AI Discussion (dev branch)

[krycek 349]

Wonder how many animals you have in your missions if the AI has to avoid them too often.

@Bad Benson,doggy hostage hah,you sir owe me a coffee.:biggrin:

[PuFu 4591]

Rabbits & snakes are ambient and everywhere. So there is this "for sake of the game-play" reason.

But goats, dogs, poultry...are not. Blame the mission designer for placing them in-front of the AI. (The AI will still run them over by accident.)

Don't ask what's the difference between value of rabbit's & chicken's life.

Can this be changes by 3rd party via custom FSM or config entry?

[KEVINMGXP 20]

just a tiny concern, this may already be covered a couple of times however I am trying to make a night operation mission (black ops) after few hours of testing all the enemy positions it seems that they alert each other very rapidly, which is kinda weird... eg. one foot soldier is getting under fire, (weapon is equipped with silencer btw and I even removed the NVG's of the enemy to see if that was the problem) not sure but when under fire and shot down after a double tab "and even when you keep the enemy highly suppressed with no cover what so ever" I am not sure if a soldier will be able to alert friendlies 200m up on a other hill, will this be addressed in the future, its kinda game breaking for covert operations :s ....

any clue where it stand that the AI detection will be addressed? It holds me a little bit back tbh on the development of my missions ....

btw: this is on vanilla 1.00.109911

best of regards

Edited September 19, 2013 by LiquitHQ

[ProfTournesol 956]

just a tiny concern, this may already be covered a couple of times however I am trying to make a night operation mission (black ops) after few hours of testing all the enemy positions it seems that they alert each other very rapidly, which is kinda weird... eg. one foot soldier is getting under fire, (weapon is equipped with silencer btw and I even removed the NVG's of the enemy to see if that was the problem) not sure but when under fire and shot down after a double tab "and even when you keep the enemy highly suppressed with no cover what so ever" I am not sure if a soldier will be able to alert friendlies 200m up on a other hill, will this be addressed in the future, its kinda game breaking for covert operations :s ....

any clue where it stand that the AI detection will be addressed? It holds me a little bit back tbh on the development of my missions ....

best of regards

Well, if you can see them they can see you. Can you see them without NVG ?

[KEVINMGXP 20]

Well, if you can see them they can see you.

They should not be able to see me when they are upon the hill, I and my team are down bellow with no light ricochets in my back so in a night situation I would be in an advantage, they should not be able to see me that clearly, and as a matter of a fact they don't. They are not spotting me because they see me, they are only aware of me when I or one of my team members starts shooting at the enemy with silent weapons.

If I order my team members to target the enemy eg. a group of 3 (not carrying nvg's) and target each and every member of that group and open up only on them they should not be able to alert the enemy further up in a instant, this is totally not what the mission is intended to do if you execute your approach properly ...

Can you see them without NVG ?

Hardly tbh if I remove my nvg and my teams nvg's I need to be very very carefully where I go and watch every step or I even dare to bump upon them like less then 2 meters and they don't even spot me then (happened several times whilst I was testing the environment out) this is if I keep my fingers of the trigger, till the point like said when I open up on them, and then all the camps are alerted and that doesn't sound normal for me. ...

If I put them down before they can alert someone the other camps should not be alerted at all ...

best of regards

Edited September 19, 2013 by LiquitHQ
gramma

[mrflay 4]

They are not spotting me because they see me, they are only aware of me when I or one of my team members starts shooting at the enemy with silent weapons.

I find this incredibly frustrating as well. These issues in particular:

10143: Grouped AI is aware of kills even when they shouldn't notice

13493: AI is alerted immediately when a unit it knowsabout is killed

13494: AI knows about all units of the same side in the direction it is facing

It's possible to get around some of the issues using scripts, but it's no substitute for a proper solution.

[KEVINMGXP 20]

I find this incredibly frustrating as well. These issues in particular.

Frustrating is maybe a little bit over the top but in some situations it can be annoying especially if you shoos to approach as silent as possible and you still get overwhelmed by the enemy :p

It's possible to get around some of the issues using scripts, but it's no substitute for a proper solution.

This I will test out in a moment, I only hope the enemy will still react when I start to order artillery drops on the main target doh :p, but on the other hand if it works it will be a solution without mods

thanks in advance

best of regards

[KeyCat 131]

btw: this is on vanilla 1.00.109911

Try todays dev build (1.03.110218)! I noticed several AI improvements and enemy are no longer acting like all-seeing-terminators but instead they acted very "convinsing" when engaged from consealed position. They did not home in on you after the first 1-2 shots, instead they started to search around left, right and after a while they started to search high etc. before sending a few out to flank/search. Also noticed AI using smoke grenades and firing some shots in your general direction in long distance engagement.

Must test more coming weekend but first impression of todays dev build in SP was very positive! I also gained some FPS but since I'm on the lower end of hardware it was not a massive gain but nevertheless a gain.... Way to go BIS!

/KC

Edited September 20, 2013 by KeyCat

[HKFlash 9]

Don't ask what's the difference between value of rabbit's & chicken's life.

Whats the life value difference between the rabbit and the chicken?

[AlecDelorean 10]

@KeyCat

I do not agree, AI is still instructed to save ammo and turns in a blink of the eye to shoot you in the head. They are not wasting salvoes in the players direction, have not to fight recoil, they just point and shoot...

[KeyCat 131]

I do not agree, AI is still instructed to save ammo and turns in a blink of the eye to shoot you in the head. They are not wasting salvoes in the players direction, have not to fight recoil, they just point and shoot...

My first impression last night was as I described above when replaying my previous testmission from

this post.

Regarding AI using smoke and fire in my general direction it was another simple test and I did only see them

doing this once and they did not fire "suppressively" but they did squeze of a couple of rounds way off my position but it did happen and I was surprised to see stock AI pop smoke.

I only tetsted a few hours last night before it was time for bed so more tests are needed before drawing final conclusions but I did like what I saw and will hopefully be able to continue testing coming weekend.

What difficulty settings are you playing at? I perfom majority of my tests on Veteran with settings below and the AI skill slider in editor is usually set to 0.50.

	skillFriendly=0.69999999;
	skillEnemy=0.69999999;
	precisionFriendly=0.45999998;
	precisionEnemy=0.45999998;

Maybe you can provide a repro mission to show us in what situation you think they still are aim-bots?

/KC

[AlecDelorean 10]

Just grab a BECTI 0.96 mission from a server, start it in a LAN session (skill setting is 0.6 by default). Join as commander, build barracks and a command center, go into unit cam and switch to an AI unit's iron sights (a very cool feature by the way). Now wait until they reach the nearest town and see everything through the eyes of an AI, how they act and how they try to solve the situation. Usually, when i go into CQB, i'll switch to Autofire and aim for the center of body to make shure that a burst will lead to a couple of hits into the body of the target. In the current version of the DEV, u can see how the AI is going into single shot mode (rifleman and marksman) and aiming straight for the head. One day before release, we had the best version of AI in my view. In CQB situations, i witnessed how the AI unit i was watching, had to struggle with recoil in autofire and fatigue. One time i had a situation, where i was surprised by an Enemy popping up around a corner and we both emptied a full magazine on each other without a hit. I had the immersion that he was almost surprised as me and also had to take a second to react. This was the most humanlike behaviour i ever witnessed in Arma 3. And the AI popping smoke is not that rare in A3, i saw it all the time since the alpha...

[bullet purveyor 85]

I thought they fired smoke only when they ran out of 40mm HE and considered it a bug. do they intentionally place smoke now?

[2nd ranger 282]

No, it's like you said, they just don't know when they've run out of HE.

[KeyCat 131]

You could be right regarding the smoke, I just realised I used UPSMON script in that particular test mission so it was probably due to this I saw them toss a smoke grenade.

/KC

Edited September 20, 2013 by KeyCat

[windies 11]

Still need a better way to control the AI skill rather than just a global skill slider. I thought there was going to be a revamp of the AI skill section in the configuration, is that still going to happen?

[2nd ranger 282]

Well, you can use setSkill array. It's not what you'd call user friendly, but it's there.

[thx1137 10]

The mission designer can not prevent random walking chickens from crossing the street, you know.

Really? When I last looked the mission designer had to place them so it is in their control if they are near roads. I like mods that place ambient animals but that rarely affects any of my missions so to me it isn't major and if it is I put an exclusion zone down. I find ambient cars more of a problem. I guess if we have tanks we could run them over too :-)

My preferred solution would be having animals run-away from a running engine and/or gunfire instead of just plain old running them over. Realism with a cool effect...

[froggyluv 2130]

The mission designer can not prevent random walking chickens from crossing the street, you know.

Agreed. Animals must be lowest on the priority scale if say there were even the remotest possibility of danger within 1 click. Far better to have a dead goat than an impotent tank (dirty joke in there somewhere..)

[Varanon 892]

Really? When I last looked the mission designer had to place them so it is in their control if they are near roads.

They random walk. That means, they can always end up somewhere you don't want to.

[windies 11]

Well, you can use setSkill array. It's not what you'd call user friendly, but it's there.

Yeah but there needs to be a good way to set skill level from mission to mission, even ones that you don't create.

[KeyCat 131]

Just grab a BECTI 0.96 mission from a server, start it in a LAN session (skill setting is 0.6 by default). Join as commander, build barracks and a command cente...

What the dev's needs is specific and simplified repro missions (or a video), I know what you mean that uber AI can be experienced in normal gameplay but it won't really help the dev's to tweak/fix things, they need isolated test missions else things becomes very subjective.

After spending a few more hours with 1.03.111300 and using my simple mission here this is what I found so far...

1 shot killing the AI on the corner of the building run 10 times

-----------------------------------------------------------

AI behaved uber: 5 times

AI behaved convinsing: 5 times

Double tap (2 shots) killing the AI on the corner of the building run 10 times

------------------------------------------------------------------------

AI behaved uber: 6 times

AI behaved convinsing: 4 times

Only thing different from before is that I switched weapon to a Mk18 ABR so I know I could get 1 shot kills which is not possible with the weaker MX and what I mean with "uber" is that they instantly turned around knowing/spotting my position and killed me like terminators. The time the AI acted convinsing they would home in on me instantly if I fired again 5-20 sec after the first kill but thats more OK since they are alerted.

So even if I see some improvements I agree with AlecDelorean that AI still needs to be toned down. This considering that we engage from their backs, we are consealed wearing a ghillie and that the AI's skill sliders in this particular mission is only 0-0.40 (most AI are actually at 0). IMO if there was a ~5% chance the AI would spot you in above scenario it would feel much better.

/KC

Edited September 21, 2013 by KeyCat

[KEVINMGXP 20]

Try todays dev build (1.03.110218)! I noticed several AI improvements and enemy are no longer acting like all-seeing-terminators but instead they acted very "convinsing" when engaged from consealed position.

I tried it and so far I can not agree with this, they still act surprisingly all knowing while they should not be able to do that.

The planned mission that I am developing will be in a very dark environment (this is supposed to be for both the enemy as for the player and his team) not all the enemy's will have NVG's. The mission will simulate a deep recon where the enemy thinks they are safe. The player will have a team of 5, every single unit is stripped from their standard gear and geared up as I think they are supposed to be geared up for this mission.

Unit setup:

1: The leader will be a recon marksman, he will be issued with a chillie suit a ABR marksman rifle with ACC silencer 7.82 and 2 scopes, one Nightstalker for the night operation and one RCO for when it is needed in closer combat situations plus a IR attachment, he will have 6 ammo clips 2 demo charges and one slam mine, a smoke grenade 2 regular grenades and one green chem light a laser designator, he will be issued a NVG but this will malfunction at a certain point so it will be unusable. the player will need to use hes scope or hes LD to see the enemy, this will cause the player to slow down and use a more carefully approach to reach the main target. (or that is at least what this setup is meant to do)

2: Then we have a AR which will carry a mk200 also silenced with a MRCO and IR attachment. he will have 3 ammo clips at hes disposal and a functunal NVG.

3: You have also a Combat life saver he will carry the mk20 also silenced als caring a MRCO and IR attachment 6 ammo clips and a functional NVG as he is the CLS he will be able to heal the squad members.

4: then we will have the AT specialist which will carry the mk20 silenced with the MRCO and IR attachment and 5 ammo clips he will also carry a MPRL compact with 2 AT missiles, he will also have a functional NVG

5: as last we have a Demo specialist who is carrying the MX 3gl also silenced with a RCO scope and a IR attachment he will have a PMCL launcher with 1 rocket a backpack with 2 demo charges and 1 slam mine and he will also have

some GL grenades.

Looking at the gear you will see that each and one of them are equipped with silencers besides the leader they will have NVG's to keep the player a bit updated what is around him, however it will still be difficult for the player to maneuver freely across towards the main target, i tested it out on several occasions and it is doable as long if you do not engage the enemy but their is also a sort of a time frame, the missions target is a convoy which will be in route towards an enemy base, the player and hes team must stop the convoy at a designated target.

the player will have the gear shown above plus an arti unit available to do it.

The observation point is just above a little guard post where the player can set hes team up to engage the enemy, best is that the player tries to take out the few guards plant some charges to stop the convoy and keep it at bay, then call in the artillery to finish the job together with the AT launchers pointed to the armor.

The enemy has several camps around the operation area, some are upon hills where the player can clearly see their body's ricochets, but they will not see yours as you are on lower ground. The player can try to avoid these guards patrolling but this will cost the player a lot of time and the player will only have around 20 minutes to reach the target.

I want the player to feel this pressure, the problem with this is when you take out some of the patrols to make some room to maneuver freely towards the main target, the guards upon the hills are alerted and will know where the player and hes team is situated very fast. they will kill at point blank no suppression no searching nor popping smoke, I mean the mission will be called Pitch Black but this does not mean that all the enemy AI needs to act like they all have special eyes like Riddick :p ..

I play on veteran, with no third person. besides this I keep everything at standard eg. ai skills etc ..

facts are:

* The enemy does not spot you instantly (when not carrying nvg's) at night if you try to approach with a low profile, so this is not the problem and seems to work like it needs to work.

* I can approach the enemy upon less then lets say 3 to 4 meters without them knowing that I am there, AS LONG THAT I DO NOT ENGAGE THEM) and then whole the area seems to know about me if I do engage (which is normal if you make a shitty approach but when executed perfectly eg. silent take out then this does not seem normal ...

* the enemy knows about you when you eliminate a target to mask your presence (at night with silenced weapons) even at day time this should be questionable if the enemy or enemy's are taken out, away from another enemy unit they should not be able to know about your presence at all "unless they find the body".

* the enemy "when they know about you" pin points you shoots at your direction and kills you like they have (lets say special abilities)

Now do not get me wrong, I do like Arma3 and all previous tittles. But the AI reacts a little to all knowing at the moment and I only hope bis will address the issue soon, for me this is one of the main issues which are a bit irritating and game braking for such night operations and it holds me back to continue my work tbh .....

best of regards.

Edited September 21, 2013 by LiquitHQ
gramma, added notes

[KeyCat 131]

@LiquitHQ

Did you read my post just above yours? ;)

/KC

[msy 22]

Sorry, but no, AI should not ignore such animals.

Of course AI should ignore those animals because those animals ignore steel beasts first!:rolleyes: In common sense those animals should be too fear to get close.

In addition, can AI learn how to avoid of in coming vehicles? Even in RTS game such as RA2, footmen will make way when their tank passes.

By the way, if in GTA bla bla bla...