[WIP] bCombat infantry AI Mod [SP]

[SteveJA 12]

Hello fabrizio_T

I would lkie to thank you for releaseing your work as it is very gratefully received. AI has always been a fascinating topic for me but as we all know, Arma's AI has always been inconsistent in terms of ability. At times it shines with moments of brilliance and the next, it does not. I believe that you work has really pushed the AI into behaving more human like and more intelligently. For that you can really be proud for few people have manged to have such a positive impact on the AI's ability. I, and I'm sure a few others here, will look forward to see what other brilliance you can conjure.

[ruin 10]

Holy sh1t AI now throws nades and uses buidlings :) Man you are awesome!

[fabrizio_t 58]

Thanks to everbody giving feedback and to those taking some time to vote the poll.

So far looks like most people enjoyed bCombat, so it's likely i'm going to spend some more time in order to further refine it.

[twisted 127]

Im enjoying this mod. it seems it makes comabt alot more chanllenging. one of the must have mods for arma3.

one thing is i keep getting an OK dialogue in combat (thats all just the word ok) and i have to click accept to carry on. really breaks immersion.

[fabrizio_t 58]

Im enjoying this mod. it seems it makes comabt alot more chanllenging. one of the must have mods for arma3.

one thing is i keep getting an OK dialogue in combat (thats all just the word ok) and i have to click accept to carry on. really breaks immersion.

I'm very sorry for that issue.

I'm positive that's triggered by any non-zero bcombat_cover_radius second parameter values.

Easy way around is putting that second parameter back to zero, example:

bcombat_cover_radius = [15,[b]0[/b]];

Alternatively you may just comment or remove "hintc" command at line 506 of lib\common.sqf, not to lose any functionality.

Thank you.

[kremator 1064]

Looking at the poll, there are two noobs that have voted 'Very Disappointing'! They have to be kidding!

[potemps 1]

Becouse of this mod - I'm thinking now about buy arma III :D Tell my guys, how AI behaving in open areas, such forest etc. Do they have any behaviour when they spot a Tank or something ?

[Furret 0]

Will 0.15 be available for everyone to download like 0.14?

[fabrizio_t 58]

Will 0.15 be available for everyone to download like 0.14?

I'm evaluating how to handle v0.15 release.

I think best option would be a private RC version released to testers in order to ensure no critical stuff is broken, followed by public release within a couple days.

This as long as testers are willing to give further support for next build.

v0.16 will be a consolidation release, so private testing should not be needed anymore.

---------- Post added at 17:57 ---------- Previous post was at 17:51 ----------

Looking at the poll, there are two noobs that have voted 'Very Disappointing'! They have to be kidding!

I would like to know the causes of such a negative experience.

Maybe they'll post some feedback, it would be useful.

However, that's just matter of tastes, not everybody will like this.

Edited December 28, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[kremator 1064]

Of course we are here to privately test as usual Fab. Ready when you are.

I just can't understand those that put 'didn't like it'. Seriously? You take a basic AI and actually make it intelligent, and people don't like it? Would be interested in finding out who voted that way.

[fabrizio_t 58]

Of course we are here to privately test as usual Fab. Ready when you are.

I just can't understand those that put 'didn't like it'. Seriously? You take a basic AI and actually make it intelligent, and people don't like it? Would be interested in finding out who voted that way.

Ty.

Maybe they did't got it working, or they expected something different.

Rather than "who" i would like to know "why": any negative impressions can eventually help improving stuff.

However most people seem enjoying bCombat and about 1 thousand downloaded it without anybody cursing me (till now).

So far so good. Now i'm less concerned about open beta.

Edited December 28, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[rome 0]

Hey Fabrizio.

Some basic feedbacks on v0.14 :

1/ Awesome AI in Urban or Forest battle. They seem a lot more responsive and aggressive. They look a lot more human like. Good job on that.

2/In my opinion they throw nade just a bit too often.

3/In the single campain, with only bCombat and JSRS2.0 activated i can't pass through the 2nd mission "SItuation Normal".

When i arrived at the survivor group they don't react in any way. It could be a problem on my side though so ill keep checking.

Ok the issue was that Adams died from a grenade in mission 1. I did it again without having Adams killed and the next mission played well.

3*/ Adams can be killed by grenade in mission 1 when he is necessary to start mission 2 "Situation Normal"

Ill keep testing the whole campain and write my feedbacks in this post.

All in all, excellent job. If you keep improving the AI like that, maybe they will soon be able to fight inside buildings! :o)

Edited December 28, 2013 by RoME

[Ara6orn 0]

Fabrizio you made it!, I have played bohemia games since Op. Flashpoint and this is the first time ever that the A.I. is very smart and challenging.

Amazing work, definitively you have to get a job as game programmer. Thanks for making and sharing.

Diego

[kremator 1064]

I just set up a very quick mission (using my beloved VTS) with 2 rifle squads facing eachother, buildings in between. The fire fight between them was amazing (you guy HAVE to use Blastcore and JSRS :) ) I do my usual move into camera mode to 'voyeur' the action and I was astounded by how clever the AI was. Very intense action. The only improvement I could see was what you already have put into 0.15, which is CQB reaction quickening.

[gulag 10]

Looking at the poll, there are two noobs that have voted 'Very Disappointing'! They have to be kidding!

I'm one of them:(, I played Combined Arms, one of the showcases mission, and with bcombat in only two or three minutes the fight was over, it was like a battle between two snipers teams, I was the only one remained alive and two enemies. Then I used ASRAI, TPW and wwaicover, with some changed configurations, and fight lasted much longer, ~15 min. Don't get me wrong, with b-combat Ai reacts great, but fight it ends too soon for me. I'll try the new version and I hope to change my opinion, and thank you Fabrizio for the hard work. By the way, I'm not a noob, Kremator:p

[jake_krieger 10]

@Gulag you probaly have a very high precision setting in youre configs.

Fabrizio please release difficulty/precision config files or just the lines

to get bCombat properly and in a realistic way working for all users.

[gulag 10]

@Gulag you probaly have a very high precision setting in youre configs.

This isn't the problem, I noticed that with b-combat, they attack too fast and get too close to the enemy.

[fabrizio_t 58]

I'm one of them:(, I played Combined Arms, one of the showcases mission, and with bcombat in only two or three minutes the fight was over, it was like a battle between two snipers teams, I was the only one remained alive and two enemies. Then I used ASRAI, TPW and wwaicover, with some changed configurations, and fight lasted much longer, ~15 min. Don't get me wrong, with b-combat Ai reacts great, but fight it ends too soon for me. I'll try the new version and I hope to change my opinion, and thank you Fabrizio for the hard work. By the way, I'm not a noob, Kremator:p

Cheers gulag, nice to hear from you.

bCombat usually leads to longer firefights, one of the reason being accuracy is sensibly lowered.

May i ask you some questions in order to understand what's going on?

* Which difficulty settings you play on?

* Have you manually set precisionEnemy or PrecisionFriendly? If so, which values ?

* When you tried bCombat, did you had any other AI / skill mods running ?

Thank you, it was nice to get your feedback.

EDIT:

i've just run the same mission, on normal difficulty. I think all worked as expected and played well (so well that maybe i'll run it again and post a video later).

I was finally killed after 834 seconds (which is a little less than 14 minutes), when we were basically assaulting the compound.

6 men from my team were still alive, 1944 bullets were fired in total and 28 men killed, which makes for about 70 bullets/kill ratio.

I think there may be something wrong on your side, maybe bCombat is not running correctly.

Do you have CBA installed ?

Did you see the hint "bcombat XX has started" at top-left of the screen at the beginning of the mission ?

Did you saw debug balloons?

Care to retry and tell me the number of fired bullets and casualties?

Thank you, sorry for the amount of questions, but i'd like to get your issues sorted.

Edited December 28, 2013 by fabrizio_T

[kremator 1064]

By the way, I'm not a noob, Kremator:p

I'm afraid that you have set your AI skill levels too high ... and therefore I will still have to dub you a noob ;)

[gulag 10]

* Which difficulty settings you play on?

* Have you manually set precisionEnemy or PrecisionFriendly? If so, which values ?

* When you tried bCombat, did you had any other AI / skill mods running ?

regular, friendly 0.80 and enemy 0.70, without other Ai mods. I'll try again.

EDIT

Ok, I just played now, only assaulting the compound, I'm alive, (and not drunk, this time), with 5 men from my team alive, 680 seconds, fired ~2085 bullets (w 1486 e 680) 44 men killed.

well ... It seems that the problem (besides..:803:), was the "bcombat_config" file, I suppose, I did something with it, but now for me is solved, thank's Fabrizio for patience.

I liked how the assault occurred, they used concealments tactics and flanked on the right side of compound. Thank's again Fabrizio.

Kremator, don't say a word, it's a million to one......:Oo:

Edited December 29, 2013 by gulag

[bravo409 13]

Guys it would be nice to see what values people are running and compare to get a idea of good balance of bcombat. Here is mine but not sure yet still tweaking did 2 hours of testing last night changing numbers and all. What I have a problem with is this array thing I will post that to or rather my whole config maybe someone can help me balance this out and get a good fight. One point in tweaking the grenadier shot his grenade launcher in begging of firefight then he didnt use it again so I have no idea what triggered that,but that was nice. Also I should mention I'm new to scripting and coding so I'm learning this like most of you are by testing what works .........................................................................................................................................................................................................

bdetect_bullet_max_distance = 750; // (Meters) Maximum travelled distance for a bullet to still cause suppression

bdetect_bullet_max_lifespan = 1; // (Seconds) Maximum lifespan for bullet

bdetect_bullet_max_proximity = 6; // (Meters) Maximum distance from unit for bullet to cause suppression

bdetect_bullet_max_height = 6; // (Meters) Maximum height on ground for bullet to cause suppression

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// bCombat SUPPRESSION CONFIGURATION

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// Description: Bullet penalty

// Triggered: whenever under fire and a close bullet is intercepted

// Effect: Up to 5% of skill penalty is applied

bcombat_penalty_bullet = 7; // (Percent) %

// Description: Flanking penalty

// Triggered: whenever under fire and shooter is firing from flank / back,

// Effect: Adds up to 5% further skill penalty

bcombat_penalty_flanking = 5; // (Percent) %

// Description: Enemy unknown penalty

// Adds further penalty to bcombat_penalty_bullet

// Triggered: whenever under fire, if shooter is unknown

// Effect: Adds up to 5% further skill penalty

bcombat_penalty_enemy_unknown = 10; // (Percent) %

// Description: Enemy contact penalty

// Triggered: on first enemy contact or on further contact after area clear

// Effect: up to 30% skill penalty, due to combat stress

bcombat_penalty_enemy_contact = 32; // (Percent) %

// Description: Explosion / ricochet penalty

// Triggered: on shell exploding nearby, or close ricochet

// Effect: up to 5% skill penalty

bcombat_penalty_explosion = 6; // (Percent) %

// Description: Casualty penalty

// Triggered: when a dead unit from same group is discovered

// Effect: up to 20% skill penalty

bcombat_penalty_casualty = 25; // (Percent) %

// Description: wounds penalty

// Triggered: when a unit gets wounded

// Effect: up to 10% skill penalty

bcombat_penalty_wounded = 10; // (Percent) %

// Description: penalty recovery rate

// Triggered: once per second, if no penalty raising events have been triggered

// Effect: up to 2% skill recovery, halved if units is wounded

bcombat_penalty_recovery = 2; // (Percent) %

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// bCombat OPTIONAL FEATURES CONFIGURATION

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// Description: fast movement

// Triggered: if active and destination is at medium distance (50-500m.)

// Effect: formation is breaked, units move individually towards destination picking different routes and using cover

// Note: --

// Known issues: units may sometimes bunch at destination

bcombat_allow_fast_move = false; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: fast rotation

// Triggered: if a known target is on flank / back

// Effect: depending on stance, unit swivels faster towards targer

// Known issues: sometimes rotation "animation" is a bit rough

bcombat_allow_fast_rotate = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: custom fleeing behaviour

// Triggered: when morale is broken

// Effect: unit leaves formation and moves away. As long as group is not destroyed it will join it back after morale recovery.

bcombat_allow_fleeing = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: surrender behaviour

// Triggered: seldom, when morale is broken and fleeing

// Effect: unit plays a surrender animation and gets locked there as captive

// Note: needs bcombat_allow_fleeing = true

bcombat_allow_surrender = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: slow down leader

// Triggered: whenever a target of opportunity is spotted, or under fire

// Effect: leader stops to shoot, further observe or to return fire

// Note: still working, but deprecated as of v0.14

bcombat_slow_leaders = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: return fire on shooter

// Triggered: if unit is under fire and has line of sight on shooter

// Effect: return fire on shooter. Unit may blind fire as long as bcombat_allow_suppressive_fire = true

bcombat_allow_fire_back = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: return fire onto enemy threatening another unit from same group

// Triggered: when a close unit (same group) comes under fire

// Effect: return fire on shooter. Unit may blind fire as long as bcombat_allow_suppressive_fire = true

bcombat_allow_fire_back_group = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_fire_back_group_max_friend_distance = 250; // (Number) Maximum distance (meters) from unit of the friendly being threatened

// Description: suppressive fire / blind fire

// Triggered: when unit has no clean line of sight on known enemy.

// Effect: units bursts fire towards enemy perceived position, eventually through soft cover .

// Known issues (tied to "suppressFor" scripting command problems / limitations):

// * much inaccurate at short distance

// * unit may fire through thick objects

bcombat_allow_suppressive_fire = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_suppressive_fire_duration = [0.2, 0.8]; // (Array) [seconds of suppressive fire for common unit, seconds of suppressive fire for for autorifleman/machinegunner]

bcombat_suppressive_fire_distance = [25, 250]; // (Array) [minimum distance from target, maximum distance from target]

// Description: enhanced hearing

// Triggered: whenever some nearby explosion / gunshot is heard

// Effect: unit is hinted about the shooter, depending on criteria such as visibility and distance.

bcombat_allow_hearing = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: CQB hand grenade throwing

// Triggered: whenever unit has a hand grenade + enemy is known and near

// Effect: a grenade is thrown

// Known issues: possible frendly fire issues

bcombat_allow_grenades = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_grenades_additional_number = 3; // (Number) number of additional grenades to be automatically ADDED to unit loadout

bcombat_grenades_distance = [6,45]; // (Array) [ minimum distance, maximum distance]

bcombat_grenades_no_los_only = true; // (Boolean) Whether enemy should be out of line-of-sight, for a unit to throw grenade

// Description: investigation behavoiur

// Triggered: if no enemy is known and some explosion / gunshot is heard, or another unit from same group gets killed

// Effect: unit may move to event position

// Note: needs bcombat_allow_hearing = true

bcombat_allow_investigate = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_investigate_max_distance = 200; // (Number) maximum distance from unit, for position to be investigated

// Description: allow fatigue

// Effect: allows for vanilla fatigue effects

bcombat_allow_fatigue = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

// Description: evasive movement to (nearby) cover

// Triggered: whenever under fire and enemy is in line of sight or unit is close to roads

// Effect: unit moves towards some nearby object / building to get some cover

// Known issues: this behaviour isknown to be overriden by vanilla AI under some circumstances

bcombat_allow_cover = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_cover_mode = 1; // (0,1) 0 = apply only to leader, 1 = apply to all units

bcombat_cover_radius = [15,22]; // (Array) [ maximum distance from object, maximum distance from building]

// Description: "target and chase" behaviour

// Triggered: whenever unit has no target and it's close to a enemy

// Effect: unit locks enemy as target moves towards its position

bcombat_allow_targeting = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_targeting_max_distance = [25, 150]; // (Array) [ maximum distance, maximum distance if combatMode = "RED"]

// Description: tighten formation

// Triggered: whenever some in-formation unit falls behind

// Effect: unit is automatically ordered to fall back into formation

// Known issues: for player led groups thightened formation is breaking the ADVANCE command

bcombat_allow_tightened_formation = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_tightened_formation_max_distance = 1.5; // (Meters) Maximum distance a unit can go off formation before being ordered to fall back

// Description: friendly fire damage cap

// Triggered: whenever unit is hit by a friendly unit (player excluded)

// Effect: limit max. damage to 0.5 ( 1 = no limit)

bcombat_allow_friendly_capped_damage = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_friendly_fire_max_damage = 0.8; // (0-1) damage cap ( 0 = allow no damage )

// Description: stop / overwatch

// Triggered: on units following leader or formation leader

// Effect: unit is allowed to provide prolonged suppressive fire while rest of formation moves on

bcombat_stop_overwatch = true; // (Boolean) Toggle feature on / off

bcombat_stop_overwatch_mode = 1; // (0,1) 0 = apply only to machinegunners, 1 = apply to all units

[twisted 127]

thanks for the fix. its working great. lobing it.

i however do agree with a couple comments on that it makes AI way more accurate. im normally shot while hiding behind a tree or rock from 300m away. i usually set AI skill to 0.3 and their aiming to about 0.3 or 0.5 for snipers and have longer firefigths. but here its zap, zap, dead. it's only with bcombat.

could you advise me what changing each of the 4 values in the skill config are? i've tried lowerign things like aim accuracy but no dice.

are class CfgAISkill

{

aimingAccuracy[] = {0,0,1,0.7};

aimingSpeed[] = {0,0.3,0.6,0.5};

aimingShake[] = {0,0,0.7,0.4};

endurance[] = {0,0,1,1};

spotDistance[] = {0,0.1,1,0.5};

spotTime[] = {0,0.2,1,1};

courage[] = {0,0,1,1};

reloadSpeed[] = {0,0.2,1,1};

commanding[] = {0,0.3,1,1};

general[] = {0,0,0.6,0.7};

};

[gliptal 25]

Hi fabrizio_t, and sorry for the intrusion. One of your testers found an incompatibility between your Mod and TMR (both in the old unsupported version and the new version cambam47 is working on): apparently your Mod disables all feautures of TMR, save for 2D scopes (that lose their reticles anyway).

A similar post was written in TMR - Alternate thread (link), so if you felt like it you could try and work out the incompatibility with cambam47 himself.

Here is the original incompatibility report. Keep up the good work!

Yay!

[potemps 1]

Guys, how i can entirely disable the whole debug, i deleted this line in config file but it's still apears...and its quite annoying for me :)

[kremator 1064]

//[] spawn bcombat_fnc_debug_text; // Uncomment this line to activare bCombat debug text overlays (as alternative to bcombat_fnc_debug_balloons or bcombat_fnc_fps)

//call bcombat_fnc_debug_balloons; // Uncomment this line to activare bCombat debug balloons (as alternative to bcombat_fnc_debug_text or bcombat_fnc_fps)

//call bdetect_fnc_benchmark; // Uncomment this line to activate bDetect live stats panel (as alternative to bcombat_fnc_fps)

// [] spawn bcombat_fnc_fps; // Uncomment this line to activate FPS stats panel (as alternative to bdetect_fnc_benchmark;)

Do that in config.sqf

@Gliptal it is probably something to do with eventhandlers. Check that cambam is adding them instead of overwriting eventhandlers.