I’m Kami, the lead developer and founder of Simulated Minds LLC, a game studio focused on advanced AI NPCs and immersive combat-based sandbox/strategy games. We released a game called Plastic Battlegrounds, a VR toy soldier sandbox that was in the list of Top Seller games on the Meta Quest Store in 2025!
We are now looking for someone to program plane NPCs / aircraft AI for Plastic Battlegrounds. These planes should be able to fly around the map, strafe ground targets, dogfight other planes, be physically interactible (these are flying toy planes and you are often human sized) and generally perform well with versatility in a dynamic sandbox battlefield.
Plane NPC features:
- Plane NPCs that can fly dynamically around the map
- Strafing runs against ground targets such as soldiers, vehicles, objectives, or the player
- Dogfighting logic against other aircraft
- Smooth turning, banking, climbing, diving, and repositioning
- Avoiding terrain, structures, and other aircraft
- Patrolling or circling areas when idle
- Target selection and prioritization depending on plane type
- Physics based properties, because the player can be in god scale and swipe airplanes out of the sky. Or other planes or objects may hit the aircraft.
- Breaking off from attack runs and re-engaging naturally
- Evasive maneuvers when being shot at
- Reacquiring lost targets or flying toward last known target locations
- Different behavior types such as fighter planes, ground attack planes, bombers, etc
- Optional bombing / rocket attack logic
- Integrating plane AI with existing team, spawning, and damage systems
- Making the aircraft feel cinematic and fun while still being lightweight and optimized
- Optimizing the plane NPCs to run well on VR Quest hardware
Project Notes
- We work in Unreal Engine 4.27
- The project is mostly Blueprint based, although I am open to C++ as long as it can easily be interfaced with within BP to allow designers and myself to modify it
- The aircraft AI should be modular enough that it could potentially be expanded later into drones, bombers, or other flying vehicles
Skills Preferred:
- Someone who has experience with vehicle AI, flying AI, combat AI, or custom movement systems
- Strong Unreal Engine Blueprint experience
- C++ is a bonus, especially if used for optimization while still exposing important values to BP
- Someone who intuitive understands what makes NPC planes feel satisfying: steering behavior, pursuit, evasion, attack runs, and believable movement
- Someone who listens to feedback well and is open minded. Willing to collaborate closely to make great NPCs
- Communicates consistently, with honesty, with regular reports and progress
- Clean scalable code that is easily read and tweaked
- Having VR is optional since the AI planes can be worked on without it, though it is nice to have to test fighting against them as a player
Bonus Questions: Include responses to these questions in your message for stronger consideration (you can answer some or all of them):
- Have you ever worked on flying AI, vehicle AI, or custom movement systems before?
- How would you approach making a plane NPC perform a strafing run on a moving ground target?
- In general, what makes you feel like you are best suited for this job?
If interested, email us at:
Include resume and portfolio of prior work if relevant. Please also state where you found this contract listing so I know how you found it.
Looking forward to talking with you.