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Disappointed after 13 years of 'Arma'

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@ antoineflemming it's such "starting from A2's 1.0" that seems to fuel the rumors about how much internal documentation exists... which is why I linked to the OPREP which flat-out stated "a result of different implementation by different programmers adding different features requested by different designers over the last decade" (about animations), and why Moricky's Zeus documentation stood out to me (official documentation by the same dev behind its implementation).

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AI in general is the toughest part to develop, because there are zero frameworks and standards. Plus, the stack-and-tack way of developing it so far has led to it having become unwieldily complicated. I think this AI, by any standard is among the most complex and extensive AI systems in use in games today.

To my knowledge, there are no other games where the AI is asked to do this many things in such varied environments. Other games develop maps and gameplay to fit the AI, where it is used, and where it doesn't work they have it cheat. With Arma it is the other way around: the devs put down a world and open up gameplay completely, and then go in to make the AI work with that. Putting down a four room apartement is something the AI's of other games have been written entirely around, with each level meticulously designed to fit the capabilities of the AI to deliver the best player-AI interaction possible. Again, not so with Arma (I know I am repeating myself here, but this point needs to be emphasized I think.), where the world is placed with at best minor attention to the AI's ability to work inside it. (Alone changing the compass direction of approach can change a certain terrain's tactical significance so much that there is no benefit to trying to optimize the AI for any given location on any map.) Then the AI is built with the goal to make it perform good, on average, across the entire map and the entire range of situations that they might find themselves in.

Basically, they are attempting to make a non-random code that can address a completely chaotic, non-predictable environment with chaotic distribution of tactically significant points and avenues, and then make this system appear as if it is felling clever decisions in the situations it faces. And contrary to you, the human, this code has less brainpower than your average worker ant.

Consider the amount of different processes and filters you are running in split second timeframes when felling tactical decisions in gameplay. For example:

Cross a street: Enemies are nearby, none are currently seen. There is a wreck in the street, and open road left and right, with buildings and doors to backyards for a hundred meters in each direction. There are windows observing the street, and there is gunfire nearby.

As a human, you know all this, you will check your benefits of being on the other side versus the risks (Sniper observation, likelihood of enemy contact based on memory of enemy location, direction of gunfire, terrain knowledge and reasonable extrapolation of enemy movement, again based from memory and experience, mines, cover, different routes with similar cycles to consider, etc, etc, etc) and you will also be able to dynamically filter ALL of those information based on your training and mental threat response level down to things that only matter, right now.

Note that I am presupposing the posession of the knowledge, and discarding the fact that first you also need to -aquire- this information and sort it for what is relevant and what isn't relevant. In terms of AI, memory cycles.

At the end of all those processes, usually within one to five or so seconds, you will have felled your decision, either crossing the street and coordinating with your squad, or staying where you are. And you will reevaluate what you are doing at every moment from then on as your senses pick up new information.

Now imagine all this has to be done by a silicon chip incapable of simultaneous processing as our sensory apparatus is, that is using a very different way of analyzing and prioritizing this information (hand-written too!) and which has to do this not for one "person", but potentially hundreds of them, all at the same time, each with their unique tactical situation. That includes different weapons, worn gear, optics, protection, presence of friend or foe, vehicles, silencers, etc, etc, etc.

The more I learn about AI and also about both Human and non-Human animal perception, the more I respect the fact that the AI is functional at all. Maybe it even is easier than I imagine it to be now, but at this point the only hope I think is that somebody calls some important EU Universities AI departement and begins a doctoral work with developing a completely new and revolutionary AI system using cutting edge code and tech for the RV engine.

Because I fear that the limitations of the AI in many respects are not limitations of code and ability, but of technology.

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before everyone falls into prayer mode again, and yes arma is great, please...PLEASE.

in another thread it has been mentioned that when you run a dedi on your own PC and then start a second instance of the game to join that dedi as a client that finally the game will use a full core just for the AI. so basically that way you simply can play SP (in fake MP) with better performance. yes arma is exceptional but there are solutions to many of its exceptional problems. i'm sure it would be possible to do that for single player since it's obviously possible doing it the hacky way. and what people report from Headless Client sessions (similar method) is that AI will in addition work much better.

so before the whole "it's like that because the game is big" choir starts again. no. not all problems are caused by scale but instead some are caused by scale not being considered properly. i know it's more calming to the soul to accept short comings and not be "raging" so much but some things are just not true. period.

EDIT: i'd be fine with a second instance running in the background by default if that actually helps. would just need to be automated or easily set up.

Edited by Bad Benson

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AI in general is the toughest part to develop, because there are zero frameworks and standards. Plus, the stack-and-tack way of developing it so far has led to it having become unwieldily complicated. I think this AI, by any standard is among the most complex and extensive AI systems in use in games today.

To my knowledge, there are no other games where the AI is asked to do this many things in such varied environments. Other games develop maps and gameplay to fit the AI, where it is used, and where it doesn't work they have it cheat. With Arma it is the other way around: the devs put down a world and open up gameplay completely, and then go in to make the AI work with that. Putting down a four room apartement is something the AI's of other games have been written entirely around, with each level meticulously designed to fit the capabilities of the AI to deliver the best player-AI interaction possible. Again, not so with Arma (I know I am repeating myself here, but this point needs to be emphasized I think.), where the world is placed with at best minor attention to the AI's ability to work inside it. (Alone changing the compass direction of approach can change a certain terrain's tactical significance so much that there is no benefit to trying to optimize the AI for any given location on any map.) Then the AI is built with the goal to make it perform good, on average, across the entire map and the entire range of situations that they might find themselves in.

Basically, they are attempting to make a non-random code that can address a completely chaotic, non-predictable environment with chaotic distribution of tactically significant points and avenues, and then make this system appear as if it is felling clever decisions in the situations it faces. And contrary to you, the human, this code has less brainpower than your average worker ant.

Consider the amount of different processes and filters you are running in split second timeframes when felling tactical decisions in gameplay. For example:

Cross a street: Enemies are nearby, none are currently seen. There is a wreck in the street, and open road left and right, with buildings and doors to backyards for a hundred meters in each direction. There are windows observing the street, and there is gunfire nearby.

As a human, you know all this, you will check your benefits of being on the other side versus the risks (Sniper observation, likelihood of enemy contact based on memory of enemy location, direction of gunfire, terrain knowledge and reasonable extrapolation of enemy movement, again based from memory and experience, mines, cover, different routes with similar cycles to consider, etc, etc, etc) and you will also be able to dynamically filter ALL of those information based on your training and mental threat response level down to things that only matter, right now.

Note that I am presupposing the posession of the knowledge, and discarding the fact that first you also need to -aquire- this information and sort it for what is relevant and what isn't relevant. In terms of AI, memory cycles.

At the end of all those processes, usually within one to five or so seconds, you will have felled your decision, either crossing the street and coordinating with your squad, or staying where you are. And you will reevaluate what you are doing at every moment from then on as your senses pick up new information.

Now imagine all this has to be done by a silicon chip incapable of simultaneous processing as our sensory apparatus is, that is using a very different way of analyzing and prioritizing this information (hand-written too!) and which has to do this not for one "person", but potentially hundreds of them, all at the same time, each with their unique tactical situation. That includes different weapons, worn gear, optics, protection, presence of friend or foe, vehicles, silencers, etc, etc, etc.

The more I learn about AI and also about both Human and non-Human animal perception, the more I respect the fact that the AI is functional at all. Maybe it even is easier than I imagine it to be now, but at this point the only hope I think is that somebody calls some important EU Universities AI departement and begins a doctoral work with developing a completely new and revolutionary AI system using cutting edge code and tech for the RV engine.

Because I fear that the limitations of the AI in many respects are not limitations of code and ability, but of technology.

And that is the problem , Game players don need Simulation Grade Ai , it seems more we are testing extreme AI for another group of people ,i base this on the fact that the AI is over thinking for a game scenario half the things it does simply doesnt need to be done , it would be nice to have CQB AI , VEHICLE AI ... In essence an AI that is focused on the role it is slotted to do , even real players in clan are Slotted and sterotyped , if players cannot be all things to all men then why should AI ?

For me having played and seen my own frustrations posted in the Ai thread ci come to conclusion the Goal is not to produce Gameworthy Ai but Simulation worthy AI and only one group of people really benefit from that .

my 2 cents

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Other game's AI cannot even be ordered to board a vehicle...

Don't be ignorant dude.

In CryEngine for example you can quite easily have the AI board a vehicle, patrol an area, attack, follow waypoints etc etc.

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I once met a deranged individual who insisted to me that he could accomplish more and in less time with 100 AI under his control than 30 players using Teamspeak. With ArmAs AI glitches like rocks, road travelling, and repeatedly ramming vehicles into obstacles until either A. The obstacle is gone or B. the vehicle is destroyed. I fail to see any instance where AI can function better than humans

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Don't be ignorant dude.

In CryEngine for example you can quite easily have the AI board a vehicle, patrol an area, attack, follow waypoints etc etc.

I really believe CryEngine IS the future.

The (not-so-serious) terrain limitation (i someday heard about) is not big issue.

It's kinda pointless having a 200km map without the ability to populate him with enough amount of players (or AI) ..in a VERY repeating scenery

(Of course there are some hundreds more Pros but i wont go there)

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Scale is important, because it leaves single AI units with very few time within the AI schedule. It works like a chess game. Single units have to evaluate their environment and respond to it, in very tiny bits of time. And then move to the next unit. Their routines are very basic stuff. There's simply no engine time left to improve, to a considerable amount, the type of AI that this engine uses. It is both, it's strenght, and it's weakness. Like other have mentioned, the scope of the AI is simply too vast.

---------- Post added at 14:37 ---------- Previous post was at 14:32 ----------

Don't be ignorant dude.

In CryEngine for example you can quite easily have the AI board a vehicle, patrol an area, attack, follow waypoints etc etc.

I was ignorant of that :). Sorry.

So there's one.

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:37 ----------

There's some interesting AI talk in the latest OPREP.

Now that's VERY good news.

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I can't remember just how bad the AI are in vanilla, because i got my own modded AI which i made uses different fsm's and completly changed weapon settings and movement. Mine are setup so they are more interested in completing the task/order than searching for cover, if i remember right if they cannot find cover they get directed back to the start of the fsm and it starts again when i changed it so searching for cover was a much less priority it makes them do tasks faster and it makes them alot more active they are aloooot more aggressive in combat because they arnt getting bogged down searching for cover. Its not impossible to make them pretty damn smart, its just the stock AI i would say are very basic and robotic.

Edited by Opticalsnare

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I can't remember just how bad the AI are in vanilla, because i got my own modded AI which i made uses different fsm's and completly changed weapon settings and movement. Mine are setup so they are more interested in completing the task/order than searching for cover, if i remember right if they cannot find cover they get directed back to the start of the fsm and it starts again when i changed it so searching for cover was a much less priority it makes them do tasks faster and it makes them alot more active they are aloooot more aggressive in combat because they arnt getting bogged down searching for cover. Its not impossible to make them pretty damn smart, its just the stock AI i would say are very basic and robotic.

That sounds great, gotta be asked, is it something worth sharing, or demonstrating :D

Lots of cool AI things happening, looking forward to what spirit6 has in store for us, from the sounds of it it's the "next big thing"

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Your point? I'd enjoy throwing you in a field of bCombat AI and seeing how you cope :p

We do play PvP occasionally, but with our current numbers (around 40 active) it isn't as fun (although we'll be doing some unit vs unit stuff soon). Anyway the point is that MP is fun, I feel I've somewhat proved that point.

I agree that performance isn't great at high numbers of AI (160-200+). However, isn't this expected? Plus, when should AI ever need to reach this amount? Even if 40 players were outnumbered 2:1 you wouldn't notice a huge performance hit (like I said, around 160+ is when you start to notice it).

conventional pvp, like TDM, Conquest, AAS and the likes, is nonexistent but nevermind.

I know its traditionally not the focus of arma, though there is nothing that speaks against this in an otherwise decent game.

Its not tradition that is the reason for complete absense of conventional pvp, but broken netcode, bad design decisions and until recently (see performance server binary) apparent lack of action by BI to adress this.

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The most disappointing thing for me is that there are solutions to a lot of these problems mentioned, yet they never get fixed, or in many cases even aknowledged. For example, this Zeus thing looks interesting, but with the glaring issues still present in A3, an additional gameplay mode just becomes another way to experience all of A3's bugs.

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Pardon my ignorance, but can you name another FPS/tactical game on the scale of Arma with superior AI? The AI is far from perfect, but I think in most cases, its pretty much improved over the years.

There is no game that equals the scale and diversity of Arma...that is the only reason why players still buy and develop for it...but that has nothing to do with the fact that Arma3 has some of the most problematic/unreliable/gamebreaking and stupid AI in the industry, mostly because it has been grossly neglected and left to die by it's developers for far too many years and who rather do and offer ANYTHING other than re-investing in fixing the AI. There's clearly no passion at BIS when it comes to AI.

Yes...there are many games that have better and more reliably functioning AI...old ones too!...go play some Counter Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO) against bots...MUCH smarter and more human like in reaction, planning and behavior...like light years ahead of arma even though its based on technology older than OFP. It's not too difficult to find many games with better AI than arma...in fact its way too easy which you would think should be a warning sign to BIS...but apparently BIS is staking their professional "lives" on the size and scope of their game world rather than it's real world use in functionality and reliability. A pretty big mistake...unless of course you plan on changing the developmental focus to PvP (and DAYZ).

Edited by BigShot

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The first major issue is with the UI; terrible, just terrible. You need a tactical pause like in Mass Effect or Star Wars KOTR to actually have the time to go through all that command scheme and it's a pain in the bum. More so when tied to it are other commands like changing weapons, setting up or detonating explosives, open doors, etc. It can work, but only in very slow paced situations. In a tight firefight you're dead.

Beyond that, it's actually funny how the AI choses to go through rocks, small walls, trees, bigger concrete walls, instead of going around, when clearly that's an option or just using the bloody road! Pathfinding during driving is a complete mess. Although quite amusing to watch a AI drive through a wall at a high speed, run over an ally then full complete stop like the Volvo commercial. All the AI are getting off and the others from the ground moved a little bit. "nothing to see here, move along" :bounce3: The same thing when an AI refuses to go prone or even defending himself under fire (forget about open fire, just standing up like an idiot target practice).

Quite surprise to why Bohemia didn't contact the creators of so many great AI mods and combine them all in one. Their friends from Kindomcome are working with a university for the developing the AI, if they could, then most certain BI could have done it as well.

Also, if you guys claim that the AI is truly independent and does not cheat by knowing where the others are, then just put (I know it's not that easy to do it) blue team on one core, red team on another one and civilians + neutrals on a different as well. They all access the "borg collective", but don't need to stay and wait for execution in a serial manner.

On a ending note, what makes the AI robots, is the alien way they behave. They should know how to secure a perimeter when I tell them to go to one spot, not just stay there like complete morons. When one of them is down, they should try to suppress the enemy, move in and carry the wounded out of the way, panic in their voices under fire or when one or more are getting hit and so on. Small things like that, moving with their faces towards the enemy, firing not going 180 then running away like a headless chicken, switch to automatic fire in CQC and so on.

Still, some great fun when things click in. :D

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Yes...there are many games that have better and more reliably functioning AI...old ones too!...go play some Counter Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO) against bots...MUCH smarter and more human like in reaction, planning and behavior...like light years ahead of arma even though its based on technology older than OFP. It's not too difficult to find many games with better AI than arma...in fact its way too easy which you would think should be a warning sign to BIS...but apparently BIS is staking their professional "lives" on the size and scope of their game world rather than it's real world use in functionality and reliability. A pretty big mistake...unless of course you plan on changing the developmental focus to PvP (and DAYZ).

I'm not saying that ArmA AI is flawless (god no), but i'm interested in knowing those other games (apart from CS i've never played) where AI is doing better than ArmA AI...in every game i play (to be fair, not a lot), where there's something that can be called somehow "AI", it's absolutely awful unless corrected by mods, as in ArmA. I've stopped playing the Total War series, even with Darthmod, as much as the AI is dumb while doing much easier things than in ArmA.

Edited by ProfTournesol

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Corridor shooter AI will always LOOK better then arma AI, but if you could actualy put those AI on open terrain like arma they would be dump as hell.

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Corridor shooter AI will always LOOK better then arma AI, but if you could actualy put those AI on open terrain like arma they would be dump as hell.

Hi firstly , if you are here to derail the fact that AI is a problem by justifying there inadequacies as "OK" because of Scale and complexity then your in wrong place at wrong time , we already know why and what ,we are saying its time to re evaluate and find solutions obody needs to reaffirm the known that is a loop we have been in for 13 years.

Secondly , At least corridor AI do what they are designed to do well and are not a resource hog , Arma Ai are neither efficient on resource and even though designed to do several things ,they do them all poorly , Arma Ai in CQB and inside buildings speficially are poor , Ai in open field = find cover loop in FSM are poor and need to be cmpensated with some OTT accuracy .

at the end of the day its like purchasing the Electric Teasmade that will boil the water ,fill the cup and sound the alar its rubbish at all 3 , sometimes its better to have only an Alarm set 5 miutes earlier so you can goto the kettle and Tea and make it properly :).

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Hi firstly , if you are here to derail the fact that AI is a problem by justifying there inadequacies as "OK" because of Scale and complexity then your in wrong place at wrong time

How the hell did you interprete this out of the post of nicolasroger?

Corridor shooter AI will always LOOK better then arma AI, but if you could actualy put those AI on open terrain like arma they would be dump as hell.

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Although dozens of people are now complaining about the AI fighting/cover/battlefield behavior I did not open this thread to address all of this behavior. I was talking about two (from my point of view) quite basic issues which can be solved no matter how big or small an environment is:

- non-responding team mates which is happening occasionally since I can think of (2001). For the AI in this case it shouldn't matter if the battlefield is 20x20km or 20x20m - AI must respond to user input!

- driving: path finding can be complex, I admit. But implementing at least a reverse mechanism or at least something that AI is not totally wrecking trucks etc. is just something which could be programmed in.

It's not about talking bad about Arma series... but to help BIS to focus in topics which are most important to their customers. Unfortunately there is no response from BIS to these things - not a suprise to me. I lost hope in the Arma series not because of the bugs but because of the priorities of BIS. New stuff seems to be more important than fixing long existing annoying bugs.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the signals sent by BI were and still are obvious - AI won't undergo any significant changes due to lack of documentation from previous developers as well not enough man power . As I understand it, BI would have to dig too deep but that would probably be to complex without breaking other stuff and is not going to happen. So far hasn't.

So I guess is brand spanking new AI the way then? Unlikely

Sent from tablet thingy

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the signals sent by BI were and still are obvious - AI won't undergo any significant changes due to lack of documentation from previous developers as well not enough man power . As I understand it, BI would have to dig too deep but that would probably be to complex without breaking other stuff and is not going to happen. So far hasn't.
Reminds me of the new OPREP, which specifically goes into detail about the problems with AI and animations, due to some features being heavily dependent on others and liable to breaking if the others are adjusted.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the signals sent by BI were and still are obvious - AI won't undergo any significant changes due to lack of documentation from previous developers as well not enough man power . As I understand it, BI would have to dig too deep but that would probably be to complex without breaking other stuff and is not going to happen. So far hasn't.

So I guess is brand spanking new AI the way then? Unlikely

Sent from tablet thingy

Eventually they have to do something with the ai.

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Reminds me of the new OPREP, which specifically goes into detail about the problems with AI and animations, due to some features being heavily dependent on others and liable to breaking if the others are adjusted.

Yes that reminds me to look forward to the changes but at the same time not to expect anything groundbreaking, at least not any time soon.

Eventually they have to do something with the ai

I am sure small changes are applied and experimented with all the time but I fear that the issues with AI might be much more fundamental

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What is worrying me is that I had no stuck AI soldiers in OFP nor Arma 2. Never. They have been doing a lot of stupid things but never got stuck. Now in Arma 3 they get stuck regularly (most recently yesterday, in a building with vanilla AI).

Also, ECP mod for OFP made the driving AI completely problem-free. It was absolutely reliable, predictable. Don't know why is it not possible in Arma series.

Not only they did in OFP-Arma2, but it was a very common one.

AI in the past game often drawn their pistols and and stuck, the only solution was by not giving a pistol to them.

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Yes...there are many games that have better and more reliably functioning AI...old ones too!...go play some Counter Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO) against bots...MUCH smarter and more human like in reaction, planning and behavior...like light years ahead of arma even though its based on technology older than OFP.

Uh, well, thing is that the bots in CS are using pre-planned path nodes baked into the map by the developer. The AI does nothing but select which path to go along in which number, and then they aimbot without having to cope with bullet drop, or any weapon fancier than a shotgun. CS has no AI to speak of, and again, it has extremely restricted maps with not even a little bit of the complexity that Arma's AI has to cope with. CS:GOs AI couldn't walk down a street in this game.

It's not too difficult to find many games with better AI than arma...in fact its way too easy which you would think should be a warning sign to BIS...but apparently BIS is staking their professional "lives" on the size and scope of their game world rather than it's real world use in functionality and reliability. A pretty big mistake...unless of course you plan on changing the developmental focus to PvP (and DAYZ).

Show me a different game that actually has an AI. The Cryengine AI is an example of a freeform AI, which is rather competetive but still not working with as much complex issues as Arma's AI, and also in more restricted environs. The combat distances are also much, much shorter in that game and the combat priorities are different. But on the whole, having not much experience with these AI apart from short stints in far cry and crysis, I think this is close.

However, is it really better than Arma's AI? I remember much complaint about the stupidity of the AI all the way through Crysis 1, its addons and Crysis 2. Again, a familiar story, and it should tell us that Crye's developers are probably not better off with their AI than BI's are.

So, what other games are there? OF:DR or RR? Both suffer from shortfalls, both have their advantages, but in no way is either a distinct improvement over what is offered to us with Arma 3s vanilla AI. FEAR? They even went so far as to remove clutter from their levels and designing the levels around the AI, rather than the other way around, to the point of being able to strip the AI down to bones and still have it work brilliantly. Not possible in Arma.

Just claiming that it is easy to find an AI "better" than Armas without putting forward any clear examples is rather cheap, don't you think?

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