[WIP] bCombat infantry AI Mod [SP]

[rome 0]

Yes, on the contrary whenever i enter a building in ArmA3 i'm feeling threatened by the engine.

---------- Post added at 15:26 ---------- Previous post was at 15:23 ----------

Thanks, but i have a wife and not even smoking (anymore) :)

However, my opinion is there's no chance we'll get effective indoor fighting, due to limitations of current RV engine.

Hahaha. Well ok.

Maybe one day BI will try to fix that.

[Bouben 3]

Hahaha. Well ok.

Maybe one day BI will try to fix that.

So offer the stuff to BIS then!

[bravo409 13]

Fab I have added ai skill arrays to each unit and it seems to be pretty good here are my configs for it and see if you see a difference ...I put arrays in there init field.....

this setSkill ["aimingAccuracy",0.2];this setSkill ["aimingShake",0.25];this setSkill ["aimingSpeed",0.85];this setSkill ["spotTime",0.4];this setSkill ["spotDistance",0.63];this setSkill ["reloadSpeed",0.5];this setSkill ["endurance",0.35];this setSkill ["courage",0.4];this setSkill ["commanding",1];this setSkill ["general",0.5]

[fabrizio_t 58]

Fixed in current ArmA3 DEV build:

Fixed: AI's selection of rifle and handgun

Tweak: Higher AI engagement ranges. AI snipers with GM6 should attack from greater distances.

Shame stable v1.08 was released before these fixes.

Edited December 13, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[fabrizio_t 58]

UPDATE

v0.14 being polished in order to be released to testers tomorrow.

[tpM 478]

For CQB, even just scripting a faster reaction for AI would be better than nothing.

[fabrizio_t 58]

bCombat v0.14 complete changelog:

v0.14
-----

Core:

* Machinegunners' behaviour tweaks:

	* Further Prioritization of shooting over movement. 
	* Allowed to spend more time shooting on target / laying suppressive fire from current position.

* Fleeing behaviour tweaks:

	* Custom fleeing disabled for groups containing player. 
	  (Done in order to avoid player becoming group leader due to AI units fleeing, potentially breaking missions)

*  "move to cover" behaviour fixes and tweaks:

	* Units may move to cover more frequently when suppressed
	* Units more likely to move away from roads when suppressed
	* Units may keep at current position even if suppressed, if shooter is NOT in line of sight

    NOTICE: Move to cover behaviour is optional and always disabled for player led groups, this is to avoid undesired movement of units [same behaviour as v0.13).

* "config.sqf" custom configuration is now enabled by default
* Over 40 configuration variables exposed and briefly documented into "config.sqf"
* Increased bullet suppression penalties (+20%) - experimental settings
* Improved tightened formation feature for AI groups
* AI leader won't issue ATTACK orders to units if enemy is far (over 500m.)
* On enemy contact units will crouch instead of going prone
* Units go prone more promptly when hit / wounded
* Units under fire may now crouch instead of going prone, when moving fast and/or being far from shooter
* Higher chance units alerted by gunfire / explosion events will investigate the event position, unless some enemy is already known
* Fixed bug into fast rotation behavour ( it was possibly triggered many times at once )
* Increased chance of grenades being thrown
* "fast move" tweak: a unit will avoid breaking formation when moving, unless some enemy is around. 
* "fast move" fix: units are now slightly less prone to bunch at destination.
* Revised grenade throwing distance, to be compatible with recent DEV builds.
* Misc tweaks and bugfixes

Known issues

* Sometimes units suddenly rotate towards wrong direction just before throwing grenades
* Unit rotation animation sometimes playing abruptly, e.g. instantly swinging to some direction
* Grenade throwing distance may be wrong on ArmA3 versions prior v1.08 (due to an ArmA 3 change)
* Units accuracy possibly too high for editor placed groups on stock settings, within missions created since ArmA3 v1.08 or recent DEV builds (due to an ArmA 3 change)
* Move to cover disabled for buildings, due to units being stuck there (due to an ArmA 3 issue)

[fabrizio_t 58]

Time for some final considerations about v0.14, before release and after some extensive playtesting on Assault on Charkia, as usual.

While v0.14 is essentially an improved version of v0.13, it does play and feel different, to some extents.

There are two kind of reasons for this:

1) many subtle mod changes do make some difference.

For instance a better ability to investigate means many nearby groups will eventually converge at once.

This is clearly visible in Assault on Charkia, which is not an easy mission anymore for BLUFOR:

OPFOR groups do promptly counter-attack and in many cases they're able to stop the enemy assault.

With the introduction on stop / overwatch autoriflemen and machinegunners act more as "covering" units.

They're quite effective in keeping enemy down, allowing for better group movement.

By doing so, they do attract much enemy fire, which ultimately comes with a price ...

Units go prone less frequently and crouch more. This looks more natural.

This means also that some "accidental" causalties, due to blind and sparse fire, are now occurring more frequently.

Raised morale penalties (+20%) mean units act more "under stress" and you'll eventually see them fleeing or surrendering when things turn bad.

The ultimate reason for this -experimental- penalty increase was to better control / cap the maximum volume of gunfire, which is now sensibly increased ( leading to more casualties ).

2) underlying ArmA 3 AI changes

Now (ArmA v1.08) AI is able to produce a higher volume of fire, with many units firing bursts / full-auto at distance.

This caused a spike in bullets/kill ratio, which is now about 300% higher, compared to previous builds.

Despite the reduced per-bullet lethality, the sheer volume of fire is causing usually many more casualties.

All in all i think v0.14 experience is being slightly more complex, for both the grunt and the leader.

In terms of overall difficulty, i think the bar has been raised, compared to v0.13.

Edited December 14, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[ebarstad 18]

Very excited to play with 0.14. I haven't tested much recently, but I really like the overwatch behaviour from your videos, and I'm looking forward to seeing that in action.

[lordprimate 159]

I am a bit concerned about this, "Raised morale penalties (+20%) mean units act more "under stress" and you'll eventually see them fleeing or surrendering when things turn bad.".

I have been noticing a lot of surrendering, as is. I don't think that trained soldiers would be giving up and surrendering as much as they do.. I often see soldiers surrendering in a firefight while most of his buddies were alive and fighting... this guy giving up definitely screwed the rest of the group... Any way you can do a check for friendly units, and have soldiers surrender only when the friendly count is below a certain amount..

In Arma 2 using GroupLink4 there are a few settings for ai surrendering. I had set it so that if there were less then 3 members of a team then and only then would the AI think about surrendering. Then it was down to rank.. Higher ranking units had a much lower chance of surrendering then privates.

Is there a way you can link surrendering to group size and unit skill and rank? well i mean i know there is a way , but is there any easy way in your mod? that wouldn't cause any issues? Just and idea, like i said in my testing of .13 there is alot of unit surrendering already and with your previously quoted statement, im concerned there will be too much surrendering..

Edited December 14, 2013 by Lordprimate

[fabrizio_t 58]

I am a bit concerned about this, "Raised morale penalties (+20%) mean units act more "under stress" and you'll eventually see them fleeing or surrendering when things turn bad.".

I have been noticing a lot of surrendering, as is. I don't think that trained soldiers would be giving up and surrendering as much as they do.. I often see soldiers surrendering in a firefight while most of his buddies were alive and fighting... this guy giving up definitely screwed the rest of the group... Any way you can do a check for friendly units, and have soldiers surrender only when the friendly count is below a certain amount..

In Arma 2 using GroupLink4 there are a few settings for ai surrendering. I had set it so that if there were less then 3 members of a team then and only then would the AI think about surrendering. Then it was down to rank.. Higher ranking units had a much lower chance of surrendering then privates.

Is there a way you can link surrendering to group size and unit skill and rank? well i mean i know there is a way , but is there any easy way in your mod? that wouldn't cause any issues? Just and idea, like i said in my testing of .13 there is alot of unit surrendering already and with your previously quoted statement, im concerned there will be too much surrendering..

About morale penalties:

this is an experimental change and indeed there's a chance penalties are overdone.

Personally i was comfortable with previous (lower) values, but some testers saw little to none yellow / red balloons in the past, so i thought this was worth trying.

That said, these values are not hardcoded, they're overridable from within config.sqf.

Hence easy to tweak, depending on taste.

I 'd welcome feedback on "right" penalty values from testers, since these settings are now documented within config.sqf.

About surrendering:

first some information: at the moment units surrender when many conditions are met at once.

These conditions include checking actual leadership, unit morale, enemy distance and line of sight.

In short some unit will surrender if -at least- all the following conditions are met at once:

* Leader's morale was broken

* Unit's morale was broken

* Unit is feeing

* enemy is near (< 150m.)

* enemy has clear line of sight on unit

So basically both leader skill and unit skill are already taken into account, as they both affect the morale hit being applied.

However actual "surrendering" configuration is just a draft, i have some further ideas on how to develop it.

I think your suggestions make sense, i'll consider them (i already thought about binding surrender logic also to group size).

---------- Post added at 12:31 ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 ----------

v0.14 released for testing

Gentlemen, you have mail.

bCombat v0.14 is configured to use by default an enhanced configuration.

Check out "config.sqf" in order to gather some insight on 40+ variables.

NOTICE: If needed, bCombat may be forced to run in "barebone" / compatible mode by commenting or emptying "config.sqf" contents.

This way you'll miss most of the fancy stuff, but it's granted not to break any missions.

---

About Stop / Overwatch: with debug balloons active, autoriflemen in S/O mode are identified by a second -black- balloon hovering upon the first.

Examples:

---

Awaiting for feedback and reverting to family duty mode.

Enjoy.

Edited December 14, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[gagi 10]

Will give it a try this eve : thanks for the PM Fabrizio

[lordprimate 159]

nice thanks for the update! downloading now. I figured that you had something already in place i just have been seeing a lot of surrendering within large groups. Off to test :)

[ebarstad 18]

I had a chance to run my test scenario a few times with the new version. There isn't much for high ground where my test is set, but I did see the autoriflemen laying down fire for their comrades. I liked the effect and it seemed like it served its purpose very well.

I also noticed more red and purple debug balls and subsequent poor choices made by AI that had them (e.g., running out into the open or turning their backs on the enemy).

The AI seemed to investigate and hunt enemies more aggressively, which I loved. Seeing 3 BLUFOR hunt down a remaining OPFOR soldier was really great, and they did it fairly intelligently, boxing him in on two sides.

I find that, in towns, the AI really spread out now, using a large variety of paths once the fight has begun.

I have also noticed that opposing AI are sometimes getting too close to each other, occasionally even running right past each other and missing shots from less than street width apart (5-10m). I think the recent change to body armour may be having some affect on this since soldiers can take a lot of hits now and can mostly just shrug them off. In other words, in previous versions of the game, the units would have been dead before they were able to get that close to each other. I hope the devs tweak the armour so that units aren't such bullet sponges.

A couple times, if one group spotted the enemy and hadn't yet been spotted, they would kneel down and just stop where they were, without engaging or going for cover. Then, once the fight started, some of the soldiers wouldn't react right away and would remain kneeling where they were. Eventually they'd snap out of it and join the fight. This is with less than 300m between groups.

I had one script error pop up during testing:

Error in expression <cklist) - 2 step 2 do 
{
if( _blacklist select _n < time) then
{
_blacklist set[>
 Error position: <select _n < time) then
{
_blacklist set[>
 Error Zero divisor
File @bcombat\lib\common.sqf, line 487

[bravo409 13]

I ran my mission I made months back which is in steam workshop called operation silent spear...Anyway it takes place at night well after helo drops you off you have to go to a highly populated opfor site to takeout weapons cache well I used my team in stealth mode and what I saw was quite amazing... There is a sniper tower at entrance of site so I told team red to take out sniper and they crawled all the way to the area. One team mate watched and the other team mate crawled up the stairs and took the sniper out silently which I have never seen in Arma I was so amazed hope to get some video of that soon. Then also Team saw opfor patrolling so I had them back to holdfire and I had them take a patrol out silently too I felt like it was socom all over again lol...Great stuff Fab

[froggyluv 2130]

Ran it with Infantry Showcase and honestly thats the first time it played out interestingly - sorry, but including your previous builds :p

Mg'er really did a number on enemy infantry literally suppressing an entire enemy squad of 4 or 5 guys who did a pretty decent job of crawling to cover. Firefights were drawn out but in an interesting back and forth of suppression. Early in to testing but this is definitely the best one yet.

[jake_krieger 10]

Hey Fabrizio, i would like to test your mod.

I used ASR AI during ARMA2 times but currently there is nothing really comparable to it right now for ARMA3.

Please let me know , im eager to give you feedback and evaluation.

[ebarstad 18]

Hey Fabrizio, i would like to test your mod.

I used ASR AI during ARMA2 times but currently there is nothing really comparable to it right now for ARMA3.

Please let me know , im eager to give you feedback and evaluation.

I think fabrizio_T has said he's not looking for more testers, but there is ASR AI for Arma 3.

[kremator 1064]

Hey Fab and other testers (and others generally interested),

Just ran a full session of Benny's BECTI 0.97 Stratis using bCombat on server (all on stable). Results were pretty great. Firefights were pretty intensive even with over 280 AI. Server FPS never dropped below 30FPS (as monitored with ASM).

So all in all, I think 0.14 is in pretty decent shape. I have noticed some AI surrendering, but only under extreme circumstances (ie shit hitting the fan and they are about to be killed!), but I like it.

EDIT: Doing more testing here and I'm noticing a LOT of hold fire orders .... is that planned (even on aware?)

Edited December 15, 2013 by Kremator

[GuantanaMo 10]

Good to hear it's stable, I'm really looking forward to this - the videos are great. Just watching the AI act is my favourite activity in Arma since ever, and it's absolutely incredible what Bohemia and modders like you accomplished. I remember how damn stupid the OFP AI was, now they feel like real humans. I'll run this mod with HAL and Alive as soon as it's out, for glorious, islandwide, dynamic AI battles.

Got a question though. How does the bcombat AI handle unknown (civilian) contacts? With other AI mods like WW AICover the AI is startled way to easy and runs for cover as soon as they see a civilian car, even if they are in safe mode.

[kremator 1064]

^^ not noticed them reacting ... will test it now for you.

EDIT: No reaction at all to CIVs .... enemy is a different matter ;)

Edited December 15, 2013 by Kremator

[fabrizio_t 58]

Hello everybody,

EDIT: Doing more testing here and I'm noticing a LOT of hold fire orders .... is that planned (even on aware?)

Thank you for the report.

No, it's not planned.

The only situation into which a HOLD fire is given is when some unit is fleeing.

It's very likely that there's some bug in the code there, i'll investigate.

Got a question though. How does the bcombat AI handle unknown (civilian) contacts? With other AI mods like WW AICover the AI is startled way to easy and runs for cover as soon as they see a civilian car, even if they are in safe mode.

Civilians and civilian vehicles are ignored, that's by design.

Hey Fabrizio, i would like to test your mod.

I used ASR AI during ARMA2 times but currently there is nothing really comparable to it right now for ARMA3.

Please let me know , im eager to give you feedback and evaluation.

I'm not accepting testers anymore, sorry.

Hopefully a publica alpha / beta will be released soon (fingers crossed).

Ran it with Infantry Showcase and honestly thats the first time it played out interestingly - sorry, but including your previous builds :p

Mg'er really did a number on enemy infantry literally suppressing an entire enemy squad of 4 or 5 guys who did a pretty decent job of crawling to cover. Firefights were drawn out but in an interesting back and forth of suppression. Early in to testing but this is definitely the best one yet.

Good to know. Infantry Showcase is a tactical no-go (advancing along the bottom of a tight valley, without scouting, in order to frontally assault a guarded village is probably not the most clever choice ...) if you spot improvements there, then you'll probably see them anywhere :)

I ran my mission I made months back which is in steam workshop called operation silent spear...Anyway it takes place at night well after helo drops you off you have to go to a highly populated opfor site to takeout weapons cache well I used my team in stealth mode and what I saw was quite amazing... There is a sniper tower at entrance of site so I told team red to take out sniper and they crawled all the way to the area. One team mate watched and the other team mate crawled up the stairs and took the sniper out silently which I have never seen in Arma I was so amazed hope to get some video of that soon. Then also Team saw opfor patrolling so I had them back to holdfire and I had them take a patrol out silently too I felt like it was socom all over again lol...Great stuff Fab

Cool. You were very lucky i think, This kind of stuff will probably happen once in 10 times.

Sure bCombat allows units to chase enemies into buildings, but normally bad pathfinding obliterates this possibility.

I have also noticed that opposing AI are sometimes getting too close to each other, occasionally even running right past each other and missing shots from less than street width apart (5-10m). I think the recent change to body armour may be having some affect on this since soldiers can take a lot of hits now and can mostly just shrug them off. In other words, in previous versions of the game, the units would have been dead before they were able to get that close to each other. I hope the devs tweak the armour so that units aren't such bullet sponges.

A couple times, if one group spotted the enemy and hadn't yet been spotted, they would kneel down and just stop where they were, without engaging or going for cover. Then, once the fight started, some of the soldiers wouldn't react right away and would remain kneeling where they were. Eventually they'd snap out of it and join the fight. This is with less than 300m between groups.

I had one script error pop up during testing:

Thanks for feedback and error reporting.

The error is related to cover blacklisting, it is possible that the issue with units close to each other is a consequence.

I'm going to address the problem soon, we'll see.

About stuck / unresponsive units: it's something i episodically saw while working on v0.14 on recent DEV builds.

After some testing on vanilla i noticed the same problem.

As far i know BIS recently reworked weapons switching and engagement ranges (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?149636-Development-Branch-Changelog&p=2576487&viewfull=1#post2576487 - see bottom of changelog).

I've seen many problems arise within last weeks, hopefully they will be fixed.

Edited December 16, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[lordprimate 159]

Scratch that problem solved my fault.... derp

Edited December 17, 2013 by Lordprimate

[fabrizio_t 58]

Given no game breaking issues arose till now (except a couple bugs in latest version, which i'm addressing) and since overall v0.14 recognition looked good (awaiting further feedback), i'm considering moving to public beta after next release.

v0.15 would be basically a maintenance / consolidation release, aimed to finalize the current set of features.

With this idea in mind i would like to get some feedback from testers:

1) How do you rate the effects of morale penalties within v0.14 ? They're overdone, about right, underdone ?

2) For those who had time to fiddle with v0.14 "config.sqf" settings: do you have any suggestions for differently balanced presets ? If so please expose them.

3) Do you think the mod is "mature" enough to approach production state through a public open beta phase ?

Thank you.

[kremator 1064]

I notice that units LOVE to use chainlink fences for cover. Of course they are completely useless (in terms of visuals and ability to absorb bullets!), so is there a way to get AI to ignore that as cover in bCombat ?

Regarding your list...

1) I think moral figures are just about right.

2) Haven't fiddled

3) I think so. Open beta will give more opportunities to people to experience the wonder !

Cheers

Krem