AI Discussion (dev branch)

[st_dux 26]

@NeMeSiS:

I tested it, and it seems that disableAI "FSM" has no effect on the automatic switch to "COMBAT" behavior as I had feared :(. I'm still not really sure what it's supposed to do.

On the bright side, seba1976's trick can be utilized in a workaround that effectively reset's a group's memory instantly, causing "area clear"-type behavior until the group runs across another enemy:

fnc_forgetEnemies =
{
    _varName = _this;
    _group = call compile _this;
    _leader = leader _group;
    _units = units _group;
    _side = side _leader;

    _units joinSilent (createGroup _side);
    call compile format ["%1 = group %2;%1 selectLeader %2",_varName,_leader];
};

The above can be called for any group by passing the group's variable name as a string (e.g., "groupBravo" for a group assigned to variable groupBravo), and the result will be that that the group forgets all enemies immediately while retaining the same leader and group variable. However, you will lose all waypoints, which is pretty terrible. You could use waypoint scripting commands to recreate them all, but the hacky-ness level begins to approach 9,000 at this point. Still, this is probably our best bet for now, unfortunately.

On the layer of engine (pathfinding, danger reactions, behavior switching...) there are two FSMs running

- behavior (formation) FSM, running all the time, defined in "fsmFormation" property of a class in cfgVehicles

- danger FSM, triggered by a danger cause, defined in a property called "fsmDanger"

The FSM can be scripted (in vanilla that goes for danger or civilian FSMs) or "native", using engine functions (now used for behavior (covers, bounding overwatch...) of soldiers). Disabling them is possible via the mentioned scripting command or defining an empty string in the property. Currently it can help the AI move faster through an area with a lot of cover positions (urban areas).

By "mentioned scripting command," I assume you're referring to disableAI "FSM"; however, my testing has shown me that this doesn't actually stop the automatic switch to "COMBAT" behavior that occurs when a group knows about any enemies. This implies one of two things: Either disableAI "FSM" doesn't actually disable all of the active FSMs, or it does but there is something else going on in the background that causes the automatic behavior mode switch when enemies are detected. Do you know which of these is the case?

It's actually quite funny that you've brought this up recently - it has been quite intensively in our focus. And will be for some time. We hope to solve several issues and possibly also make the whole thing more modding friendly, but I can't say much as for now. Maybe just - expect a few less updates in the upcoming weeks. Thanks a lot for your patience!

This is very exciting! Thank you for the update.

Also - I don't think the sometimes mentioned "force-move" action would be a good-enough solution, solid and universal. The default state should be a cautious AI that values its life, but not an AI that's lagging behind or even getting stuck.

I agree that the AI should value its life by default, but I don't believe this precludes the inclusion of a "force-move" option for mission designers. There are many instances where such a function, when applied carefully, would result in realistic and immersive AI combat maneuvers that simply are not possible to create while the "COMBAT" behavior AI is active.

Also, the ability to override the AI's life-preserving default behavior has been available to mission editors in the form of "CARELESS" mode since OFP, but for whatever reason this mode also forces very slow, "SAFE"-style movement that 9 times out of 10 will render the mode useless. If "CARELESS" emulated "AWARE" behavior without concern for enemy presence instead of "SAFE" behavior without concern for enemy presence as it does now, it would be perfect.

Edited May 4, 2015 by ST_Dux

[NeMeSiS 11]

@NeMeSiS:

I tested it, and it seems that disableAI "FSM" has no effect on the automatic switch to "COMBAT" behavior as I had feared :(. I'm still not really sure what it's supposed to do.

It doesn't stop the switch to the "COMBAT", but it does stop the actual combat behaviour (bounding overwatch, looking for cover, etc) which is done by the formation FSM. They will probably still use the combat pathfinding and stuff, but they are much faster (and dumber) than with the FSM enabled. All they do is follow their squad leader and shoot targets that they can see without leaving formation, but not all behaviour is disabled so it is not a 'run in a straight line' thing.

It's actually quite funny that you've brought this up recently - it has been quite intensively in our focus. And will be for some time. We hope to solve several issues and possibly also make the whole thing more modding friendly, but I can't say much as for now. Maybe just - expect a few less updates in the upcoming weeks. Thanks a lot for your patience!

Also - I don't think the sometimes mentioned "force-move" action would be a good-enough solution, solid and universal. The default state should be a cautious AI that values its life, but not an AI that's lagging behind or even getting stuck.

I am afraid you wont be able to cover every possible use case properly, and a 'force-move' option would help a lot, especially if its player controlled since the player will know why the AI is acting like a suicidal maniac.

Edited May 4, 2015 by NeMeSiS

[rübe 127]

Also - I don't think the sometimes mentioned "force-move" action would be a good-enough solution, solid and universal.

I'd totally agree if we'd be in better control of a unit or a groups movement speed. Then a move command (or waypoint) would be the universal solution, and something like doRun/commandRun (or a RUN waypoint) would rather pointless. Yet, unfortunately we aren't really in control of a lot of important factors affecting movement speed.

Similarly I'd argue that a "setKnowsAbout" command is a terrible idea. It's not about what units know about, but what they do, once they know about something. That knowledge has to be accurate/reliable (well, subjectively) in any case, and your script/mod/whatever isn't the only thing that relies on that knowledge.

The default state should be a cautious AI that values its life, but not an AI that's lagging behind or even getting stuck.

Yes the default. But this should not be hardcoded. IMHO the best solution would be if

• we could switch formation and danger FSMs *at runtime*, anytime we want.
  
• Next we should be able to simply put different FSM into our mission (or mod) directory. I.e. no modding needed to mess with these things.
  
• So far, so good. The real kicker would be, if BIS could then offer at least a bunch of specific FSM alternatives. And over time, integrate more, and sligthly more specific FSM. Maybe (slightly) different ones for sides and even factions.
  

What are the formation/danger FSM together all about? Sure, there is the absolute necessary core behaviour. The problem is, that there is more on top of it, kind of a "rules of engagement" kind of thing. This part needs to be plug and play. And with time, there should be a nice, and easy to use library of more specific "rules of engagements".

Should a sniper team really run the same formation/danger FSM as any other regular infantery group?

What about civilians? Why are they moving in formation?!

Exactly.

:cool:

Or does anyone has a better idea? :p

P.S. I just recently tried to come up with a repro to demonstrate a group being stuck in danger-limbo-land, unable to follow its waypoint... (while observing knowsAbout levels and stuff). Needless to say, I was not able to come up with such a thing. Actually, I was rather pleased with the AI's behaviour. Contact, then auto danger-mode, sure. And then it takes a minute or two, then you hear the "All clear", and units come back out of danger-mode. Sometimes, a second "all", or "area clear" is needed, but also that seemed rather to be a nice touch, than anything else (you never know if it's really "all clear" even with knowsAbout levels of 0; there could be more around...). And even knowsAbout levels that didn't drop back to zero (because some unit could flee, or some other vehicle has been spotted far away), the group still managed to move on just fine.

IMHO the "default" behaviour is no problem at all. It's very nice, and I ran out of ideas while trying to break it (with respect to danger-mode). :o

The only thing missing for a player-leader (or maybe even as a grunt?), is the possibility to issue that "all clear" by himself (and make it count!).

-> Right, we really need that "all clear" command (ingame UI: Radio something, something, ...).

I am afraid you wont be able to cover every possible use case properly, and a 'force-move' option would help a lot.

I actually have to agree with oukej, "move" is enough, the problem is not that the unit does not move, it's rather that the unit tries to do much more stuff we got not much control over... In order to "cover every possible use case proberly" we just need more (and much easier) control about those "rules of engagement" (bounding overwatch and what not...).

That is... considering those FSM run on group-level, and not for individual units, maybe a doRun/commandRun could still come in rather handy. Hm...

Edited May 4, 2015 by ruebe

[NeMeSiS 11]

I actually have to agree with oukej, "move" is enough, the problem is not that the unit does not move, it's rather that the unit tries to do much more stuff we got not much control over... In order to "cover every possible use case proberly" we just need more (and much easier) control about those "rules of engagement" (bounding overwatch and what not...).

That is... considering those FSM run on group-level, and not for individual units, maybe a doRun/commandRun could still come in rather handy. Hm...

Another AI layer? We already have the hardcoded engine stuff, the FSM layer and whatever scripts/mission editing stuff/addons you run on top of that. Another layer isn't going to solve anything except giving the already overloaded AI more stuff to take into account. Telling the AI whether he should stand up or sit down in 3 or 4 different places that all run trough eachother isnt good for anything.

Btw, FSMs run on individual units.

Should a sniper team really run the same formation/danger FSM as any other regular infantery group?

What about civilians? Why are they moving in formation?!

Considering the current behaviour is at best 'OK' i think it is a bit too premature to write different ones for different unit types. Lets get at least 1 good. :p

Civilians do actually have different combat AI compared to soldiers.

-> Right, we really need that "all clear" command (ingame UI: Radio something, something, ...).

No, a 'force-move' would command would allow for retreating or some 'attack at all costs' rush, while an all clear command only speeds up the end of a battle a bit. And i think that trying to properly detect when the commander is trying to retreat or rush the enemy and having the AI behave accordingly is a bit overly ambitious when you might as well give the player a command to do just that. Retreating and rushing the enemy are both edge cases anyway that are quite different from normal behaviour, but it comes up often enough that not being able to do it properly is annoying.

Edited May 4, 2015 by NeMeSiS

[old_painless 183]

Good news, oukej, really looking forward to hearing more in the future. I always imagined Zipper5 grinding his teeth over the scenarios that he could not make, because of the AI. Please help out your colleague :cool:

[rübe 127]

Another AI layer?

No, we already have that layer, right at the bottom. Formation and danger FSM.

What I am suggesting is to make them plug and play (scripting, and maybe in the editor too; just select from a drop down menu...).

We already have the option to swap those FSM, but it's a hardcoded mess that needs moding.

Make it scriptable, and (slowly) start to offer more, more specific FSM mission maker then can swap in as desired (or write their own).

Oh, and no: I wasn't really suggesting that you could choose such FSM ingame, e.g. as player-leader. That'd be just for the editor (setup once), or scripting.

Although, I could imagine a thing, where you could register multiple such FSM per group, s.t. the leader could choose from them ingame as leader (maybe with a bunch of conditions/some rating for AI-leaders too). :p

Btw, FSMs run on individual units.

Hmm, okay. But we can't set them individually; just for a group? Or how was that exactly (sorry, I gave up on this a long time ago, hence I don't know too much...)?

Considering the current behaviour is at best 'OK' i think it is a bit too premature to write different ones for different unit types. Lets get at least 1 good. :p

So... you wouldn't like an option to quickly switch in a different FSM, that for example doesn't execute the auto-danger-dance?

Or let's try this from another perspective. What do you think is easier to write and maintain? A single behemot of a "rules of engagement" FSM that catches all. Or a smaller "default" one, accompanied by different FSM (e.g. for your "edge-cases", or just in general, because the group is supposed to follow different "rules of engagement").

Why should all groups, no matter what side or faction, use the same bounding overwatch, and launch the exact same flank attacks, etc.?

IMHO a bit of a meaningful difference in here (e.g. less trained guerillas/militia) would be super fun. And I'm not even saying that BIS is supposed to come up with all kind of different FSM here. For one that's very mission-specific, and for two that's perfectly fine to leave as an exercice for the mission and ai-mod makers.

But! BIS should make this "plug and play" work. That would be great for a start.

Civilians do actually have different combat AI compared to soldiers.

See. That's exactly my point. That layer is already there, it always has been. We just have no proper access to it.

And at this point just simply too much behaviour is burried down there, rendering the universal high-level commands we have unreliable, if not useless at times.

Telling the AI whether he should stand up or sit down in 3 or 4 different places that all run trough eachother isnt good for anything.

Yeah, but maybe *not* telling the AI to do that would speed (some) things up a little. Doing the bounding-watch or not; that's "rules of engagement" we currently have not much control over. Aware, combat, stealth, or even safe, it's all much the same (in case of combat), and you're not going to set your group to careless :p

Combat mode, btw. is one of those super universal commands, that worked nice once upon a time, but nowadays? Well, I don't know... On the one side there is too much stuff encoded in combat mode, we'd rather should be able to handle in detail, and on the other side... well, it's neither complete, nor reliable... (unless the default "rules of engagement" are exactly your thing, of course... then all is fine.)

No, a 'force-move' would command would allow for retreating or some 'attack at all costs' rush, while an all clear command only speeds up the end of a battle a bit. And i think that trying to properly detect when the commander is trying to retreat or rush the enemy and having the AI behave accordingly is a bit overly ambitious when you might as well give the player a command to do just that. Retreating and rushing the enemy are both edge cases anyway that are quite different from normal behaviour, but it comes up often enough that not being able to do it properly is annoying.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

That "all clear" wouldn't exactly cut it (still totally worth it/nice IMHO).

[froggyluv 2136]

Force move or 'emphatic affect' holding down the Cntrl would be utterly fantastic and change the series in a pretty dramatic way for the good. Not only would it make having your squad that just recently encountered enemy armor/air/artillery with no cover around now survivable, but could add another layer of strategic element to both player and AI. By 'emphatic affect' I of course mean "Now muthaf#ckers!!!"; "Run b#tches run!";" On the double!!"; "Go, go go!!!"

Lets say you push your squad to sprint over open terrain to reach the forest edge leaving them vulnerable and half of them die -huge morale penalty -thats the cost of aggressive commanding afterall. How freakin cool would it be to see AI led squads sprinting over a field only to realise armour is on the chase and they're running for their lives. A few hardcore hang on to your helmet sprint animations and verbal command would do the trick nicely. Second Ruebe's vision on more specific FSM's for different units roles ie Sniper, At....but thats for another time

Love that you guys are thinking on this, the game has evolved so much in the past year and this would utterly put the icing on the expansion cake *hint* *hint*

[NeMeSiS 11]

EDIT: Deleted post because it is too messy, may reattempt later when sober.

[nkenny 1057]

I agree with Ruebe.

The thing is, once a squad is doing the danger dance, it is essentially pinned, or fixed in place. There can be no withdrawal, no rapid attack manoeuvres; only a gradual grind towards the enemy. Now this would be fine if we were only fighting in forests, but we aren't. In the open landscape of Arma3 being static is death. However, thats not all.

If the terrain is favourable, in such that a squad is able to attack the enemy with impunity-- stand off range-- then that is what you would want to do. However, the danger mode acts contrary to this, by forcing a gradual movement shift towards the enemy. Adding insult to injury, the danger mode dance consumes important time that would be better off spent shooting. A squad positioned favourably would only move if the enemy was destroyed, or it started to take effective incoming fire. In either of these cases the movement would be rapid, and often away from the enemy, something which is unsupported by danger mode. It bears mentioning that this affects vehicles as well-- why would a well positioned tank or helicopter gunship choose to charge into an area, when it should be playing peek-a-boo with cover and generally engage things at maximum range?

Worse still, the act of going into danger mode is automatic, and therefore essentially unavailable to the player-squad leader (or mission designer). As a long time player I find the most efficient use of AI forces is simply to toggle their stance. Go prone, when they should be afraid, keep them crouched, if assaulting something and abandoning them if wishing to withdraw or quickly assault. In the past setting them to DELTA or CLOSE COLUMN formation used to mitigate some of the danger dance, but this no longer seems to be the case. The combat modes are therefore pretty much useless in my eyes.

In short, a squad in danger mode is essentially pinned, immobile and unresponsive. While danger mode works adequately in heavy forests, it is often a liability in other terrains. Having a way to break that suppression would be great. Both to protect player sanity, and to permit mission designers the option of creating 'WAAAAH STALINO!' type charges by appropriate forces.

-k

[soulis6 24]

P.S. I just recently tried to come up with a repro to demonstrate a group being stuck in danger-limbo-land, unable to follow its waypoint... (while observing knowsAbout levels and stuff). Needless to say, I was not able to come up with such a thing. Actually, I was rather pleased with the AI's behaviour. Contact, then auto danger-mode, sure. And then it takes a minute or two, then you hear the "All clear", and units come back out of danger-mode. Sometimes, a second "all", or "area clear" is needed, but also that seemed rather to be a nice touch, than anything else (you never know if it's really "all clear" even with knowsAbout levels of 0; there could be more around...). And even knowsAbout levels that didn't drop back to zero (because some unit could flee, or some other vehicle has been spotted far away), the group still managed to move on just fine.

IMHO the "default" behaviour is no problem at all. It's very nice, and I ran out of ideas while trying to break it (with respect to danger-mode). :o

The only thing missing for a player-leader (or maybe even as a grunt?), is the possibility to issue that "all clear" by himself (and make it count!).

From what i've seen it's not really the behavior when ending combat or stopping engagement after the enemy is dead that's a problem, is trying to get the AI squads to do things during combat that is the issue. I mainly use Zeus (coop games where i'm controlling both AI friendly to the players, along with enemy ones), and i've had a lot of problems getting squads to react in ways that would make sense to the situation.

Some examples I've seen:

-Trying to get the AI enemy units to retreat. probably the one i've seen the most, they just won't retreat most of the time if they can still see any enemy units. At best they will slowly make their way to the waypoint while stopping every 10 feet to take cover and take some shots, usually at an APC or something they can't reasonably fight against, or overwhelming numbers, etc.

-Attempting to have one unit stop and not move from it's position in cover. Seen this one sooooo many times. Just the other day the players see mines and some AT infantry around the corner down the road, and despite all my best efforts, and the waypoint i have set down, as soon as their AI controlled friendly APC sees some enemy, it zooms straight down the road at them, into mines and AT fire, dead in seconds. Or trying to stop infantry that are supposed to be guarding someone stopping from running out of cover away from their target when a fight breaks out.

-Telling a squad to move to a better tactical position. Just trying to order a squad to move to a different side of a town or tell them to into heavier cover and stay down instead of sticking out in light/no cover and dying, always a problem in my experience.

I'm not saying I know what the solution is, just that there's got to be a good way to handle this, some way to force a squad to move as if their life depends on it, which it usually does in those situations.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Soulis6

[KeyCat 131]

It's actually quite funny that you've brought this up recently - it has been quite intensively in our focus. And will be for some time. We hope to solve several issues and possibly also make the whole thing more modding friendly, but I can't say much as for now. Maybe just - expect a few less updates in the upcoming weeks. Thanks a lot for your patience!

As they say... patience is a virtue (even if it can be tedious at times) :)

Looking forward to whatever enhancements you come up with and thanks for listening, lots of good ideas here from modders/scripters - its a win-win!

/KC

Edited May 5, 2015 by KeyCat

[Guest]

Just a thought, if there may be some sort of 'At All Costs' command that is usable by both players and Ai to force Ai to move to a specified location, it may be desirable to add an option to allow or disallow response to actual visual threats - the first thing that comes to mind is simply making use of SetCombatMode, if it were Yellow or Red, then units will stop when an enemy unit is visually seen and fire on them, and then if CombatMode is set to Blue, the units will move to the specified location without stopping to fire on visually detected enemies. This could also be refined to only allow units in CombatMode Yellow or Red to only stop and fire if the enemy is a target that they can actually hurt/kill - i.e. - rifleman does not stop for enemy tank sighted, etc.

/Edit

Should have mentioned that one of the key features of a unit being able to stop and fire on visually identified enemies when in 'All Costs' mode would be that they can resume moving to their position very shortly after losing sight/killing a visually identified enemy.

Edited May 12, 2015 by Guest

[chortles 263]

@ Special Ed: Unfortunately from two pages ago:

Also - I don't think the sometimes mentioned "force-move" action would be a good-enough solution, solid and universal. The default state should be a cautious AI that values its life, but not an AI that's lagging behind or even getting stuck.

[st_dux 26]

There already is a way to get the AI to ignore threats: "CARELESS" behavior. The problem with this is that apart from ignoring threats, "CARELESS" basically emulates "SAFE" behavior, which means that it is always slow and rarely useful. I would love it if "CARELESS" were changed to emulate "AWARE" behavior instead.

[fabrizio_t 58]

@ Special Ed: Unfortunately from two pages ago:

In my opinion a force-move command should not intended as an "universal" solution, but rather a reliable command given to modders to override constraints from current (combat) behaviour.

For instance such a command would be extremely useful to make units flee / withdraw from battlefield quickly ( e.g. infantry group threatened by armor / air units ), something they're not able to do at all currently .

Then can see plenty of uses for such an override ... maybe it's just me.

Edited May 12, 2015 by fabrizio_T
no, it's not just me ... reading back the last few pages i see many people would consider this useful ...

[Guest]

@ Special Ed: Unfortunately from two pages ago

"Originally Posted by oukej

Also - I don't think the sometimes mentioned "force-move" action would be a good-enough solution, solid and universal. The default state should be a cautious AI that values its life, but not an AI that's lagging behind or even getting stuck.":

Gotcha, so it sounds like the idea of even providing a non-universal scripting 'All Costs' type of scripting command is not really being considered as well.

There already is a way to get the AI to ignore threats: "CARELESS" behavior. The problem with this is that apart from ignoring threats, "CARELESS" basically emulates "SAFE" behavior, which means that it is always slow and rarely useful. I would love it if "CARELESS" were changed to emulate "AWARE" behavior instead.

I've tried that too, like you said though, unfortunately there are a number of issues. The weapon holding animation is also always lowered, which is kinda of wrong looking especially when they are scripted to crouch stance.

In my opinion a force-move command should not intended as an "universal" solution, but rather a reliable command given to modders to override constraints from current (combat) behaviour.

For instance such a command would be extremely useful to make units flee / withdraw from battlefield quickly ( e.g. infantry group threatened by armor / air units ), something they're not able to do at all currently .

Then can see plenty of uses for such an override ... maybe it's just me.

I totally agree, very useful thing. One of the big issues with the AI is that it isn't just that they don't respond to DoMove orders when encountering enemies, but that they remain in this state for some time even after visual contact is lost. I've personally made a lot of positive usage out of changing AI units groups to a newly created group to clear out their known targets list, which allows them to potentially move again if there are no visual threats nearby, but the negative aspect is that group names and references are lost, which seems to make it potentially undesirable for a lot of mission makers to try to deal with. On the other hand, the ability to be able to move units when you tell them to move shortly after an engagement certainly opens up doors for some nifty stuff, like getting units to track down and engage enemies aggressively when desired.

[rübe 127]

In my opinion a force-move command should not intended as an "universal" solution, but rather a reliable command [...]

Then can see plenty of uses for such an override ... maybe it's just me.

Did you notice how you changed from "command" to an "override"? :p You pretty much hint by yourself at the fact that such a thing wouldn't be really a command, neither really an override. Neither fish, nor bird. Hence such a solution is *not* "universal" (or maybe "pure" or "well defined"). Or the other way around: it's rather a hack/workaround, and as such not good enough.

At least I didn't see anyone disagreeing for the need for such a "functionality", but the implementation is the problem here.

As has been noted, a simple doMove command should be all you need to move units around. But that's not really the problem, so a forceMove doesn't make any sense. Instead the problem is that we can't toggle the auto danger dance on and off. If we could do just that (for individual units!), the doMove (with individual speed settings) would be more than adequate... maybe an additional enable-/disableFSM state thingy could work already? That's where animations, targeting and what not can be already shut on or off, so that would make sense, no?

Another problem is that speed is attached to some waypoint which affects the whole group. So you need to work with limit-/forceSpeed and what not... Then we can't set the position of the weapon directly (lowered, up or that super-cereal-combat-always-aiming-mode), this is somehow affected by combatmode, and then by the auto danger dance too. It's all a bit of a mess by now, we all know. But unfortunately it doesn't seem to be that easy to clean up here without breaking everything in existence.

[lerbert 10]

Definately there should be a command to forcemove / rush / at all costs or whatever. It's always fun to raid a compound for example, as after seeing the first enemy AI will sit in the middle of a field and won't move a muscle until no enemies present in 10km radius. Also, smoke + fallback is not an option as AI will just lay there until death (patriotic, though. But I would expect this kind of behaviour only for Soviet units..).

Another great feature would be urban-mode, which would shorten the gaps between units and maybe prioritize less crouching etc.. However this doesn't really matter as when the first bullet is fired the AI won't move anymore and are therefore useless (except the unbelievable accuracy they have when they are in the mood).

However as I think all of us know, these suggestions are never going to happen so if we wan't to see a bit more intelligent AI we should play killing floor.

[froggyluv 2136]

Are you kidding the possibilities far outweigh just about anything really. For the 1st time we could watch AI squads actually tactically retreat to better positions...

[seba1976 98]

@oukej Does AI currently consider fatigue in some way?

[oukej 2911]

From the top of my hat - AI prefers a less tiring path and fatigued AI receives an aiming error.

If you meant more something like a stamina management (f.e. resting or altering the type of movement to save some energy), then no, AI is currently not able to do that.

[seba1976 98]

From the top of my hat - AI prefers a less tiring path and fatigued AI receives an aiming error.

If you meant more something like a stamina management (f.e. resting or altering the type of movement to save some energy), then no, AI is currently not able to do that.

Thank you for your answer. What would a less tiring path be? Terrain inclination for example?

[chortles 263]

Definately there should be a command to forcemove / rush / at all costs or whatever.

Are you kidding the possibilities far outweigh just about anything really. For the 1st time we could watch AI squads actually tactically retreat to better positions...

Unfortunately what I got from oukej's quote ("I don't think the sometimes mentioned "force-move" action would be a good-enough solution, solid and universal") was that he didn't agree...

[lerbert 10]

Usually not-good-enough solution is better than no solution. However I think there's some kind of engine restriction as a ticket of this issue has been assigned 2013-04-18, and I can't believe this issue was prioritizes as a minor-minor thing. So the remaining option is that the work on the engine side is huge which can be assumed as the AI don't differ much from the OFP (2001). If we could see improvement to year 2005 and see something like AI of SWAT 4 it would be great; just wondering how would look like AI of 2015? (please don't get provoked fanboys).

Actually I was a fanboy since Arma2, and have explained this issue as "AI get scared and won't obey any orders, that's realistic". However before we can start thinking how much they should be scared and act non-rationally, we should have limit values like special forces (obey orders at all costs) and disabled forces (sit there and cry until Altis is cleared). Unfortunately now we have only disabled forces..

Sorry for the frustration, as always hard times reflect to loved ones. Love you arma.

[joostsidy 685]

Would like to add my strong support to the request for fast moving infantry under fire. Missions where you cooperate with AI infantry result often in failure when for instance flanking AI infantry starts to move very slow when receiving only light fire. If it doesn't lead to failure of the objective, the waiting is often boring and immersion breaking, because the AI should know beforehand that their part relies on speed and now the incompetents are pinnned down by very light resistance.

Aspects related to this behaviour, maybe:

- infantry should follow the behaviour of the leader more, this helps at least if the leader is a human.

- infantry should follow formation less strict in certain situations, it slows down squads moving on difficult terrain (where it's hard to keep formation -> fences etc), even when not under fire.

- the distance of a waypoint could influence the moving behaviour, a long distance would result in less danger dance

- setting the speedMode could infuence the moving behaviour, speedMode fast would lead to 'no prone' and less stops in engagements

- the skill setting could influence the moving behaviour by paying more attention to commands and less to knows about

In the previous comments I sometimes got the feeling that a 'fast move under fire' rules would be hacking the ai and/or ignoring the psychological aspects of being under fire. I disagree with this. Running under fire can both reflect highly trained soldiers and undisciplined soldiers on the attack or retreat. Making this behaviour part of the game would make for a much more diverse and realistic game play. I would like to set the developers on 'COMBAT', set their courage on max and set a waypoint on the deep OFP-code if necessary.