HETMAN - Artificial Commander

[euly 0]

What do the numbers mean on the debug?

I know this may sound trivial, but even the report of losses is a little confusing. Do the numbers represent how many units I have placed on the map?

Can you explain the output of the debug mode so I can determine issues and problems HAC may have with the map I have designed? I am not looking for a thorough explanation of the exact numbers on the debug, just a short description of each line in the debug report.

[Rydygier 1330]

I'm back. OK. Sure, let's look on this:

"Commander A (GENIUS) - Recklessness: 0.5 Consistency: 1 Activity: 1 Reflex: 1 Circumspection: 1 Fineness: 1"
"Morale A (GENIUS): 0 - losses: 0 percent (0)"

First line is clear, I think - which commander, name of the personality and characteristics of this personality.

Line two:

first number - morale value;

second - losses in percent of initial number of units (number of units under Leader's control present on map at the beginning of HAC activity minus number of such units in current cycle, all this divided by initial number of this units and multiplied by 100);

third, in the brackets - number of losses, means number of units under Leader's control present on map at the beginning of HAC activity minus number of such units in current cycle.

This values can be negative, if reinforcements was spawned and current number is greater than initial.

[alleycat 28]

What exactly does this addon do?

[Rydygier 1330]

Shortly: in quite sophisticated manner (similar to real human leader way - using reserves, flanking, logistics etc, etc) tries to take or hold/defend points on the map designated by mission maker or by the script itself (in BB mode) using groups, that are under its control via dynamically assigning them waypoints.

very short: HAC gives orders to groups.

[alleycat 28]

So it is like an AI controlled high commander? And can it give player teams orders too, assuming players are squad leaders?

[Rydygier 1330]

Yes and yes. :)

[sixt 26]

Hi i have been playing this mod since the start. And i really apriciate your hard work.

But i have some questions:

About the big boss, i made a mission on everon, using the CWR2 mod, with offcourse the right Array. I had set 3 strategic positions up and had used the option for the big boss only to attack custom objectives. I had two Hac leaders on the opposite force, and had set the fronts, and the hac objectives ass described in your manuel. The problem was that, about every 2. time i set the mission up, one of the objectives for one of the leaders ended in the sea?? i used the bigboss+hac debug. Im i doing something wrong??? or shall there be enough strategig points so that all of the objectives of the leader are used?? 2 hac leaders = 8 objectives?? it is my third mission with mission with big boss, and the other two times it worked fine.

And i still some time feels that the AI is to passive, even with the beserk, norec=10000, Rapidcapture=10000, and eager leader on. Even when it obvious has outnumbered the force it is attacking, it still hold alot of units back in reserve, like 2/3, and because of that the attack losses momentum very fast. is there anyway to make it more agressive??

And sorry my very bad english.. :-)

[Rydygier 1330]

Objective, that is moved somewhere else, especially on the sea, is something, that shouldn't happen, that is sure... BB's objective in any circumstancies should stay, where was placed. There is not re-placing mechanism.

No, there is no minimum or maximum limit of objectives per leader in BB mode. BB should just recognize all of them and try to take one by one (one at once per Leader). Something wrong is going on then, but currently can't tell, what. Also can't check repro, as haven't CWR, unless you will be able to construct repro mission with this problem, that uses only vanilla content... Tommorow will try to analyze BB's code in this regard, maybe will find something.

As for too big reserves... You can try to set Personality manually in first mode (each attribute separatelly, when RydHQ_MAtt = true, and RydHQ_Personality is undefined), and assign negative value to attribute RydHQ_Circumspection, if will be equal or lower to -0.75, then there will ne not reserves at all.

Another way: use internal variables same way, as usual init config, in ini.sqf, these variables are:

RydHQ_AttackReserve and RydHQ_ReconReserve

Give them positive value from 0 to 1, that indicates desired percent of forces used as reserve each cycle. (0.1 means 10% etc). I hope this will help, still at once will be sent max 3 groups towards single objective to capture it and will be taken only one objective per Leader under BB control at once. If you want to hurry capturing BB objectives, give under BB control more Leaders.

[sixt 26]

Thanks for answering :-)

You give me a couple ideas for solutions. Thanks :-)

[sixt 26]

I tried to give the opposite side all 8 Hac commanders, and enabled BB, but when the mission started it only laid down 4 fronts, and then it stopped working??

Is there a limit of how many leaders on one side??

[Rydygier 1330]

The only limitation is overall number of Leaders - 8. How you divide them between both BBs (or how many of them you will give to one of them) is up to you. Or it should be that way. I afraid, that I must to see pure vanilla repro to know, what is wrong, there is too many factors possible, so simple problem description is not sufficient - not enough info. At least paste yours init config to check, if problem is there or not.

Currently I'm testing BB, and for now find out only, that because of very simple code issue array method for customize objectives is not working. But objectives custom set by logic flags method works fine, at least on Chernarus, other maps should make no diference, will check this though.

[sixt 26]

i have PM my init file for you, you can also get the mission.sqm if you want to, it is setup on celle2 with regular usmc and russian units

[Rydygier 1330]

HAC 1.21 released.

changelog:

- fixed issues with objectives handling in BB mode

[Guest]

Thanks again for your continous support by constantly helping us to stay up to date :cool:

Version 1.21 frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

HETMAN - Artificial Commander v1.21



Community Base Addons

As requested the "old" version 1.1 developed for Arma 2 can still be found here:

HETMAN - Artificial Commander v1.1

(only people using Arma 2 standalone should use version 1.1!)

[Rydygier 1330]

Thanks! :)

[sixt 26]

anyone experince with getting this to work on a server??

[euly 0]

anyone experince with getting this to work on a server??

HAC is not meant for multiplayer. The script will likely run in multiple instances on the server and clients causing overlapping in the issuing of orders.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Lucidity

[Rydygier 1330]

HAC is not meant for multiplayer.

That's right. Of course adaptation of HAC for MP is a matter of knowledge and determination. I haven't both here, unlike guys from MSO. You can ask them, how they did that for HAC 1.0. I can only guess, that HAC must be run... how they call that? "Server side" only or something.

[jiltedjock 10]

HAC is not meant for multiplayer. The script will likely run in multiple instances on the server and clients causing overlapping in the issuing of orders.

In the main initialisation script for HAC put

if(!isServer) exitWith{};

at the start, then it will only run on the server.

I only play HAC (and MSO etc) on a server so that I get an extra thread for the AI and high FPS for the client.

If you have a good PC (mine is a 4.7GHz 2500k) you will find that you get a much better experience running HAC on a dedicated server instance on the same PC as your client, as this gives you a dedicated thread (on a separate core to your client threads) for AI while your client game is freed up to actually render, deal with high viewdistances etc.

Of course it means setting up the server which is a subject in itself, but it isn't difficult if you take your time. Running it on the same PC has the benefit of only one install (ie dedicated server and client share the same files).

Edited October 3, 2012 by jiltedjock

[sixt 26]

In the main initialisation script for HAC put

if(!isServer) exitWith{};

at the start, then it will only run on the server.

I only play HAC (and MSO etc) on a server so that I get an extra thread for the AI and high FPS for the client.

If you have a good PC (mine is a 4.7GHz 2500k) you will find that you get a much better experience running HAC on a dedicated server instance on the same PC as your client, as this gives you a dedicated thread (on a separate core to your client threads) for AI while your client game is freed up to actually render, deal with high viewdistances etc.

Of course it means setting up the server which is a subject in itself, but it isn't difficult if you take your time. Running it on the same PC has the benefit of only one install (ie dedicated server and client share the same files).

Thanks i read about the: if (!isServer) exitWith {}; this morning,and implementet it on HAC with great results on my server (have an extra comp i use as server). Though i set in every sqf sript in HAC just to be sure it worked, but he he i can se alot worked did'nt need to be done if it only had to be changed in the initialisation script :-)

[SavageCDN 231]

^ hmm.. now I must try this out in coop MP :p

[euly 0]

In the main initialisation script for HAC put

if(!isServer) exitWith{};

at the start, then it will only run on the server.

I only play HAC (and MSO etc) on a server so that I get an extra thread for the AI and high FPS for the client.

If you have a good PC (mine is a 4.7GHz 2500k) you will find that you get a much better experience running HAC on a dedicated server instance on the same PC as your client, as this gives you a dedicated thread (on a separate core to your client threads) for AI while your client game is freed up to actually render, deal with high viewdistances etc.

Of course it means setting up the server which is a subject in itself, but it isn't difficult if you take your time. Running it on the same PC has the benefit of only one install (ie dedicated server and client share the same files).

You just made my day. Thank you.

"if(!isServer) exitWith{};" goes in the start of the init.sqf correct?

[sixt 26]

You just made my day. Thank you.

"if(!isServer) exitWith{};" goes in the start of the init.sqf correct?

No the RydHQInit.sqf in the HAC script :-) that works for me. Don't think it works in the init file....

[sixt 26]

Really cool to play with big boss, after i found out how it worked on a server :-)

Two things :-)

Are there anyway to make the big boss. only studie a part of the map?? my last mission i setup was on a big map from the unsung mod, and only used a part of the map, but the big boss checked all the map and it that took a while.

Another thing, would personality for the big boss give any meaning??

That was that :-)

I played two really great battles on celle2 yesterday, with tanks, planes, helicopters and infantry, and big boss worked like a charm, the battle roaming from one end of the battlefied to the other, one of the best experiences i have ever haved in Arma 2. Saying alot, when im having over 1100 hours of game play in arma:CO :-)

[Rydygier 1330]

Are there anyway to make the big boss. only studie a part of the map??

No, I'm affraid. Maybe in the future release, depends, how difficult this will be to implement. However, if you want, you could edit one line in Boss.sqf to make calculations faster for the price of less accurate BB's knowledge about terrain. Nothing very bad will happen because of that, I think.

Find line 126 of Boss.sqf:

		_count = 10;

This means, how many "samples" from each sector BB will take to calculate average topography characteristic of given sector. If you put here eg 1 instead of 10, map reading should be finished much faster (and with lesser accuracy of course).

would personality for the big boss give any meaning

Decided to leave BB without own personality. Personalities relate only to particular Leaders and affects only their orders. Why this way? Because in BB algorithms there is too few places, where personality can make any important difference. At least for now. Also - BB in fact is rather kind of collecitve, a staff, not a person.

I'm very glad, that HAC gave to you such great experience. :)