Smarter tanks script

[Psilocybe 3]

Thanks for the replies. Looking forward to checking this out when I get home.

Also thankyou for being a modded, people such as yourself make our experience that much better.

[alarm9k 14]

I'm glad it's being used :)

But to be truly honest, the main reason why I started this mod was... far from altruistic. Just like the description says I was very irritated by the tanks' stupid behaviour in one of my favorite missions ::D But I think this is more or less true for every modder around here.

[sonsalt6 105]

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[n_icomach 312]

Is this working with only your tank that you control or all tanks including enemy factions?

[alarm9k 14]

Is this working with only your tank that you control or all tanks including enemy factions?

From the description: "Smart behaviour is activated for all factions and all groups: AI groups, vehicles in the player's group and High Command." So yes, it will activate for hostile factions too.

It's actually not limited to the tanks only, tanks just have more functionality.

All vehicles with weapons (for example, MRAPs with HMGs):

• Target most dangerous targets first (since BI's so called subjective value does not correctly reflect target's threat);
  

Tracked vehicles:

• All of the above;
  
• Rotate the hull to the most dangerous targets
  

Tanks (not the "Tank" class, but specifically MBTs):

• All of the above;
  
• Select appropriate round type.
  

[n_icomach 312]

From the description: "Smart behaviour is activated for all factions and all groups: AI groups, vehicles in the player's group and High Command." So yes, it will activate for hostile factions too.

It's actually not limited to the tanks only, tanks just have more functionality.

All vehicles with weapons (for example, MRAPs with HMGs):

• Target most dangerous targets first (since BI's so called subjective value does not correctly reflect target's threat);
  

Tracked vehicles:

• All of the above;
  
• Rotate the hull to the most dangerous targets
  

Tanks (not the "Tank" class, but specifically MBTs):

• All of the above;
  
• Select appropriate round type.
  

Awesome one last question, does this support spawned units like in ALIVE or in MCC?

I reread the description and didn't see any mention of that.

[alarm9k 14]

does this support spawned units like in ALIVE or in MCC

Yes, it supports all vehicles in the game, no matter how and when they were added to the mission.

[n_icomach 312]

Yes, it supports all vehicles in the game, no matter how and when they were added to the mission.

Awesome thanks for answering my questions. I'll try this mod out once my PC is back up and running. Of all goes well my entire unit will pick it up :)

[alarm9k 14]

Great. If you find any bugs please take your time to report them.

[singleton 22]

How does this mod play with AI Modifications such as BCombat AI or ASR AI? Any input on this? Also, does this mod play nice on multiplayer servers with high numbers of AI and players to calculate? I run an ALiVE server and I am looking to improve the armor skills of enemies, however I am concerned that if surrounded by friendlies, enemy forces (combined arms) at different ranges and many different types it will cause havoc on the server. Also how will this coincide with AI Orders. E.g. AI Commander orders tank column to grid 1234-1234 and they see enemies along the way, will they engage and continue to their objective? Stop and engage and never continue to their objective etc.

[miller 49]

Thanks alarm9k

ArmA3.de Mirror updated:

Smarter tanks (v1.6) by alarm9k

Kind regards

Miller

[serjames 357]

Jolly, sounds like you might have to test and let us all know. :)

I'm curious how this play with those other mods too.

bCombat definitely has no influence on vehicles, Alive will assign Waypoints etc... so not sure about that... How does the profiling effect the STS ?

[alarm9k 14]

How does this mod play with AI Modifications such as BCombat AI or ASR AI?

Don't know, didn't test.

Also, does this mod play nice on multiplayer servers with high numbers of AI and players to calculate?

The script runs on the machine for which the vehicle is local. For the AI not in the player's group it's usually the server. Yes, there may be performance issues due to the nature of the script: it has to check the vehicle's surroundings (nearTargets, to be exact) once in a while. It does that once in 0.5 seconds. Why so often? Mostly because of round selection routine for tanks. We cannot predict which enemy unit it is going to target even if we order it to target and fire at some particular target (doTarget, doFire). Because of this we have to check what target it is actually targeting (by using aimedAtTarget) at any particular moment and load appropriate round according to the actual target type. Yes, the script design can (and will!) be optimized, but... it takes time. I didn't experience performance problems myself, but I mostly play single player, where the amount of active vehicles at any given time is about 10-15. Thus more testing is needed.

E.g. AI Commander orders tank column to grid 1234-1234 and they see enemies along the way, will they engage and continue to their objective?

Some things are not broken and thus do not require fixing :), while some unfortunately cannot be fixed. I do not (and cannot) replace the whole AI. The only changes this script introduces to AI behavour are:

• Changes to target selection algorithm
  
• Hull rotation (if the vehicle is not moving)
  
• Stop (if was moving) if a 'high threat' target has been encountered, and proceed to previous destination if the target is gone or its threat value decreased below certan value.
  
• Select appropriate round (if the vehicle is a tank)
  

Other from these the behaviour will be... well, default. So if a column was moving it will continue moving, and it's destination will not be erased even if they have to stop for a while to deal with a high-threat target. For the description of 'high threat' and logic behind it see the... well.. description on the first page.

Hope this helps

[DaViSFiT 21]

So if player uses zeus, he needs to run the mod also? Will this mod work with ASR AI?

[Robalo 465]

So if player uses zeus, he needs to run the mod also? Will this mod work with ASR AI?

For vehicles spawned by the game-master to be enhanced, you'd need the mod running on game-master's machine. And yes, works fine with ASR AI (so far only tested SP) ;)

[DaViSFiT 21]

ThX as always robalo ;) Will test it, very curious about it ;)

Oh btw. Alarm9k can you sign your mod? we need the serverkey for clients to use it.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Numrollen

[alarm9k 14]

Alarm9k can you sign your mod?

I'll try during this weekend. Don't have much time these days, sorry.

[DaViSFiT 21]

No Problem. Until then i will test it on our testserver without keycheck. Armed vehicle coordination is the worst part for the ai followed by convoy and attack helicopters.

[DaViSFiT 21]

I tested on server and local. Hmm very strange tank vs infantry. Sometimes they shoot with HE (what is good) but they still ignore so much things. I shoot as infantrie (took control over zeus) on them, they killed me but they still ignore the rest of the team (still 1AT guy left and 2-3 others). On a tank platoon 1 tank got shot down by AT team but the rest of the tank just dont care. they drove around and they had sight on the infantrie but just dont recognize them. I also placed tank platoon on a hill, so they had very good sight but even 30 infantry guys running around between 250-1200m or just standing around dont get their attention. Also when i gave them attack order they dont use their range to attack infanty, just drive there and try to shoot them under 200m. Everytime 2x AT Team vs. Tank plattoon the infantry win.

Enemy vehicles vs vehicle is good, they really try to kill the vehicle even the crew is dead, nice one. also on a good range.

i dont want all seeing eye tanks but on a overwatch postition it would be cool if they "scan" more. Not that they should kill all infantry within 2000m instant with their sniper MG but after 2min. of infantry in front of them (300-1500m), it would be cool if they would attack sometimes.

Would be cool to have a debug mode so i see if your script is active? I dont know, if you have an idea how i can help you let me know. Its like using TPWCAS and i still dont feel it is active ;)

I would love to see sometimes that 1! tank is a real problem! Not a 360° cheater super ai that snipe everyone within seconds but as danger as a human tank would be. when flanked from infantry a very easy target but a monster if right positioned and track only a small part of the map.

Edited October 14, 2014 by Numrollen

[alarm9k 14]

The script doesn't make the vehicles see better, at least for now. I am not quite happy with how the tanks spot infantry either, but, again, this is not a part of the script (yet?). So if you say that the tank saw infantry and didn't shoot (given that all conditions were true -- see description), then that's clearly a bug. If it didn't see, well, that's a missing feature, but not a bug. Please clarify which case applies to you.

There is a 'debug' mode, but there is no a simple switch to turn it on and off. If you are fluent with ARMA scripting you can do the following:

• unpack the pbo
  
• open setup.sqf and uncomment all lines where function 'logtxt' is called
  
• repack and replace the pbo
  

logtxt logs the tanks current actions to the command chat:

• current target;
  
• round reloading decisions;
  
• weapon switching (MG/Cannon)
  

Be warned: if you have multiple tanks, they will spam the chat with their messages.

If you are not happy with editing the code, then wait for a while -- I will make a test version of the script and post it here.

P.S. Regarding the tanks' spotting distance, the question is whether we want the tanks to be:

• realistic in terms of real life (where you cannot use thermal view at day and you have to spot targets using only simple optics) -- this is what it seems to be currently;
  
• or 'realistic' in terms of ARMA (where you can turn on thermal view any time and easily spot a single soldier at 1km+ distance).
  

I am not yet sure which one to prefer.

[serjames 357]

Definitely the Prior.. Realistic... As you said Uber Sniper tanks is now what we're looking for :-)

[alarm9k 14]

Sniper tanks is now what we're looking for

I guess you mean "...noT what we're..."

Well.. that's not as obvious as it seems. Current behaviour makes the AI tanks too underpowered compared to human players, who can use ARMA's (doubtful) thermal view and spot infantry from 1500 meters.

BTW, spotting is one thing. There is also 'aiming'. The tank may know about the target and see it but may not be able to reliably target it. Sometimes it takes the tank gunner quite a while before he actually fires at the target, even though he has his cannon aimed at it. And I didn't even try to tinker with that either.

Edited October 15, 2014 by alarm9k

[DaViSFiT 21]

The tank didnt see them or dont want to see them. As i said: Tank attacked 1 infantry and leave the rest alive or drive like mad to the target and do the normal MG Sniper Spam. I dont know if its a bug from your script, just want to report how it worked.

spotting distance against vehicle is quite good but not always (arma3 setting i think). "They can spot it", mostly happen when a fight is going on nearby. But it can also happen that enemy tanks on 2 opposite hills dont react for hour's. It looks like that they felt asleep and only with gunfire they wake up.

For me it would be great if a tank can spot infantry <= 2000m within 3min if they are constant visible to the tank. Sometimes earlier if walking in front of him or s.t. later. Could get faster if 2 tanks spot together, each tank get their zone to spot.

Spotting distance high to very high

Spotting time medium

aimingSpeed low

aimingAccuracy medium to low

everthing gets lower while moving but better with more tanks in the group.

[alarm9k 14]

New version available here.

v.1.7:

• Hardcoded unit classes replaced with dynamic threat assessment based on available weapons: both target and our vehicle (a 'sniper' infantry class that has aquired AT launcher will be given threat value as an AT rifleman). Should now work with modded vehicles with non-standard names, as long as they belong to standard base classes (Man, Car, Tank etc) and use standard weapons names.
  
• Tanks will fire HE rounds at helicopters.
  
• Added signature.
  

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Smarter tanks v1.7

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