Seriously starting to get tired of the AI.
Just tried flying a few missions in Spit MkV's against 109's. 4 on 4 over north afrika, nothing special.
First my own wingmen have the uncanny ability to see the enemy at 5 times the distance I can. At 6000 feet they can spot a 109 at 20 miles away. WTF?
Ok that wouldn't be so bad, but they don't say a damn thing about it, just break and engage. Even my stinking wingman ran off! I'm glad I saw him zoom by my canopy otherwise Id never know they were gone. Oh I tried setting the formation to line abreast so that I could watch them more closely, which worked great until, upon making contact, 3 banked hard right, into 4 who was banking hard left...super.
So I just decide Ill follow them. Eventually I spot the 109's and begin to maneuver into position. I'm above them and pass them, watching them climb up to me. I'm getting ready to dive on their 6, easy shot! Then I notice my wingman is gone, again. pause game and find him about 5 K back gently circling back toward me. Super.
Anyway the 109 I'm chasing dives and I follow. I start to engage when I notice tracers flying by me, but they are red tracers, not green/blue mg151...Oh that's why! Its my 3, shooting at the same target I am, from behind me! Hes such a great shot that he disables my rudder and blows off my left elevator so i have the turning circle of a Stuka. Pull up, get out of the fight and start for home. I end up getting blown away by a 109, my wingman well on his way home.
Next time around same deal, except this time as I engage the 109 from behind, he flames and I pull up...right into my wingman. For some reason watching my 6 meant flying directly above and slightly behind me, WTF, at least he decided to play this time.
Next time around we bounce 109's, too bad no one told me. So I figure out where they went (tiny black dots on the horizon) and zoom into the fray. Dive on a 109 and get into a good turn fight. I get one and my 2 gets another. Then the engine failures happen. One of the mods I use (which goes a long way to making the playing field more even between us and the AI, normally) has to be disabled with spitfires or else their engines melt quickly. Oops. 3 and 4 are shot down gliding back to base and my 2 joins them in the desert floor when his untouched merlin dies.
Oh and the whole seeing through clouds thing too. WTF? seriously I cant fight in a cloud except to try to exit it with good position, damn AI seems to be flying with clear blue skis though!
And of course the snipers. id be remiss if I failed to mention them. Hell I wont even come within 2 k of an enemy bomber formation, because no matter what I do I get a bullet between the eyes.
Ok end rant.
All this being said there is still no better sim on the market. Take the good with the bad I suppose.
This could help you keep them in control a bit:
"How I control my AI wingmen offline or on Coops." By WWSensei (An article at the Wing Walkers forums)
^
Yup, tell the flight to cover you and they should stick with you instead of going off on their own. Might be best to tell them to break then rejoin, then cover you, especially if you're in control of another flight, like you're in flight 1 and have control over 1 and 2 or whatever, flights you're not in are really liable to mysteriously go off on their own.
Ive been doing all of that except for the Break/rejoin, Ill have to use that.
Whats funny, now that Ive cooled off a little, is that it only seems to effect British pilots (I realize that thats not possible). Seriously I just took a group of USAAF P-47D-22's into Normandy and slaughtered a group of 190's like it was nothing. My wingman obeyed all commands and cleared my tail twice. Freaking bizarre.
I don't know if this is possible or not but can you hotkey wingman commands?
Break/rejoin is the only thing that seems to keep them in order, you do it once at the start of a mission and they start paying attention after that. I agree, though, that's the only real disappointment I've had in moving from 4.09+mods to 4.10, that playing offline is so much more of a chore. Endless barrel roll enemies, ******ed manoeuvering. The endless zoom-climbing. I had a 109 do a flat negative G turn for a full 270 today...until I got a firing solution and was about to pull the trigger, of course, as per bloody usual. Telepathic little buggers.
Some use 'VAC', voice activation... you program it, then command your flight via the microphone...I don't know if this is possible or not but can you hotkey wingman commands?
http://www.dwvac.com/
Best rundown on the AI I've read in a long time. As good as this game is, the AI has mostly been, by far and away, the most disappointing aspect. Especially in DCG.Originally posted by C.W.M.V.:
Seriously starting to get tired of the AI.
Just tried flying a few missions in Spit MkV's against 109's. 4 on 4 over north afrika, nothing special.
First my own wingmen have the uncanny ability to see the enemy at 5 times the distance I can. At 6000 feet they can spot a 109 at 20 miles away. WTF?
Ok that wouldn't be so bad, but they don't say a damn thing about it, just break and engage. Even my stinking wingman ran off! I'm glad I saw him zoom by my canopy otherwise Id never know they were gone. Oh I tried setting the formation to line abreast so that I could watch them more closely, which worked great until, upon making contact, 3 banked hard right, into 4 who was banking hard left...super.
So I just decide Ill follow them. Eventually I spot the 109's and begin to maneuver into position. I'm above them and pass them, watching them climb up to me. I'm getting ready to dive on their 6, easy shot! Then I notice my wingman is gone, again. pause game and find him about 5 K back gently circling back toward me. Super.
Anyway the 109 I'm chasing dives and I follow. I start to engage when I notice tracers flying by me, but they are red tracers, not green/blue mg151...Oh that's why! Its my 3, shooting at the same target I am, from behind me! Hes such a great shot that he disables my rudder and blows off my left elevator so i have the turning circle of a Stuka. Pull up, get out of the fight and start for home. I end up getting blown away by a 109, my wingman well on his way home.
Next time around same deal, except this time as I engage the 109 from behind, he flames and I pull up...right into my wingman. For some reason watching my 6 meant flying directly above and slightly behind me, WTF, at least he decided to play this time.
Next time around we bounce 109's, too bad no one told me. So I figure out where they went (tiny black dots on the horizon) and zoom into the fray. Dive on a 109 and get into a good turn fight. I get one and my 2 gets another. Then the engine failures happen. One of the mods I use (which goes a long way to making the playing field more even between us and the AI, normally) has to be disabled with spitfires or else their engines melt quickly. Oops. 3 and 4 are shot down gliding back to base and my 2 joins them in the desert floor when his untouched merlin dies.
Oh and the whole seeing through clouds thing too. WTF? seriously I cant fight in a cloud except to try to exit it with good position, damn AI seems to be flying with clear blue skis though!
And of course the snipers. id be remiss if I failed to mention them. Hell I wont even come within 2 k of an enemy bomber formation, because no matter what I do I get a bullet between the eyes.
Ok end rant.
All this being said there is still no better sim on the market. Take the good with the bad I suppose.
Certain AI routines aren't "turned on" until they pass certain waypoints. The relatively wide-open, "big sky" nature of missions generated by DCG tend to further expose this. Especially when you command your wing mates to attack enemy aircraft early in the mission, and those enemies they're supposed to attack aren't your actual mission objective. Then your wing mates will just turn away and fly off into the distance, leaving you to deal with the threat all by yourself. Actually, they are flying to some way point that "allows" them to attack other enemy aircraft that aren't the mission objective, then they turn again to return to you. If you are still alive and fighting when they get back, then they'll attack the enemy you commanded them to do ten minutes ago.
The quirks of the AI don't happen often, but it's a huge buzz kill when it does. Here's hoping that TD really get their heads down in tackling this issue for 4.11...
Short of a rewrite? Possibly they could make a credible follow and cover routine that doesn't have ADD? Possibly that's not how the AI works. Possibly also is that the AI uses priorities and can be changed to less desire certain activities over orders. And probably none of those can work as spelled, the AI is a black box to me!