AI Driving - Feedback topic

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Some Tanoa bridges data, showing possibly why the bridges are not working. 

 

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T124620

 

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

The number is roads connected? Explains it, heh.

 

Cheers

[Tankbuster 1743]

8 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

Some Tanoa bridges data, showing possibly why the bridges are not working. 

 

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T124620

 

 

 

Good catch!

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Do we have a time-frame for fixes to the Broken wheeled vehicle AI driving?

 

We're fast approaching the 1-year mark of the "overhaul" of AI driving.

 

The current state of AI driving (just a taste):

https://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/6a2yf4/1_year_on_from_the_ai_driving_overhaul/

 

 

[kerodan 25]

Can you please stop referring to the driving ai as "broken"?

 

Based on my experience, especially if you remind me of the 1 year mark for the overhaul, the AI is driving better then ever before. Sure they sometimes still get stuck in certain places, circle around invisible obstacles on open roads or just stop entirely for no apparent reason but this does not justify to call the underlying system "broken". Also, most of these situations can be resolved by using Zeus if time allows it.

 

So please stop exaggerating and report your specific bugs in a responsible manner. Exaggerations like that will not likely convince BI to shift its priorities.

[pierremgi 4833]

4 minutes ago, kerodan said:

Can you please stop referring to the driving ai as "broken"?

 they sometimes still get stuck in certain places, circle around invisible obstacles on open roads or just stop entirely for no apparent reason but this does not justify to call the underlying system "broken". Also, most of these situations can - if the time allows - be resolved by using Zeus.

-1

No

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

20 minutes ago, kerodan said:

Can you please stop referring to the driving ai as "broken"?

 

Based on my experience, especially if you remind me of the 1 year mark for the overhaul, the AI is driving better then ever before. Sure they sometimes still get stuck in certain places, circle around invisible obstacles on open roads or just stop entirely for no apparent reason but this does not justify to call the underlying system "broken". Also, most of these situations can be resolved by using Zeus if time allows it.

 

So please stop exaggerating and report your specific bugs in a responsible manner. Exaggerations like that will not likely convince BI to shift its priorities.

 

did you watch the vid?

 

The Wheeled AI Driving is Broken and has been for so long that people have stopped reporting it and making noise about it

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

Quote

the AI is driving better then ever before ...

This is a common marketing strategy on own bad product...mainly used by companies selling their products in the mass market. Make people so used to bad quality that they consider each improvement as the ultimate hyper thingy.

The AI driving is broken by design. The interaction driver <-> environment,even withing the bounderies of the current functionality as is right now, could be improved.

That constant bumping when doing driving in a column is just inability by BIS.

The fact that infantry is killed by vehicles is simply the unwillingness to invest a severe amount of resources into that issue.

Then, it seems that the engine has no method for several layers/bridges/tunnels that works.

Thats why bridgeheads with bridgehead slopes confusing the AI.

 

So it is not only broken, the right term is FUBD.

 

 

Quote

So please stop exaggerating and report your specific bugs in a responsible manner. Exaggerations like that will not likely convince BI to shift its priorities.

Half-honest calls to finally fix AI driving - after 10+ years complaints and proper reporting by the community - with thin results after almost 1 year - will not convince the community to invest even more time into reporting and testing.

It is up to BIS to show something remarkable.

[andersson 285]

Some of us remember when AI could drive just fine. Then BI broke it and it's still not fixed.

I've given up on making missions as I can't rely on vehicles moving where I want them. A simple move command that later will trigger something can not be trusted, and can in some cases ruin a small simple mission.

[kerodan 25]

1 hour ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

did you watch the vid?

 

I did and I never encountered severe issues like that since the overhaul. Furthermore, I am not disputing the fact, that the driving AI has issues. In general, I am just annoyed that the term "broken" is thrown around every time something is not working as expectedly. In my book "broken" means that it is completely and utterly useless.

 

7 minutes ago, The Man Without Qualities said:

This is a common marketing strategy on own bad product...mainly used by companies selling their products in the mass market. Make people so used to bad quality that they consider each improvement as the ultimate hyper thingy.

 

Well, my comparison is situated in the realms of ARMA and in comparison to ARMA 2 my statement is still valid. 

 

8 minutes ago, The Man Without Qualities said:

That constant bumping when doing driving in a column is just inability by BIS.

The fact that infantry is killed by vehicles is simply the unwillingness to invest a severe amount of resources into that issue.

 

Bumping does not happen in my convoys. They may take a weird turn here or there but they do not drive into each other.

In contrast, infantry being killed by vehicles is happening and there is definitly room for improvement. But, in my experience, this issue is not very consistent and seems to be related to performance issues (i.e. the resources of the client who has ownership of the ai or the general server performance).

[Tankbuster 1743]

2 hours ago, kerodan said:

Can you please stop referring to the driving ai as "broken"?

 

Based on my experience, especially if you remind me of the 1 year mark for the overhaul, the AI is driving better then ever before. Sure they sometimes still get stuck in certain places, circle around invisible obstacles on open roads or just stop entirely for no apparent reason but this does not justify to call the underlying system "broken". Also, most of these situations can be resolved by using Zeus if time allows it.

 

So please stop exaggerating and report your specific bugs in a responsible manner. Exaggerations like that will not likely convince BI to shift its priorities.

So your workaround for the ai driving problems is to have a human fix it live, in the mission using zeus?

AI driving IS broken. It's not an exaggeration to say it is and it's doubly frustrating for us when bi say they are going to fix it then walk away, whistling innocently like nothing happened.

[kerodan 25]

32 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

So your workaround for the ai driving problems is to have a human fix it live, in the mission using zeus?

 

For the moment, yes. Weirdly enough I noticed that changing the elevation of the vehicle (-> letting it fall half a meter) fixes many issues of the AI getting stuck on open roads.

 

34 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

It's doubly frustrating for us when bi say they are going to fix it then walk away, whistling innocently like nothing happened.

 

I totally agree with you on that account. I was also disappointed by BI reallocating their ressources. Especially if you consider how much progress was achieved in a short amount of time by a dedicated developer. 

However, I also believe that it is not productive to call the whole system broken. It is in many cases functional and servers a purpose but it definitely needs improvement. Although I hope that BI will refocus some attention on driving, I do not believe this can be achieved by stating that the AI is completely broken as this is no resonable base for a productive dialogue.

[soulkobk 40]

 

Another video of awesome AI path-finding... not. This particular AI vehicle (and units) did this for about 30 minutes. There IS room for the vehicle to fit through easily... and the AI object awareness is horrible.

 

I have had plenty of similar scenarios within Arma 3 since the 'AI Path finding' updates, whether vanilla or mission... it's the same. It sure could do with a better/updated algorithm for path finding...  so that AI take objects in to full account, as well as a maximum attempts at path choice before resetting, or recalculating a new path.

 

AI seem to be disregarding one object in this video (the power plant it keeps colliding with), but trying to avoid colliding with the damaged Strider... eh.

 

-soul.

 

[pierremgi 4833]

8 hours ago, kerodan said:

However, I also believe that it is not productive to call the whole system broken. It is in many cases functional and servers a purpose but it definitely needs improvement. Although I hope that BI will refocus some attention on driving, I do not believe this can be achieved by stating that the AI is completely broken as this is no resonable base for a productive dialogue.

 

That's a politician speech. "Always speak in positive way".. as an answer back in your face when no solution. But no lesson please, if you consider how much time, how much people have spent to describe, report, suggest some improvements. So sorry that the word "broken" may sound so unproductive! I hope you and BI will not need a psychology care unit after that!

Less time on unfinished stuff like dynamic simulation (issued far too soon) or even DLCs (bugged), and more time for Arma Vanilla strengthening, should do the trick for most of players and writers. That's my best positive thought tonight.

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

 

The pure existance of this mod tells all.

 

 

On 9.5.2017 at 11:14 AM, kerodan said:

 

For the moment, yes. Weirdly enough I noticed that changing the elevation of the vehicle (-> letting it fall half a meter) fixes many issues of the AI getting stuck on open roads.

 

 

I totally agree with you on that account. I was also disappointed by BI reallocating their ressources. Especially if you consider how much progress was achieved in a short amount of time by a dedicated developer. 

However, I also believe that it is not productive to call the whole system broken. It is in many cases functional and servers a purpose but it definitely needs improvement. Although I hope that BI will refocus some attention on driving, I do not believe this can be achieved by stating that the AI is completely broken as this is no resonable base for a productive dialogue.

 

Issue is that you are might younger and never experienced times when games were almost fully finished before release.

So you simply got used to crap and hence it is your "normal" level.

You are "fault tolerant". :-)

 

And using harsh wording is intended, it is to avoid that BIS is trying to "improve" something that needs to be dumped and done from scratch.

The funny thing is that I even get much better results when ordering a bunch of vehicles individually to the same destination compared to move them as group in formation.

 

Most missions suffering from that persistent issue since they rely on getting a vehicle from A to B without crashing, exploding and killing all infantry on their way.

[kerodan 25]

1 hour ago, The Man Without Qualities said:

Issue is that you are might younger and never experienced times when games were almost fully finished before release.

So you simply got used to crap and hence it is your "normal" level.

You are "fault tolerant". :-)

 

A bit offtopic but: Yes, I am fault tolerant even though I have some experience of the "good old days" and am very happy that we passed them. To this day, I still remember downloading a 21MB patch for Spellforce at 4-8kb/s just to install the damn thing on launch day. So much for the release of a fully finished product.

 

1 hour ago, The Man Without Qualities said:

And using harsh wording is intended, it is to avoid that BIS is trying to "improve" something that needs to be dumped and done from scratch.

 

You can be harsh as long as you want but BI will not dumped their current AI system in this stage of development. Way out of the scope of post-release development for an engine that may not even see a next iteration in ARMA 4. Improvements are the things we can and should look forward to.

 

1 hour ago, The Man Without Qualities said:

The funny thing is that I even get much better results when ordering a bunch of vehicles individually to the same destination compared to move them as group in formation.

In my experience, this depends on the combat mode. If you group them up and put them in "SAFE" mode, they form up nicely and will reach their destination. In "Combat" mode this will - unfortunately - not happen. 

[breech99 47]

Reminder for those coding traffic that the Tanoa map has dirt trails which are not connected to anything and create error. A workaround for trails is to

 

try using

 

	_roadConnectedTo = roadsConnectedTo _road;
	if (_roadConnectedTo isEqualTo []) exitWith {0};
	_connectedRoad = _roadConnectedTo select 0;
	_direction = _road getDir _connectedRoad;
	_direction

 

for bridges and roads spawn ai in a safe position near roads and use scripted way points, have them drive at full speed

After testing most of the time the traffic/Patrol fail to find a correct city when they are on an island so you have to NameMarine locations for boats and etc. You can do a check if the end city has been found, if not take the closer city. Also good to find a useful end city from the start city depending of vehicle type.

 

[pierremgi 4833]

1 hour ago, breech99 said:

Reminder for those coding traffic that the Tanoa map has dirt trails which are not connected to anything and create error. A workaround for trails is to

 

try using

 

	_roadConnectedTo = roadsConnectedTo _road;
	if (_roadConnectedTo isEqualTo []) exitWith {0};
	_connectedRoad = _roadConnectedTo select 0;
	_direction = _road getDir _connectedRoad;
	_direction

 

for bridges and roads spawn ai in a safe position near roads and use scripted way points, have them drive at full speed

After testing most of the time the traffic/Patrol fail to find a correct city when they are on an island so you have to NameMarine locations for boats and etc. You can do a check if the end city has been found, if not take the closer city. Also good to find a useful end city from the start city depending of vehicle type.

 

 

Interesting!

So my questions are:

Is there a difference between a dirt track and a road?  If not, is a tank able to enter a dirt track and then, endless bump at each rock, tree?

If there a difference between a tank and a car in term of path choice (same behavior/careless)? or all vehicles are only preferRoads = true; ?

didn't find something else.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

Anyone else experiencing AI refusing to drive even 500m as long as the start position is airside near the tanoan main airport terminal?

Seems they can't find a route from that specific location.

 

Cheers

 

[bad benson 1733]

is there any difference between group set up and combat modes? i noticed that drivers set to "Careless" aka "Zero-Fucks-Given" behaviour will drive pretty well. also i found that having the driver be in his own group helps a lot.

 

not saying stuff ain't broken. just wondering how much of a factor interfering AI layers are. since i also noticed one man group AI always moving in a more reasonable way in combat in general.

[old_painless 182]

Not sure about groups or not, but one will definitely see better convoy driving if vehicles in a group are not in formation. Formation leads to them struggling to maintain some "shape" of formation which may work for infantry in open land, but does not make sense for vehicles. Think line formation through a narrow street!

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

On 5/14/2017 at 1:29 AM, Grumpy Old Man said:

Anyone else experiencing AI refusing to drive even 500m as long as the start position is airside near the tanoan main airport terminal?

Seems they can't find a route from that specific location.

 

Cheers

 

 

wheeled vehicles frequently just stop moving, content instead with just moving the steering wheel back and forth. the sad thing is, its not even disappointing anymore

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

We can only hope at this point since tanks are a DLC item and "driven" that they haven't given up on driving logic for good (note: I don't pretend to know if tank and general motorized vehicle AI logic is the same).

 

Otherwise this whole category of the game does feel abandoned, which is a real bummer.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

1 hour ago, HeroesandvillainsOS said:

We can only hope at this point since tanks are a DLC item and "driven" that they haven't given up on driving logic for good (note: I don't pretend to know if tank and general motorized vehicle AI logic is the same).

 

Otherwise this whole category of the game does feel abandoned, which is a real bummer.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!

 

Considering the release of the current Jets DLC I was also hoping that the AI landing/take-off and taxiing procedures will be looked into.

Now that the DLC is out nothing has changed.

 

Reporting stuff in the new feedback tracker maniphest hokus pokus is atrocious and whoever made its layout should have to report tickets with it 24/7 for a year.

 

It's still the occasional exploding bussard upon touch down on the tanoan main air field, the same plane fails to land at the altis main air field,

while almost no plane manages to follow the taxiway on the tanoan main airport and ends up stuck in the trench on the lawn except the gryphon, which has monster truck suspension for some reason.

Not to mention that the ancient problem still persists that if two planes try to land at the same time on the same airport chances are > 90% that they'll take the landing approach at the same time resulting in a mid-air collision.

 

One might think jets DLC could have been more than 3 jets, a static carrier object and the sensor overhaul (which is free for anyone anyway).

On the other hand it's totally okay for the price.

 

Seeing that there's even no in game loadout editor for the jets, no functionality to make the carrier anything else than a static map asset (proper AI landing and takeoff on the carrier, jet storage procedures, takeoff crew with animations etc.) makes me wonder if oncoming DLCs will be similar barren of features.

I get it that the sensor update was necessary and it improves gameplay by a huge margin, I enjoy it a lot, but to be frank it seems that whoever was responsible to decide what's going to be part of the Jets DLC was missing the whole picture.

 

So mark my words (heeh heeh), Tanks DLC will contain 3-4 MBTs, maybe 2 Light tanks or 2 APCs/IFVs and probably a vest with an "I luv tanks" sticker on it.

 

Cheers

[R3vo 2654]

5 hours ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

So mark my words (heeh heeh), Tanks DLC will contain 3-4 MBTs, maybe 2 Light tanks or 2 APCs/IFVs and probably a vest with an "I luv tanks" sticker on it.

 

I find it really strange that one of the feature I thought would come with the Tank DLC (FCS) has already been released to the public. One can only wait and see and hope.