AI Driving - Feedback topic

[inlesco 234]

They might get utterly confused meeting the first female.

 

Cheers

Unless their tolerance of invader species is set to max :P

[lexx 1412]

In this example, the order of vehicles is wrong. Formation sets the order using order of creation of vehicles (ID of vehicle is assigned when its created). In this mission, APC should be the last in column, even just putting him a bit aside so other cars can overtake easily helps.

In your first mission, with Prowler it was the same case. Prowler has to be the last. Or created in editor as second.

 

Thanks for your missions. This third one is really problematic, tight city streets. I will look into what can be improved more.

 

The bold text is a super important information, imo. This explains why my test convoys always worked, but the one I used in my mission was borked as hell. Maybe putting this somewhere on the wiki could help (with the other new convoy related commands?).

[R3vo 2654]

In this example, the order of vehicles is wrong. Formation sets the order using order of creation of vehicles (ID of vehicle is assigned when its created). In this mission, APC should be the last in column, even just putting him a bit aside so other cars can overtake easily helps.

In your first mission, with Prowler it was the same case. Prowler has to be the last. Or created in editor as second.

 

Thanks for your missions. This third one is really problematic, tight city streets. I will look into what can be improved more.

 

Thank for your feedback. I didn't know how the order is specified so maybe the Eden devs could implement something to show the order?

 

 

 

The bold text is a super important information, imo. This explains why my test convoys always worked, but the one I used in my mission was borked as hell. Maybe putting this somewhere on the wiki could help (with the other new convoy related commands?).

 

This info should be displayed directly within Eden. Maybe with a small number next to the entity icon.

 

 

I noticed that setting formation to either "file" or "column" in Group Attributes in Eden, then pressing "move to formation" (right click>transform) neatly fixes that particular problem. It's very good for ensuring convoys are in proper order. If you're planning on making a tutorial on setting them up, that'd be a very useful thing to mention.

 

Thanks for that info!

[Freghar 73]

Instead of using hidden IDs for vehicle order, wouldn't a group order make more sense? This means we could easily re-order vehicles just by disbanding the group and linking them one-by-one in the intended order (like for soldiers).

(Just a minor suggestion.)

Thanks.

[R3vo 2654]

So I ran my worst-case example mission once again and this time I correctly set the starting order of the convoy as mentioned above.

 

The result is actually not bad, the whole convoy managed to get through town, and the vehicle rarely got stuck for a longer time.

 

There is one issue that was very obvious. The AI seems to not be aware of the turning cycle of the vehicle they are driving, which causes them to steer too late and end up stuck somewhere.

I don't know any details on how the algorithm works, but wouldn't it be possible to configure the turning cycle inside the vehicle config and base the calculations on that?

 

 

Furthermore, the AI sometimes stops while turning and does corrections even if there is no obstacle in the way.

 

Last but now least, it seems that the convoy's lead vehicle doesn't stop if a vehicle falls behind. In my test mission, the Marshall is the last vehicle in the convoy, and uphill is way slower than the hunter.

 

I am not sure what would be the best way to handle that, but it's definitely something to consider. A convoy driving through Tanoa for serveral hours, would probably become seperated by several hundreds of meters if not kilometers.

 

 

Here's the example mission, which is basically the same as the last one with the exeption that I properly set the intial order of the vehicles, so one can directly hit preview and observe.

 

Download Example Mission

[f2k sel 164]

 R3vo I tried your mission and sometimes it works but other times the last vehicle will just get stuck in the middle of the road edging back and forth.

 

I also had an instance where a vehicle stopped at there was a soldier in the road and even after the unit had moved away the vehicle wouldn't continue.

[.kju 3245]

@ klamacz

If you want good repro missions, can you please in return add at least the AI related drawMode debug commands to the diag.exe.

https://resources.bisimulations.com/wiki/diag_drawmode

https://resources.bisimulations.com/wiki/setDrawMode

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/diag_drawMode=> none available atm

AI view, roadmap, cost map, danger map, etc

It's been some years since I had access to the internal version, yet some of these are drawMode or diagToggles:

http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/23140461/

(taken from the diag.exe binary - internal version may have even more neat stuff these days)

Useful too:

https://resources.bisimulations.com/wiki/disableRendering

[danny96 80]

Another point is - If they're arranged by ID's, why is their leader always the first one? Ain't that little illogical? I mean - he's first one to be killed. You don't really want VIP to die first.

[R3vo 2654]

I found another issue.

 

If one sets the acc time to 4, it seems that the pathfinding gets stuck or really slow. Vehicles will barely move. Setting acc time back to normal, will resolve the issue.

 

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setAccTime

 

 

Other than that, I seems like today's update improved the pathfinding even more. The convoy seems to have no problems with tight curves anymore, at least in my test mission.

[f2k sel 164]

Nnot

 

I found another issue.

 

If one sets the acc time to 4, it seems that the pathfinding gets stuck or really slow. Vehicles will barely move. Setting acc time back to normal, will resolve the issue.

 

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setAccTime

 

 

Other than that, I seems like today's update improved the pathfinding even more. The convoy seems to have no problems with tight curves anymore, at least in my test mission.

 

Same thing happens if you just increase speed while playing the game at 2x times or 4x times.

 

Also if you use setconvoydistance and set the distance too small the convoy looks better but they sometimes get stuck in mid corner and can't seem to continue.

 

Some of the vehicles still cut the corner when coming off the tarmac onto the dirt road in R3vo's mission example.

 

A clear improvement over the previous build for me, no more crashing into the first turn fence and getting stuck.

 

I don't know if it would be possible but when in convoy mode would it be possible for all the vehicles to inherit the speed of the slowest vehicle so that when they reach a hill they'll only go at the pace of the slowest vehicle.

 

I know you could force the speed but you still won't know what that speed would be when going up or down a hill.

Checking it as it's doing it would be too late as the other vehicles may some way off.

[R3vo 2654]

I don't know if it would be possible but when in convoy mode would it be possible for all the vehicles to inherit the speed of the slowest vehicle so that when they reach a hill they'll only go at the pace of the slowest vehicle.

 

I fixed that issue by putting the slowest vehicle (Marshall) in front of the convoy. Now they stick together as they should. But getting the order correctly at the start of the convoy was a pain in the arse. Since when you change the vehicle type, the vehicle is automatically the last vehicle of the convoy.

[nomisum 129]

I fixed that issue by putting the slowest vehicle (Marshall) in front of the convoy. Now they stick together as they should. But getting the order correctly at the start of the convoy was a pain in the arse. Since when you change the vehicle type, the vehicle is automatically the last vehicle of the convoy.

 

A dedicated command for convoy order index would be neat indeed.

[dragon01 903]

I believe it's a bit broader issue. What we should have is a way to define who goes where in a formation. For example, I might want to set up a patrol moving in a column formation, with the machine gunner being the closing guy. Right now it's a bit of a chore to override the default unit order in a squad for whatever reason.

[f2k sel 164]

I'd be happy with using the ID'S  as a default position but it would also be handy to have a simple command that could look at an array and use that order for the convoy, even better if it would allow you to change the positions on the fly if needed ie more vehicles could join without messing things up although I haven't checked to see what happens now if you try that.

[danny96 80]

Context menu "Set Index" for vehicles/units to set their formation order would be useful.

[danil-ch 165]

AI driving speed is noticeable lower is dev version. It took the driver roughly 58 seconds to get to the point.

While on stable it took only 41 seconds.

 

Repro

[kremator 1065]

Stable version is more likely to cut corners (which can be such a problem with terrain objects!) whereas DEV tries to keep in the centre of the road.

[dragon01 903]

I'd be happy with using the ID'S  as a default position but it would also be handy to have a simple command that could look at an array and use that order for the convoy, even better if it would allow you to change the positions on the fly if needed ie more vehicles could join without messing things up although I haven't checked to see what happens now if you try that.

If you use the standard "join" command they'll join at the end of the formation, just like with infantry. "Join and lead" may lead to problems, though (the leader will always be the first vehicle).

[x3kj 1247]

 

AI driving speed is noticeable lower is dev version. It took the driver roughly 58 seconds to get to the point.

While on stable it took only 41 seconds.

 

Stable version is more likely to cut corners (which can be such a problem with terrain objects!) whereas DEV tries to keep in the centre of the road.

I agree with kremator. The "looseness" of the AI on-road driving is what gets it into alot of trouble  (crashes with roadsigns, rocks, buildings and trees near corners). A few seconds off is a good tradeoff... Also, in RL it would propably be even slower. You just dont take a sharp 90° corner with a big truck at 50kph, or do the "race style" by driving on the other side of the road for shorter distance. Players and AI do that, but thats also the reason why we need those "training wheels" that prevent the vehicles from rolling over to the extreme. I'm sure if they disabled that, we would have thousands of "shitty vehicle physx, i always flip my car" complaints ... yeah well maybe use the brakes before taking a corner, just like you would in RL.

[domokun 515]

Definitely slower. In fact, I think that many people under-estimate how slow military most convoys drive.

There are several reasons for slow but steady driving:  

* poor visibility  

* rough driving conditions  

* long braking distances caused by heavy (armoured) vehicles  

Here's a good example of what happens when you drive too fast:  

From what I gather, some of the occupants were killed in the crash and those that survived were later neutralised when trying to disembark...

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Is it possible to have a vehicle road offset? If vehicle is passing through vector positions (xyz), is possible to tell vehicle to pass through point relative to each position? With this we could specify vehicle to drive on Left/Right/Center side of road.

 

Maybe this is getting a bit too fiddly, but would be nice for traffic simulation, and also the default Right side of road sometimes causes problems when turning at intersection. For convoy missions I'd like them to follow the center of the road to decrease chance of hitting objects. 

 

_vehicle setRoadOffset 2;      // drive on Right
_vehicle setRoadOffset -2;     // drive on Left
_vehicle setRoadOffset 0;      // drive on Center

 

I guess could also use  'Left','Center','Right'   string instead of vector-X offset.

 

 

Not important, just an idea

 

keep up the great work, we promise to pump out plenty of convoy missions for the community once driving is (mostly) reliable!   :)

 

EDIT:

 

Also I am thinking about the accessibility of the new tech (convoy spacing, etc). 

 

For people using the 3DEN editor, would be good if we had a new waypoint type?

_grp setWaypointType 'Convoy';

[kremator 1065]

^^ this.

[Guest]

Asking the AI for a U-turn/about-turn seems to have unpleasant aftermaths.

IMHO, organising more precisely the way vehicles start and adapt to the formation may improve this.

 

Aside of this, the handling of roundabout is a bit erratic, but still better than before.

 

The real issue that I face is the AI trying to follow these tiny-little paths in Tanoa rainforest, were they definitively can't fit with their vehicles.

 

Oh, and they don't mind rolling over their teammates.

 

For some reasons, grid 266 226 on Altis, with a regular convoy ( 3 to 10 MRAP, speed not changed, in line formation) : Vehicles after the first one follow strange path near an intersection. You can see on this picture the traces of their wheels : http://i.imgur.com/ujV47N4.jpg

 

(Of course I don't need to mention all the improvements, you already know them ;) )

[VTOLAFMPLS:3 36]

Stomper UGV struggling with 360 turns

 

when pressing [backward] key in turret control mode, it struggles to actually move backward, instead making short moves forward

 

+UGV turret is always pointed North when automated

[silentghoust 132]

So I just tested the latest release with the drive improvements. First of all great job! it's a great improvement. My current test involved commanding a tank platoon to see the full extent of the AI ability and I found a few things.

• The AI finally just stop... which is great, it keeps formations more ridged and they seem better at pacing and convoys are definitely showing improvement. Tank platoon commanding still isn't quiet Operation arrowhead quality yet.
• The tanks still don't match the command tanks speed, or attempt to stay at it's speed. If you order a slow roll they zoom past you.
• The tank groups formation numbers are messed up. The the tanks seem to swap positions when you first spawn them in.
• Tanks do much better changing formation on the fly, but it still seems like they have issues with positions being criss crossed that causes collisions
• Having the tanks properly face the lead tanks orientation at all times would be a huge plus, but not needed.