[OPEN BETA] [SP] bCombat infantry AI Mod

[fabrizio_t 58]

Sure, here is a list of active mods

http://abload.de/thumb2/arma1ewd1q.jpg

Quite some stuff.

May i ask you to please run "Whole Lotta Altis" just once with only bCombat active?

Please report back. Ty.

---------- Post added at 23:45 ---------- Previous post was at 23:40 ----------

Good news: i've just discovered a tiny bug causing units less responsive than due to suppression fire.

So you may expect some further improvements in this area, within v0.16.

Another small insight on v0.16: high ground / low ground will matter more, since a slight penalty multiplier will be applied to suppressive fire depending on that.

So watch out for hills and cliffs (and airborne).

As usual, this will be an optional feaure, hence toggleable at will (bcombat_allow_lowerground_penalty).

Edited January 15, 2014 by fabrizio_T

[sttosin 67]

I see. Looks like i'm going to buy it. Thanks.

It works with Bcombat. Use the pws install approach. Do for A2 first, then A3. Get dlc too.

[fabrizio_t 58]

It works with Bcombat. Use the pws install approach. Do for A2 first, then A3. Get dlc too.

Nice! Thanks.

[froggyluv 2130]

Good to know, time for me too to get slaughtered again.

So you've suppressed enemy from lower ground ? Then enjoy your easy victory, it won't last long, high ground will matter more ;)

By the way, you're on today's "official" build, right?

Due to hotfixing and rebalancing it's actually a bit less forgiving, compared to RC version i've sent on sunday.

Especially in CQB.

Good to know as I was still on the RC. Very interesting that high ground will be factored in the next build -the more aspects that make us have to think to better approach the AI the better.

Yes, we attacked from low ground as we had LOS only on their heads due to steep hill some 75m out. What was great was I took a shot at one guys head and wasn't sure if I hit or he had had just dropped prone (was the latter) than the smoke...I wasn't sure if he was dead, crawling around in the house or behind it but it happened quick as it should in RL. I wish BI would get that THIS is the game! It doesn't matter if we have a 10,000 Sqm map or a few villages, 30 types of tanks or a few, 100's of weapons or a few customizable -if the firefights don't play out interesting and the AI merely shoot back immune to fear, it's just not fun.

[ebarstad 18]

@fabrizio_T: I've done a few more test runs and can confirm the AI are occasionally throwing frag grenades instead of smokes when far away from the enemy. I've seen it multiple times now. Perhaps the EventHandler that switches the grenades isn't always firing (I have no idea what I'm talking about). I'm running stable branch wih no other mods (except CBA)

Did you change the view distance from 0.15RC to the release? It seems like the AI are spotting each other from a little further away again.

Love the new icon that shows up on the main menu.

Unrelated to your mod, I can't wait for BIS to fix the armour values on infantry. The five-shot kills are really taking (some of) the fun out of the game for me.

[jross194 1]

Just tried some CQB - I may not know much, but I know it's the best I've ever seen in ArmA. Nice work.

PS: I'm on the latest dev-build

[-Coulum- 35]

Been peaking in here everyonce and a while, forcing myself to wait until 0.15 before I give it a go... and man o man, I must say Fabrizio, your hard work, and the feedback of your testers has really, really payed off.

Ai cover taking is really, really good. Of course there is still some problems with precision of cover taking, but the main thing is that they actually try to take cover. No more sitting around trying to shoot first and then move to cover. And most importantly, they do it fast. There is urgency in their movement. Love it.

The suppression is great as well of course and combined with the cover taking makes for some believable reactions. I regularly see at least some ai ducking down behind cover when lead starts flying their way, which is not only great for immersion, but increases the longevity of the firefights. And it seems you have not only made the ai suppress-able, but also better able to suppress, which is awesome. And I have yet to see any weirdness regarding this feature (unlike when Zeus Ai tried to do similar and often resulted in ai shooting at an invisible air target while all the enemy were already long dead).

Another feature I noticed was grenade throwing. Its pretty sweet as well. The times I have seen it, ai seem to throw smoke in a good location (though of course the wind and wimpy smoke grenades don't help - Blastocore fixes that though). Like froggyluv described, often on first contact the ai would leave me unsure of their whereabouts because of their use of smoke and fast manoeuvring.

Maybe I am jumping the gun, but I think this is probably the best behavioural type Ai mod I have seen for the series. It works well, its well polished and clearly has been thouroughly thought out. Congrats on release! Keep up the good work!

high ground / low ground will matter more, since a slight penalty multiplier will be applied to suppressive fire depending on that.

Ooooh! Sounds nice! expanding on that train of thought, I alway thought it would be neat to have the direction incoming fire approaches from effect the severity of suppression - ie. shots coming from the flank or rear of a squad/unit will cause more suppression than that coming from the front. More reason to envelope the enemy or not let your squad get flanked...

I wish BI would get that THIS is the game! It doesn't matter if we have a 10,000 Sqm map or a few villages, 30 types of tanks or a few, 100's of weapons or a few customizable -if the firefights don't play out interesting and the AI merely shoot back immune to fear, it's just not fun.

Amen!

[tortuosit 485]

And it seems you have not only made the ai suppress-able, but also better able to suppress, which is awesome.

This would be fantastic, is it confirmed?

[fabrizio_t 58]

@fabrizio_T: I've done a few more test runs and can confirm the AI are occasionally throwing frag grenades instead of smokes when far away from the enemy. I've seen it multiple times now. Perhaps the EventHandler that switches the grenades isn't always firing (I have no idea what I'm talking about). I'm running stable branch wih no other mods (except CBA)

Did you change the view distance from 0.15RC to the release? It seems like the AI are spotting each other from a little further away again.

Love the new icon that shows up on the main menu.

Unrelated to your mod, I can't wait for BIS to fix the armour values on infantry. The five-shot kills are really taking (some of) the fun out of the game for me.

Yes, i think too it's likely the EH is misfiring under some circumstances.

I've already noted the issue and will look into it. Thanks for reporting.

On release spotDistance was re-adjusted based on your feedback, so what you write makes sense.

About damage, i agree with you, BIS should fix that.

You may want to temporarily raise bcombat_damage_multiplier in order to lessen the issue.

---------- Post added at 09:13 ---------- Previous post was at 09:10 ----------

Been peaking in here everyonce and a while, forcing myself to wait until 0.15 before I give it a go... and man o man, I must say Fabrizio, your hard work, and the feedback of your testers has really, really payed off.

Ai cover taking is really, really good. Of course there is still some problems with precision of cover taking, but the main thing is that they actually try to take cover. No more sitting around trying to shoot first and then move to cover. And most importantly, they do it fast. There is urgency in their movement. Love it.

The suppression is great as well of course and combined with the cover taking makes for some believable reactions. I regularly see at least some ai ducking down behind cover when lead starts flying their way, which is not only great for immersion, but increases the longevity of the firefights. And it seems you have not only made the ai suppress-able, but also better able to suppress, which is awesome. And I have yet to see any weirdness regarding this feature (unlike when Zeus Ai tried to do similar and often resulted in ai shooting at an invisible air target while all the enemy were already long dead).

Another feature I noticed was grenade throwing. Its pretty sweet as well. The times I have seen it, ai seem to throw smoke in a good location (though of course the wind and wimpy smoke grenades don't help - Blastocore fixes that though). Like froggyluv described, often on first contact the ai would leave me unsure of their whereabouts because of their use of smoke and fast manoeuvring.

Maybe I am jumping the gun, but I think this is probably the best behavioural type Ai mod I have seen for the series. It works well, its well polished and clearly has been thouroughly thought out. Congrats on release! Keep up the good work!

Ooooh! Sounds nice! expanding on that train of thought, I alway thought it would be neat to have the direction incoming fire approaches from effect the severity of suppression - ie. shots coming from the flank or rear of a squad/unit will cause more suppression than that coming from the front. More reason to envelope the enemy or not let your squad get flanked...

Amen!

Well, what i have to say ... thank you, i'm glad you're appreciating this work.

---------- Post added at 09:14 ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 ----------

This would be fantastic, is it confirmed?

It's already like that, it works both ways.

AI units are penalized by suppression as well as they are able to proactively lay suppressive fire (which is something autoriflemen are doing quite well).

---------- Post added at 09:19 ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 ----------

I alway thought it would be neat to have the direction incoming fire approaches from effect the severity of suppression - ie. shots coming from the flank or rear of a squad/unit will cause more suppression than that coming from the front. More reason to envelope the enemy or not let your squad get flanked...

Happy to say that this is already taken into account ;)

Within config.sqf, bcombat_penalty_flanking controls the strength of this kind of penalty.

---------- Post added at 09:21 ---------- Previous post was at 09:19 ----------

Just tried some CQB - I may not know much, but I know it's the best I've ever seen in ArmA. Nice work.

PS: I'm on the latest dev-build

Glad you enjoyed it!

---------- Post added at 10:01 ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 ----------

It doesn't matter if we have a 10,000 Sqm map or a few villages, 30 types of tanks or a few, 100's of weapons or a few customizable -if the firefights don't play out interesting and the AI merely shoot back immune to fear, it's just not fun.

Can't agree more.

[potemps 1]

0.15 is really great - in my opinion much better than 0.14 - AI reaction to situation is faster. But also i found some issues. The AI units with AT launchers have problem with engaging enemies - i run 5 test yesterday and AI just dont engage the APC, or they engaging it too late, even when they are in "ambush" position.

That supress depend on height is great idea, but i think units engaged, and suppresed from greater height, if there is any nearby cover they should not going prone, but just RUN ! :D Becouse is relly easy to kill from higher position, if the enemy is try to going prone. Its ok when we are engaging enemy on same height of ground.

Anyway - great job :)

[sgtsn1per 1]

what i dont understand is how can a lone modder create potentially better AI than a whole team of paid employees.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Quite some stuff.

May i ask you to please run "Whole Lotta Altis" just once with only bCombat active?

Please report back. Ty.

I´ve started it with now with the Midtex Textures and JSRS & Blastcore, issue stays the same. When i get killed i didnt respawn.

[katipo66 94]

what i dont understand is how can a lone modder create potentially better AI than a whole team of paid employees.

It might be because they don't want new comers to be completely dominated by the AI? that's a complete guess as I would imagine they could script some real soldier behavior into the AI if they wanted as no one would know them better than the AI programmers at BI, and Fabrizio it seems :)

I'm really happy with this mod, fighting AI is now a challenge and not a routine set of maneuvers, I keep getting shot at but never see them :D

[KaneSvK 1]

Hi, first off a big thank you for this mod! :) This is what was arma sorely lacking. I would like to ask a question Fabrizio, you said that DEV version has serious issues, I would like to ask of what character are these issues? I want to know if its totally game breaking or simply inconvinience, im asking so i can evaluate if its worth it or no (Can't wait to try out second Arma episode ;) )

[fabrizio_t 58]

Hi, first off a big thank you for this mod! :) This is what was arma sorely lacking. I would like to ask a question Fabrizio, you said that DEV version has serious issues, I would like to ask of what character are these issues? I want to know if its totally game breaking or simply inconvinience, im asking so i can evaluate if its worth it or no (Can't wait to try out second Arma episode ;) )

It's more than simple inconvenience.

Since selectWeapon is misfunctioning grenade and smoke grenade throwing is not working fine.

I'm not even sure currentWeapon is working fine.

If that is fails any weapon ranges checking done by bCombat would fail as well (meaning AI units would skip firing).

---------- Post added at 17:04 ---------- Previous post was at 17:03 ----------

@fabrizio_T: I've done a few more test runs and can confirm the AI are occasionally throwing frag grenades instead of smokes when far away from the enemy. I've seen it multiple times now. Perhaps the EventHandler that switches the grenades isn't always firing (I have no idea what I'm talking about).

Fired EH related.

Fixed within internal development build, to be released within 0.16 public release.

---------- Post added at 17:05 ---------- Previous post was at 17:04 ----------

I´ve started it with now with the Midtex Textures and JSRS & Blastcore, issue stays the same. When i get killed i didnt respawn.

Thanks for your report.

Issue acknowledged and verified.

Handledamage EH related.

Fixed into internal development build, to be released within 0.16 public release.

Edited January 16, 2014 by fabrizio_T

[EO 11230]

Just wanted to say a big thank you Fabrizio, tried out your mod last night and it's very, very impressive. mille grazie.

[verde13 0]

0.15 is really great - in my opinion much better than 0.14 - AI reaction to situation is faster. But also i found some issues. The AI units with AT launchers have problem with engaging enemies - i run 5 test yesterday and AI just dont engage the APC, or they engaging it too late, even when they are in "ambush" position.

That supress depend on height is great idea, but i think units engaged, and suppresed from greater height, if there is any nearby cover they should not going prone, but just RUN ! :D Becouse is relly easy to kill from higher position, if the enemy is try to going prone. Its ok when we are engaging enemy on same height of ground.

Anyway - great job :)

I have the same issue with the AT units, they almost never engage enemy armor. Still this is absolutely great.

[lordprimate 159]

played alot with bcombat last night.. then i ran it on our server... i know its designated SP but it seems to work just fine on a server... as far as i can tell!!

AI were using smoke, grenades. their movement was well uncannally. everyone of my team wanted to sent you praise for your work!! most of the missions i test this with doesnt have respawn or revive, so i didnt notice the respawn issue. however, most of my missions have AT units and everytime they come incontact with armor or a enemy Vic of any kind they expend all their rockets trying to disable / destroy it.

I did see an instance of the "combat roll" getting stuck.. IE: AI did a roll to dodge fire and this time instead of rolling he stayed in the same spot just spinning.. It has only been visible ONCE. everyother time they roll to the side like their suppose to .. I know i read somewhere in a nother mods thread that they were having trouble getting the AI to use their scripted animations. It was zorilya, he was working on a garrison script that would allow the AI to strafe left or right (inside a building at a window) to be able to target an enemy from inside and not shoot the wall but shoot threw the window.. he was having the same problem. AI would play the animation but would be stuck in the same position. It wouldnt happen all the time, but enought to warrent making a feedback tracker post about it let me see if i can find the post....

[bravo409 13]

So I played a quick test today where I sat in a house fired at ai and the used cover to cover tactics and actually came in side the house and up stairs and killed me. I was like deer in head lights at that moment.I think I'm going to get some video of this to show you guys because we all know the ai wont come inside looking for you.

[Kerc Kasha 102]

what i dont understand is how can a lone modder create potentially better AI than a whole team of paid employees.

They're avoiding scripted solutions as it can cause significant performance loss, so it means a lot of work on the actual engine itself.

[bravo409 13]

ok so here is a video of Ai hunting me down in a building http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO5gkxoUBWM

[oktyabr 12]

ok so here is a video of Ai hunting me down in a building http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO5gkxoUBWM

VERY cool! Any more tests to see if this was a fluke at all or?

[bravo409 13]

yeah did like 5 and same result sometimes after he enters and sees me his buddys come rushing reason i know this is because death cam shows them moving in...all I did was give them a guard waypoint and shot at them and they came to the dinner bell like good ai lol.

[froggyluv 2130]

Damn. Even if this won't be 100% reliable behaviour, it just gets my juices flowing seeing them approach the house in that manner. Could yall imagine if they used doors/windows as reference points -would be a whole new game.

Still nice :)

[bravo409 13]

Heres the crazy thing I took opfor and made his presence 0 and put down massi security team and group them with opfor leader, they rushed me harder they surrounded the building and then two guys came in I had to replay it over twice to see if it happens over and over and different results but still got killed.

by the way I'm using DEV branch tonight just to see if there was any good changes with there updates