How to climb with the DCS AI

The way the AI climbs in DCS is hard-coded. But with a little practice it's quite easy to keep up with them. Here's what you need to pay attention to.

[@spitfire4sergi]

YOU SIR…cease to amaze me lol. This is incredible and much needed, thanks again for giving us all the best campaigns possible.

[@nubtube7313]

Really appreciated, thanks. Looking forward to the Spitfire tutorial you mentioned elsewhere. And thanks for all your efforts. DCS is a much more interesting place with the addition of your campaign content.

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Thank you for the kind words.

[@prichardgs]

Great!!!!! I have all your campaigns and love the attention to detail and immersion-Thank you, sir!

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Thank you for the support, appreciated!

[@JimmyBlonde]

One thing that helps me climbing in formation, and with formation flying in general, is to take your position from the flight leader. Eg: If you are flying Yellow 4, you might be fixated on maintaining position on Yellow Three, which is wrong. Yellow Leader is flying a steady course with consistent power so he is the one to take your position from. Yellow 3 will be adjusting constantly to stay in formation with him and, if you try to take your position from Yellow 3, you will end up chasing his adjustments. This will have a sort of 'slinky' effect on your formation, since you are repeating his mistakes. The best thing to do is to establish and hold your position off of Yellow Leader.

[@ReflectedSimulations]

That's an excellent piece of advice. Sometimes I even ignore my flight lead and look at the squadron leader instead, because everyone else is just following him.

[@Scoop1_1]

Although ED continues to tweak AI behavior, still relevant information. Caught off guard by sudden behavior of AI, subsequently left behind and overheated the engine trying to catch up during the first attempts of some missions. Optimal climb speed vs pointing nose at the AI turned out be a major factor for me as it made my airspeed drop only making the situation worse. Your video’s are the next best thing to having an instructor sitting in the back 😊

[@ReflectedSimulations]

happy it helped. A little practice and then you can even overtake the AI in a climb.

[@MisterMannIndy]

Thanks for the video, Reflected! I'm off to create the same mission in order to practice this skill. 😉

[@myZisfantastic]

AI is a real pain in the a.s to follow! They have their own physic laws and escape gravity like a rocket! Thank you for this interesting and useful vid!

[@grifnizzle7197]

Thank you for continuing to support the Spit with this new campaign. Big Show was great, and while only dabbled in 47 and 51 so far really looking forward to BNB and WP. I know you've already got allot of irons in the fire, but do you see yourself releasing new Mustang/Thunderbolt campaigns in the future?

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Thanks! No, not planned at the moment.

[@indianajon7980]

Thanks Greg, really helpful. I know you can't sort the ai but hopefully ED might one day. In fairness I find keeping with them in the Spit not too difficult. It's harder in the P47 but your last vid is helping me improve on that one too.

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Interesting, I find the P-47 the easiest and the Spit the hardest.

[@indianajon7980]

@@ReflectedSimulations well that fills me with confidence moving forward then. I think it's probably because I have had the spit since its release and have a fair few hours in it, I have only recently purchased the P47. I've practiced enough that I'm happy with the engine management etc and love the punch it gives when pulling the trigger, but probably need more time which the wolfpack is going to help with.

[@generalpurpose6517]

AI doesn't climb realistically. Lots of work needed on AI.

[@SVgamer72]

You the real MVP

[@markusv311]

Great movie, thanks for sharing. What boost pressure and RPM for the P-47 do you recomend to keep up with the flight lead during climb?

[@ReflectedSimulations]

I use 2550 RPM, and as much boost as it takes - as long as my speed is 160 mph at least, and I'm trimmed properly.

[@riman8493]

Thanks a lot! I will keep this in mind as I play those campaigns - they are next up after Paradise Lost :). Any idea when the new Spittie campaign will drop?

[@ReflectedSimulations]

It's up to ED but they said 'soon' :)

[@flightdojo]

I had no trouble holding onto my lead at full power in the 47, but found that it lead to me exceeding engine limits and damaging the R2800 when I returned to those settings later in combat. Does DCS calculate the engine wear and time limits at certain settings cumulatively? Or are they reset if you spend enough time at max continuous?

[@KomradeDoge]

I believe its cumulative. DCS is pretty accurate so whatever happens in the real plane, its most likely what happens to it in the sim.

[@lankypilot778]

I can't recall which game now, but pretty sure it had a v/s climb setting for ai in the editor. Surely couldn't be that labour intensive to add that option.

[@ReflectedSimulations]

That would be a dream...

[@cowboy10uk]

Hopefully this issue will be solved soon, I see the AI climb dynamics have finally been fixed in a upcoming patch.

[@ReflectedSimulations]

fingers crossed, I haven't tested yet.

[@DCS_World_Japan]

12 or more boost? There's what I'm doing wrong. I maintain climb boost at +9. Though I've had occasions where the AI will bleed speed to below optimum climb at the climb waypoint, then accelerate back up to optimum climb, so I end up shooting ahead of the formation.

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Yeah, +12 if you already caught up with them. +14-16 to catch up. The AI can always accelerate/ decelerate faster than the player which is another PITA.

[@kartemoto]

You not have mencioned about the weak turbulence and his effects on climb in formation

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Well, if you’re in the wake turbulence of someone, you’re difinitely out of formation :)

[@DecibeldB]

Hi why select ground speed for the climb?

[@ReflectedSimulations]

I explain it in the video ;) the speed there has nothing to do with the ai’s climb speed

[@flutter8712]

Thanks but at 2900 rpm the engine is goink to cook up, right?

[@ReflectedSimulations]

No, not if you keep your speed up.

[@Wolfhound_81]

Wow, that sucks.. you can't even keep up with them in max 1h power settings?

[@ReflectedSimulations]

Yes I can, check out my other video where I play through one of my missions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWe2m4OZobl1rpI