AI Discussion (dev branch)

[DancZer 65]

I totally agree that the biggest issue is the AI unresponsiveness and the player order rejection(slow execution). Because of this the player feel himself alone and frustrated on the battlefield. Which is bad.

[NeMeSiS 11]

There's so much potential laying there, just need to allow the player bypass the AI automatic "danger behavior", and the mission makers will bring the game to a whole new level.

Ive been thinking about this a bit, and what i would like to see is a second set of behaviour modes with modes like

- Defend (DisableAI TARGET/AUTOTARGET, and automatically enter nearby turrets)

- Convoy (AI drivers in careless mode, gunners in combat mode, currently impossible)

- Assault/charge (No such behaviour ingame, but a 'fucking hurry up mode while still able to shoot' is desperately needed)

- Default (Allround behaviour we have now)

- More ideas welcome

This would be seperate from the normal behaviour modes (safe, combat, ...) and you would be able to set these behaviours from the mission editor, as well as the command menu.

Determining when what behavior is desired is pretty much impossible, there are just too many variables. But making it easy to set the desired behaviour for a commander/mission editor would go a long way.

[Bouben 3]

Ive been thinking about this a bit, and what i would like to see is a second set of behaviour modes with modes like

- Defend (DisableAI TARGET/AUTOTARGET, and automatically enter nearby turrets)

- Convoy (AI drivers in careless mode, gunners in combat mode, currently impossible)

- Assault/charge (No such behaviour ingame, but a 'fucking hurry up mode while still able to shoot' is desperately needed)

- Default (Allround behaviour we have now)

- More ideas welcome

This would be seperate from the normal behaviour modes (safe, combat, ...) and you would be able to set these behaviours from the mission editor, as well as the command menu.

Determining when what behavior is desired is pretty much impossible, there are just too many variables. But making it easy to set the desired behaviour for a commander/mission editor would go a long way.

Wow, a behaviour/tactics editor for players in some functional GUI would be amazing! You would just set your own rules for your squad and then called those rules with predefined commands. You could then prepare yourself for whole bunch of situations with few presses of buttons.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Ive been thinking about this a bit, and what i would like to see is a second set of behaviour modes with modes like

- Defend (DisableAI TARGET/AUTOTARGET, and automatically enter nearby turrets)

- Convoy (AI drivers in careless mode, gunners in combat mode, currently impossible)

- Assault/charge (No such behaviour ingame, but a 'fucking hurry up mode while still able to shoot' is desperately needed)

- Default (Allround behaviour we have now)

- More ideas welcome

This would be seperate from the normal behaviour modes (safe, combat, ...) and you would be able to set these behaviours from the mission editor, as well as the command menu.

Determining when what behavior is desired is pretty much impossible, there are just too many variables. But making it easy to set the desired behaviour for a commander/mission editor would go a long way.

Agreed, been asking for this for years (mainly defend and assault). "Defend" could send AI in nearest buildings too.

[Variable 322]

Agreed, been asking for this for years (mainly defend and assault). "Defend" could send AI in nearest buildings too.

Although I'd love see such system I suppose the effort to achieve this would be huge. I think we need to concentrate our demands on allowing to bypass AI behavior in danger. Unfortunately, anything else is daydreaming in practical terms...

Once that is achieved, we can help BIS design a future system. Right now, it's dreaming of a palace when you are homeless.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Although I'd love see such system I suppose the effort to achieve this would be huge. I think we need to concentrate our demands on allowing to bypass AI behavior in danger. Unfortunately, anything else is daydreaming in practical terms...

Not that enormous IMHO. There's already a "find cover" order which could be re used. And the "assault" is basically a simple FSM close to the OFP one.

[NeMeSiS 11]

"Defend" could send AI in nearest buildings too.

Well, ive been working on that myself, but getting it to work well enough consistently enough in any generic situation proved rather difficult, while something like 'Dont engage, use static guns' is usually generic enough to be implemented safely.

Problems i ran into: Figuring out good buildings, especially before enemies are detected, calculating which buildingPos's make sense to use*, deciding when to enter or leave a building, ...

*Once i had this brilliant idea of lineIntersects from nearby buildingPos's to every known enemy and figuring out the best postions from that. Occasionally it worked brilliantly with units shooting from balconies all by themselves, but more often it took the AI too long and whatever they did would just be a pointless detour. Also, lineIntersects supposedly isnt very FPS friendly.

@Variable, i tried to keep the suggestions as down to earth as possible. The defend behaviour is something i already use and is easy to do. The convoy one needs some engine changes, as 2 different behaviours in a group/vehicle are not currently possible, but switching AI driver pathfinding behaviour for a single predefined condition shouldnt be all that hard. ProfTournesols suggestion for a simplified combat FSM during assault behaviour seems very elegant.

Edited October 4, 2014 by NeMeSiS

[old_painless 182]

The problem with swapping out FSMs for other ones, AFAIK, is that they are not all that govern the AI behaviour. I think I read fabrizio_t tried to exchange FSMs but still found that "something else" lurks down deep in the "engine" and overpowers the AIs mind in other directions.

Would love if that was not the case, as FSMs can be edited and managed, but it may not be so simple

[NeMeSiS 11]

I think I read fabrizio_t tried to exchange FSMs but still found that "something else" lurks down deep in the "engine" and overpowers the AIs mind in other directions.

Would love if that was not the case, as FSMs can be edited and managed, but it may not be so simple

That is correct. But they do govern a level of behaviour concerning the whole 'bounding overwatch' and stuff. If you let 2 squads run in combat mode, and you disableAI "FSM" one of the groups you will see a big difference in speed. Unfortunately no FSM at all makes them a bit too stupid for any purpose, maybe even 'run for your life'.

[fabrizio_t 58]

This has already been discussed back in the thread. And it's still a valid point, no doubt.

And also made possible by it ;)

To be fair that's true.

AI in ArmA3 is good, otherwise i wouldn't even considered fiddling with it.

That said, it has a lot of inconsistencies that seriously undermine its performance.

Often AI units struggle in order to comply to different, sometimes colliding commands.

Some better kind of task prioritization would definetely help a lot in this area.

Of course leader's commands should normally be top priority (hint, hint).

That said i think that fixing pathfinding and giving modders suitable commands for overriding combat behaviour alone would help immensely.

---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 ----------

The problem with swapping out FSMs for other ones, AFAIK, is that they are not all that govern the AI behaviour. I think I read fabrizio_t tried to exchange FSMs but still found that "something else" lurks down deep in the "engine" and overpowers the AIs mind in other directions.

Would love if that was not the case, as FSMs can be edited and managed, but it may not be so simple

Swapping FSM won't override lower level (hardcoded) AI functions / logic.

What i actually did was altering danger.fsm, which in my limited knowledge is some kind of high level "behaviour layer" triggered by lower level AI logic.

danger.fsm itself exposes some lower level environmental "events" and contains some very, very simplicistic code for AI event handling (e.g. stop there where enemy is in sight), which looks like drafted / unfinished to me.

The exposed AI "events" would be precious, but they're inconsistently triggered at times and also get ignored / discarded for the most part ( they're eventually processed at lower level, but i've no clue / no evidence).

Within bCombat i hooked some scripted logic in order to make actual use of events information, so AI gets better situational awareness.

Since i found some events (e.g. those triggered by hearing and line-of-sight checking ) to be lacking i modeled own scripted routines to integrate them. Sadly scripting this kind of stuff is not efficient at all.

Edited October 5, 2014 by fabrizio_T

[chortles 263]

The concerning thing to me is whether anyone at BI actually has deep-enough access to "that "something else" lurks down deep in the "engine" and overpowers the AIs mind in other directions", or did they all leave the company before now without leaving instructions behind...

[old_painless 182]

That is probably a factor in general when BI contemplates AI work. However, regardless of the level of knowhow available on the deeper layers of AI coding, simple release management protocol dictates that you should not ALSO introduce AI changes during a DLC release cycle which must run as clockwork (besides the absolute necessary for making those DLCs work).

[KeyCat 131]

From todays changelog...

Fixed: Killed unit does not disclose killer

Remember this being an issue eons ago in A2 and surprised that this bug raised it's ugly head again. Great to see it fixed and hopefully fixed forever! Since this probably explains some (all?) of the AI's terminator detection abilities I'm looking forward to re-test my simple test scenarios. Kudos to Al Warren for making the ticket...that I managed to miss :)

/KC

[old_painless 182]

Indeed. This should make for a more believable experience when confronting the AI. Well done on this fix !

-OP

[CaptainObvious 95]

Yay, maybe I can finally pick the enemies one by one in the dead of the night without alarming the whole base at once, good stuff.

[Alwarren 2765]

Kudos to Al Warren for making the ticket...that I managed to miss :)

It's Alwarren. One word :D

(Named after the city in Drakan: Order of the Flame)

And yeah, I am happy this is fixed. Was really bothering me.

[chortles 263]

That is probably a factor in general when BI contemplates AI work. However, regardless of the level of knowhow available on the deeper layers of AI coding, simple release management protocol dictates that you should not ALSO introduce AI changes during a DLC release cycle which must run as clockwork (besides the absolute necessary for making those DLCs work).

We also have to keep in mind the fact that, under BI's seeming policy that engine mechanics seemingly work 1:1 with AI as with players, AI changes may also necessitate/have to accommodate changes in other aspects -- i.e. in today's changelog, a change in "algorithm for rotation speed of the AI within a free-aim/upper body deadzone" was bundled with "a mass re-adjustment of dexterity property in weapons' configs".

[Bouben 3]

Great! I like the AI fix. However, shouldn't the group occasionally do SITREPs and therefore find out that somebody is dead/missing?

[old_painless 182]

That would probably be another "team management" behaviour, which would be very interesting to have in effect on the AI team leader. Say, Bob who is out far on the right flank hasn't reported in for some time, we are probably being attacked from that direction (or something similar).

-OP

[bad benson 1733]

Great! I like the AI fix. However, shouldn't the group occasionally do SITREPs and therefore find out that somebody is dead/missing?

by the sound of it, this is about the killer and not he victim. so dead units don't report the unit that killed them. at least that is how i understood it.

[Alwarren 2765]

Great! I like the AI fix. However, shouldn't the group occasionally do SITREPs and therefore find out that somebody is dead/missing?

They already do.

What happened here was that when a member of the team got shot, they immediately entered combat mode. With combat mode comes heightened awareness, so they would almost instantaneously spot you.

What happens now is that they only enter combat mode once they found out about the dead guy, which they will do after a few seconds.

[chortles 263]

As as importantly, with the resulting delay in heightened awareness they can't as quickly spot you, much less ID you as the shooter?

[Bouben 3]

by the sound of it, this is about the killer and not he victim. so dead units don't report the unit that killed them. at least that is how i understood it.

Oh! Even better then! Thanks!

They already do.

What happened here was that when a member of the team got shot, they immediately entered combat mode. With combat mode comes heightened awareness, so they would almost instantaneously spot you.

What happens now is that they only enter combat mode once they found out about the dead guy, which they will do after a few seconds.

Excellent. Thank you!

[Variable 322]

This is great! Stealth missions just got a huge boost. Thanks BIS, and keep up the good work!

[KeyCat 131]

Yes, this fix is really nice!

Having said that there is still the major issue with the ghillie suits being more or less totally useless against the AI. Even if prone hidden in vegetation and completely still the AI will spot you directly if they are in combat mode and within ~100-150 m, it seems all they need is LOS to mm2 of some part of your body between the leaves/twigs/grass to detect you!?

They act more like they all have thermal vision than normal vision and the problem gets even bigger when playing in hilly terrain like Stratis since LOS is obviously increased when climbing slopes/hills.

I know I repeat myself but a trained sniper in a ghillie suit can blend with the environment and basically disappear and would be very hard to spot even if standing on top of him.

I will try to come up with some new screenshots/repo but it won't be until after this weekend. Meanwhile see my old post here.

/KC

Edited October 10, 2014 by KeyCat