AI Discussion (dev branch)

[mickeymen 324]

@mickeyman - I agree about breakthrugh option - but i know this may be resolved in other way. Ac you place waypoint in editor, you can choose behavior of AI, they can fire at will, respond with fire, or ignore fire - this could be applied/improved in behaviors.

 

 

 

Never seen a significant positive effect, if you will use the different modes of fire. I can say with confidence - it will not give the desired effect.

My idea of a breakthrough - this is a sprint to a given point. But the A-infantry in Arma, generally very rarely uses the sprint (full speed of movement).

Thus, I sure, the command breakthrough (in the action menu for all squad leaders) and at same time the waypoint of breakthrough (in the editor) - is still can be a necessary addition to Arma.

[Guest]

I want ability to have units disregard formation direction without disabling AI components.

 

Reason:

 

Currently when you garrison units of the same group into buildings, they all rotate according to formation direction. We can fiddle around with doWatch, but I want to simply set the direction of the unit via script and not have them twist back to formation direction.

 

 

DoStop each of them and set their direction.

 

 

In the end, it remains frustrating to me when dealing with units being sent to exact positions in a mission that need to face a certain direction that all we have is:

 

DoWatch : Unit will probably Not actually face that direction with their entire body (because the unit will rotate its body only as far as it has to in order to be able to turn its head to look at the position) , which looks bad in combat behavior when weapon is raised and they are pointing at a wall instead of the open area you want them to face (although they are always head tracking to the watch position of course).

 

SetDir : Unit is merely 'rotated' like any other object to face the desired direction, which looks very bad when seen happening in a mission.

 

 

It would be very desirable to have a command that actually sets the direction of a unit to where they will animate to face that direction and truly face that direction with their entire body.

[froggyluv 2136]

 Good points on orientation -always been a little immersion breaker for me. Unrelated but something has always been off with AI's calling out of enemy in terms of orientation -meaning they still call out "Enemy Right flank!" when they are clearly only 15 degrees off center straight ahead. Im wondering if this error filters into other AI behaviours

[Variable 322]

Couple of points regarding AI orientation:

1. The order "watch" used to be not bound to a physical geographic point, but to a relative direction, e.g "2, watch 3 o'clock" instead of 2 "watch that position". It was extremely helpful since you could assign AI units to cover sectors while on the move. Now, the unit will keep looking at that point even though that angle is not longer relevant. The problem is emphasized by the fact that you can't cancel that order other than assigning a new "watch point" which will also become irrelevant the next time you move.

It would be best to have both options, when assigning the order to a point, the AI would look at that physical point, but when assigning the order above the horizon, the relative bearing command will be issued. However, if I had to choose I would definitely choose the relative system.

2. In OFP the AI reported contacts in relative bearing like in Arma 3 but they used relative clock bearings instead of right/left/front. There was a little clock at the bottom right that showed the current orientation of the squad so that reports, unlike in Arma 3, always made sense. Having to rely on such a HUD item is not the best design but at least it was useful. Currently, the AI contact reports are almost always useless. What would be the best design for Arma is AI contact reports by TRUE BEARINGS. General ones for close contacts (e.g "enemy soldier north west") and accurate ones for farther away contacts (e.g "enemy soldier bearing 315).

3. I don't think there's a problem with the calculation the AI performs when reporting contact left/right. It seems to be based upon the squad's orientation which slowly updates according the leader's body orientation. The problem is, there's no feedback for the player that shows the current orientation in a lot of cases, and that leads to what seems to be incorrect contact reports. As said, a true bearing system will solve that.

[Greenfist 1863]

Couple of points regarding AI orientation:

1. The order "watch" used to be not bound to a physical geographic point, but to a relative direction, e.g "2, watch 3 o'clock" instead of 2 "watch that position". It was extremely helpful since you could assign AI units to cover sectors while on the move. Now, the unit will keep looking at that point even though that angle is not longer relevant. The problem is emphasized by the fact that you can't cancel that order other than assigning a new "watch point" which will also become irrelevant the next time you move.

It would be best to have both options, when assigning the order to a point, the AI would look at that physical point, but when assigning the order above the horizon, the relative bearing command will be issued. However, if I had to choose I would definitely choose the relative system.

2. In OFP the AI reported contacts in relative bearing like in Arma 3 but they used relative clock bearings instead of right/left/front. There was a little clock at the bottom right that showed the current orientation of the squad so that reports, unlike in Arma 3, always made sense. Having to rely on such a HUD item is not the best design but at least it was useful. Currently, the AI contact reports are almost always useless. What would be the best design for Arma is AI contact reports by TRUE BEARINGS. General ones for close contacts (e.g "enemy soldier north west") and accurate ones for farther away contacts (e.g "enemy soldier bearing 315).

3. I don't think there's a problem with the calculation the AI performs when reporting contact left/right. It seems to be based upon the squad's orientation which slowly updates according the leader's body orientation. The problem is, there's no feedback for the player that shows the current orientation in a lot of cases, and that leads to what seems to be incorrect contact reports. As said, a true bearing system will solve that.

You can still assign watch direction North, north-east, east etc, but I really miss the simple alt-click too. Ever since it was removed I haven't used the watch commands almost at all. It used to be my standard procedure when moving out; one guy covers the six o'clock, one left, one right, and the rest look ahead.

 

By the way, the command can be cancelled with "no target".

 

[dragon01 902]

This still works with cardinal directions, not relative bearings. The "o'clock" system had the advantage of following your squad's orientation. That said, the way it did so was hardly intuitive and it occasionally did "snap" between two orientations. As long as all squad members were pointing roughly in one direction it worked, but after they spread out somewhat in a fight, it usually stopped being helpful.

 

There should be an option, besides cardinal directions, to set the squadmates to "watch left/right/front/back". IRL, this is usually done that way, from infantry on the march to tanks moving in a column.

[Varanon 892]

After spending over an hour trying to get an VTOL to land and deploy troops without crashing the damn thing into a mountain side or hitting light poles, or generally just being a total retard by approaching the landing zone at ridiculous speed with no regard to the fact that the waypoint it approaches is an UNLOAD waypoint, I hope that after driving AI, this is going to be another topic for improvement.

Quite frankly, dealing with those things (AI driving, flying, landing etc) is what makes mission making for Arma a regular drag.

 

Sorry for venting

[dragon01 902]

Yeah, I've been complaining about that since the VTOLs first went in. For using the VTOL in a mission, you could try the unitCapture function. It allows you to manually fly out its course and play it back using a different function (forgot how that one is called). It takes some effort, but as long as the LZ isn't dynamically set, it can work. Of course, that's assuming you manage to land it without crashing, which is not easy to do, either. It should also work for takeoff, to avoid the drunken wobble it usually does (the CSAT one really is a Russian skyranger. No Chinese would sit behind the stick this plastered :)).

[ceeeb 147]

Couple of points regarding AI orientation:

 

...

 

The direction reported is relative to the group formation, which updates only when the group leader moves a certain distance (taking up to 125m of movement in a new direction to completely change) or updates instantly when the group leader orders his subordinates to return to formation. The reported positions are also relative the group formation position, which seems to be the average of all units in the group(?)

 

This works fine when the group is all together, but things get weird when the group spreads out. While the AI always know the formation position and direction, it's not at all obvious to the player.

Eg; A unit can see an enemy 50m in front of it and the player, but the location reported could be "500m behind us".

 

My preferences:

• o'clock/left/right/front/back system when the group is in a single vehicle
• compass bearings (northwest, etc) when the reporting unit and group leader are close together (such that the bearing from both units is the same)
• map grids or bearings/distances relative to the reporting unit (including indication of such: eg, "200m north of me") when the group is spread out.

Ideally reports would also include reference landmarks (on road, near village, on ridge, near rocks, in forest etc, etc).

[froggyluv 2136]

 For me best idea would be to simply "light up" the squad member talking like a pulse effect when he speaks. We can already see their orientation so this would pretty much solve it. Also, cant believe we still have "enemy 75" as minimum even when the guy is 10-20m out. "50" used to be the minimum why go the other direction?

[Varanon 892]

 For using the VTOL in a mission, you could try the unitCapture function.

 

Sadly, unit replay does not work on dedicated servers, since the replay function uses a display to "drive" the replay (basically on every frame, etc). I reported that bug back in Alpha, with still no resolution

[dragon01 902]

Ideally reports would also include reference landmarks (on road, near village, on ridge, near rocks, in forest etc, etc).

*In the middle of a forest* Man NEAR that TREE very far. :) If we were to have that, the reference landmarks probably need to get a bit more detailed.

 

I agree with the rest of it, though. Perhaps BIS could use some elements from the "Official ArmA3 radio guide" they posted to improve reports, as well. I'm replaying OFP now and they pretty much hit all the "don'ts" in the in-game (both AI and scripted dialog) messages. :)

[Vasily.B 529]

"O'clock" feature MUST be applied in vehicles, specially in tanks.

[Vasily.B 529]

Its definetly something wrong - righ now i died 3rd time by headshot from distance of 500M from AKM infantry. They cannot kill me from this distance in any other body part, i was armored by west. Off course they ignored my teammates and fired only to me, my teammates was walking straight in front of me so i wasnt able to shoot at enemy, but they somehow headshoted me. I cant believe any of explains from player that ai isnt accurate - its overpowered - they was militia with akm's. Mission was http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=702536274&searchtext=arteries           Arteries of war.

One gameplay per week and its so frustrating..... Slowly losing interest in this game.

[lexx 1363]

Isn't that a thing of the mission designer? Did you check out what the ai configuration in that mission is? Everyone remains at 50%? Hell, not even the official campaign missions are keeping the ai skill slider at the default 50% editor value. Usually it's 30% or even 20%.

 

/edit: Checked some files again just to be sure. Usually they seem to be mixing default 50% with lots of 20% ai's.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

Its definetly something wrong - righ now i died 3rd time by headshot from distance of 500M from AKM infantry. They cannot kill me from this distance in any other body part, i was armored by west. Off course they ignored my teammates and fired only to me, my teammates was walking straight in front of me so i wasnt able to shoot at enemy, but they somehow headshoted me. I cant believe any of explains from player that ai isnt accurate - its overpowered - they was militia with akm's. Mission was http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=702536274&searchtext=arteries           Arteries of war.

One gameplay per week and its so frustrating..... Slowly losing interest in this game.

 

Your "always killed by headshot" claims have been debunked here, in case you forgot.

Post a vanilla A3 repro mission, I usually get a kick out of debugging AI with my own debug functions, maybe some dev will looks into it aswell.

 

Anyway, since you claim being hit in the head, please do tell how exactly you know where the AI hit you? There is currently no way without using debug eventhandlers to tell where you got hit.

Elaborate what gives you a 100% certainty that the AI hit you in the head.

 

You continue to throw around exaggerated claims without providing anything that helps reproducing the issues you seem to encounter.

This is a forum to discuss stuff happening on the devbranch, if you have issues dying in that specific mission you might want to contact the mission maker.

 

Cheers

[Variable 322]

Elaborate what gives you a 100% certainty that the AI hit you in the head.

I believe that the fact he was wearing a vest and died from a single shot tells him that it was a headshot.

Vasily, what's your AI skill and precision levels? I also feel that the AI is way too accurate on the default 0.5 levels. What I don't get is why BIS, that is so occupied with making the game "accessible" does not change that (making the 50% precision less accurate). I think that's the primary block for making the game accessible for new players.

We run a server with veteran players and have the AI precision level on 0.2, that tells a lot.

[haleks 8212]

@Vasily : what vest were you wearing?

 

@Variable : The thing is, AI precision is also affected by environment and weather. I tend to do scenarios with limited visibility conditions and the default 0.5 AI level : most of the time the firefights I get into feel "fair".

Usually, when doing stupid heroic actions like running across the street to heal someone, I know I have a 50/50 chance to make it. Not bad.

 

It sure isn't perfect yet (I saw yet another "180° degrees no-scope", yesterday). The problem, maybe, is how the AI levels scale with visibility conditions; the way it affects them seems off-balance compared to human players.

[Vasily.B 529]

IOTV or something from RHS, its resistant to AKM caliber, specially from that range.
Moreover i was covering by the rock, so head was the only point that was uncovered.
My settings for AI skill is 40% (game settings)

[cosmic10r 2331]

IOTV or something from RHS, its resistant to AKM caliber, specially from that range.

Moreover i was covering by the rock, so head was the only point that was uncovered.

My settings for AI skill is 40% (game settings)

 

 

There are 3 components here imo

1- I recently learned the AI see us as a floating spine and head... therefore that is the only place they are aiming and this results in a lot of center mass shots depending on difficulty

2- As variable said, 0.2 or lower depending on type of units you are trying to simulate, your settings are too high even at 40% which seems counterintuitive i know but that percentage is not representative of hit percentage at all

3- If you are behind a rock and only your head is uncovered... and they fire at your position... obviously that is the only thing that will get hit...

 

as for #2 

i did some testing on hit percentage on various settings ... notice how on 0.3 virtually every hit is center mass rising to the head and the difference at say 0.1

 

 

from there you need to find your preferred settings...

[dragon01 902]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who sets AI accuracy to abysmal levels. :) Yes, the AI accuracy should be tuned down somewhat. Not to "can't hit the broadside of a barn" level, but to a degree when it can't reliably headshot you from afar. Also, I found that when firing bursts, they suffer less from recoil and muzzle climb than they probably should.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

If player enjoyment is important, I would not raise accuracy above 0.2 except when its appropriate (IE enemy sniper at long range, should be fearsome).

 

Also all AI/accuracy/etc is tied into FPS of the locality. If your AI machines FPS is higher than normal, should lower the accuracy. If FPS is low (under 12-15), raise accuracy slightly.

 

 

Also important is how many enemy the player is expected to be encountering. If only 1-2, maybe 0.2 accuracy is appropriate. 

 

If they are in a firefight against whole fireteam/squad, 0.2 can be way too high since AI tend to target as hive mind (they tend to all shoot at the same player, due to rating).

[Variable 322]

BIS it's clear that the current 0.2 precision should be the new 0.5. It's more important for new players' accessibility than a campaign with forced respawn and no saves ;)

[andersson 285]

Yup. Experienced players should tweak the settings up, now they are tweaking them down and all the new players are stuck with difficult ai. I have never understood this vanilla value from BI..

Edit: unless the mission creators in BI only play with recruit settings (which could explain all the hopeless missions I experience in elite where the design is to follow disabled HUD wp-markers....)

[Variable 322]

Tweaked: AI underwater detection

Is that for AI on shore detecting submerged units or submerged units detecting other submerged units?

 

Edit: unless the mission creators in BI only play with recruit settings (which could explain all the hopeless missions I experience in elite where the design is to follow disabled HUD wp-markers....)

From videos we've seen them playing, I'm afraid you are right... They play in recruit with all HUD elements. I'm not sure they keep in mind veteran players that play without when they design missions. I hope I'm wrong on that.