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The Air vehicles with sided weaponry no has adequate attack style
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Description

Hi Devs! Unfortunatelly in the Arma3 the AI-combat vehicles with sides weapons are not capable of attacking its target adequately, because AI-pilots of this vehicles does not spin over the target. If the player uses combat waypoints - SEEK AND DESTROY or DESTROY, then it does not look like an attack. The problem is that this AI-pilots of this vehicles will use the "Fly By" style, which is used by all Jets, whose weapons are frontal. But not all air vehicles in the Arma3 can have frontal weaponry. For example, the V-44 X Blackfish VTOL has a weapon only on one left side of its fuselage. For this weapons location, he needs a style of attack "circle" at which he will turn his weapon (left side) to the target and circling above the enemy targets, allowing to use weapon of AI-gunner as efficiently as possible.

The problem also concerns some helicopters, where the weapons are located on both sides of their fuselage. This all helicopters with miniguns of their sides. (UH-80 Ghost Huwk, CH-67 Huron, PO-30 Orca) In the special circle style of attack is also needed the light helicopters (MH-9 Hummingbird) with riflemans on its board (feature - fire from vehicles) For adequate and effective attack, such units must turn their sides to the enemy, namely - must circulate above the enemy targets within a attack radius, and not use stile "fly by" how it does Jets. Especially if it has a combat waypoints -SEEK AND DESTROY or DESTROY.

@Bis please give these AI-units an adequate style of attack at which they turn their weapons towards the enemy

Details

Severity
None
Resolution
Open
Reproducibility
Always
Operating System
Windows 7
Category
AI Issues
Steps To Reproduce
  1. place in the map player as civilian unit
  2. Place in the map - V-44 X Blackfish VTOL
  3. Place in the map OPFOR cars (Trucks, MRAPs)
  4. give to V-44 X Blackfish VTOL the SEEK AND DESTROY waypoint directed towards enemy units
  5. run the game and watch, the V-44 X Blackfish VTOL can not have adequate attack behavior

or

  1. place in the map player as civilian unit
  2. Place in the map - UH-80 Ghost Huwk
  3. Place in the map OPFOR cars (Trucks, MRAPs)
  4. give to UH-80 Ghost Huwk the SEEK AND DESTROY waypoint directed towards enemy units
  5. run the game and watch, the UH-80 Ghost Huwk can not have adequate attack behavior

or

  1. place in the map player as civilian unit
  2. Place in the map - MH-9 Hummingbird with riflemans on its board
  3. Place in the map OPFOR cars (Trucks, MRAPs)
  4. give to MH-9 Hummingbird with riflemans on its board the SEEK AND DESTROY waypoint directed towards enemy units
  5. run the game and watch, the MH-9 Hummingbird with riflemans on its board can not have adequate attack behavior

Event Timeline

mickeymen changed Reproducibility from N/A to Always.
mickeymen changed Category from General to AI Issues.
mickeymen edited Steps To Reproduce. (Show Details)

I've been looking into this issue as well. I found a few past tasks specific to the Blackfish...

  • T117808: AI Piloted V-44 X Blackfish unable to fire on 'Destroy' waypoint targets.
  • T119024: VTOL Blackfish(Armed) AI engagement pattern wrong wrong.

What I've learned through trial and error is it's only possible to make use of an AI-piloted armed Blackfish effectively if you're a mission maker. For instance in Eden editor assigning a loiter waypoint to the vehicle with a counter-clockwise direction and an altitude and radius combination that is compatible with the pitch and yaw of the guns (500m x 500m seems to work).

What is sorely missing from the game is a way to recreate that same "pylon turn" flight pattern through the Zeus interface or as a player issuing commands to an AI pilot. There's just no way I've found to set those critical parameters of the loiter waypoint as a player/Zeus. That is, unless you use the Ares/Achilles mod. Two of the many modules it adds to the Zeus interface facilitate a) setting the patrol/loiter direction and radius and b) changing the altitude. It's a bit clunky but it works.

It'd be much better if BI would add some new modules and functions that implement the pylon turn for side-mounted gunship CAS. My wish list...

  1. Add a Zeus module similar to the existing CAS modules that'd spawn an AI vehicle some distance away from the AO, fly it there and initiate the pylon turn for some duration (determined by a timer, and/or the levels of remaining fuel or ammo, and/or the presence of any enemy AA in the vicinity).
  2. Add a pair of Eden support provider modules, regular and virtual. The virtual provider would produce the same result as the Zeus module above. The regular provider module would assign that same AI behaviour to an appropriate and connected AI unit that's already in-game - the same way the existing CAS support modules work.
  3. Add a way for a player who is commanding AI pilots to make effective use of the loiter waypoint and its parameters, or a whole new class of waypoint that is specific to this type of CAS, i.e. a way to improvise such CAS when the mission editor has not included the associated support provider/requester modules in the mission file, or when there is no friendly Zeus player to provide such CAS.

@dmorchard thanks for your advices. From your wishes I like your third point. In general, I would not want to complicate the game and add new modules for this purpose. It seems to me that AI-pilot with sided weaponry, should independently use the specific attack-style (circle around target), if it currently has combat waypoints - "SEEK AND DESTROY", "DESTROY", maybe "GUARD". Moreover, I am sure that such a task will not be difficult for developers.

@Bis please pay attention to this issue!