AI Discussion (dev branch)

[TSAndrey 1]

this is very strange, cause i remember in A2/OA betas we actually added checks that the AI can't see well in dark and hell even affected thevalue by lightsources nearby ... (like lamps) (not sure if moon intensity, as that was added later)

It's back though. I got shoot 200m away in pitch black by an AI with no NVG (I had no light sources around me)!

[Dwarden 1125]

so, do i get it right, the waypoints vs AI is broken (behaviour stuff etc) ? in DEV branch

(cause i just had this weekend several encouters and discussions which would indicate something is iffy even in 1.10 stable)

[chrys45 1]

setbehaviour"safe" seems not to work. Units with only pistols doesn't let their weapons in holster.

[HKFlash 9]

setbehaviour"safe" seems not to work. Units with only pistols doesn't let their weapons in holster.

AFAIK you can't holster your handgun.

[chrys45 1]

AFAIK you can't holster your handgun.

really ?! The player can't holster handguns but sometime ago if you set the AI to "safe" the AI could put their handguns away. Now they can't. To set the AI in "safe" mode with handguns was perfect to make security guards. Try it in Arma 2: set the AI to safe with "this setbehaviour"safe";" and you will see it work.

Edited February 11, 2014 by chrys45

[andersson 285]

So in ARMA2 when you enter a civilian vehicle the Opposing force doesn't automatically identify the vehicle as "hostile"?..

I m not sure about that..but i ll love to be mistaken because the fix would be -even more- easy

Correct. Until you get too close to the enemy then they will see what you are doing and define you as the enemy you are. If I remember right the distance the enemy looks through your disguise was about 150-200m. My test was to have me grouped to an AI team leader and have an enemy AI drive towards us in a civilian or friendly car. When I put the enemy into an enemy car the team leader called him straight away.

In many missions my friends and I moved on the roads in civilian cars and if we saw an enemy vehicle we could, if we had the distance and time, turn around and find another route without the enemy reacting on us. Ofcourse if we were surprised and were to close they lit us up in no time..

Edited February 12, 2014 by andersson

[giorgygr 61]

Hmm..

What you say is not *very encouraging though.

150-200m it's still VERY unrealistic -given the circumstances.

A more *logical distance would be less than 100 meters even for a checkpoint-and almost impossible for a military helicopter without confirmation on vehicle's whereabouts from ground forces (mainly due to it's angle).

Distances as 150-200m seem to me more of "laggy" usual-god-detection (due to other scripts and/or server and/or ARMA itself)..than intentionally coded spotting distance ;)

Anyways..Spotting distance and other abilities should be A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-L-Y relevant on "Unit's current-Combat mode".

I 've made some time ago a thread talking about mission makers always using "Aware the -default-mode".

Now we have a game with -almost- unlimited possibilities..with AI programmed to work always "with the finger on trigger" .

The behavior of AI on a HOT warzone..Yes..

Maybe they are suspicious even seeing a vehicle coming from 150-200 meters (when possible)

but..most scenarios i played are not under those circumstances.

So..AI skill (spotting distance included) must be related on "How much" the Danger level (or "enemy hit anticipation") is.

;)

Edited February 12, 2014 by GiorgyGR

[scorch_052 127]

Have you played the Night Showcase that comes with the game. A pretty central part of that mission is to capture an enemy vehicle and sneak around behind enemy lines. I remember playing that in Beta and being amazed at how well the stealth aspect worked (relative to ArmA of course).

[dnk 13]

Why can't we holster handguns again?

[lugiahua 26]

My chief complain with AI is that sometimes they insist to crawl over long distance despite there is no enemy around. You have to order them to standup to move, then order them to get down again when making contact.

[Tyl3r99 41]

My chief complain with AI is that sometimes they insist to crawl over long distance despite there is no enemy around. You have to order them to standup to move, then order them to get down again when making contact.

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kremator 1065]

^^ I've told you a million times not to exaggerate! ;)

[andersson 285]

Hmm..

What you say is not *very encouraging though.

150-200m it's still VERY unrealistic -given the circumstances.

I had to find an Utes map to double check as I remember where I placed the units and where the enemy was spotted, and it looks like less than 100 m. I also remember that a few times the enemy managed to drive past without getting caught, and from the map I estimate the distance to the road from us to be ~50m.

So I would like to correct my numbers to between 50 and 100 m (most often closer to 100m). The enemy was in a skoda, hmmwv or a uaz, and we were standing up (the enemy had a careless wp).

[progamer 14]

The fact that players can do it (to a lesser extent) doesn't make it any less ridiculous when AI do it.

In real life, gunships do not have magic radar that shows red dots miles out marking enemy targets.

In the case of players, you do see the red dots, but it's closer in and only in the direction you are facing (i.e. you don't see red dots behind you). The AI can be flying the opposite direction, 2km off, and the moment you enter a civilian vehicle he magically knows where you are, swings around, and blasts you.

Magic radar showing friendliest and enemies? Doesn't some HUD integrated form of Blueforce tracking do that already? Or something like that?

[giorgygr 61]

@andersson

Well...

Really thank you for the effort doing *extra tests.

I hope this will be resolved ASAP for ARMA3..as it is immersion breaker for me

[Akibuua-FIN- 15]

I don't think there's been a answer to the original question, so in editor, for example stratis

1. Place west soldier in airbase in one of the tent hangars

2. Place civilian man as playable next to him

3. Place empty vehicle next to them in this case cheetah (west anti air armoured)

4. Place east (csat) mi48 kajman flying maybe 500 m away and so that it does not see inside the tent hangar

Now it depends totally on which person enters the vehicle whether the chopper will engage the cheetah. The vehicle can even be civilian, it does not matter. The chopper will kill the vehicle with west soldier. I even tried with an ifrit (csat vehicle) and hatchback (civilian) and tried also by removing weapons and uniform, same thing, maybe took a few seconds longer for the ai to engage, but still.

You can even try to shoot with your rifle as west soldier and you get killed, but as civilian you can let go several magazines and nothing from the chopper.

As a side note, how is the ai able to tell an at soldier from an aa soldier from great distances or by using thermal viewers.

I couldn't find this on feedback tracker. So I upload it in a moment.

[froggyluv 2135]

Ok granted I'm not on latest version 1.10 114700 but what's up with the Engage at Will command not working properly as well as AT GUYS not firing promptly? Noticed it first on Bingo Fuel mission when we encountered our first Gorgon - gave my AT guy a target then Engage at Will but it took him a good minute or more to respond "Engaging" and given we were only some 40m away and above the target, should have been a gimme. He just wouldn't fire and worse kept switching weapons and meandering about till spotted and got killed.

Replayed a few times with same result and then created similar scenario in editor with a full Anti Armor team with similar results. I'd repro but alas have no internet for a few weeks :(

[Bouben 3]

Ok granted I'm not on latest version 1.10 114700 but what's up with the Engage at Will command not working properly as well as AT GUYS not firing promptly? Noticed it first on Bingo Fuel mission when we encountered our first Gorgon - gave my AT guy a target then Engage at Will but it took him a good minute or more to respond "Engaging" and given we were only some 40m away and above the target, should have been a gimme. He just wouldn't fire and worse kept switching weapons and meandering about till spotted and got killed.

Replayed a few times with same result and then created similar scenario in editor with a full Anti Armor team with similar results. I'd repro but alas have no internet for a few weeks :(

Check the ticket in my signature. Might be useful.

[Variable 322]

In this case I've found that assigning a target to the guy ('2' menu or right click on target), works better than the engage or engage at will commands. It seems like it gives less for the AI to think about. Not ideal of course...

[froggyluv 2135]

Check the ticket in my signature. Might be useful.

Yes but this problem seems related to being at very close range rather than distance. We were in urban environment and at 40m or so out and generally the ai just flat out refused to fire or even pull out his at weapon until after a multitude of dances. This is critical for urban combat and survival. Actually had the opposite experience in that when I placed the tank out 300m outside of town they opened up no problem.

In this case I've found that assigning a target to the guy ('2' menu or right click on target), works better than the engage or engage at will commands. It seems like it gives less for the AI to think about. Not ideal of course...

Yup, I always give target command first but then use engage at will should they fail to take initiative -used to work like a charm

[Maxzy 12]

Devs always said that Arma became so complex that if you change or fix one teeny-tiny thing it could brake some other big thing or the whole game. And I can bet a million dollars that AI's not engaging at will on command is one of those things. The farther it goes the more complex, hence more clusterfucked it becomes. Check my previous message in this topic - AI now can't do properly as simpliest task as to fly from point A to point B placed a couple kilometres away. I'm not a ragequitting person, I finished Super Meat Boy ffs, but playing "Survive" literally made me ragequit when at first AIs stuck at explo charge that I just planted, and when I had to replay the whole mission from the start, they just didn't engage the enemies when I ordered them to. And I think, sadly, that with time it will only get worse.

[Bouben 3]

Yes but this problem seems related to being at very close range rather than distance. We were in urban environment and at 40m or so out and generally the ai just flat out refused to fire or even pull out his at weapon until after a multitude of dances. This is critical for urban combat and survival. Actually had the opposite experience in that when I placed the tank out 300m outside of town they opened up no problem.

Distance and LOS seems to be key factors for this bugged behaviour. Check the repro missions and detailed info (also comments).

[bullet purveyor 85]

The 'find cover' command brakes if you use a stance change command on AI:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=17392

[xendance 3]

Is anyone else having problems with AI vehicles not spotting anything or not even noticing explosions that happen near them?

[tvamvarg 0]

I don't think there's been a answer to the original question, so in editor, for example stratis

1. Place west soldier in airbase in one of the tent hangars

2. Place civilian man as playable next to him

3. Place empty vehicle next to them in this case cheetah (west anti air armoured)

4. Place east (csat) mi48 kajman flying maybe 500 m away and so that it does not see inside the tent hangar

Now it depends totally on which person enters the vehicle whether the chopper will engage the cheetah. The vehicle can even be civilian, it does not matter. The chopper will kill the vehicle with west soldier. I even tried with an ifrit (csat vehicle) and hatchback (civilian) and tried also by removing weapons and uniform, same thing, maybe took a few seconds longer for the ai to engage, but still.

You can even try to shoot with your rifle as west soldier and you get killed, but as civilian you can let go several magazines and nothing from the chopper.

As a side note, how is the ai able to tell an at soldier from an aa soldier from great distances or by using thermal viewers.

I couldn't find this on feedback tracker. So I upload it in a moment.

Nice demonstration!

Devs always said that Arma became so complex that if you change or fix one teeny-tiny thing it could brake some other big thing or the whole game. And I can bet a million dollars that AI's not engaging at will on command is one of those things. The farther it goes the more complex, hence more clusterfucked it becomes. Check my previous message in this topic - AI now can't do properly as simpliest task as to fly from point A to point B placed a couple kilometres away. I'm not a ragequitting person, I finished Super Meat Boy ffs, but playing "Survive" literally made me ragequit when at first AIs stuck at explo charge that I just planted, and when I had to replay the whole mission from the start, they just didn't engage the enemies when I ordered them to. And I think, sadly, that with time it will only get worse.

Sounds true to me, I'm sad too. And given the state of these forums, there won't be much chances of refactoring/overhaul since if a single little tiny detail breaks in the overhaul a good number of people will explode with rage and whine about in every thread (regardless of subject) on this tiny detail, so incredibly important to their view of the game. By behaving like that, we encourage the developers to patch the patches of patches and continue building technical debt.

Let's hope that the above issue demonstrated by Akibuua-FIN- has some good refactoring coming about, though.

I remember a cool picture from OFP days showing how AI evaluated their environment (threat levels visualized in 3D with arrows and staples). I think that the refactoring needs to go back to something similar, using a few simple parameters - I can imagine the current state of AI threat evaluation is impossible to visualize due to too many parameters and complexity.

Edit: On the other hand - in this thread there are examples of problems of old (pre-arma2) that pop up again, so maybe that's exactly what they're doing... Feel free to pitch in, BIS :)

Edited February 21, 2014 by tvamvarg