Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Take command of air and naval assets from post-WW2 to the near future in tactical and operational scale, complete with historical and hypothetical scenarios and an integrated scenario editor.

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Jorgen_CAB
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Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

First I must take the opportunity and congratulate the makers of this beautiful game, it just is excellent in almost every way.

Now over to some hopefully constructive criticism and questions, some criticism might just me being a newb... ;)

I have ONLY been playing the game for about a day... but a that is nearly 20 hours or so... :)

I do get the feeling that the AI is kind of gimped in the air war and if you babysit your aircraft you can whoop the AI without much effort. The air mission planner is inadequate in a few ways.

1. AI don't understand how to support their aircraft with numbers or fly in proper squadrons or at least with a wingman. I never fly my planes solo and can overwhelm the AI with local superiority most of the time because of it.

2. You can't use the mission functionality to patrol areas, the AI (as above) never support their assets and just go in for the brawl, which result in unrealistic loss of aircraft. If you have a range advantage there is no reason to risk your planes in close combat. Likewise if the enemy has a range advantage, you need numbers. There are no point in wasting your planes unless there is a bigger issue to consider.

The scenario I played were mainly about air warfare so I have only touched the naval stuff, but there don't seem to be the same problem with naval stuff since the AI seem generally well designed to handle their SAG, CAG or whatever their formation is.

In the scenario that I played I first used the mission planer to set up patrols for my aircraft which just resulted in them getting a huge casualties rate. When I restarted the scenario I handled them manually and did everything I could to stay out of range and save my planes. Since the AI rarely supported their aircraft (or tried to bait me) I could often destroy them in piecemeal. I only had to fire my weapon, return to refuel and rearm and do it all over again. As long as you have a few hours or a day or two it works very well.
I then opted to play both sides, this was a scenario only optimised for play on one side so I decided I should use the resources in a way the scenario was set up, otherwise it would crush the side I originally played in no time.
The result now was more realistic, the air-war became more drawn out both timing and losses on both sides seemed more natural even if the original side eventually prevailed as before.

I feel that the AI and mission logic must learn to understand when to engage and with what weapons. I don't want to engage a MIG-29 with Sidewinders after I spent my AMRAM unless there were a very good reason to do so. If the MIG survive I rather turn back to rearm and have my second wave take care if him.
The same goes for easy prey, I don't want to waste my AMRAMS on a ground bomber or helicopter if they can't fire back at me. Sidewinders or other similar missiles work just fine, that way I can stay up and engage real fighters as well.
The AI must also need to understand that it many times are wiser to just waste ammunition to get the kill if there are no room to fall back and go at it again. Just run up, fire all your long range missiles at a few targets and get out. Head back to base to refuel, rearm and back up again. The AI obviously need to take ammunition storage at the base in consideration, but for the most part it is better to have a sure bet to kill the opponent than risk them being able to shoot back at you.

I'm pretty sure that real pilots are using the same logic when engaging an enemy. They might know from experience or simulation how often a certain type of fighter are able to dodge incoming missiles. Better to make sure and fire a few extra and just retreat if there otherwise is a risk someone on your side will be shot down.

It will obviously be different if you are on the other side and have range against you, now it is even more important to use supportive aircraft and tactics such as cutting of the retreat of the enemy so at least a part of your force will get to fire their missiles. The AI should be thought how to do that when they are technologically inferior they need to rely more on numbers or at least local superiority.

In any way... I find the mission planer very inadequate to use for anything but submarines and navy ships. Some missions can be done where the weapon load-out are homogeneous and all planes run in one single large group. Then it works pretty good.

The arbitrary number of 1/3 assets in their air at once is not a good way to solve rotating forces. They must be more flexible. Sometimes keeping 1/3 forces will destroy you, while it might be enough at times. The AI must be ably to decide to overrule this and send up more reinforcement (but not just all or nothing) if they see that the enemy is increasing their activity.
Planes should also be launched on groups, squadrons or wings... whatever make more sense given the number of aircraft operating in the area.

There also are very bad support for land combat unit in scenarios where there are some land combat. I also find that land combat is too fast and brutal. It should be tweaked so land combat mostly bog down into stalemates and become drawn out. That is kind of realistic, units usually don't have clean shoot-outs without one side being forced to retreat and/or dig in.
Combat in the game can usually destroy large forces in like half a minute, at the very most a few minutes.

Anyway, some of my thoughts after playing almost a full day with the game.
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

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Pergite!
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Pergite! »

1. AI is not better than how the scenario is constructed. With the current logic to handle the AI its possible to set up quite good representations of different CAP and interception routines. They however must be based on geographically based triggers i.e areas. You can not setup a mission that says if enemy AC > 5, then launch 10 interceptors. You can only trigger a mission from when a unit or type of unit enters a specified area, which of course has its limitations.

Local superiority is however always a winner which you have found out.

2. You have a the "winchester" logic you can set in your ROE that makes your planes RTB when they have expended their main armament. If they however are engaged, they need to engage defensive which sometimes leave them in an disadvantageous position. Actually commanding your units is required to give them a tactical edge. Its up to the player to interpret the situation and act upon it. The AI in my experience is not especially creative in this department. That is up to the scenario designer to counter when setting up triggers for different missions.

Land units except AD, Radars and EW are just there as targets at the moment. The game does not have "land" in its title.
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

Yeay, I know that land unit are not a concentration if the game, It were just the scenario I played that had land units fire at each other and it just felt strange... :)

I have used the Winchester mechanic for my missions, but that is not the issue. The issue is that the AI don't seem to have a clue how to tactically use their weapons or engage targets properly. If that was coded into the mission tactical AI (not the strategic AI) it would make it more challenging.

If the AI could make some sort of tactical assessment and avoid losses and concentrate their forces and/or retreat in the face of certain death would go a long way. Especially for aircraft where it is more possible than for slow ships.

I do understand that scenarios are heavily scripted and there can be a big difference in difficulty between a moderate and good scenario. I only have a sample of two scenarios played so far so my experience are sort of limited.

At least teach the tactical AI (mission AI) when and how to attack and with what weapons and when to head back to base. Make sure that the AI pool their resource a little better than just have aircraft trickle into the operational zone which seemed to happen in my game when I used the mission tool.

As an example I always head back to base with a fighter wing once they expended the majority of their long range capability unless there is a softer (helicopter or unarmed aircraft) target nearby and no hard (enemy fighter) threats. As long as there is a reserve that can be launched to take their place there are no reason for they to stay and risk being shot down as an easy target.

I really think the AI could act in a similar way. There are probably nothing a well scripted AI can do about this other than the initial attack/defence in force.
magi
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by magi »

Jorgen.....

Much of what you say I agree with.... It seems that the AI air defenders seem to act to piecemeal and are easily defeated..... They there for destroyed in detail… I also suspect Pergite is correct in that a lot of this is a result of the scenario designers formations in the triggers that he uses....
It would be nice to see the AI use air defenders with more logical protocols… Maybe if they were set up in pairs or groups that would make for plausible engagements..... But if those groups saw some units lost in combat there would have to be some way that they would be restored when they RTB..... Possibly there's could be a way you could set it up to Restore groups with aircraft that are in reserve in the scenario...... And after the reserves are used up… They would just launch with what they have...... I really don't know I'm not a tech guy… But it would be nice to see something more realistic than the way it is now....…

On the player side you really don't want the AI to do it all.... Or we would just push a button.. And watch the movie.....
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

For scenario builders I believe two things could be important for aircraft.

1. Different AI mission behaviour types. Such as shoot and scoot behaviour if you know that side has superior BVR ability, or bait and flee behaviour for superior in number or with defensive SAM in support. Perhaps a few others as well, you can then also script changes in AI behaviour during a scenario as well.

2. Ability to set minimum group size for planes launched from each airfield in the mission window. Here you can control so that a minimum of say two, tree or more planes are launched together and move together through an entire mission. That will make the planes spread out far less and be a more potent threat. It should always try to meet the criteria if it can, even wait some time for planes to get ready, but obviously not too long, depending on how many planes are in the air I guess.

3. Perhaps some more tolerance setting for doctrines in where you can choose how aggressive your pilots should be, the odds at which they will try to engage and how likely they are to close with an enemy before returning to base.

Both of these are very useful for the player as well so planes behave in a way that they expect.
magi
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by magi »

i bet this is really easy for us to casually discuss but complex and a lot of work to prosecute...... im just a construction guy..... so i have a lot of bright ideas.....
mikmykWS
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by mikmykWS »

Hi Guys,

Just to add a few things.

Use the event editor's activate mission action with a killed aircraft trigger to launch further air patrols and intercept missions. you can also deactivate the ineffective ones. So maybe your initial patrol is 1/3 but after something is killed or a zone is violated the 1/3 misson deactivates and a new patrol mission with more aircraft activates.

Use prosecution zones to control where AAW patrols go and where SAM will fire into. You can really control a lot with this as well as set up sam and fighters belts etc.

It is up to the scenario authors to use all the tools we give them. That being said.. Don't throw them under the bus over stupid stuff.[:)] Give them input so everybody learns what works best and doesn't. Make sure also to keep us in the loop. We will add what is necessary because we want you guys to succeed with what you're trying to do.

Mike

Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

It feels good that we have the eyes and ears of the developers and I hope you found my critique at least somewhat constructive. :)
With all the great detail that went into making this game I understand that there are limited resources with which to work with given how complex it is.

And as I said before I'm a total Newb and my experience of the game are only with two scenarios so far. The first was the official one with some Russian Frigates attacking Norway, that was just to learn the interface and was fun. I found no real problem with the flow of the game.

The second scenario was a more complex one (fan built) but mainly with air units. Although after looking at the scenario in the editor it was a pretty simple setup with no real progression for any eventual change in the AI forces. Also zones and patrol mission was fairly simple as well and not many triggers overall used.

One thing that we spoke about above that I don't think a scenario creator can fix is how aircraft behave tactically. I really don't think that it is wise for three F18 to engage at sidewinder range against three Mig-29 with a full load-out after they just killed two of them. They should just turn around and head back to base and don't worry about anything except their lives and planes.
I get the feeling the AI will mostly close and it will result in wasted kills where there in reality would be none.

I also think the AI should know that it sometimes can be better to close in and use short range missiles, such as against platforms with limited defense capacity.

I think that with a few tweaks the AI would become allot more challenging which I hope everyone would enjoy. That is if you think it is a realistic proposal.

mikmykWS
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by mikmykWS »

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

It feels good that we have the eyes and ears of the developers and I hope you found my critique at least somewhat constructive. :)
With all the great detail that went into making this game I understand that there are limited resources with which to work with given how complex it is.

And as I said before I'm a total Newb and my experience of the game are only with two scenarios so far. The first was the official one with some Russian Frigates attacking Norway, that was just to learn the interface and was fun. I found no real problem with the flow of the game.

Great and thanks!
The second scenario was a more complex one (fan built) but mainly with air units. Although after looking at the scenario in the editor it was a pretty simple setup with no real progression for any eventual change in the AI forces. Also zones and patrol mission was fairly simple as well and not many triggers overall used.

One thing that we spoke about above that I don't think a scenario creator can fix is how aircraft behave tactically. I really don't think that it is wise for three F18 to engage at sidewinder range against three Mig-29 with a full load-out after they just killed two of them. They should just turn around and head back to base and don't worry about anything except their lives and planes.
I get the feeling the AI will mostly close and it will result in wasted kills where there in reality would be none.

Okay we have this logic in the game and its controlled by the Winchester ROE. Basic idea is certain loadouts are configured so that when their high value missiles are fired the aircraft return home. We implemented this for the exact reason you stated. If you can let us know what Hornets did this we can investigate why the behavior did not occur. It could be the the author turned it off.
I also think the AI should know that it sometimes can be better to close in and use short range missiles, such as against platforms with limited defense capacity.

How do you think it would know this? Is it better to shoot farther away with a lower chance to hit or closer putting your aircraft at risk of being in range of the other guy?

Not easy logic to figure out and it does differ case by case and with how much situational awareness is had by both sides.
I think that with a few tweaks the AI would become allot more challenging which I hope everyone would enjoy. That is if you think it is a realistic proposal.

Yeah we're always willing to look at stuff. Please do post.
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

Ok, I have been playing with the community pack and a scenario called "Operation Gudrun" since that was the only scenario with Swedish forces in it... being from Sweden and all... that was a good way to learn the air game... ;)

In this particular scenario I need to set up a CAP around Gotland and eventually eliminate the Russians attempt at placing SAMs there.

To my disposal in this scenario I have 16 JAS-39 Gripen with interceptor load-out which is an aircraft pretty similar to the F-16, somewhat smaller and stealthier with a smaller load, but otherwise pretty similar. It has load out of four AMRAMS and two IRIS-T missiles, the AMRAMS have an engagement range of 40nm which is not a problem when facing old Russian Flankers, the IRIS-T is a heat-seaker with up to 15nm engagement range.

I have the Winchester set to "Yes" in the mission window.

The mission is an "AAW patrol" set around the northern part of the island and a larger prosecution area surrounding the island and the sea between the mainland and the island. I have the 1/3 set and investigate targets outside patrolling area and actives is on when inside the patrolling/prosecuting area. Automatic evasion is set to "Yes" and engaging ambiguous targets is set to "pessimistic".

The problem I face is that even though my aircraft can dodge an insane amount of enemy missiles they will stay on duty until they fired that last short range missile. I can see planes down to their last IRIS-T patrolling for a long while before heading back at "Bingo" fuel if necessary.
It would be perfectly fine if they retreated with a single AMRAM left, anything to reduce the chance for the enemy firing at my planes. The Russians simply wear them down one by one. A plane with one or two short range missiles are not a combat effective platform... even if they had all AMRAMS I would like them to retreat when they only have a single missile left.

It is way better to land and rearm to get back up with a fresh load-out so you can do some real damage...

The Gripen only take 30min to refuel and rearm their interceptor load-out so there is no reason to stay on the CAP and go into the enemy missile range when there are two new fully loaded Gripen able to fire their long range missiles only a few minutes away behind them.

I can of course babysit them and order them to RTB as soon as they spent their last AMRAM or are down to one in some cases. I just feel that it would be nice if the AI could reason this for me. Perhaps a setting where we can choose between aggressive, normal and conservative. Aggressive would make the planes stay for as long as possible while normal have the RTB when they spent all their main missile storage (not close range AAM) and conservative where they RTB once they spend more than half their primary load out and there are no enemy within primary weapon range.

I'm going to try some other smaller scenario with some more standard American planes and see how they behave, perhaps there are some issues with the Swedish platform for some reason.
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

Ok, I did play a scenario with some Spanish Hornets and they were armed with two Sparrows and two Sidewinders and they do seem to RTB after firing their Sparrows.

Now... my question... why don't the Gripen do the same?

Is the difference in distance of 40nm versus 15nm too narrow so they consider them weapons in the same category?
If so... perhaps this setting should be tweaked a little.

Or is it that you just dislike Sweden made aircraft... we all heard of berserker Vikings, perhaps you are modelling it after that. ;)
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

Humm... while I'm at the tactical AI...

Two thing that I have noticed that probably could be changed/tweaked somehow.

One is when planes RTB... they don't seem to use their afterburners to outpace or at least keep the distance on enemies that tries to close with them. It should be quite easy for the AI to calculate when and if they can burn fuel to keep distance with en enemy until they loose interest and turn away.

The other is that the tactical AI seem to be sort of oblivious to undetected SAM or surface groups and don't seem to abort chasing a plane into a hot zone. They can repeatedly send more and more planes in to this zone and kill themselves. The tactical AI need to sort of create temporary threat zones when they see missiles coming out of nowhere and leave them alone or send something to check it out. I suppose a scenario designer can't do that in a dynamic and meaningful way?

In my scenario I just played I had a SAG between two small islands and some ground radars. When the CAP planes retreated (not using afterburners with Mirage chasing them) the enemy AI kamikaze themselves into a wall of RIM missiles and I shot down like four Mirage planes that way. And they were not bunched up so it was no surprise when the second to fourth was shot down.
I don't mind if occasional stupidity is modelled, but exploiting such mechanics is not fun... so then I need to micromanage my fighters so they don't run over the ships since the enemy AI seem to surprise itself over... and over... ;)
Pergite!
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Pergite! »

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

Humm... while I'm at the tactical AI...

Two thing that I have noticed that probably could be changed/tweaked somehow.

One is when planes RTB... they don't seem to use their afterburners to outpace or at least keep the distance on enemies that tries to close with them. It should be quite easy for the AI to calculate when and if they can burn fuel to keep distance with en enemy until they loose interest and turn away.

The other is that the tactical AI seem to be sort of oblivious to undetected SAM or surface groups and don't seem to abort chasing a plane into a hot zone. They can repeatedly send more and more planes in to this zone and kill themselves. The tactical AI need to sort of create temporary threat zones when they see missiles coming out of nowhere and leave them alone or send something to check it out. I suppose a scenario designer can't do that in a dynamic and meaningful way?

In my scenario I just played I had a SAG between two small islands and some ground radars. When the CAP planes retreated (not using afterburners with Mirage chasing them) the enemy AI kamikaze themselves into a wall of RIM missiles and I shot down like four Mirage planes that way. And they were not bunched up so it was no surprise when the second to fourth was shot down.
I don't mind if occasional stupidity is modelled, but exploiting such mechanics is not fun... so then I need to micromanage my fighters so they don't run over the ships since the enemy AI seem to surprise itself over... and over... ;)

Regarding the stupidity of flying into AD range when not needed, this is easily countered iirc with a no navigation areas (can be dynamic around a ship for example) when building a scenario. There are however limits in this. Some sort of logic option to prevent aircraft from flying into known engagement ranges would be nice to have. You tick a box for your Air-Air missions, and untick it for Air-Ground sorties for example. Although this would probably be pretty complicated since it has to be done through some kind of 3D calculation taking into account the altitude as well and not just the range rings on the map.

A logic to create stand-off through fuel management and AB-burn time should however be more easy to implement and I agree with you that it would make a nice addition. I can not think of anything that would conflict with such a routine. If one however interrupt the RTB logic there of course could be trouble to reach a base if the fuel have been calculated for a direct route. However there is already now a warning that pops up when you interrupt a RTB, so that should be covered.
ComDev
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by ComDev »

Jorgen,

Being an air nut I agree with your findings, and major improvements are planned. The database was updated some time ago to handle better disengagement logics and we need to update the code next. Will have to wait until after Christmas though. The planned changes should allow you to fire AMRAAMs, merge and fire _one_ or more IRIS-T, and then disengage. The ultimate solution would probably be to put disengagement logics on both the aircraft and on the mission.

The reason the Swedish Gripens currently insist on hanging around until all missiles have been fired and Spanish Hornets go home after firing its MR weapons is that the IRIS-T with its 15nm range is considered a MR weapon. Should probably change that hehe.

Command's mission and air-to-air logics are far beyond what we had in Harpoon or any other game out there, so it is pretty much uncharted territory and we learn as we go. That is why your feedback and ideas are so important. Thank you everyone :)
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magi
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by magi »

You guys are the tops......
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

ORIGINAL: emsoy

The reason the Swedish Gripens currently insist on hanging around until all missiles have been fired and Spanish Hornets go home after firing its MR weapons is that the IRIS-T with its 15nm range is considered a MR weapon. Should probably change that hehe.

Then I know why and that makes it much easier to deal with... it's also reassuring you are so dedicated to making an already good game an even greater game. :)

I will now try some more scenarios, I'm eager for some more surface action... too little of that for me so far.
Tomcat84
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Tomcat84 »

You bring up a lot of valid points. An important reason is just the fact that air to air combat is so highly complex. To make an AI that really really knows what to do is a huge undertaking.

This is also why I always manually manage my air engagements as I can do a better job tactically than the AI. But the devs are improving it as much as they can but even then at some point they will run into a limit and I expect it will always be more effective, but of course more time consuming, to manually manage things if you know your tactics.

As far as the opposition goes, it does face some of these same limits, but also it succeeds or fails with the job the scenario designer has done. If you use the event editor and prosecution areas you can still create some challenging opposition but it is true that there are limits.

I would like for you to try my Red Flag 2017 scenario (download here) and my Frisian Flag scenario (included in scenario pack, but you can read about it here) and see how you like the opponent. I've done my best to toughen them up a bit, I'm curious what you will think. Red Flag should be the more challenging one.
My Scenarios and Tutorials for Command

(Scenarios focus on air-warfare :) )
Jorgen_CAB
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Jorgen_CAB »

I took a quick look at that scenario and it looks really challenging, I'm sure to try this after I finished my tutorial run with some smaller less overwhelming scenarios.

I don't mind a challenge in planning, rather the reverse... so I will get back to this one in a couple of weeks. [:)]
Flef
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RE: Missions, AI and other thoughts...

Post by Flef »

I think that with a few tweaks the AI would become allot more challenging which I hope everyone would enjoy. That is if you think it is a realistic proposal.

I think the AI can have some realistic behaviors with a bit of spatial analysis, logical rules based on possible results of the spatial analysis and ultimately some generic behaviors for the AI (agressive/conservative)

And I forgot:a rule to create attack groups based on the spatial analysis.

Quite a study in fact.
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