ArmA 2 OA Beta Build 83181

[froggyluv 2136]

Would be really nice to have this. Will make AI more humanlike when it comes to engagements.

+1 on this -would be swell!

[Rough Knight 9]

Absent AI Unit reporting enemy positions near the player seems fixed.

I didn't notice any strange targeting behaviour yet with the AI.

No CTD's and pretty good performance as well [no benchies to prove it], I feel this is all heading in a good direction.

Thanks for the hard work BIS as usual

[metalcraze 290]

While I was checking if the older issue with SpecOps Humvee rendering was fixed I came up with an unintentional repro of issues with AI driver pathfinding.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KEQ0ZJ9P

Just launch it, order the driver to move forward (W) and watch him trying helplessly to pass between 2 bushes and a small rock. And even if at times the driver almost gets through - he then moves back again and retries.

While for human it's perfectly possible to just drive between the rock and the bush without hitting anything.

If BIS is planning to improve AI drivers further - maybe this will come in handy?

[Muahaha 10]

Came across a bug where the AI in static defense is invulnerable to my fire. Need to confirm further, anyone else experience this?

Edit: Weird now in the editor if i put a static defense (opfor insurgents) and blufor team, no one from blufor team will engage this static defense.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Muahaha

[mr burns 132]

Myke;1992126']If they can't fix it i probably can script it. But i would prefer to see it in AI's usual behaviour.

:EDITH:

But more likely i will keep my usual behaviour in such situations: i just drive over them. :p

Oh it would be awesome if AI had some horrified/freak-out anims played when i (occasionally) beep the horn only miliseconds before running ´em over :D

Edited July 28, 2011 by Mr Burns

[f2k sel 164]

Came across a bug where the AI in static defense is invulnerable to my fire. Need to confirm further, anyone else experience this?

Edit: Weird now in the editor if i put a static defense (opfor insurgents) and blufor team, no one from blufor team will engage this static defense.

Confirmed static units not being attacked.

I couldn't reproduce the invulnerable unit problem.

[suma 8]

Confirmed static units not being attacked.

I couldn't reproduce the invulnerable unit problem.

Thanks for reporting. Exactly the kind of issues I was afraid of. Fortunately this one was very easy to fix (83212). If there is nothing more serious waiting for us, it seems like a win, but still more testing will be needed to confirm this.

[f2k sel 164]

Suma has anything been changed with disableAI "FSM" or waypoint behaviour?

The reason I asked the last time I tried using it on a Civ in a car he would stop but stay in the car which was an improvement on the jumping out and going prone.

Now when I try it he stays in and drives past the unit which is a huge improvement.

[nyles 11]

One strange thing that I noticed tonight was that the gunner of the BTR-40 I was driving stopped engaging a guerilla pickup with SPG-9 after he killed the driver. About ten seconds later the jeep fired back, killing us.

I am not sure, if this is related to the kind of problems you are looking for, Suma, but it surely felt wrong. I was expecting my gunner to continue firing at the jeep as usual until it goes up in flames. It's great he doesn't do that anymore, but he should at least continue until all relevant crew are dead.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

No problems killing and disabling statics playing the campaign. But I had some really bad performance going on, causing some really weird "bugs" that I can only describe as being a "timing issue". Like ULB being reported destroyed before we even started using it, and it worked without issues. Also unrelated to beta (I can't imagine it at least), was that my gunner in the ULB mission actually bailed mid flight after taking some heavy damage (yellow instr, red main rotor and anti torque rotor) even if I somehow still was in control over the Apache.

Prior to launching OA, I tried some TAKOH flying, and performance was utter crap even there, making flying completely impossible (5-10FPS with 0.5-1 sec stutters every 3-5 seconds).

This was after a fresh reboot, but the reboot did follow some sort of DX9/system crash. If nobody else have degrations, disregard this as just another example of my bad luck...

So far I have seen nothing of the "expected bugs".

[BigMorgan 11]

Man, keep the AI improvements rolling.

At this pace I won't even buy A3 when it comes out because A2 will be so damn perfect! :p

[maturin 12]

Agreed. AI is the one area of this game with unlimited room for improvement. Use us as your test dummies for Arma 3's AI!

[twisted 128]

found this beta to be lots of fun to play with no significant issues and performance was pretty good. these fixes are really welcome especially things like Walking no longer causes prone-style recoil to be used. BIS support is unlike any other!

[Smurf 12]

Quickies:

In Harvest Red "intro" (playing as CDF in Utes) one of the soldiers kept dissapearing while I move my camera around. Some of the enemies kept running in place while I tried to shoot them. After that everything went OK.

EW intro screwed up, the Apache keeps flickering\warping big time. (Using the time 4x the warp\flick reduces a lot). When I take control of the helo everything is fine.

Performace is the best I had in a long time, solid FPS.

Going to the editor to hunt some more bugs...

[ast65 10]

I´m still getting some crashes with this build that I don´t have with official 1.59.

[OMAC 254]

Agreed. AI is the one area of this game with unlimited room for improvement. Use us as your test dummies for Arma 3's AI!

I agree.

This beta looks great to me so far. Can't see expected bugs, but if someone could suggest a mission/scenario that is optimal for testing the new AI changes, that would help me focus on them (including the static defense invulnerability question). Played Laser Show, second half of Morning Dew, Concrete Oasis, and Death From Above and had no problems, only awesome A2 fun.

I had one CTD (restored with flush!) using AToC=7, but that was over several hours of gameplay, so no big deal.

[SaOk 112]

So far works mostly smoothly, but still if I alt-TAB from mission editor to desktop, do other stuff (watch youtube, listen music, use skype, browse internet...) and come back after 0,5 or 1 hour. I get bad stuttering when playing. Reseting mission dosent help, the bad stuttering (with oscilating smooth fps) is there until I restart the whole game.

I use malloc 3.

Computer Specs:

HD6870 (latest driver), Q6600 3,4GHz, 4gt memory, Vista 64bit, X-Fi Audio.

Edited July 29, 2011 by SaOk

[Alwarren 2767]

So far works mostly smoothly, but still if I alt-TAB from mission editor to desktop, do other stuff (watch youtube, listen music, use skype, browse internet...) and come back after 0,5 or 1 hour. I get bad stuttering when playing. Reseting mission dosent help, the bad stuttering (with oscilating smooth fps) is there until I restart the whole game.

I have that too but only sometimes, and it has been there for quite a while. I usually run the game in window mode now when I edit.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I have the same, but I'm guessing that's the pagefile purging itself. And it's not only Arma or games, but even applications with a big memory consumption causing the same thing. I would consider it normal but annoying.

[Brainbug 10]

For testing purposes (and for fun of course^^) I just replayed the EW campaign with this beta, and I encountered something weird.

In the second mission where you are supposed to meet the speznaz, when I enter the small house, cutscene starts, I put down my weapon, then 2 or 3 more lines of dialog and THEN I'm suddenly beamed into the MG nest at the second checkpoint (the one on the south side of the road pointing west). Don't know if that has something to mean, but I had used that before shortly to gun down a guy. Anyway, when I get out of it and run back to the meeting point to grab my stuff, I just come back then the leader says I can get a vintorez (which I can grab). And here's the NEXT ISSUE: He is prone (looking at the next obj) and won't move an inch, meanwhile the rest of the men are moving out in loose order in the direction of the next objective. And I have an order in the HUD saying "MOUNT" at 067 from the leader in 428m distance. However when I start running after the other guys, the leader will get up and start moving as well, about when I'm 50m away. The other team members are already over 200m away, but are falling back then.

Oh and also in the cut scene at start and end the Apache respectively the boat wiggles/warps extremely forth and back (see test video)

Edited July 29, 2011 by Brainbug

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Quick query - does this beta fix setmimic for all faces, not just the black gentlemen?

[Muahaha 10]

Please ignore the invulnerable bug I mentioned earlier, since after the reload of the campaign mission, the static defense gunner is kill-able. But the AI doesnt engage them stays true. Also getting freeze/hang during cutscenes (the part where razor team storms in the warehouse), only way is to kill the armaoa process

And having texture flickering (from the sides of the screen) where textures tends to dissapear and reappear back by moving the mouse cursor sideways.

The AI in the beta are awesome, the sniper is really effective at pining and killing.

Edit: another question I have, what is the effective range where an enemy can be called out (via right mouse button)? Does it apply when looking through a bino?

Edited July 29, 2011 by Muahaha

[icebreakr 3159]

So, AI now knows when vehicle is empty even behind tinted windows and inside the hull? Is this a joke? Coop players will again jump from vehicles when deadly AI unit is spotted... in order to keep it safe (i.e. mission objective)...

[suma 8]

So, AI now knows when vehicle is empty even behind tinted windows and inside the hull? Is this a joke? Coop players will again jump from vehicles when deadly AI unit is spotted... in order to keep it safe (i.e. mission objective)...

If you see that, by all means, provide a repro and I will check what can be done against it. Or would you prefer the "engaging obviously empty" unfixed instead? Or what other options do you see?

[ffur2007slx2_5 11]

Good job, but I just found AI drives a little bit too rude in this beta, some friendly units were killed by the rude driver when they were near the vehicle.