I was wondering today, after a couple of missions in different campaigns, which ended one frustrating and another satisfying, what could be right number of aces in game. First mission, indeed, ended badly because two H-75, both marked as ace in FMB, slaughtered we three poor japanese fighters and a number of escorted Val's. Could make sense that all AVG pilots were aces? I don't think so. Actually, second mission I played did have only one historical ace, with its own livery, among literally dozens of german and british planes.

Since from AEP onward IL-2 does have historical aces set, why adding more or less arbitrarily percentages of anonymous "aces"? Besides, their performances in IL-2 are arguable (e.g. like flying so low to raise dust from ground or taking hits firing from a sideslip attitude in a head-on pass ), thus would be fair just leave the default ones, at least.

So I though to start editing DB (in dynamic campaigns) and .mis files (in static ones) removing all aces levels apart for historical ones. What do you think about? Am I wrong, or could make sense?

With all due respect, you seemed to have left out a key bit of information from your post...the version of IL-2 you are playing. The reason I say this is because there is a world of difference between the AI in pre-4.11 and post-4.11. Let me give you some input from my personal experiences.

I've made/hosted many single/coop missions over the years. In order to give an experienced human player a good challenge, I would set the AI Ace fighters to as much as 75% (of total fighters). (In other words, if there were 10 Blue fighters in the mission, I may set 7-8 of them to Ace.)

This was in 4.10 and earlier versions. The new AI in 4.11 has changed my thinking dramatically. Now in 4.11, I will use only 5-15% AI Aces in a particular mission. Yes, the new AI in 4.11 has had that much of an impact (in my humble opinion).

So for instance, if I am setting the AI for US fighters in a late 1944 or 1945 timeframe, I may set the Ace AI as high as 15%. For the same timeframe, I may set the Ace AI for Japanese fighters as low as 5%. Obviously, this is to try and replicate historic numbers.

As you can see, in my opinion, there has been a dramatic change in the new 4.11 AI.

Aviar

Many members of the AVG became Aces because of the group's training and doctrine by Claire Chennault; ie they fought right. A change in TraDoc turned the surviving USAF fighters from mostly-losers to often-winners in North Africa.

Just how they were used made the difference, goats or winners.

Same went during the BoB according to surviving BoB pilots on video. They talk about starting out flying 3 plane Vics and getting shot up then changing to finger 4's and holding the line then when a new group got cycled in nobody took the time to pass all that on and the process happened again, between battle weariness and doctrine the lessons were paid in blood and machines.

Not so hard to imagine the what if.. Germany had formed a Fighter Command as Adolph Galland had pressed for. The lack of one was one of the better things that Hitler and Goering did -for- the Allies!

Even if a sim gets made where formations and tactics could be specified for the AI, what players would stick to poor tactics to play out historic scenarios?

I think it's a good idea to separate the notion of Ace... as in an experience combat pilot who has managed to accumulate 5 kills versus an Ace AI which is a skill level. My personal feeling is that Ace AI level pilots represent the peak of piloting and gunnery ability and therefore are a rare sight to see... in my campaigns I'll scatter a few aces around to make things interesting. The vast majority are Rookie, Average and some Veterans.

A declared Ace with 5 kills or more may not be terribly skilled but is skilled enough to survive and be in a situation where a minimum number of kills is possible. Not to denigrate the skill level required to do that in real life but I don't feel like, in game/simulation terms, you should represent combat veterans as being Ace AI all the time. Sometimes yes and sometimes it should be a lower setting. There are the competent and skilled veterans but then there are the really gifted.

Anyways that's just my philosophy on mission building and fighting the AI

I find that turning off the Vulnerability switch makes all of them much easier to kill.


Wheels

I concur

@GB: in your conf.ini, Dgen section, add CampaignAI=Easy =>no more ennemy aces , no need to tinker with DBs.

OK, I'm not a top gun, but you do not need to be ironic about setting my game for easy kills. My point of view is completely different. I would assess the most realistic environment in IL-2 envelope. If in this condition I'll always shot down... good. Just won't scam myself.

The version I'm playing is 4.10.1, more precisely HSFX, which has an its own AI. I agree 4.11 is completely different; even too good to be real, IMHO. I saw a FW 190 performing shocking evasive maneuvers, including false stalls (I mean, at least twice, it stalled, apparently out of control, then recovering with ease). Well, I watched what it was in FMB and again was shocked reading it was set as Rookie! I suspect TD did also some mess with AI in 4.11.

DGen sets aces according to their skill level, in my squadron: I can see this reading DGen log. In section "Setting skill level" I find, for instance, "PilotName: 14 sorties, 4 air, 15 ground -Ace". The rest are set according to DGen options and DB. Setting "Easy" for AI makes aerial fightings an unreal "turkey shoot", since friend are raised by one level and enemy lowered as well (so degenerating in "all aces vs. all rookies", too bad). "Hard" setting does the opposite, which is unrealistic too. "Normal" means that there are still aces according to percentages set in DB file, but were these data historical? Personally, I was unable to find those figures. So I thought would be fair leaving only historical ones.

I'm now playing HSFX with AI set to Normal and ace percentage set to zero for both blue and red in DB file. If this do not make you .

I suppose I'm not too cognizant of what all the fuss is about regarding this question. I have flown many Dgen campaigns with almost every flyable (except the Japanese types). Most of the time, I have a satisfying experience with the mission and can always tell the difference between the ACE types and the less experienced AI. When I get killed, it's usually because a stupid mistake or rather that I've plunged headlong into a fight without regard to common sense tactics (desperate frustration)

In summary, I find the AI does some questionable things once in a while, however, I don't let it ruin my day.

Finally, regarding us as players, this is mostly perception on our part. If you want to project your personal view on these matters, so be it. But who really knows?