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[pognivet]

Is there an AI mod that makes the AI somewhat fair/realistic? I really cannot play this game anymore as it is. The AI aren't affected by blackouts, g-forces, stress, overheating, radiator drag or many other things that I am affected by. I can never keep up with my AI flight because their engines never overheat and mine do even though we use the same exact airplane, I can never turn inside another aircraft at a high speed even if I have a superior plane because g-forces affect me but not the enemy, AI can dive from 5000 feet with full throttle and pull up at the last second with no damage or blackout. The list goes on and it makes the game very frustrating and un-fun. It is easier to fight 10 Mig-29's at the same time in Falcon 4 than it is to fight two Mig-1's in IL2 and yet this has nothing to do with the capability of the aircraft. In a campaign game I can try every engine setting and configuration imaginable, but it doesn't even matter. At 110 percent throttle, descending, with oil spraying on my windscreen and the engine threatening to quit I'm still miles behind the AI who coast along at level flight without a care in the world going 400 mph. Sometimes it's not so noticeable, but sometimes it feels like fighting UFOs in a biplane. I have looked but all I can find is that in DBW they reduced the accuracy of the gunner positions on bombers or something. Is there a mod that makes the AI play by the same rules, or is it impossible because the AI is too stupid and always crashes?

btw I'm on 4.12.2m with the ultrapack I think

[Captain Dawson]

Hello pognivet

As far as I know, there are no AI mods to solve the issues you listed. In CUP, there are small individual mission tools to adjust the behavior of AI slightly, but these are mainly in the areas of Command and Control, avoiding stupidity on attack runs, etc.

I do concur with some of your thoughts on AI, they do have a few advantages in the way of difficulty settings that they seem to ignore. I dare anyone to try dogfighting a A6M3 on "Ace" with a P-39D-2 all difficulty settings enabled! Granted, the Zero is a better dogfighter, but still not an easy task let me tell you! There is another way to even the odds somewhat however. As noob as it may sound, sometimes it is best to go without some of the difficulty settings on. Even the best of us turn some of them off. Stalls and spins I almost always turn off, as the stall characteristics for some planes are already more violent than real life in my opinion. Even Monty, the organizer of CUP, suggests turning off engine overheat when using planes with overkill overheating. Head shake from firing the guns is realistic in small aircraft to be sure, but in cockpit mode with limited visibility, it can be quite difficult to draw a bead on enemy planes with this enabled. And the list of unneeded/unnecessary settings could go on as far as you are willing to sacrifice realism. (Or perceived realism ) Of course you don't want to go around with everything on "Arcade" mode, unlimited ammo and such, but sometimes you must sacrifice a little realism, (or over-realism) to get a good experience out of IL-2.

What does everyone else think?

[Dimlee]

This is old debate, isn't it...
Let's just treat AI as they are - "inhuman" in all respects. That doesn't make them always tough opponents by the way. Sometimes they make stupid things, even aces.

[boogabooga]

If you can't keep up with the rest of your flight during cruise without overheat, then it is the fault of the human mission builder and not the AI. AI is just flying at the speed that it is told to through the mission waypoints.

The person building the mission has the responsibility to make sure that the speed set at each waypoint is reasonable for the
particular aircraft at the waypoint's altitude. You can fix this yourself by opening the mission in FMB and editing the waypoints. Remember that you set the INDICATED airspeed in FMB. That will naturally be much lower than the desired true airspeed.

As a rule of thumb, a good cruise speed is about 65% of the maximum obtainable indicated airspeed. You should be able to do that without overheating your engine.           

   

[KiwiBiggles]

It's not for everyone Pognivet, but I get a lot more *fun* out of my missions by turning down the realism settings.  I'm with Captain Dawson on this. At the moment I've got most of the flight realism settings turned off (stalls, overheating, g-forces etc).  For (the weak) rifle-caliber machine-gun armed Spits and Hurris I turn off realistic gunnery too. Is it realistic?  Not so much.  Is it fun?  Yup.

Honestly, before I tried turning off some realism settings I was getting more frustrated with my missions than I was enjoying them. And its supposed to be fun, right? Try it, see if you like it.  It's your game after all. 

Cheers
KB

[Cafs]

Boogabooga is right, generally speaking, most mission builders do that. Very high speeds or in some cases very low, but the "high" is more common. With a very high cruise speed, stay in position with your flight is very difficult, even with lean fuel, fully opened radiators or whatever. Turn off the overheating feature.

I do the same as Kiwibiggles, I turn off overheating and G-forces. The AI never overheat, neither blackout or redout.

[sparky]

Talking about the AI, is it me or do AI controlled aircraft tend to 'zone' in on the player aircraft? It always seems like the enemy make a bee line for my aircraft no matter what i do. Any way to fix this?

cheers

[tomoose]

Sparky;
if the AI seem to zone in on just you then check the mission in FMB.  You will probably find that the enemy aircraft have been set to 'target' your flight (and you).  You can reset that 'target' setting to another of your flight.  If your flight is not 'targetted' in FMB then I would have to assume that in a 'random' encounter that the AI are programmed to go after the 'human' aircraft.

Pognivet;
As you can see a lot of people relate to what you are saying.  For our little group I usually dial down the skill level of the enemy AI in the .mis file.  That levels the playing field a little bit.
For keeping up with friendly AI I have found that playing with fuel settings can help.  For example, in a bombing campaign using B-17s I had my aircraft with less fuel than my AI flight.  This made them "heavier" and "slower" so that I wasn't trying to catch up with them all the time but was able to stay with them more easily.  Hope that makes sense.

No matter what you do there will always be some things that the AI is able to do which you can't.  Not realistic I know but there's not much you can do.  It's just the way the game is but given how old it is now, it's still pretty good. 

[western0221]

btw I'm on 4.12.2m with the ultrapack I think

It means you are playing with the AI of 4.10.1m plus UP3 one , not 4.12.2m.
Stock AI was evolved by each version-up 4.11.1m time / 4.12.2m time / and so on 4.13.1m (moddable is end here) .... 4.13.2m .
How do you feel about stock 4.12.2m AI ?

pognivet .... and not only him also others ..... talking about AI, please make clear which version and which mod.
In different game version , in different mod selection , AI shows different behavior.

[sparky]

tomoose thanks mate that could be it, mainly playing QMB so could well be the case mate

[Modifly1]

I found 4.12.2 to be little better. I found the AI would always gang up on me the instant I attack another airplane. The zero couldn't turn that well above 350+ mph yet the AI have no problem dealing with it I was once right behind a zero and couldn't bring my guns to bear with the rudder due t my high speed. Him on the other hand had full rudder applied. Sometimes skill sets depend on your airplane. I found that when using the F4F 'average' was alright. Went to the F6F and immediately my backside was on fire. So I use rookie when in the F6F

[wern moldy]

You're preaching to the choir my friend pognivet! You ought to try fighting against a P36...imagine Molders flying a sidewinder missile with the agility of a Fokker Triplane!! I'd love to know who the Einstein was that programmed it's flight model!!
The only advice I can give is; avoid campaigns where the brainiac that created it uses a large number of planes...the more a/c, the more gang up on the player. I prefer Dgen campaigns for that reason....except with BAT, a lot of 'em don't work properly anymore.....grouse!
To lower the skill level helps.....a bit. The thing I've noticed is, the better you get, the better it gets, and after 10 years on this game, one acquires some skill; that's when you REALLY NOTICE the physics defying AI....no matter what, it doesn't get any easier.....it's a con.
I would've dumped the game years ago except there's no viable alternative. This game sucks you in; you know it's f**ked up, but our fascination with flying, or particular era of air combat demands that an inner fantasy be addressed. So we continue trying to defy the odds in order to scratch that itch.....I haven't been able to work out whether it's an addiction, or insanity. As soon as I have an answer, I'll let you know.