Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate This Thread
Hop To
#3543201 - 03/22/12 12:49 PM Dummies guide to: skill settings  
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 3,743
HeinKill Offline
Senior Member
HeinKill  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: May 2006
Posts: 3,743
Cloud based
You spend time getting a Cliffs of Dover offline mission just right, jump in the cockpit, fly into battle, and then the enemy aircraft start doing stupid barrel rolls, defying gravity or coming at you with bombers that think they are fighters. Groan.

Don't despair! You can actually do something to make the experience a little better, though it has to be said the AI in Cliffs of Dover is well porked, so you will never be able to totally eradicate the sillyness. Here's a guide to make it happen less though.

Load your mission in the Full Mission Builder.

Right click on the aircraft flight you want to work with, and choose PROPERTIES

On the GROUP PROPERTIES menu you will see one for the whole flight which is called SKILL. In the dropdown list for the entire flight/group, set this to VETERAN (not ACE).

Click on the '...' (dot dot dot) button to the right of this dropdown list. This will give you a set of individual fields you can play with. These features aren't documented anywhere, so after much trial and error I will tell you how I set them to get the best results.


Image by TheOden


BASIC FLYING: Leave this where it is at veteran setting. I have seen no visible difference in setting it higher.

ADVANCED FLYING: move this back a notch or two to AVERAGE, which seems to help reduce the F16 snap roll behaviour.

AWARENESS: increase this 'situational awareness' slider to max. This gives the AI a chance to realise you are sneaking up behind them, and stops them suddenly flipping into level flight in the middle of a dogfight just because they can't 'see' you anymore.

AERIAL GUNNERY: increase to max. This eliminates the problem that on lower settings the AI pilots are crap at deflection shooting, and also burn all their ammo in long hosepipe bursts. At max setting the AI is not only a better shot, but doesn't waste ammo so badly. Beware though: this setting also affects bomb accuracy ( which is good) and bomber gunner accuracy ( which is bad). So with bombers, it is a good idea to go to the individual plane tabs in the PROPERTIES screen and set only one or two of them to gunnery max, and leave the others as veteran or average. Otherwise as a fighter you risk getting slaughtered by deadeye gunners.

TACTICS: I leave this at veteran. I have not been able to identify what impact this slider has, though other players believe it can also reduce barrel rolls to move this slider to the left.

VISION: increase to max. This increases the 'bubble' around the aircraft which allows the AI pilots to detect other aircraft. If you don't max it out, they can just fly past each other, especially if they are at different altitudes.

BRAVERY: Set to max. This seems to determine the damage level at which enemy aircraft will cut and run, either at the flight level (x out of x aircraft destroyed) or individual level (x% damage). The lower you set it, the more likely they will bug out. Very important for bombers because at lower settings a couple of flak hits to a couple of aircraft will send the whole raid running for home.

DISCIPLINE: This setting affects how likely a unit is to follow its assigned orders or attack its assigned target. For fighters, leave this at standard VETERAN setting or even AVERAGE. If you set it to max for fighters, you will get situations where fighters assigned to attack bombers, will ignore the group of fighters coming straight at them, and get slaughtered, because they have been assigned to attack bombers. Also, at higher settings it seems to affect the likelihood the WINGMAN will just stupidly follow his leader around, rather than getting into the fight. Obviously though in some mission designs, you do want your Hurricanes to go for the bombers and your Spitfires to go for the fighters, so it can be useful. But usually setting it too high, leads to fighters unrealistically ignoring enemy aircraft.

For bombers however, or dive/fighter bombers with specific ground targets, I set this to maximum. This increases the chances the bomber or dive/fighter bomber will go for the assigned ground target. At lower settings they can get 'distracted' by other targets that are near the waypoint and attack these instead.

As I mentioned, these features aren't documented and reflect only my personal experience from designing hundreds of missions. Others may have their own personal preferences, but it is at least valuable to know these options exist, and you can sharpen up some of the dumber AI behaviour!

On a final note, the skill setting is also relevant for SHIPS. If you set it to ace for warships, they are deadeye shots at maximum range, for both their large bore guns, and their AAA and you will get slaughtered flying over a minensuchboot, even in a fighter. Set warships to AVERAGE or lower.


[Linked Image]
Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#3543268 - 03/22/12 02:31 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 13,179
bisher Offline
I'll be your Huckleberry
bisher  Offline
I'll be your Huckleberry
Veteran

Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 13,179
Manitoba, Canada
Nicely put together HeinKill

#3543279 - 03/22/12 02:49 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 1,680
ATAG_Snapper Offline
Member
ATAG_Snapper  Offline
Member

Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 1,680
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Fantastic work, Heinkill. Thank you for this!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HP Omen Laptop 15, AMD Ryzen 5 5600H 16 GB DDR4 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU 6 GB VRAM Win 11 64 bit, Nvidia GeForce Driver ver 512.95, TrackIR 5, Gear Falcon Trim Box, Gear Falcon Throttle Quadrant, TM16000 joystick, TM Warthog HOTAS, CH Quadrant, Saitek Pro Combat rudder pedals
#3543387 - 03/22/12 05:41 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,737
FearlessFrog Offline
Senior Member
FearlessFrog  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,737
Thank you HK - I'd sticky it, but then everyone would ignore it! smile

I've put a link to it in the less travelled 'Tips & Tricks' sub-forum.

More please!

#3543408 - 03/22/12 06:02 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: FearlessFrog]  
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 13,179
bisher Offline
I'll be your Huckleberry
bisher  Offline
I'll be your Huckleberry
Veteran

Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 13,179
Manitoba, Canada
Originally Posted By: FearlessFrog
Thank you HK - I'd sticky it, but then everyone would ignore it! smile


lol that's hilarious Fearless le Frog

#3543534 - 03/22/12 09:27 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 456
LeadTurn_SD Offline
Member
LeadTurn_SD  Offline
Member

Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 456
Hilo, Hawaii USA
Thanks Heinkill!

I'm embarrased to say that it took me several months of fooling with the mission editor before even seeing the button that opened the Skill Editor. Not sure how I missed it... rolleyes

Anyway, since starting to experiment with those settings I've found the same things you have, but remained stumped by the Bravery and Discipline settings, so mostly left them at their "default" values.

Thanks again for taking the time to do this, it does fill in some knowledge "gaps" for me, and explains some of the behavior I was having trouble understanding and correcting in the AI.... the missions I typically write are designed for our small group for online coop play, and since we typically fly humans vs AI, the "wonky" AI behavior needs to be kept down to a dull roar yep

Best wishes.

Last edited by LeadTurn_SD; 03/22/12 09:35 PM.

LeadTurn_SD
XO VMF-132 Shadow Demons
Specs: CPU: Intel i5 760 MEM: 8Gb, Video: AMD HD 6850, OS: Win 7 64 bit
#3555913 - 04/13/12 11:27 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 10
binky9 Offline
Junior Member
binky9  Offline
Junior Member

Joined: May 2010
Posts: 10
Houston, TX
Heinkill,

After loading the mission in FMB,right clicking on it doesn't do anything and I don't see "Properties" anywhere else.

binky9


Win 10Home Premium 64 bit
2T Hard Drive
500gb SSD
ASUS A250 motherboard
Intel i7 7700 3.8ghz Processor
GTX 1080 Graphics Card
32 GB Ram
Track IR4
49” Samsung 4k 60hz
Warthog HOTAS
CH Pedals
#3555921 - 04/13/12 11:45 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: binky9]  
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,737
FearlessFrog Offline
Senior Member
FearlessFrog  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,737
Originally Posted By: binky9
Heinkill,

After loading the mission in FMB,right clicking on it doesn't do anything and I don't see "Properties" anywhere else.

binky9


You're selecting an aircraft and/or waypoint with a left-click first? You can tell as it 'glows' when selected. After that you can do the 'Right Mouse button' thing and see the Properties menu.

#3555926 - 04/13/12 11:52 PM Re: Dummies guide to: skill settings [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 43
mbchilemike Offline
Junior Member
mbchilemike  Offline
Junior Member

Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 43
Open the editor. Then select the mission you want to edit then click OPEN. Then go to view and then click on mission objects. Another box will open and you will see all the objects
in the mission look for the AIRCRAFT tab DOUBLE click on the flight you want to edit THEN right click on the map and you open another box...click on PROPERTIES and edit your flight
May be an easier way but like you just right clicking on the map did not bring up the properties box. Hope this helps you. Makes a BIG difference in the AI


i7 3770K
EVGA GTX Superclock 780 3GB
ASUS P8P67 M Pro BIOS 3701
8g Ram
1000w PSU
Falcon Northwest FRAGBOX 2
X52 w/ CH Pro pedals
TRACKIR 5

Moderated by  RacerGT 

Quick Search
Recent Articles
Support SimHQ

If you shop on Amazon use this Amazon link to support SimHQ
.
Social


Recent Topics
Carnival Cruise Ship Fire....... Again
by F4UDash4. 03/26/24 05:58 PM
Baltimore Bridge Collapse
by F4UDash4. 03/26/24 05:51 PM
The Oldest WWII Veterans
by F4UDash4. 03/24/24 09:21 PM
They got fired after this.
by Wigean. 03/20/24 08:19 PM
Grown ups joke time
by NoFlyBoy. 03/18/24 10:34 PM
Anyone Heard from Nimits?
by F4UDash4. 03/18/24 10:01 PM
RIP Gemini/Apollo astronaut Tom Stafford
by semmern. 03/18/24 02:14 PM
10 years after 3/8/2014
by NoFlyBoy. 03/17/24 10:25 AM
Copyright 1997-2016, SimHQ Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.6.0