AI Discussion (dev branch)

[Vasily.B 529]

you don't need to be accurate to hit somebody at that distance when spraying full auto...

Problem is, sometimes they hit you with one shot, WHILE they are being hit

[oukej 2910]

What x3kj said :)

Injuring the AI won't help you much if you're too close to the AI and you end up filling a big part of the AIs spread cone of fire. I don't think player would perform worse in such situation.

A different case would be a longer distance where a player usually needs to steady the aim to hit anything.

[das attorney 858]

If you put down in the editor:

 

"b_mrap_01_f" with crew

 

and 4 or 5 "o_v_soldier_ghex_f" behind it, then they shoot with their .50 cal barrels to destroy it.  (which is good).

 

If you replace the hunter with "b_lsv_01_unarmed_f" (with crew) and re-run the scenario, then the Viper guys draw their silenced pistols and try to destroy it with pistol fire...

 

Not sure if it's a vehicle configuration problem, weapon/ammo problem or AI problem.

[twistking 204]

now with all the recent changes and improvments, i get aware of "issues" that have been a part of arma since ofp, but never stood out, until other aspects got noticeably better.

infantry AI suerly is not perfect yet, but it is much better than ever before and can produce some very good firefights in various scenarios.

 

however vehicle combat AI is as "bad" as ever. the thing that really stands out is that complete erratic behaviour of armed vehicles in combat.

f.e. a tank has moved up to a waypoint in a overwatch situation with good view and decent cover. there are friendlies around, so there is no danger of getting ambushed. the tank then spots enemies, which are no thread to him and that he could attack and/or supress from his current position, but instead he turns in a erratic manner and drives with high speed back and fourth through the friendly lines, with no apperant reason; in the process running over some friendlies and killing them. he then rushes head on into enemy lines and get destroyed or he stops in some place without clear view of the enemy and stays there until mission is over...

 

this really needs to be adressed.

long term goal should of course be vehicle AI with some kind of tactical knowledge, which is able to use terrain to its advantage and which can interpret threat level and moves deliberately and according to threat level.

 

as a short term improvment you should at least try to get rid of that erratic movement. f.e. vehicle AI in normal combat behaviour would always try to stick to it's waypoints unless panicked or retreating and in case of retreat should try to have the armored front facing the enemy.

vehicles that are in "engage at will" mode, could more willingly move away from waypoint position, but would do that in a deliberate manner: front facing the enemy and advance only to a certain degree and as long as the flanks are secure. the vehicle should fall back to original waypoint as soon as current engagement is ended. when threat level rises and flanks are attacked, vehicle should also retreat a bit.

 

in short: if a vehicle decides to break free from its current waypoint it should have a very good reason for it, it should not do it in an erratic manner, but tactical and deliberate and it should fall back to current waypoint, if the situation allows for it.

[x3kj 1247]

Totally agree (expressed it two pages earlier)
first short term requirement for that would be to teach AI how to drive backwards towards a waypoint

And also how to not drive at ludicrous speed when on a downwards slope. Always when AI goes downhill i imagine it act like Dark Helmet.

[Varanon 892]

What x3kj said :)

Injuring the AI won't help you much if you're too close to the AI and you end up filling a big part of the AIs spread cone of fire. I don't think player would perform worse in such situation.

A different case would be a longer distance where a player usually needs to steady the aim to hit anything.

While playing the Apex campaign, I had a case where in the third mission, some guy twitch-shot me, with iron sights, from 200 m distance, with me being in a forest. With an accuracy setting of 0.15.

Sorry, but no matter what people say, AI is way too accurate. It does not show immediately, as someone already said, if you just place them in the editor, they take some time to hit you.

But under some circumstances that I can't really pinpoint yet, they become super accurate.

Watch some of the recent apex campaign walkthroughs, and you will see a lot of this.

Unfortunately, I don't know (yet) how to reproduce it.

Sent from my SGP511 using Tapatalk

[dragon01 902]

But under some circumstances that I can't really pinpoint yet, they become super accurate.

That sounds more like a good ol' bug than an inherent problem with AI accuracy. If you could reproduce that, it'd probably be fixed. That said, he might have gotten lucky. If you just spray and pray you're unlikely to hit anything... but it's not impossible, either. It can happen to you, too. A chaotic burst of suppressive fire (not properly aimed at all) might just end up nailing your enemy in the head, it's just not very likely. 

 

Through The East Wind, I have not encountered a case in which AI would be too accurate. They generally had to keep firing for a while to score a hit. I found AI marksmanship to be quite human-like, in fact. They first hit far from you, largely shooting to suppress, but a short time later they start firing tighter bursts and if you don't break LOS, you die. This is roughly how it goes with me, at least when using standard sights (with even the smallest scope I have a tendency to start acting like a sniper, for better or worse).

[Vasily.B 529]

I can reproduce this. If i understand right - you have been hidden, and AI should not see you right?
Its problem with AI detection, once detected, you cannot hide from them in grass (ai will track you down, even while not having visual contact), behind three etc. And its somehow connected with "last visible point" (point where Ai saw you last time). But "somehow" have great meaning there, beacuse its bugged. You will be visible throught everything for them, even through buildings AFTER you was detected. One thing i dont know, is what combat mode AI must be in this situation. There was some video about it in AI detection, when guy was in grass (prone) aI didnt see him, when he fired, and rolled much to left Ai was tracking him, even without visual contact.

PS: Here is video (from previous site)
https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/150499-ai-discussion-dev-branch/page-205#entry3059003

[Greenfist 1863]

I can reproduce this. If i understand right - you have been hidden, and AI should not see you right?

Its problem with AI detection, once detected, you cannot hide from them in grass (ai will track you down, even while not having visual contact), behind three etc. And its somehow connected with "last visible point" (point where Ai saw you last time). But "somehow" have great meaning there, beacuse its bugged. You will be visible throught everything for them, even through buildings AFTER you was detected. One thing i dont know, is what combat mode AI must be in this situation. There was some video about it in AI detection, when guy was in grass (prone) aI didnt see him, when he fired, and rolled much to left Ai was tracking him, even without visual contact.

PS: Here is video (from previous site)

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/150499-ai-discussion-dev-branch/page-205#entry3059003

The grass can definitely block their view even after detection, as you see in end of the video. The problem is that the view blocking "layer" is not always very accurate. This could be easily adjusted in the engine, but it might also lead to AI being blind to even clearly visible targets.

 

Here's a video of how effective taller grass can be:

[Vasily.B 529]

The grass can definitely block their view even after detection, as you see in end of the video. The problem is that the view blocking "layer" is not always very accurate. This could be easily adjusted in the engine, but it might also lead to AI being blind to even clearly visible targets.

 

Here's a video of how effective taller grass can be:

In such clear condition - 0 combat in background - maybe it works that way, but i meet too much situation when they saw me through grass, and i wasnt able to escape them, wherever i hide they find me. Only solid objects like rocks and terrain (behind hills) was good as view block.

[Varanon 892]

That sounds more like a good ol' bug than an inherent problem with AI accuracy.

I assume it's a bug, yes, or a side effect of previous knowledge. The problem with test cases that just place a few units and then say "Hey, look, they aren't that accurate" is that it never take prior knowledge into account.

In this particular case, we had prior contact, but the unit that shot me was not present at that moment, and was not in the same group. However, he must have had immediate knowledge of me.

This is a very problematic case to reprduce, really

Edit: Regarding the East Wind Campaigh, I had several instances of one-shot kills from AI which should not be possible, especially considering that the AI supposedly shoots for center of mass which would mean no headshots, but to score a one-shot kill with a 5.56 you need to hit unprotected parts

[froggyluv 2136]

While playing the Apex campaign, I had a case where in the third mission, some guy twitch-shot me, with iron sights, from 200 m distance, with me being in a forest. With an accuracy setting of 0.15.

Sorry, but no matter what people say, AI is way too accurate. It does not show immediately, as someone already said, if you just place them in the editor, they take some time to hit you.

But under some circumstances that I can't really pinpoint yet, they become super accurate.

Watch some of the recent apex campaign walkthroughs, and you will see a lot of this.

Unfortunately, I don't know (yet) how to reproduce it.

Sent from my SGP511 using Tapatalk

 

 No your right .15 can be too high -the whole system really needs calibration. I started a mini mod that ill prolly never finish that literally shifts all units Aiming Accuracy down:

 

 Medics, Mg'ers (for effect), Support, Pilots: in the 0.009 -0.05 Range

 Regular Infantry: 0.04 -0.09 Range

 Spec Ops: Same or slightly higher than Regular but enhanced Speed for Aiming for CQB advantage

 Snipers: 0.4- 0.8 Range

 

 This plays out far better imo. Despite the drastically lower values they still hit you 'when they should' but one shotting from range not as frequent unless they are a higher class. Also each kill for AI bumps its aiming skill depending on quality of its kills so you may encounter a very deadly Pilot or Assitant Crew Chief!

 

 The too high aiming of AI mixed with terrible, impossible to read reactions of AI can make for some very frustrating play. Personally I dont mind getting 1 shotted by Spec Ops or Sniper as it gives them back their balls like Spetz Natz from OFP but there needs to be better distinctions as per vanilla ALL personnel are pretty equally deadly which makes it all feel too samey.

[andersson 285]

snip

My impression is that tank warfare went tits up when micro ai was implemented. It is like the tank try to move like soldiers in a group. In ofp and armed assault it worked because the formation was more static, but when micro ai came the vehicles shouldnt have changed behaviour and kept the more simple ai. But it seems like not.

[Vasily.B 529]

I assume it's a bug, yes, or a side effect of previous knowledge. The problem with test cases that just place a few units and then say "Hey, look, they aren't that accurate" is that it never take prior knowledge into account.

In this particular case, we had prior contact, but the unit that shot me was not present at that moment, and was not in the same group. However, he must have had immediate knowledge of me.

This is a very problematic case to reprduce, really

Edit: Regarding the East Wind Campaigh, I had several instances of one-shot kills from AI which should not be possible, especially considering that the AI supposedly shoots for center of mass which would mean no headshots, but to score a one-shot kill with a 5.56 you need to hit unprotected parts

Actualy i can count on my hand fingers, when i didnt die by headshot. AI skills for shooting is 0.40 at my settings so whats is this? If i lover it, chelicopters will miss its guided missles completly. For now AI seems to shot inaccurate for first second or 2, but then - HEADSHOT! how...is this possible...every time?

About tanks : Agree this need tweaks off course, as i'm tanks lover, but stopped playing tanks and switched to infatry beacuse of tracked vehicles still works very bad. They seems to have problem with stoping the vehicle, and what comes with it - keeping formation. Imagine situation when you are driving tank, and leading the formation, you stops, and rest of tanks move further on stopped tracks. Then getting back to formation showing its rear to the enemy. Next thing i will never understand is famous launching the vehicle few meters in random direction. I killed lot of friendlies beacuse of this, and was kicked from the servers, and noone was understanding i didnt done this specially by myself. Next thing is this driving around, like turists. And then firing long bursts and wasting most of ammo in the air, beacuse first 3 shots kill the target, rest is killing friendlies or went to sand, fence etc. When it come to fighting on greater distance and seeing floating objects, cities, bases in the air beacuse of terrain quality, that makes armored warfare unplayable to me

[SilentSpike 84]

This is stemming purely from things I've been working on recently:

 

Might we ever see some form of "garrison" waypoint which has AI take up defensive positions within the completion radius of the waypoint?

 

Currently the scripted workaround is to issue `doMove` commands then waiting until `unitReady` before disabling their path AI. While this works, it's a very limited solution as they're fixed to the spot and don't reposition when in contact. This can be resolved by attaching some form of event handler to enable their path AI again, however then you lose their positioning once they deal with any contact. The only way to really keep the AI behaving as expected would be to spawn loops, but that's a surefire way to quickly kill your mission's performance.

 

Having the AI take up positions like this is commonly desired behaviour in my experience (so much so that there are many community written solutions available), but there isn't a great way to achieve it purely with scripting. A native solution would be most welcome as I'm sure better results could be achieved at the cost of less performance. Just food for thought! :)

[Ivanoff.N 61]

Hey.

 

The new CCIP feature is nice, however in some cases it is not utilised by AI, While they do a great job when firing a cannon with lead calculation and all of that, they do a poor job of utilising FFAR rockets (Such as the Shriker).

On the screenshot below you can see an AI flying an A164. There are 2 crosshairs present. One That looks like an X without the middle, and another one that looks like + with a dot in the middle.

 

The White frame square is the target the AI is locked on to. It starts to engage the target as soon as the X crosshair is centered within the white frame.

The + crosshair on the other hand is where the rocket will actually hit.

​Maybe it is possible to make them use the + (CCIP) for targeting instead of the X crosshair which represents nothing ?

 

Also Hellcat when ordered to attack a target (soft one like a zamak) just makes 1 gun run and hangs in the air afterwards despite target being alive and destroy waypoint still active.

[ivan keska 45]

Would be nice if the AI would fire on vehicles, because if an AI is in the 50 cal machine gun they wont shoot a BTR, Marid, or Marshall. Even though the 50 cal machine gun can damage those vehicles by either knocking out their guns or immobilizing them. And this would add a nice touch to the AI because in real life and in game machine guns and rifles do get used on armored vehicles, to not destory but damage vulnerable parts. So seeing Ai shoot out your tires, disable your turret, or if they have something like a Lnyx with the APDS rounds they'll try shooting the crewing this those rounds are meant to go through light plate.

Also this makes vehicles less of a win against AI, since not you can just drive around and run them over a lot of the time knowing they wont do anything you to unless they have a GL or launcher. Also AI if they have say any launcher from RPG to titan AT, should try to shot down helicopters. Because it's not unheard of for rpgs to be fired at helis and even low flying planes, and guided systems like the titan would be used as well. Because again AI just don't engage vehicles the way they should, by making use of the weapon systems they have to their fullest effect.

[Vasily.B 529]

Agree with Ivan. That also would require little tweak in damage parts in vehicles. I hope Bohemia developers read this - AA machinegun on tanks cannot be repaired - that complicates vehicle combat very hard - same on MRAPS. When AA machinegun is damaged - there is no wrench icon symbolising to repair it, when we are enginers. Please fix it by the way

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Agree with Ivan. That also would require little tweak in damage parts in vehicles. I hope Bohemia developers read this - AA machinegun on tanks cannot be repaired - that complicates vehicle combat very hard - same on MRAPS. When AA machinegun is damaged - there is no wrench icon symbolising to repair it, when we are enginers. Please fix it by the way

 

The action tests general damage to the vehicle   (damage vehicle) instead of testing the damage of all the hitpoints. might increase the performance impact for it to be testing all the hitpoints

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

Actualy i can count on my hand fingers, when i didnt die by headshot. AI skills for shooting is 0.40 at my settings so whats is this? If i lover it, chelicopters will miss its guided missles completly. For now AI seems to shot inaccurate for first second or 2, but then - HEADSHOT! how...is this possible...every time?

 

You can tell where AI hit you? Kudos, because I sure can't.

 

For that very reason I volunteered to be killed by an opfor AI rifle squad 20 times.

These are the hit results at 300m out in the open in VR:

[["head",234],
["face_hub",117],
["neck",117],
["pelvis",116],
["spine1",116],
["spine2",116],
["spine3",114],
["body",114],
["arms",114],
["hands",104],
["legs",68]]

Out of a total of 1330 hits, AI hit me in the face and head 351 times.

That's roughly 30%.

Hardly every time as you state it.

I'm sure that if I were to track my own hit zones at 300m out in the open I'd get more headshots in with a MXC and ARCO.

 

Cheers

[Vasily.B 529]

You can tell where AI hit you? Kudos, because I sure can't.

 

For that very reason I volunteered to be killed by an opfor AI rifle squad 20 times.

These are the hit results at 300m out in the open in VR:

[["head",234],
["face_hub",117],
["neck",117],
["pelvis",116],
["spine1",116],
["spine2",116],
["spine3",114],
["body",114],
["arms",114],
["hands",104],
["legs",68]]

Out of a total of 1330 hits, AI hit me in the face and head 351 times.

That's roughly 30%.

Hardly every time as you state it.

I'm sure that if I were to track my own hit zones at 300m out in the open I'd get more headshots in with a MXC and ARCO.

 

Cheers

After one hit while i had heavy armed vest they could kill me only by headshot. Off course ~300-400M.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

How are you so sure that you have been hit in the head I'm wondering?

You can die if they shoot your legs or hands too.

So how can you tell they hit you in the head?

Heavy vest doesn't say anything, need to be more specific than that. Most vests beside the Carrier GL rigs leave arms, parts of the neck/shoulders and lower torso/legs exposed.

 

Cheers

[Vasily.B 529]

But from Kotiba (or katiba)? and 400M? They would shot me instead of killing, like in RL, they cannot insant kill you by shooting in leg or hand.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

Are you complaining being shot in the head at that distance or that a katiba shouldn't be able to headshot you at that distance?

Or that a 6.5mm round to the head is lethal at 400m?

 

You can hit targets with ironsights of the katiba at 500m with ease. You won't deal headshots at that distance all the time, but neither does the AI. Feel free to prove me otherwise with a repro mission or video.

 

If you place yourself on the map 50m behind a hostile unit (that's looking away from you) and fire one round, stop the time how long it takes for them to hit you.

At most it takes 10 to 20 seconds.

A somewhat routined player would be way faster.

 

Feel free to see for yourself.

 

Cheers

[das attorney 858]

Hi GOM,

 

Interesting numbers - they do dispel the "EVERY TIME IN THE FACE" stuff that some people seem to complain of, but they still don't agree with what you would expect to find IRL.  When you look at "legs" hits, they're only 68 out of 1330 (5%) which seems low when you think that legs make up 40% (ish) of your profile to the shooter.

 

I suppose the AI are trying to shoot either head or center of mass, but it seems way too low given that legs are a huge chunk of flesh and comparable in size to the torso and arms.