AI Impressions, so far.

Originally, I put this in the BHaH2 new videos thread, but it more properly belongs in its own thread:

So far from what I have seen from your videos, Hellshade, I am really enjoying the new AI (I haven't flown many combat missions yet, still tinkering with my settings).

I looked at the simulations.xml file and saw that Pol and Winder did make some small adjustments to the overall flight AI. (AI behavior is also influenced by individual aircraft AI, but I haven't had much of a look at that, yet).

Notable differences so far: 1) AI is much less oblivious to your presence and will start maneuvering much more, both before and after you have started shooting at them. 2) Less use of zoom tactics by AI, particularly when they are being chased. They don't hang on their props as much, and they switch from climb to manuever more quickly. Nice, although I would like to see the faster plane types attempt to dive and extend rather than try and manuever when they are in trouble, but that is a minor gripe, considering this is hands-down the best AI I have seen in a flight-sim, ever!

Do you have any videos that show the AI in low level dogfights? I am also curious to see how the AI behaves when you jump them as they are approaching their airbase before final approach.

All in all, the AI improvements are very impressive. It will also be interesting to see what role morale, skill, and fatigue play in the new and improved AI air combat behavior. Great job, OBD!

Just get stuck in and experience it BB

Really good observations BB and agree with them all.

My simplified impression from a person with much less brain power like myself --- them they be they muuchh better making me crack'n, rippen, and go boom boom with de blood splatt'n.

Seriously though, they are a greater challenge for sure, and much more aware, selective, and intelligent.
I've had to throw out so many of my benchmarking runs because I got shot down in the first 2-min or have had blood splatter on the screen (impacts fps) especially in that "Large Dogfight" mission. (my rules are that I have to be actively involved in the fight (no running) - and I can't have one incidence vastly different than another (for control purposes) -- so ya, that mission in particular has been a real issue (really evident how much more improved the AI has been going directly from PE testing/benchmarking to exact same missions in BH&H II -- time to get the sweat on!)

Pol, I like to watch...

hee, hee

Great AI , yet mid-air collisions are over represented in my game atleast. Last night my entire flight of 6 albatrosses succumbed to mid air crashes with enemy Spad VII's. Of all my 20 something dogfights there is always 1 or 2 squadmembers that dies in midair collisions (these collisions are by the way always against enemy craft, when attacking and breaking off to late.

My impressions of the new AI are very positive. I've fought many dogfights in my DID campaign and others.

The way the enemy takes snapshots at you at every opportunity keeps you on the edge. The way an AI aircraft will take you on if you're chasing him home is far more realistic. They also come to sweep you off the tail of another AI aircraft far more often.

The way the two seaters now try to avoid attack makes it much more challenging, even the BE2 stands on his tail to give his gunner a shot. The FE2B now takes you on rather than just fly away.

I'm REALLY impressed with the new AI.

That is very easy to do.

Jumped in and had a try.

Of course they assigned me to a bloody SPAD squadron so I couldn't see half of what was going due to being hemmed in on all sides by French carpentry, but the flight managed to get mixed up some with Rolands and Halberstadts. They seemed a lot angrier than usual. They put a lot of holes in my SPAD which wasn't very nice. I put some holes in one of their Rolands which made it stop doing this and then some poor young fool in a Halberstadt had a feeble go at me. I taught him abount the value of horsepower and made him leak important fluids until he had no more important fluids left to leak. After that, thank goodness, they left me and my French collander alone we and flew home (those who could).

On the strength of one sortie I would say that, whereas the AI used to be pretty good target drones, they're now BLOODY DANGEROUS and should be AVOIDED. I don't like flying home in machines that have holes all though them, it's bad for my smokers cough. Seriously, I actually thought that they were going to kill me and I haven't had that feeling from an AI in a long time! Especially not fighting Rolands in a SPAD VII for goddness' sake!!! They really worked me over good and proper. If I hadn't been in the SPAD I doubt anything else would have stood up to that much punishment. I think I might have seen what all the damage decals look at once.

I like how they're a lot more aggressive and don't waffle around doing the old "I'll just sit here out of your reach" gag like they used to. It's also not as easy to read their commitment to maneuvers as it used to be. You're really going to need to keep to those strict Dicta Boelke rules now if you want to stay out fo trouble.

GREAT VID you posted the other day Hellshade, showing your encounter with an Alb and showing how it maneuvered against you and got the heck out of Dodge!

Is it me or you too find the AI performing easily high G manoeuvres, very steep prolonged dives, while your plane is way to sensitive in diving resulting in overstress damage almost every time?

Two ways of improving that:

a) increase robustness values in JJJ's MultiMod (if it is compatible with BHAH.II ??)

or

b) increase max. dive speeds and/or MaxG tolerance values in aircraft xfm files

Either solution makes you more competitive with the AI (have increased g tolerances and dive speed tolerances on several of the tweaked FMs in my packs for WOFF UE/PE - but it will take a while before I have time to focus on such a project of upgrading the FM files). An interim solution is to pick your favorite mount that you fly frequently and increase its g tolerance/overspeed values - but make a copy of the stock xfm files for your aircraft if you do so (there are a total of 11 xfm files per aircraft if it is still the same no. of folders per aircraft as in UE/PE).

Cheers all,
Von S

Absolutely... watching some of the videos that have come out plus my own gameplay seems to point in that direction.
And some of those two seaters are now like fighter planes... I see them being thrown around the sky and the gunners are getting accurate hits even though the pilots are turning and rolling hard at the same time.

I don't overstress my wings every time. The video is clear evidence of that. Obviously some planes will do better than others. Pretty sure I'd NOT recommend it in a N10 or 11. The plane matters and how you go about it matters. Even in my Camel, I pulled back on the throttle so I didn't overstress the wings. The fact that I kept up pretty well with the AI says he did too.

As for the two seaters, there's been a fairly long history of people unhappy that they didn't engage enough and didn't break formation to defend themselves. Now they are. As a personal preference, I happen to feel the AI of two seaters now feels more like mortal men fighting for their lives, but that's only my personal opinion. No AI is going to be perfect for everyone, of course so if you feel the rear gunners are too accurate, there's a Workshop setting to adjust for that more to your taste. Hopefully that helps.

Just off the top of my head, I believe with a little text editing, you can change the observer's g tolerance so they aren't quite so able to shoot at you during high-g maneuvers. However, as Hellshade said, this may make your observer less likely to target the enemy when you want him to.

A slightly more efficient way of applying changes would be by making the changes to a copy of the stock FM's and putting them in a JSGME mod. That way you can swap in and out without impacting the stock files.

That is correct. Done it before and your observer doesn't need to be affected by it.

Here's how
Go into each aircraft folder (AC1 to 5, SQ1 to 4, SQD is your plane) and locate the aircraft's xdp file. Open and find the "RateLimit=" You can replace it with a very low number or a very high number:

(1) a very low number will cause the observer to slowly turn (2) a very high number will cause the observer to quickly turn. Don't pick the SQD's xdp file and your observer will stay at stock settings.

You can also adjust the bullet spread via the observer's gun xdp file by raising or lowering the "noise" inside the file. Also, the range can be adjusted as well. It's in meters.

I've done these changes for some of the aircraft in my PE, but not yet for BH&HII. It's an easy MOD to make, just takes time in testing.

Correct. I have also modified these files for WOFF, but not for BHaH2, yet. However, these files are about the guns, not the observer. Observer g-tolerances are located in another file, perhaps simulation.xml.

It’s the one. I’ve used it before. Maybe not the only place but it works. I don't know if there is a setting for this in the simulation.xml file.

you can test it by replacing the numbers in all of the "RateLimit=" instances with very high or very low numbers and it will work even in QC flight. But if you're using the QC, then you'll need to edit xdp in the QC folder.

Rate limit actually is the setting for how quickly or slowly the observer will turn. It is the same in the original CFS3.