Ai accuracy

[Black Panther]

Recently while jet packing as infantry off a hill an AI controlled Thor KC-H hit me out of the air when i was about 500m up. It said I was hit by a HE shell. Firstly, the AI shouldn't be able to hit me and especially not with a HE shell which I have found to be the least accurate.

Doesn't it seem this AI is a little too accurate?

[Jalinth]

I've done it before with a 120mm HE shell at range. It was more luck then anything, but I've done it.

I also hit an infantryman at about 7000 meters with a 120mm AP. I missed the tank 3500m away and he poped his head up at the wrong moment.

[ClaytoniousRex]

This definitely shouldn't happen regularly and I'm pretty sure it does happen too often right now. As you say, that's a helluva shot. We'll look into it.

[bjarmson]

The AI regularly shoots down dropships with 120mm HEAT rounds, or even AT, at 2000/3000 meters distance and longer. I even had a dropship shot down by a 120mm HEAT round at some 5800 meters/3.6 miles (the odds of this happening must be nothing short of a miracle). It also seems capable of hitting you with ATGMs after you've killed the launching vehicle or removed yourself from line of sight (which as I read the rules, should be technically impossible). The AI is so good with ATGMs versus dropships at virtually any range, I'd love to keep one around that did nothing but hide and shoot down dropships.

[ClaytoniousRex]

The AI regularly shoots down dropships with 120mm HEAT rounds, or even AT, at 2000/3000 meters distance and longer.

So does Yurch. I think the problem with this one is not that the bots are inhumanly accurate, but that the projectiles themselves are impossibly accurate. Over that great of a distance the deviation caused by flight through atmosphere should be preventing a hit more often (when there is atmosphere). This is very easy to remedy so we'll look at it, too.

It also seems capable of hitting you with ATGMs after you've killed the launching vehicle or removed yourself from line of sight

This is OK if the shooter had a target lock on you. This is not OK if the shooter was manually guiding the missile. Will run some tests.

[dan/california]

If you tell me that there is not as much drift in the shell as there should be I believe you, But the real problem is a big expensive dropship not taking even the slightest evasive action, blowing chaff or otherwise trying to stay alive.

I just figured out that you don't need to have lock to kill a dropship with a missle, if the atgm hits from any angle it dies(I am sure Yurch already new this, but then he is one bad dude). You just have to keep the pip on target. Therefore any dropship that is not clearing an atgms line of sight in less than the flight time is dead, unless Yurch is blowing me to burning wreckage, but I digress. At a flat minimum drop ships should vary their rate of fall somewhat randomly. 120 mm fire slaughters them because once you figure out the lead it is 100 percent consistent. Anyone who flew a helicopter that way on a modern battle field would not last thirty seconds.

The treatise on ion physics and several other things that is awaited with such anticipation is under construction.

[bjarmson]

Yeah, I (and others) have mentioned the propensity of dropships to float down like hot air ballons landing. If I'm the pilot of one of these things, that would be the last way I'd fly it. And I'd surely not land directly on top of several enemy units, without the most compelling of reasons. Some sort of evasive maneuvering and pilot decisionmaking needs to be included. What good is a dropship without maneuverability? What is funny is that the game already seems to have some of this available. I've had extractions while going at full speed in many vehicles. This seems to indicate a fair amount of maneuverability on the part of a dropship. Why they don't utilize this ability when dropping is beyond me.

[Drusus]

My best dropship kill is 7000+ meters. Much luck needed ofcourse. IMHO it would be great to make the dropships a bit harder to hit, but a lot more expensive as in limited amount of them, better jet something like starting with 10 dropships and then one per minute or something. Maybe also making it so that you need something to secure a landing zone, if the landingzone isn't known to be clear, then no drop. Would make recon a bigger part of the game. Also really hard to implement.

Anyways to my liking the battlezone is a bit too fluid, situations change so fast that it is hard to use good tactics. And this is made worse by the fact that dropping cheap equipment just to try if there is a gap doesn't cost you (almost) anything. In the pre-beta days this game was supposed to be about manouver warfare. But why bother as you can "teleport" anywhere you like...

One another thing is that re-deploying is so fast. It is not enough that you can kill more than you die (for example, 76mm at long range), the really important thing is to have a good rate of killing, as after you kill something, it takes just seconds and there is another platform defending the objective. Ok, you might shoot down the dropship, but if there is fighting going on, this isn't easy to do and also the enemy can just drop again.

About the long range accuracy. I don't know how it is now, but the variation in shot pattern should begin increasing dramatically after some distance. I don't know how it is now, but I suspect it is just variation in the shell angle, ie. linear with distance. Meaning 500m -> 0.5m off, 1000m -> 1m and 2000m -> 2m. Making it 500m -> 0.1m, 1000m -> 1m, 2000m -> 5m and 3000m -> 10m could be more fun.

Also, seems like I am having a bit more time in the autumn, this means that I will buy the game in the near future... You have been warned. :mad:

[yurch]

Originally posted by ClaytoniousRex:

I think the problem with this one is not that the bots are inhumanly accurate, but that the projectiles themselves are impossibly accurate.

I wouldn't even go that far, really.

The dropship is a positively gigantic target. We are talking about something that's large enough to transport a Thor comfortably, with enough armor to completely deflect low caliber rounds.

What kind of modern direct fire weapons are used against aircraft? 20-30mm HE rounds, no? Those wouldn't even come close to harming our dropships with the armor they're sporting.

I'd use my little 14mm coaxial instead of my cannon, but it really doesn't have the penetration or the hurt to knock a dropship down. Neither does the 20mm on a high atmosphere/decent range. You'd figure a automatic weapon would be the most appropriate thing to use, but these suckers are tough enough to warrent a 120mm HEAT if you want to down them with any consistancy. I practically have to keep HEAT rounds chambered (with the new cycle delay) while attacking just to keep drops off my head. With something like a point defense active you get to watch helplessly as the third-in-a-row 20mm close attack unit gets delivered over the next crest. And this seems pretty wrong.

If it manuvered more, yes, players/bots would miss it more. The majority of my dropship kills are at 2500 meters and under, however. At this range the dropships become an awfully large target in my viewfinder. The fact that players and bots alike are repeatedly dropping at this range on top of me speaks for a gameplay matter more than one of realism.

The ability for a ship to pick up something bizzare like a paladin with a burning turret rolling down a hill also gets pretty rediculous.

[bjarmson]

I think the dropships as sitting ducks problem could be rather easily resolved by having them come down 2 or 3 times faster and/or having them move in the horizontal plane as well as the vertical. The trouble now is that they all drop perfectly vertical and at a constant rate of speed. Eventually, it becomes almost a reflex action to lead the 120mm shot correctly, just takes enough practice (which many of us seem to be getting). I'm not sure, but don't troop carrying helicopters spiral downward and upward like a cone-shaped corkscrew. This provides movement in all three dimensions. Would improve dropship survivability immensely. Another way would be for a simple limitation on 120mm rounds, making them incapable of killing dropships at more than 1000m (or whatever distance seems fair). Something needs to be done. For a game that prides itself on a high degree of realism to have such an unrealistic way of dropping seems a trifle ridiculous.

[ August 07, 2006, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: bjarmson ]

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

If I were looking at some easier way for making the dropship a hint more algorithmic in its drop, I'd probably go for first, making it come in at an angle like the local surface normal, so it could put the unit down with all-four or whatnot flat. A longer rush across the terrain more horizontally might help ballance the fact it'll spend less time going vertically (but brings up the complication of whether AA defenses in the track can down it, too).

[dan/california]

Once dropship availability is limited a huge cloud of chaff ,smoke, and flares would look cool if nothing else.

Dropships need to be both much more valuable/rare and harder to kill. Yes Clay I read that it is on the way. Ammo resupply should just be a disposable pod. It can be argued that the vehicles and or crews need the gradual ride of a real ship but ammo? Give it the 31st century equivalent of bubble wrap and a couple of drogue chutes. If a crewman had to hop out of the vehicle for a few seconds it would be a cool animation and help keep people honest. Right now it is advantageous to run out of ammo and have to call for more. Having to pull out of the firing line for a minute or so it entirely reasonable. If you are out of ammo and taking fire from three sides you should not enjoy the experience.