AI Discussion (dev branch)

[tuplas 10]

please always when you post videos of AI fails, include the repro mission download with it (and upload these repro missions to Feedback tracker) , thanks

Posted repro to feedback tracker

[mr_centipede 31]

It would also helps if you could post the link to feedback tracker, so we the rest of the forumers can look at it and vote it up, so the devs can took interest/notice it

[tuplas 10]

It would also helps if you could post the link to feedback tracker, so we the rest of the forumers can look at it and vote it up, so the devs can took interest/notice it

Couple posts up, but here it is again. http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=11758

[Tyl3r99 41]

@developerssss

the divers ammunation consists of 2 types...

- duel purpose (UW)

- Stagnag (above water)

the AI does not know when to change the ammunition around when in the appropriate areas.

they simply get there pistol out which couldnt kill a fly :P

[metalcraze 290]

I think because of the ton of the issues with AI we are forgetting another important one that now makes AI even more harmless.

New stance system. AI can't use it and it will always be exposed whereas a player will have a really easy time killing AI by just exposing little more than a weapon. I bet there are people who've noticed this among you.

[dmarkwick 261]

I think because of the ton of the issues with AI we are forgetting another important one that now makes AI even more harmless.

New stance system. AI can't use it and it will always be exposed whereas a player will have a really easy time killing AI by just exposing little more than a weapon. I bet there are people who've noticed this among you.

To be fair - that's always going to happen. A player will always have the advantage about choosing great firing positions, and happened even before the new stance system.

[old_painless 182]

True, but metalcraze has a good point- ideally they would consider their stance from a knowledge of what / how big the cover is. Ie. sandbag=standing, rock=crouch etc

[Shagulon 1]

I don't think that this would be a good idea. It would result in player groups extremely dominating over the AI.

Introduce AI supression and firefights will become longer.

Reducing AI accuracy would be great if they upped the difficulty of using weapons for the player. At the moment due to lots of people complaining, recoil is pretty minimal, and it is too easy hold a weapon steady even when standing. Heavy weapons handle the same as SMGs and it is generally a little too easy to hit things. Things can be balanced if the AI has its accuracy reduced no problem.

[progamer 14]

AI can navigate without NVGs and spot and shoot at targets like they have NVGS

---------- Post added at 23:22 ---------- Previous post was at 22:50 ----------

Playing around with light levels and giving the AI flashlights, I found they actually use them but also use them at long range engagements. They activate the flashlight as soon as they spot the enemy, which allows the enemy to spot them as well. They also spin around showing the enemy were the teammates fighting along side him are.

Made a ticket so devs can do something about this issue:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12363

[Varanon 892]

AI can navigate without NVGs and spot and shoot at targets like they have NVGS

Wasn't that a problem of the vanilla Arma 2 units ? Errors in the config entries IIRC...

[Wiki 1558]

Reducing AI accuracy would be great if they upped the difficulty of using weapons for the player. At the moment due to lots of people complaining, recoil is pretty minimal, and it is too easy hold a weapon steady even when standing. Heavy weapons handle the same as SMGs and it is generally a little too easy to hit things. Things can be balanced if the AI has its accuracy reduced no problem.

I agree more or less with you.

Recoil in ArmA was pretty good, they should have kept it.

No need to increass it very much.

[Azzur33 1]

AI still need some driving lessons

Use only "Safe" waypoints when the idea is to move multiple vehicles along the roads. Or if playing as a leader, order them to "Relax".

Otherwise they'll try desperately get on the formation, and that produces most of the "odd behaviour" on the roads.

It can't be helped, because they need to be able to be on formation when they are attacking or being attacked.

Formation "Column" is not actually for column driving on the road. Units, infantry or vehicles, form colums when safe and on the road automatically.

AI needs some driving lessons, but column driving is pretty much working right now, so there is no reason to concentrate to it too much.

It's the obstacle handling which needs some love now (especially with the numerous rocks on Statis).

And the gas pedal using and steering, too. I use Analog controller (which, by the way, makes driving in Arma a pure joy, recommended), so I can move from veerry slow all the way to full speed seamlessly, and steer very precisely.

...while Arma AI vehicles look like they are controlled by an amateur with a Keyboard.

So they do exaggerate their moves, turning too much, backing up too fast, making way too big corrections and screeching the brakes.

That makes AI perform badly (and look very stupid) in situations where there is not much space around.

Can anything be done about it?

Edited August 5, 2013 by Azzur33

[Tonci87 163]

I agree more or less with you.

Recoil in ArmA was pretty good, they should have kept it.

No need to increass it very much.

The weapon handling was terrible and extremely unrealistic.

It may be that the recoil was kind of ok but the continuous climb of the rifle was not.

[Varanon 892]

It's the obstacle handling which needs some love now (especially with the numerous rocks on Statis).

Column driving and obstacle handling are interlinked, though. At one point, if a car slows down due to an obstacle, it becomes an obstacle, making the following vehicle steer to the side. In these situations, column driving needs improvement, since it shouldn't try to evade, but break and stay behind the other vehicle.

Obstacle handling in general needs a lot of love, indeed. Currently, when driving along a road that changes from, say, tarmac to dirt, the new road piece is initially also seen as an obstacle. You will notice this when you have a convoy drive over such a road change, they will break and/or steer to the side before realizing that there is a new road piece in front of them.

Also, men and animals should have the natural tendency to flee when a vehicle approaches. The fact that class Man AI will simply stand in front of vehicles or slowly walk past them is not only pretty unrealistic, but also a frequent problem for driving in urban areas.

[Azzur33 1]

when driving along a road that changes from, say, tarmac to dirt, the new road piece is initially also seen as an obstacle.

Sounds weird, I have to test that too. The worst kind of obstacles that really break everything are the damn rocks. I've been testing the convoy ambush scenarios, and usually when things go really wrong, the convoy don't get back on the road, and a group of vehicles are lost far behind, the reason is that one (or more) of them is trying to push through a big rock and others are waiting for him/them to get moving.

AI should know that when the tires are rolling, but the speed is zero, something is not right.

[Wiki 1558]

Again, the AI pathfinding...

I hope it will be fixed soon.

BTW, if they can fix it / make AI have a better driving skill, will they merge it to ArmA 2 AI?

It would be a good idea.

[Varanon 892]

Sounds weird, I have to test that too.

I tried again, and this time, they drove over the "gap" with no discernible delay or swerving.. I used Hunters this time. Then I change one of the Hunters to a Strider, and only the Strider actually stops, swerves to the side, and then drives over the gap.

[KeyCat 131]

Wasn't that a problem of the vanilla Arma 2 units ? Errors in the config entries IIRC...

You are correct, this was an issue in A2.

I've been out of the loop during most of the summer and wonder if anyone done any basic AI detection range tests like AI detection range day/night, ghillie in high grass etc? Also wonder if the AI still have it's spider senses which makes it impossible to sneak up (slow crawl) on them from behind?

The last problem made sneaky missions impossible in A2 and being able to move silently to take out AI sentires etc. would increase stealth missions possibilites alot. Maybe having one class like SPECOP/sniper being able to move silently or if AI skill is < 0.50 or something.

/KC

Edited August 5, 2013 by KeyCat

[metalcraze 290]

The weapon handling was terrible and extremely unrealistic.

It may be that the recoil was kind of ok but the continuous climb of the rifle was not.

I don't have any continuous climb of the rifle. I just push the mouse the other way which is in-game representation of a soldier applying counter-force to a weapon.

Go to youtube and you can find dozens of videos where people who don't do that have their weapon up into the sky.

And before you go "well durr soldier in the game should do that" - but by the same logic I can easily say "soldier should aim and shoot targets all on his own too". It's just as legit gameplay element as aiming and shooting.

[xendance 3]

I find it rather annoying that infantry moving in a column formation doesn't move like they're supposed to.

You're supposed to walk the exact same route as your squad leader, every single step should land the footprints of your squad leader. Most important of all: You aren't supposed to move sideways if you're walking towards the expected location of the enemy.

The AI fails to do both of those, yet they're both basic stuff when it comes to squad formations.

[froggyluv 2136]

Just wanted to chime in here that I took a much needed Arma break and played some RO2 Rising Sun for a bit -the AI is terribad! Sure they can do some cool cover moves and leaping but I just ran up point blank to a squad of enemy Japs who had formed a line at a retaining wall and they literally just all stared at me while I did that close my eyes and I'm invisible backpeddle. All without them firing one shot. Almost all FPS game AI is bad.

[Shagulon 1]

Playing a mission tonight, engaging EI at about 300M that is inside a watch tower. I noticed that he kept lying down to engage and firing through the metal guards around the tower, then standing to acquire the target again, then returning to prone to fire.

Some kind of in building or behind high cover check required?

EDIT:

After playing around an hours worth of domination tonight, I think I'm starting to see an overall improvement in the AI, seems to be going in the right direction. When they outnumber you, they seem extremely adept at pinning and flanking. Perhaps anecdotal but not too bad an AI, especially in trees.

Keep the improvements coming.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Shagulon

[antoineflemming 14]

I find it rather annoying that infantry moving in a column formation doesn't move like they're supposed to.

You're supposed to walk the exact same route as your squad leader, every single step should land the footprints of your squad leader. Most important of all: You aren't supposed to move sideways if you're walking towards the expected location of the enemy.

The AI fails to do both of those, yet they're both basic stuff when it comes to squad formations.

Well, that's not the only basic infantry stuff that BIS hasn't put in the game. I am still waiting on the ability to be a team leader with an AI squad leader and control my own team. Also waiting for AI to have that same ability and to see one AI fire team suppress the enemy while the other moves to flank the enemy. But that is advanced stuff. AI movement in general is something that needs improvement anyway.

[chrisb 196]

Three things:

1/ Reaction to the sound of gunfire, which in my last test they didn't do anything, here its good.

2/ Reaction to grenade explosion, unseen, again nothing the last time I tested, this time its good.

3/ Just a look at the general, first sight/engagement of teams. Here the teams use cover well and work a alternate route, good. (not sure regards the first guy in the team engagement, stood in the open, but ran it again after doing this and it was o.k.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKR4FE5o1w

All good, something is shifting somewhere, nice one devs.:D.

[spamurai 3]

Three things:

1/ Reaction to the sound of gunfire, which in my last test they didn't do anything, here its good.

2/ Reaction to grenade explosion, unseen, again nothing the last time I tested, this time its good.

3/ Just a look at the general, first sight/engagement of teams. Here the teams use cover well and work a alternate route, good. (not sure regards the first guy in the team engagement, stood in the open, but ran it again after doing this and it was o.k.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKR4FE5o1w

All good, something is shifting somewhere, nice one devs.:D.

Default AI setting are horrible.

There are actually several variables that effect the behavior of the AI, several of them in dramatic ways, but the options are not available without exiting the game and editing the config files.

Having only a generic skill slider and a 4 difficulty presets in game is not enough. In many of the cases I've read of players complaining that the AI are either too good or really bad; those issues are easily fixed... and yet we're on 3rd edition of ArmA and still these things get brought up and still go unaddressed.

I don't want to bag on BIS or ArmA... but come on... it's not like ArmA hasn't been around for years under constantly evolving development and yet we don't appear to have really spent any time on advancing the cause of ArmA's AI despite the rather important part it plays in the ArmA experience. I mean... we've made improvements... the AI have grown to see the ArmA world in more detail, but what I mean is we still have some pretty basic issues that have been around for ever and never get addressed.