[SP] HETMAN: War Stories

[haleks 8212]

Okay, thanks for the info.

Looking forward to the next version! :D

[delta99 34]

Hmm. When exactly it doesn't work? I can't remember such issue. All waypoints are generated by single function and Rush is affecting that function directly, so this should work for all or none.

Anyway, as I recall both schools had supporters (your way was my first choice, but then came people and requested opposite approach - their arguments was reasonable (not realistic, soldiers are too fatigued to fight), so I agreed...), so apparently (can't remember really) I decided to do it more realistic - AFAIK RL foot infantry doesn't run everywhere all the time, but I may be mistaken. Rush is for those preferring otherwise. That was under A2. And now, A3 1.24, we have new fatigue system. You realize, what results will have running all the time now? Awful.

BTW, as often in such cases, I'm now insipred to review some waypoint settings - this wasn't touched too long. For now for HWS, eventually perhaps also for HAL itself.

Well hopefully when you review things you will find something and/or tweak things somewhat. I don't consider the "Normal" speed to be running but more of a jog so still seems reasonable to me that troops will be jogging if they are actively engaged in a fight. I've seen it where they walk when less than 1k to get somewhere and then just walk into a battle until they go into "Combat" mode. Certainly not realistic whether they are fatigued or not.

And as I pointed out if traveling a longer distance they would have transport.

Maybe you can get something from GIAI - certainly they aren't walking into any battles there that I have seen.

[Rydygier 1309]

I've seen it where they walk when less than 1k to get somewhere

Depends on the mission, but IIRC this should be possible only for idle orders (that also for certain setting with secondary objectives and idle decoy may lead into the battle though, intentionally or not). For HWS is activated dynamic formations/speed, so here if walking group found itself in danger due to close known enemy will dynamically change pace to normal.

Maybe you can get something from GIAI

What's GIAI?

Jogging or running, whatever, as long due to new fatigue results of such movement are as we can see, it is not an option to run all the time by default.

However I already did some changes in the waypoint settings (in some points normal speed was blocked due to usage SAFE behavior which, and IMO it's bad thing that should be changed, disables any jogging and any formation except this clumsy column thingy), maybe this help. Also, by default is activated in HWS dividing the route for many sub-waypoints leading from cover to cover if possible. Expanded this feature with short rest breaks at each sub-waypoint, if speed is NORMAL. I'll test that, and if this will work fine, I could try to enable Rush by default and see, what people will say. However there is a catch. I found very unfortunate, so I see no way to set for AI groups "calm jog" with lowered weapons. Jog/run is possible in fact only for AWARE behavior, and that means, AIs will keep weapons rised most of the time, which looks weird if there is no any danger around. IMO much more weird, than walking, but that's subjective impression.

As for transport - it is possible, but limited. In many cases there will be not enough cargo vehicles for every foot infantry groups. Few trucks/choopers at most. I could give more such vehicles and see results. Still, some orders haven't assigned cargo, as we know. It's mainly about idle orders, which I'm using in HWS to push not engaged groups forward, as second line ready for fast entering the battle.

[Rydygier 1309]

Mission updated to 1.04:

- expanded HAL config to make Leaders more aggressive (more groups to take objective, some idle groups will slowly push forward too) and interesting (air evac, dynamic formations);

- Leaders should look for shelter if close to the buildings;

- safer spawning positions;

- fixed issue with always "busy" artillery - arty support is now performed;

- battle conditions calibration (balanced attacker/defender groups amount ratio, forces a bit more spaced apart statistically, Leaders moved more at the rear...);

- proper Leader units for custom factions (if provided any officers);

- added chance for single cargo vehicles for foot infantry transportation;

- markers for radio chatter and artillery fire missions;

- re-randomize avatar option via 0-8;

- all units switchable via Team Switch;

- MARTA markers switch via 0-8;

- some night combat equipment for FIA;

- improved weather setting code;

- added "NO CHANGE" weather setting meant for weather mods compatibility;

- tweaked foot infantry movement speed and formations;

- magazines used by infantry added to the ammo trucks cargo space;

- added "campaign" layer - optionally results of previous battles will be remembered and shown on the map; size of controlled by both sides area will slightly affect morale and force strength;

- added forces ratio GUI setting;

- added map markers showing overall battle plan;

- various code tweaks and changes.

Mentioned three issues stay illusive though.

Regarding campaign, are defined following options as for battle result:

- side wins if there is no enemy in 5000 radius around the target location or if morale of enemy force drop to the minimal level (which will happen eventually if enemy Leader was killed);

- battle is a draw (control over near land will not change) if both Leaders are dead, there is no any forces in 5000 radius around the target area, morale of both sides will drop in the same time to the lowest level or player exited battle prematurely (eg killed, but not team switched).

Areas held by given side are saved in the player's profile and will be marked with proper three colors at the beginning of the next battle. Compared controlled land percenatages of both sides will affect slightly morale (tendency to panic) and forces stregth ratio. Percentage of controlled land will affect slightly possible amount of support, air, static and cargo units added to the task force.

Do not expect visible differences after few battles. If however majority of the map is held by one side, influence will be noticeable, I hope.

As for MARTA symbols disappearing after Team Switch issue - use 0-8 MARTA switch twice to re-enable them.

Forces ratio, apart from GUI setting, may be altered further in defense/assault types of battle to reflect partially usual attacker/defender forces disproportion. Not always though - sometimes attacker may miscalculate defending forces.

As for the future - I'm thinking now if/how to nicely introduce "medals" collection for extraordinary performance on the battlefield for the player. May be though due to switching units ability. Also "bravery detection" code may be difficult to do. :) I'm open on any ideas.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Rydygier

[SavageCDN 231]

GIAI is what MCC Sandbox uses as it's AI behaviour modifier.. I have yet to try it myself but I hear good things about it.

Thanks for the update will check it out.

[delta99 34]

GIAI is what MCC Sandbox uses as it's AI behaviour modifier.. I have yet to try it myself but I hear good things about it.

Thanks for the update will check it out.

Yeah, sorry, got the guys doing MCC Sandbox mixed up with Rydygier so thought he was part of that!!! :) But certainly check it out to see how it works if possible.

---------- Post added at 20:27 ---------- Previous post was at 20:25 ----------

Jogging or running, whatever, as long due to new fatigue results of such movement are as we can see, it is not an option to run all the time by default.

However I already did some changes in the waypoint settings (in some points normal speed was blocked due to usage SAFE behavior which, and IMO it's bad thing that should be changed, disables any jogging and any formation except this clumsy column thingy), maybe this help. Also, by default is activated in HWS dividing the route for many sub-waypoints leading from cover to cover if possible. Expanded this feature with short rest breaks at each sub-waypoint, if speed is NORMAL. I'll test that, and if this will work fine, I could try to enable Rush by default and see, what people will say. However there is a catch. I found very unfortunate, so I see no way to set for AI groups "calm jog" with lowered weapons. Jog/run is possible in fact only for AWARE behavior, and that means, AIs will keep weapons rised most of the time, which looks weird if there is no any danger around. IMO much more weird, than walking, but that's subjective impression.

Some of this might just do it Rydygier. I will defer to your testing and great work to get it as best as you can.

As for the idle orders, yeah slow walk is acceptable for sure.

[SavageCDN 231]

I tried 1.04 briefly last night certainly an improvement on the running/walking - spawned as a 2 man recon team and we jogged our route.. pausing every so often for a short rest. I did get script errors on occasion - do you want me to post these up for you to look at?

My second try I spawned as a 3 man unit with myself as lead - again recon tasks (always fun) however about halfway through the battle (we were holed up in a house protecting a flank) my 2 subordinates decided to surrender (!!). We were not under fire in fact no enemies in visual range.. seemed a bit odd. I even shot one of them to motivate the other :p but to no avail.

[kremator 1065]

That's what I call leadership Savage.

[Rydygier 1309]

I did get script errors on occasion - do you want me to post these up for you to look at?

Sure. Show me.

We were not under fire in fact no enemies in visual range.. seemed a bit odd. I even shot one of them to motivate the other but to no avail.

:D Chance for surrender depends on overall army morale, not individual group situation. Is assumed, each group knows overall situation and this matter here. Individual situation should matter too however, so I'll think, how to improve that. In fact, experienced similar thing this morning, only I was subordinate and my TL surrendered, bloody coward, so I went on my own to fight. Killed that day about 30 enemies with my rusty AKMS (African Conflict), most during long and intense withdrawal from recon mission - we're heavily overwhelmed and chased. Anyway, due to that added a bit of code, so player will leave group, that surrenders. Otherwise result is odd.

[SavageCDN 231]

That's what I call leadership Savage.

Hehe... they were hardcore about it too... the last guy didn't even flinch when I executed his buddy :p

I ended up running around for another 30 minutes hunting down the enemy and was killed by a friendly APC unit as soon as they saw me (I guess had a negative score by then lol)

:D Chance for surrender depends on overall army morale, not individual group situation. Is assumed, each group knows overall situation and this matter here. Individual situation should matter too however, so I'll think, how to improve that. In fact, experienced similar thing this morning, only I was subordinate and my TL surrendered, bloody coward, so I went on my own to fight. Killed that day about 30 enemies with my rusty AKMS (African Conflict), most during long and intense withdrawal from recon mission - we're heavily overwhelmed and chased. Anyway, due to that added a bit of code, so player will leave group, that surrenders. Otherwise result is odd.

Of course that makes more sense... so does the entire army surrender at that point or just select groups?

[Rydygier 1309]

Of course that makes more sense... so does the entire army surrender at that point or just select groups?

It goes roughly as follows:

- Each army has own morale value;

- nominal/max morale is 0. Minimal is -50;

- morale fluctuates up and down in these boundaries as shows this trivial formula:

_OLF = _OLmpl * (((-(_lossPerc * _lossPerc))/(1.1^_cycle)) + ((15 + (random 5) + (random 5))/(1 + _lossP)) - (_lossP * 10) + (_cycle ^ ((10 * (1 - _lossP))/_cycle)));

_mplLU = 1;
_lostU = _CLast - _CCurrent;
if (_lostU < 0) then {_lostU = - _lostU;_mplLU = -1};

_lossL = _mplLU * ((100 * _lostU/_cInitial)^(1.55 + (random 0.05) + (random 0.05)))/10;

_balanceF = 0.5 + (random 0.5) + (random 0.5) - _lossP - (count _knownE)/_CCurrent;

_morale = _morale + (_OLF - _lossL + _balanceF);

- I was joking. It's not trivial. :) It's complex, as I wanted certain morale dynamics curve, with ability to recover in time dependent on the losses;

- Important factors are: total losses/reinforcements, latest losses/reinforcements, current amount of groups, current amount of known enemy groups, time;

- morale affects Leader's decisions, if keep offensive stance or switch to defensive and vice versa;

- morale affects also a chance checked each cycle for each group for panic or even surrender;

- panic (not following orders, tend to run, temporary) or surrender (permanent) chance is dependent also on amount of groups in panic/surrendered (so the more groups in panic/surrendered, the bigger chance, so other will follow);

- such behavior may occur at any morale value, but in fact it is less than sporadic until losses reach critical level (very roughly about 30%).

What I'm planning now is adding another condition before group may panic and surrender based on "near enemy - near ally" (danger) factor. It will be unlikely to see any panic without enemy near and significant enemy presence near the group will be necessary to see any surrendering (when group suddenly surrender in the front of of allied collegues while no enemy is even visible, those guys may feel very stupid and, well, hastily...). In the result I predict in general less such groups, and only in more logical situations.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Rydygier

[SavageCDN 231]

Yeah sounds trivial :don 11:

Thanks for the explanation gonna play some more this weekend!

Snippet from RPT:

http://pastebin.com/zis3xDrM

Edited August 21, 2014 by SavageCDN
pastebin link added

[delta99 34]

The planned fixes to surrender sound great.

[Rydygier 1309]

Snippet from RPT:

A bit odd, as I so far didn't saw these. Was there any signs of overloaded CPU? Battle was bigger, than usual?

Both should be harmless, still annoying, if occuring, I'll try something here, but not sure, if it help, as I do not experience these errors.

All right. "dev branch" updated to 1.05 beta1:

Panic or surrender behaviors should now occur mostly/only when enemy is near the group;

removed some "undefined variable" error opportunities;

fixed not triggering "no ally near battlefield" end of battle.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Rydygier

[SavageCDN 231]

I can't recall but they were medium or large battles my FPS would have been around 20-25. I didn't notice anything not working... as you said they seemed more annoying than harmful. Also I was using @ASR_AI and a few client-side mods like JSRS and VTS weaponresting.

I got a few of these yesterday:

Empty word in sentence 'XMIT' '' 'dist2500' 'at11' 'xmit' 
Error in expression <illeryETA [_targetPosATL,_ammoC];

if ((_newEta < _eta) or (_eta < 0)) then
{
_e>
 Error position: <_newEta < _eta) or (_eta < 0)) then
{
_e>
 Error Undefined variable in expression: _neweta
Error in expression <illeryETA [_targetPosATL,_ammoC];

if ((_newEta < _eta) or (_eta < 0)) then
{
_e>
 Error position: <_newEta < _eta) or (_eta < 0)) then
{
_e>
 Error Undefined variable in expression: _neweta

[Rydygier 1309]

OK, thanks for reporting. I'll try to squash any of such "undefined" annoyances. IMO most of them occurs, when group/unit to which script is reffering is destroyed/ceases to exist in the middle of code execution. So exec delays due to CPU overload aren't necessary, but in such case such error becomes more probable.

[SavageCDN 231]

You're welcome. Another mod I would recommend is @st_interact - this allows you to take command of your current group in the event of a problem. Yesterday I was in a Hunter as a rifleman and driver got stuck on a rock. Entire 4 man squad just sat in the Hunter waiting for the driver to get back on the road. I took over the group and we disembarked and made it to our objective on foot.

[froggyluv 2135]

Interesting mission though Im not sure our AI commander knew what he was doing. I kept getting orders to SAD areas behind my squad that we had already travelled and cleared. So maybe he was treating us as a defensive squad as we were pretty much an AT squad? Things got interesting when I abandoned the AI commanded waypoints and approached the front lines but was just curious how the AI commander thinks.

[Rydygier 1309]

@st_interact - this allows you to take command of your current group in the event of a problem. Yesterday I was in a Hunter as a rifleman and driver got stuck on a rock. Entire 4 man squad just sat in the Hunter waiting for the driver to get back on the road. I took over the group and we disembarked and made it to our objective on foot.

Interesting. Another option is Team Switch.

but was just curious how the AI commander thinks.

Chapters 4 and 5 of this manual explain some things.

There are several kinds of mission, HAL my order to the controlled group. SAD waypoint is used for some of them, but not only for actual combat "SAD", but also during recon to make group wander a bit around it's waypoint. In general each order, HAL is giving, has the cause and purpose, that however may be not, and often isn't, clear to the simple grunts following it. So, as such grunt, you may just follow it blindly trusting in HQ omniscience, or question it, as you did, and search for action for yourself. HAL has own agenda, but isn't nor should be perfect, so in fact sometimes in result better is to act on your own. And sometimes not. However if you're TL leading the group when HAL issues an order to it, you'll get a bit more informations about the given task, so generally you know, what to do with your men. There are also debug modes described in chapters 5.12 and 7, that will reveal via map markers more about HAL's activity.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Rydygier

[placek 10]

Hi,

I have a problem with launching this mod. When im trying to start it , i get an error which says that im lacking lacking of some downloadable content : A3_Data_F_Curator_Characters and A3_Structures_F_EPC_Civ_Camping.

Do you know how to fix this ?

[Rydygier 1309]

These are parts of vanilla Arma 3 content. What is yours game version? If not latest, 1.26 - update (autoupdate is disabled?). Otherwise - check files integrity in the Steam for Arma 3. Or reinstall?

[Rydygier 1309]

"Dev branch" updated to 1.05 beta2:

- Fixed morale drop calculating when Leader is killed;

- removed next "undefined variable" error opportunities;

- expanded debriefing with new sections.

Now, on the additional pages of debriefing screen, player after battle may find:

- general result;

- statistics for side A:

- list of KIA;

- list of WIA;

- killed enemies for each soldier, that killed at least one;

- awarded soldiers;

- indicted soldiers.

Empty sections aren't displayed. Indicted are soldiers, that killed friendly unit (manslaughter) or members of group, that surrendered (cowardice). Awarded may be unit not indicted, that personally killed at least 10 enemies.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[Rydygier 1309]

Regarding getout-getin loop issue - after more testing determined following:

Unlike in A2, now vanilla AI tend to handle on its own, when cargo troops should disembark/embark (mostly at "enemy spotted" events). HAL contains code designed in A2 times, so tries to control same thing on its own, thus intereferences and contradictory orders. Also seems, this vanilla handling is bugged a bit - eg TL may stuck in constant getin order loop eg if vehicle was just destroyed. The latter makes most changes, I could make, unreliable, as vanilla AI here is obviously still wip and all may change. But anyway, I'll try to abandon HAL-controlled (dis)embarking wherever I can rely on the judgment of AI (yeah...) - mostly attack missions and from the other hand to make this control harder (embarking forbidden), where I want cargo (dis)embarked, while I know, AI will not do this for me (defensive stance, recon missions).

I'm testing above now. If anyone want to help - "dev branch" updated with described changes.

[SavageCDN 231]

Tried a quick test last night the getin-getout issue seems to be fixed (although I only saw that occasionally before). Boy the default BIS AI are stupid!! Half the time when the APC disembarks its passengers it ends up running over one or two guys in the process!! Also I love how an AI driver will lock up the brakes avoiding a rabbit on the road but happily plow over fellow soldiers on it's way to an objective :p

edit: in HAL for Arma 2 there was a script you had that could be put into init line of editor object and it spit out classnames to the RPT file... is this still part of A2 HAL and do you remember the file name of the script?

Edited August 25, 2014 by SavageCDN

[haleks 8212]

Also I love how an AI driver will lock up the brakes avoiding a rabbit on the road but happily plow over fellow soldiers on it's way to an objective :p

That is so true! Creating/playing Convoy missions is a nightmare in Arma... T^T