[OPEN BETA] [SP] bCombat infantry AI Mod

[gepanzert-faust 10]

For sure no.

Yet i've traveling a lot and having many job tasks to deal with, so for the moment my spare time is zeroed.

Once i'm done with all this, bCombat will move on.

That's good news, may I put forward an idea for future consideration?

Expanding further on the great grenade improvements, would it be possible to enable soldiers to somehow react to nearby grenades?

I'm not a scripter so forgive me if this would be hard or even impossible to implement but could it work somehow like this:

• Grenade detected landing within a certain distance of a unit.
  

• According to the units skill, there is a % chance of spotting the grenade and falling prone for cover.
  

• A "Grenade!" warning could be shouted in the moments before denotation.
  

Its always bothered me that squads can't react to a hand grenade landing blatantly at their feet!

[lordprimate 159]

That's good news, may I put forward an idea for future consideration?

Expanding further on the great grenade improvements, would it be possible to enable soldiers to somehow react to nearby grenades?

I'm not a scripter so forgive me if this would be hard or even impossible to implement but could it work somehow like this:

• Grenade detected landing within a certain distance of a unit.
  

• According to the units skill, there is a % chance of spotting the grenade and falling prone for cover.
  

• A "Grenade!" warning could be shouted in the moments before denotation.
  

Its always bothered me that squads can't react to a hand grenade landing blatantly at their feet!

I could be wrong, but, Fab hear me out.. TPW had used an ingame "sphere / invisible shell" object as an engine based detector for his suppression script. the idea i just had was rather simple and based on that concept..

Fab, is there a way to add this "invisible shell" to grenades when their thrown.. attach a event handler to the "sphere", so that when the sphere hits a "unit" (ie. grenade is close to a unit), that event handler fires.. When said EH fires, have it be a set of possible actions.

1. If close enough AI can grap and thow away grenade.. This was a feature in SLX for ARMA 2 and would be a VERY welcome addition to your mod.

2. If not close enough to throw away, a call "grenade" and all near by units go prone, and the closest unit gets a "domove" away from the grenade (afterward the waypoint is deleted)..

3. Heroic act, Thows self on grenade.... ?? Everyone loves a hero!!

[synk113 10]

Hey fabrizio_T,

Great mod, I'm really enjoying it so far! I'm having an issue with some of the night missions that I play. If I am supposed to spawn with nightvision googles they are removed from my inventory after the mission starts with the mod activated. The same things happens to my my AI squad as well. I am playing on singleplayer and am not using any other mods besides CBA. I am also using the non-steam workshop version. I looked at the config.sqf and found this line: "bcombat_remove_nvgoggles = true;" I set it to false, saved it and restarted the game and I'm still not having any luck. One of the missions I am having this issue with is "A Long Way". You can actually see the NVGs disappear from everybody's head during the beginning cutscene.

UPDATE: Hey nevermind, I tried editing that line again and it worked this time around.

Edited December 12, 2014 by synk113
Fixed

[fignuts 10]

The mod seem to break the "Moral Fiber" mission. See ticket here. I am having the exact same symptoms -- trucks never advance to the warehouse, ordered to get in, forced to get out a destination, then immediately fail mission.

[samo 10]

Mod seems to have messed up my players inventory, every time i spawn i have two grenades (even if i use removeallweapons), and if i have a smoke grenade, my player automatically throws it if i am under fire. I've tried disabling all other mods in case it was conflicting but to no avail.

[fabrizio_t 58]

The mod seem to break the "Moral Fiber" mission. See ticket here. I am having the exact same symptoms -- trucks never advance to the warehouse, ordered to get in, forced to get out a destination, then immediately fail mission.

bCombat does not affect behaviour of any vehicles, just foot units.

---------- Post added at 12:11 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------

Mod seems to have messed up my players inventory, every time i spawn i have two grenades (even if i use removeallweapons), and if i have a smoke grenade, my player automatically throws it if i am under fire. I've tried disabling all other mods in case it was conflicting but to no avail.

The smoke issue should be already fixed, are you running latest bCombat version? It's v0.17RC.

Grenades are automatically added to inventory as long as bcombat_grenades_additional_number is > 0 (which is default).

Please check into config.sqf.

---------- Post added at 12:14 ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 ----------

I could be wrong, but, Fab hear me out.. TPW had used an ingame "sphere / invisible shell" object as an engine based detector for his suppression script. the idea i just had was rather simple and based on that concept..

Fab, is there a way to add this "invisible shell" to grenades when their thrown.. attach a event handler to the "sphere", so that when the sphere hits a "unit" (ie. grenade is close to a unit), that event handler fires.. When said EH fires, have it be a set of possible actions.

1. If close enough AI can grap and thow away grenade.. This was a feature in SLX for ARMA 2 and would be a VERY welcome addition to your mod.

2. If not close enough to throw away, a call "grenade" and all near by units go prone, and the closest unit gets a "domove" away from the grenade (afterward the waypoint is deleted)..

3. Heroic act, Thows self on grenade.... ?? Everyone loves a hero!!

It would be probably possible, but costly.

In my opinion it would need too much effort to achieve such a "minor" feature, sorry.

[samo 10]

Never mind i had -noFilePatching in the startup parameter...

Working perfectly now :)

Edited December 14, 2014 by samo

[killerwhale 1]

Hey guys, I'm having the trouble of AI surrender. some of your squad members just drop their weapons and put hands up while they're in the midst of you. I mean we should all surrender or none right? if only 2 left and some members are fleeing, that is fine but while the middle of firefight and the apposing side isnt that overwhelming, they shoudnt. i know there is a config file but not quit sure how to tweak this. it only gives the option of on/off.

[SHARPxSHOOTER 1]

The mod is showing a bubble above my head and a debug window to the right, and every time I click on the map I teleport. How can I fix this?

http://i.imgur.com/b1ICV22.png (2220 kB)

[gliptal 25]

You are probably in debug mode, check the configuration file.

Yay!

[SHARPxSHOOTER 1]

You are probably in debug mode, check the configuration file.

Yay!

Thanks that was the issue. Apparently the author forgot it in dev mode.

[ark_gamer 14]

I placed the player unit and a single enemy unit about 20 meters away from each other, and the enemy unit (set to default skill) just fires and fires and never hits the player. I can see bullets hitting the dirt in front of the enemy unit and off to the sides. No shots even come close. It's like the unit accuracy is set to something outlandishly low.

What's up with that? BTW, still better than getting aimbotted by the BIS AI at 300 meters.

[TuffShitSki 16]

@Ark_gamer I had the exact same issue. The problem was I had the old config files from previous version. Clear them and AI aims return to normal.

Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk

[ark_gamer 14]

@Ark_gamer I had the exact same issue. The problem was I had the old config files from previous version. Clear them and AI aims return to normal.

Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk

Yup, that was totally the problem. Thanks!

[Tonci87 163]

Fabrizio, what is the latest Dev Version of this Mod? How are you progressing?

[boombastic 17]

Hi all, I need help - I'm trying to disable "Flee" and "Surrender" behavior, but have no success :(

I have 0.17 version of Bcombat mode.

I try to edit config.sqf file and change "true" to "false" values.

I have:

bcombat_allow_fleeing = false;

bcombat_allow_surrender = false;

But it still does not affect the game - AI still surrender a lot.

I don't have any special editors to edit .sqf files, I use windows notepad or wordpad is it OK ?

Maybe somebody can send me edited .sqf file ?

Thanks to all.

[orcinus 121]

bcombat_allow_friendly_capped_damage sets the maximum damage any units may suffer from friendly fire (player fire excluded).

0.8 for instance means that units can get damaged no more than 80%.

Are you seeing units killed by AI friendly fire with bcombat_allow_friendly_capped_damage < 1?

By the way, bCombat does not mess with vehicles, it disables itself for units not on foot.

Hi Fabrizio

Sorry for the long delay, I was abroad then rather ill.

Yes, I have had friendly fire kill a couple of times me even with the value set to 0. Getting run over is fatal to both AI & the player.

Um, you mean that if, e.g., a chopper fires at friendly units then the units get killed?

My preference would be a config option to disable that routine entirely. I find kju's A2 addon works perfectly in A3 - if a vehicle hits a friendly AI or a player, they fall over then get back up.

IMO, given that AI driving in A3 is substantially worse than even A2, and that even a slowly-moving road vehicle brushing against a grunt unrealistically kills them, preventing that far outweighs the somewhat unrealistic blocking of all friendly fire injuries/deaths. Unfortunately, whatever value - 0 or 1 or anything in between -that I put into bcombat's config, kju's mod was disabled by bcombat.

Splendid mod overall, though. Thank you for your continuing work on it. Will be playing a small selection of missions with the latest versions of bcombat, asr_AI & Vcom AI over the few weeks.

Ciao

Orc

[fabrizio_t 58]

First of all, happy new year to everybody.

Hi Fabrizio

Sorry for the long delay, I was abroad then rather ill.

Yes, I have had friendly fire kill a couple of times me even with the value set to 0. Getting run over is fatal to both AI & the player.

Um, you mean that if, e.g., a chopper fires at friendly units then the units get killed?

My preference would be a config option to disable that routine entirely. I find kju's A2 addon works perfectly in A3 - if a vehicle hits a friendly AI or a player, they fall over then get back up.

IMO, given that AI driving in A3 is substantially worse than even A2, and that even a slowly-moving road vehicle brushing against a grunt unrealistically kills them, preventing that far outweighs the somewhat unrealistic blocking of all friendly fire injuries/deaths. Unfortunately, whatever value - 0 or 1 or anything in between -that I put into bcombat's config, kju's mod was disabled by bcombat.

Splendid mod overall, though. Thank you for your continuing work on it. Will be playing a small selection of missions with the latest versions of bcombat, asr_AI & Vcom AI over the few weeks.

Ciao

Orc

Hi Orcinus,

the reason for the friendly fire damage cap is that bCombat allows units to fight with very low accuracy settings due to morale hits.

This may cause friendly fire issues. Common causes are wild fire of almost panicking machinegunners, or AI units stupidly crossing the bline of fire.

To avoid massive friendly killings, bcombat_friendly_fire_max_damage lets you specify the maximum amount of damage ( 0 - 1) caused by friendly fire that should be sustained by some unit.

On default settings that unit won't be killed, but it will still sustain massive damage ( bcombat_friendly_fire_max_damage = 0.8 as default).

Keep in mind that damage affects morale recovery and overall accuracy, so friendly fire DOES still play a role, it just does not kill.

Please consider that bcombat_friendly_fire_max_damage is applied only as long as bcombat_allow_friendly_capped_damage is set to true.

Setting bcombat_allow_friendly_capped_damage to false effectively disables friendly fire cap altogether, whatever the value of bcombat_friendly_fire_max_damage.

Two important remarks:

* friendly fire cap is NEVER applied to player. You will be fully affected (= killed) by frendly fire. Be careful.

* friendly fire cap is NEVER applied to units fired upon by the player. You may kill your squaddies. Again, careful!

---------- Post added at 20:49 ---------- Previous post was at 20:44 ----------

Hi all, I need help - I'm trying to disable "Flee" and "Surrender" behavior, but have no success :(

I have 0.17 version of Bcombat mode.

I try to edit config.sqf file and change "true" to "false" values.

I have:

bcombat_allow_fleeing = false;

bcombat_allow_surrender = false;

But it still does not affect the game - AI still surrender a lot.

I don't have any special editors to edit .sqf files, I use windows notepad or wordpad is it OK ?

Maybe somebody can send me edited .sqf file ?

Thanks to all.

I suggest using Notepad++, but i think any text editor will work.

bcombat_allow_surrender = false;	

Should suffice to exclude surrendering behaviour.

At least it's working ok for me.

Be sure you DON'T launch the game with -noFilePatching startup parameter.

NOTE: on a sidenote, i noticed AI units tend surrendering quite a lot with recent ArmA3 builds.

Routine is being reworked to better fit the new AI behaviour.

---------- Post added at 20:55 ---------- Previous post was at 20:49 ----------

Fabrizio, what is the latest Dev Version of this Mod? How are you progressing?

Still v0.17RC. I had very few spare time till now.

Now i'm re-analyzing AI behaviour, since recent builds brought quite some changes.

AI units seem now more aware of environmental "events", which is good, but it means some rebalancing of bCombat features is needed.

Nothing big, but i find AI units a bit over-sensitive with current configuration, as their morale drops quite fast.

---------- Post added at 20:57 ---------- Previous post was at 20:55 ----------

Hey guys, I'm having the trouble of AI surrender. some of your squad members just drop their weapons and put hands up while they're in the midst of you. I mean we should all surrender or none right? if only 2 left and some members are fleeing, that is fine but while the middle of firefight and the apposing side isnt that overwhelming, they shoudnt. i know there is a config file but not quit sure how to tweak this. it only gives the option of on/off.

See my comment above.

Edited January 4, 2015 by fabrizio_T

[fabrizio_t 58]

The reason AI units are surrendering much more (too much, actually) with recent ArmA3 builds is that AI units are now notified much more frequently of same enemies by core AI routines.

Not sure whether it's a feature or a bug, since now the same enemy can be notified to some unit up to 10-20 times per-minute.

Previously a single enemy was usually notified to some unit no more than once in a whole battle, so the difference is striking.

This has effects on bCombat morale, which seems depleting at an excessive rate.

Interesting stuff.

Digging, testing and analyzing.

[Zriel 12]

The reason AI units are surrendering much more (too much, actually) with recent ArmA3 builds is that AI units are now notified much more frequently of same enemies by core AI routines.

Not sure whether it's a feature or a bug, since now the same enemy can be notified to some unit up to 10-20 times per-minute.

Previously a single enemy was usually notified to some unit no more than once in a whole battle, so the difference is striking.

This has effects on bCombat morale, which seems depleting at an excessive rate.

Interesting stuff.

Digging, testing and analyzing.

I'm doing test with some Ai mods, and I'm seeing with your mod AI seem to be much more static. They won't move to investigate, though I can see they are alerted by enemy gunfire. They also wont move from cover positions to flank enemy or engage, and I could even see CQB combats were Ai would be in static positions (both sides) witouth giving any shot, as they knew there were enemys in the other side of the road and wouldn't dare to move XD.

Is this happening because of the new Arma 3 interactions you mentioned?

[Pakislav 10]

First of all, I have to say this mod is amazing. AI behavior is the most realistic of all mods I tested. They go for cover, engage properly and advance on enemy units. They are a lot less static, don't just sit in the open and thus appear a lot less dumb in comparison with other AI out there.

The big issue currently seems to be the base Arma 3 changes mentioned. After a short firefight the AI, sometimes all of them, sometimes just one side, either mass surrenders or starts shooting the ground directly in front of them. The latter applies especially to machinegunners, who stirr the dust in an arc directly in front of their feet.

Authentic Gameplay Modification (AGM) I'm using might affect this, but it only changes base Arma 3 settings without the use of any scripts. All in all, I believe there should be a setting that caps how low the morale/accuracy skill can drop for AI. Even the most cowardly soldier wouldn't shoot that inaccurately and instead either stop shooting and hide, run away or surrender. It would also be great if the mod took into account the morale of entire squad as opposed to just single units so that the leader can decide to withdraw in a more coherent fashion with all troops under his command to regroup and replenish morale. It would really add a lot to the game I think, increasing AI survivability. Otherwise they just break and get easily killed one by one, which is unrealistic and too easy. ;p

PS; Is it recommended to play this mod with AI accuracy set to 100% in the difficulty settings? The higher it is the longer the machinegunners seem to shoot more or less straight.

[fabrizio_t 58]

First of all, I have to say this mod is amazing. AI behavior is the most realistic of all mods I tested. They go for cover, engage properly and advance on enemy units. They are a lot less static, don't just sit in the open and thus appear a lot less dumb in comparison with other AI out there.

The big issue currently seems to be the base Arma 3 changes mentioned. After a short firefight the AI, sometimes all of them, sometimes just one side, either mass surrenders or starts shooting the ground directly in front of them. The latter applies especially to machinegunners, who stirr the dust in an arc directly in front of their feet.

Authentic Gameplay Modification (AGM) I'm using might affect this, but it only changes base Arma 3 settings without the use of any scripts. All in all, I believe there should be a setting that caps how low the morale/accuracy skill can drop for AI. Even the most cowardly soldier wouldn't shoot that inaccurately and instead either stop shooting and hide, run away or surrender. It would also be great if the mod took into account the morale of entire squad as opposed to just single units so that the leader can decide to withdraw in a more coherent fashion with all troops under his command to regroup and replenish morale. It would really add a lot to the game I think, increasing AI survivability. Otherwise they just break and get easily killed one by one, which is unrealistic and too easy. ;p

PS; Is it recommended to play this mod with AI accuracy set to 100% in the difficulty settings? The higher it is the longer the machinegunners seem to shoot more or less straight.

Mass surrendering is indeed 100% related to the recent vanilla AI "feature" i commented above.

Fix is not overly problematic however, i'm already testing a few workarounds.

In the meantime disabling surrendering feature would suffice ( set: bcombat_allow_surrender = false; ).

Then, please consider that:

* there's a cap already on minimum firing accuracy, which dampens morale effects.

* units suffering a high morale hit are a lot less prone to return fire, they usually resort moving away instead. This as long as they don't feel cornered (e.g. pinned into cover).

* units skill affects overall accuracy and how strong morale is hit by events. Try playing with units with high skill and you'll notice they play more aggressively.

* squad level morale is already taken into account. Leader's morale does affect the chance of units to flee / surrender for instance ( modeling loss of leadership ). Squad casualties also affect single units morale.

Recommended difficulty settings are vanilla settings: normal / expert.

I don't suggest playing with custom settings, unless you feel it's needed of course.

I agree that machinegunners' accuracy is a tad low (it's already like that in vanilla, just less noticeable since overall accuracy is higher), but you have to consider that since bCombat introduces suppression fire ( =area fire) penalties their high ROF and range alone assure the achievement of some tactical advantage. They're very valuable in pinning enemy down and hitting his morale even if they can't hit him precisely. That's the purpose of the "Overwatch" feature.

---------- Post added at 15:40 ---------- Previous post was at 15:32 ----------

I'm doing test with some Ai mods, and I'm seeing with your mod AI seem to be much more static. They won't move to investigate, though I can see they are alerted by enemy gunfire. They also wont move from cover positions to flank enemy or engage, and I could even see CQB combats were Ai would be in static positions (both sides) witouth giving any shot, as they knew there were enemys in the other side of the road and wouldn't dare to move XD.

Is this happening because of the new Arma 3 interactions you mentioned?

The issue you describe is usually due to bad interaction / interference of different AI mods.

Please try running bCombat alone, i'm confident your issue will disappear.

Edited January 5, 2015 by fabrizio_T
Fixed incorrect mention to "bcombat_allow_surrender"

[Zriel 12]

The issue you describe is usually due to bad interaction / interference of different AI mods.

Please try running bCombat alone, i'm confident your issue will disappear.

I will try again, but I'm almost sure I was only using your mod. I'm using the same mission with some groups of AI in different settings to test how IA is working with different mods, and I will propose one of them for my community, depending on how the AI behaves and how well the mod performs.

[Zriel 12]

Confirmed, no other addons.

Here the infantry of both sides in not willing to move.

http://i.gyazo.com/8394668cedaff428879cfba72a97caed.jpg (1019 kB)

Here some support infantry that does not want to move (south of the photo).

http://i.gyazo.com/7b239dcab9ee82c7f93d8eb1d8e99339.jpg (647 kB)

They had flashing yellow/red ballons over their heads. The 3 groups.

I can upload the test mission if you want.

[Pakislav 10]

I've done a few tests too. Sometimes the SL remains stationary while the team moves up, but that's as far as strange immobility goes.

I've also realized, that bCombat seems to work much better with AGM. Only after I tested it without AGM I found out the true meaning of "mass" surrender of AI. With AGM it's normal, AI surrenders after a prolonged firefight and suffering heavy losses.

The horrible(90 degrees below their barrels) accuracy of MG'ers, I have found, was caused by my low accuracy settings for that difficulty level and high suppression.

Quick question; Does bCombat utilizes waypoint issuing? Eg, to investigate distant disturbance or to withdraw away from the enemy, if not other orders are given?