Why THE HECK does the AI lay down without a reason?

[Undeceived 392]

Hope that this is the right forum section for this, since it is actually not related to editing but to AI behaviour in general.

I am building up a little scenario and it is just so annoying to see that sometimes the AI (civilians in my case) lay down on the ground where they should not and by this totally destroy the scene atmosphere or cutscene mood.

And they lay down totally arbitrarily. Sometimes here, sometimes 5 steps later, etc.

I can understand this behaviour in situations of awareness or danger (e.g. shots being fired, bombs exploding or bad guys giving neighbors headshots, etc.) but the situations I am talking about are completely relaxed! There is not even an armed person in the scene, nothing at all.

But they keep doing it from time to time and this really is annoying and, as I said, totally destroys the mood of the situation (of which I have plenty in my scenario).

Btw., things like

guy setunitpos "UP";

guy disableAI XY;

guy setbehaviour "SAFE" or "CARELESS";

won't help at all.

Does anyone know this aswell?

And has anyone a solution for this?

Well, I even consider it a bug, so I hope that it gets fixed by BI (please :pray: ).

Edited February 28, 2011 by Undeceived

[Gunter Severloh 4087]

I agree with you it reminds me of OFP times in a way but, Im thinking maybe give them a waypoint and set their behavior to careless.

[maturin 12]

Civilians can be pretty squirrely when there are armed men around. In Chernarus, your average civilian actually regards BLUFOR as friendly and OPFOR as enemy. Maybe they only take cover from the latter, or when they hear fighting.

Edit: Why won't setunit post help?

A crowd of fleeing civilians looks better than cowering prone people anyway.

[froggyluv 2136]

LOL -reminds me when I was making a rooftop dance seem for Mucks Revenge mission -bumpin music but they kept laying down because of some soldiers in the area.

On a general note, I'd like to see far less combat prone, especially Urban, and more crouch in and out firing from cover (one day....)

[Gunnarmarine 10]

as a combat vet...i'm not going to get in the prone unless i am actually getting shot at or I'm trying to ambush someone. the best cover you have is your rifle. nor am i going to say "hey there is a bad guy" ... then shoot.

[meade95 0]

The more I play ARMA2/CO - The more Unimpressed I am with the AI -

Enemy, CIV and even more so, AI-Teammates - I just recently had my four man team killed by a single enemy AI, who walked right up to us (in between us) while I was giving buddy-aid...and shoot all of us...without any of my members firing back on him....???

Even more odd, once the enemy shot 3 of us (not me) he ran off about 50 yards and turned around and looked at me (without shooting) until I shot him...

[KillSh0t 10]

This DisableAI "stupidity";

[bummer 10]

Better id like to see a new config setting , " set ai stupidity 8" this way there is some entertainment but not as much as now! I would like to know how to get rid of twirling ai? you tell them danger go prone and the circle like a bird trying to find a place to land!

as an answer to the thread topic , because all civilians wear contacts! wish the ai soldiers did , maybe they would go prone instead!

[Muahaha 10]

The more I play ARMA2/CO - The more Unimpressed I am with the AI -

Enemy, CIV and even more so, AI-Teammates - I just recently had my four man team killed by a single enemy AI, who walked right up to us (in between us) while I was giving buddy-aid...and shoot all of us...without any of my members firing back on him....???

Even more odd, once the enemy shot 3 of us (not me) he ran off about 50 yards and turned around and looked at me (without shooting) until I shot him...

I hope BIS would implement a check of 50m radius area or below for enemy combatant so that any AI will immediately disengage whatever target previously and engage that nearest threat.

Seen a lot instances where enemy and friendly ran pass side by side but didn't engage each other... weird just too weird to see that happening...

[sickboy 14]

Enemy, CIV and even more so, AI-Teammates - I just recently had my four man team killed by a single enemy AI, who walked right up to us (in between us) while I was giving buddy-aid...and shoot all of us...without any of my members firing back on him....???

Even more odd, once the enemy shot 3 of us (not me) he ran off about 50 yards and turned around and looked at me (without shooting) until I shot him...

Sounds like either a problem of set orders - if you are leader you're supposed to control your units, and some commands will not allow them to fire etc.

When looking at you and not firing, could be you were somehow setCaptive (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setCaptive), or perhaps out of ammo.

Perhaps a bug in the wounding system active in the mission you were playing.

---------- Post added at 09:10 ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 ----------

Btw., things like

guy setunitpos "UP";

guy disableAI XY;

guy setbehaviour "SAFE" or "CARELESS";

won't help at all.

Does anyone know this aswell?

And has anyone a solution for this?

Well, I even consider it a bug, so I hope that it gets fixed by BI (please :pray: ).

Tried setting behaviour on the group instead of guy?

In CA\Characters\Scripts are fsm's that are used by Infantry, and Civilians.

For Infantry:

fsmdanger: Ca\characters\scripts\danger.fsm

For Civilians:

fsmformation: ca\characters\scripts\formationC.fsm

fsmdanger: ca\characters\scripts\formationCDanger.fsm

FormationC has specific setUnitPos "UP" so that they may not go down.

However FormationCDanger has several setUnitPos's; DOWN, UP and AUTO

Im guessing that is the reason why they drop to the ground.

Perhaps further analyzing the fsm's gives insight how to work around these.

Otherwise you can override the fsm through config, e.g use the Infantry fsm's, or create/edit your own. Recommended would be to add custom classes based on existing civilians, and overriding the fsm's there.

FSMEditor is included with the BI Tools.

Edited March 2, 2011 by Sickboy

[Undeceived 392]

Perhaps further analyzing the fsm's gives insight how to work around these.

Otherwise you can override the fsm through config, e.g use the Infantry fsm's, or create/edit your own. Recommended would be to add custom classes based on existing civilians, and overriding the fsm's there.

FSMEditor is included with the BI Tools.

Thanks, Sickboy.

I took a look into the FSMs and even found the part where the civis go prone randomly when in danger. And theoretically it looks ok but in reality it is the question what exactly danger is! What I mean is: There is no danger in the scenes in my scenario! At least not a danger that I recognize. I would love to know what danger is for the AI so I could remove it, but I do not. I'm sure that the AI's "danger perception" is way too exaggerated! They even seem to see danger in other civilians (unarmed / no combat going on).

Second point is that I have no clue how to fix BI's FSM. I could go and type in that they should not drop down and then save and pbo it, but by this I would change core game data, which I won't do.

And I don't want to create new addons - this goes too far in my opinion.

THIS IS WHY I soulfully ask BI if they please could fix this - or better said: That BI could redefine what danger is for the AI and tune it down properly so that the AI don't see danger in every bush (or also in friendly same-sided units [other civilians]).