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View Full Version : AI Crash Landing - Spit I and IIa for sure and probably all



jjohnson241
Mar-28-2013, 18:31
In the Single Player - Quick - Low Level - Even mission, flying the Spit IIa or the Spit 1a, the AI in my flight all died after landing, rolling out and off the end of the runway, ultimately crashing in the woods.
After watching 5 of them die, I let the autopilot land my plane and I too rolled off the end of the runway and ended up in a ball of flame.
I saw this happen in other missions to other types of aircraft.
Appears to be a bug in the AI where now they don't try to stop after landing. I have not tried any Axis plane.
JJohnson241

Edit: Bug #471 in Bugtracker

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 09:01
Wow, 25 views since I posted this initially and no replies. Starting to feel like the Lone Ranger.
I think the A.I. crash landing problem began after I applied the Hot Fix that corrects the A.I. No Takeoff bug. The crash landing situation is happening in all SP missions that I've tried since applying the Hot Fix. Strange thing is that in some missions, not all the A.I. crsah land. In SP Quick Mission "Low Level Dogfight" for example, 2 of the 6 Spits in the mission land and taxi/park successfully. Doesn't appear to relate to battle damage and it's happened at several airfields.
Has anyone else seen this happen?

92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)
Mar-29-2013, 09:34
It will take a long time for a reply. Most folks here are multi-player only.

You need to be patient and wait for someone who understands scripting, or the single player setup to see this and reply. You could get to 200 views before that happens.

Alice
Mar-29-2013, 09:40
EDIT: What Philstyle said.

Summary: I haven't seen a difference in the AI, negatively or positively, since the MOD, except that they sound better to me, and I don't think TF touched the AI (I could be wrong).

The AI used to suicide when their leader died, but this was supposedly fixed in the last official patch. In campaign I've had my wingman nose over on take-off, fly into hangars if I land the wrong way on the return, run into each other and then bail out, firehose their guns at a target and miss all 2000+ rounds ("My guns! They've stopped!"), and docilely get back in formation to fly home when they are out of ammo. All of this before the MOD.

If I recall correctly, TF didn't work on the AI at all, but in code so many things are hooked into each other it can be like separating cats in a catfight... and then introducing a new cat :recon:. It might be patch related, like the AI not bothering to take-off (which was .net 4.5 related, and then hotfixed) but the AI have never been the sharpest of knives in the drawer. Maybe the AI are not used to the new FMs? :D

I am mainly an online player so my experience with the AI can be summed up with: "Not people; barrel rolls well, and flies full power; complains a lot about me being out of formation". I would be curious to know if anyone using the Desastersoft campaigns, or other custom campaigns, has seen a difference in their AI. The vanilla AI never did that well and it has been a complaint since the sim came out, but I think the custom campaigns and missions have had some AI tweaking done.

bolox
Mar-29-2013, 10:31
Ok, had a look at low level even qmb mission with TF patch with Spitfire IIa
Yes some of the spits do go off the edge of the plateau under AI control.They then can't stop and may end up crashing, Not all always but it can happen.

Next test was to try it on 1.11 (I have separate installs)- same plane/mission setup.
Result- similar behaviour observed.

AI settings in qmb has been reckoned to be 'rubbish' and at one point there was a utility to change AI settings of missions to a more 'realistic' level.
Most custom made missions/campaigns will have altered skill settings.
The AI still will do dumb things, I've also seen it do some rather clever things.

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 10:44
I understand the on-line focus of the group here. I was hopefull that someone else has seen the crash landing behavior that I described in my post. Just a sanity check, that's all.
Regarding the TF work and the effect on the AI, I have not seen a significant change in the AI behavior beyond the No Take-off situation and now the crash landing problem.
The crash landing problem appears to affect the Spits and the Blenhiem, both of which will land and continue to roll-out beyond the end of the runway and ultimately crash. Hurri's are OK.
If the Take-off was a .NET 4.5 situation, then the crash-landing problem could be related. Whether or not the Hot Fix is involved remains to be determined but I'm sure that the crash landing situation is a new problem and was not a bug in the TF 1.0 patch initially.

Standing by (patiently).
Thanks for the response.

Alice
Mar-29-2013, 10:55
The AI still will do dumb things, I've also seen it do some rather clever things.

I do like their flying - I have a hard time getting a good, solid, burst on a fighter who is evading. It's the "flying into a hangar" or pancaking on landing that I find odd. However, if you watch people fly - or just me - there are plenty of prangs, and rtb's to explain why I over-revved the engine... again.

I think the campaign I am flying now is partly yours - RAF REDUX?

@jjohnson241: I hope an explanation is found. If you are seeing new behaviour, it can become immersion breaking. There is always vanilla missions and campaign, but it is hard to go back, isn't it? :)

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 10:56
Bolox,
Apparently we were replying at the same time and I missed your post.
If I understand correctly, you reproduced the problem in both TF 1.0 and in TF 1.11 (Hot fix applied)?
I didn't see this problem in the game prior to applying TF 1.0. Yes the A.I. did some dumb things but I never saw them roll off the runway after landing.
I just tried several quick missions with the AI controlling my plane. Spits and the Blenhiem consistently roll off the runway.

Thanks for looking at this. I think there's a problem beyond the typical dumb behavior and skill settings.

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 11:12
Madmax,
I enjoy their flying as well. And yes, it's a real immerison killer when your squadron mates kill themselves by rolling off the damn runway after landing.
I liked the Cod Redux campaign but I had nothing to do with it's creation.

bolox
Mar-29-2013, 11:14
No, I reproduced the behaviour in TF version of the game, I also reproduced it on version 1.11 which is non modded last official patch released on steam.
So for me it appears that the problem is not TF related.
I have also seen this behaviour occasionally throughout CoD's history

However, you mention you have applied the hotfix for net 4.5. I do not have this hotfix applied to my TF version as I had no need for it.
Can you confirm you are running win8 or had net 4.5 installed so needed the hotfix?

edit: yes I had something to do with the scripting of REDUX:)

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 12:15
No, I'm running Win 7 x64 and I applied the hotfix. I don't think I had the crash landing behavior before I applied the Hotfix but frankly I'm not sure.
Do I have to back the Hotfix off?
Thanks.

bolox
Mar-29-2013, 13:15
Not sure if reverting to previous will fix it, but applying an un needed fix may have broken something else.
For reference the 'normal' TF maddox.ddl is 22,091kb and the original steam version(1.11) maddox.dll is10,572kb(should be saved as maddox.dll.ModInstalledBackup...). However the hotfix was a straight copy over iirc so you probably won't have a backup of that file?.

It's your choice but it might be worth reverifying your install with steam (check behaviour on clean version?) then reapply TF and check behaviour again.
Of course before doing anything with computer files MAKE A BACKUP

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 14:00
Bolox,
You're right.. I don't have a backup copy of the TF V1 Maddox dll. Could you post a copy of your Maddox dll here and save me the effort of recreating the mod version?
Thanks.

Edit: Bolox, never mind with the dll. I restored the hot fix Maddox.dll with the TF 1.0 version and the Spit 1As and Blenhiems are still crash landing. I flew the 2nd mission in the Huninthesun's 501 campaign and 4 of a flight of 6 Spit 1As crash landed. This condition may have existed in the non-patched game but something has aggrevated the incidence of the AI crashing like this. Flight Model changes maybe?

I'm at a loss as to where to look.

bolox
Mar-29-2013, 17:17
Do you mean Huninthesun's 74Sqn campaign? 501 Sqn is a Hurricane campaign.
If it is 74 sqn, I just tried 2nd mission(convoy bread, from Hornchurch) on autopilot as a single mission. Of the 4 planes that made it back all 4 landed fine and taxied into hangars.

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it does sound like something has got out of synch with your install somewhere, somehow.
I think you may well have to try a complete new install from scratch and then apply TF to it.
Did I mention backups before? well I'm going to remind you again as one of steams faults is it resets campaign.ini

jjohnson241
Mar-29-2013, 19:10
No, I meant 501 Squadron.
Mission #2 has a flight of Spit 1A's in addition to the player's Hurricane flight. The Spit 1A's suffer 4 out of 6 lost due to crash landings.
I doubt that I've got something amiss with the install. The patch was installed to the game verifed by Steam prior to patch installation and no other mods have been installed.
This appears to be affecting only Spits and the Blenhiem. I flew a couple of the axis quick missions with the 109E3 and E4/D and the problem didn't occur with those planes at least.

I'll do a reinstall but only as a last resort. It's a PITA to copy missions, campaigns and Desastersoft over to the new install and I don't want to repeat that if possible.
Thanks again.

jjohnson241
Mar-31-2013, 15:59
Bolox,
The mission attached pits 2 Spit IIa's against 2 110's. The Spit's are flown by a Veteran (leader) and a Rookie in terms of skill level assigned. When landing, the Rookie will taxi to the hanger, the Veteran will roll off the runway and crash. This behavior was consistent the 5 times (consequtive) that I flew the mission. I noticed that the AI Veteran did not raise flaps after landing. That's strange because the AI will typically raise flaps after landing. I wonder if that is a clue in terms of strange behavior otherwise.
Do me a favor and fly this mission using AI (autopilot) a few times and see what happens.
Thanks.

bolox
Mar-31-2013, 17:50
Bolox,
The mission attached pits 2 Spit IIa's against 2 110's. The Spit's are flown by a Veteran (leader) and a Rookie in terms of skill level assigned. When landing, the Rookie will taxi to the hanger, the Veteran will roll off the runway and crash. This behavior was consistent the 5 times (consequtive) that I flew the mission. I noticed that the AI Veteran did not raise flaps after landing. That's strange because the AI will typically raise flaps after landing. I wonder if that is a clue in terms of strange behavior otherwise.
Do me a favor and fly this mission using AI (autopilot) a few times and see what happens.
Thanks.

Flown this mission 3 times in TF- and yes I've had the lead Spit over run twice and end up 'down the hill' Other time it overran the road but stopped just past, put flaps up and then was 'teleported' back onto field. (the other 2 times teleported back into hangar on 'pranging')
Wingman managed to stop all 3 times just before perimeter road.
So, we've found a mission that we can both replicate issue on.

I also ran this 3 times on vanilla 1.11.
Leader fully ran over once, ran just past the road once but stopped) and stopped before road once.
Wingman stopped once, ran just over but stopped once, and completely ran over once.


To me flaps appear to go up when speed goes below a certain amount- flaps went up when leader just overran road in TF. They also pop up wnen Aircraft 'prang'
One difference in wingman behaviour I notice on both TF and vanilla, is that it tends to go slightly left at end of runway. The ground here is slightly flatter and there is further to go before running off the plateau.
It appears that Spits seem to not slow up very much after reaching end of runway- there does appear to be a very flight drop away of ground which doesn't help. Planes seem to be right on the edge of overrunning in vanilla and the leader in TF seems to go just over the limit.

As the mission wind is 'standard' 3m/s from west, planes try to land on runway nearest to into wind. At Lympne this is the shortest runway.

One thing that was changed with TF was a 'default' wind was removed so there may be a slightly lower 'effective' wind on landing resulting in a slightly higher groundspeed on landing. It's the only thing I can think of (and it might be complete rubbish:P )- will do some tests on this mission with changed winds and see if it changes anything

jjohnson241
Mar-31-2013, 18:57
Thanks. You may be on to something with the wind being a factor at least. I tried Hurri's (Rotol) in the mission and they taxied to the hanger without any strange behavior otherwise. I assume the landing speed of the Hurri would be less than the Spits and if that's the case, that would support your hunch.
I'll look forward to your testing and if I can lend a hand, let me know how. Meantime, I'll keep testing.
BTW, what do you mean by "aircraft pranging"?

bolox
Apr-01-2013, 01:48
Thanks. You may be on to something with the wind being a factor at least. I tried Hurri's (Rotol) in the mission and they taxied to the hanger without any strange behavior otherwise. I assume the landing speed of the Hurri would be less than the Spits and if that's the case, that would support your hunch.
I'll look forward to your testing and if I can lend a hand, let me know how. Meantime, I'll keep testing.
BTW, what do you mean by "aircraft pranging"?

Prang = crash (RAF slang).

So far SpitII is the worst offender, hurri 109 and g50 all land /taxi ok.
Changing wind helps- but doesn't look to be a total solution:ind:
Skill setting doesn't change anything.
Am noticing leader tends to land a bit further down runway.
More tests to try.....

jjohnson241
Apr-01-2013, 09:43
I agree, all Spit types exhibit the "bad" behavior. I also had the Blenhiem do the same thing..you might want to try the Blenhiem to confirm.
I also fooled around with Wind and got nowhere. Just a notion, could the Flight Model changes in the patch result in the Spits / Blenhiem landing speed being faster?
Also, could you point me to a good tutorial on Wind (Flow) settings? I couldn't get the wind velocity set correctly when I was fooling around with it. Kept defaulting to 50m/s.
Thanks.

bolox
Apr-01-2013, 10:29
Spit landing speed is a little higher than Hurricane but occurs at same speed with TF and vanilla (speed read from a script reading instrument IAS)
To me the problem seems to be the Spit doesn't slow down as quickly as Hurri/109/g50 when on ground- again both in TF and vanilla
Haven't played with Blenheim- however Hawkinge/Lympne are quite small fields (~700m ) and I would expect 'heavy' planes such as Blenheim to have problems with a short strip.


There's no tutorial on wind that I know of;
Wind angle is not intuitive
0 degrees comes from west and the direction is counterclockwise, so 90 deg would have wind coming from South (planes takeoff towards south)

jjohnson241
Apr-01-2013, 15:09
Have you tried a different (longer runway) airfield w/ a Spit? I may be imagining things but I think that the problem is that the Spits maintain a speed after landing that is constant, i.e., they're not slowing at all, which is causing the roll-out off the runway. I'm pretty sure that I saw this behavior on several airfields, not just Hawkinge/Lympne. I didn't notice the problem in 1.11 (that's not to say it wasn't there) but it is frequent with the Patch version. Whatever was changed with the Patch apparently has aggrevated the problem.

Addendum: I flew 2 missions Spit 2A's at Manston. I was leaders wingman in both. In both missions, leader ran off the end of the runway w/ flaps down but stopped about 100m past the runway, turned and taxied and finally shut down about 50M right of the position he stopped at initially. AI in my plane ran off end of runway (with flaps down) but then "teleported" to a full stop position, engine off and flaps up.
So, there is an apparent relationship with the length of the runway and the AI behavior but I can't understand the "teleporting" stuff. It appears that some limit or thresholld is reached whereby the Spit AI shut down if they have not crashed in the interim. I assume that the AI are aware of the airfield (runway) parameters as they land. They also need to be aware of the location of taxiways that intersect the runway. Is it possible that these parameters are inaccurate for the Spits (and Blenhiem)?

The more I fool with this, the crazier it gets.
Thanks.

P.S. I imagine that you may becoming weary of this and if that's the case just say so. I've got a Bug Report into Bugtracker that's linked to this thread and while the problem is certainly an immersion killer, it's not a show-stopper for off-line play. Let me know if I can do anything to help isolate the problem.

bolox
Apr-01-2013, 22:18
Yes I've had a look at Spits on other Runways.
What I'm seeing, by displaying the IAS from a script, is the Spits slow down alot slower on landing than other AC (Blenheim also does this) and don't slow below 30mph on runway. On rolling off runway they slow a little more (increased resistance of grass?). If there's enough 'run off' distance they reach a 'magic' speed of 20 mph ( for RAF fighters, is 39kmh for 109's and 60kmh for 111's) where flaps go up and plane enters a 'taxi mode' and is then controlled by 'airport behaviour' and if within airfield 'influence boundary' (zoom in in fmb and you can see the circle of influence). If it has run past the taxiways the plane 'teleports' back onto a taxiway point.

The Teleporting behaviour can also be seen sometimes on some taxi/takeoffs- plane teleports to 'correct point on runway. This teleporting has been a 'feature' since orig release.- try following a mission on autopilot where player spawns in revetments before take off.

I've been tracking this back through versions of CoD- this doesn't occur in/before 1.05 but seems to have occurred somewhere in the last beta patches 1C put out so is in 1.11 and hence TF.

The next TF release will be concentrating on damage modelling and ground handling, so hopefully this will be addressed.

Will put up a test mission with script so you can test this further (if you aren't bored of it either:P ) sometime today.


Edit:
here's a test mission with script to read PLAYERS asi- you need a server info window opened for it to display.
This mission has a 0/1m/s wind coming from 170 deg so planes land on 'long' South runway.
This shows how little Spit slows down on runway- try it with a hurri by using custom from single mission selection
http://www.mediafire.com/?jgaksvvndtzblox

jjohnson241
Apr-02-2013, 09:53
Bolox,
Great work to isolate problem to the extent that the fix (hopefully) can be adddressed in the next TF release. I really appreciate the effort.
I'm unfamilar with how to open a server window for your test mission. I assume I start a Multiplayer game.. then what?
(I've never flown Multiplayer)
Thanks again.

bolox
Apr-02-2013, 10:55
Bolox,
Great work to isolate problem to the extent that the fix (hopefully) can be adddressed in the next TF release. I really appreciate the effort.
I'm unfamilar with how to open a server window for your test mission. I assume I start a Multiplayer game.. then what?
(I've never flown Multiplayer)
Thanks again.
No it's a SP mission- to open 'server info window' right click on screen (in game) and select 'new info window', click 'customise info window(might need to click F10 to obtain 'focus' on the window) and move 'server' from rhs to centre column, play with size /options as you wish. you should see some text/numbers appear in the window.
The script accesses several parameters that aren't relevant to this mission (originally wrote it to test some bombing stuff), just watch the IAS numbers.

The 'server' is just a name for 'game events' during mission and the script just writes data to this.
The script will work with any single mission that doesn't already have a script- as long as it is named EXACTLY the same as mission name (and is in same folder)

jjohnson241
Apr-02-2013, 10:59
Understand.
Thanks.