AI Gunnery Unreasonable at High-Aspects

[Nealius]

Landing multiple hits with laser accuracy at high angle, head-on passes on the lowest possible skill setting: Rookie. A couple hits from a snapshot? Yeah that's fine. But these are sustained tracking shots.

 

In this video, the first hit is a reasonable snapshot. After I extend and turn back into the bandit, the sustained tracking shots that shred me are absurd. Maybe a human pilot can get extremely lucky and pull this off (doubtful) once in a thousand engagements, but that would be a highly skilled human, not the lowest level of AI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Nealius

[MrExplosion]

AI Gunnery Unreasonable at High-Aspects

 

Fixed the subject for you.

[Nealius]

They weren't too unreasonable before the 2.7 hotfix. At least not the Rookie WW2 AI. After the hotfix the Bf109 in particular is somehow in god mode.

[MrExplosion]

Do you have any proof that could serve a basis for discussion? Like Tacview files that let us compare?

[Nealius]

26 minutes ago, MrExplosion said:

Do you have any proof that could serve a basis for discussion? Like Tacview files that let us compare?

 

Tacview causes too many performance problems, so I don't use it. I do have a few snippets of VR footage, though few of them show head-on passes. The video I posted is only the last 90 seconds of the 7-minute engagement. Should I upload the rest of it?

Edited May 18, 2021 by Nealius

[PL_Harpoon]

The thing is, single engagement is not enough to get reasonable conclusions.

This could've been a lucky shot.

[MrExplosion]

Or make a mission and have 2 AI pilots fly head on. Play that mission 10x on 2.5 and 10x on 2.7. Record the Tacview and compare.

You wouldnt need to play the mission yourself and only let the mission run for 1 minute (just the head on). That would let us see if anything changed. 

 

In my opinion AI gunnery and flight physics have been broken pre and post 2.7

[Nealius]

2 hours ago, PL_Harpoon said:

The thing is, single engagement is not enough to get reasonable conclusions.

This could've been a lucky shot.

 

Not the first time, nor am I alone in complaining about this issue. There's TacViews elsewhere here and on hoggit, but it's so scattered it will take a while to consolidate them and post them here.

 

2 hours ago, MrExplosion said:

Or make a mission and have 2 AI pilots fly head on.

 

Might be a bit more complex than that. I've noticed they don't do head-on shots at the merge, but later in the fight, say in a scissors situation, they will pull off shots like this. Last week I was chasing an Anton into the vertical, and before I stalled out I unloaded to extend. As I unloaded, he stalled out, and as his nose fell through the horizon with zero energy to maneuver his nose was able to land kill hits on me. Sadly I deleted the video to save disk space.

 

Found an example from another user, pre-2.7 but the same behavior still exists. The behavior is "toned down" in that instead of sustained fire the AI fire bursts. The egregious laser accuracy is still present in 2.7. See 3:42 mark for relevent footage:

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Nealius

[rkk01]

As everyone discusses - AI is the biggest weakness of DCS WW2.

 

I’ve seen AI P-51s do “handbrake turns” at least twice now in SP 1-2-1 quick missions...  what do I mean by this???  Closing the range on the bandits 6 o’clock and all of a sudden it is nose on instead of tail on... but hasn’t used either horizontal or vertical plane or airspace to execute the turn...

 

and don’t get me started on AI gunnery accuracy. Ground fire and air gunner fire is way way too accurate - its as if all WW2 gun were radar controlled.

 

clearly not accurate - B-17s and B-24s did actually need those long range escorts... With DCS WW2 accuracy they could have won the war with just the combat box and 50cal

Edited May 18, 2021 by rkk01

[peachmonkey]

3 minutes ago, rkk01 said:

As everyone discusses - AI is the biggest weakness of DCS WW2.

 

I’ve seen AI P-51s do “handbrake turns” at least twice now in SP 1-2-1 quick missions...  what do I mean by this???  Closing the range on the bandits 12 o’clock and all of a sudden it is nose on instead of tail on... but hasn’t used either horizontal or vertical plane or airspace to execute the turn

 

 

not from the same use case as yours but nevertheless just as ridiculous:

 

I'm flying the Horrido campaign with the A8. There's a mission where I need to intercept A20's before they bomb the u-boat in the harbor. I played it first time and A20's have been successful in bombing the u-boat, however I noticed where they spawned. So next time around I flew just above (~1600m)  their spawn (~100 meters). They show up, I dive on them, I'm at ~700kph on deck chasing them but they are getting away from me! lol     I could only catch up to them near the harbor, started to unload everything I got in to one plane, the debris are falling but no fires, no leaks, no thing, it's just a tank in the sky. As soon as they pass over the harbor, bomb the u-boat suddenly I can light them up with a 3 or 4 rounds of 20mm.

 

I understand the campaigns are scripted. But if there is such a crazy capability to over-ride the laws of physics of these AI drones then any aforementioned concerns are kind of moot.   ED simply needs to convert them to real simulation drones, and I guarantee you they'll be just as dumb as the drones in IL2.

 

[Nealius]

8 hours ago, rkk01 said:

As everyone discusses - AI is the biggest weakness of DCS WW2.

 

I’ve seen AI P-51s do “handbrake turns” at least twice now in SP 1-2-1 quick missions...  what do I mean by this???  Closing the range on the bandits 6 o’clock and all of a sudden it is nose on instead of tail on... but hasn’t used either horizontal or vertical plane or airspace to execute the turn...

 

and don’t get me started on AI gunnery accuracy. Ground fire and air gunner fire is way way too accurate - its as if all WW2 gun were radar controlled.

 

clearly not accurate - B-17s and B-24s did actually need those long range escorts... With DCS WW2 accuracy they could have won the war with just the combat box and 50cal

 

 

I posted about the 20mm flak accuracy as well. Their rounds come extremely close to me beyond their effective firing range (admittedly my numbers are from Wikipedia), and I'm in climbing/descending turns at the same time. That amount of accuracy on an optically-aimed 1940s site isn't possible. They have perfect awareness of your velocity vector at all times.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Nealius

[rkk01]

Same for the quad 50 cal in the Allies inventory...

 

Undoubtedly a good weapon IRL, but that good?  Against a small, manoeuvreing target at 600kph???

 

Who’d have thought it - the game calculates your 3D position and vector and the rest of the code also knows exactly where you are and where you will be in x sec time when the rounds reach you...!!!

 

Same applies to aerial gunnery - both fighters and air gunners

 

I guess there may be a % error / %dispersion factor to dial it down a bit, but upshot is the AI know where you are at all times

[rkk01]

Has anyone taken hits from the AI in the nice new clouds??  Would be a useful test of the “see you everywhere” theory

[Nealius]

16 minutes ago, rkk01 said:

Has anyone taken hits from the AI in the nice new clouds??  Would be a useful test of the “see you everywhere” theory

 

I have not taken hits, but I have had AI engage me while separated with clouds, and I have had flak bursts above clouds as well. I believe their ability to see through clouds is a known issue, but little seems to be discussed about their general omniscience.