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AI Hyper-Accurate?


Tread_Head57

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I was wondering if anyone has had similar observations. I set up a quick scenario with a M901 ITV behind a hill with only the launcher exposed above the hilltop. The enemy consists of 3x T-72M which only appear when cresting another hill approximately 2600m away. Almost every time I fire, the T-72s are able to hit the launcher with 1 shot before the missile impacts. If I do get the missile to target, it gets hits before I get off a second shot. I restarted the mission and jumped into the T-72s as a gunner. From where the T-72s start firing, I can barely see the M901 launcher due to distance. If I didn't know exactly where it would be, I would never see it, but AI identifies and hits with extreme accuracy. I replaced the T-72s with M1A2 SEPs and I needed 50x zoom before I could reliably see and hit the launcher. Is there a way to turn down the AI super gunnery? My difficulty is Medium and Realism is high.

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I was wondering if anyone has had similar observations. I set up a quick scenario with a M901 ITV behind a hill with only the launcher exposed above the hilltop. The enemy consists of 3x T-72M which only appear when cresting another hill approximately 2600m away. Almost every time I fire, the T-72s are able to hit the launcher with 1 shot before the missile impacts. If I do get the missile to target, it gets hits before I get off a second shot. I restarted the mission and jumped into the T-72s as a gunner. From where the T-72s start firing, I can barely see the M901 launcher due to distance. If I didn't know exactly where it would be, I would never see it, but AI identifies and hits with extreme accuracy. I replaced the T-72s with M1A2 SEPs and I needed 50x zoom before I could reliably see and hit the launcher. Is there a way to turn down the AI super gunnery? My difficulty is Medium and Realism is high.

Yes, FWIW, I have noticed and commented on this general problem before. As far as I can tell, and at least against stationary targets, the AI seems to have no aiming error, no matter how tiny the target would appear in the gunner's sight picture. The only variation is due to the dispersion error for the type of round. The ability even to detect targets seems too high to me, as well, although this is offset in rough fashion to some extent by the AI's occasional brain-deadness in failing to see targets behind a tree or uphill.

I have difficulty set to "medium," too, and I can't say that I've tried setting it to "easy." That doesn't sit well for some reason. Maybe worth a try.

AI deficiencies (which, I want to emphasize, are hardly unique to SB) are the main reason I rarely play single-player missions in any sim or wargame anymore.

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... As far as I can tell, and at least against stationary targets, the AI seems to have no aiming error, no matter how tiny the target would appear in the gunner's sight picture. The only variation is due to the dispersion error for the type of round. The ability even to detect targets seems too high to me, as well....

It would be great if the AI gunners could be modified to the users liking. I would not mind having them be less of an aimbot and more like their real life counterparts.

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Doesn't the "Difficulty" setting control the quality of the AI?

Yes, I believe that is its principal (maybe only) effect. The "Realism" option, in contrast, affects the number of simplifications/play aids to assist users, such as the zoom view in F8 mode.

Edited by MDF
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Yes, FWIW, I have noticed and commented on this general problem before. As far as I can tell, and at least against stationary targets, the AI seems to have no aiming error, no matter how tiny the target would appear in the gunner's sight picture. The only variation is due to the dispersion error for the type of round. The ability even to detect targets seems too high to me, as well, although this is offset in rough fashion to some extent by the AI's occasional brain-deadness in failing to see targets behind a tree or uphill.

+1. And I think everyone in UKA would agree. Not only that, but the AI seem to have access to super-accurate 'match' ammunition with dispersion characteristics of roughly zero. :icon_frown:

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+1. And I think everyone in UKA would agree. Not only that, but the AI seem to have access to super-accurate 'match' ammunition with dispersion characteristics of roughly zero. :icon_frown:

You might recall that a couple of months I posted about a test mission pitting the Challenger against other MBTs in stationary 1 vs 1 engagements at ranges of 1km, 2km, and 3km, in which the Challenger fared poorly. In the AAR, you could see that almost every single round was hitting within ~1m of the target's center of mass (for both parties to the engagement). For the Challenger, it meant that the strikes were clustered around the driver's hatch area. And you know what that means!

Clearly, against moving targets, the AI does not always hit at or near the center of mass. But it is still extremely accurate. In testing another mission lately, I noticed that T-64's and T-72's could not only regularly acquire my vehicle when it was moving in near turret defilade (i.e., perhaps 0.5m of turret visible above the intervening terrain), but also hit this moving, visible sliver of my vehicle at substantial ranges (>750m, IIRC). (And yes, in estimating the amount of visible vehicle, I am taking into account that ground clutter does not block AI LOS). We are talking about non-thermal-equipped vehicles without automatic lead computing FCS's.

It also seems to me that the AI's ability to acquire and hit very small targets makes vehicle emplacements substantially less useful than I would think they would be in real life.

Obviously, one can argue that this all makes up for a lack of higher-level tactical AI. Who knows? But it would seem that adding a few simple rules to AI detection and aiming behavior could ameliorate the target acquisition/aiming issues.

The better fix, however, is to get more people online.:bigsmile:

Also, I just want to say one more time that lackluster AI is endemic to all sims and wargames. SB is certainly no worse than any of its contemporaries, and perhaps better in some respects.

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+1. UKA is doing it's bit. We have recently acquired two new 'regulars' and have several other enquiries. :clin:

And as we speak a devious plot is afoot to instigate some battles between SVU and the United Operations clan (but shhhhhhh! It's a secret :clap:)

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And as we speak a devious plot is afoot to instigate some battles between SVU and the United Operations clan (but shhhhhhh! It's a secret :clap:)

The best way to keep a secret is to put it on a notice board - or even better, in an Opord.

If you want something widely publicised asap, tell you best friend and swear them to secrecy :)

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The point with those difficulty settings was, I'm still not convinced that there is a lot that we can do to make computer-controlled units behave a lot smarter. What we can easily influence are reaction speed and gunnery accuracy (although, to the best of my knowledge, we never cheat and artificially reduce the natural shot dispersion of munitions). So that's what we did - there's two settings to make your life easier or harder than normal, and you can influence the quality of gunnery of your own computer-controlled buddies by creating different player profiles in the Records section and then going to the Tank Range with different degrees of proficiency.

"Hard" difficulty is supposed to make things hard for you.

Is it unrealistic? Hell, yes! That's the whole point of it! The enemy is pretty much unforgiving, otherwise it wouldn't be hard.

You want it realistic? Stick with medium difficulty where computer-controlled units are pretty much balanced in their reaction times and your own superior training at the Tank Range is going to make a notable difference.

And there's, of course, always the "Easy" option. Arguably the appropriate setting when trying to replay 73 Easting and other battles of the early 1990s era.

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Why not have the difficulty setting established in the mission editor and tied to the individual mission rather than dependent upon a global options setting?

It seems easier that way rather than to switch back and forth through the options menu if either a player or a mission designer would like to experiment with or modify scenarios with different difficulty settings.

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Why not have the difficulty setting established in the mission editor and tied to the individual mission rather than dependent upon a global options setting?

It seems easier that way rather than to switch back and forth through the options menu if either a player or a mission designer would like to experiment with or modify scenarios with different difficulty settings.

yeah i agree wholeheartedly. ultimately, it is the mission designer that sets the difficulty,

whether it be with no map updates, which vehicles go up against which, etc.

a desert night mission with you in single T-62s vs 7-8 platoons of M1A2 SEP isn't going to be "easy" because of some arbitrary setting in the options menu that modifies the gunner engagement time. and the reverse is not going to be "hard" no matter what.

the example is extreme, but proves my point.

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You want it realistic? Stick with medium difficulty where computer-controlled units are pretty much balanced in their reaction times and your own superior training at the Tank Range is going to make a notable difference.

Yes, but with respect, reaction time and accuracy are not the same thing. And this thread's title refers to accuracy, not overall difficulty. Clearly, many players consider that even with the medium difficulty setting, enemy AI gunnery is unrealistically accurate - particularly against moving targets that are only slightly exposed. One's own gunnery range rating would seem to be irrelevant in this context.

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Yes, but with respect, reaction time and accuracy are not the same thing. And this thread's title refers to accuracy, not overall difficulty. Clearly, many players consider that even with the medium difficulty setting, enemy AI gunnery is unrealistically accurate - particularly against moving targets that are only slightly exposed. One's own gunnery range rating would seem to be irrelevant in this context.

TJAY is correct. The issue which caused me to create this thread is that on any difficulty setting, enemy AI will ID any well hidden position at 2-3k and usually achieve 1st round hit. Try hiding a ITV behind a ridge with only the launcher exposed vs T-72Ms. You will be spotted and launcher will be hit at long distance even if you never fire or move. Now restart the same scenario as a T-72 gunner and try to do that yourself. Just spotting the TOW launcher at that distance is almost impossible even if you know where to look.

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TJAY is correct. The issue which caused me to create this thread is that on any difficulty setting, enemy AI will ID any well hidden position at 2-3k and usually achieve 1st round hit. Try hiding a ITV behind a ridge with only the launcher exposed vs T-72Ms. You will be spotted and launcher will be hit at long distance even if you never fire or move. Now restart the same scenario as a T-72 gunner and try to do that yourself. Just spotting the TOW launcher at that distance is almost impossible even if you know where to look.

Quoted for truthiness

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