Post by Dutch Owen on Feb 23, 2020 13:38:55 GMT -5
Hi everyone,
After a considerable wait, the new release of FSCAI is posted up for you to test. See the pinned thread "Latest Version of FSCAI Right Here" for the links.
Be especially careful and backup your old version first. This is the first time I've packaged up FSCAI in months and this involves so many changes to program and content that it's very possible something is missing the installation. BACK UP FIRST!
The major enhancement is what is hopefully for you better AI dogfighting abilities. Another important one is the ability for AI gunners aboard a user aircraft level bomber to shoot at attacking enemy aircraft. For other nice added goodies check out the README in the ZIP.
The major effort that has taken most of the time between releases is the extensive huge integrated radar systems. They are not ready yet. They are disabled in this release.
Decent if not good combat abilities of AI pilots is at the core of this project and this is a step in that direction. At the start they were hopeless, now we are trying to get them to be at least semi-competent. In my testing so far, depending on the aircraft being used, it's now necessary to at least respect their ability or you will get shot out of the sky. At least with guns - nothing much has changed when using missiles except better turning ability should mean he will get a firing solution on you much earlier than before. The biggest issue that I see is that AI airplanes just can't turn tightly enough although that's been improved greatly over what it used to be. We're still working on developing ways to fix this.
Testing has shown that, as we know, the implementation of each sim airplane can have a dramatic effect on how it fights. Both user and AI aircraft we have now were not designed with dogfighting in mind. Therefore, they will not likely behave in combat like their real-life counterparts do. This is a fact we can't do much to work around with changing the flight dynamics of each plane.
Enjoy and please report bugs and problems either in response to this post or as a new post if you feel like it's important enough for that.
Enjoy your experiences with FSCAI.
Dutch
PS. For you Tacview junkies here is an ACMI file of my last test, which clearly shows how the A2A Spitfire can turn on a dime but the AI 109E can only turn decently. Result: Spitfire wins every time which is not realistic. Although I did miss a few shots, and it takes quite a few .303 rounds to bring down a 109 whereas if the 109 pilot ever got his 20MM on me (which he very nearly did twice) I'd have been hitting the chute.
ACMI Spitfire vs BF109 test
After a considerable wait, the new release of FSCAI is posted up for you to test. See the pinned thread "Latest Version of FSCAI Right Here" for the links.
Be especially careful and backup your old version first. This is the first time I've packaged up FSCAI in months and this involves so many changes to program and content that it's very possible something is missing the installation. BACK UP FIRST!
The major enhancement is what is hopefully for you better AI dogfighting abilities. Another important one is the ability for AI gunners aboard a user aircraft level bomber to shoot at attacking enemy aircraft. For other nice added goodies check out the README in the ZIP.
The major effort that has taken most of the time between releases is the extensive huge integrated radar systems. They are not ready yet. They are disabled in this release.
Decent if not good combat abilities of AI pilots is at the core of this project and this is a step in that direction. At the start they were hopeless, now we are trying to get them to be at least semi-competent. In my testing so far, depending on the aircraft being used, it's now necessary to at least respect their ability or you will get shot out of the sky. At least with guns - nothing much has changed when using missiles except better turning ability should mean he will get a firing solution on you much earlier than before. The biggest issue that I see is that AI airplanes just can't turn tightly enough although that's been improved greatly over what it used to be. We're still working on developing ways to fix this.
Testing has shown that, as we know, the implementation of each sim airplane can have a dramatic effect on how it fights. Both user and AI aircraft we have now were not designed with dogfighting in mind. Therefore, they will not likely behave in combat like their real-life counterparts do. This is a fact we can't do much to work around with changing the flight dynamics of each plane.
Enjoy and please report bugs and problems either in response to this post or as a new post if you feel like it's important enough for that.
Enjoy your experiences with FSCAI.
Dutch
PS. For you Tacview junkies here is an ACMI file of my last test, which clearly shows how the A2A Spitfire can turn on a dime but the AI 109E can only turn decently. Result: Spitfire wins every time which is not realistic. Although I did miss a few shots, and it takes quite a few .303 rounds to bring down a 109 whereas if the 109 pilot ever got his 20MM on me (which he very nearly did twice) I'd have been hitting the chute.
ACMI Spitfire vs BF109 test
That is on the list to address once we get air combat a little better.