AI Discussion (dev branch)

[maddogx 13]

Hmm... It appears that there are many more undocumented changes to the AI...

Can you elaborate on that?

[Tyl3r99 41]

I think the Ai still have issues driving tanks offroad... they run into trees and buildings and aim for the steepest slope :/

[kremator 1065]

^^ yes they do. The _AI_ are not _I_ ! Their movement FSM (or whatever they are using) needs to be thrown away and remade. Even the simplest of actions - driving forward and turning around corners causes no end of problems. Put another vehicle into the mix and it turns into a comedy ('after you, no after you, no after you, no after you, etc) and no one moves.

As for getting stuck ... sheesh! Tank drives forward over an object and gets stuck, so what does it do? It keeps trying to move forward, even though there is no chance of getting free. Any sane AI would realise it is stuck and reverse.

Talking of reverse, the whole action of avoiding an object is odd. Consider a crash, then watch as the AI performs this huge reversing and turning maneuver.

Is there a solution? Perhaps the community could help out with a test mission that would give devs a chance to improve it. Yes please!

[steele6 0]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to propose a few general "improvements" to the AI of the Arma series, based on a few general ideas, as policy.

1) a general decrease by accuracy, coupled with an increase in suppresssive/non-sniper fire.

currently, the AI only really fires if they are specifically targetting an enemy (ie: attempting to kill the chap)

if the AI could open fire in order to suppress or cause more general morale damaging fire at the enemy (and maybe increasing standard loadouts by a few mags to compensate)

generally, I'd like the AI to open fire more, at a general direction,

IE: say the enemy fireteam is hidden behind a wall, but have crouched down, you so can't see them. the AI knows they are there. surely the AI should be constantly firing at the wall ( not on full auto, but say, 3 bursts every few seconds)

AI should not be sniper's -as -riflemen everywhere they go.

you'll notice the Auto-rifleman (armed with an MG) is more suppressive in general in arma 3, what if his general "trigger-happiness" is given to all the AI soldiers?

2) an increase in movement time when moving from cover to cover. (this includes player ordered moves)

AI should be fast, keeping up with the (generally player led squad) not crouching down, waiting a 15 second time period (unless actively pinned down under point 1, during which time the AI unit should be shouting: underfire/pinned, so we know its state, see point 3) before moving. although there have been improvements in this area, if the general accuracy is lowered, it should make AI survive more.

one demonstration of this the medic, when called to assist an injured person, the AI moves from cover to cover, in a very slow way, taking along time until he finally goes to heal the injured person. please go try this out if ou arent aware of the problem.

3) Morale effects should be more tangible. and visible and gameplay emhancing.

(ie: generally, more aspects of what the AI is doing should be communicated to the player, in an obivous, unambigious way)

consider Operation flashpoint Dragon Rising (all negative stereotypes aside) had quite a nice moral system.: you fired at the AI, they crouched and returned fire. you achieved overwhelming superiority of fire( some thing you yanks advocate in warfare in general anyway.) * the AI would go prone, stop firing and try to withdraw. this was a very obvious system, and was wonderful. I'd advise you go fiddle in the editor of that game and try it out.

so: in general: faster AI waypoint movement when in cover/danger; less accuracy, more trigger happy, and more visible and obvious morale improvements.

you'll notice, I'm not asking for a hefty change in animations/ resources from BI,

although I admit the programming and changing of AI behaviours is difficult and tedious and expensive to change, I think it would be cool.

also, I'm not trying to "COD/Battlefieldify" the AI, where they can't shoot straight to save themselves or like in OFP DR, but I'd like a balance of default behavior between arma and COD AI stuff. (if you get where I'm going.)

thanks for your time!

also, I hope this is in the right forum, the "general" thread so its more debated, instead of buried in the AI dev branch thread, as thats specifically about the problems current with the AI BIS is changing/improving. whereas this is more about the general idea/future of the AI.

[LoneCrow66 10]

Another place for improvement is enemy AI reaction to armored vehicles in close proximity.

I'm really getting tired of driving armor up and enemy soldiers just standing around, seeing me heading towards them and then going prone and allowing me to just run them over. Other than the AT soldiers, the rest should be running at full speed to the nearest building and getting inside if armor is around. I literally racked up 30 kills just running people over last night. Didn't need to use a bullet if I didn't want to other than long range to pick off soldiers.

Another thing is if you shoot a building nearby an enemy they should run like hell away from there. A method similar to poking a hornets nest, a lot of time someone could fire at a position to flush out enemies into the open. If you are in a building getting hit by tank rounds most likely you will be dead or you'll be running away from that location.

[_William 0]

^^ yes they do. The _AI_ are not _I_ ! Their movement FSM (or whatever they are using) needs to be thrown away and remade. Even the simplest of actions - driving forward and turning around corners causes no end of problems. Put another vehicle into the mix and it turns into a comedy ('after you, no after you, no after you, no after you, etc) and no one moves.

As for getting stuck ... sheesh! Tank drives forward over an object and gets stuck, so what does it do? It keeps trying to move forward, even though there is no chance of getting free. Any sane AI would realise it is stuck and reverse.

Talking of reverse, the whole action of avoiding an object is odd. Consider a crash, then watch as the AI performs this huge reversing and turning maneuver.

Is there a solution? Perhaps the community could help out with a test mission that would give devs a chance to improve it. Yes please!

I've filed issue #15028, including a trivial repro mission which gave me a 100% stuck probability for an armored platoon moving across the flat part of Altis. The problem is bound to break any mission relying on vehicle movement. Right now Arma3 is a nice infantry + helicopter simulator...

The problem of vehicles getting stuck is not new (A2 had it) but it has gotten worse than in A2, probably due to the higher resolution terrain and increased number of obstacles. I'm wondering what the campaign is going to do with vehicles (other than avoid using them).

William

[Smurf 12]

It is me, a config here or the AIs are aimbot'ing again?

I barely put my pretty face on a corner and get shot multiple times. Even worst is that they don't get supressed =\

[-Coulum- 35]

I barely put my pretty face on a corner and get shot multiple times. Even worst is that they don't get supressed

Isn't that how its always been? I don't think their shooting ability got nerfed anytime recently, and They never got suppressed before...

[Smurf 12]

Yes about supression but now they're landing some rounds on the first or second shot. Even thought it had to do with that problem that was reported that had AI spawning units with skill set to 1, but nope everything normal there.

Will do more tests but the initial impression is they are too good again.

[windies 11]

Yes about supression but now they're landing some rounds on the first or second shot. Even thought it had to do with that problem that was reported that had AI spawning units with skill set to 1, but nope everything normal there.

Will do more tests but the initial impression is they are too good again.

They've always done that to me. I've lowered accuracy down to .20 or so and they still manage to reliably land a single bullet in my nasal cavity from 400m over an inch or so of cover.

I think someone above kind of hit on the right idea, the AI shoot to kill and in reality you're shooting to suppress more than you're shooting to kill most of the time. Couple that with the fact that they have no suppression, and they are actually like terminators. Also it's kind of backwards in that they start out extremely accurate and get less accurate over time. They should get more accurate over time and start out less accurate to simulate walking in shots or adjusting for sight error's, windage etc...

[HKFlash 9]

Yes about supression but now they're landing some rounds on the first or second shot. Even thought it had to do with that problem that was reported that had AI spawning units with skill set to 1, but nope everything normal there.

Will do more tests but the initial impression is they are too good again.

This. How can it be that an A.I. is so misconfigured that its turns a pleasant experience into a frustrating one? This is actually making me rage quit! Yes, you read right, rage quit on arma, which is normal for CoD or BF games but not in ArmA. Please Mr. Klamacz, I beg you to shift your attention to this issue, if you have not already.

[mr_centipede 31]

Quote from developer;

First step is that AI will not be able to kill you, just because teamMate told him where you are.

Randomized shooting through bushes is next step.

So probably they're already on it...

btw, you need to know what he meant by "First step is that AI will not be able to kill you...", there was an issue with AI can hit you when he(the AI) is blocked by a bush 2 m from him, so the recent AI fix, fixes that... more will probably coming

[windies 11]

Quote from developer;

So probably they're already on it...

btw, you need to know what he meant by "First step is that AI will not be able to kill you...", there was an issue with AI can hit you when he(the AI) is blocked by a bush 2 m from him, so the recent AI fix, fixes that... more will probably coming

It's not just an issue with AI shooting you behind cover, it's the reliability of them being able to basically 1 shot you from extreme ranges, generally for their weapon/optic, with their first or second shot. Like I said, they start out way too accurate and then get worse over time, it's a backwards system.

That's not to mention things like lack of suppression or their environment or current state of health not affecting them at all.

[-Coulum- 35]

Yes I think BIS knows. I think the first step they are taking is sorting out what does what - that means actually determining what the skill sliders do, the editor skills does and what not. then I think they are going to make it much easier to directly modify ai skills, ie a ingame ai accuracy slider. Then I hope they look into stuff like ai shooting and rate of fire behaviour like shooting poorly under fire, directly after beingg hit, at partially obscured targets, depending on the number of shots taken, whether the target is reappearing los in a new location yadayada

btw health does effect ai shooting last I checked. Problem is the immediate but temporary accuracy loss you would expect does not exist. But long term they are much worse shots after being hit.

And I personally find the ai to be pretty dead accurate at anything over 0.30 aiming accuracy skill

[maturin 12]

The AI can be suppressed.

Suppression affects aiming speed and accuracy.

I know that it's too hard to suppress them and suppression doesn't have enough of an effect (I regularly shot people in the torso at 50-150, only to have them kill me right back within a second, back before I installed TPW Fall).

But you're all perpetuating myths and inaccurate reports, creating radio interference with our link to the devs.

You should be critiquing the balance and trying to provide usable repros. Constructive feedback needs to be heard the loudest.

Instead, you're all just spamming the thread.

[Bouben 3]

The AI can be suppressed.

Suppression affects aiming speed and accuracy.

I know that it's too hard to suppress them and suppression doesn't have enough of an effect (I regularly shot people in the torso at 50-150, only to have them kill me right back within a second, back before I installed TPW Fall).

But you're all perpetuating myths and inaccurate reports, creating radio interference with our link to the devs.

You should be critiquing the balance and trying to provide usable repros. Constructive feedback needs to be heard the loudest.

Instead, you're all just spamming the thread.

What he said.

[-Coulum- 35]

The AI can be suppressed.

Suppression affects aiming speed and accuracy.

I know that it's too hard to suppress them and suppression doesn't have enough of an effect (I regularly shot people in the torso at 50-150, only to have them kill me right back within a second, back before I installed TPW Fall).

But you're all perpetuating myths and inaccurate reports, creating radio interference with our link to the devs.

You should be critiquing the balance and trying to provide usable repros. Constructive feedback needs to be heard the loudest.

Instead, you're all just spamming the thread.

Your right about cluttering this thread with non important stuff.

But one last "clutterable" comment, I am curious how you came to the conclusions that ai are effected by incoming fire that doesn't hit? Are you just basing that off arma 2 effects or have you got a test in arma 3 showing off this behaviour? I have only found ai accuracy to decrease when wounded.

[Smurf 12]

The AI can be suppressed.

Suppression affects aiming speed and accuracy.

I know that it's too hard to suppress them and suppression doesn't have enough of an effect (I regularly shot people in the torso at 50-150, only to have them kill me right back within a second, back before I installed TPW Fall).

But you're all perpetuating myths and inaccurate reports, creating radio interference with our link to the devs.

You should be critiquing the balance and trying to provide usable repros. Constructive feedback needs to be heard the loudest.

Instead, you're all just spamming the thread.

Alright then. Since I can't provide a reliable repro (fucking hard when dealing with AI) because these things happens while I'm *trying* to play I will just STFU and wait for something to happen. Until that, not playing because its not fun anymore.

Quitting the QA, where is the HR department?

[LoneCrow66 10]

Yeah last night was probably the least fun I've had in a long time to the point where I'm starting to look elsewhere. The immersion and potential of this game is staggering but I just feel like we are playing against a bunch of dumb automatons that lack any form of intelligence. It really takes away from the immersion when you can snipe 50 guys at long range who just run around and then lay prone out in the open. Allow and volunteer themselves to be run over by vehicles. Tank rounds landing on them and still running around in circles. Then they snipe you from 400m away. Its just frustrating.

Probably why I liked GraveDancer's Counter Insurgency mod the best. He doesn't run it anymore (nobody does). It allowed for PLAYERS to play WITH the AI to try and stop the invasion and it added an element of intelligence that made the game so much more fun. Actual dogfights and enemy player aircraft, armor etc acting intelligently.

As it stands now each multiplayer mission is run pretty similarly as a turkey shoot until you get shot by an ai that you accidentally run into.

[royaltyinexile 175]

Yeah last night [...]

I fully endorse what the guys above have said, and I really would ask those contributing to this thread to think about its purpose carefully.

Just a quick note. It really helps us in this thread when you provide considered feedback to the changes in progress, or clean repros missions that highlight some repeatable AI behaviour.

Our programmers tend to get lost when the discussions trail off into other areas, like headless client, etc. This thread can't both function as a place for feature requests and discussion and as a place to discuss the active development. It's one or the other, gents, and I'd like to be able to pass as much useful info to our guys as possible! :)

No one is saying you can't have an opinion, but it helps the guys when things are specific, not vague/abstract observations. So far, we've managed to validate some great progress by this thread and other means (feedback tracker, etc), and, of course, the other benefit of the thread here is to make more visible the ongoing work.

Best,

RiE

[HKFlash 9]

Mr. Crowe any mission can be used as repro. I experienced this A.I. issues with all Infantry focused showcases (Infantry, Combined Arms, Armed Assault). I will try to get some videos out though.

[froggyluv 2135]

How in the world would I make a repro in which AI doesn't use windows and doors (for intelligent fire) or interiors corners for lean? Basically it's like a negative trying to prove a negative. I have a 100 vote ticket on the matter on the FT yet no response -that leaves only vague forum rambling :/

[ProfTournesol 956]

How in the world would I make a repro in which AI doesn't use windows and doors (for intelligent fire) or interiors corners for lean? Basically it's like a negative trying to prove a negative. I have a 100 vote ticket on the matter on the FT yet no response -that leaves only vague forum rambling :/

True, most of AI troubles can be discovered only by playing the game. I hope the devs still have time to ;)

[maturin 12]

How in the world would I make a repro in which AI doesn't use windows and doors (for intelligent fire) or interiors corners for lean? Basically it's like a negative trying to prove a negative. I have a 100 vote ticket on the matter on the FT yet no response -that leaves only vague forum rambling :/

If you made a 100-vote ticket, then your job as a fan is done.

But this thread isn't for rambling.

If the mods close an AI suggestion thread and direct you here, then I'll yell at them for you.

[jasonb 10]

Two things I've noticed when I was playing my mission last night: Trying to manoeuvre an AI squad through a town through a city/village full of enemies is a nightmare. They spread throughout the town and keep on getting trapped on objects and refuse to listen to your move orders. This usually means I have to do everything myself. By the time I get to the other side of the village they are still running about at the start. There needs to be a 'bunch' up formation or when you have told them to regroup as squad leader so that your AI controlled team mates stick close to you so you can travel up the same road/path together without them trying to spread out. I think this setting should be default when travelling through villages. Also how do you get an AI medic to heal you? This is also a night mare. I select him and yell out 'Injured' but he just stands there. AI seems to refuse orders when that orange box with crossed lines pop up on their names (I think it means they are engaged?). AI refuse to listen to your orders whenever that box pops up. Sometimes this box pops up long after battle activity. Also, trying to tell squad members to 'get in' a vehicle during combat needs to work so you can get the hell out of 'hot zones' quickly. They just lie down prone and yell out 'negative'. Even when the vehicle is right next to them. Suggestion: When an AI squad member is told to do something twice in a short period of time (10 seconds) like 'get in a vehicle', they ignore everything esle and get in the bloody vehicle lol. I really dislike spamming the 'get in the vehicle' command with frustration while they just stand there and ignore me. Repo (my Military Zombie mission): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=186622783