Whats your opinion of the Escorts AI?

[Sunfighter]

Originally Posted by JamesT73J

Early war, I think it's absolutely spot on. U-Boats could, and did, run rings around escorts.

People may be too familiar with GWX's AI, which was pretty steep even at the start.

That maybe true, but dont you think destroyers would react when half the convoy is on fire and the other half sunk instead of just staying the same course? Just a thought.

[Trublion]

Well yesterday I was hunting a BS in a middle of a task force. I only had 2 torp left and missed... The BS started to zigzag a bit but the 5 escort destroyers did nothing.
I decided to surface and for a few minutes sailed next to them, seeing their crew waving at me.

Being the trublion that I am, I then started to use my dec gun and only then I got shot back at.
I dove again, got depth charged for 2 minutes and they again happily sailed away...

I was not expected to live through this one...

i was having that stalker ai problem today some were talking about.. i had a DD shadowing my every move but staying about 10km away.. i stopped he stopped i turned he turned all exactly 10km away.. anyway i found an island and sailed 10km away from it he beached himself on the island and rolled over burst into flames and dies!! LOLOL

[Mos]

Originally Posted by Hell_Diver

i was having that stalker ai problem today some were talking about.. i had a DD shadowing my every move but staying about 10km away.. i stopped he stopped i turned he turned all exactly 10km away.. anyway i found an island and sailed 10km away from it he beached himself on the island and rolled over burst into flames and dies!! LOLOL

I had this same problem. At first I thought it was intentional (perhaps shadowing me while radioing for more dudes to come kill me), but they just follow you for too long and seem far too psychic. And reinforcements never bother coming.

The solution I eventually came to - surface the ship and fire a dozen or so rounds at range until he starts to approach you. Then dive and perform your usual escape tactics. The logjam in the AI will break and he will get bored and leave.

[E.Dahlbeck]

Now, I haven't been experimenting much so this is experience from "immersive" gameplay by a WWII sub noob (now where's my 688i?) but anyway...

The first time I passed through the English channel in order to get to the "British supplies" mission area, I encountered a flotilla of four DD:s headed for Calais in the dusk.

Somewhat excited by my first close encounter with British warships, I decided to attack and set up for a long range torpedo shot at the trailing DD. Big mistake. Before the "eel" was anywhere close to the DDs, they all began maneuvering, first evading the eel and then turned around heading towards me in line abreast formation. I hit "crash dive" only to realise I had a shallow bottom with lots of big rocks. Stabilising at periscope depth I watched with simulated "horror" as the DDs approached, started pinging and dropping DCs all over the place.

Now, did they kill me? No, although they did ram my scope on one or two occasions. Having spent half of my torpedoes and dodging them for about 20 mins or so I decided to reload a previous save and let them be. Given how bad their DC aim was I may have been able to slip away but.

As for the AI otherwise, it is my experience that they sure do give me headaches as soon as they are aware that I'm around. Last night I encountered a bizarre convoy with at least 20-25 (maybe even 5x6?) merchants escorted by a single DD

So I sunk the DD. Immediately the whole convoy turned into a bunch of snakes, increasing speed and zig-zagging to mess with my firing solutions. Not that it helped them much as I ended up in the middle of the formation hitting with most of my eels from 300-700 meters away.

EDIT: I've also had the "stalker DD" problem. The idea of trying to "beach" him did cross my mind but it would've messed with my patrol plan so... The problem went away when I got closer to a merchant. However, within minutes of me stupidly showing myself on the surface (due to the merchants detection range somehow increasing when I reloaded the game and morale was lost, now that's weird...), a DD, presumably that same "stalker" came steaming into the area at 30+ knots trying to save the now frantically evasive-maneuvering merchant. I dived, torpedoed the poor steamer and snuck away from the DD but it was still cool to see the AI try.

Are you guys who experience non-responsive AI sure the difficulty setting doesn't affect AI performance? Or weather conditions? Of course they can't see the torps when the waves are high as the Big Ben...

[Mos]

I actually just recently had a FRIENDLY DD stalk me from port all the way until he beached himself.

[JamesT73J]

Originally Posted by Sunfighter

That maybe true, but dont you think destroyers would react when half the convoy is on fire and the other half sunk instead of just staying the same course? Just a thought.

It's a different mode of behaviour though. At the moment it's clear that the AI does not react consistently. The behaviour you've mentioned is odd but it is ultimately fixable.

On the other hand, I do think players need to train themselves that crack destroyers early war were extremely rare, and most of the time they were pretty poorly organised. Also, I've had attacks spoilt by merchants responding to something I've done, in that they alter speed or change course.

While I would like it fixed I do not want 1939 DD AI to be running first-rate sonar drills and ASW coordination with Coastal Command. That simply didn't happen, and it should not in-game.

James

[JamesT73J]

Originally Posted by Mos

I actually just recently had a FRIENDLY DD stalk me from port all the way until he beached himself.

My suspicion is that those platforms are incorrectly using an 'escort' script, and that for whatever reason this isn't discriminating between friendly and hostile platforms. Thus, they are not stalking you, they're simply 'escorting' you as you would expect a German DD to do in & out of port. I'm sure it's easily fixable.