dogfights I think.

 

For Ace and Veterans I'd put angles at 3, for Regular at 5, for Novice and Green to about 7. Of course it will change not only how the AI fly chasing and shooting at other AI, but also how they line up shots at you the player (they will be better), and also how effectively and quickly furballs are decided.

 

I'd also increase the fire time for skilled pilots and reduce ranges for less skilled pilots (it probably is also a cause for the wandering syndrome, they should be getting up close!).

 

So why are the parameters as they are?? Well IMHO TK has designed the game with the view to making it easy for the player, and probably feels thats what most people want - its his business, so who can argue with that. Hence CannonFireAngle is high so that in a player vs AI situation the player does not get shot down much, but also so that in a furball the ai vs ai situation will take a long time to get resolved - hence as a player, you can shoot down one, then have time to get another, and another etc etc - the AI won't spoil your fun by shooting down the enemy too quickly!

 

Personally I think the dogfights should get resolved in about 15 mins or so, and I'd prefer a team effort with my wingmen contributing to the success or lack of, but each to their own.

Edited July 1, 2007 by peter01

[Baron von Legs 0]

Hi

 

Ive just sat down to modify my AI factors in aircraftobjectini. and i noticed that I dont seem to have the same parameters as you (peter01). Dont know why, i cant seem to find the same bit as you. This is the closest i got;

 

 

[DogfightNovice]

SafeAltitude=150

LookoutAngle=360

DefensiveAngle=360

ChanceDefensiveTurn=100

ChanceBreakTurn=100

ChanceHardTurn=100

ChanceTurnDirection=100

ChanceContinue=25

ChanceCheckNewTarget=100

ChanceUseVertical=100

FightWithoutAmmo=0

CannonFireAngle=2.0 <----------------------

MaxPitchInput=1.0

StartGunAttackRange=1500

MaxCannonRange=300 )

OptimalCannonRange=200 -

MinCannonRange=4 )

MaxRollForGunAttack=360

 

 

Is this what you meant, or am i looking in the wrong place? I'll try to edit my file to match yours as best I can in the meantime.

 

Cheers, Baron Legs

[Firecage 1]

I knew about the AI types of rookie,vet,ace thing and changed all of mine to ace across the board just so the AI would be more agressive. The rest of this si great info and I need to do some tweaking on the AI sections and try your ideas out.

 

I saw the posts to TK on his forum and I see what your after and i think you have a great idea going here. Are you working on certain planes right now or just in general?

[+peter01 2]

Hi Baron, the values in your aircraftobject.ini are definitely not the default values with the game - intital release, patch 1 or patch 2. Some of the values are optimised but others are not, and most importantly the combination could from what I see be a real problem for your game. Example, for your Novice settings, small cannon angle is good (=2.0) but very small maybe too small, and combined with long OptimalCannonRange (=300) is very problematic. I'd delete this file and extract a new one and then restart modding it - the values that affect the AI are very touchy, you can get all sorts of issues, and probably explains why you have issues with the ai in dogfights.

Edited July 4, 2007 by peter01

[+peter01 2]

so the AI would be more agressive

 

Firecage, you can easily make the AI very aggressive, its simple and it changes the game very considerably, if not completely - not only aggressiveness, but also ai wingmen wandering as raised by the Baron, and something that p10ppy stated in another post, where the ai doesn't do what it should be doing during a dogfight with the player.

 

But, I need to explain a bit more.....I'm sure you and others will understand easily, but not all, and tinkering can result in all sorts of additional problems without it being evident at first. So a very long post follows.....

 

I discovered this ai aggressiveness factor a while ago, but for various reasons haven't implemented it in my released FMs for complex reasons (couple of exceptions to trial it out on you guys ). I intend doing it in future releases, as well as some very very fine tuning of other aspects - hence questions to TK on ai parameters.

 

So the blurb first,.... to get an "effective" AI which then means a good "aggressive" AI requires:

 

the plane is built right so that the AI can fly it without difficulty - in the FM

 

the plane is built so that the ai doesn't stall - a real immersion killer, and also means an ineffective dogfighting ai - in the FM. Maybe being addressed by TK but you can get around it if you go to extra trouble.

 

the plane has features that make the ai a capable dogfighter, this is quite tricky and I'm still learning. Just giving it good climb or turn isn't what I'm talking about (eg FokkerD7 AI). Again in the FM, actually fundamental to the FM

 

the ai parameters are set right for individual planes to fly properly (helps with looping, stalling, how they use throttle, a few other things - all important) - in the [AIData] section which should be tailored for each plane in the FM - this isn't done generally unfortunately at the moment... rather a set of default values are used.

 

the ai parameters are set for aggressiveness - this last is really the point of this post believe it or not.

 

The reason I say all this is because you can't "fix" those that aren't built this way. You can certainly make them more aggressive but they could get into more difficulties. Different planes, different outcomes.

 

Hence I wouldn't recommend changing the aircraftobject.ini generally to improve aggressiveness - all sorts of things can and will happen as its applied to all planes. Exceptions are the cannon angle/range stuff/fire time in the skill leve discussed above, or copying ace skill level stuff to say veteran, regular to green levels etc. This is true too for the [AIData] in the aircraftobject.ini - this should be included and tailored within each FM (if included in the FM it overrides the aircraftobject.ini values). It was alright for TKs initial release with few planes that were generally similar, but its a reason also why the two seaters "act" like fighters, and more importantly why these specifically have some problems looping and stalling.

 

Okay, okay, enough enough...whats the secret. In the [AIData] section in the FM (its in the aircraftobject.ini but as I said I wouldn't recommend changing much here)

 

RollForGunAttack=1.0

RollForGunAttackRate=-0.1

 

are the standard values. The first tells the AI when to try to attack an opponent. It works with the skill level parameter MaxRollForGunAttack= 180 (for ace) in the aircraftobject.ini by multipying the angle at which the AI will go into "attack mode". So in this case if it needs to more than 180 degrees it will not attack. EG regular is 75 degrees - the reason why they don't fight and go wandering if they have their backs to you.

 

So if the RollForGunAttack= is set to 4.0 in individual FMs ALL skill levels will attack all the time. If 3.0, all but novices and green will attack all the time - tho nearly all the time. So can be set for individual planes OR change that parameter in the aircraftobject.ini so that the degree multipied by the default factor 1.0 is changed to suit yourself - eg make regular attack all the time by setting the value to 180 degrees (could be 360 degrees - sorry, I have been modding FMs rather than the aircraftobject.ini).

 

Even more important is the RollForGunAttackRate= which is usually in the FM ...so if you change this in aircraftobject.ini it will probably be overridden by individual FMs. This determines the amount of roll applied by the ai for a gun attack - how quickly they come around, a very important factor. To me the default value of 1.0 is silly, it should be at least 1.2/1.3 or even 1.5 or more. Probably the latter if you fly in Hard because the AI flies in Normal, and roll it has probably a lot less than the you (A difference in Normal and Hard: roll is far better in Hard FM, rudder and turn is not - go figure!!).

 

Anyway, 1.2 or 1.3 is safe and matches the AileronDeltaRoll=1.2 or 1.3 default values that TK uses - AFAIK having AileronDeltaRoll=1.2 means the AI rolls better in "normal" and "defensive" actions while RollForGunAttack= 1.0 means its roll for "attack" is not as good - as I said previously, TK has gone out of way to make this an easy game for the player.

 

Try it out on the Se5a (copy standard ai data from aircraftobject.ini to the Se5a FM and change the two parameters above. A very different AI plane, very aggressive and using zoom and boom effectively. Or any of mine.

 

You will find the AI very good, very aggressive and they funnily enough use climb far far better. These changes maybe even make the AI a too hard an adversary (if the FM is built so it doesn't stall easily etc etc)!!!

Edited July 5, 2007 by peter01

[Bandy 3]

Peter,

 

As always, it is great to read your explanations. You should submit this stuff (really, just cut and paste it) into the knowledge base. I've never seen this addressed so thoroughly.

 

I printed off this thread and looked into my Aircraftoject ini, and found that the default values weren't the ones you were talking about. Then I remembered I had installed Laton's AI Tweak a while back. Make sure to look for his second download further into the thread. This thread has subsequently buried itself, and I don't know why it didn't attract more attention. That's the way of some of this...

 

Anyways, I have found aspects of his AImod to be more extreme than your recommendations, yet less in others. I ended up averaging the two in scale, and ranged many of the values from Green to Ace (I was kinda finding every NME AI was nasty bad) and tweaked some others myself such as the minimum altitude etc. More on that later...

 

Then I flew a campaign mission (no comparison to single missions I find afa richness of experience), where I took a wing to 9000 ft. over the lines, jumped from cloud to cloud, and snuck up on 2 DR1's a few thou below us. I sent the wing after the primary target: bombers, which they subsequently peeled off after, and I jumped on the tripes, who weren't as surprised as I thought they'd be...

 

Very soon, I found myself literally fighting for my "life". They evaded, they stalled, they twisted, they fought in the vertical like I couldn't believe, all while I was trying to do the same to them (I'm just starting to self learn to fight more vertical, it is a totally new dimension, so graceful at times), but I obviously encountered two AI aces. Lately I've been flying more like I was in the plane, rather than hell-for-leather (which can be much fun), so asked: would I really stick around in a situation like this? Or would I turn tail and run? So I split-arsed it out and dove to the deck over the lines...

 

The SOBs followed me in the dive! Quite closely and in tight formation! I only JUST managed to pull out in time, I looked behind me and the two augured themselves in... It was so unexpected and was such fun!!!

 

The min comfortable altitude I had set for aces was quite low, I think 50 or even 25 feet, 'cause I wanted to get my AI wingmates to hill hop on ground attack missions and avoid AAA. Perhaps this was a fluke, I don't know yet; perhaps 50 ft or so is too low for any AI --maybe-- but those accidents did happen and I enjoy seeing random twist of fate like that. It's what many good war stories end up being all about... who chooses who lives and dies?

Edited July 11, 2007 by B Bandy RFC

[tn_prvteye 36]

Anyone have anymore thoughts on this? I'm still trying to get a good set of numbers, and was hoping some of you could post your INI files for comparison. I've been using a modified Laton's file. Basically just lowered the altitudes a bit.

 

I've set up a 4V4 with Nieuport 11 Vs. Aviatik C2s. The Nieuports get slaughtered. The tail gunners make quick work of them. And all of their shots seem to miss. I've set them to EXCELLENT in the mission file and the Aviatiks to POOR.

 

Any more AI tweaks?

[SRT 0]

Hi Peter01

 

Just a quick question. What are you recommending for RollForGunAttackRate=?

 

Your talk below does not indicate that these are negative numbers.

 

"RollForGunAttackRate= which is usually in the FM ...so if you change this in aircraftobject.ini it will probably be overridden by individual FMs. This determines the amount of roll applied by the ai for a gun attack - how quickly they come around, a very important factor. To me the default value of 1.0 is silly, it should be at least 1.2/1.3 or even 1.5 or more ..."

 

Thank you!

[+peter01 2]

Your right SRT, it wasn't very clear at all.

 

RollForGunAttackRate is a negative number, and its a decimal as well.

 

I'd say that -0.13 to -0.15 is safe, reasonable and better than default -0.1. It does make a big difference, especially if you combine it with RollForGunAttack=8.0 (line above the RollForGunAttackRate=). If over -0.2 it will be too much, they will turn on you in the blink of an eye.

 

Just to be clear this time, you should do this in the individual plane data.inis. If you do it in the aircraftobject.ini, firstly it will be overridden by whatever is in the data.inis anyhow, and secondly, some planes that may not have ai parameters in them (its not mandatory,copy from somewhere else if that is the case) such as bombers and two seaters will become better than fighters, and likely have considerable issues too.

 

RollForGunAttack in data.ini, if there, multipies the value of MaxRollForGunAttack in the skill levels in Aircraftobject.ini which is in degrees (eg, 45 - 180 degrees for Novice thru to Ace). Basically tells the AI if an EA (you sometimes!!), is in the angle, then ATTACK. 8 times 45 degrees for Novice skill level is more than 360 degrees, and thats why I use 8.0. You can use less, 4.0, it will mean not all AI attack all of the time. RollForGunAttackRate tells it how quickly to roll to do it.

 

Again basically, if you are in a 1:1, you will have an AI determined to fight you (ie, aggressive), less likely to wander/do silly things and more capable. Of course thats true in all dogfights and missions etc.

 

Cheers

Edited August 19, 2007 by peter01

[SRT 0]

Awesome Peter01. I am going to apply your suggestions. I love the WWI planes, but was getting bored with the AI in general. Went back to IL-2 FB because the AI seemed more challenging. Now we have a Snipe! So, I am looking forward to getting shot up properly. I will adjust each aircraft as you suggested. Thanks again, and thanks for answering so quickly.

 

Cheers!

[Big Al 1]

Besides the AI's ability to fire, etc., is there a way to get one's wingmen to fly in formation close and alongside inroute to the objective or coming home? It is possible in SFP1, WOV and WOE and adds nicely to imersion. These planes should be able to get real close in any formation, but in FE they don't ; they lag way back and are not steady.

txs.

[+peter01 2]

Sorry, don't know, never looked at this.

 

There are some posts here or at Thirdwire that discuss AI and formation flying. They may cover what you are looking for.

[FalconC45 162]

Besides the AI's ability to fire, etc., is there a way to get one's wingmen to fly in formation close and alongside inroute to the objective or coming home? It is possible in SFP1, WOV and WOE and adds nicely to imersion. These planes should be able to get real close in any formation, but in FE they don't ; they lag way back and are not steady.

txs.

 

In WW1 they don't really have formations persay like in WW2 and etc. Mostly pilots in WW1 fly in staggles.

 

As for attacking and etc. You hafta order them once the enemy is within visual range (1.0 NM and less) and as for rejoining and rtb same thing as attacking.

 

Falcon