ASR AI Skills

[deltafiveone 11]

Robalo, hmm since you can't find the error on your system I was thinking it just might've been a compatibility issue with TPWCAS v1.04 (now old version as of today) on my system??? The lag issue was completely unrelated to ASR, too many entities on the map at one time and I thought unit caching was turned on which it was not. My bad.

Edited July 2, 2012 by DeltaFiveOne
Typo

[Robalo 465]

Robalo, hmm since you can't find the error on your system I was thinking it just might've been a compatibility issue with TPWCAS v1.04 (now old version as of today) on my system??? The lag issue was completely unrelated to ASR, too many entities on the map at one time and I thought unit caching was turned on which it was not. My bad.

TPWCAS should be compatible, if proven otherwise I'll make sure it is. I did not check the latest version, 2.0 which I read that should be a lot better for perfomance (last I checked was 1.03 IIRC which was quite intense on resources on my system).

Important note on missions with unit caching: add asr_ai_sys_aiskill_join_loners = 0; to your init.sqf or clone the userconfig class into description.ext and change it there. I suspect really bad things would happen if a group is reduced to 1 guy due to caching and he joins another group because of that :)

[bravo409 13]

I don't know if it is the asr ai mod doing this but, I notice on a mission I put together.That the ai would know right where to find me when I shoot I leave that area and move to the next place to take another shot and they be there almost waiting for me.Now mind you I'm on zagarbad map and doing a night assault on the villa in the corner of the map. I'm on the other side of the wall where I took first shot. Then I moved behind the wall on the outer banks following the fence line and getting ready to take next shot and here they come. Also I should point out I was using a silenced mk17. So what is going on I heard of ai seeing though stuff in this game but thought this was fixed please help really like this game but,I don't want the ai to know where I'm that breaks the realism of this awsome game. Anyone have any suggestions. I'm not running ace,or any other ai mod just jsrs and was using tow suppression but took that off. Oh and one other thing the ai in this mission have nvgs but they are patroling around villa. Ok thanks for reading.please let me know what can be done thanks.

[maturin 12]

They're not stupid. They saw what direction you were running in and followed you. They have NVGs and can see as well as you can. This has nothing to do with ASR.

Don't make assume the AI are cheating just because you aren't good enough at stealth.

[deltafiveone 11]

TPWCAS should be compatible, if proven otherwise I'll make sure it is. I did not check the latest version, 2.0 which I read that should be a lot better for perfomance (last I checked was 1.03 IIRC which was quite intense on resources on my system).

Important note on missions with unit caching: add asr_ai_sys_aiskill_join_loners = 0; to your init.sqf or clone the userconfig class into description.ext and change it there. I suspect really bad things would happen if a group is reduced to 1 guy due to caching and he joins another group because of that :)

Thanks for the tips Robalo, I will keep that in mind. The only other item I can think of causing the error is the mission coding itself setting those conflicting parameters for AI against ASR's settings. I will keep an eye on it and let you know if it happens again. I'll see if I can replicate the error at all. Thanks again man.

[pd3 25]

They're not stupid. They saw what direction you were running in and followed you. They have NVGs and can see as well as you can. This has nothing to do with ASR.

Don't make assume the AI are cheating just because you aren't good enough at stealth.

Its already been pretty much established that stock BIS units can hear to the point of echolocation.

Somebody made a script called "knowsabout" and I've extensively tested the extent to which the stock BIS ai can "hear" and detect locations without sight and its pretty much inhuman what they're capable of predicting.

I love ASR_AI, ARMA2 wouldn't be complete without it for me, however I had to make my own amendment to it and knock down the sensitivityear value down considerably because I was so sick of not being able to get the drop on the ai.

With my modifications they still behave quite normally, only now they cannot predict with pinpoint accuracy where you're going to appear (because they can hear you moving at a distance which you can not hear them), and you can now sneak up behind them in some circumstances.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?130868-SP-AI-Detection-Cheating-Test-Script

Test it for yourself, I personally would classify a lot of what I saw with this script as flat out cheating.

And it was all corrected by modifying the sensitivityear variable for the soldiers.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Pd3

[metalcraze 290]

Its already been pretty much established that stock BIS units can hear to the point of echolocation.

Where and by whom?

Or do by echolocation you mean "they hear me walking 10m away from them"?

[orcinus 121]

Hi Robalo

Thanks for yet another update (even in "test" form) :)

I just tried a few quick missions in combination with the latest TPWC AIS 2.0.

Noticed a couple of oddities:

Several times after shooting dead an enemy they fell, over then very quickly popped back up to a crouch then flipped back down again. First time I thought I must have blinked (night, TIS, forest), but the second and 3rd time were in broad daylight at close range. Not a frequent event at all, however.

The other is weirder. In three games where I was team leader, my unit would suddenly order "All, Free to engage" or "Engage at will", almost immediately followed by "All, disengage". In the last mission I played my unit kept repeating engage/disengage non-stop, I couldn't get a word in edgeways LOL, so the BMP coming at us blew me away 'cos I couldn't order the AT guys to target it. Never had this happen before. I'll test again tomorrow more systematically - the ASR_AI_test alone, then with TPWC AIS 1.o5(or whatever) then with 2.0; then with no asr_ai & tpwc AIS 2.0 on its own.

That said - great firefights!

[maturin 12]

Its already been pretty much established that stock BIS units can hear to the point of echolocation.

R.O.F.L.

What game do you people play?

[Robalo 465]

I don't know if it is the asr ai mod doing this but, I notice on a mission I put together.That the ai would know right where to find me when I shoot I leave that area and move to the next place to take another shot and they be there almost waiting for me.Now mind you I'm on zagarbad map and doing a night assault on the villa in the corner of the map. I'm on the other side of the wall where I took first shot. Then I moved behind the wall on the outer banks following the fence line and getting ready to take next shot and here they come. Also I should point out I was using a silenced mk17. So what is going on I heard of ai seeing though stuff in this game but thought this was fixed please help really like this game but,I don't want the ai to know where I'm that breaks the realism of this awsome game. Anyone have any suggestions. I'm not running ace,or any other ai mod just jsrs and was using tow suppression but took that off. Oh and one other thing the ai in this mission have nvgs but they are patroling around villa. Ok thanks for reading.please let me know what can be done thanks.

Gunshot hearing aid will be a lot better with next release where I made sure to exclude the silenced weapons with subsonic ammo from the system. Since it relies on the sound range, sound mods can have a great impact on this feature. Not saying that would fix the issue entirely, but will at least make it better. You can test it in advance by disabling it altogether in userconfig:

gunshothearing = 1; // Gunshot hearing range coefficient (applied to shooter's weapon sound range; 0 will disable the feature)

Or try the latest _test version.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Robalo

[maturin 12]

Robalo, ACE suppressed weapons often use supersonic ammo by default.

AI don't hear sonic cracks, so I wonder if you could extend the gunshot hearing system to AI in this case, but only put them in danger mode, rather than letting them hear the shooter.

[pd3 25]

Where and by whom?

Or do by echolocation you mean "they hear me walking 10m away from them"?

No, I mean that being well out of your own auditory range, they can hear -exactly- where you are.

Which results in them being able to predict exactly where you are in spite of you not knowing where they are.

There was a thread discussing this in which the script I used was brought up, one of the people who was an ARMA 2 ai cheating denier promptly shut his trap after that thread IIRC.

If you're looking for an argument to authority, you're not going to get it from me, but you're free to try it out yourself.

Try sneaking up on a lone stock BIS AI after they've spotted you without running 100m away (you can weave in and out of buildings, around cover, etc) and tell me how that works out for you.

The experiment would go even better if you had a decent performing computer.

I'm not kidding, I've spent hours with this.

Bats seriously have nothing on stock ARMA 2 soldiers.

---------- Post added at 22:24 ---------- Previous post was at 22:23 ----------

R.O.F.L.

What game do you people play?

Test it out for yourself.

I dare you.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Pd3

[maturin 12]

No, I mean that being well out of your own auditory range, they can hear -exactly- where you are.

Which results in them being able to predict exactly where you are in spite of you not knowing where they are.

I'm not kidding, I've spent hours with this.

Bats seriously have nothing on stock ARMA 2 soldiers.

What, you mean hear your footsteps? They only hear a couple meters, and if it's a bit farther than you can hear in-game, that's hardly 'echolocation.'

When hearing vehicles and gunshots, which is mostly what they use their ears for, they are truly wretched, and I've got the missions to prove it. What are you claiming specifically?

[Robalo 465]

Hi Robalo

Thanks for yet another update (even in "test" form) :)

I just tried a few quick missions in combination with the latest TPWC AIS 2.0.

Noticed a couple of oddities:

Several times after shooting dead an enemy they fell, over then very quickly popped back up to a crouch then flipped back down again. First time I thought I must have blinked (night, TIS, forest), but the second and 3rd time were in broad daylight at close range. Not a frequent event at all, however.

The other is weirder. In three games where I was team leader, my unit would suddenly order "All, Free to engage" or "Engage at will", almost immediately followed by "All, disengage". In the last mission I played my unit kept repeating engage/disengage non-stop, I couldn't get a word in edgeways LOL, so the BMP coming at us blew me away 'cos I couldn't order the AT guys to target it. Never had this happen before. I'll test again tomorrow more systematically - the ASR_AI_test alone, then with TPWC AIS 1.o5(or whatever) then with 2.0; then with no asr_ai & tpwc AIS 2.0 on its own.

That said - great firefights!

That sounds odd indeed. Although both ASR AI and TPWC are changing stance, I made a check and not doing it for (TPWC) suppressed units. I will need to test the combination again and see what's going on.

For the second, I think I need to add a check for player's presence in group somewhere then teach the AI to stick to their decisions :).

[pd3 25]

What, you mean hear your footsteps? They only hear a couple meters, and if it's a bit farther than you can hear in-game, that's hardly 'echolocation.'

When hearing vehicles and gunshots, which is mostly what they use their ears for, they are truly wretched, and I've got the missions to prove it. What are you claiming specifically?

Again, use the script, they can literally follow your location by hearing you, outside your own hearing range.

I attempted a controlled experiment in which I got an AI to move a specific path in which they went both in and out of my hearing range, moving around buildings in shapur to end at a specific point.

At about halfway through the distance I could no longer hear the AI, and I myself switched places in the experiment and ran the same set path, and using the knowsabout script, the AI was -well- aware of my location the whole time.

BIS stock units + MOUT = You're fucked.

Without fail the stock BIS unit after initially being made aware of my presence was able to predict 100% of the time where I would pop out to look at him, and was trigger-ready to shoot me in a split second.

Kind of kills the excitement of trying to evade and ambush your opponent when they have that sort of advantage.

That seriously bothered me so much that had I not figured out the source of the problem, I probably would not be playing ARMA 2 to this day.

It just killed my enjoyment of the game.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Pd3

[Robalo 465]

Robalo, ACE suppressed weapons often use supersonic ammo by default.

AI don't hear sonic cracks, so I wonder if you could extend the gunshot hearing system to AI in this case, but only put them in danger mode, rather than letting them hear the shooter.

Actually they (AI) do. That's the reason ACE had to add new ammo and magazines and change them on the fly for the suppressed weapons shooting supersonic ammo. Plus my system helps the AI detect the shooter in addition to the engine already. There are config parameters for ammo which control that, audiblefire and visiblefire which I suspect they're calculated in relation to unit's sensitivity and sensitivityEar values to determine detection. I remember a mod for Arma1 which added some "Whisper" bullets, supersonic but low-velocity bullets which had a config so well done, when used in suppressed weapons, the AI would detect the bullets but not the shooter, something in between the vanilla SD and non SD bullets.

[maturin 12]

In my experience, AI can't hear footsteps beyond 15m. Whereas I can hear footsteps from 50m at least. So I guess we humans are the ones who cheat, eh?

Still waiting for a mission. I accept PBO or .sqm

If your AI can track you through buildings and wait for you on the other side, you're either very bad at CQB, have the wrong mods, or are playing one of those stupid Warfare/CTI missions that gives away your position to the AI.

Edited July 2, 2012 by maturin

[pd3 25]

In my experience, AI can't hear footsteps beyond 15m. Still waiting for a mission. I accept PBO or .sqm

I posted the link a page back.

I'm not going to spoonfeed you.

And regardless, they can hear you at a distance further than you can hear them, and regardless of the modulus of that disparity, its still cheating, and it still gives the AI an unfair advantage.

From what I can tell with my experiment in shapur, they can detect you to at least twice that distance.

42m was around the average distance at which I started going: "WTF"

[bravo409 13]

Yeah it's very frusrating when you take time to make a good mission and the ai know your location day or night I hid behind a huge rock be hind the wall at the villa waited for them to find me. They know my location and then proceed to flank me and mind you I was hiding behind the big rock at night I know they have nvgs and all but sucks when they find you even when you run way and hide some where else they just some how find you even if your in a house and hiding.....

[Robalo 465]

I guess Pd3 is talking about AI hearing after they detected someone, not before. Because I tweaked it making sure that stabbing someone in the back in certain conditions can be done. It's probably the knowledge which once acquired lingers for longer than we'd expect to in CQB fights.

[pd3 25]

I've been looking through it again comparing my modifications to that of stock BIS units.

In some circumstances they seem to be less pinpoint accurate, however the last time I played with stock BIS units there might've been an update or two.

All I can say is that I can sneak around the AI now with my mod and before that, they were so neurotic that no matter what you did, they were usually in a position to shoot you before you shot them.

I will also say that this most recent time I tested the stock AI a new anomaly popped up, in which an AI went on a wild tangent, presuming I was somewhere I wasn't, in fact more than 90 degrees of difference, and then started throwing grenades in that direction.

This did not happen back when I aimed to make those modifications.

---------- Post added at 23:01 ---------- Previous post was at 23:00 ----------

I guess Pd3 is talking about AI hearing after they detected someone, not before. Because I tweaked it making sure that stabbing someone in the back in certain conditions can be done. It's probably the knowledge which once acquired lingers for longer than we'd expect to in CQB fights.

Yes, its all post-detection.

Also, are you aware of a variable that modifies the FOV of AI?

Their apparent "peripheral" vision is just as acute as that of looking at something dead-on.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Pd3

[maturin 12]

I posted the link a page back.

I'm not going to spoonfeed you.

I didn't ask you for a script. A script is useless without a mission.

It sounds to me like you are making claims that directly contradict what I have empirically proven for myself. You have to spoonfeed it to me, or I won't believe you, because you have not demonstrated that your testing methodology and experience is worth anything.

And regardless, they can hear you at a distance further than you can hear them, and regardless of the modulus of that disparity, its still cheating, and it still gives the AI an unfair advantage.

From what I can tell with my experiment in shapur, they can detect you to at least twice that distance.

42m was around the average distance at which I started going: "WTF"

AI footstep hearing range when unaware=15m

AI footstep hearing range when aware>25m

Tested with ACE and ASR AI and much more useful script that is visual rather than map-based. I'll send the mission to you if you want it, and we can compare notes.

Their apparent "peripheral" vision is just as acute as that of looking at something dead-on.

I have observed too much tunnel vision to believe that. Their effective FOV may change based on the situation.

Actually they (AI) do. That's the reason ACE had to add new ammo and magazines and change them on the fly for the suppressed weapons shooting supersonic ammo. Plus my system helps the AI detect the shooter in addition to the engine already. There are config parameters for ammo which control that, audiblefire and visiblefire which I suspect they're calculated in relation to unit's sensitivity and sensitivityEar values to determine detection. I remember a mod for Arma1 which added some "Whisper" bullets, supersonic but low-velocity bullets which had a config so well done, when used in suppressed weapons, the AI would detect the bullets but not the shooter, something in between the vanilla SD and non SD bullets.

This is big news to me, Robalo. Because when I fire supersonic rounds from a suppressed weapon from beyond the hearing range of the muzzle blast, the AI don't react to the bullets snapping past their head.

Edited July 2, 2012 by maturin

[pd3 25]

I didn't ask you for a script. A script is useless without a mission.

It sounds to me like you are making claims that directly contradict what I have empirically proven for myself. You have to spoonfeed it to me, or I won't believe you

Again, you're demonstrating a clear resistance to put any effort into testing this yourself, if you're placing those sorts of stipulations on research, you're already admitted you refuse to believe.

Furthermore, my convincing you of a very real issue is not of the utmost importance.

because you have not demonstrated that your testing methodology and experience is worth anything.

Oh but it absolutely was, and if you're admitting you cannot replicate or at least create a better test than I did for myself, you've no place to make any claims about the quality of my experiments.

At the time I conducted those experiments, and around the same time that original thread was created a general consensus regarding the AI's ability to not only spot, but track obscured movement was generally accepted.

You've already prefaced your skepticism with an overt bias, and to be quite honest you're not important enough for me to do something you're too lazy to do yourself, in spite of your vehement denial of this issue.

AI footstep hearing range when unaware=15m

AI footstep hearing range when aware>25m

Tested with ACE and ASR AI and much more useful script that is visual rather than map-based. I'll send the mission to you if you want it, and we can compare notes.

That in of itself is evidence enough, as unless the hearing range is altered for players.

At 25m footfalls for the player are barely distinguishable, and require relative ambient silence to be heard, this with expensive sennheiser headphones no less.

Now consider that every single time an AI player updates its potential knowledge of where you are, even at 25m, they can make a speculation based on where you're headed that the player simply cannot.

In other words, unlike the player in which our hearing of ai footfalls is heavily obscured by that distance, they simply either hear you, or they don't.

So essentially, that distance should be halved so that any speculation regarding the player's next location is less prediction, and more conjecture.

---------- Post added at 23:24 ---------- Previous post was at 23:19 ----------

Their apparent "peripheral" vision is just as acute as that of looking at something dead-on.

I have observed too much tunnel vision to believe that. Their effective FOV may change based on the situation.

I can be anywhere upwards of 60m moving parallel to their line of sight and they can still spot me.

I would chalk up that tunnel vision to a random inconsistency.

When I've been previously spotted by an AI opponent, if I plan to dart from alleyway to alleyway, parallel to their field of vision at a considerable distance, they still manage to update their location of where I am.

No player would have that luxury of seeing somebody moving at 90 degrees of their facing.

[maturin 12]

Again, you're demonstrating a clear resistance to put any effort into testing this yourself, if you're placing those sorts of stipulations on research, you're already admitted you refuse to believe.

I don't know what to test! You don't seem to realize how this works. When you complain about a glitch, you tell other people how to re-produce it. You haven't even described a situation where I should experience this behavior.

At 25m footfalls for the player are barely distinguishable, and require relative ambient silence to be heard, this with expensive sennheiser headphones no less.

I have $9 headphones and can hear quite well at 50m. And the AI cannot hear you at 25m. I said 'less than,' so the range may be considerably lower.

Now consider that every single time an AI player updates its potential knowledge of where you are, even at 25m, they can make a speculation based on where you're headed that the player simply cannot.

Eh? I can speculate based on footsteps. With the power of logic, with the AI lacks, I can know that the AI is not running through that pond or solid building over there.

In other words, unlike the player in which our hearing of ai footfalls is heavily obscured by that distance, they simply either hear you, or they don't.

Untrue. If you use the script I do, you will see that at certain ranges, the AI CANNOT pinpoint your location based on hearing, but only makes a guess concerning a larger (maybe 25m2) circle. So they have no echolocation at 15m, because they require visual confirmation at that range.

I can be anywhere upwards of 60m moving parallel to their line of sight and they can still spot me.

This means nothing without an angle measurement, you know.

I would chalk up that tunnel vision to a random inconsistency.

NO. I can reproduce it flawlessly. It happens under certain circumstances that are quite common. You had the nerve to mention bias earlier?

When I've been previously spotted by an AI opponent, if I plan to dart from alleyway to alleyway, parallel to their field of vision at a considerable distance, they still manage to update their location of where I am.

No player would have that luxury of seeing somebody moving at 90 degrees of their facing.

90 degrees from their LoS, 100m, say? Now that I can test. Stand by.

Edit: And yes, post-detection, AI seem to have a FoV of 180 degrees, as opposed to their pre-detection (but combat mode) predilection for tunnel vision. It's the central dilemma of ArmA's AI, moving from subhuman obliviousness to superhuman precision with a single bullet.

See how this works now? If you actually provide a method of repro, things can be verified. So don't accuse me of bias when you effectively ask me to believe you without evidence.

Edited July 2, 2012 by maturin

[pd3 25]

I don't know what to test! You don't seem to realize how this works. When you complain about a glitch, you tell other people how to re-produce it. You haven't even described a situation where I should experience this behavior.

I created an experiment in which I established a pathway extending from within to outside my audible range, moving through gaps between houses and around cover.

When the AI runs this part of the gauntlet it was simply to determine the distance at which I lost the ability to hear them.

When I ran it, it was in order to determine at which the point I lost my ability to hear the opponent and how well the AI was still able to track my movements.

Granted since I've modified the game, which has been a fair amount of time now, it does seem as if the AI is far less consistent in pinpointing where I will re-enter their field of vision.

However that was not originally the case.

I have $9 headphones and can hear quite well at 50m. And the AI cannot hear you at 25m. I said 'less than,' so the range may be considerably lower.

I've just attempted to hear the AI at 50m and could not, the only possibility of accounting for this is whether your sound card has EAX or something similar. Hardware acceleration may be responsible for that.

Furthermore, the "useful" range at which you can hear footfalls is even lower, bearing in mind that most of the time you don't have the luxury of a completely quiet environment to hear your opponent.

The AI suffers no such impairment to my knowledge.

Eh? I can speculate based on footsteps. With the power of logic, with the AI lacks, I can know that the AI is not running through that pond or solid building over there.

Yes, but at a distance which makes it useful?

Typically the distance at which I can successfully hear them, you're not going to need to speculate as to which direction they've gone because they're so close that they'll hear you anyhow.

Untrue. If you use the script I do, you will see that at certain ranges, the AI CANNOT pinpoint your location based on hearing, but only makes a guess concerning a larger (maybe 25m2) circle. So they have no echolocation at 15m, because they require visual confirmation at that range.

Perhaps a total diameter of 25m, but that leaves a 12m radius that pretty much covers exactly where you're going to appear, meaning they can be facing completely away from you, at a distance which I personally cannot directly ascertain their direct location, and be ready to shoot you as soon as you appear.

This means nothing without an angle measurement, you know.

If you have two planes parallel to one another, at different distances, what angle do you think its going to be?! :confused:

NO. I can reproduce it flawlessly. It happens under certain circumstances that are quite common. You had the nerve to mention bias earlier?

All the circumstances I've encountered it are seemingly random, in fact the same circumstances under which I've experienced being spotted at a 90 degree angle, I've also experienced the AI inexplicably not spotting me.

Although this was extremely rare around the time I started modifying things.

90 degrees from their LoS, 100m, say? Now that I can test. Stand by.

This is of course after being identified by the enemy...