AI Discussion (dev branch)

[mickeymen 324]

On 09.12.2017 at 1:08 AM, LordJarhead said:

 

Btw one thing I actually missed, I recently have to delete all binoculars or range finders from the AI as sometimes they switch to the Bino/RF and dont switch back ti their weapon... and they some times end up being shot at without ANY sort of defense...

 

 

As seems to me, All need to do @BIS - is to use AI binoculars, ONLY if the distance to the any potential threat (may be any unrecognized unit)  > = X meters. But If the distance to the potential threat  <= X meters,  then AI should not use binoculars in general. For example, the number "X" can have any vaue between 100-200 meters.

Such a feature of AI could significantly smooth out the problem and make AI actions look quite logical, but it seems to me, that BIS already has not been concerned for a long time with issues related to AI.

 

IMHO

[LordJarhead 1725]

3 hours ago, mickeymen said:

but it seems to me, that BIS already has not been concerned for a long time with issues related to AI.

I'm sure BIS is just busy with their new development for the next couple of years. That's because only a certain number in a rather small group is still doing things for ArmA3. 

 

LJ 

[h - 169]

21 hours ago, gatordev said:

I don't have this issue when I switch my squad to Staggered Column.

Odd, for me the diamond formation is the only one in which the AI won't stay behind OCDing about enemies, even on combat.
On any other formation it's the bounding overwatch "Go I'll cover" stuff..

 

20 hours ago, LordJarhead said:

I recently have to delete all binoculars or range finders from the AI as sometimes they switch to the Bino/RF and dont switch back ti their weapon... and they some times end up being shot at without ANY sort of defense...

This....................................
The AI has a serious scope fetish so best to remove anything that can magnify from their inventory. And never ever give an AT with other than iron sights to an AI...
Or a sidearm..

[gatordev 219]

23 hours ago, LordJarhead said:

Btw one thing I actually missed, I recently have to delete all binoculars or range finders from the AI as sometimes they switch to the Bino/RF and dont switch back ti their weapon... and they some times end up being shot at without ANY sort of defense...

 

I've long since removed any bino-like objects from the AI because of this.  Something that never really go fixed.  I do have good luck with AI armed with sidearms, though.  They switch when in close range, though that might be ASRAI doing some magic, but I'm not sure.

 

2 hours ago, h - said:

Odd, for me the diamond formation is the only one in which the AI won't stay behind OCDing about enemies, even on combat.
On any other formation it's the bounding overwatch "Go I'll cover" stuff..

 

That might be what I meant.  Whatever the formation is, at the beginning of every mission, I just hit "`-8-9" and things go smoother.  I'll have to look in-game at what that formation is.

[LordJarhead 1725]

11 hours ago, gatordev said:

 

That might be what I meant.  Whatever the formation is, at the beginning of every mission, I just hit "`-8-9" and things go smoother.  I'll have to look in-game at what that formation is.

I think it's diamond because staggered column is 8-2 :) 

 

LJ

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

9 minutes ago, LordJarhead said:

I think it's diamond because staggered column is 8-2 :) 

 

LJ

 

im worried about you, that you know that from memory

[LordJarhead 1725]

B4-1 - V2 - V3 - V3 - V4 = Ak47, Kevlar with helmet, 2 flashbangs and He grenade in Counter Strike :) 

 

I guess at some point you just keep to remember things for comfort. 

 

LJ

[Vasily.B 529]

On 8.12.2017 at 11:08 PM, LordJarhead said:

 

I should try that, thanks man! :)

 

Btw one thing I actually missed, I recently have to delete all binoculars or range finders from the AI as sometimes they switch to the Bino/RF and dont switch back ti their weapon... and they some times end up being shot at without ANY sort of defense...

 

LJ  

This..... I have reported this some time ago (month?) after i saw in changelog it has been fixed. Just to be precise dear developers - NO, its not fixed;

 

[oukej 2911]

Is there any clear repro for the binocs or is it a random thing?

[mickeymen 324]

Recently, I have negative emotions when I play in Arma 3. Every time I throw the game with anger.
In the vast majority of cases - all this is connected only with AI ofArma 3, since it does not have human accuracy even with average game settings and is no longer able to do anything except how to accurately shoot!  

 

For example, With the settings accuracy of 0.3, the enemy AI hits me from a big distance when I am in front of a doorway in a building on the second floor at an angle of 50-60 degrees to the enemy!  Such an angle to the enemy forms an gap not more than 40 cm!, however, the AI  hits me from distance not less of 200 meters!  Fuuuuck!  The player inside building, feels less secure than outside the building! What the heck is this happening!?  Probably - this is done specifically to compensate for not the ability of AI to enter buildings !?

 

In the rest:

 

1) Part of subordinates will not execute the orders of the player-commander, for unknown reasons, very often the "Negative" will respond or simply ignore the order! 
2) AI will not understand the settings inside the waypoints that the player creates in the mission. I'm already tired of reporting this issues here and on the feedback.
3) Now AI almost stopped reporting injuries! For this reason, the player loses subordinates far behind the squad. 
4) AI will not understand the attacking orders of the player. For example, the player chooses a target and says - "attack" AI will say "ok, Attacking" and run in the opposite direction from the target!  As a result, sometimes the player should wait  more10 minutes before the AI starts a real attack
5) Tank drivers are not able to simply drive through an open space. Such a driver will find a one pillar/ old barn/low stone fence in open field (which still for some reason can not be destroyed under tank!) and will are trapped forever! If you can not make a smart AI-driver, then at least make the destructible obstacles under the tank, but you do not even do it!

6) The AI crew, will not leave the unfueled tank and can break any mission with tanks

7) In the hold-fire mode the AI AT-Soldier always unmask players squad, if he sees enemy vehicle, he will stand up in the full height and will aim into enemy!

8) AI-Pilots are not ables to fly up from the USS Freedom carrier.(Give him a poster - "I'm so dumb that I can not take off from the deck"!)

9) AI continues passes through walls and other objects.

10) The AI drivers of armed cars do not leaves vehicles, if they lose their gunners.(Give him a poster - "shoot me"!)

11) AI not able to execute the rearm/reloading command which are presented in the action menu.

12) The AI uses a Laser designator/binocular, when don't need to do this action

13) At the Waypoint, Seeek and Destroy the Search of AI-infantry  lasts only 45 seconds!  Lol!

14) Wounded AI soldiers wait for medical support in standing position. (Give him a poster - "shoot me"!)

 

This is only part of the AI problems. But when after this all shit the player gets a bullet and dies i not realistic moment this annoys the player doubly.

 All that AI can do -  is just to kill the human player, not more. What should the Arma player do?  Every year the player needs to beg developers to do any repair associated with AI!  Pl-eeease Fix this ! 

BIS please think about why you need it? 

Just start paying your attention to AI, as this is an important part of Arma.

 

[SuicideKing 233]

So.. related to vehicle accuracy:

 

They can locate and fire at targets very accurately while on the move, even at high speeds. Is it possible to provide an aim penalty to AI vehicles while they're moving? For example, when moving:

this setSkill ["aimingAccuracy",0.1];
this setSkill ["aimingSpeed",0.1];
this setSkill ["spotTime",0.1];

and when it stops, the skill values go back to what they were before this reduction.

Could also use a speed threshold (say, 20 kmph) or make it inversely proportional to speed (reduction of 0.1 for every 10 kmph increase and vice versa), but i don't know what would be convenient and efficient.

[Vasily.B 529]

On 12.12.2017 at 9:09 PM, oukej said:

Is there any clear repro for the binocs or is it a random thing?

It seems to be... predictable, but dont know what factor dirreclty is they issue
AI get binocs in hands in few circumstates i have observed.
- if they lost enemy from their eyes and dont see any more enemies (scaning are for those who escaped?)
- if they are low on ammo
- and in random actions, even in firefight, when they are in group, single etc.
It definetly need further testing, as temponrary fix i would put binocs in their inwentory, but NOT on binocs slot (just in vest, or in uniform)

[ZackTactical34 86]

I don't know how helpful this is, but when I play Arma 2 OA, using Ace2 and ASR, I noticed that the AI would sometimes use Binoculars if they detected the enemy off in the distance. Maybe a script needs to be added to the core game where AI pull out their binoculars if they detect enemy troops from at least 400m. 

[kklownboy 43]

ASR and ACE_AI.pbo are not compatible, do to a few ace thangs..., remove the ace ai pbo all good.

[x3kj 1247]

4 hours ago, phantom3013 said:

I think the best thing in the future is to keep things simple, the enemy and AI see each other equally day or night, nvg's or no nvg's and if the player wants to change things up, simply slide the skill level down or up to adjust detection. Simple like... how it was in the past. This doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

In their wisdom they eliminated the possibility for players to tweak AI settings (per side). Now its "all in mission makers hands" - they think that is the best way to achieve consistency and stability. Problem is: That's a huge responsibility. A big part of AI difficulty is already defined in config settings in individual weapons and vehicles (detection ranges, "stealth modifiers", what is shot at first) and its extremely often overlooked and i don't think there is much consistency there. Especially if mods come into play, as those AI specific values are super nebulous and not explained at all how they exactly work - so most people do not bother with them at all and either just set some values, or just copy from some vanilla object that may not even have the same or comparable function.

This is a big problem and it just flies under the radar, it can make the game worse without anybody even able to particularly notice it, unless he dives really deep and does comparative tests. Like your instance you happen to note one aspect by chance. How many other such issues are there that we don't know of/ can't grasp because of lack of documentation ?

 

And i still dont understand the removal of the AI slider option for players. Yes mission makers of story missions test with one setting they chose. Why not just use that as preset that loads on mission per default no matter what, and if player modifies it he gets notification that the mission may not work as desired, if the mission maker flagged the modification of AI sliders as not supported (per mission setting). In most completely procedural missions (randomly spawning enemies, friends, objectives) for example it makes no sense not to be able modify sliders. And in Script governed missions (cti warfare, ...) having AI sliders for the different sides is a boon as well.

[SuicideKing 233]

14 hours ago, phantom3013 said:

Since when does scopes determine if team AI will notice the enemy long range and shoot them?

That's always been the case iirc...

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

@oukej

 

could we please get an "attackTarget" command, if it isnt too much trouble.

 

Would compliment nicely the current set:

 

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/targets

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/assignedTarget

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/attackTarget    <--- pls

 

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T127789

 

In the below pic on profiling branch, you can see "attack target" returns valuable information while "assigned target" returns nothing. Would be big big help to AI modders/scripters, for things like frag/smoke throwing, suppressive fire, evasive movement, etc. At the moment we have to do a lot of imprecise guess-work which doesnt work often.

 

I promise to be extra nice through Q2 2018 if we get this! :)

 

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Following on from the above, heres an example of our struggle to find the "attackTarget"

 

This is in a "fired" event of an AI unit

https://github.com/auQuiksilver/Apex-Framework/blob/master/Apex_framework.terrain/code/functions/fn_AIXSuppressiveFire.sqf

 

With an "attackTarget" command, it would be as simple as:

 

<unit> addEventHandler [
	'FiredMan',
	{
		params ['_unit'];
		_unit doSuppressiveFire (attackTarget _unit);				// suppress the target instead of regular fire
		_unit removeEventHandler ['FiredMan',_thisEventHandler];
	}
];

 

I think others might be interested in this too, such as @genesis92x

[AveryTheKitty 2626]

Is there a possibility that a new paramater could be added to the ambient civilians module that lets us choose between Tanoan and Altian civilians?

[rangerpl 13]

13 hours ago, Night515 said:

Is there a possibility that a new paramater could be added to the ambient civilians module that lets us choose between Tanoan and Altian civilians?

Better yet, being able to specify the civilian faction you want so that you can also use addon civilians.

[Alwarren 2767]

On 2/25/2018 at 4:42 PM, Night515 said:

Is there a possibility that a new paramater could be added to the ambient civilians module that lets us choose between Tanoan and Altian civilians?

 

I second that. A list of factions to pick from would be great, possibly with weighting.

 

For the time being you can use setIdentity and setLoadout to make faux localized civilians, but that isn't a very good solution, and I don't think it works with agents.

[twistking 204]

Hi,

with tanks dlc shaping up nicely, i have two big wishes for further AI improvments related to tanks.

I'm not on dev branch myself but i read the changelogs and could not find mentioning of these issuses being fixed/improved.

 

1. AI is super aware of crew being turned out and immediately concentrates small arms fire on turned out crew / holds fire imemdiately after crew turn ins.

-> AI should need a certain time to understand that crew is turned in/out. Ideally AI should be hesitant to engage tanks with small arms at all and maybe engage turned out crew only when in close proximity or when being engaged by small arms fire (ffv) themselfes.

 

2. General combat vehicle bevahiour / lack of basic understanding of tactical maneuvering and combined arms

-> i think that is one of the biggest AI challenges in arma at the moment and at this point every little improvment would help. Ideally the "arma magic" of putting down one blufor and one redfor squad in the editor with basic waypoint and having them battle it out should also yield realistiv battle scenarios if you put in supporting armor...

[twistking 204]

On 27.2.2018 at 4:38 AM, twistking said:

Hi,

with tanks dlc shaping up nicely, i have two big wishes for further AI improvments related to tanks.

I'm not on dev branch myself but i read the changelogs and could not find mentioning of these issuses being fixed/improved.

 

1. AI is super aware of crew being turned out and immediately concentrates small arms fire on turned out crew / holds fire imemdiately after crew turn ins.

-> AI should need a certain time to understand that crew is turned in/out. Ideally AI should be hesitant to engage tanks with small arms at all and maybe engage turned out crew only when in close proximity or when being engaged by small arms fire (ffv) themselfes.

 

2. General combat vehicle bevahiour / lack of basic understanding of tactical maneuvering and combined arms

-> i think that is one of the biggest AI challenges in arma at the moment and at this point every little improvment would help. Ideally the "arma magic" of putting down one blufor and one redfor squad in the editor with basic waypoint and having them battle it out should also yield realistiv battle scenarios if you put in supporting armor...

 

concerning issue #1: i suspect one aspect of the problem being, that the AI has to spot your tank (which is easy, since it's a tank. duh!), but does not need to spot crew, that turned out, but know instantly that crew turned out. the proper way to fix this then, would be to handle turned out crew as saperate target, that needs to be spotted independently.

if this is already the case, or this would be too difficult to implement, it may be enough to tweak some variables to make the ai act just a little bit less viciously against crew.

[x3kj 1247]

In general, having a semi-random delay on AI reactions to observed state changes would be a very beneficial thing to do. Like crew noting their vehicle is damaged and ejecting -> it should take a short time between vehicle state reaching "damage, please bail out of me" and crew actually jumping out. It would make AI feel alot more life like, instead of super-machine with artificially increased bullet spread. Mentioned this already in one of the tank topics i think.

[lex__1 422]

21 minutes ago, x3kj said:

In general, having a semi-random delay on AI reactions to observed state changes would be a very beneficial thing to do. Like crew noting their vehicle is damaged and ejecting -> it should take a short time between vehicle state reaching "damage, please bail out of me" and crew actually jumping out. It would make AI feel alot more life like, instead of super-machine with artificially increased bullet spread. Mentioned this already in one of the tank topics i think.

If the AI will spend more time getting out of the tank, he may have time to shoot at you. Perhaps even this last shot will be decisive and will drop you out of the tank too. Repeatedly it was on Mora. You shoot from the ATGM in Mora, the crew, the driver and the commander jump out, and the shooter still manages to kill you.