AI Discussion (dev branch)

[Guest]

On 6/21/2017 at 9:17 AM, froggyluv said:

 

 While I do agree Arma AI is unique and has some strengths when using groups -there are just too many neglected areas to give it glowing reviews. Buildings -I get it -they are tough to utilize in such a sandboxed environment for such variabled sized groups. Most games lock you into a small 4 man unit or whatever -so building maneuvering is scaled and designed exactly for that. That doesnt excuse however the need for terrain designers to be  working tightly with the AI team (exists?) in determining how windows should be place according to different stances and what purpose does a half window server? Or a panel thru a window obstructing AI's view  How parts of the city's GROUND landscape is not accessible at all by AI units leaving a Player led unit to navigate thru a frustrating morass of ground.

 

 But even larger than these issues is animations and orientation. Gun fights, city street fights -are won by your team having the first mark on the other. Plain and simple. If your squad is moving East runs into a team moving West -your units should be facing East 98% time! But they dont. Upon first contact, sure cover if around is needed but why would your squad members start laying down and covering West, SouthWest,Northwest etc.. or be facing East only to stand up and run West getting shot in the back? How is tactical planning relevant when this happens -and it happens every gun battle.

 

In an outdoor field battle with multiple attacking squads from various directions -the above would make some sense - theoretically scanning for flanking enemies. But on crowded , tighter streets it looks and plays out awful -all men should orient themselves toward the only known threat direction. If they run for cover they should either sprint and then reorient, or walk in a manner keepin their eyes on target. The swiveling animation with sights always up also makes this look very bad and robot-y.

 

If Tac-Ops DLC is designed as rumored to be for the SP and tactical minded -these are the things that are needed -not cool flashlights, flashbangs or plastic wrist cuffs - but newer and improved functionality of the AI squad

 

Yes, I've seen units in a group facing strange directions sometimes as well shortly after an engagement - I'm not completely sure this is even desired in even more outdoor areas - at least if it is, maybe there should be more of a delay before them facing directions offset from the direction of the known enemy position.

 

The only way I've seen to separate open environment Ai combat behavior from urban style Ai combat behavior is to either have a new Ai script command that toggles urban combat behavior on/off for a group - and/or place-able modules with a radius one can set for denoting towns/cities as indeed urban areas, and allowing the Ai combat behavior switching to be autonomous.

 

When the Urban combat behavior is on:

 

Of course if there already is LOS between the opposing forces, then they should just face and shoot - if there is *not* LOS - then there can be a bit more involved, as of course one does not want units facing walls and whatnot -

 

Below is a picture of a somewhat simple 3d line drawing system for Ai units to face the nearest valid 'watch direction' in correlation to the actual position of a known enemy -

 

 

 

3D lines are drawn at something like every 20 degrees around the units, with the first line drawn directly to the enemy, and then incrementally out from there every 20 degrees (compass - and I don't remember exactly what the degree value was) back and forth from both sides of the original compass position aiming at the enemy until the line drawn passes beyond 20 meters without connecting with anything. This significantly improves the chance that the units will face a desirable direction, but of course cannot cover every possibility. The Ai Modify system does this, the tough part there is that units in combat behavior can easily override scripted doWatch and SetDir commands - but if the developers ever decided to put something like this into their Ai combat behavior system, then of course there would be no undesirable overriding behavior.

 

Again, this could be installed directly into the Ai units combat behavior that is hard coded, and hopefully performance impact would not be much due to the minimal line drawing - of course there would be a fair amount of work done to put this into a truly dynamic script system - but I don't think it would be that tough.

 

On a side note, a similar thing can be done for units that do the occasional scanning - where instead of just doing a slow spin which can result in a unit staring at walls - one can generate valid watch positions around a unit and then the unit can incrementally cycle through the valid directions with short delays between each, giving the final result of a  'scanning' action - and there is a bit more involved than just this to refine it a bit, this script also exists and runs in the Ai Modify system - with the same issues of battling against the Ai's combat behavior overriding it where in the event of it being hardcoded this issue would not exist. This type of thing may also only be desirable for the urban combat style behavior. For urban style combat, some of the scanning behavior can imo be quite undesirable as well, like a unit scanning 5-10 seconds after losing sight of a seen enemy - at least this kind of thing could be turned off during Urban style combat (or maybe at least increase the time delay before it may happen by a lot), as it can result in the player easily being able to exploit this apart from it looking off - example: peek around corner - Mg gunner spins at you and fires, you duck back behind the corner - wait 5 -10 seconds - Mg gunner slowly turns, eventually faces a totally wrong direction - peek around corner again - take him down easily.

 

And - I know the picture I put there is no work of art lol - it does the job.

 

/Edit

 

Thinking on it, in the end it could be desirable to actually exempt more than just bushes from the line drawing checks, small objects like poles,etc and even some small fences that have big gaps between slats/etc would be good to avoid - downside to this is that user made addon items would not be a part of the exemption list - unless there was some way to mark objects as being 'exempt' from the 3d line draw checks - which could work well universally, making the script simpler by just checking on that instead of combing through too many items per line intersect.

 

Also, a limit may need to be put in for how far one way or the other on the compass a unit will swing and face before the 3d line drawing checks are ended and the unit is just left likely facing the direction they are already in - I think I had it cancel at 90 degrees offset so that units could not face more than 90 degrees offset from the direction of the enemy.

 

[froggyluv 2136]

 

 Masterfully put. This game craves for this Urban adjustment and its long overdue.

[Guest]

 

Typing it took more work and time than anything else lol -

 

After a year spent on the Ai Modify system, it isn't that hard to recall some of this stuff - probably alike others that have spent tons of time on Ai mods out there. Although I think that in many ways the AI in Ai Modify turned out to not be as dynamic as the default AI in Arma 3, mine don't flank, they seldom take cover, yet I do think the 3D line drawing in the mod does do some good stuff Arma 3 does not do - in particular regarding this topic the directional facing stuff which it seems is something that Arma 3 could actually handle doing for large scale engagements.

 

I've found during the time I did spend on my Ai mod that unit facing direction during different situations was a really big deal when it comes to improving overall game play quality. Although the Ai Modify deals primarily with one man groups for small scale missions of 'special forces' type stuff, the concept for 3D line drawing for units facing valid directions during engagements is pretty much universal in it's approach for any sized group of Ai units.

 

It's not really my 'forte' normally to get in depth into Ai stuff, but I'd like to see improvements as well to make game play better.

 

One thing is for sure, the aforementioned urban Ai additions, alike many Ai additions/changes, could either make a positive difference or could cause things to be worse than ever depending on how well it is implemented and tested out - trying to do something like this quickly and just let the players test it out approach could be a disaster.

[goko- 14]

11 hours ago, Beagle said:

Where is the mission for single player, I really dont care for MP anymore since MPs mowadays is mostly abut to ruin the game for other players either by strage behavior (for a military themed game) or by difficulty settings (either aracade or ridiculously difficult) What im missing for quite a while in A3 is the capability of procedurally generated missions for Single Player just like A2 had.

 

The editor does not really work for yourself if you know whats going to happen.

I miss arma 2 ai too. NEver had the same feeling with arma3 ai. A2 ai had overall more natural feeling and this arma3 ai feels broke compared to that indeed.

[ruff 102]

I've read somewhere in the Ai changelog that they've changed Ai detection so that if you're less than 10-15m Ai automatically knows your position?

doesnt this affect addons such as melee mods?

i thought it would be cool if you could sneak up to ai when their back is turned and do a stealth take down.

[Variable 322]

I've read somewhere in the Ai changelog that they've changed Ai detection so that if you're less than 10-15m Ai automatically knows your position?

Huh??? Where.

[Alwarren 2767]

3 hours ago, Variable said:

Huh??? Where.

 

I don't think this is true, in fact I am quite sure it isn't.

The problem is that AI hears way too good, and therefore most of the time notice you when you move closer. If you are lying in the grass in the dark and they don't have NVGs they can practically step on you and notice you.

[f2k sel 164]

They don't detect automatically each other you only have to put them back to back and observe, nothing happens unless one of them moves.

I would like AI to look around a bit more when they hear any gunfire even when same side, as it is now one unit can be  trying to kill an enemy unit but other units standing next to him but not in the same group just ignore it.

Only if they hear incoming fire do they respond, it just look wrong to me.

 

 

 

 

 

[CANADAVE 14]

Is malden any better for ai urban traversing and pathfinding? Bis seems to highlight the urban focus of malden and indicated a new process followed for the map. Could any if this indicate possible improvements? Need to check if malden is as broken as Tanoa.

Sent from my SHIELD Tablet K1 using Tapatalk

[ruff 102]

they 

12 hours ago, Alwarren said:

 

I don't think this is true, in fact I am quite sure it isn't.

The problem is that AI hears way too good, and therefore most of the time notice you when you move closer. If you are lying in the grass in the dark and they don't have NVGs they can practically step on you and notice you.

 

they changed it back so they can no longer detect you automatically if your within 20m -16 June 2016. Details below.

 

[Alwarren 2767]

4 hours ago, ruff said:

they changed it back so they can no longer detect you automatically if your within 20m -16 June 2016. Details below.

 

Are you referring to this line?

Previously the AI would almost always detect you if you got closer than 20m. 

 

If so, it says "almost" because, as I wrote originally, AI's hearing is way too good and is not affected by any environmental sound like it ought to be (neither ocean/generators/AC and similar map objects, nor "dynamic" sound sources like vehicles), so if you approached them close than that, you would almost always get detected.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

12 hours ago, CANADAVE said:

Is malden any better for ai urban traversing and pathfinding? Bis seems to highlight the urban focus of malden and indicated a new process followed for the map. Could any if this indicate possible improvements? Need to check if malden is as broken as Tanoa.

Sent from my SHIELD Tablet K1 using Tapatalk
 

 

Malden 2035 was put together by PvP designers for Argo (PvP), I don't think AI were high priority during design

[ruff 102]

1 hour ago, Alwarren said:

 

Are you referring to this line?

 

 

If so, it says "almost" because, as I wrote originally, AI's hearing is way too good and is not affected by any environmental sound like it ought to be (neither ocean/generators/AC and similar map objects, nor "dynamic" sound sources like vehicles), so if you approached them close than that, you would almost always get detected.

 

Yeah, i was gonna try a melee mod to see if i can sneak up to enemy ai. But they said they've changed it so hopefully you can sneak up to ai closer than that.

 

[Tankbuster 1746]

18 minutes ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

Malden 2035 was put together by PvP designers for Zombie /Life missions, I don't think AI were high priority during design

Fixed that for you.

[Alwarren 2767]

3 hours ago, ruff said:

Yeah, i was gonna try a melee mod to see if i can sneak up to enemy ai. But they said they've changed it so hopefully you can sneak up to ai closer than that.

 

I do have my doubts TBH. As I said, the hearing is the issue. Every move you make in their immediate vicinity they will hear.

[f2k sel 164]

If you think AI hearing is too good what about their ability to know instantly if a vehicle is a threat or not (crew vs no crew).

This winds me almost as much as AI driving. If you need to know if a vehicle is a threat just get an AI to look at it, if it's a threat he will let you know and if he says nothing your safe.

It takes out so much of the suspense having to treat vehicles as hostile just in case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tankbuster 1746]

6 hours ago, f2k sel said:

If you think AI hearing is too good what about their ability to know instantly if a vehicle is a threat or not (crew vs no crew).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alwarren 2767]

13 hours ago, f2k sel said:

If you think AI hearing is too good what about their ability to know instantly if a vehicle is a threat or not (crew vs no crew).

This winds me almost as much as AI driving. If you need to know if a vehicle is a threat just get an AI to look at it, if it's a threat he will let you know and if he says nothing your safe.

It takes out so much of the suspense having to treat vehicles as hostile just in case.

 

I was under the impression that the Sensor update was supposed to cure this issue. 

I totally agree with you, as it used to be (and here's hoping it no longer is the case), entering a civilian car, in civilian clothes, was impossible because every goddam chopper in the vicinity immediately knew that you were enemy and would attack you.

 

I am not sure, however, what that has to do with AI hearing. We can all agree that there is a lot of issue with the AI, but the topic was, specifically, getting very close to AI without them noticing, and their ability to ESP a vehicle doesn't even enter there :)

[teabagginpeople 398]

20 hours ago, Alwarren said:

I am not sure, however, what that has to do with AI hearing. We can all agree that there is a lot of issue with the AI, but the topic was, specifically, getting very close to AI without them noticing, and their ability to ESP a vehicle doesn't even enter there :)

I was taking out an arti position.  It had the big sand bags around two arti tanks. In order to get close enough. I disabled the mgs on top using rpg and 40 mike mikes. 

 

So guns disabled facing down but still able to swivel. So it's ability to see should be seriously impaired to the ground in front.  I smoked out the position and got close to the sandbags.  The gun followed my every move from the other side of the sandbags as if no sandbags existed or restrictions on its view. 

 

So I think maybe it hears me. (even being forgiving that it is inside a tank and shouldn't have full range of hearing)  so I stop. And start moving very slow using combat pace slow back and forth.

 

Now this Ai gun is down visually and I'm using the slowest movement setting from behind the sandbag. Without fail the gunner magically follows my every  move with full accuracy as if there are no sandbags and the turret was not restricted to facing down and I had bells and whistles on my boots.

[froggyluv 2136]

 

Quote

 

spotDistance

• Affects the AI ability to spot targets within it's visual or audible range (Higher value = more likely to spot)
• Affects the accuracy of the information (Higher value = more accurate information)

 

• One thing that would help would be a splitting of Audio and Visual Detection values so that we could add Audio-camo values to things like rain, wind, overhead jets, the ocean and running engines or even just a noisy battlefield.

[KeyCat 131]

On den 29 juni 2017 at 4:47 PM, ruff said:

 

Yeah, i was gonna try a melee mod to see if i can sneak up to enemy ai. But they said they've changed it so hopefully you can sneak up to ai closer than that.

 

 

I have sneaked up on enemy from behind many times and terminated them with a single 9mm to the head or used the melee mod to take them down. Key is slow crawl and sometimes you can get away with slow walk. Note, for some reason you can not slow crawl with pistol in hand so select rifle until you are close.

 

IMO the AI detection routines (for sneaky missions) has really improved the past 1+ year. Just played a mission where I had 2  enemies walking a couple of meters beside me while hiding prone and completely still in a bush (Tanoa).

 

But agree with Alwarren that they hear very well sometimes a bit to well.

 

Love your idea Fruggy! Could work similar to the camouflage command we got a while ago.

[Alwarren 2767]

3 hours ago, froggyluv said:

• One thing that would help would be a splitting of Audio and Visual Detection values so that we could add Audio-camo values to things like rain, wind, overhead jets, the ocean and running engines or even just a noisy battlefield.

 

I wish the engine would do that automatically. At least for rain and wind, it shouldn't really be a trivial thing to insert.

[Alwarren 2767]

2 hours ago, KeyCat said:

But agree with Alwarren that they hear very well sometimes a bit to well.

 

It's also that they do locate you too precise by audio alone. It's not that they just get suspicious, they immediately know where you are coming from, and manage to shoot you through a bush by hearing alone.

I suspect that the reason for that is that the AI in general doesn't really make a difference between audio and visual. Every cue they get increases their awareness of you, to a point were they don't need to see you anymore to pinpoint you :(

[Greenfist 1863]

I was just conducting hearing tests for AI and noticed that when facing the opposite direction they will recognize the target's side almost instantly if they're closer than about 50m and there's a clear "line of sound", i.e. no objects between the target and them.

They don't react to it and their knowledge of the target doesn't increase, but I'm absolutely certain it didn't work like this before. Although, I don't know if it even affects their behaviour in any way...

 

Repro:

◄AI  -------- ⌂HOUSE⌂------- ME    → AI targetKnowledge ME select 4 == unknown;

◄AI  ----------------------------- ME    → AI targetKnowledge ME select 4 == WEST;

[das attorney 858]

Also, couple of things about knowsabout/nearTargets I noticed:

 

1) Sometimes things like Logics come up in their nearTargets, which seems strange as a logic isn't a corporeal entity.

 

2)  If a mortar shell explodes near them, then the mortar is added to their nearTargets list (always seems to be a perfect position regardless of distance)