AI: engage that vehicle oddities

[dmarkwick 261]

Before I raise a ticket or make a post in a beta thread, I wonder if anyone knows anything about how the AI's logic works when I tell them to engage a vehicle.

Scenario: I've got all my units under "hold fire". I see a tank 300m away, and I order one or more AT guys to engage and take him/them off hold fire. He reports "no can do" or something similar, despite the possibility of a good line of fire.

Scenario: I've got all my units under "hold fire". I see an enemy helo flying slowly 1k away, and I order my AA guy to engage and take him off hold fire. He moves about but does nothing, despite having a good line of fire.

Now, sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not, but I cannot fathom any common elements between all the "cannot do"s. Anyone have any info?

Edited February 4, 2011 by DMarkwick

[Strykerius 10]

"If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."

That quote has served me true in ArmA. Unfortunately, I cannot help you other than just being a smart-ass, but I am curious about a solution for this... Other than just killing poor Jimmy and taking the rocket for myself.

[dmarkwick 261]

Well that's the other thing, if I could do it myself I would, but there doesn't seem to be a way to take a weapon off a live unit :) or at least, one that doesn't involve endless AI fiddling about and number key mashing.

[Tonci87 163]

Wait, did I get this right? You order your units to "hold fire" and then wonder why they wont fire?

[bigshot 62]

this is one of the reasons why i stay away from missions where i cant choose my own weapon loadouts of choice. Much of the time, the AI Coop in this game is alot more RAMBO-ish than it's billed to be. You simply have to be prepared to do alot of the dirty work yourself.

On the other hand sometimes it DOES work as expected but you cant really rely on it or else you may end up losing your virtual life :-)

Cant say why they refuse to engage like that, other than if they ran out of rockets of course...then i know theyll say "no can do"....perhaps in the case of the enemy air target its out of the ai's range of engagement by the time they process your orders? (maybe even though we see it or know its there the AI will only engage if its alot closer?...dunno really.

Also the friendly ai in vehicles can be horrible at spotting other enemy targets...i can be in an Avenger less than 100m from a target yet i cant rely on my ai buddies to spot it quick enough and take fire so you end up playing musical seats many times...back and forth between the driver's seat and gunner's.

---------- Post added at 02:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ----------

Wait, did I get this right? You order your units to "hold fire" and then wonder why they wont fire?

he didnt use proper punctuation or grammer but it was pretty obvious to me that he said he removed the hold fire command from the ai he summoned. Try reading it again and youll probably see it :-)

[sakura_chan 9]

Try using the fire command instead of the open fire command. The open fire command has targeting considerations applied to it, so it can make a unit re-evaluate his target. Also, from what I've seen the AI in a group isn't an individual. The subordinate AI is based on the lead unit. Playing as the squad leader, the weapon you use affects the AI's ability to engage and even spot targets. Try using a scoped weapon when ordering AI to take out targets at even a medium range.

[TRexian 0]

Wait, did I get this right? You order your units to "hold fire" and then wonder why they wont fire?

Well...

and take him/them off hold fire.

:)

He takes them off hold fire, then orders them to fire.

Hmmm... maybe the order is important? Remove from hold fire, THEN order them to engage? :)

[jakerod 254]

I've always had them do; hold fire -> target tank/plane -> fire *unit fires* -> open fire (in case I missed something that they may need to engage

[Tonci87 163]

I appologize for understanding this the wrong way^^

I always do it like this:

Hold fire-> target enemy-> open fire