AI vs AI Kill ratio

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by major.kudo

I think the game is similar to movie.

Interesting comparison.

If you want to compare IL2 to a movie, I'd compare it to an old "epic" movie like "Battle of Britain" or "The Longest Day" - dated special effects, but a "cast of thousands," excellent performances from a number of actors, and a real attempt to get the history right.

Single-plane simulations are more like "character study" or "biographical" movies. One person's life - or actions during a particular period in life - studied in detail, with everyone else as a supporting actor.

Plane-themed video games like World of Warplanes or Warthunder are like those noisy summer movies which feature CGI, guns, and explosions as the lead actors, with humans in a supporting role. Great to look at, but bad writing, painfully bad performances by all the actors, and no historical accuracy.

[dimlee]

Major.Kudo and Pursuivant,
This is interesting comparison indeed and thought provoking one.
I like Pursuivant's words about WT. This is what I used to feel about Gajin's creations but could not name it right. Exactly ! - as to watch some heavily advertised blockbuster in IMAX... and to forget about its content on the next day.

[taly001]

I think the problem with AI in ALL computer games is that they can track the player once spotted with 3D X-ray vision. In real life when sight is lost the player needs to re-find the enemy each time, and then to re-analyse the maneouver the enemy is making. The AI doesn't seem to need this and can track and follow your moves all the time.

This may partly be why AI vs AI is such a kill-fest. They never loose track of each other so will fight to the death. Forcing AI to reacquire the target after loosing sight would require CPU cycles, drawing predicted target flight path from time sight lost and have AI look there first, then scan around to find before been allowed to manoeuver to attack.

[Storebror]

I think your idea bears some useful points to start thinking on.
Already now, IL-2 has the ability the check whether actually AI can see an enemy plane at all, taking own plane obstacles into account as well as buildings, mountains etc.
But you're right that AI will instantly reacquire the target once it comes in it's sight again.
The latter could be changed closer to reality by taking a few parameters into account, e.g.:

• The larger the relative movement between own aircraft and target (when it moves out of sight), the longer you need to scan (because it will become hard to predict where the enemy will be).
• The smaller the relative movement between own aircraft and target (when it comes back in sight), the longer you need to scan (because it's harder to spot non-moving targets).
• The more G's are pulled by enemy aircraft, the longer it takes to scan (the future position will become hard to predict under heavy maneouvering).
• The more G's AI pulls themselves, the longer it takes to scan.
• The further the enemy distance is, the longer it takes to scan (dots becoming smaller).
• If the target is below the horizon when it comes back in sight, add a scan penalty.

With these factors a scan time could be calculated where AI would not immediately track a target when it comes back in sight, but just after this scan time has elapsed.

Best regards - Mike

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by taly001

I think the problem with AI in ALL computer games is that they can track the player once spotted with 3D X-ray vision. In real life when sight is lost the player needs to re-find the enemy each time, and then to re-analyse the maneouver the enemy is making. The AI doesn't seem to need this and can track and follow your moves all the time.

For Ace or Veteran AI it's not unreasonable to have them be able to keep track of several opposing aircraft even if they briefly lose sight of them. That's call "situational awareness" or "spatial memory" and it's a vital skill for good combat pilots.

But, for Average and Rookie AI, ability to maintain a "lock" on a target is perhaps too generous.

One thing that I've never seen for AI for any airplane sim is the possibility of "sensory overload," where if you try to track multiple targets simultaneously you lose track of almost all of them, allowing one or more to get onto your 6.

Originally Posted by taly001

Forcing AI to reacquire the target after loosing sight would require CPU cycles, drawing predicted target flight path from time sight lost and have AI look there first, then scan around to find before been allowed to manoeuver to attack.

I'm not sure that it would require that many CPU cycles to determine if AI maintains SA with respect to a particular opponent. I think that the real demand on CPU cycles would be constantly drawing lines of sight between various crew stations and other planes to determine if a particular crewman has LoS.

A simplifying factor, which is realistic, is to treat distant formations of aircraft as a single group, and have AI check for line of sight to that group at less frequent intervals, or not at all.

Another way to reduce CPU cycles is to limit the maximum number of aircraft a given crewman can track by skill level (For example, 1 for Rookie, 2 for Average, 4 for Veteran, 16 for Ace). AI will focus on attacking enemy aircraft first, wingman second, other nearby enemy aircraft third, other flights (treated as a single unit) fourth, distant enemy aircraft fifth, and distant friendly aircraft sixth. If there's a risk of collision with the ground, barrage balloons, or similar, attacking enemy comes first, terrain comes second, then wingman, etc.

Finally, you could make the chance of losing a "lock" on an airplane you can't see a function of time that aircraft has spent outside of line of sight - assuming it isn't flying straight and level. Check more frequently for loss of line of sight for less skilled pilots.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Storebror

But you're right that AI will instantly reacquire the target once it comes in it's sight again.

That removes several important elements from the OODA Loop.

When you reacquire a target, your brain spends a fraction of a second on the Observe, Orient, and Decide portions of the loop before you Act. AI should do the same, if only by briefly hesitating before acting, and with a small percentage chance that AI won't automatically reacquire (because the pilot briefly had his head down in the cockpit, or his vision was briefly obscured by "Fog of War" - literal or otherwise.)

My experience playing the game is that Storebror's list of factors to take into account is very true once you lose Line of Sight (LoS), but sometimes makes maintaining a "lock" on an airplane you can see easier.

For example, a plane which is fast-moving, or committed to a high G maneuver is in some ways easier to predict because a fast moving plane is more or less committed to a particular speed and vector. Likewise, a plane pulling serious Gs has "no place to go" but to a lower G state. Same thing for a plane in a very poor energy state, or a plane with certain types of damage.

But, I'm not quite sure how to get AI to recognize all those things, even if it's possible.

[Storebror]

One thing we shouldn't forget is that AI is comparably "stupid" when it comes to draw conclusions based on the facts they know.
Human players can utilize their experience from previous sorties and can adopt promising options even in uncertain or unknown situations.
AI can't do any of this.
AI has a simple tree/branch decision scheme, sometimes leading to rather stupid moves.
In that regards, letting AI "cheat" in another regime to compensate this lack of experience might be a valid decision to some degree.

Best regards - Mike

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Storebror

One thing we shouldn't forget is that AI is comparably "stupid" when it comes to draw conclusions based on the facts they know.

It would be intriguing to know what are the ‘facts’ they know.

1. There seems to be a 'visibility' range for contacts. Whether it’s general or depending on AI skill is unclear to me. It’s also unclear under what conditions combat AI kicks in and takes command over from the mission script (or gives the command back).
2. Once a contact is within this range, the AI has no problems to identify it as friend or foe. In this respect the AI always flies ‘with icons on’.
3. How many contacts the AI tracks simultaneously is unclear. It’s also unclear whether and how this depends on skill and/or other factors (apart from blocked LoS). Anyway, the data of all contacts are theoretically available to the AI, even if some of them are disregarded.
4. The AI has exact knowledge of contact position (vector and distance), perhaps with some inaccuracy margin to reflect skill.
5. The AI has a very good knowledge of target travel (direction and speed), probably with an inaccuracy margin to reflect skill. (This ‘knowledge’ is a prerequisite for gunnery, particularly for deflection shots.)
6. The AI seems to be aware of the general type of the target aircraft. There are different attack schemes against fighters and bombers. The differentiation is probably based, in some simplified way, on the types listed in post #46.
7. The AI is aware of the terrain (but not the objects!) it is flying over.

All this is just guessing, of course, and probably far not complete, but brainstorming could be made more effective if we knew the cruel 'facts' about the AI.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Storebror

One thing we shouldn't forget is that AI is comparably "stupid" when it comes to draw conclusions based on the facts they know.
Human players can utilize their experience from previous sorties and can adopt promising options even in uncertain or unknown situations.
AI can't do any of this.
AI has a simple tree/branch decision scheme, sometimes leading to rather stupid moves.
In that regards, letting AI "cheat" in another regime to compensate this lack of experience might be a valid decision to some degree.

Best regards - Mike

Experience is not needed to have an option to disengage - besides the obvious out of ammo/fuel low option. A script can decide if numerical superiority has gone, a script can decide if positional advantage has gone, and a script can track losses, a script can count friendly planes in sight and so on.
Experience is neither needed to obey your commander. Which current AI does not and most times not at all. I have the experience, and if I tell them we do the mission my way they should not question it -if all goes south, I will have to face the music, not them.

Experience is not needed to shoot semi-accurately at nearly non moving targets, at least if you have been through flight school (possibly with the exception where pilots were needed fast and anyone half capable of making a landing stick was allowed to fly(e. g. Germany end 44).

And you don't need experience to set a limit for maximum contacts to be able to track. Script can do that. Trow in some parameters, as distance to enemy, current LoS, movement across or away/towards, time in LoS, etc and it will be better than all-seeing, and if done decent maybe will let us forget for a few moments we are battling ones and zeroes.

[dimlee]

Ones and zeroes they are but they never stop to surprise us mighty humans.
I like to meet AI online where their skill levels are unknown to me. Sometimes when I relax too much and expect another easy kill... I'm punished by that mysterious super sharp sniper gunner who sends his bullet right into my cockpit from 1000m. I consider that as a "compensation" mentioned by Storebror and continue to enjoy the game.