"New and Improved" AI

[Bones]

I flew against an AI F-15 and JF-17 and they were both UFOs. Tired of that. There's really no point flying against AI rated veteran or above anymore and since ED doesn't think anything is wrong with that, i have no faith that it will ever change, which is very discouraging.

I did the cat vs eagle instant action and the cat vs dragon instant action and both times, they would turn eternally, not changing their turn and never losing energy.

The f-15 was set to ace, the Jeff was set to random.

Tacview shows the F-15 was doing his infinite loop thing. He held a right turn for 12 complete loops doing between 450-500 KIAS at all times.Never got below 450. Just to stay with him, I'm fluctuating between 250-450 KIAS because I am running out of energy in the turn and maneuvering to regain energy whereas he just sits there in the same turn all day long doing 450-500 KIAS and never losing the energy. The Jeff didn't do continual turns but there were some times when he was turning as high as Mach 1.03, other times he had sustained turns at around 450-500 KIAS as well.

And since ED doesn't think there is anything wrong with that, I rally don't think it's going to change and that really is annoying since it's so blatant that these aircraft defy the laws of physics. Really makes me not want to bother with air combat anymore. It messes up missiles too since they can turn and bean and dodge without losing energy. The other day I shot off 3 missiles which were well within parameters and even in close for a Rne kill and they didn't hit and then the target ran away at over mach speed. So it's not just limited to guns only dogfighting.

v6,
boNes

[Hammer]

that's it! we should all uninstall DCS!

so no more ace level AI. any way to tell from the TacView what the Jeff ended up with? or maybe you can test to see if Verteran still does it. we can use that as a standard in setting up (RLGing) our missions we fly.

another good reason for live, human OPFOR.

[PanzerMeyer]

For what it's worth, IL-2 Stalingrad has similar issues with the AI. The AI simply doesn't follow the same rules of physics and energy bleed like human players do. I like the term "UFO" used by bones because that's exactly how I would describe how some of the planes fly in IL-2.

[Bones]

The F-15 was set to ace, while the JEff was set to Random.

ED says that the AI applies for anything Veteran level or above.

v6,
boNes

[Bones]

On the plus side, I did the Zone V 2vUnk mission. Me and my lead F-14A AI were jumped by 2 F-16s and 2 F-5s. The lead AI got shot down promptly, but I was able to get all 4 of the bandits. This was all with missiles though, I doubt if it was an ACM situation guns only that I would be able to shoot ANY down with the UFO thing going on.

But it was gratifying, especially since I had great SA throughout.

TacView here:
https://we.tl/t-6pHpcfAWzG

Screen_230125_001055.jpg

v6,
boNes

[PanzerMeyer]

It's very rare that I get gun kills in DCS. It usually happens when I'm flying an F-15 and I just happen to get close enough to something like a TU-22. It's easy to hit such a big target like that. LOL

[Hammer]

Bones, I know you said random, but when the plane spawns it assigns it an AI level. Any way to know what that was via tacview? Also, can you test Veteran to see how it does there? Maybe it is *just* bad/good enough to provide a challenge but not be a UFO?

[Hammer]

I modifed all AI aircraft in TTI Syria mission we have been flying to Veteran and below. We can see how this pans out in that mission.

[Bones]

I don't know how to work TacView well so i don't know if there is a way to have it show me what skill level the AI is.

I do know however from ED that the "new and improved" AI applies to Veteran and Ace level AI bandits.

v6,
boNes

[Hammer]

as an aside, the new BFM ai was released on 28 Oct, 2022. has it not been noticed until now? or did they screw something up recently? Some of us have gotten guns and heater kills when merged in the last couple months (Grifter in Hornet for sure, probably others), but I am not sure what the AI level was there. ACM has not yet been worked on/improved that I can find in the release notes.

Also, that wetransfer thing seems to want me to sign up - it is a strange looking web site as well. very scam-ish looking to me!

do you have a youtube recording of the fight?

[Bones]

as an aside, the new BFM ai was released on 28 Oct, 2022. has it not been noticed until now? or did they screw something up recently? Some of us have gotten guns and heater kills when merged in the last couple months (Grifter in Hornet for sure, probably others), but I am not sure what the AI level was there. ACM has not yet been worked on/improved that I can find in the release notes.

Also, that wetransfer thing seems to want me to sign up - it is a strange looking web site as well. very scam-ish looking to me!

do you have a youtube recording of the fight?

It's a known issue, several people have been complaining about it on the DCS forums, and to me as well. It's not so much their ACM skills as much as their tactics, such as trying to force a one circle fight as opposed to performing a low yo yo. I doubt that the UFO abilities is something they would note in the release notes.

We transfer is widely used, it's not a scam. The difference here is that usually I email a link, and you click on it and go, no need to sign up. Since I can't email it to everyone in the forum, I just had a clickable link--I've never done that before. So it could very well be that the link version requires a sign-up, I dunno.

I did not get a YouTube recording of the fight unfortunately and it would be useless to record it from a track since the F-14 tracks are always unusable. That's why I had the TacView instead.

v6,
boNes

PS i just checked that link and it was allowing me to download immediately without signup. I've never signed up with them so it's not because of that. I dunno why it's not working for you.

[Hammer]

this might explain why Grifter had such a hard time with that F5 last time we flew TTI. do you guys recall if it was a hard or just regular spawn?

i know about wetransfer, since you introduced it a while ago, but it is an "odd" looking web site. on top of the fact it asked me to create an account to download your linked file. ugh.

i explored it a bit more (i am not as pressed for time today!) and all I needed to do was press the Continue or Agree button, not actually sign up. so all good, and to let anyone else who might want to grab the tacview know...