Greetings, comrades! Today, we would like to talk about the progress we are making on improving aircraft AI.
As we have mentioned before, improving aircraft AI remains one of the key areas of our work. Currently, we are focusing on further improving its behavior in various gameplay situations and refining individual scenarios.
Our first priority was to address the tasks which were most important to gameplay.
One of the most significant challenges turned out to be related to one of Korea’s key features: the size of the map. For the first time, we are dealing with a situation where fighter operations by one side throughout the war required covering considerable distances. The U.S. Air Force, which enjoyed a decisive advantage in heavy bomber forces, destroyed most airfields north of the 38th parallel. So, Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean fighter units were based primarily in China, around Andong.
The distance from Andong to the front line is at least 250 kilometers. As a result, choosing the correct altitude and speed profile for flights to and from the target has proven exceptionally important in Korea. This factor is all the more important for jets, because jet aircraft can only make full use of their range and endurance at high altitude.
Naturally, this was not unexpected, but its impact on AI behavior turned out to be greater than we anticipated. If these factors were not accounted for accurately enough, aircraft could not make full use of their capabilities or fight effectively and, in some cases, even crashed while carrying out combat missions.
For this reason, we have developed a whole set of changes to flight altitude-speed profiles for the upcoming 1.004 update, which we plan to release next week.
First, mission generation now accounts for this factor, and intermediate route waypoints are set at the required altitude based on flight distance and aircraft type.
Second, we refined the calculation that determines when AI-controlled aircraft decide to return to base: after expending their ammunition or reaching the minimum fuel reserve.
Third, the AI now automatically selects the most efficient altitude-speed profile when returning to base.
By the end of the year, we also plan to further develop the wingman command dialog. It will provide more detailed information about the tasks being carried out by wingmen. We will also add a hint system to explain how to use the dialog. An important goal here is not only to ensure that the AI acts correctly in a given situation, but also that the player has complete information about what it is doing.
In addition, we plan to add a basic setting that will allow players to choose the default behavior of their wingmen. The IL-2 series has always used an approach in which the player only needs to lead their flight into the mission area, after which the wingmen act independently according to the scenario, choosing their own targets and the way they carry out the task. However, advanced players often find this approach counterintuitive.
Even now, immediately after takeoff, you can issue the “Hold Formation!” command to your wingmen, after which they will take no action unless you give them another command. We also plan to add an option that will make waiting for player commands while remaining in formation the default behavior.
Returning to the AI changes already prepared for the upcoming 1.004 update, fighter defensive maneuvers deserve special mention. Players have pointed out that once they manage to get firmly on a target’s six, the target makes almost no attempt to shake them off. In piston-fighter engagements, this was unpleasant but not critical because the overall combat situation changed more dynamically. With jets, however, this behavior became especially noticeable.
To address this, we created an entire subsystem for evading attacks from the rear hemisphere. An AI-controlled fighter will be able to use one of several maneuvers: Scissors, Barrel Roll, Split-S, Hard Yaw, and others. These moves will add considerably more variety to air combat and make enemy behavior feel more natural.
The choice of maneuver will depend on two factors: AI skill level and aircraft type. Less skilled opponents will have a smaller set of techniques available to them. In addition, Hard Yaw, for example, is a highly effective defensive maneuver for a piston fighter, but can sometimes be useless or even counterproductive for a jet.
Therefore, enemy behavior in combat will change noticeably. There will be much greater variety in how opponents react to the player’s actions, and those reactions will better account for the characteristics of different aircraft types. Fighting the AI will move another step closer to fighting a real pilot.
Update 1.004 will also fix an issue with level bombers targeting ground targets from high altitude. It was difficult to reproduce because it occurred inconsistently.
In addition, by the end of the year, we plan to revise how AI-controlled fighters prioritize air targets, further refine maneuver selection in air combat, create a system for spawning aircraft at parking stands in both single-player and multiplayer, bring the long-planned “Do like me” and “Target Designation by Look Direction” player command modes to a working state, and improve air combat between AI-controlled piston and jet aircraft.
By the end of the year, we also plan to significantly diversify radio communications among AI-controlled aircraft, as well as between them and airfields. This has become possible thanks to the system we chose for voicing radio messages, which we discussed earlier.
Finally, let us briefly tell you what else is coming in update 1.004 next week. It will include not only important AI improvements, but also other long-awaited changes.
First, there are various VR optimizations. Our primary focus is on improving FPS when attacking concentrations of ground vehicles.
Second, several mission types will be added to Commander Career, along with other improvements to our main game mode, including the long-promised persistent damage to map objects between missions.
Third, as part of our work on carrier aviation, we will add a completely new rendering approach for shallow water, which will make the seabed clearly visible. This will improve the appearance of ports and other shallow-water areas, taking their visuals to a new level.
We also plan to further adjust the incendiary effect of bullets and shells, because the current effect of ordinary armor-piercing incendiary bullets can still be somewhat overstated compared with dedicated incendiary ammunition. In addition, we will refine the incendiary effect of HEF-I (high-explosive fragmentation incendiary) shells.
Control mapping schemes for joysticks, throttles, and other planned devices have been completed and localized into all supported languages.
And this is far from the complete list: version 1.004 will include many other improvements and refinements.
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Good hunting! Stay tuned!