Arma 2 : OA beta build 84749

[OMAC 254]

I'm getting soft, flushable CTDs on this and the last beta in SP and MP. Don't know the cause. Obviously stability is impaired after a CTD, so they are not good. I wish they would go away.

[Bulldog Six 10]

Gnat, don't waste your time on these people. They will never learn.

ah! mr. know-it-all-better, eh? a real wiseguy. "these people"..pfft! like I care what generalizing people think. you just rant like the guy before you. lot's of blabla and no content.

---------- Post added at 16:26 ---------- Previous post was at 16:12 ----------

Gnat;2025946']Great work guys!

Another one from the ungrateful crowd ffs

So ...... if they fix 95% of all the other bugs (and yes' date=' this ones not really a bug), you'd still be friggin whining about this one hey?

Yeh, figured so.

Bullshit .... none of you sad faced buggers can be bothered to count the HUNDREDs of things that this software/this developer does thats a) AWESOME b) not done in any similiar game.

Well now, what subforum are you guys in now? ...... oh thats right, BETA TESTING!

Tell your story walkin ........

Holy shit, its like you've completely ignored the huge list of prior fixes !

................ huh? So everything else you said is erased here is it ? ffs[/quote']

1. you always answer your own questions? you'll never hear what others have to say that way. and how is standing dead AI not a bug, hm?? quit trolling.

2. I've seen less complex games make more fun. but when a game developer does something just 50%, it always sucks.

3. *walking away* Once upon a time there was a troll named Gn...*inaudible*

4. UNHOLY CRUD! NO! the end result counts. just because they korrekted thousands of their own mistakes, doesn't make them honorable. d'uh!

5. I repeat it gladly for you: "All I'm saying is that these few developers who worked on this patch should have had more support by their colleagues in bugfixing and gamepolishing." (instead of moving on to the next all-promising and 50%-promise-keeping moneymaker).

think before you post. and read carefully.

anyway, I made my point. no point arguiing with you any further, since you have nothing to change my opinion and would be off-topic.

Edited September 27, 2011 by Bulldog Six

[froggyluv 2136]

^^^ It comes across as spoiled and whiney to complain about lack of bug fixes when they release patches - sometimes multiple a week this far from launch. Sure you could argue that "all bugs should be squashed before release" -but considering the scale of features they are trying to offer -thats just not going to happen. Most other developers just scale the game down *Cough* Red River, to the point of stripping all of those nasty bug riddled features. Theres always going to be a tradeoff.

OT: Is it me or do AI squaddies stand out more in the open when in danger and under fire then before?

[KeyCat 131]

Camouflage seems to be broken and ghillie suits no longer have any effect.

Before it was possible to hide in a Ghillie suit prone in high grass (if completely still) but after trying the same mission with this build thats not possible anymore and the AI always detects you.

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/12144

Repro missions for both high grass and in the woods on the CIT and please make the ghillie also effective on surfaceType = CRForest1.

Also tried with lower skill settings in .ArmA2OAProfile but no change.

skillFriendly=0.54000002;

skillEnemy=0.54000002;

precisionFriendly=0.66000003;

precisionEnemy=0.66000003;

/KC

Edited September 22, 2011 by KeyCat

[-=seany=- 5]

Do different player models affect how easily the AI can detect you? Eg ghillie suit? Didn't know that.

[Brainbug 10]

Not the models exactly, but the config of the unit. There is a parameter that determines how easy that unit can be spotted. By default, normal soldiers are easy to spot and spec ops and snipers have a lower value. So if you make your own addon, you could run around lets say as Sponge Bob and be basically invisible to AI, if you wanted that...

So KeyCat's experience must have a different reason, maybe the AI behaviour was changed and they spot people in grass differently or something like that.

[.kju 3245]

@ KeyCat

Please provide a simple demo mission and at least roughly the game version when this

was still working. Camouflage still works for sure. Make an addon and set it to 0.

This way the unit type will be invisible to AI (unless hear makes noise).

[Varanon 892]

I find metalcrazes input very meaningful. his statement has a point. I find it sad that you choose not to see it.

I hate the AI walking through walls, and I was killed by glitching AI that basically just poked a gun through the wall, too.

However, if you want to make meaningful input, do it in a constructive and mannered fashion, not dripping with sarcasm. I agree with metalcrazes point, I just think that way he expresses it sucks, disappointed or not.

[celery 8]

But is that xaitMap any better than in ArmA2? If you get wounded in 3rd floor balcony, AI already finds his way to heal you. And there is no limits where AI can move in buildings. You can add own positions (waypoints) freely e.g. with getposATL. Its not limited to the default buildingpositions.

Btw. great beta again. Havent had problems with it yet. ;)

The way AI can move is very limited, nowhere is it more apparent than in zombie missions. They can't run inside buildings and sometimes they can't find a path to a specific position.

[KeyCat 131]

Please provide a simple demo mission and at least roughly the game version when this was still working.

Whats wrong with my repro missions and info available on the CIT?

If there are problems downloading them you can also grab them here:

http://keycat.no-ip.com/files/A2_Hide_in_clutter.zip

Regarding the last build it was possible to hide in high grass (hiding in woods never worked) I can't tell since I do not test this on every build just occasionally to see if it was fixed also in the woods.

Camouflage still works for sure. Make an addon and set it to 0.

This way the unit type will be invisible to AI (unless hear makes noise).

Actually thats what I did before posting. I went down to "camouflage = 0.01;" with no/little change in detection distance (default is 0.5) but I may have done something wrong here since it was awhile.

EDIT: Yes indeed. I screwed up in my 1st test addon but still the problem mentioned is without any addons.

Do you (or anyone else) get different results than me in 84749?

/KC

Edited September 23, 2011 by KeyCat

[twirly 11]

AI walking through stuff is really immersion-breaking IMO.

Agreed! Immersion breaker for sure.

[.kju 3245]

@ KeyCat

Don't get me wrong. There might be a problem.

The exact build is not important (at the start),

yet if it is a 1.60 BETA problem or was introduced

in a specific OA version or if its this way for a long time.

My advice is to look at the AI perspective:

unit switchCamera "internal";

In my view the camouflage seems to work too well actually.

When standing, the AI only identifies you as enemy at 50-60 meter.

When laying down, it is only 10 meter (both in high grass and woods).

As a player or from the AI view you would identify the sniper a lot earlier.

While you may want to be magically invisible to them, the arma engine is actually too

precise in the computation as it checks with rays, if the unit in the grass can actually

be seen from the given position and viewing angle.

This is when as human you could be able to identify the threat:

This is when the AI starts to engage you:

Terrain detail low used - very important. However with very high terrain detail it is not really different:

Edited September 23, 2011 by .kju [PvPscene]

[KeyCat 131]

Looks like we have different views on this and thats OK.

While you may want to be magically invisible to them, the arma engine is actually too precise in the computation as it checks with rays, if the unit in the grass can actually be seen from the given position and viewing angle.

I have no RL warfare sniper experience but snipers are masters of camouflage. Wearing a ghillie (+ other materials found in nature) they are able to blend in with nature so you won't see him even if you step on him!

Thats not "magical" at all and I'm sure it's one of the first things they learn as snipers i.e to stay silent and undetected. Maybe we have someone with real experience that can chime in?

So IMO the AI should have extremly hard time to detect you if wear a ghillie and laying completely still, heads down in dense vegetation and you haven't been detected before. Optimal (but maybe a bit overkill) would be if as sniper you could enhance your camouflage with grass/leaves/twigs/etc. as in RL.

It felt pretty right before when hiding on a field with high grass and the AI detecteded you approx. 1 out of 10 times even if they walked 1 m beside you, the problem was that you couldn't do the same in forrests (despite dense vegetation) the always detected you at ~30 m.

I've been trying to find some good pictures to prove my point but only found this one so far...

Yes, in above picture you see the rifle as well as part of the lens cover but imagine him face down and weapon to the ground and completely still, you would not detect him even at 1 m range.

Good books on this topic are...

Out of Nowhere - A History of the Military Sniper (by Martin Pegler)

Illustrated Manual of Sniper Skills (by Mark Spicer)

/KC

Edited September 23, 2011 by KeyCat

[Dwarden 1125]

that's extreme case and for this i would suggest use the viewblocking volume addons ...

aka the game wasn't designed for 'specific' advanced camouflage which differs between 'stay still' , 'prepare-improve' e.g. netting and normal lay down

[KeyCat 131]

I can understand that finding the right balance for the AI is difficult, some people enjoy all out WW III scenarios while others (like myself) enjoy sneaky missions with minimal kills and escape possibilities. Then we have evertyhing in between, we are a hard crowd to please aren't we ;)

Anyway, in the end it's up to you to decide, I'm just giving feedback...

/KC

[metalcraze 290]

Stealth in the game is perfectly doable. Some people just think that the ridiculously ridiculous representation of it in CoDMW has something to do with reality.

Ghillie suit doesn't make you completely undetectable at all. That goes for the game as well - if a player can see something, AI should too. You can't dig in like on the photo.

Here's a much closer to how it is in ArmA (e.g. not dug in) photo

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs48/f/2009/208/a/f/Ghillie_suit_summer_version_3_by_TheTomi.jpg

Sniper is perfectly seen. Just less noticeable from a distance (which ArmA takes into account).

When something fires at me I start to notice strange looking bushes

Edited September 23, 2011 by metalcraze

[nkenny 1057]

Check this series of images: http://yawoot.com/post/1326

In many of them the person isn't specifically trying to hide. Turns out the 50-60 meters range that kju notes, is rather realistic. Except it isn't in game terms because humans are so adept at recognizing the limited patterns used in Arma2. Also we operate on different intuitive levels. We might KNOW only enemies are on the map, or we've played the mission before, or a million other variables.

-k

[metalcraze 290]

In one of the gameplay tests a player in a ghillie suit was lying down in a field of wheat and was spotted by AI only from 1.5m - and that's in a broad daylight

(The funniest thing is that player still complained that he was spotted lol!)

So I don't see any problem.

The photos above are also not fair since the camo was choosen specifically for small pieces of land presented on them. And photos are static. Ghillies don't waver like grass in the wind.

Despite that I've still spotted all of them there pretty fast.

Edited September 23, 2011 by metalcraze

[KeyCat 131]

The photos above are also not fair since the camo was choosen specifically for small pieces of land presented on them.

Thats exactly what they are striving to do when applying their camouflage.

And photos are static. Ghillies don't waver like grass in the wind.

Have you seen a ghillie suit IRL? Even if the suit wasn't "waver in the wind" some of the added grass/bushes would.

Anyway, thanks for the pictures and it's an interesting discussion.

/KC

Edited September 23, 2011 by KeyCat

[metalcraze 290]

The thing is you can't select specific camo for the specific area in ArmA and you use the same camo for the whole area. That being said what's around you still affects your visibility (see wheat field example)

Improvements can be done of course - like "diggining in" (which is effectively covering yourself with grass and branches around you - but I think that will be really hard to do in 3D rendering) which will considerably lower your visibility in-game both to players and AIs

The cheap way out though is to make textures on your ghillie 50% transparent on distances of 25m and above (or lower) when dug in

The transparency won't look unnatural at such distance and at the same time when you'll come close enough you will see that ghillie bush in a correct way. This will allow to lower detection of a sniper for AI as it will also lower the detection for humans.

Can be a nice idea to apply some transparency at 100m+ for any other camo including the usual multicam or MARPAT or whatever

but all this only when lying down

Edited September 23, 2011 by metalcraze

[.kju 3245]

@ KeyCat

When I was trying to explain you is how the engine works. One can only within the limits unless BI

decides to expand the simulation of that aspect.

Lower camouflage values would affect the unit in every stance and terrain. So probably not a good solution.

The grass in your demo missions isn't actually tall as one can see. This is why the AI can see the unit.

Arma only has really high grass for the coast grass, or not?

[KeyCat 131]

When I was trying to explain you is how the engine works. One can only within the limits unless BI decides to expand the simulation of that aspect.

Understood and thanks for taking the time.

Lower camouflage values would affect the unit in every stance and terrain. So probably not a good solution.

Agree, since it's only when prone as sniper (and not moving a fin!) I personally would like to see camouflage to be more effective not otherwise.

/KC

Edited September 23, 2011 by KeyCat

[Brainbug 10]

Just an example, a while ago I was at a "day of the open door" in a Bundeswehr barracks nearby, and while I and a bunch of other visitors walked on a small path past an exhibition showing how to set up campfires in Bundeswehr style, suddenly on the other side of the path someone stood up who we didn't notice at all before he moved. I made a photo:

We passed him in a distance of less than 2m. And even though he probably didn't pull every trick that is possible in terms of ghillies (and I think he wasn't a trained sniper, just a recruit fitted with a half-assed ghillie just for the visitors), it still worked well enough.

What I'm trying to say is that there is a difference in recognition abilities if you expect someone hiding somewhere around you or if you don't, in the latter case you are just wandering around and don't see much more than you concentrate on respectively you don't see anything else than you expect to see.

I guess it is impossible to transfer this human behavior onto AI, you can only find a compromise.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Brainbug

[stk2008 14]

I tell ya what would be cool.

If we could walk to a patch of grass or hedge and press a button and kit a suite out with some of the foliage from that area in the game.

Could this be done with the new render to texture now?.

[mrcash2009 0]

I would love to see that, camo based on foliage in your current area.

The photos above are also not fair since the camo was choosen specifically for small pieces of land presented on them. And photos are static. Ghillies don't waver like grass in the wind.

Despite that I've still spotted all of them there pretty fast.

We have to bear in mind that we are being asked to look at a limited window and being told "there is a sniper in camouflage in this area" ... whereas if you were unaware and also using normal human FOV without any knowledge in an open expanse and forest it would be so easy to spot as your not looking for it in a limited area.

Like AI in Arma not at any point are they privvy to anything before the moment of actually spotting.

Edit: I repeat Brianbugs point, sorry didn't read before posting.

Edited September 25, 2011 by mrcash2009